As the High Pay Centre point out, there is little evidence that the problems with UK business stem from low CEO pay.... although they might stem from the managerial attitudes that conclude they are not paid enough even when UK business is underperforming its potential....
#economics #business #politics
Full open letter here:
Women victims of domestic abuse who vent their frustrations on the police who arrive but then do nothing are being arrested under a 2018 law criminalising assaults on emergency workers....
This seems unlikely to be the intended outcome, but women abused by their partners are then being abused by the law (which for many activists merely repeats a pattern).
The criminalisation of abuse victims is inhumane & cruel!
#ViolenceAgainstWomen #gender
https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/domestic-abuse-victims-criminalised-tory-law/
50 jazz tracks for your streaming shuffle, no.1
Dave Brubeck. Take Five
While, well known beyond jazz circles, this is a classic which offers a great introduction to how jazz can be both avant-garde & accessible. Linking up an idiosyncratic rhythm with percussive piano & great solos, this is a good place to start our exploration of what jazz has to offer.
#music #jazz #JazzIntro
Three things about Trump's Liberation Day tariffs:
1. are they merely transactional? will concessions mean they'll be reduced/abandoned?
2. Trump is acting as if the US still controlled a large proportion of global trade; it doesn't, its around 13% of international trade (by value); which implies
3. If rather than retaliate, other countries' firms re-focus on regional markets (& states maintain free[ish] trade in those blocs], the harm may in the end be focussed on the US!
#trade #economics
As Eva Wiseman (Observer/not yet online) points out:
'while governments have an obsession with efficiency, its still limited solely to cost-cutting. There seems to be little interest in, for instance, making access to welfare payments more efficient or healthcare, or childcare... No, efficiency is only important when trying to maximise profit'!
efficiency defined by cost, rather than by effective practice(s);
we know the cost(s) off everything but the value of nothing!
#politics #economics
If the greenest building is the one that is already built, then refurbishment & re-purposing would seem to be a good strategy for the green transition.
As Wilma Kempinga, quoted by Rowan Moore, points out: 'A lot of people like new buildings... & don’t have the imagination to see what’s possible with old ones'... the problem is when (as with the repurposing of offices into residential) the commercial motive undermines the green... but still worth pushing?
#housing
If the UK is to wean itself off exporting to the USA, which would seem to be a good idea right now, then despite our historic mono-lingualism, many firms will be needing to think about the sorts of non-English language resources & staff they will need to compete effectively in foreign markets.
Many firms manage it but too often the US market has been seen as an easy place to sell due to a common language.
Time to recruit multi-linguists (and by extension, teach them)!
#languages #trade
really good point, which also relates to a much large issue about why women cannot expect to feel safe on public transport in the evening... which itself is shocking, really
nostr:nprofile1qy2hwumn8ghj7un9d3shjtnddaehgu3wwp6kyqpqzv87megsn8n9gjlne4eymlux5ffe724flmszmyx94yqysrdgvy3s7u0cx4 nostr:nprofile1qy2hwumn8ghj7un9d3shjtnddaehgu3wwp6kyqpqkt3hutklgrma64ykjwk4trxq9rtyfnxhkjz729g4pd9xl7hzhrjs9l9vtz
Thanks, I did think that might be the case.... but also, thought I'd like to follow up on the Quaddies.... I'll likely forget the spoilers in between books as my pending pile (which I read in order) is quite large... but appreciate the warning
At the root of many contemporary economic problems (the UK's productivity puzzle, deterioration in the terms & conditions of employment) is one simple issue:
Managers too often see workers not as a 'resource' to be invested in & nurtured for the long-term good of the organisation, but rather as a cost which can be reduced for short-term gain while the longer term consequences will be fixed (in some way) by technology.
The de-humanisaton of economics is a major problem!
#workers #economics
yes, this is a Q. that lies at the heart of MMT really - but taxes, of course, play a political role as well as a fiscal one
As the FT points out, its all very well saying you're going to ease planning restrictions for new building projects and claiming to bring stability to the construction sector after years of varying policy, but if you (Labour) don't do something about the training & education of construction workers, then such efforts will come to little.
Further education, where such training takes place, has been the subject of austerity & constraints for years; now is the time to value it!
#construction
nostr:nprofile1qy2hwumn8ghj7un9d3shjtnddaehgu3wwp6kyqpqg0tuf634rz4suczwj7kgnecr6cyt0eu9xmp3sp0fku68mqehq4msas60lz The Financial Ombudsmans Service is of assistance to the Financial Services Sector because it provides an inexpensive forum for prompt dispute resolution. In my experience the service is not "against" the sector. That would be a construct put upon it most likely by people, like politicians, who have no hands-on current relevant experience in the sector, of dispute resolution, or of interaction with FOS. Most probably Tories, for whom every free to user public service is anathema.
Yes, the services has been by no means consumer centred in the past, but has been able to (often) be the site of good multi-party actions against wrongdoing... but as you say, even if it was better 9than it will now likely be) at hosting attempts to protect consumers' interests, at best it was neutral & at least not working against them when it arbitrated.... now, that seem likely to be less the case as Reeves puts it under pressure to prioritise 'growth' (which is a nonsense here)
Yes, I wondered whether 'care home' occupancy might flow into the vacuum caused by a shift in student rentals... ng sure its happening here yet, but a clear possibility
Indeed, I think that would be the right conclusion to draw....
nostr:nprofile1qy2hwumn8ghj7un9d3shjtnddaehgu3wwp6kyqpqg0tuf634rz4suczwj7kgnecr6cyt0eu9xmp3sp0fku68mqehq4msas60lz "Sufficiently curious" is an interesting way of phrasing it ...
They were pretty curious about getting the £22 late fees from everyone who missed the filing deadline.
Strange that HMRC seem to be the only ones who *aren't* aware of figures relating to the level of evasion, isn't it.
nostr:nprofile1qy2hwumn8ghj7un9d3shjtnddaehgu3wwp6kyqpqg0tuf634rz4suczwj7kgnecr6cyt0eu9xmp3sp0fku68mqehq4msas60lz I’ve highlighted more than once how ‘student accomodation’ is going to become the next social housing. It’s a huge concern, because it inhibits the natural flow of families being together, and creates what is effective a modern version of slum housing. Kitchens and such facilities are communal, rooms are very small and personal. In some case the bathrooms are also communal. It is not good for people to spend much of their lives living in such spaces - not in the kind of society we and our ancestors grew up in anyway. I think also, ultimately this leads to a spread of infections and airborne disease because of how these towering building s are constructed, and how people must live in them. No green space, no gardens, - communal gym, kitchen, and recreational space. No pets of any kind. No opportunity to create a family unit. They are fine when you know you’ll only be there for a couple of years for studies - lifetime accomodation? Not so much.
yes, all good points & I heard (before I retired) exactly the same complaints from student tenants of these developments.... but for the Universities its a major extra source of income (many projects are partmetshoips with the relevant Uni) & they are pushing them due to their own budget constraints/problems
nostr:nprofile1qy2hwumn8ghj7un9d3shjtnddaehgu3wwp6kyqpqg0tuf634rz4suczwj7kgnecr6cyt0eu9xmp3sp0fku68mqehq4msas60lz I am friends with a local government lawyer (since retired). Whenever, socially, i enquired how pfi was panning out, he pulled a face. It was widely understood to be a crap way to do public procurement, in terms of value for money for the taxpayer, even as it was being enthusiastically pushed by the politicians. The bottom line is politicians have no knowledge of the building of [hospitals], & no interest in acquiring it, or in recruiting the necessary expertise to commission it.
yes, that would seem the only real conclusion based on the evidence
nostr:nprofile1qy2hwumn8ghj7un9d3shjtnddaehgu3wwp6kyqpqg0tuf634rz4suczwj7kgnecr6cyt0eu9xmp3sp0fku68mqehq4msas60lz Am I being particularly dense this morning? Surely a low ranking in a table of corruption is a good thing? Unless it’s ranked from least corrupt to most corrupt (which I can’t see any reference to).
Yes, sorry; this table is really a ranking of most-trusted - The G & I were transposing the discussion into a more focussed one on corruption