mansion tax

[crankedup]

edh said:

sidicks said:

edh said:

Unfortunately our pensions guru was replying to a post about all taxes.

I'm sure he wouldn't want to mislead anyone..

He can take it...he's a grown up

Ah I see he's done a quick edit maybe for completeness he could show what % of the tax take that is?

Edited by edh on Thursday 2nd October 18:58

It was already being edited before your sarcastic post.

if you can't take it.....

Anyway, I'm off to a party meeting now - I'm going to tell them how the nasty boys at PH keep picking on me....

[Moonhawk]

crankedup said:

I will accept your 1.2.3. comments at face value, however it is not an easy task running such a behemoth Industry, you only need look at Tesco for evidence of that!

The current fiasco over profits aside - Tesco must be quite high up there in terms of efficiency.

[sidicks]

edh said:

Who's rattled your cage? Threats?... On the Internet?... Whatever next? Are you going to send the boys round to have a word with me?

If I'd have written something weak like "it was fairly obvious to most people what was intended" you'd have been the first to have a go.

Threats? What threats?

Looks like you misread things (again).

[edh]

sidicks said:

edh said:

Who's rattled your cage? Threats?... On the Internet?... Whatever next? Are you going to send the boys round to have a word with me?

If I'd have written something weak like "it was fairly obvious to most people what was intended" you'd have been the first to have a go.

Threats? What threats?

Looks like you misread things (again).

Phew, thank goodness, I thought you were going to deploy your immense intellect and wit to put me in my place..

You're quite rude to people, but you don't take kindly to a few sly digs at your own omnipotence do you?

[sidicks]

edh said:

Phew, thank goodness, I thought you were going to deploy your immense intellect and wit to put me in my place..

You're quite rude to people, but you don't take kindly to a few sly digs at your own omnipotence do you?

What threats?

[crankedup]

Moonhawk said:

crankedup said:

I will accept your 1.2.3. comments at face value, however it is not an easy task running such a behemoth Industry, you only need look at Tesco for evidence of that!

The current fiasco over profits aside - Tesco must be quite high up there in terms of efficiency.

Not sure I would term it as a fiasco! Looking at how the Company have sat back over the past few years with a lack of apparent competitiveness in the new market, drops in profits and no clear signals as to future direction all suggests to me an inefficient Board that have been caught sleeping on the job.

[DonkeyApple]

crankedup said:

anonymous said:

[redacted]

I will accept your 1.2.3. comments at face value, however it is not an easy task running such a behemoth Industry, you only need look at Tesco for evidence of that! So how or what in the direction of management would you suggest as a way of progress in terms of efficiency etc. For me the NHS seems to slowly evolve, an outsiders POV.
Most people are resistant to change, it's in the human gene that what you know is safe. So how to get those people to accept that the proposals are in best interests of all.
Don't ask me, I wouldn't want to think about it!

I think the question to ask is how does a private company get low paid staff to be efficient and the NHS can't?

They are the same low paid people, arguably NHS low paid staff are smarter so why are they less efficient?

I would argue that it is for the exact same reason that you find at any business when you have crap service and low paid staff and that is bad middle management.

Our first child was born via NHS. It was a fiasco of incompetence and inefficiency in terms of admin. Total chaos of staff just not in control or managing anything well. Our second was private. The exact same people were efficient and it worked perfectly. The only difference lay in the middle management.

The low level staff aren't the problem in the NHS it's the incompetant managers who are failing to manage those staff. Is seriously consider privatising that single layer of the NHS so that these people can be fired and hired in a proper commercial manner. Only then will you get the sort of team managers that are needed to help the normal staff do their job best.

[Mrr T]

DonkeyApple said:

I think the question to ask is how does a private company get low paid staff to be efficient and the NHS can't?

They are the same low paid people, arguably NHS low paid staff are smarter so why are they less efficient?

I would argue that it is for the exact same reason that you find at any business when you have crap service and low paid staff and that is bad middle management.

Our first child was born via NHS. It was a fiasco of incompetence and inefficiency in terms of admin. Total chaos of staff just not in control or managing anything well. Our second was private. The exact same people were efficient and it worked perfectly. The only difference lay in the middle management.

The low level staff aren't the problem in the NHS it's the incompetant managers who are failing to manage those staff. Is seriously consider privatising that single layer of the NHS so that these people can be fired and hired in a proper commercial manner. Only then will you get the sort of team managers that are needed to help the normal staff do their job best.

I do not think its the individual I thinks its the structure. There is an economic agreement that an organisation serves those who pay for it. So Tesco was very successful because its customers where happy and spent money there. Now its customers are not so happy and are spending money at Aldi.

NHS money comes from the Department of Health. So the NHS serves the needs of the DOE. The NHS produces lots of statistics but has little incentive to make patients happy unless they happen to effect the statistics.

So what we should do in follow the rest of Europe and break the NHS up into an insurance scheme, with the treatment provided by charities or the private sector.

[DonkeyApple]

crankedup said:

Moonhawk said:

crankedup said:

I will accept your 1.2.3. comments at face value, however it is not an easy task running such a behemoth Industry, you only need look at Tesco for evidence of that!

The current fiasco over profits aside - Tesco must be quite high up there in terms of efficiency.

Not sure I would term it as a fiasco! Looking at how the Company have sat back over the past few years with a lack of apparent competitiveness in the new market, drops in profits and no clear signals as to future direction all suggests to me an inefficient Board that have been caught sleeping on the job.

Tescos is a highly efficient and competent business.

If you concentrate on share price this has been a failing of fund managers who treated it as a core holding and kept ploughing client funds in, pushing the price up when basic analysis showed it was not investable in contrast to its peers.

Aggressive, dominant expansion in the UK kept it growing market share from competitors while being able to hammer suppliers kept margins up. But they reached saturation in the UK many years ago, hence resorting to a policy of putting corner shops out of business. At the same time all their attempts to replace slowing UK growth with overseas expansion systematically failed because in those markets they couldn't dominate share and not could they hammer suppliers.

Then came the recession and everyone realised by 2009 that instead of shoppers cutting outgoings by switching to Tesco they in fact jumped further and switched to the newer and cheaper Aldi/Lidl businesses.

Tescos has been weakening since the early 2000 but managers kept pouring client funds in.

The real reason for the massive sell off after the accounting error is not because of the error specifically but the fact that it has allowed the fund managers to blame their investment error on Tescos not themselves and finally switch client money out that they should never have put in. It's been a real pump and dump through negligence in that regard.

To regain UK share they need a Lidlesque sub brand to capture the bottom end of the market. To get real growth again they need to find a model that allows for overseas expansion and the logical step as they failed to grow new brands organically is to raise capital to buyout existing chains that already have solid market share.

[turbobloke]

Mrr T said:

DonkeyApple said:

I think the question to ask is how does a private company get low paid staff to be efficient and the NHS can't?

They are the same low paid people, arguably NHS low paid staff are smarter so why are they less efficient?

I would argue that it is for the exact same reason that you find at any business when you have crap service and low paid staff and that is bad middle management.

Our first child was born via NHS. It was a fiasco of incompetence and inefficiency in terms of admin. Total chaos of staff just not in control or managing anything well. Our second was private. The exact same people were efficient and it worked perfectly. The only difference lay in the middle management.

The low level staff aren't the problem in the NHS it's the incompetant managers who are failing to manage those staff. Is seriously consider privatising that single layer of the NHS so that these people can be fired and hired in a proper commercial manner. Only then will you get the sort of team managers that are needed to help the normal staff do their job best.

I do not think its the individual I thinks its the structure. There is an economic agreement that an organisation serves those who pay for it. So Tesco was very successful because its customers where happy and spent money there. Now its customers are not so happy and are spending money at Aldi.

Agreed, post-recession there has been a switch from Waitrose down, with Aldi and Lidl benefiting, but is this not purely price driven rather than shoppers analysing Tesco against some ethical blueprint and then opting out after considered philosophising?

When times are hard, if it's cheaper over there, shop over there. So Aldi and Lidl get more Volvos and Audis in their car parks.

[oyster]

Mrr T said:

sidicks said:

2. Who is proposing removing a safety net for basic living?

I would suggest moving to the sort of systems used by the rest of Europe. Cost is similar to the UK but health outcomes much better.

I think you need to do some homework.
Many European social security set ups are much, much more generous and expensive than ours.

[hornet]

turbobloke said:

Agreed, post-recession there has been a switch from Waitrose down, with Aldi and Lidl benefiting, but is this not purely price driven rather than shoppers analysing Tesco against some ethical blueprint and then opting out after considered philosophising?

When times are hard, if it's cheaper over there, shop over there. So Aldi and Lidl get more Volvos and Audis in their car parks.

Personally, although price was the initial factor, there's also the fact that I find smaller stores a far less unpleasant experience. There's also the feeling that Tesco are data mining the arse out of everything I do and that my custom is simply an input into an algorithm. I don't get that feeling at the discounters, I just feel like a customer.

[turbobloke]

hornet said:

turbobloke said:

Agreed, post-recession there has been a switch from Waitrose down, with Aldi and Lidl benefiting, but is this not purely price driven rather than shoppers analysing Tesco against some ethical blueprint and then opting out after considered philosophising?

When times are hard, if it's cheaper over there, shop over there. So Aldi and Lidl get more Volvos and Audis in their car parks.

Personally, although price was the initial factor, there's also the fact that I find smaller stores a far less unpleasant experience. There's also the feeling that Tesco are data mining the arse out of everything I do and that my custom is simply an input into an algorithm. I don't get that feeling at the discounters, I just feel like a customer.

With the wolf kept from the door at least for now, we shop where we think the tastiest products are, from the menu we like. Trial and error long ago led us to a mix of preferred suppliers which is a bit of a pain for shopping but it suits us. Demonstrators protesting about Tesco's doing this or Sainsbury's doing that have no effect, but if a recipe changes then they're chopped. When the middle class hippies were chanting outside Starbucks I made a point of visiting even though it was crowded. UK outlets of any brand aren't as yet boiling babies to make cheap dog food.

[DonkeyApple]

turbobloke said:

Mrr T said:

DonkeyApple said:

I think the question to ask is how does a private company get low paid staff to be efficient and the NHS can't?

They are the same low paid people, arguably NHS low paid staff are smarter so why are they less efficient?

I would argue that it is for the exact same reason that you find at any business when you have crap service and low paid staff and that is bad middle management.

Our first child was born via NHS. It was a fiasco of incompetence and inefficiency in terms of admin. Total chaos of staff just not in control or managing anything well. Our second was private. The exact same people were efficient and it worked perfectly. The only difference lay in the middle management.

The low level staff aren't the problem in the NHS it's the incompetant managers who are failing to manage those staff. Is seriously consider privatising that single layer of the NHS so that these people can be fired and hired in a proper commercial manner. Only then will you get the sort of team managers that are needed to help the normal staff do their job best.

I do not think its the individual I thinks its the structure. There is an economic agreement that an organisation serves those who pay for it. So Tesco was very successful because its customers where happy and spent money there. Now its customers are not so happy and are spending money at Aldi.

Agreed, post-recession there has been a switch from Waitrose down, with Aldi and Lidl benefiting, but is this not purely price driven rather than shoppers analysing Tesco against some ethical blueprint and then opting out after considered philosophising?

When times are hard, if it's cheaper over there, shop over there. So Aldi and Lidl get more Volvos and Audis in their car parks.

Waitrose and M&S have actually gained customers as the recession led to a different split from the norm in that some people actually increased their spend moving to top end supermarkets as they ate out less. It's been a byproduct of the huge growth to 2007 of income spent on eating out.

[Hol]

Comfort food retailers such as Dominoes, did well though.

People always want cheering up at home.

[DonkeyApple]

Hol said:

Comfort food retailers such as Dominoes, did well though.

People always want cheering up at home.

Or, people who can't be arsed to work also can't be arsed to cook and get enough benefits to have arse scrapings and animal fat on wheat husk, chemically bleached bread delivered by the chap they blame for not being to find a job?

[turbobloke]

DonkeyApple said:

turbobloke said:

Mrr T said:

DonkeyApple said:

I think the question to ask is how does a private company get low paid staff to be efficient and the NHS can't?

They are the same low paid people, arguably NHS low paid staff are smarter so why are they less efficient?

I would argue that it is for the exact same reason that you find at any business when you have crap service and low paid staff and that is bad middle management.

Our first child was born via NHS. It was a fiasco of incompetence and inefficiency in terms of admin. Total chaos of staff just not in control or managing anything well. Our second was private. The exact same people were efficient and it worked perfectly. The only difference lay in the middle management.

The low level staff aren't the problem in the NHS it's the incompetant managers who are failing to manage those staff. Is seriously consider privatising that single layer of the NHS so that these people can be fired and hired in a proper commercial manner. Only then will you get the sort of team managers that are needed to help the normal staff do their job best.

I do not think its the individual I thinks its the structure. There is an economic agreement that an organisation serves those who pay for it. So Tesco was very successful because its customers where happy and spent money there. Now its customers are not so happy and are spending money at Aldi.

Agreed, post-recession there has been a switch from Waitrose down, with Aldi and Lidl benefiting, but is this not purely price driven rather than shoppers analysing Tesco against some ethical blueprint and then opting out after considered philosophising?

When times are hard, if it's cheaper over there, shop over there. So Aldi and Lidl get more Volvos and Audis in their car parks.

Waitrose and M&S have actually gained customers as the recession led to a different split from the norm in that some people actually increased their spend moving to top end supermarkets as they ate out less. It's been a byproduct of the huge growth to 2007 of income spent on eating out.

Is that very recently? Post-fanhitbythebrownstuff, Waitrose lost out. This was on file ref my comment.

Aldi and Lidl woo middle-class shoppers as Waitrose loses out according to new figures that highlight how discount chains have won over middle class shoppers

article said:

Iceland and Lidl saw the next biggest increases in sales, while Waitrose lost market share.

Sales at Lidl increased by 11.6 per cent and by 13.4 per cent at Iceland

Aldi claims that half its customers are now middle class – the ABC1 social category – while Lidl says its car parks are now full of Mercedes, BMWs and Audis, as professionals flock to enjoy bargain basement prices

Last week Marks & Spencer said sales of food fell 1.1 per cent

[walm]

turbobloke said:

Is that very recently? Post-fanhitbythebrownstuff, Waitrose lost out.

Since 2009 things have moved on believe it or not!

Aldi and Lidl are still growing like crazy (doubled their market share from 4.3% to 8%!) but Waitrose market share has grown too from 3.9% to 4.8% while the big 4 dropped from 75% to 71%.

[turbobloke]

walm said:

turbobloke said:

Is that very recently? Post-fanhitbythebrownstuff, Waitrose lost out.

Since 2009 things have moved on believe it or not!

Yes indeedy but the recent past is about growth with consumer confidence returning, my initial comment was worded and aimed at the post-crunch recessionary period (2009 qualifies) when the mood was different and spending was on an even tighter rein.

walm said:

Aldi and Lidl are still growing like crazy (doubled their market share from 4.3% to 8%!) but Waitrose market share has grown too from 3.9% to 4.8% while the big 4 dropped from 75% to 71%.

Agreed. Waitrose has increased its share of late.

[hornetrider]

I apologise in advance if this has already been posted. Just flicking through youtube after watching Chukka Umanna and Eamonn Holmes.

Anyhoo, this is Andrew Neil rather expertly destroying political heavyweight Jo Swinson over airports and the mansion tax in particular. Well worth a full watch, it's fking priceless!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZynLTV9W5z0