Isle of Man Budget 2022-23

[joebean]

I can hardly wait for tomorrow when our famous Medical Expert MBE (with an unbelievable additional knowledge of Document Security) unveils himself as the Island's Chief Economics and Accounting Expert. It will be a remarkable transformation, no doubt, and I await further award nominations with interest. 

[Josem]

1 hour ago, HeliX said:

If pay were linked to productivity a lot of people would be getting significant more than inflation payrises:

<cut graph>

Productivity has outstripped wages for decades now. Those at the top of corporations, and the shareholders, are siphoning it all off. Increasing prices, not increasing wages, pocketing the extra value for themselves. Something needs to address that - and then you can have significant payrises for the workers.

I think this is largely very right, and driven by a simple function of supply and demand: Over the last half-century, we have had a big increase in the supply of labour, without commensurate increases in demand. We've seen a big (and good!) increase in female workforce participation, big (and good!) increases in working life expectancy (less people dying in their 50s or 60s), significant natural population increases (baby boomers), significant net inward migration (most obviously Blair's big migration program), and significant outsourcing (initially just off-shoring of manufacturing, but now through off-shoring of services too via online/electronic services) over the last half-century.

Those five factors led to big increases in the supply of labour. It seems unlikely that we're going to have similar increases over the next half-century: female workforce participation is already quite high, and unlikely to be significantly higher. Working life expectancy seems unlikely to increase significantly (maybe marginally higher retirement ages here and there a little?), deaths are already bigger than births in IOM, the political mood has shifted against inward net migration, although there might be more off-shoring of some services (the far-too-lowly paid service industries that remain, such as aged care, hospitality, etc., obviously cannot be off-shored, so wages here are likely to increase as a result of the Baumol effect).

Thus, I suspect that wages will increase faster than productivity over the next half-century or so.

[HeliX]

4 minutes ago, Josem said:

I think this is largely very right, and driven by a simple function of supply and demand: Over the last half-century, we have had a big increase in the supply of labour, without commensurate increases in demand. We've seen a big (and good!) increase in female workforce participation, big (and good!) increases in working life expectancy (less people dying in their 50s or 60s), significant natural population increases (baby boomers), significant net inward migration (most obviously Blair's big migration program), and significant outsourcing (initially just off-shoring of manufacturing, but now through off-shoring of services too via online/electronic services) over the last half-century.

Those five factors led to big increases in the supply of labour. It seems unlikely that we're going to have similar increases over the next half-century: female workforce participation is already quite high, and unlikely to be significantly higher. Working life expectancy seems unlikely to increase significantly (maybe marginally higher retirement ages here and there a little?), deaths are already bigger than births in IOM, the political mood has shifted against inward net migration, although there might be more off-shoring of some services (the far-too-lowly paid service industries that remain, such as aged care, hospitality, etc., obviously cannot be off-shored, so wages here are likely to increase as a result of the Baumol effect).

Thus, I suspect that wages will increase faster than productivity over the next half-century or so.

Sure, or we could just stop companies exploiting their workforce in order to extract the maximum value from their labour for the minimum cost.

[Non-Believer]

22 minutes ago, HeliX said:

Sure, or we could just stop companies exploiting their workforce in order to extract the maximum value from their labour for the minimum cost.

That would unfortunately take a massive shift in global politics and economics, to include the reversal of globalisation and huge taxation reform. All of which would be heavily opposed by the concerns who have striven to establish the current situation with the aid of influenced and sympathetic governments who have been led to believe that it is the way forward.

[HeliX]

9 minutes ago, Non-Believer said:

That would unfortunately take a massive shift in global politics and economics, to include the reversal of globalisation and huge taxation reform. All of which would be heavily opposed by the concerns who have striven to establish the current situation with the aid of influenced and sympathetic governments who have been led to believe that it is the way forward.

General strike... 

[Ham_N_Eggs]

34 minutes ago, HeliX said:

General strike... 

Indeed. People have been made to forget the power actually rests in the hands of the workers. What would be better is a global general strike. Solidarity should know no borders. Which reminds me of this: https://twitter.com/Miners_Strike/status/1454706983366496259

[Roger Mexico]

50 minutes ago, HeliX said:

General strike... 

Terry Cringle's death got me listening to some of his old History Man podcasts.  Here's one he did on the Isle of Man General Strike of 1918:

https://www.manxradio.com/podcasts/the-history-man/episode/the-history-man-31st-october-2021/

And here's one about the General Strike of 1935:

https://www.manxradio.com/podcasts/the-history-man/episode/the-history-man-7th-november-2021/

[0bserver]

15 minutes ago, Ham_N_Eggs said:

Indeed. People have been made to forget the power actually rests in the hands of the workers. What would be better is a global general strike. Solidarity should know no borders. Which reminds me of this: https://twitter.com/Miners_Strike/status/1454706983366496259

Remind me how the Miners Strike turned out for them?

[Happier diner]

8 hours ago, Ham_N_Eggs said:

Indeed. People have been made to forget the power actually rests in the hands of the workers. What would be better is a global general strike. Solidarity should know no borders. Which reminds me of this: https://twitter.com/Miners_Strike/status/1454706983366496259

Power has rarely been with the workers. Yes, for brief intervals, usually then abused and ruined for the masses. 

[joebean]

12 hours ago, HeliX said:

Sure, or we could just stop companies exploiting their workforce in order to extract the maximum value from their labour for the minimum cost.

If you want an example of the best workforce exploitation, forget any individual company and look to the CCP. They have absolutely smashed it. 

[HeliX]

6 minutes ago, joebean said:

If you want an example of the best workforce exploitation, forget any individual company and look to the CCP. They have absolutely smashed it. 

The whole economic system of America isn't far behind. No workers rights, if you don't have a job you don't have healthcare, your boss can pay as little as he wants while taking all the money, you can be fired on a whim, social support is appalling.

"Freedom" my arsehole.

[Happier diner]

48 minutes ago, joebean said:

If you want an example of the best workforce exploitation, forget any individual company and look to the CCP. They have absolutely smashed it. 

CCP?

[quilp]

Chinese Communist Party. 

[HeliX]

"Ashford says the outturn of the 2021/22 financial year should be a deficit of around £36 million. He says this is as a result of extra costs incurred during the pandemic - including purchase of PPE and business support."

Er, wouldn't there have been no deficit without the Liverpool Terminal overspend in that case? Coronavirus' fault, of course.

[Cambon]

Did I hear that correctly? £42,000,000 to Net Zero this year! Biggest vanity project. Waste of money.