[Gllug] VACANCY: Junior Systems Support

[Lesley]

On Wed, Sep 09, 2009 at 01:34:20PM +0100, Hari Sekhon wrote:
> Lesley wrote:
> > On Wed, Sep 09, 2009 at 10:52:37AM +0100, Hari Sekhon wrote:
> >   
> >> Chris Bell wrote:
> >>     
> >>> On Wed 09 Sep, Hari Sekhon wrote:
> >>>   
> >>>
> >>>   
> >>>       
> >>>> Except that people want to earn money and have recession proof (or at 
> >>>> least resistant) jobs and steady incomes, if you build it and market it 
> >>>> properly they will come and you will reduce shortages in those positions.
> >>>>
> >>>> -h
> >>>>
> >>>>     
> >>>>         
> >>>    Unfortunately there is a poverty trap which can mean that people do
> >>> better by not working harder, or even at all. Any additional earnings
> >>> require some effort, and result in equivalent loss of benefits or additional
> >>> taxes
> >>>       
> >> The solution being? Remove benefits and make it an even playing field to 
> >> encourage people to work hard and compete. This would also allow people 
> >> who have worked hard to actually be financially better off rather than 
> >> some getting free property and others struggling their whole life to get 
> >> one by paying for it, which would be much fairer on the decent folks.
> >>     
> > I think you are confusing 'decent' with 'employed' here. Just because somebody
> > is employed doesn't mean they are (a) decent or (b) not living in socially provided 
> > accommodation.
> > Equally just because someone is unemployed doesn't mean they are not
> > (a) decent or (b) living in their own property.
> >   
> You can find exceptions to almost everything in existence, not worth 
> discounting a general trend for it though, we're not talking about some 
> unfortunate people who got made redundant and will get back to 
> employment as soon as possible, of which many of my fellow IT peers are 
> unfortunately prominent ...
> 
> Still, working and having a council property is a hugely uneven playing 
> field against the rest of the hopeless young professionals spending 
> their lives living in shared accommodation...

As a generalisation, social housing, or council housing as it was termed some time ago,
was instituted for some very good reasons.  One was to avoid families being thrown 
out onto the street through lack of funds to pay exorbitant private rents and the 
other was to provide families with accommodation fit to live in.  

Older council properties were built within size regulations governing room sizes and 
the councils were expected to adhere to those regulations.  The end effect of which 
was a family of four to six could spend time in the living room together.

The logic that claims a modern rabbit hutch is more desirable for anything other than a rabbit defeats me.

Young professionals probably have reasonable career and salary expectations and so know that things will 
improve for them.  
They will not be street cleaners, lavatory attendants, bus drivers, library assistants, swimming 
pool attendants, warehouse workers, checkout attendants or anyone else with no expectation of ever 
breaking into the upper tax bracket. That these young professionals might actually have to rely on 
these other people to maintain facilities they expect to be able to enjoy seems to be missed here.

I would see zero success in my ability to earn £100k per annum while the streets, swimming pools and 
other things I might expect to enjoy or need are not maintained for me by people who are not at least
content to some degree with their lot and their home life.

> 
> >> There's also this trap in the upper tax band, it's so hard to earn 
> >> anything more because half of what you earn goes in tax anyway... so any 
> >> improvement is so marginal as to not justify the effort, so tax should 
> >> also really be a flat rate percentage as it is a percentage after all... 
> >> you earn more you pay tax more anyway but at least the gradient doesn't 
> >> become even harder.
> >>     
> > I think most employers take into account the tax situation as best they were able to
> > when grading salaries.  Even when salaries are merely increased in line with inflation
> > someone earning £60K gets triple over someone earning £20K and the tax is only taken off
> > that over the upper limit for base rate.  So if inflation is at 1% one gets £600 the other 
> > £200.  At 20%/40% tax rates one actually receives £160, the other £360 or an increase in 
> > take home pay that is about two and a quarter times the lower paid colleague.
> >   
> Not talking about inflation readjustments which are trivial beyond the 
> worth of mentioning, I'm talking about the incentive for working hard 
> towards your next £5K pay rise (and you really need to count in at least 
> fives if you want to get anywhere in England these days with house 
> prices as they are now)
> 
So does this not indicate that the system using housing as a commodity is broken?  
On a starting salary of £25k you are looking at asking for a 20% pay rise.  
On a start of £18k, £5k is a 27% pay rise.
Where's the justification for that level of pay increase going to come from?
> 
> > The current benefit system is complex.  Having benefits is almost not the problem.  Yes
> > it makes it easier for the workshy but there'll always be an element of that in society.
> >   
> 3 million people in council estates and growing is not a small element 
> though, it's a future generational disaster unfolding.
I fail to see how that holds.   Housing is not to blame for the generational disaster that is
unfolding ...housing is mere bricks and mortar or more likely breeze blocks these days. 
If you were to start talking on how to rectify exclusionary economic and social strategies of 
a class driven society which discriminates so heavily in favour of those more privileged by birth and 
against the less fortunate  ... that might be more relevant to that problem.

> > It can be difficult to get off benefits when any money you earn reduces your benefits to the
> > point where there is a shortfall - i.e. going to work actually causes a loss of income.
> > On a small budget with dependants and/or health requirements that loss cannot necessarily be
> > contemplated no matter how much one might one to get out of that rut.
> >   
> That in itself shows the system is broken, but alas we have diverged too 
> much already...
> 
I'd say that it needs more thought top avoid that anomaly .... some people might be able to make 
that leap which I think stands between £40-£60 per week lost income ... but they probably do it 
by having a 'safe' job option and not just working down the chippy to pull the money in and by 
borrowing in the short term from family.  If you don't have that support then it can be problematic.

Regards

L.
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