[nickdothutton]

Unfortunately the UK now has an economy which is 83% services vs around 50% in 1970. Services are much more volatile with less certainty than say manufacturing or primary industry. So employment in services is going to be volatile and hard to predict, certainty has declined for all, employers and workers. A given employer only has the power if he is the only, or one of just a few in town. If not then the worker has the opportunity to seek hours somewhere else from someone else, at least if these jobs/gigs are relatively unskilled, which most are.

What I don't agree with, the underpayment of workers enabled by government "subsidies". A barista in London may be offered £21K per year to work all his shifts (I'm looking at a job ad), yet needs double that to live, so government "subsidises" the employer by providing the other "missing" £20K in universal credit, housing benefit, and so on. It's no wonder employers take advantage of this.

Meanwhile the customer thinks his coffee costs him £3, in fact the true cost is a multiple of that because of the ~£20K "subsidy". Meanwhile you can hear the faint sound of laughter, which is the employer, knowing that the taxpayer is picking up half his true wage bill.

[joe_mamba]

>What I don't agree with, the underpayment of workers enabled by government "subsidies".

Wait a second, Isn't this just corporate welfare and goes against capitalism and supply/demand free market economics? Why should other people's taxes subsidize other people's businesses?

If your business is a net negative to the economy due to it only being able to survive on subsidies, then it has no right to exist.

We're not talking about subsidizing national security industries like semiconductor manufacturing, aerospace, renewables, pharma, we're talking about subsidizing someone's cafe/fast food business so they as a business owner can pocket the profits while paying their staff below market and having the taxpayer pick up the tab for the difference.

Or is this just a cloaked form of UBI to prevent mass unemployment?

[em-bee]

are we? are we not also talking about enabling restaurants to exist in order to make our city livable?

i also don't see the issue with housing support. in vienna more than half of the population lives in subsidized housing. the current rate is that 2/3rds of any new built housing is subsidized.

and it apparently works out. instead of paying higher wages so that no one needs subsidies, everyone pays higher taxes to fund the subsidies. it's redistribution of income. yes, i guess you could consider it a cloaked form of UBI. i believe the key feature is that this model makes the whole economy around housing and income less volatile.

[relaxing]

Capitalism is not a sincerely held belief. The true belief is “my business, at the expense of yours.”