Do Bad Ideas Eventually Die ?

[PDH]

socialism and nazism still around, despite their epic fail in the last century.

Socialism did rather well in several places.

[Sheilbh]

It has simplified the issue for me come the 2015 election; still don't know who I will vote for but it won't be the tories. I think miliband's price controls are rather pathetic but prefer them to this nastiness.

The thing with Miliband's plans is that they're a two-year price freeze until there's new regulations in the market - which isn't too bad. I'm not convinced our energy sector, or our banking sector are properly working and, given, the amount of actual or implied subsidy they get from the government that's doubly unacceptable.

The polling on this amazed me though, I had no idea how left-wing Britain was. Apparently there's majority support for re-nationalising the railways and public utilities

As you say the Tory plans are not nice and I think Age is right. Unless this is some massive make-work scheme for Jobcentres they just don't have the staff for the young unemployed to be there all the time and if they're doing community service when are they meant to be looking for jobs/going to interviews etc?

In addition I'd suggest that people under 25 on benefits are among the most vulnerable. If you're sixteen on housing benefit then there's something that's gone tragically wrong in your life. At the very least it indicates a total absence of family support - which is surely something the Tories should be aware of.

As the Coalition goes on I think the Lib Dems look more and more like a responsible party of government and the Tories like a protest party, beholden to their extremes and yearning for the comforts of opposition. It's baffling.

What's more, Mili's plans at least are novel. I swear the Tories have announced this benefit wheeze and married couple tax allowance (remembering George took child benefit away from all 'higher' rate taxpayers) every single year

[Admiral Yi]

Have you read the Economist piece about Miliband's return to Old Labor policies?

[Sheilbh]

I haven't, have you a link.

It seems a bit overblown. Old Labour wanted unilateral nuclear disarmament, had nationalised railways and public utilities and wanted to nationalise a couple more industries.

Ed Miliband wants a two year price freeze on energy pending a new regulator, a bankers bonus levy and to raise corporate tax on large businesses to reduce business rates (business property taxes). Interestingly it's that last one that's most popular in the polls, with people who own their own companies that I know they moan far more about rates than any regulation, working hours maximum or any of the other Tory obsessions.

[Syt]

The polling on this amazed me though, I had no idea how left-wing Britain was. Apparently there's majority support for re-nationalising the railways and public utilities

My understanding is that the railways haven't exactly improved since they've become privately owned?

[Sheilbh]

That's the popular perception. Plus they got lots and lots of public money.

On the other hand they're also more widely used than ever before.

I read in the Economist about Transport for London who run the Overground here and it's really successful and they may be expanding their routes. They're publicly owned which makes me think it wouldn't necessarily be an awful idea elsewhere. But also they took on routes on as a concession not a franchise, which I don't understand, but here's the last bit of the Economist story:

Despite this, the model of the Overground looks likely to catch on. Unlike other rail services in Britain the line is run on a concession service, rather than under a complex franchise structure. This means TfL taking some of the financial risk of running the line, giving them an incentive to make sure it works well. Already TfL has announced that it will take over the West Anglia route under a similar concession scheme, running commuter trains from Liverpool Street from 2015. Other routes—such as the Southeastern—could follow. Homeowners, as well as trainspotters, will be watching out.

[Ideologue]

(3) "30 hours per week jobhunting in the jobcentre" - so where are the jobcentres going to get the funding, room, or staff for this?* Not to mention there's actually a mental limit to how much useful jobsearch, a repetitive activity with only so many choices for what to do about it, can be done per week - and it's less than 30 hours.

That is a lot of jobhunting.

The thing about it is that I'm not sure it does significant good, especially on a macro level.  I honestly wonder if the Internet and the five zillion applications every Goddamned job on Earth gets is, if nothing else, an enormous waste of people's time.  I guess they're unemployed, so time isn't money, but still.  It's probably caused a great deal of anguish.

And I suspect it may have contributed to the current state (along with the downed economy in general) of firms tailoring their expectations on the off chance they find a unicorn.  If 5000 people apply, one's bound to have a JD, bar licenses in three states, ten years of experience, Hindi fluency, and a big dick, right?

[Admiral Yi]

Out of 5,000?  Probably not.

[Josquius]

A big problem I faced when I left uni was that I couldn't afford to get a job. Even with benefits.
Young people need more help, not less. They are however easy targets so make for wonderful jangly keys.

As to job hunting in the job centre- lol no.
Once the dole sent me on some ridiculous, useless and presumably expensive (as such privatized thing a normally are) "course" where much of it did consist of sitting in a room and applying for jobs. I can only assume their thinking was that we would hate it so much we would try extra hard to apply for jobs because we loved siting at home on the dole oh so much.

A big problem in modern politics, with every party, is that increasingly every politician is a Oxbridge humanities graduate career politician who has little connection to the lives of real people.
When you're working your arse off every day then sitting at home on the dole does look lovely. If you actually try it though you will see that it isn't so nice in practice.

[jimmy olsen]

A big problem I faced when I left uni was that I couldn't afford to get a job. Even with benefits.

Elaborate please

[Richard Hakluyt]

The unemployed have to apply for some ludicrous number of jobs every week, 20 at the moment I believe, but that is not so difficult as it is more or less automated via the job centre. My sympathy here lies with the potential employer, say she is the owner of a small cafe looking for a general assistant, the job centre then gives her 5,000 applications, 4,800 of whom are completely uninterested in her job...........so the system fails them as well.

[Richard Hakluyt]

Part of the reason for my distaste towards bashing the unemployed is that, of course, it is merely a diversionary tactic. The increase in the welfare bill is overwhelmingly due to the increased numbers of elderly and the increased numbers of working poor who need supplements to their wages to live. But these problems are difficult and require tough decisions and a coherent set of policies to resolve............so lets take an easier path instead 

[Agelastus]

Ed Miliband wants a two year price freeze on energy pending a new regulator, a bankers bonus levy and to raise corporate tax on large businesses to reduce business rates (business property taxes). Interestingly it's that last one that's most popular in the polls, with people who own their own companies that I know they moan far more about rates than any regulation, working hours maximum or any of the other Tory obsessions.

I fail to understand how Ed Milliband thinks a new regulator is going to be able to reduce or stabilise energy prices long term when the wholesale markets for fuel are international combined with the fact that his party are still committed to making this country meet climate targets in the most expensive and inefficient ways possible (not that the Tories are any better on this issue, with everyone running scared of the Greens and their entrenched views*.)

The bankers bonus levy is simply repeated populist pap since the public has a vastly exaggerated idea of how much funding this would raise - not to mention that bonuses are taxed already as income, which everyone seems to forget!

The raising of corporate tax on large businesses to reduce it on smaller ones also sounds like a good idea (I'd support it.) It's no panacea though given how many of the large businesses operating in the UK are international; instead of levelling the playing field between large and small UK businesses you'll just be pitching the field more against our large businesses internationally. I'd still support it though since the main driver for private sector job creation is the small business sector (see the Major recovery of the 1990s IIRC.)

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*No, I'm not saying that global warming isn't happening - but I lost my last bit of patience with the currently favoured "Green" solutions when I discovered that all these wind-farms sprouting up are solely there to provide energy at peak or overload times on the grid because they're too irregular and inefficient to be part of the standard load.

[Grallon]

And the people that perpetuate the intolerance are the worst of all.

Keep telling yourself that you smug imbecile. 



G.

[Gups]

Both parties are engaging in shameless populism at the moment. The Tory version (including the bedroom tax) seems to me to be much worse and will probably drive me to vote Labour in 2015, much against my will.