Off Topic Political Debate

Look across the years at some enormous corporations that are now mere footnotes in history. There are as many myths and incorrect stereotypes about capitalism as many other subjects.

 

On a much smaller scale I noticed today that my local hardware store had closed. It was a wonderful place where you could buy a new handle for the garden fork, a few nuts and bolts, electrical or plumbing fittings, a piece for your tractor or some fertilizer for the garden. It didn't close for a two hour lunch, and they would put a new link into the chain for your saw while you waited and had a chat. The owners retired a year ago and sold the business as a going concern.
The new owner came in, removed half the stock, put in new signage and lighting, and turned it into something modern looking and similar to one of the large DIY stores. The trouble was that instead of finding something you needed, it wasn't there. Slowly people stopped going there when they couldn't get what they wanted, but were prepared to travel much further to pay less and be certain they could buy the product they needed.
Yes he got it wrong, and must have lost a great deal of money, but people were happy to use a local facility if it catered for their needs. It really does come down to the trader providing what the consumer wants.

 

Exactly, key to successful business is consumer focus. Tesco is dying, many other large corporations die as a result of thinking they are bigger than the customer who en masse prove otherwise. It's a great system that has controls at 3 points, shareholders to ensure the business is making money, workers who ensure they stay employed and customers who dictate with their feet or rather their cash whether a business survives or not. Any business that thinks it can monopolise a market is on borrowed time.....

 

This presumes that the customer knows actually who owns who in the business world - unfortunately most monopolies are hidden behind what, on the surface, looks like an assortment of different brand names. Do people really know that all corn products in the supermarket come from Monsanto, or that all sunglasses come from the same firm - Luxottica ? How many other 'hidden' parent companies are obscuring the lack of real choice ?

 

Situation is dire in my area North Leeds...... ironmongers closed, florists, both greengrocers, independant bookshops, Costas in hospitals, colleges etc. My area of North Leeds has several co-op mini markets. 2 sainsburys., a morrisons, homebase, wilkos costas all within 5 minutes drive

I remember we were considered a nation of shopkeepers.... well we are becoming a nation of people who shop in supermarkets etc. This is fairly obvious stuff i am sure a trawl of any half decent stats will show this.

The notion of 'choice' is really questionable too.... remember the story i told you about Limca and Coke in India. Another version... I got a really excited FB message from a student in Bhopal India to say that subway had arrived... I was so pleased because the traffic is ... well you can guess.... anyway on further investigation I realized it was Subway sandwich chain.... just too crazy.

 

What is wrong with Subway or McDonalds opening in India? If enough customers want to buy the product the companies will do well but if their products lack demand they will not.

France is meant to be the home of food par excellence but it is one of McDonald's best markets.

 

Here is another question.

How come our national debt continues to rise under the present Govt. A factor of the Labour administration decried by the Tories in opposition etc etc ???

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You are making a distinction between choice of supplier and choice of product that frankly I find irrelevent. If people really are upset by Monsanto they can choose to stop eating their products or using their products and ta change would result. I couldn't give a damn who owns what if I get a choice of products at prices acceptable to me. Parent companies are not restricting choice!!! Only in the form in your example of ultimate supplier but if the consumer wants different it will evolve, that is the beauty of capitalism, you create a market need and a supplier will fill it, if the world is worried about all sunglasses coming from X then they can publicise it and open a company not associated with X to fill the gap.

 

I think you know the answer, iot's been voiced enough times by Osborne. It was the recession and the high level of public spending inherited from previous admin. It takes time to cut expenditure and in a balanced manner to minimize any effect on services.

 

The same people complaining about the size of the public debt are also the ones that oppose all and every cut in public expenditure.

Just imagine the level of debt there would have been under Balls and Miliband, even worse under the new opposition leaders.

The UK needed a more drastic cutback on public spending, more like the Irish government implemented.

 

But

Aberdeen we have had a national debt since 17something.... All govts since then have lived with one.... so the current 'previous government' mantra is really rather worn IMO. ...and of course we can find billions for the latest war...


And

Only one in four of the UK’s top companies apparently pay their taxes.

Company taxes now constitute only 12.5% (Corporation Tax is just 7%) of the tax revenues of the UK. In comparison, the people’s taxes, (income tax and VAT) make up more than 60% of the tax income. Why? Where is all the revenue going?

Corporation Tax is lower today than ever. In 1984 it was 52%. In 1986 it was 36%. In 1999 it was dropped to 30% and the govt plan to drop to 18%

Tax avoidance even with the current rules is costing us almost £70bn each year apparently

And we tighten the belt on the poorest who have least resources....

I dont get it.....

 

By lowering corporation tax it allows companies to invest more and take on more employees. The UK also attracts more external investment than the rest of the EU. Ireland are currently doing well after their painful recession due to their policy of very low corporation tax. France and Germany tried to bully them into raising it during the last bailout but they rightly told them where to go.

Remember when the last coalition government announced it would slim down the bloated state we had warnings of mass unemployment from the left. In fact the jobs lost in the public sector were more than made up in the private sector. We have the lowest unemployment for 10 years and the best growth in the west?

If you want to look at the alternative of soaking private companies try France with high unemployment and no attempt at tackling their borrowing. When the French need more cash they just load another tax onto businesses. I know of many small companies that simply give up.

Some people just don't understand business.

 

Just to clarify I have an ignored member showing up as posting I think in response to my latest post. ( I do have chosen not to see his postings due to waht i have experienced as his arrogance and rudery..... )

So i am still open to discuss with everyone else my query above... and note my stats are from reputable.. some may say even Tory sources... so not skewed.....

 

It was going ok. here until the last sentence. Is it not possible for you to simply write things on here and just debate without resorting to snide remarks about others - by this you are implying that others on here 'don't understand' whereas you, of course, do !

 

Debt only goes down when governments spend less than they raise. War has been one of the prime causes of overspend - and still we spend on trident and Syria etc. Once the debt gets high the cost of servicing the debt also gets high - ask people who borrow too much on their credit cards - your debt goes up even if we do not spend. Just because you do not like the fact that a reason has been ongoing does not make it incorrect. You and everyone who thinks the government has to spend on libraries, benefits and every other good cause need to stop and consider whether you want more spend with debt or higher taxes - or just let the National Debt be paid off by your children and grandchildren. The Liberals were a brake on the last government cutting spend properly and now bleaters (some of whom did not deserve the excessive in work benefits) have prevented that necessary reduction. People try to have it both ways Yorkie; but you have to have the spend and debt - or deal with it.
Your statistics on company tax and tax avoidance need to be justified as they look ridiculous. Tax avoidance costs £70 billion - please get real - if that were the case and all Osborne had to do was increase tax inspectors instead or politically more difficult things do you really think he would not.

 

Why did governments not have debt in earlier periods of time, such as the 50s and 60s ? Was it because they had a more mixed economy then ? Take back the railways (along with a host of other things), all energy concerns and run them properly and use the profits for other sectors of the economy. The problem is that the state no longer has the resources to do anything without either running into debt or being otherwise indebted to sponsors.

 

If Britain is so successfull compared to the rest of Europe why are they only the 3rd highest payers in to the European budget - behind Germany and France and just ahead of Italy - these are based on GDP. Surely if Britain is as successfull as you say then they should be paying more ?

 

I'm not going to pretend i know the real figures as I don't but those do look huge. We keep hearing about "legal loopholes" and multinationals paying a fraction of what they should - how true that is I just don't know.
Personally I'd be happy to see every loophole in the book closed, a lower rate for higher earners and massive penalties for those who continue to flout the rules.

 

In order to keep on putting the necessary resources into the infrastructure without going into further debt, various measures would be necessary. Firstly the establishment of a land value tax (which even Adam Smith advocated), secondly a financial transactions tax (Tobin tax), thirdly higher corporate taxes - with the proviso that those firms which leave Britain as a result are publicly named and no longer have access to British markets. Controls should also be brought back into limiting how much capital can be taken out of the country at one time - such rules existed at one time (ie. before Thatcher).

 

Tax avoidance has many guises and in the end is legal - morally corrupt but legal. Most multinationals use transfer pricing to transfer their profits to other countries with typically lower corporation tax rates. A good example is one of the coffee companies who pays a high transfer price to it's own company in Holland for it's coffee and thus making almost no profit in the UK and other countries.
But I am afraid most of Cologne's options would leave the UK a wasteland...