ARmy Rumour SErvice

Originally Posted by sunnoficarus

And the amount of food people buy is a far more accurate guestimate of the real numbers of people than the laughable 62 million people the government claim.

City Eye: Facts on a plate: our population is at least 77 million - Business Comment - Business - The Independent

Given the amount of food people buy but chuck away, I reckon it's a spectacularly bad measure of how many people there are.

It may very well be the case that "as Sir Richard Branson says, you can have all the money in the world but you can only eat one lunch and one dinner", but it's most definitely the case that people are eating more food during each as well as snacking more between meals. Both of these will drive up the total amount of food purchased without in any way being linked to an increase in population, even before you take into account the increase in price per item.

A good measure of how far our population is comprised of greedy, wasteful cretins, perhaps.

Originally Posted by CQMS

To put this into context Bugsy where do you think a companies "Main Effort" should be directed?

Now that's an extremely interesting question, CQMS, and I’d like to do my best to provide my version of an answer.

The whole relationship employer/employee has basically remained unchanged since the end of the 19^th Century. While that sort of patriarchal attitude may have had nominal validity then, it’s certainly not applicable now when most folks can read and write and are IT savvy enough to gather news from various sources. While unions and other organisations are seeking a parity of democracy in the workplace, pay, terms and conditions and pensions are being radically eroded by the companies with the active connivance of the gobment(s). All the improvements in the workplace that previous generations fought (and sometimes died) for are being rolled back to provide companies with even more advantages. The notion that workers, and their pay, are an active element in profit planning should be a thing of the past and the social responsibility of the employees a given, but the opposite is happening at the moment.

I think we have to finally leave that sort of thing behind us in the working world. It may be easy for a company simply to sack a few workers just to improve growth and/or profits. But the effect on those sacked is disastrous. Enough experiments have clearly proved that workers who're employed in well-run companies in which they're respected and valued in a stable environment are much more productive and willing to go the extra mile if necessary and, in addition, staff turnover is minimal. There has to be a far greater level of co-determination and the participation of workers in profits.

There will always be companies going bankrupt, that’s a given. However, it’s interesting to know that 87 percent of such failures are down to bad management and not to adverse market conditions. Since management has such an appalling track-record, it's only fair to allow workers a major say in the running of the company, for they also have a vested interest in its success.

The problem is that managers won’t give up their hallowed status and precious privileges without a fight. That’s why I say that legislation should be introduced that obliges them to give their workers a living wage, more participation and enhanced co-determination. Once the idea takes hold and companies discover that success and profits actually increase, then it’ll take off and folks will wonder why it wasn’t introduced decades ago. But that’s probably all wishful thinking on my part, in spite of the overwhelming evidence that such methods work admirably and produce not only a happy and much more effective workforce, but happy managers too. If such methods can be successfully applied in individual companies, there’s no reason to suppose that they wouldn’t be just as successful on a nationwide basis.

MsG

Originally Posted by Mothman

While there may be a grain of truth in this story, does it take into account the amount of food wasted? Does it take into account the eating habits of the likes of John 'Two Dinners' Prescott and the millions like him?

The census has always been innaccurate. I know of two Polish builders who live in a camper van and simply move around from one car park to another. I've seen with my own eyes Chinese workers living upstairs from a takeaway in Beckenham 8 to a room in 4 tier bunks, and they were 'hot bunking', when they went to work in the morning, the night shift got their heads down in the same beds! None of them ever saw, let alone filled in a census return.

But they will probably have active NI numbers and be buying food.

Now, while the argument is being made that the headlong expansion of the food retail market can be explained away by people eating more, a simple look around any town will tell you there are Far more people around than there used to be. Supermarket and fast foid chains employ the very finest minds to track markets and demographics to allow them to build new outlets and stores were there is a growing demand, i'll take the opinions of the man at Tescos who has to get it right in a ferociously cut throat industry over they Census people every day of the week.

Do you honestky believe the population if the UK has only increased by few million in the last 15 years?

Originally Posted by BugzDaMick

Now that's an extremely interesting question, CQMS, and I’d like to do my best to provide my version of an answer.

The whole relationship employer/employee has basically remained unchanged since the end of the 19^th Century. While that sort of patriarchal attitude may have had nominal validity then, it’s certainly not applicable now when most folks can read and write and are IT savvy enough to gather news from various sources. While unions and other organisations are seeking a parity of democracy in the workplace, pay, terms and conditions and pensions are being radically eroded by the companies with the active connivance of the gobment(s). All the improvements in the workplace that previous generations fought (and sometimes died) for are being rolled back to provide companies with even more advantages. The notion that workers, and their pay, are an active element in profit planning should be a thing of the past and the social responsibility of the employees a given, but the opposite is happening at the moment.

I think we have to finally leave that sort of thing behind us in the working world. It may be easy for a company simply to sack a few workers just to improve growth and/or profits. But the effect on those sacked is disastrous. Enough experiments have clearly proved that workers who're employed in well-run companies in which they're respected and valued in a stable environment are much more productive and willing to go the extra mile if necessary and, in addition, staff turnover is minimal. There has to be a far greater level of co-determination and the participation of workers in profits.

There will always be companies going bankrupt, that’s a given. However, it’s interesting to know that 87 percent of such failures are down to bad management and not to adverse market conditions. Since management has such an appalling track-record, it's only fair to allow workers a major say in the running of the company, for they also have a vested interest in its success.

The problem is that managers won’t give up their hallowed status and precious privileges without a fight. That’s why I say that legislation should be introduced that obliges them to give their workers a living wage, more participation and enhanced co-determination. Once the idea takes hold and companies discover that success and profits actually increase, then it’ll take off and folks will wonder why it wasn’t introduced decades ago. But that’s probably all wishful thinking on my part, in spite of the overwhelming evidence that such methods work admirably and produce not only a happy and much more effective workforce, but happy managers too. If such methods can be successfully applied in individual companies, there’s no reason to suppose that they wouldn’t be just as successful on a nationwide basis.

MsG

Serious Question

Do you run your own business?

Originally Posted by sunnoficarus

But they will probably have active NI numbers and be buying food.

Now, while the argument is being made that the headlong expansion of the food retail market can be explained away by people eating more, a simple look around any town will tell you there are Far more people around than there used to be. Supermarket and fast foid chains employ the very finest minds to track markets and demographics to allow them to build new outlets and stores were there is a growing demand, i'll take the opinions of the man at Tescos who has to get it right in a ferociously cut throat industry over they Census people every day of the week.

Did you dictate that to your dog? Or was it *shudder* all your own work?

MsG

Originally Posted by BugzDaMick

It’s been requested that I start a proper discussion on the subject in the Int Cell. The origins of the theme can be found here:
http://www.arrse.co.uk/naafi-bar/183...avy-train.html

I’m sure lots of folks have lots to say on the subject, but the question for me is: who actually deprives society of more tax and other funds? The unemployed/benefit recipients or the richer sections of society?

Every so often, we read about scams operated by immigrants, so-called "benefit scroungers" and others from the "lower classes", but meanwhile, the rich are laughing up their sleeves at how much they can "save" in taxes - and that includes Call-Me-Dave. The gobment has surprisingly accurate figures about how much is scammed by those "lower classes" but hardly anything on how much goes diffy in the Treasury due to the dodges of their rich friends. Independent investigations by, among others, that excellent newspaper "Socialist Worker" have ascertained that the rich stiff the Treasury to the tune of a, very conservatively estimated” 120 billion quid a year. Which sort of puts the meagre amounts scammed by normal folks into perspective. MsG

A good point - a few months back, the pressure group 38 Degrees highlighted the fact that George Osborne himself may not pay tax in the UK. Not sure if that was ever resolved.

Originally Posted by BugzDaMick

Did you dictate that to your dog? Or was it *shudder* all your own work?

MsG

I do indeed work and have even run my own business. Do you or have you done either in between posting economically illiterate marxist drivel?

Originally Posted by syledis

Serious Question

Do you run your own business?

Serious answer. Yes, I do. But I don't understand the relevance of your response to what I posted. Or is there another reason for your query?

MsG