c-a-r-f-r-e-w
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A step on the way toward the demise of the liberal elite? Or just a blip…
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Post by c-a-r-f-r-e-w on Nov 4, 2024 8:53:04 GMT
Don’t know what proportion used to be British companies. But the number is 30 percent up on part year, a rather rapid increase. Has the number of Brit companies brimg bought out by the US increased that fast? ARM recently moved to the US didnt it? Isnt there supposed to be a flight of UK registered companies moving to the US stock exchange? Similarly, what possible reason wuld there be for foreign companies to suddenly increase their employees in the UK over the last year? Yes, I’ve commented myself on how our tech startups, AI etc. can get bought out before they get a chance to grow big. But the article gives other reasons for enlisting Brit employees, including that they are cheaper, time zone is useful and the US companies are aggressively expanding, assisted by stronger Economic growth. The switch to remote working is also making it easier apparently. also… “ American companies also have deeper pockets because they cater to a far larger market of consumers, meaning bigger sales and profits.
“It is a staggeringly bigger market,” says East, whose clients include the likes of Amazon and Meta Platforms. In Billion Dollar Boy’s case, advertising contracts in the US can be eight times the size of those in the UK.” also… “ We are English-speaking and in a time zone that offers an advantage for US companies looking to expand globally, says Smorfitt. Some US tech firms are “following the sun, recruiting people so that they can have a labour force that can work while their US counterparts are asleep”, he adds.
The strong dollar helps too. In autumn 2014, the pound was worth $1.71; today, it is worth around $1.30. The decline has made wages in Britain look even cheaper to cost-conscious US executives.” Also… “ Demand from US employers for UK workers has doubled since the pandemic began, according to Smorfitt. The pandemic triggered a mass shift to remote working and led to more recruitment overseas.
“At the very least, we are talking to US clients twice as much as [we] would have been in 2019, and it seems to be growing,” he says.” |
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Post by johntel on Nov 4, 2024 9:00:26 GMT
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pjw1961
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Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state, an intolerable one.
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Post by pjw1961 on Nov 4, 2024 9:02:10 GMT
pjw1961 - "Two massive gaffs on Day 1..." Nothing wrong with that. Shows nous and ambition. My Uncle Sid and Aunt Edna had a massive gaf. Six bedrooms and sauna, and they started from nothing, worked hard, proper working people. Nothing wrong with having a massive gaf if you've earned it, and Kemikaze's certainly earned her massive gaffs. Did I ever tell you I had that Ian Hislop in the back of my cab once....? {OK, that's enough}. Ta very much, I've added the missing e. |
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Post by moby on Nov 4, 2024 9:02:57 GMT
colin Re your post about Dawn Butler, my view is she was wrong to repost a tweet, even though she quickly took it down I hope that is a straight answer to a straight question I hope you can do the same for this one Frank Hester made disgusting remarks about Diane Abbott. To jog your memory he said Abbott, Britain’s longest-serving black MP, made him “want to hate all black women” and that she “should be shot”. Badenoch in response said 'row over Tory donor 'racist' comments is 'trivial' and party shouldn't return money' Do you think her response is in anyway acceptable for an MP, let alone the leader of a party What consequences should there be for her I know you take a tough line on condoning racism, so will be interested in your answers www.itv.com/news/2024-03-18/kemi-badenoch-says-row-over-tory-donor-racist-comments-is-trivial What I would like to see is Butler and Badenoch speak for themselves in a public debate on how they both think a multi ethnic society with plurality of political representation is best promoted. 35 minutes in..... the issue is denial over institutional racism and the failure to understand intersectionality and the convergence of opression. |
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Post by guymonde on Nov 4, 2024 9:04:23 GMT
Dyson was in the news this morning complaining about increased inheritance tax on the 35,000 acres of farmland 'they' own, where they employ 169 people. He says he is using their economy of scale to improve efficiency and break the stranglehold retailers have on the profits from farming by selling direct to the public. Dyson farming limited is a private company, one of whose directors is, er, James Dyson. A lot of the directors give their address as the company office in Cyclone way. Dyson is reported as saying the new inheritance tax will discourage entrepreneurs investing in farming. Um. He is an engineer who made his money from technology, but has decided to diversify into farming and has bought up enough land for 150 family farms. So thats 150 families he has deprived of owning a farm. This is a private company, so it may well be Dyson personally owns quite a lot of it, and had been anticipating not paying much inheritance tax on it. Based on estimates flying around the ccompany land might be worth maybe £350 million? So as personal inheritance thats now a liability of £70 million?, half the standard rate. Its lunacy for him to be complaining this tax is harming the 150 families he displaced from farms by buying up their land. Dyson owns more than 75% of it personally |
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c-a-r-f-r-e-w
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A step on the way toward the demise of the liberal elite? Or just a blip…
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Post by c-a-r-f-r-e-w on Nov 4, 2024 9:05:32 GMT
Danny “ Services exports to the US more than doubled between the second quarter of 2016 and the second quarter of this year. The annual trade is now worth £129bn. The European Union is still the biggest buyer of UK services exports, with the US in second place. But exports to the US are growing at a far faster rate.”(From the HOCL - In 2023, the UK exported £171 billion of services to the EU and £299 billion to non-EU countries.) and also from the HOCL :
“UK exports of services to both EU and non-EU countries fell in 2020 but have grown strongly since then. In 2023, UK exports of services to the EU were 9% above their 2019 level in real terms. Exports to non-EU countries were 15% above their 2019 level.” HOCL
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c-a-r-f-r-e-w
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A step on the way toward the demise of the liberal elite? Or just a blip…
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Post by c-a-r-f-r-e-w on Nov 4, 2024 9:09:59 GMT
Danny - the article also speculates about the possible impact of the budget, changes to workers rights etc. “ If the costs of doing business in the UK suddenly spikes, it’s inevitable that the appetite for hiring here will cool as companies turn to cheaper options elsewhere.
Stanford’s Bloom says: “The big competitor with the UK is central and South America, in that US firms do a lot of off-shoring of jobs to Argentina, Brazil and Mexico.
“These have a lot of skilled coders and technical staff, so to compete Brits need to have some cultural or language edge. So yes, US firms will offshore to British workers, but it’s a narrow realm of jobs where fluent English is important.””
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pjw1961
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Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state, an intolerable one.
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Post by pjw1961 on Nov 4, 2024 9:24:52 GMT
colin - I'm happy to agree that the particular quote Butler endorsed about Badenoch was crass and stupid, if that helps. I wouldn't be surprised if she loses the whip for a while. Here is a much better piece by Nasrine Malik on why Badenoch's leadership of the Tory party does not represent a success for Black British people - in fact rather the opposite. Badenoch has been able to achieve that position by consistently pushing a pro-colonial view, by denying that ethnic minorities face structural racism and by claiming that black communities do not exist. I don't doubt her sincerity in believing this stuff, but it is all very congenial and comforting to the ears of the right-wing elite. When you do that you become part of the problem rather than part of the solution. www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/nov/04/kemi-badenoch-ethnic-minority
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c-a-r-f-r-e-w
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A step on the way toward the demise of the liberal elite? Or just a blip…
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Post by c-a-r-f-r-e-w on Nov 4, 2024 9:31:41 GMT
Enjoying the CAP discussion, well-outside my usual realm! Meanwhile, The Telegraph on the phenomenon of “Britshoring” “ Decades ago, there was a rush to outsource call centres and factory jobs to countries such as India and Vietnam where labour was far cheaper. Now US companies are increasingly outsourcing to Britain.
Nearly one in six jobs advertised in the UK so far this year was listed by a company headquartered in the US, according to an analysis by LinkedIn. This was up 30pc on last year.
Cheaper salaries and an advantageous time zone make the UK a prime target for US companies, many of which are more open to remote working in the wake of the pandemic. Stronger economic growth is also allowing US companies to poach the best talent, outbidding weaker British companies.”
“The flood of money and booming services exports to the US have become a lifeline for the British economy, which is grappling with sluggish growth and anaemic levels of overall investment.
But the trend itself is also a warning sign.
Recruiters say it is symptomatic of Britain’s own hiring drought. In the global war for talent, particularly in high-tech industries such as AI, US companies are taking some of Britain’s best talent away because they are the ones that are expanding more aggressively.
It is these US companies that are reaping the rewards from our best minds, with profits banked in New York or California.
Many home-grown companies are struggling to compete. What is a short-term cash injection could take a longer-term toll on British innovation, leaving the country even more stuck in the mud on growth and productivity.”
This seems to be part of a much wider trend. There are some astonishing takeaways from this interview.
Am just starting to watch it - will probably watch it in bits between doing other things. Straight away though, I note he’s written a book: “ Angus Hanton, author of ‘Vassal State: How America Runs Britain’.” “ Vassal State lays bare the extent to which US corporations own and control Britain's economy: how American business chiefs decide what we're paid, what we buy, and how we buy it. US companies have carved up Britain between them, siphoning off enormous profits, buying up our most lucrative firms and assets, and extracting huge rents from UK PLC – all while paying little or no tax. Meanwhile, policymakers, from Whitehall mandarins to NHS chiefs, shape their decisions to suit the whims of our American corporate overlords.
Based on his 40 years of business experience, devastating new research, and interviews with the major players, Angus Hanton exposes why Britain has become the poor transatlantic relation – and what we can do to change it.” …which is now on my book list. Thanks for the heads up Alberto! |
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Post by shevii on Nov 4, 2024 9:36:33 GMT
neilj - "Also suggests rich people buying up farm land for inheritance tax purposes is a reason for increasing land prices" Absolutely. The Clarksons and Dysons aren't the victims here, they're the profiteers that are causing part of the problem. If this IHT measure does drive play owners and tax avoiders out of the sector it will reduce prices and make life easier for real farmers and help cut food prices. Difficult to say really. Are they displacing small farms or saving them because no-one wants to do the job? Obviously someone is willing to do the job as an employee. Was the original tax benefit given because of the risk of farms closing completely? Do we care about economies of scale for the supermarkets who like to be able to do the big contracts which would benefit the Dyson type owners but less so the smallholders? We may not care about the supermarkets but we do care about the final price we pay for food. I think in many ways the IHT is the wrong debate to be having and we should start from the basics about what measures are necessary to ensure we have food security (and environmental protections). This also involves investigating the way supermarkets operate and whether they have a monopoly in setting prices to farmers because of their (international) buying power. A not entirely relevant anecdote but one that got me thinking. We went along to an all you can pick tomatoes for £10 event at a new start up smallholding. So my wife was busy "prepping" for about a week afterwards, but when we asked why they were doing it, it was because whoever they asked to sell to (local restaurants etc) already had contracts to buy from the supermarkets (all year round). You could say that's just a bad business plan that will get tweaked if they get their feet under the table and maybe make it up on pumpkin sales but it just felt a bit sad that there wasn't flexibility in the market for someone with a substantial greenhouse to easily find an end buyer considering the price of tomatoes even in peak season is still pretty high in the supermarkets. |
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Danny
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Post by Danny on Nov 4, 2024 9:36:38 GMT
Thats an interesting graph, with an interesting title. But if you took a ruler to it you can draw a strigh line trend from 2016 to 2024. The later surge is compensated by a dip in the covid years. Basically linear growth of 15 million in 8 years. Which trend suggests trade was zero about 2008.
Ok, probably wasnt zero, but that graph doesnt support any surge in trade. If you insist on trying to fit a curve, allowing for the covid impact it actually looks like trade peaked in 22 and has fallen off slightly since.
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Post by barbara on Nov 4, 2024 9:37:13 GMT
Seems to me that the big distinction in politics today is not what colour you are but how advantaged/wealthy you and/or your background are and your access to private education.
Conservatives:
Rishi Sunak
Kwasi Kwarteng
Nadim Zahawi
Kemi Badenoch
all born to educated and/or wealthy parents. Millionaires or married to millionaires
Suella Braverman - privately educated, married to a millionaire
Exceptions
James Cleverley
Pritti Patel
Sajid David
Labour
Dawn Butler
David Lammy
Dianne Abbott
Sadiq Khan
All ordinary backgrounds
It's only to be expected as it's largely a class thing. Much harder to succeed in politics (as in life) if you don't get a leg up from your parents/background/education.
Which is why one of highest achieving politicians in this country is Angela Rayner, constantly patronised by snobs.
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c-a-r-f-r-e-w
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A step on the way toward the demise of the liberal elite? Or just a blip…
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Post by c-a-r-f-r-e-w on Nov 4, 2024 9:39:53 GMT
Thats an interesting graph, with an interesting title. But if you took a ruler to it you can draw a strigh line trend from 2016 to 2024. The later surge is compensated by a dip in the covid years. Basically linear growth of 15 million in 8 years. Which trend suggests trade was zero about 2008.
Ok, probably wasnt zero, but that graph doesnt support any surge in trade. If you insist on trying to fit a curve, allowing for the covid impact it actually looks like trade peaked in 22 and has fallen off slightly since.
If you treat the graph as linear, maybe. But not if you don’t treat it as linear |
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steve
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Post by steve on Nov 4, 2024 9:41:54 GMT
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Post by jimjam on Nov 4, 2024 9:42:48 GMT
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steve
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Post by steve on Nov 4, 2024 9:49:19 GMT
alec Do you know how much £800,000 of term insurance for 7 years at age 59 will cost. I've no idea but it's unlikely to be cheap around £400+ p.m. depending on health would be my guess An average farm makes around £80,000 profit a year out of which the farmer and normally their family have to live. It's entirely possible that there's not money to spare for such activities. While there's nothing to stop joint ownership of farms, many do, my concern would be that for farms where the children are unsure about wanting to continue the family business and don't participate already the iht cost will make them make the decision to sell. So rather than penalizing big owners who want to avoid iht via land purchase it's actually likely to concentrate active farm ownership into the hands of fewer and fewer small family businesses and into the hands of major land owners often those who have inherited their estates. It's incorporation then is protected by deeds of trust, which avoids iht! I've no objection to iht as such but it has to be appropriate in the circumstances.
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Post by guymonde on Nov 4, 2024 10:06:38 GMT
neilj - "Also suggests rich people buying up farm land for inheritance tax purposes is a reason for increasing land prices" Absolutely. The Clarksons and Dysons aren't the victims here, they're the profiteers that are causing part of the problem. If this IHT measure does drive play owners and tax avoiders out of the sector it will reduce prices and make life easier for real farmers and help cut food prices. Difficult to say really. Are they displacing small farms or saving them because no-one wants to do the job? Obviously someone is willing to do the job as an employee. Was the original tax benefit given because of the risk of farms closing completely? Do we care about economies of scale for the supermarkets who like to be able to do the big contracts which would benefit the Dyson type owners but less so the smallholders? We may not care about the supermarkets but we do care about the final price we pay for food. I think in many ways the IHT is the wrong debate to be having and we should start from the basics about what measures are necessary to ensure we have food security (and environmental protections). This also involves investigating the way supermarkets operate and whether they have a monopoly in setting prices to farmers because of their (international) buying power. A not entirely relevant anecdote but one that got me thinking. We went along to an all you can pick tomatoes for £10 event at a new start up smallholding. So my wife was busy "prepping" for about a week afterwards, but when we asked why they were doing it, it was because whoever they asked to sell to (local restaurants etc) already had contracts to buy from the supermarkets (all year round). You could say that's just a bad business plan that will get tweaked if they get their feet under the table and maybe make it up on pumpkin sales but it just felt a bit sad that there wasn't flexibility in the market for someone with a substantial greenhouse to easily find an end buyer considering the price of tomatoes even in peak season is still pretty high in the supermarkets. It has always puzzled me why (I am no expert!) there does not seem to be much of a Cooperative movement in UK food production |
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Danny
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Post by Danny on Nov 4, 2024 10:12:12 GMT
Was the original tax benefit given because of the risk of farms closing completely? Introduced 1984, so Thatcher. Gift tax was more important back then I seem to recall. The 1984 act also set the £3000 allowance on annual gifts which could be tax free, and doesnt seem to have been uprated ever since. You can also make gifts from your surplus income beyond the amount needed to maintain your customary standard of living. So I guess if you are earning £200,000 and only need £50,000 to live on, you can give away the rest to anyone you like tax free. The seven years rule seems to have been introduced much earlier at a time there was no tax at all on gifts, so as to catch gifts within this arbitrary period before death into inheritance tax. web page I am looking at says that even in the 1970s this tax was looked upon as voluntary, because you just had to make sure you disposed of large assets before you were likely to die within 7 years. In 1974 Healey/labour introduced a capital transfer tax catching all lifetime gifts, but the following conservative regime eroded it away. First it was reduced from lifetime gifts to ten years, then cut to 7, so back to how it been formerly. "One contemporary suggested that the reason for this reform was to encourage generosity in making life-time gifts,[xviii] but it is possible to suspect that another contemporary may have been right to describe it as merely “a shabby hand-out to the very rich.”[xix]" In 1908 inheritance tax was contributing 29% of tax revenues. It has since been allowed to fade as a serious tax. " It remains “a voluntary tax imposed only on those who [are] unlucky and [die] young or [are] too greedy to part with capital before old age.”[xxxvii]"https://lexlaw.co.uk/solicitors-london/inheritance-tax-past-present-and-future/ From this perspective it doesnt matter at all who owns the land, unless perhaps its simply being used for recreation by the very wealthy. We have had various subsidy schemes most recently the europe wide CAP to encourage food production. |
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Danny
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Post by Danny on Nov 4, 2024 10:15:15 GMT
Seems to me that the big distinction in politics today is not what colour you are but how advantaged/wealthy you and/or your background are and your access to private education. Conservatives: Rishi Sunak Kwasi Kwarteng Nadim Zahawi Kemi Badenoch all born to educated and/or wealthy parents. Millionaires or married to millionaires Suella Braverman - privately educated, married to a millionaire Exceptions James Cleverley Pritti Patel Sajid David Labour Dawn Butler David Lammy Dianne Abbott Sadiq Khan All ordinary backgrounds It's only to be expected as it's largely a class thing. Much harder to succeed in politics (as in life) if you don't get a leg up from your parents/background/education. Which is why one of highest achieving politicians in this country is Angela Rayner, constantly patronised by snobs. Noting of course we had a period of conservative politicians who rose from Grammar schools in the Heath/Thatcher era, at a time those state schools were rivalling private sector in quality. |
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steve
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Post by steve on Nov 4, 2024 10:15:57 GMT
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steve
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Post by steve on Nov 4, 2024 10:19:33 GMT
barbara The current Labour cabinet is the most " ordinary" ever. Of the 25 core members only 2 were privately educated, which is about in line with the wider population percentage. It stands in stark contrast to the 23 per cent of current parliamentarians overall who attended private schools, and the over 30 per cent seen in every single previous post-war cabinet to date. The overall figure is skewed as around 50% of Tory mps were privately educated , with just 15% of Labour and 30% of lib dems. The overall percentage is significantly lower for this parliament because of the collapse in Tory representation and because Labour's third of the vote share win them two thirds of the seats.
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Danny
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Post by Danny on Nov 4, 2024 10:23:40 GMT
alec Do you know how much £800,000 of term insurance for 7 years at age 59 will cost. I've no idea but it's unlikely to be cheap around £400+ p.m. depending on health would be my guess An average farm makes around £80,000 profit a year out of which the farmer and normally their family have to live. It's entirely possible that there's not money to spare for such activities. On those numbers it would seem any farm is unecconomic and cannot make enough money to pay for itself at current land valuations? But I'm not convinced £5000 a year is unaffordable. You might even get the expected beneficiaries to pay for it, since its their inheritance being protected. But this whole issue of inheriting is deeply suspect. If you have one child then maybe, but most people have either no children or more than one. So even if no tax at all is paid, how can you give the farm entire to just one of your children? I'm sure Clarkson has enough land he could divide it amongst several children, but I strongly suspect none of them would have the slightest interest in running it. But simple equity of giving your children equal amounts would force a sale anyway! |
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Post by somerjohn on Nov 4, 2024 11:05:30 GMT
Steve: "Do you know how much £800,000 of term insurance for 7 years at age 59 will cost.
I've no idea but it's unlikely to be cheap around £400+ p.m. depending on health would be my guess."
A lot cheaper than that, I think.
According to Which?, £150k of term assurance for a non-smoker aged 50 will cost £23.04 a month from AIG. So, scaling that up to £800k would be around £123 per month. Starting at age 56 (Alec's original suggestion) would raise that a bit, but not much. Maybe £160 pcm?
It's possible to get more exactly tailored quotes, but that seems to involve giving personal details and I don't want to invite sales calls!
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pjw1961
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Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state, an intolerable one.
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Post by pjw1961 on Nov 4, 2024 11:17:16 GMT
barbara The current Labour cabinet is the most " ordinary" ever. Of the 25 core members only 2 were privately educated, which is about in line with the wider population percentage. It stands in stark contrast to the 23 per cent of current parliamentarians overall who attended private schools, and the over 30 per cent seen in every single previous post-war cabinet to date. The overall figure is skewed as around 50% of Tory mps were privately educated , with just 15% of Labour and 30% of lib dems. The overall percentage is significantly lower for this parliament because of the collapse in Tory representation and because Labour's third of the vote share win them two thirds of the seats. A few stats on private schools that show why it is a huge entrenchment of social privilege for those that get it and a massive waste of human potential for everyone else: - About 5.9% of school-age children in the UK attend private schools, which is about 620,000 children in over 2,500 schools. It is lower in Scotland (4%), Wales (2%) and Northern Ireland (1%) and highest in London (13%). - However, 15% of UK spend on education occurs in private schools. - One in every 16 pupils goes to a private school but one in every seven teachers works at a private school - Over 50% of GCSE entries from independent schools are awarded a grade A/A*, compared to the national average of about 20%. - In 2023 31.4% of Oxford University students came from private schools, meaning they are over represented by 5 times. Private schools are a massive scam to ensure the perpetuation of a self-selecting financial elite. If we really wanted social mobility in this country we would get rid of them completely. That is not a realistic option, so removing their pretend charitable status for VAT purposes to help finance the under-resourced state schools 94% of children attend was a modest but useful start. |
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Post by somerjohn on Nov 4, 2024 11:18:04 GMT
Carfrew (quoting book blurb): Vassal State lays bare the extent to which US corporations own and control Britain's economy: how American business chiefs decide what we're paid, what we buy, and how we buy it. US companies have carved up Britain between them, siphoning off enormous profits, buying up our most lucrative firms and assets, and extracting huge rents from UK PLC – all while paying little or no tax. Meanwhile, policymakers, from Whitehall mandarins to NHS chiefs, shape their decisions to suit the whims of our American corporate overlords.
It always struck me as weird that brexiteers fretted mightily about the perceived threat of vassaldom to a collaborative, democratically-controlled, transparent organisation like the EU, but completely ignored the far greater and more insidious loss of control to US finance and big business. Likewise with increasing cultural hegemony. First MacDonalds came to get us, then Amazon. The policy seems to be to accept the inevitable, lie back and enjoy it. As long as our bosses are English-speaking (sort of).
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Post by pete on Nov 4, 2024 11:42:03 GMT
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Post by pete on Nov 4, 2024 11:44:56 GMT
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Post by pete on Nov 4, 2024 11:46:37 GMT
Early voting line in Oklahoma (apparently only 1 polling station).
https://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/1gids5z/early_voting_line_in_oklahoma/
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Post by pete on Nov 4, 2024 12:11:31 GMT
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Post by nickpoole on Nov 4, 2024 12:26:58 GMT
Are these polls trending for Harris? Or is that a selective reading?
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