Now is the winter of our discontent ....

[perrykneeham]

Trades unions are essential and it is every worker's right to withdraw their labour.*

www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-63867226

There was some old union bloke on the radio this morning, being made mincemeat of, but I agree that removing guards from trains is a safety concern. Not that they really care about that: it's jobs for the boys, that's all.

*Well, with a few exceptions, agreed in advance.

[mids]

Robots. That's the answer. I saw 4 of those delivery robots trundling about the streets the other day. That'll put all those boys on bikes with a wicker basket on the front out of business.

[perrykneeham]

Maybe we can train a few up for pillow-work.

[Repat Van]

Dec 6, 2022 8:51:31 GMT perrykneeham said:

Trades unions are essential and it is every worker's right to withdraw their labour.*

www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-63867226

There was some old union bloke on the radio this morning, being made mincemeat of, but I agree that removing guards from trains is a safety concern. Not that they really care about that: it's jobs for the boys, that's all.

*Well, with a few exceptions, agreed in advance.

This will inconvenience me quite a bit but I still fully support them.

[ootlg]

With the current bunch of wilful incompetents in power unions are needed more than ever.

[flatandy]

Britain’s a bit of a mess and it’s hard to see how it gets out of this. There’s not a massive money pit to be borrowed from at low interest rates, and the infrastructure’s been allowed to rot for decades. People have been profiteering but at some point investment needs to go in, the private sector refuses to do that because it’s so driven by short-termism; the public sector can’t do that because it’s privatised the infrastructure and can’t borrow.

[moggyonspeed]

How come Andy manages to encapsulate in three lines what the commentariat has struggled with for the last so many years?

The short-termism in UK management thinking is, for me, the biggest failing of the lot.

[perrykneeham]

Dec 6, 2022 12:06:08 GMT flatandy said:

Britain’s a bit of a mess and it’s hard to see how it gets out of this. There’s not a massive money pit to be borrowed from at low interest rates, and the infrastructure’s been allowed to rot for decades. People have been profiteering but at some point investment needs to go in, the private sector refuses to do that because it’s so driven by short-termism; the public sector can’t do that because it’s privatised the infrastructure and can’t borrow.

Sadly, this is largely true and I suspect that a lot is to do with low productivity and poor capitalism as expressed through management accountancy in support of false dividends.

[mids]

Hugely restrictive planning laws. Fuckall gets built.

[ootlg]

Nimbyland.

[flatandy]

Nimbyism is only part of it. There's a strategic decision to not allow substantial house building, because that would mean an increase in supply and would therefore mean that property values would fall. And the people most likely to vote are old and the people most likely to own property and think of it as part of their personal wealth (and to borrow against it for fun living) are old. So politicians dare not do anything that would jeopardise house prices and therefore not allow much residential property building.

[mids]

Greenbys are a huge part of it. There's a ton of brown field sites that could be built on but it's not just housing. It's everything. Roads, bridges, rail, massive nuclear power stations, wind turbines, fracking. There are too many vested interest lip pursers.

[ootlg]

That's the view of someone who has an axe to grind with older people. Property prices in the UK aren't exceptional, and there'll probably be a downward adjustment over the next few months/years.

To FA..

[perrykneeham]

Dec 6, 2022 14:53:05 GMT mids said:

Greenbys are a huge part of it. There's a ton of brown field sites that could be built on but it's not just housing. It's everything. Roads, bridges, rail, massive nuclear power stations, wind turbines, fracking. There are too many vested interest lip pursers.

Also, I think there's a distinct lack of appetite for extra housing of a social nature. People suspect that this will just be swallowed up by ever increasing numbers of fecund immigrants, especially brown ones of questionable loyalty.

[moggyonspeed]

Strangely perhaps, but I suspect that many of us are in real peril of agreeing with each other on this latter issue.

As one who believes in the free market and rules-based capitalism, my problem with the short-termist views of so many in UK management is that a significant number of them view dividend pay-outs as their no. 1 priority. How can you declare a dividend whilst your very infrastructure is allowed to crumble around you? For example, many were sold on the idea that privatising rail, water, energy etc. would release vast amounts of cheap capital to modernise much of the decrepit infrastructure inherited from nationalised rail, telecoms etc., and yet, in many cases, this just hasn't happened. How can Thames Water pay dividends when so many of their sewers are in imminent danger of collapse, or when still so much Victorian lead makes up their pipework, or when they still dump untreated sewage into the water supply and the oceans?

We were sold a pup on this and, I fear, it is only a matter of time before these numpties approach John Q. Taxpayer with the begging-bowl arm outstretched (again).

[perrykneeham]

The begging bowl's been out for years. The privatised railways are a shining example.

[flatandy]

Dec 6, 2022 14:53:05 GMT mids said:

Greenbys are a huge part of it. There's a ton of brown field sites that could be built on but it's not just housing. It's everything. Roads, bridges, rail, massive nuclear power stations, wind turbines, fracking. There are too many vested interest lip pursers.

Very true. I had a friend who was working on environmental stuff at the GLA. She was concerned about air quality for actual humans. Apparently other people in the department were stopping all kinds of brownfield development because the puddles in old dead sites contained newts or moths or whatever that weren't even rare, but were "endangered in London". These were the last remaining habitats in a massive f**k**g city, even if there were stacks of breeding sites out in the Chilterns and North Downs or wherever. Basically, those kind of Greenbys were making it almost impossible to do sensible things on actual environmental things that mattered like improving transport and having people live closer to where they work and so on.

[flatandy]

Dec 6, 2022 14:56:49 GMT ootlg said:

That's the view of someone who has an axe to grind with older people. Property prices in the UK aren't exceptional, and there'll probably be a downward adjustment over the next few months/years.

To FA..

Politicians do all they can to prevent house prices falling. There might be a small price fall coming up, but it won't be because of the needed increase in supply of housing. And any fall is going to be absolutely trivial compared to the paper fortunes many people have made by just holding on to their houses for the last 30 or 40 years.

Also, as has been noted before, I am more vulnerable than most to falling property prices, but I still think it should happen. It won't, but it should.

[flatandy]

Dec 6, 2022 15:19:13 GMT perrykneeham said:

The begging bowl's been out for years. The privatised railways are a shining example.

Yes. And John Q Taxpayer has been paying out repeatedly. It's a version of the 2008 banking collapse, and these companies saw what happened in 2008. A business that is deemed essential - even one that's as inessential as banking - gets rescued no matter what appalling decisions they've made and no matter how much profiting and profiteering they've done. Everyone knows this now. So there's no requirement for sensible long-term management at all.

[perrykneeham]

There's a horrible relationship between politicians/public servants and companies that are public sector-y.

It's as old as the hills, but it's very unhealthy. A sort of institutionalised venality.

The water boards are supposed to keep the aging pipework in good nick. They don't bother or, if they do, it'll be once it's broken. And then they'll be looking for extras, omissions,. Unforeseen circumstances, defects, diliterious materials etc to get out of it, do the bare minimum or get paid twice for doing it.