The economic end of Britain?

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and a similar news was discussed as below: :ranger:


Example of A Philanthropic Donations

CHENNAI: Even as the anti-Sri Lanka mood in Tamil Nadu is getting more belligerent, the Centre has increased its annual grant to the island nation in the Union Budget. The allocation has gone up to Rs 500 crore for 2013-2014 from Rs 290 crore last year. It was Rs 181.94 crore in 2011-2012. The Budget has allocated Rs 5,550 crore as aid for foreign governments and organizations.

India increases aid to Sri Lanka - The Times of India

its interesting that Indian Annual Aid for different countries is around Rs 5,600 crore, or around US$1.0 billion every year, as part of Indian Annual Budget, (with excluding many other aid programs.) while US just gave $150,000 (Rs 80lacs) aid for the Uttarakhand flood victims

less than Rs1.0crore, while Indian government also had Aid program for Uttarakhand in this same news, the first package


=> US Announced 150000 US Dollar Financial Aid for Uttarakhand

US Ambassador to India Nancy J Powell on 23 June 2013 announced that US would provide 150000 US dollar through the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) to NGOs that are working for affected areas of Uttarakhand.

The US embassy declared that the support would help in providing emergency relief to families of people living in the state. It is important to note that Government of India on 19 June 2013 announced a disaster relief fund of 1000 crore rupees to Uttarakhand.

Dollar Billionaires in Poor Countries: India's "Philantrocapitalism"
September 10, 2012

In this time of global financial crisis, when so many are suffering financial hardship, most countries have witnessed increases in their number of dollar millionaires. These 'High Net-Worth Individuals' (HNWI), according to a report by Capgemini and Merrill Lynch Wealth Management, have in recent years more than doubled in India. In 2008-09, India had 84,000 HNWIs. By 2010, it had risen by 50 per cent (126,700), the biggest increase of all countries.

In the worldwide list of dollar billionaires for 2010, India ranked third with 69, behind China (128) and the US (403). Forbes states, however, that the wealthiest 100 Indians are collectively worth $276 billion, while their top 100 Chinese counterparts are worth $170 billion. The three richest Indians together had more wealth the top 24 Chinese billionaires combined.

You don't have to look very far for evidence of their wealth, with more than 30 luxury skyscrapers springing up in Mumbai. For the rich occupants, the taller, the better, to escape from the reality of India below — the railway tracks, low-rise tenements, choking traffic and the 55 per cent of the city's population who live in slums. People are paying nearly two million dollars for a designer apartment, built in complexes with private cinemas, swimming pools, floodlit tennis courts and high-level security. Developers believe each year Mumbai can absorb between 30,000 and 40,000 more homes in the one million dollar-plus category. (Another housing bubble in the making?) :ranger:

Such extreme wealth doesn't go unnoticed. In the UK, people are questioning the decision to keep giving India some $460 million of aid annually, which makes India the largest single recipient of British aid. Many ordinary Brits are asking if it can be right that the downtrodden British taxpayer gives such sums to a nation that boasts such wealth (albeit highly concentrated).

Siphoning off the country's wealth

Some of the most damning comments about India come from French author Dominique Lapierre, whose book royalties from 'City of Joy' fund projects for the underprivileged in India. He is frustrated by the greed and corruption that he encounters.

Lapierre's non profit organisation, City of Joy Aid, runs a network of clinics, schools, rehabilitation centres and hospital boats. It operates 14 projects in India, most in the Sunderbans area. However, 90 per cent of free medicines get stolen in the journey from Delhi to Kolkata, and the project is thus forced to buy them at high prices from the market.

A few years ago, Lapierre set up in Delhi a trust which offers a tax-deductible certificate for all donations. With more than a hint of disappointment, he notes the foundation still does not have any funds from affluent Indians who seem reluctant to help their fellow country-folk.

Quite the opposite, it seems. Much of India's wealth has been creamed off into Swiss banks, robbing ordinary folk of a quality of life they can now only but dream of. According to some estimates, it could be over Rs 7,280,000 crore (around $1.6 trillion). Data from the Swiss Banking Association in 2006 indicated that India had more black money than the rest of the world combined, or 13 times India's total national debt. :coffee: Global Finance Integrity notes this siphoning of wealth has served to widen the gap between rich and poor and asserts the main guilty parties have been private organisations and High Net Worth Individuals.

By contrast, Global management and consulting firm Bain notes philanthropic donations amount to just 0.6 per cent of India's GDP. This is not too good when compared to giving in the US and UK, for example, but is better than rates in other developing countries like Brazil and China. In the US, individuals and corporations are responsible for 75 per cent of charitable gifts, whereas in India individual and corporate donations make up only 10 per cent of charitable giving. Some 65 per cent comes from India's central and state government, and the remaining gifts are provided by foreign organisations.

In India, giving does not rise with income and education. As a percentage of household income, donations by the wealthy actually decrease. From an analysis of 30 HNWIs in India, Bain noted that they contribute, on average, just around one-fourth of one per cent of their net worth to social and charitable causes.

All of this is not meant to imply that philanthropy is absent in India. Far from it. Vineet Nayyar's Rs 30 crore gift (just under $7 million) to the Essel Social Welfare Foundation is a high-profile example of philanthropic giving. Over the years, Rohini Nilekani has donated $40 million to numerous causes that try to tackle the root causes of social problems and not merely the symptoms. Her biggest contribution has been to Arghyam, a Bangalore foundation that promotes clean water and hygiene, which now has projects in 800 villages. Philanthropy can and does positively impact people's daily lives.

Philanthrocapitalism: a plaster on a gaping wound

What is really required, though, is a proper redistributive system of taxation, effective welfare provision and genuine economic democracy through forms of common ownership to help address inequality and poverty. In the absence of such things, wealthy philanthrocapitalists will have a major say in deciding which problems are addressed and how, and some will be highly selective.

For instance, critics of Bill Gates say his foundation often ends up favouring his commercial investments. Instead of paying taxes to the state coffers, he donates his profits where it is favourable to him economically, such as supporting GM crops in Africa or high tech patented medicines. 'Giving' often acts as a smokescreen for channeling funds into pet projects and 'business as usual', with rich corporations receiving money to shape the world in their own image and ultimately for their own benefit. Apparent benevolence can have sinister motives, just like certain governments which provide money in the form of 'development aid' that is intentionally used to fund actions that serve geo-political self interest and ultimately undermine the recipient state.

Philanthropy isn't necessarily opposed to capitalism; it's very much part of it. Capitalism is designed to ensure that the flow of wealth goes upwards and remains there via, among other things, the privatisation of public assets, deregulation of the financial sector, the use of subsidies and tax policies that favour the rich, the legal obligation to maximise shareholder profits and the consistent downward pressures on labour costs.

Professor Ha Joon Chang of Cambridge University says that economics isn't a social science anymore, but adopts the role the Catholic Church played in medieval Europe. Essentially, economic neo liberalism is secular theology used to justify the prevailing system, with the hope that some drops of wealth will trickle down an extremely thin funnel to placate the mass of the population. Widening the funnel slightly by making benevolent donations will not address the underlying issues of a failed system.

For example, consider that one in four people in India is hungry and every second child is underweight and stunted. Environmentalist Vandana Shiva argues that hunger is a structural part of the design of the industrialised, globalised food system and of the design of capital-intensive, chemical-intensive monocultures of industrial agriculture. The long-term solution for hunger lies in moving away from and challenging the centralised, globalised food supply controlled by a handful of profiteering corporations.

This type of built-in structural inequality, whether it concerns hunger, poverty, housing, income or health, is part and parcel of a development process that is skewed by elite interests in India and at the World Bank and by the corporations that pull the strings at the World Trade Organisation, who have all succeeded in getting their 'globalisation' agenda accepted. No amount of philanthropy, regardless of how well meaning it may be, will remedy the overall destructive effects of the type of capitalism (and massive corruption) being embraced by India's economic and political leaders.

Originally from the northwest of England, Colin Todhunter has spent many years in India. He has written extensively for the Bangalore-based Deccan Herald, New Indian Express and Morning Star (Britain). His articles have also appeared in many other newspapers, journals and books. His East by Northwest site is at: East by Northwest :tup:

Dollar Billionaires in Poor Countries: India?s ?Philantrocapitalism? | Global Research

 

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Soaring UK personal debt wreaking havoc with mental health
20 November 2013

Centre for Social Justice says poorer people 'bearing brunt of storm' as debt hits £1.4tn – almost as high as economic output

Credit card debt has trebled to £55.6bn since 1998 while overall personal debt including mortgages has reached £1.4tn. :ranger:

Personal debt in Britain has reached £1.4tn – almost the same amount as Britain's national economic output – according to a report that warns debt is wreaking havoc on people's mental health and wellbeing. :ranger:

Poorer people are "bearing the brunt of a storm" during which average household debt has risen to £54,000 – nearly double what it was a decade ago, the report by the Centre for Social Justice thinktank warns.

The report, entitled Maxed Out, found that almost half of households in the lowest income decile spent more than a quarter of their income on debt repayments in 2011. More than 5,000 people are being made homeless every year as a result of mortgage or rent debts.

Christian Guy, director of the thinktank established in opposition by the work and pensions secretary, Iain Duncan Smith, said: "Problem debt can have a corrosive impact on people and families. Our report shows how it can wreak havoc on mental health, relationships and wellbeing. Across the UK people are up until the early hours worrying about their finances and bills."

The report, written by the former Labour work and pensions minister Chris Pond, found that:

"¢ Personal debt in the UK, including mortgage lending, stands at £1.4tn – an average of £54,000 per household compared with £29,000 a decade ago. :coffee:

"¢ Consumer debt had trebled since 1993 and now stands at £158bn;

"¢ More than 8m households have no savings, including half of low-income households;

"¢ Outstanding debt on credit cards has almost trebled since 1998 to reach £55.6bn; :coffee:

"¢ There were 300,000 arrears on mortgage in 2012 – with 34,000 homes repossessed. This is a reduction of 30% from the peak of the recession but a 60% overall increase since 2006.

Pond said: "With falling real incomes and increasing costs of basic essentials, many – especially the most vulnerable – are sliding further into problem debt. The costs to those affected, in stress and mental disorders, relationship breakdown and hardship is immense. But so too is the cost to the nation, measured in lost employment and productivity and in an increased burden on public services."

The report found that the decision of mainstream banks to refuse credit to the less well off has led to a dramatic increase in the demand for short-term credit – from payday lenders, pawnbrokers and doorstop lenders – which is now worth £4.8bn a year. More than 1.4 million people have no access to a bank account and "are effectively excluded from the entire financial sector". This contributes to the "poverty premium", a £1,280 annual surcharge on everyday goods and services faced by low-income households.

Payday lenders have increased their business from £900m in 2008-09 to more than £2bn – accounting for around 8m loans – in 2011-12. The number of people resorting to loan sharks has increased to 310,000 people.

The report says: "For the most financially excluded, there is often no option but to turn to illegal moneylenders. It is estimated that over 310,000 people borrow money from these criminals each year. Illegal moneylenders extort money from their victims, often arbitrarily raising interest rates, demanding payments or charging penalties. Their use of violence and intimidation terrorises people and communities, enforcing a 'veil of silence' that allows them to escape detection. This is an inexcusable crime in modern Britain.

Many of the side effects of problem debt can also work to drive people further into debt, creating a vicious cycle. While it is often hard to prove causation, there is a clear relationship between the following and problem debt: unemployment, family breakdown, addiction, and poor mental health. Similarly, many of these factors are interrelated, meaning problem debt can have diverse causes, requiring multidimensional support in order to fully resolve the underlying problems."

Soaring UK personal debt wreaking havoc with mental health, report warns | Money | The Guardian

 

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in fact we find most of the major EU's economy struggling since recession as below. first their national debt has gone more than twice since then and at the same time the current state of the 5 major EU's economies by 2013 is as below:

Eurozone suffers its longest downturn ever as France sinks back into recession - as it happened | Business | theguardian.com

=> and if we compare these 5 largest EU's economies with an emerging economy like India, for example, then it had at least 6.5%+ average growth rate per year since 2008 itself, as below :ranger:

India GDP Annual Growth Rate | Actual Data | Forecasts | Calendar

 

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Britain will recover back

 

[Known_Unknown]

Do some maths and you will know.

Say growth rate of economy is 4% and debt grows at 3%(it can be due to interest payments or addition of more debt).

(Debt/GDP) at t+1 = (1.03Debt/1.04GDP) at time t < Debt/GDP at time t(because 1.03/1.04 is less than 1)

There are many ways to keep a stable ratio. 1) Cut spending, 2) increase tax etc. etc. It is not something unimaginable. So, just relax.

Since your numbers are arbitrary (4% growth for the UK does not seem possible) I decided to take a look at some other data. My purpose was to find out how fast a country's debt actually grows in comparison to the growth in the total value of its goods and services (GDP growth rate). So I found the following graphs:

Problem is, the numbers vary wildly even for the same metric (total/gross debt). Regardless, what is clear from the graphs above is that over time, the Debt to GDP ratio in all these countries is climbing. What this means is that in your example, while you conveniently posited the GDP growth rate to be higher than the rate of accumulation of debt, the reality is that for at least the past 40 or 50 years, the reverse has been true in most of the industrialized world.

This seems to confirm what I earlier claimed, that the rate of accumulation of debt seems unsustainable.

 

[sunny_10]

Since your numbers are arbitrary (4% growth for the UK does not seem possible) I decided to take a look at some other data. My purpose was to find out how fast a country's debt actually grows in comparison to the growth in the total value of its goods and services (GDP growth rate). So I found the following graphs:

look, we first need to see the growth potential of an economy. here, a developed country can't grow for more than 2% on long, just impossible, and for the way they have made hefty cuts in spending since 2008, which has delayed many projects/ less money available in market now, we don't find these EU's econmies to be growing by more than 1% on long run this way, as discussed this issue in the post#28 of this same thread as below
http://defenceforumindia.com/forum/europe-russia/58584-economic-end-britain-2.html#post861532

Current Policy Path Dooms the Euro-Zone

http://defenceforumindia.com/forum/europe-russia/58584-economic-end-britain-2.html#post861532

further we have the same issue discussed in the article as below, which clearly means that over 90% national debt to GDP would simply drag you down. in case of a developing country, it would grow by at least 5%+ on long run so even if you have high debt, it would obviously come down by time. while for the same for a developed is toooooooo hard :ranger:

Rogoff and Reinhart defend their numbers

Harvard economists admit to a coding error but stand by their central finding: when government debt is above 90%, growth is sent into reverse

Kenneth Rogoff and Carmen Reinhart, the economists accused of getting their sums wrong in an influential study of the impact of high government debt, have hit back at their critics and defended their central claim.

The Harvard economists claimed that accusations of sloppy statistical analysis were misplaced and their central finding still stood that when government debt is above 90% growth is sent into reverse. Their argument has been quoted by politicians in defence of austerity measures.

The pair admit that researchers from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, were right to point out a coding error that omitted several countries from an Excel spreadsheet of historical data used to make the calculations.

"It is sobering that such an error slipped into one of our papers despite our best efforts to be consistently careful," Rogoff and Reinhart said.

But after burning the midnight oil to check their calculations, Rogoff and Reinhart said they still found countries with debts that amount to more than 90% of GDP experienced much slower growth – the same conclusion reached in their original study.

Economist Dean Baker, at odds with academic economists who argue that high debt ratios harm growth, has labelled the R&R analysis bankrupt.

Baker and other Keynesians leapt on the Massachusetts study because the R&R hypothesis has been used repeatedly by right-wing politicians to justify their austerity policies.

Massachusetts professors Thomas Herndon, Michael Ash and Robert Pollin said in their critical report that when they repeated the R&R analysis over a longer timescale, which they argued made it more robust, they got a growth figure of 2.2%. Strikingly, they used data going back before the second world war, which they argued gave a longer perspective.

Pollin said R&R also distorted the results with weightings on countries that made little sense. He pointed to the inclusion of New Zealand's 1951 figures. In that year New Zealand's debts breached the 90% of GDP barrier and growth was minus 7.6%, weighing heavily on the overall result.:coffee: Other years that distorted the data were included, he said.

"People make errors but when you combine the errors with the weighting that's where you get this result," said Pollin.

The scope of the study and the weighting applied to some countries in the study is key to the dispute.

R&R "objected in the strongest terms" to the criticism that they missed several years of data and supported their previous decision to apply controversial weightings.

"The 'gaps' are explained by the fact there were still gaps in our public debt data set at the time of this paper," they said. "Our approach has been followed in many other settings where one does not want to overly weight a small number of countries that may have their own peculiarities."

They also deflect criticism by arguing that they produced averages based on mean and median calculations. Rightwingers emphasised the mean figure, which showed growth of minus 0.1% in countries with more than 90% debt to GDP ratios, whereas they always preferred the median.

Is that the end of the matter? No. Paul Krugman, the Nobel prize winning Princeton economist, is incensed at the median/mean debate, saying R&R never disputed politicians who used the mean figure, especially Republican Paul Ryan, who cited it as the main reason to impose steep public spending cuts.

Like Dean, Krugman has never bought the line that high debts cause low growth. Instead he sees a negative causation: that low growth causes high debts. In his latest blog, he makes this point again.

And R&R, who were criticised for not releasing the coding and data sets for their study when it was first released, have similarly failed to provide a transparent view of their workings this time around. And until they do critics will continue to argue that their findings are based on selective data and unjustified weightings and poor analysis.

Rogoff and Reinhart defend their numbers | Business | guardian.co.uk

=> its a simple case that for a developed economy, we generally find growth rate trend as below :ranger:

How the United States' High Debt Will Weaken the Economy and Hurt Americans

 

[sunny_10]

This seems to confirm what I earlier claimed, that the rate of accumulation of debt seems unsustainable.

first a developed country can't grow for more than 2% on long run, and hefty cuts in spending has reduced their growth prospects to below 1% for at least next 10 years, as discussed in the post#28. it simply means that they have very less opportunity to reduce debt level in future, while spending on the infrastructure etc in now on its lowest level in major mature OECD economies since 1990 itself.....

from here, we have a picture as below again, which put Greece in a better state than many others of EU :ranger:

the chart below state data's till 2011 while we find National debt of UK above 91%+ by 2013, means it would handsomely top this list by 2013 :ranger:
(considering Ireland part of UK itself.)

Total Debt in Selected Countries Around the World | Global Finance

=> this is how UK's national debt would stand by 2013, :ranger:

 

[Sakal Gharelu Ustad]

Since your numbers are arbitrary (4% growth for the UK does not seem possible) I decided to take a look at some other data. My purpose was to find out how fast a country's debt actually grows in comparison to the growth in the total value of its goods and services (GDP growth rate). So I found the following graphs:

Problem is, the numbers vary wildly even for the same metric (total/gross debt). Regardless, what is clear from the graphs above is that over time, the Debt to GDP ratio in all these countries is climbing. What this means is that in your example, while you conveniently posited the GDP growth rate to be higher than the rate of accumulation of debt, the reality is that for at least the past 40 or 50 years, the reverse has been true in most of the industrialized world.

This seems to confirm what I earlier claimed, that the rate of accumulation of debt seems unsustainable.

Do you even understand a mathematical argument? Question was- is it sustainable or not? You can pick any subset of data, then extrapolate and then justify any set of arguments. It is definitely possible with sound fiscal management. Look here:

 

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Prostitution and Poverty in the UK
AUGUST 20, 2013

Gregory Pichorowycz is a philosophy undergraduate at the University of Sheffield and Editor-at-Large of Canvas

In Britain, the recession has left many people struggling to make ends meet, but reports have shown that young people – young single mothers in particular, are feeling the worst of austerity, and many are turning to prostitution in pursuit of financial security.

Things are likely to get worse. In 2013-2014, a lone parent would receive on average £46.80 a year less in benefits due to governmental changes, while a couple with children would miss out on £52 a year. In 2014-2015, the projected figures are £260 less for single parents and £156 less for couples with children. In short, single parents – often the most financially vulnerable – are facing the harshest cuts in benefits.

This has led to an increase in prostitution, which has affected the industry's economy; many sex workers are reducing their charges (sometimes as much as 50 per cent) in order to beat competition from other sex workers. This contributes to a viscous circle; more single parents – usually women, enter prostitution out of financial desperation. Due to the increase in sex workers, they need to engage in the industry more to acquire the money they need. This in turn leads to a further increase in active sex workers and a further devaluation of prostitution ad infinitum.

One thing is clear – tough policing and stricter legislation is not the solution. Ukraine's capital – Kyiv has struggled with high prostitution levels since it gained independence in 1991, after the collapse of the Soviet Union. In 2005, it introduced more rigorous legislation to try to combat the problem, to little effect. The country co-hosted the Euro 2012 football tournament with Poland and prepared itself for the explosion in sex tourism. Kyiv alone has an estimated 50,000 sex workers, twice that of the whole of Holland, despite prostitution being illegal in Ukraine and legal in Holland. And some suspect that this figure is even higher, with many young Ukrainian sex workers not wanting to come forward due to fear of shaming and imprisonment.

The only way to tackle the exploitation of young women is to tackle its root cause – poverty. To do otherwise would be like treating a disease with tissues instead of medicine. This can be achieved without reversing the entire austerity program (which no UK government is realistically likely to do).

Firstly, the government could take up Ed Miliband's living wage proposals. The introduction of this policy – providing tax incentives to companies who pay a living wage instead of a minimum wage to their employees ([£7.45 per hour outside London and £8.55 in London, compared to the £6.19 minimum wage) would save the taxpayer £2.2bn, according to the thinktank Resolution Foundation. It would also help to minimise in-work poverty, which would help single parents make ends meet without turning to prostitution.

Another step would be to reintroduce the Education Maintenance Allowance (EMA), as many of the hardest hit are young people – this includes students. The Women's National Commission (a UK women's issues pressure group) claim the shocking statistic that "50-75% of women in prostitution entered before they were 18" and that many of these had been absent from education throughout this time. Reconsidering the £9,000 tuition fee would also help to reduce the number of students turning to the sex industry out of fear of mountainous debts.

Of course, this article does not intend to argue for or against sex work as a career choice. There is a persuasive case made by libertarians and some sex-positive feminists that willing engagement in prostitution is a matter of personal liberty for those involved and not the concern of third parties. Without divulging into a philosophical discussion about such liberties, it is worth mentioning the statistic that in a study on feminism and psychology, 92 per cent of sex workers said that they wanted to leave prostitution "immediately". In a different study, 74 per cent of women cited "poverty", paying "household expenses" and supporting children as a "primary motivator" for involvement in the industry. It should be clear by now that the vast majority of European sex workers are exploited out of economic desperation and are not pursuing a career that they necessarily consider legitimate, empowering or advisable – whatever one's position on such political theory.

"She was too ignorant as yet to know that the chances of her finding work unaided were practically nil; but the next four days gradually enlightened her", read the pages of A Clergyman's Daughter – George Orwell's understated and second novel. The book is an exploration of poverty in the 1930s, in which the protagonist, Dorothy, is swept away by the cruel realities of homeless men and women, some of whom become sex workers for mild reprieve.

She is bailed out by a rich relative while being "on the very verge of becoming one" – a prostitute. Unfortunately – even in the 21st century, not everybody is that lucky.

This entry was posted in Social Justice and tagged austerity, EMA, Living Wage, poverty, Prostitution. Bookmark the permalink.

Prostitution and Poverty in the UK | Left Foot-9 Forward

Working for nothing – the truth about low pay in the UK

New research indicates that more than 20% of British employees are earning less than a living wage

Workers on the bottom rung of the earnings ladder received a leg up on Saturday, as the national minimum wage increased from £5.98 to £6.08. But new research shows that as many as 5 million people higher up the scale are barely earning enough to make ends meet.

Thinktank the Resolution Foundation has looked at workers up and down the country earning less than a "living wage". It found that more than one in five employees falls into this group, echoing recent work by the TUC, which uncovered what it called a "livelihood crisis" among the growing swathe of the workforce stuck in low-paid jobs.

In London, there is an official "living wage" endorsed by the mayor, Boris Johnson, and currently set at £8.30 an hour. It's intended to be the least amount required to pay for what most people consider to be basic necessities and a "minimum acceptable quality of life".

Loughborough University's Centre for Research in Social Policy, considered the authority on the issue, calculates that outside the capital, you need £7.20 an hour.

Using official earnings figures, Resolution finds that in some parts of the country, almost a quarter of the workforce are taking home less than this. They range across a wide range of sectors, from sales, where 60% of workers earn less than the living wage, to personal services such as hairdressers and childminders (33%).

"It brings to life just how pervasive low pay is in modern Britain," says Resolution's chief executive, Gavin Kelly. "Many people on higher incomes would assume it only exists on the fringes, not the mainstream."

Instead of being a short-term result of the recession of 2008-09 and the lacklustre recovery, Kelly sees the increasing problem of low pay as being the result of a long period when the fruits of economic expansion failed to feed through to those at the bottom of the pile. "It shows you what it looks like after a long period of growth, and it makes you raise questions about the nature of that growth and who it benefited," he says.

Resolution's report says: "Historically, periods of economic growth have led to growing wages for ordinary workers, ensuring rising living standards for all households. But this connection between growth and gain for workers has started to fray in recent years."

Nicola Smith, head of economics and social affairs development at the TUC, says structural changes, such as the decline of the manufacturing sector, have hollowed out the skilled-jobs sector that once made up a large proportion of the workforce, resulting in a polarisation between high-paying "knowledge economy" jobs, monopolised by graduates, and a "long tail" of lower-skilled workers struggling to get by. :ranger:

"Over the past decade, there's been a loss of about 1.5m jobs in manufacturing," she says. Meanwhile, a long period of rapid expansion in highly paid industries such as banking, and the increasing prevalence of share awards and bonus payments, helped earnings at the top of the scale to race away from the rest.

Resolution's research shows that low-paid workers are disproportionately female, part-time, and concentrated in the private sector.

Smith says that could mean the number of low-paid jobs will increase as government cuts bite: "The public sector has until now played a large role in creating middle-income jobs for people with skills."

Recent research by the TUC showed that the erosion of living standards for lower-paid workers is a very long-term phenomenon: while incomes for the top 10% of earners doubled in real terms between 1978 and 2008, they increased by just 27% for the bottom tenth.

Whether they are called the "squeezed middle", "hard-working families" or the "deserving poor", there is little agreement about what to do to improve their lot – and politicians are divided about how to win their support.

Liberal Democrats are proud of persuading the Tories to adopt their policy of raising the personal income tax allowance, which helps to take the lowest-paid out of tax altogether.

However, the increase in the allowance also benefits many earners higher up the income scale, causing some analysts, such as the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR), to warn that it is badly targeted.

There are also fears that a series of changes to the tax and benefits system introduced by George Osborne and Iain Duncan Smith, including the reduction in the childcare element of the working tax credit, could act against the increase in the allowance, and make life harder.

Ed Miliband's speech to the Labour party conference suggested that he takes a top-down approach to the issue, advocating putting workers' representatives on companies' remuneration committees to argue the case for fairer pay and helping to rein in excessive rewards at the top.

Smith says the government must also think about ways to encourage key sectors, such as the sciences and creative industries, which employ relatively large numbers of more skilled workers. "It's the challenge of creating better quality jobs," she says.

A more direct approach is bottom-up agitation. In the capital, the Living Wage campaign, run by London Citizens, a coalition of religious leaders, community activists and trades unionists, was launched a decade ago to highlight the plight of many workers doing jobs essential to the smooth running of London.

An army of cleaners, drivers, shop-workers and so on, many of them migrant workers, were unable to earn enough to afford to eat decent food, keep a roof over their heads, or spend any time with their families.

"You're talking about people getting up at 4am to get two night buses to work, and sending money back to their families in Ghana," says Andy Hull of the IPPR, who is involved in London Citizens.

London Citizens has used the full battery of campaigning tactics, including noisily invading the offices of Goldman Sachs, and tabling questions at HSBC's annual meetings, to persuade employers to pay their staff more generously, and offer longer-term contracts.

Hull says: "You need the top-down and the bottom-up; you need to apply pressure." London Citizens has a meeting with Tesco on Wednesday, in its latest attempt to persuade the mega-retailer to extend the relatively generous wages that it pays its shopfloor staff to thousands of sub-contracted cleaners, security guards and delivery drivers. "At least a dialogue is happening," Hull says.

He adds: "The argument that no one should do a day's work for less than a wage they can live on is a hard one to disagree with."

Working for nothing – the truth about low pay in the UK

http://www.theguardian.com/society/2011/oct/02/low-pay-uk-living-wage

 

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Euro-area unemployment rate holds at 12.1 percent
Jan 8, 2014

Euro-area unemployment held at a record in November as policy makers struggled to bolster the recovery from the currency bloc's longest recession. :ranger:

The jobless rate remained at 12.1 percent, the European Union's statistics office in Luxembourg said on Wednesday. That's in line with the median estimate in a Bloomberg News survey of 26 economists. After several revisions of previous months' data, unemployment has been stable at that level since April, Eurostat said.

Europe's fragile labor market remains a major concern for EU leaders as they try to foster the recovery. Last month, they acknowledged that the jobless rate remains "unacceptably high," especially among young people, 18 months after they unveiled a 120 billion-euro ($163 billion) package to jump-start the economy and create jobs.

"The euro-area economy isn't growing fast enough to significantly reduce unemployment," said Evelyn Herrmann, an economist at BNP Paribas SA in London. "This isn't going to change anytime soon, with annual growth rates of about 1 percent this year and in 2015."

The European Central Bank estimates that the euro-area economy will expand 1.1 percent this year after contracting 0.4 percent in 2013. Unemployment will average 12.1 percent this year and 11.8 percent in 2015, economists forecast in a separate Bloomberg survey.

Meager growth has forced European companies to shed jobs in a bid to cut costs and remain competitive. European Aeronautic, Defence and Space Co. said last month that it would cut 5,800 jobs in Germany, France, Spain and the U.K.

Unemployment varied widely across the euro area in November, from a low of 4.8 percent in Austria to a high of 26.7 percent in Spain. Greece, which last reported in September, had a jobless rate of 27.4 percent. Among people under the age of 25, unemployment in the then 17-nation euro zone stood at 24.2 percent. :ranger:

While unemployment remains resistant to policy makers' attempts to boost the economy, positive signs are gradually accumulating, such as improving economic confidence. The European Commission will publish the results of its December survey on Thursday, with the gauge forecast to rise to 99.1, the highest reading since July 2011, according to economists surveyed by Bloomberg.

November retail sales increased 1.4 percent from the previous month, beating analysts' estimates, and 1.6 percent in the year, Eurostat said today in a separate report.

And the ECB, after cutting its main refinancing rate to a record-low 0.25 percent in November, sees ''no immediate need to act'' further on "encouraging signs" that the euro area's crisis is easing, President Mario Draghi said on Dec. 28 in an interview published in Der Spiegel. The Frankfurt-based central bank will leave its key rate unchanged tomorrow, according to all 51 economists in another Bloomberg survey.

ekathimerini.com | Euro-area unemployment rate holds at 12.1 percent; Greece reports 27.4 percent in September

 

[sunny_10]

How Immigration Has Impoverished Britain?

75% of Pakistani and Bangladeshi Children "Live in Poverty"

Claims that immigration is economically beneficial for Britain have been destroyed by news that three-quarters of Pakistani and Bangladeshi children in the UK are being brought up in families that are living on poverty-level income. :ranger:

The report, issued by Millennium Cohort Study, which is tracking children born between 2000 and 2002, has found that 73 per cent of the Pakistani and Bangladeshi seven-year olds were in families estimated to be living on less than 60 per cent of the average national household income.

Just over half of the black children (51 percent) in the Millennium cohort were in such low-income families, compared with one in four white (26 percent) and Indian (25percent) children, said an official press release.

"Predictably, low income was strongly linked to joblessness among parents, say researchers at the Institute of Education, University of London, who collected information from almost 14,000 families in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland in 2008/9."

According to the report, among fathers, Pakistanis and Bangladeshis had the highest unemployment rate (15 percent) – well above the UK average of 6 per cent. Unemployment among black fathers was also high (11 percent) but Indians were less likely to be unemployed (4 percent) than whites (5.5 percent).

Almost two-thirds (64 percent) of white and Indian mothers had jobs :thumb:, compared with half (52 percent) of black mothers and only 17 per cent of Pakistani and Bangladeshi mothers.

A much higher proportion of children in lone-parent families (63 percent) were living below the study's poverty line than those with married (16percent) or cohabiting (30 percent) parents.

"The incidence of income poverty for the Millennium cohort families has not changed appreciably over the first seven years of the children's lives," says Professor Heather Joshi, the study's director.

"Despite government efforts to eradicate child poverty almost three in 10 children are still in poor families at age 7. It's particularly disappointing that around one in five seven-year-olds is in severe poverty – on incomes below half the national average."

The findings appear in a report published today by the Institute of Education's Centre for Longitudinal Studies: Millennium Cohort Study, Fourth Survey: A User's Guide to Initial Findings. Copies of the report can be downloaded here.

British National Party

I'm glad to see that Indian families are doing as well as whites in both the usa and now by info of Mr Sunny's quoted article, the UK as well. ( It is particularly interesting that the quote is from the BNP !! )

it simply listing data's on the website of British National Party? its not any news or a view of few, but its the documented data's which are always put for references. it may be bit changing on time to time, but its certainly very true for every certain year, it belongs to?

also, living standard of Indian immigrants among the local Brits is more clear in the news as below :ranger:

Super-rich Indians account for more than 20% of the wealth of ultra-high net worth (UHNW) individuals in Britain, a new list showed on Tuesday. As a national group, they are second only to expat Russians. :ranger:

Indians account for 20% of Britain's ultra-rich club - Hindustan Times

 

[sunny_10]

duplicate post

 

[nrupatunga]

Drugs? Prostitution? They Are Part of GDP Too, U.K. Says

Sex please — we're British.

Britain's Office of National Statistics said prostitution and the import, manufacture and consumption of illegal drugs will be counted when making the government's quarterly calculations of gross domestic product.

The statistics agency said Friday some of these activities are legal in certain European Union countries, and comparable figures are needed. All member states need the same standard because they are used to assess a member state's contribution to the EU budget.

"As economies develop and evolve, so do the statistics we use to measure them," said Joe Grice, the ONS's chief economic adviser. "These improvements are going on across the world and we are working with our partners in Europe and the wider world on the same agenda."

At the moment, the only illegal activities included in GDP are estimates on alcohol and tobacco smuggling.

The ONS said that the new estimates would add approximately 10 billion pounds ($16.7 billion) to the level of GDP in 2009. That said, it remains a very small portion of Britain's overall GDP, which now stands at 1.5 trillion pounds.

Nonetheless, calculations may prove challenging. To measure prostitution, statisticians will have to tabulate up the value of things like brothel rental, condom sales, makeup and the clothing of sex workers.

For illegal drugs, the ONS will examine production and sales of crack cocaine, powder cocaine, heroin, cannabis, ecstasy and amphetamines. Growing drugs will be classed as "production," buying them for home use, "expenditure," while selling them as "income".

So if brits are "pimp"ing up their gdp thus, it truly shows the state of economy.:thumb::cool2: