What on earth do you think you are doing, Darling?

We don't stand a chance

...when the big news is "Jade - The Musical"

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/8014126.stm

geeks + politics = FAIL

Thought I was on The Register, but seem to have somehow ended up on speak you're branes.

@Pheet

1) Actually, it's the people who produce value who produce value for the company, their position on the ladder has nothing to do with it. HR, Accounts, PR etc don't produce value in of themselves and yet these are 'growth industries'. If salesman X can bring in several multi-million pound contracts, increasing profits by £10 million, then a salary of £1 million a year seems quite reasonable. More reasonable than paying salesman Y £500k for an increase of £4 million.

2) Our employment laws make it rather hard to reward the good whilst punishing the bad. Anyone who's ever employed more than one person for the same basic role will tell you that some people are worth at least £5.85/hour and some aren't worth the trouble of unbuttoning your flies if their teeth are on fire.

Tux because it's friday.

@Go to the Winston Smith blog to see where some of your money goes.

Some good stuff on here, thanks for posting. Something of a microcosm for certain aspects of our society today.

The rest of us need to stop bitching and cheer the fuck up. While there are some money issues that need ironing out (ok, lots), the way some of you were going on you'd think we were on a three day week.

I have seen NO convincing evidence of there being radically fewer IT jobs going. While the anecdotal evidence I've heard always seems to be prefaced by some semi-rascist rant and from people who I suspect weren't very good at their job.

More wrong

"It's people at the bottom of the company that produce the most value. The higher up you get, the higher the salary with less value being produced - e.g. middle management (who often decrease value), till you get to the boardroom which get paid millions but contribute very little "

No, no, no, and finally, no.

Leaving aside the complete lack of proof and reasoned argument in your comment, it's not true. People above the front line workers contribute direction, organisation and prioritise the use of resources in order to meet the objectives of the company/government/whatever. That's another form of value.

Or to put it another way, front line staff keep the company going from one day to the next. The people above them keep it going week to week, and the people above them month to month.

Any one layer cannot exist without the others, but to state that anyone higher than a front line worker has no value (but mysteriously gets a mega wage for what they do) is bollocks. According to your theory, 100000 slaves doing random shit in the desert would have given us the pyramids*.

*and of course, we all know they gave us Linux.

love IT

I enjoyed this article and IT means a lot to me.

one argument though that I am not entirely convinced by:

*** a general and sustained increase in the standard of living ***

I do not think that this is the case. I understand that numbers might be used to prove it but:

1. In the seventies middle class families could afford to buy their children birthday and christmas presents which costed them the equivalent of between four and six weeks of salary. They bought things such as Scalextric, Hornby Trains, Lego and Meccano etc. these things really did cost many parents a monthly salary. Still the popularity of these toys would appear to show that many families did indeed find that kind of money to spend. Now you ask yourself - when was the last time that you could spend a monthly salary on a present for you child?

2. In the late eighties and early nineties a PC cost several months salary and a good monitor also. Now you would be hard pushed to be able to justify - or find money for - a pc which would cost you the equivalent of three months salary. I would think that your spouse might have a thing or two to say about how you prioritize your expences if you tried to spend that kind of money.

3. In the early seventies many middle class families did not hesitate to change their (new) car every three years. It does certainly not appear to me to be nearly as common anymore in todays world.

This and other things leads me to wonder if the talk about living standard is an exercise in illusion and wishful thinking. So perhaps we have more things - but are they of as good quality? Is our living space nicer? Is the food of better quality than it used to (oops... perhaps this one is a silly comment as we are talking about the UK). Yes these are ofcourse oversimplifications but personally I am not convinced that the living standard has become better overall. Yes in many things it may be better today - but there are really many things that are worse - and I do not believe that this is only due to my possibly rose tinted glasses. Or maybe I was just a very happy and lucky child when I grew up so my expectations on todays society are just unrealistic...

... oh and by the way - both of my parents were industrial factory workers.

re: Forget the workers

psst!

1. I like my job!

2. IT is fun and rewarding!

3. And the salary is possible to live on...

Parties

As a young person working at design level in telecoms, I'm very worried about the future in the UK currently.

What worries me more though is the way the media has suddenly became pro-tory. I remember growing up, and although not fully able to understand the conservatives, I'm pretty sure their views on politics is down right atrocious, favouring big business, and not so lenient on the poor of our country. However, labour appear to be letting the poor down also.

I'm *not* a lib dem, and actually just prefer the 'good' guys to get into power - but to me Vince from the Lib Dems is talking like the "common man" currently. I'm not sure what to make of it all, but I can certainly see the tories getting in at the next election, and just taking us backwards (values wise.)

Ok, I'm mainly concerned about my job at the moment - but the way the media has evolved as I've grown up very much scares me. Then again, no matter what any sane person says, the public are always thick enough to go with the typical laughable democracy approach of "had enough of those left wingers, get those right wingers back in!" or vice versa.

Unbelievable, what a country we've became :-(

@it's good for me

Most people who worked out that any budget at all is good for them are shit at maths. Not having a job doesn't make you better off, nor does paying more for everything you need. Amazingly still, neither does having more taken out of your pay check if you are lucky enough to still have a job.

Usually I like taxing rich people as much as the next person, but there comes a point where everyone with any real money will simply leave this country and invest elsewhere, taking the jobs they create with them. When this happens the little crisis we're currently enjoying will look like a storm in a teacup.

@Martin, 'This really isn't the place for this discussion.'

You people still exist? How many stories does it take for the fuckwits to understand that satire, humour and political comment are as much a part of this site is about as anything technical or scientific. You want an IT angle? The story is on a website and you're reading it with a fucking computer, there's your IT angle.

@ASI and tax

Damn, two of you on the same comments page. See above, unless being this stupid is a talent you want to show off again. There never has been a time when political stories were not part of this website and hopefully never will. They're as much part of the Reg as Rise of the Robots and Google's penguin death march.

@Sarah

You did after all say you wanted a Flamey Friday.

UKIP?

If the Weimar Republic taught us anything it's not to vote for a nationalist party when things get tough economically (especially when the nation is actually "Engerland" not the whole of the UK).

@Joe Harrison

" Too many people in this fread are on about "rewarding those who work" as if working is (in and of itself) a Good Thing. It isn't - if we could 100%computerise and robotise the entire planet's means of production then we could all lounge about and please ourselves all day with no downside. "

Then we would have to go through that nasty Cylon/Terminator business.

Oh, wow I got a great idea for a sequel-squared - "Cylon v. Terminator." Caprica six (or an 8) takes on John Conner's personal fembot.

The UK is ok for the unemployed :)

I recently lost my job, well it was given to a nice Indian gent, cant balme him, my company needed to save money, and the best way to do that was to charge UK companies £2500 per day, invest the money offshore and pay a salary offshore (So all the money leaves).

Now Herr broon wont get a penny of tax on that, and I quite like that.

Heres the crunch!

My mortgage is £267'300 ish, and as I have been 'off' for 13 weeks the guwwermint pays it

My wife works 20 hours a week on the min wage £5.75 and pays £15 a week in taxes.... BUT

Your gonna love this.....

BOTH our kids are in afterschool (I could look after them, but hey, Guwwermint pays for it)

And we get £300 a week to 'pay for stuff'

And £135 a month family allowance

In total its £1200 a month

No Mortgage

Free childcare 8am -6pm

Wife works 3 days a week

And we now have money, I was always skint on my takehome of £2300 per month

Mortgage £1220, Council Tax £180, Childcare £300 Thats £1700 which left me with £600 a month

We are off to Ibiza this summer.

So for all those in IT wondering of your job is safe, and (You need a big mortgage, having equity means your in a sticky puddle)

You should hope that you get outsourced soon, then you can at least enjoy life a bit whilst the guvvermint gets itself sorted.

I think the jobs will have to come back soon, as we dont sell anything apart from Debt and Advice in the uk, and we really do need scientists and engineers.

Nice article, and yes you pay tax and NI on £5.75 a week if you work 20 hours, I have the wifes wage slips to prove it.

Hope its sunny next week.......

Politics

@Sarah : lets make it flamey monday too :-)

This artice was an interesting and thought provoking read, as were the comments.

I have to take issue with one assertion the article makes. The assertion that capitalism provides a sustained increase in standard of living. For whom, and an on what basis ? Industrial jobs are now in the far east, while we now have armies of bankers, estate agents, surveyors (of what ?), and solicitors as the UK 'industry'. All this relies on the ability to move produce about worldwide, for example imports from the far east, and for big business entities to leech some of the profits at each stage. And when the oil has gone ? This at the very least shows that the current economic model is not viable in the longer term. The only solution is to bring the industrial jobs back home. At least that way we can manufacture the equipment to support agriculture which in turn will feed and clothe us.

The rest ? I don't know, but it seems tax and minimum wage won't matter a damn !

Hold it sunshine!

"This is the end result of that useful thing which capitalism alone amongst economic systems manages: a general and sustained increase in the standard of living." Whose lives are we talking about...?

You and your mates at the ASI?

The British People? (Chavs running riot, civil liberties gone, life savings vapourised, negative equity, job insecurity, lost union rights etc)

The Chinese factory workers/slaves making our consumer goods?

The coffee, cacao, banana, mange tout, etc growers in many countries?

Iranians, Iraqis, Afghans, Vietnamese, Southeast Asians, Nicaraguans?

The kids eating 20p school dinners and trying to grow healthy bones and brains on that shite?

People failed by the "NHS" as a result of the forced backdoor privatisation?

From a global perspective I believe that the "general and sustained increase in the standard of living" of which you speak is neither general nor sustainable. While I'm not against a capitalist or trade-based system, I *am* against the system the world is currently suffering.

I mean no disrespect mate, its just that sentence that really got my back up. Otherwise, it was a good interesting read :-)

UKIP?

What next, a Reg column by Nick Griffin?