Cautious Optimism At Start Of New Year

[Slim]

I love the way you turn to insults when you are losing an argument.

Like it or not the working population of Jersey is far more diverse than here.

 

Cambon, it isn't. The figures are available, look them up. I'll give you another example, directly from Jerseys government figures.

 

Number employed in finance 2007: 12,760

Number employed in manufacturing 2007: 1,560

 

Jerseys own statement:

 

"Employment in Jersey has changed towards a more service-oriented economy over the past few years. Employment in Agriculture, Manufacturing and Tourism-oriented activities has declined, but has risen in Financial, and Public and Private sector services."

 

Isle of Man:

 

Number employed in finance 2006: 9,395

Number employed in manufacturing 2006: 2,248

 

How is Jersey more diverse in its working population?

 

For example, when you are in England in any town and you go into a corner shop, how likely are you to find Manx produce? Not very. However, there is a good chance of finding a tin of Jersey Royal potatoes in that same shop.

 

You got me there Cambon, I can't argue with SCIENCE! The actual economic data supplied by most governments must be wrong!

 

Agriculture is a pretty crap benchmark for economic diversity anyway, as its so heavily subsided it relies totally on the earning sectors.

[Cambon]

Ok, Jersey's GDP is made up of 50-60% finance. Roughly 11500 people work in finance out of a total work force of 43000. So 27% of the work force brings in 50-60% of GDP.

 

With relevance to my earlier example, of that same 43000, roughly 1500 (3% or the work force) work in agriculture and fisheries earning 5% of GDP. A fairly similar proportional split.

 

Other industries are listed and the data is from 2005, but it gives an idea of how the work force is split. Either way, you can see that there is plenty happening outside the finance industry.

 

Also, tourism is 25% of GDP but that is not a clear cut sector.

 

Link:

 

http://enterprise.jersey.com/SiteCollectio...%20Strategy.pdf

[Slim]

http://enterprise.jersey.com/SiteCollectio...%20Strategy.pdf

 

That's a 2005 document, there's better data in the later versions.

[Cambon]

That's a 2005 document, there's better data in the later versions.

 

Yes, but year on year the statistics would state pretty much the same.

 

Anyway, my original point was that in Jersey if you were to split down the financial institutions into their sectors, basically, the retail banks don't make huge sums of money, but require large numbers of staff to man the branches, do the back office work, etc. However, Jersey has hunderds of small banks and financial institutions that have an handful of staff but generate large sums of income. These are the backbone of the 50-60% of GDP. If those companies suddenly left, the GDP would be cut in half and would then be a figure comparable to IOM GDP. In other words, take finance out of the equasion in Jersey and they would still have a pretty healthy GDP. If you say not then we (IOM) are buggered now!

[Chinahand]

Cambon I am really having difficulty understanding you - are you really saying that if Jersey lost 50% of its finance industry it would have an economy about as diversified as the IOM economy and so it can weather the storm better than us?

 

If so that is an extremely bogus argument.

[Slim]

Anyway, my original point was that in Jersey if you were to split down the financial institutions into their sectors, basically, the retail banks don't make huge sums of money, but require large numbers of staff to man the branches, do the back office work, etc. However, Jersey has hunderds of small banks and financial institutions that have an handful of staff but generate large sums of income. These are the backbone of the 50-60% of GDP. If those companies suddenly left, the GDP would be cut in half and would then be a figure comparable to IOM GDP. In other words, take finance out of the equasion in Jersey and they would still have a pretty healthy GDP. If you say not then we (IOM) are buggered now!

 

You're making no sense at all. You can't just take out 60% of the gdp out of a country and expect all the other contributors to carry on as normal, which is why I've concentrated on agriculture and manufacturing. Everything else is fed by finance, hotels, entertaining, a large slice of retail, pretty much all other businesses exist to service the financial services sector.

 

You can't talk your way around it, according to their own figures, they're less diverse than us. They are more reliant on financial services.

 

They've done bloody well out of it, I think they've the highest GDP per head than pretty much anywhere?

[Chinahand]

Jersey has hunderds of small banks and financial institutions that have an handful of staff but generate large sums of income. These are the backbone of the 50-60% of GDP.

The figures you've linked to show that is simply untrue - for manufacturing there are 12 small companies for every big one on Jersey - in finance its 2.5 - compared to every other sector the proportion of small organizations to large organizations is lower in finance which is far more dominated by large organizations.

 

Admit it Cambon - your not talking sense.

[Cambon]

Jersey has hunderds of small banks and financial institutions that have an handful of staff but generate large sums of income. These are the backbone of the 50-60% of GDP.

The figures you've linked to show that is simply untrue - for manufacturing there are 12 small companies for every big one on Jersey - in finance its 2.5 - compared to every other sector the proportion of small organizations to large organizations is lower in finance which is far more dominated by large organizations.

 

Admit it Cambon - your not talking sense.

 

Had you read the whole post, you would have seen that I also stated that retail banks are generally unprofitable, and yet they form the biggest financial institutions. It is the smaller banks and financial institutions that generate the majority of Jersey finance sector's GDP contribution.

[Chinahand]

Another unsubstantiated claim or do you have ANY data that backs up, rather than contradicts your claims?

[Slim]

Had you read the whole post, you would have seen that I also stated that retail banks are generally unprofitable, and yet they form the biggest financial institutions. It is the smaller banks and financial institutions that generate the majority of Jersey finance sector's GDP contribution.

 

Profit? Who, in a zero corporate tax environment gives a stuff about profit? We're talking about GDP not how much dosh they make for their shareholders.

[oldmanxfella]

Profit? Who, in a zero corporate tax environment gives a stuff about profit? We're talking about GDP not how much dosh they make for their shareholders.

 

I think that regardless of zero rate tax tax most companies do give a stuff about profit; otherwise they'd be operating at a loss and have to lay off staff or go bust.

[Sebrof]

Profit? Who, in a zero corporate tax environment gives a stuff about profit? We're talking about GDP not how much dosh they make for their shareholders.

 

I think you'll find that multi-national companies are actually rather keen to declare profits in jurisdictions where there is no corporation tax.

 

S

[Cambon]

Profit? Who, in a zero corporate tax environment gives a stuff about profit? We're talking about GDP not how much dosh they make for their shareholders.

 

I think you will find it is all about profit in Jersey as when they abolished corporation tax they introduced income tax on companies. That has actually been amended as from 2009 to a new 0/10% regime following pressure from the EU a few years ago. I will leave you to read about that.

[Slim]

I think that regardless of zero rate tax tax most companies do give a stuff about profit; otherwise they'd be operating at a loss and have to lay off staff or go bust.

 

I think you'll find that multi-national companies are actually rather keen to declare profits in jurisdictions where there is no corporation tax.

 

Of course the companies give a stuff about profit! But this isn't a discussion about companies, this is a discussion about countries, GDP specifically. Jeez!

 

I think you will find it is all about profit in Jersey as when they abolished corporation tax they introduced income tax on companies. That has actually been amended as from 2009 to a new 0/10% regime following pressure from the EU a few years ago. I will leave you to read about that.

 

Sigh. Cambon, 0/10 shows how employment numbers and GDP are actually more important to economic diversity in Jersey (and the isle of man) than profit. The reduction in tax on companies will have to be paid for by other taxes, such as Income Tax.

[Chinahand]

Erm Slim - as far as I am aware the contribution companies make to GDP is basically their profits - plus or minus changes in inventory levels.

 

I'll bow to any superior knowledge, but that's my understanding - GDP is value added to an economy - ie how the balance sheets of the companies and households have increased over the year - that's basically profits at 1st order.