Pay rise %

[milly]

This is from the Guardian today .....Capitalism at work….whilst workers are squeezed and OAPs and disabled are targeted the elites lap it up so they really are laughing all the way to the bank…. There are many reasons why this Country is in Decline , this was a massive burden , just read the last 3 paragraphs...... yet some people on here are fixated ....


Fred “the Shred” Goodwin, the disgraced ex-boss of Royal Bank of Scotland, is estimated to be receiving an annual pension worth nearly £600,000, as the government prepares to declare a £10bn loss after selling its final stake in the bank as early as this week.

The banking group, now known as NatWest, is expected to return to full private ownership within days, drawing a line under a £45bn state bailout that saved the bank from the brink of collapse at the height of the 2008 financial crisis.

The 17-year effort to off-load the government’s 84% stake in the lender has come at a substantial cost to the public purse, with the government expected to fall short of recouping its financial support.
By the time of the bailout, Goodwin had expanded RBS into 50 countries and grown its assets to £2.2tn – more than double the size of the UK economy that year. Had the government failed to step in, shock waves from the bank’s implosion in 2008 could have led to a systemic collapse in the wider economy.

The government was concerned that its failure could wipe out the savings of everyday customers, and prompt panic about the health of other lenders across the UK, creating a domino effect of failures across the industry.

The bank’s eventual emergency rescue made Goodwin – now 66 years old – a lightning rod for public anger over the cost of bank bailouts, which led to years of government austerity that many blame for hollowing out public services across the country.
NatWest’s current chair, Rick Haythornthwaite, said last month the bank was indebted to the public for keeping the lender afloat.

“We remain incredibly grateful to the government, and to UK taxpayers, for their intervention and support, which protected millions of savers, homeowners and businesses at a time of global crisis,” he said at the bank’s AGM in Edinburgh.

That's not Capitalism, the Bankers should've been jailed.
Western Governments Socialised the losses and privatise the gains.

It highlights a contradiction between free-market ideology and government intervention in financial markets. You are correct as Capitalism advocates for free markets where businesses succeed or fail based on merit, competition, and risk. However, when governments intervene to rescue failing banks—effectively socializing their losses while allowing private profits to persist—it undermines the principle of market discipline. As the last 3 paragraphs tell us , the extreme cost to us , the Taxpayer has led to years of Government Austerity .

100%
Any crisis or perceived crisis is used to funnel taxpayers money to the wealthy.
All they have to do is make the crisis sound as if it's for the greater good and most of the public go along with it.

[borders]

This will be my last post on this thread which has lost its way ! and i make no apology for copying and pasting this post from another person but it teases out another take on this little debate we have had ...


John S Warren says:
May 26 2025 at 12:30 pm
I listened this morning to Nicky Campbell’s phone-in, on the two-child cap. It was full of righteous insistence by contributors that “if you can’t afford a third child, don’t have one”.

Allow me to tease out what this proposition means, because it is a very odd proposition. A two-child cap; but why two? I doubt if its defenders actually know why the cap is two. If the logic of the position is affordability, it applies to one child, and indeed ‘a fortiori’, to none at all. So the logic of an earnings driven cap is actually, if you can’t afford children, don’t have any.

The proposition of a child cap, cannot therefore arbitrarily select “two”; that is logically incoherent. It works best when zero children are allowed. Try that as a political policy, please. I would be interested in determining how many people would wish to put their name to such a policy, and stand behind it.

If the logic of a two child cap is flawed, and supporters have sufficient wit to see the flaw; what does the two child cap actually mean? I suspect its proponents do not know what they mean; but let us suppose there is a coherent reason.

The logic may be that there is overpopulation, and therefore the responsible position to take is to have a maximum of two children (not one or none), because that is prima facie (at first, crude glance) the replacement rate of population. But a two child cap, on population, statistical terms (with populations you can’t avoid the maths), a two child xap doesn’t replace the population. In population statistical terms, the replacement rate in the UK is 2.1 children per woman (that is just a base fact). That means some women (quite a lot, given the number of one and zero children families) have to produce more than two children, just to replace the population. So the two-child cap just doesn’t work.

Of course I left something out; immigration. That allows the ‘native’ or ‘indigenous’ population to run a population reducing low birthrate model, and still be able to function. That will not work either, as an argument. I guarantee that the supporters of a two-child cap possesses a significant number of supporters who are against immigration.

The problem is that the native population of England has a birthrate of 1.44 per woman, and Scotland 1.3; Scotland is just a little further along what is, effectively the indigenous population extinction curve than England, but both are rapidly running out of young people to service an ageing population or a thriving economy, except through immigration. The ironies of the hopeless intellectual confusion in Britain are rife. The proponents of a child-cap policy really have to work out exactly what they think having children is ‘for’. Is it just a way of producing labour for a market, through a self-funding mechanism?

In China, the 1.2Bn+ and fast growing population (in the 1960s/70s), led the Chinese Government to apply a draconian one-child cap policy; the penalties were severe, including removing a second child from their parents. What we have to note about this policy is that in China (then poor) it didn’t work (but it did lead to a skewing toward male children outnumbering female children) in the population. What then stopped population growth in China (which has now asserted itself in the 21st century). The answer is (relative) prosperity. The more Western in living standards China has become correlates with a drastic drop in the birthrate – just as in the West, and notably the UK. China is now faced with the opposite dilemma; a falling poplation, and falling too fast. So what has China done. Abolished the one child cap, and is now providing benefits to induce the Chinese to have more children.

Some serious thought is required about the population issue; but you will not find anything edifying in the ideas around a birth-rate cap.

[mjd24]

431’000.

Small boat arrivals 37’000.

So the “uncontrolled” number is almost insignificant.

Do you understand what im saying? Tories and Labour realise that we need a certain number of immigrants to come in and help with things like our care system and the nhs.

Maybe 431’000 net migration is too high, but the fact its halved vs 2023 doesbt really get mentioned.

Even when ive pointed it out on here, the responses are basically “oh well 431’000 is too much”.

Ok fine, but surely youre happy its dropped by 50%?

And the worrying thing for Starmer is that even if he got net migration to zero (which would be stupid), his critics would not suddenly be satisfied, the next craving would be for deportations.

Im off to watch Clarksons Farm

So that’s 431k on top of the millions already here from the past decade.

The UK’s infrastructure can’t cope with this amount of mass immigration numbers.

We need to get the number down to the low 10’s of thousands as well as deporting the millions that came before in the past decade.

Absolutely thick as mince. Try reading my words. Good grief.

[Walter sobchak]

431’000.

Small boat arrivals 37’000.

So the “uncontrolled” number is almost insignificant.

Do you understand what im saying? Tories and Labour realise that we need a certain number of immigrants to come in and help with things like our care system and the nhs.

Maybe 431’000 net migration is too high, but the fact its halved vs 2023 doesbt really get mentioned.

Even when ive pointed it out on here, the responses are basically “oh well 431’000 is too much”.

Ok fine, but surely youre happy its dropped by 50%?

And the worrying thing for Starmer is that even if he got net migration to zero (which would be stupid), his critics would not suddenly be satisfied, the next craving would be for deportations.

Im off to watch Clarksons Farm

So that’s 431k on top of the millions already here from the past decade.

The UK’s infrastructure can’t cope with this amount of mass immigration numbers.

We need to get the number down to the low 10’s of thousands as well as deporting the millions that came before in the past decade.

Absolutely thick as mince. Try reading my words. Good grief.

You know you won’t the debate when the other person resorts to name calling and personal insults instead of challenging the points and facts being presented.

[Walter sobchak]

431’000.

Small boat arrivals 37’000.

So the “uncontrolled” number is almost insignificant.

Do you understand what im saying? Tories and Labour realise that we need a certain number of immigrants to come in and help with things like our care system and the nhs.

Maybe 431’000 net migration is too high, but the fact its halved vs 2023 doesbt really get mentioned.

Even when ive pointed it out on here, the responses are basically “oh well 431’000 is too much”.

Ok fine, but surely youre happy its dropped by 50%?

And the worrying thing for Starmer is that even if he got net migration to zero (which would be stupid), his critics would not suddenly be satisfied, the next craving would be for deportations.

Im off to watch Clarksons Farm

So that’s 431k on top of the millions already here from the past decade.

The UK’s infrastructure can’t cope with this amount of mass immigration numbers.

We need to get the number down to the low 10’s of thousands as well as deporting the millions that came before in the past decade.

Absolutely thick as mince. Try reading my words. Good grief.

Double post.

[Rommagic]

Friday we know?.

[mjd24]

431’000.

Small boat arrivals 37’000.

So the “uncontrolled” number is almost insignificant.

Do you understand what im saying? Tories and Labour realise that we need a certain number of immigrants to come in and help with things like our care system and the nhs.

Maybe 431’000 net migration is too high, but the fact its halved vs 2023 doesbt really get mentioned.

Even when ive pointed it out on here, the responses are basically “oh well 431’000 is too much”.

Ok fine, but surely youre happy its dropped by 50%?

And the worrying thing for Starmer is that even if he got net migration to zero (which would be stupid), his critics would not suddenly be satisfied, the next craving would be for deportations.

Im off to watch Clarksons Farm

So that’s 431k on top of the millions already here from the past decade.

The UK’s infrastructure can’t cope with this amount of mass immigration numbers.

We need to get the number down to the low 10’s of thousands as well as deporting the millions that came before in the past decade.

Absolutely thick as mince. Try reading my words. Good grief.

You know you won’t the debate when the other person resorts to name calling and personal insults instead of challenging the points and facts being presented.

My God fella have you not read the words of my previous messages? I might as well be talking to a cabbage. You are the one not engaging with my thoughtful and factful posts.

[milly]

431’000.

Small boat arrivals 37’000.

So the “uncontrolled” number is almost insignificant.

Do you understand what im saying? Tories and Labour realise that we need a certain number of immigrants to come in and help with things like our care system and the nhs.

Maybe 431’000 net migration is too high, but the fact its halved vs 2023 doesbt really get mentioned.

Even when ive pointed it out on here, the responses are basically “oh well 431’000 is too much”.

Ok fine, but surely youre happy its dropped by 50%?

And the worrying thing for Starmer is that even if he got net migration to zero (which would be stupid), his critics would not suddenly be satisfied, the next craving would be for deportations.

Im off to watch Clarksons Farm

So that’s 431k on top of the millions already here from the past decade.

The UK’s infrastructure can’t cope with this amount of mass immigration numbers.

We need to get the number down to the low 10’s of thousands as well as deporting the millions that came before in the past decade.

Absolutely thick as mince. Try reading my words. Good grief.

You know you won’t the debate when the other person resorts to name calling and personal insults instead of challenging the points and facts being presented.

My God fella have you not read the words of my previous messages? I might as well be talking to a cabbage. You are the one not engaging with my thoughtful and factful posts.

Even if Keir Stalin's claim was correct that they've halved immigration, it's still increasing the population.
It's the same as when a government claims inflation has reduced, prices are still increasing but at a slower rate.

[mjd24]

No sh*t Sherlock.

Again, have you read my words in previous messages that address what you are saying?

Be thoughtful. Have nuance.

[Walter sobchak]

431’000.

Small boat arrivals 37’000.

So the “uncontrolled” number is almost insignificant.

Do you understand what im saying? Tories and Labour realise that we need a certain number of immigrants to come in and help with things like our care system and the nhs.

Maybe 431’000 net migration is too high, but the fact its halved vs 2023 doesbt really get mentioned.

Even when ive pointed it out on here, the responses are basically “oh well 431’000 is too much”.

Ok fine, but surely youre happy its dropped by 50%?

And the worrying thing for Starmer is that even if he got net migration to zero (which would be stupid), his critics would not suddenly be satisfied, the next craving would be for deportations.

Im off to watch Clarksons Farm

So that’s 431k on top of the millions already here from the past decade.

The UK’s infrastructure can’t cope with this amount of mass immigration numbers.

We need to get the number down to the low 10’s of thousands as well as deporting the millions that came before in the past decade.

Absolutely thick as mince. Try reading my words. Good grief.

You know you won’t the debate when the other person resorts to name calling and personal insults instead of challenging the points and facts being presented.

My God fella have you not read the words of my previous messages? I might as well be talking to a cabbage. You are the one not engaging with my thoughtful and factful posts.

Yes mate I’ve read your post in which you want us all to be grateful that the net migration figure of 431k for 2024 is just under half that of the highest ever recorded net migration figure of 906k in 2023.

431k is still way too high for the UK and this number needs to be cut again by 80% in order to get it back down to a manageable level in conjunction with mass deportations of the millions of people of came here before that in the last decade.

[Walter sobchak]

No sh*t Sherlock.

Again, have you read my words in previous messages that address what you are saying?

Be thoughtful. Have nuance.

And you’re ok with this halved number?

[mjd24]

431’000.

Small boat arrivals 37’000.

So the “uncontrolled” number is almost insignificant.

Do you understand what im saying? Tories and Labour realise that we need a certain number of immigrants to come in and help with things like our care system and the nhs.

Maybe 431’000 net migration is too high, but the fact its halved vs 2023 doesbt really get mentioned.

Even when ive pointed it out on here, the responses are basically “oh well 431’000 is too much”.

Ok fine, but surely youre happy its dropped by 50%?

And the worrying thing for Starmer is that even if he got net migration to zero (which would be stupid), his critics would not suddenly be satisfied, the next craving would be for deportations.

Im off to watch Clarksons Farm

So that’s 431k on top of the millions already here from the past decade.

The UK’s infrastructure can’t cope with this amount of mass immigration numbers.

We need to get the number down to the low 10’s of thousands as well as deporting the millions that came before in the past decade.

Absolutely thick as mince. Try reading my words. Good grief.

You know you won’t the debate when the other person resorts to name calling and personal insults instead of challenging the points and facts being presented.

My God fella have you not read the words of my previous messages? I might as well be talking to a cabbage. You are the one not engaging with my thoughtful and factful posts.

Yes mate I’ve read your post in which you want us all to be grateful that the net migration figure of 431k for 2024 is just under half that of the highest ever recorded net migration figure of 906k in 2023.

431k is still way too high for the UK and this number needs to be cut again by 80% in order to get it back down to a manageable level in conjunction with mass deportations of the millions of people of came here before that in the last decade.

The millions that came here in the last decade will be our colleagues our doctors our dentists our builders our carers and so much more.

Out of those millions many will have gone back to their countries having completed their studies for example.

These millions you talk of are not the “small boat” or “illegals” who are constantly denigrated. The conflation between net immigration and those who come on small boats is shocking and deliberately misleading.

So much of the discourse around immigration is disingenuous and designed to stir hatred and point the finger at a certain section of society.

I dont think 431’000 is sustainable, to answer your question. Whether i am right or not, i do not know. Its so complicated. We have an aging population and a lowering birth rate. There is a reason why so many of our carers and nhs staff are immigrants; because we need them.

I realise that i am unlikely to change your mind or Millies but i hope that some on this forum might read my words and have second thoughts about the immigration issue, or look into things a bit more.

Its mad to me that despite a halving of net migration people like you show no happiness or relief, but just shout about how its still too high and even that we should be deporting millions?!
I suppose we are all different and maybe ive just gone down a different path in terms of the media i consume and the people around me.

[qwer1010]

It never fails to amuse me how easily working class people lap up the lies we are told about this subject. The value of your labour is inversely proportional to the supply of labour. To argue that we "need" these people to fill jobs is literally arguing for a paycut for yourself.

It's very simple supply and demand economics, unfortunately we allow our politicians to be lobbied by big corporations to keep the taps of cheap labour wide open and flowing. This takes all your leverage, as a worker, away. There will always be someone to replace you. You are being played, and advocating for it at the same time. If ever the useful idiot term was applicable...

[clashcityrocker]

I find a lot of people are against immigration until you point at the football team they support.
Then they aren't quite so vocal.

[SkiSunday]

It never fails to amuse me how easily working class people lap up the lies we are told about this subject. The value of your labour is inversely proportional to the supply of labour. To argue that we "need" these people to fill jobs is literally arguing for a paycut for yourself.

It's very simple supply and demand economics, unfortunately we allow our politicians to be lobbied by big corporations to keep the taps of cheap labour wide open and flowing. This takes all your leverage, as a worker, away. There will always be someone to replace you. You are being played, and advocating for it at the same time. If ever the useful idiot term was applicable...

Well said.