This Will Put The Cat Amongst The...
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Surely Any Pretense That This Is About Pay Is Now Out Of The Window....
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They, and many other people involved in strikes, behave like morons and then expect to have the sympathy of the country at large.
17:10 Mon 03rd Apr 2023
What teacher has to get up at 04:30 in February to drive 250 miles, take a 5 hour high pressure meeting, and then drive back, getting home around 9pm?
What teacher has to go and work on the side of a working motorway in the rain and cold day after day?
What teacher has to go out to sea in winter and catch fish or rescue people day after day?
And I haven’t even mentioned oil rig workers, farmers, builders, nurses……….
Most Teachers have no idea of the pressures of a real job. They work in warm classrooms, usually fairly close to home, have long holidays (I appreciate there’s course work to do) and are reasonably well paid so forgive me having zero sympathy for their pay claim.
What teacher has to go and work on the side of a working motorway in the rain and cold day after day?
What teacher has to go out to sea in winter and catch fish or rescue people day after day?
And I haven’t even mentioned oil rig workers, farmers, builders, nurses……….
Most Teachers have no idea of the pressures of a real job. They work in warm classrooms, usually fairly close to home, have long holidays (I appreciate there’s course work to do) and are reasonably well paid so forgive me having zero sympathy for their pay claim.
Just on the point that increasing wages increases inflation, it's not actually clear that this is true in some cases. The idea was criticised by Friedman, for example, and also doesn't seem to be supported by any kind of data.
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Step back abit and you'll see it must cause inflation. If all shop staff and lorry drivers got 15% payrise the employers would pass on the cost in higher prices. If train and bus drivers get 15% fares would go up. If Teachers and nurses get 15% then public spending would go up and gov borrowing so interst rates would go up and tax or council tax... maybe Vat or fuel duty to pay for it.
i have not looked into the details of the strike itself but teaching is an immensely difficult job... you have to act as prison warden, counsellor, policeman, diplomat and educator all at once and the much-lauded holidays are consumed with marking
a friend of mine started as a primary school teacher and simply could not hack it... he now works in the city and while his job is bracing he finds it much easier
i also take issue with the idea that the role of teachers is to prepare students for the world of work... they are expected to teach students a great deal more than that e.g. how to think critically, how to take care of one's health, how to be a good citizen, how to treat people who are not like them... teachers are among the most important professions in the country
a friend of mine started as a primary school teacher and simply could not hack it... he now works in the city and while his job is bracing he finds it much easier
i also take issue with the idea that the role of teachers is to prepare students for the world of work... they are expected to teach students a great deal more than that e.g. how to think critically, how to take care of one's health, how to be a good citizen, how to treat people who are not like them... teachers are among the most important professions in the country
// What always happens is that the governmental officials stand up
and say, if we have inflation it’s because of those rapacious businessmen and those selfish union labor leaders. If those people would only stop demanding more and more, higher and higher wages and higher and higher prices, there would be no inflation. And the businessmen and the wage union leaders, surprisingly enough, tend to accept the indictment because of their misunderstanding
of the elementary economic point I’ve been trying to present here.
The businessmen tend to say that the reason we have inflation is because those selfish unions push up wages, and the union leaders say the reason we have inflation is because those selfish businessmen raise prices and, therefore, we’ve got to get higher
wages to have the same real income for our employees. So you have a situation in which the government, to blame somebody else, attributes inflation to a wage-cost spiral, and the businessmen and the labor union leaders accept the blame and say, yes, we are guilty. Yet in fact, as I have emphasized, the inflation arises from one and only one reason: an increase in a quantity of money. //
It's important to point out that increasing wages, in itself, doesn't increase the total quantity of money -- I think the point that many people end up missing. Wage increases merely increase the rate at which money is transferred from one place (employer) to another (employee), and not the total quantity in existence.
and say, if we have inflation it’s because of those rapacious businessmen and those selfish union labor leaders. If those people would only stop demanding more and more, higher and higher wages and higher and higher prices, there would be no inflation. And the businessmen and the wage union leaders, surprisingly enough, tend to accept the indictment because of their misunderstanding
of the elementary economic point I’ve been trying to present here.
The businessmen tend to say that the reason we have inflation is because those selfish unions push up wages, and the union leaders say the reason we have inflation is because those selfish businessmen raise prices and, therefore, we’ve got to get higher
wages to have the same real income for our employees. So you have a situation in which the government, to blame somebody else, attributes inflation to a wage-cost spiral, and the businessmen and the labor union leaders accept the blame and say, yes, we are guilty. Yet in fact, as I have emphasized, the inflation arises from one and only one reason: an increase in a quantity of money. //
It's important to point out that increasing wages, in itself, doesn't increase the total quantity of money -- I think the point that many people end up missing. Wage increases merely increase the rate at which money is transferred from one place (employer) to another (employee), and not the total quantity in existence.
I should perhaps concede that I'm not an economist, so I can't personally judge the soundness of Friedman's argument. What I would say, though, is that wage increases are evidently not the sole, nor even the primary, driver of inflation, as shown by the graphs in the LSE link. It also can't be the case because of common sense. Taking bobbinwales's arguments literally, it might be argued that any wage increase at all would be somehow dangerous as an inflationary pressure. At the very least, any wage increase should be at most limited to ( or even be slightly below?) the rate of inflation at all times, for to push it above that rate would surely, by this argument, always drive the inflation rate ever higher.
It's not a sustainable argument. Even if Friedman has oversimplified his explanation of inflation as merely a reflection of the total quantity of money -- apparently an ongoing debate in economic theory that is way over my head -- it should be uncontroversial that wage increases aren't something to be feared or suppressed, but welcomed, as a reflection of economic growth and aspiration.
Salaries in the public sector have anyway been relatively stagnant for over a decade now, since around the financial crisis and, in this country at least, since the 2010 election and the resulting change in fiscal policy. I don't here intend to blame the Tory Government for this -- in particular, you can point the finger for the present spike in inflation largely at the twin pressures of Covid and the Ukrainian War -- but since both of those are recent, they can by definition not account for the previous ten years of virtually flat, at best, public sector pay. Depending somewhat on the source, real-terms teacher pay has decreased by around (or sometimes more than) 10% as it is in the last 13 years or so, which is even reported in OP's link (see also https:/
It's not a sustainable argument. Even if Friedman has oversimplified his explanation of inflation as merely a reflection of the total quantity of money -- apparently an ongoing debate in economic theory that is way over my head -- it should be uncontroversial that wage increases aren't something to be feared or suppressed, but welcomed, as a reflection of economic growth and aspiration.
Salaries in the public sector have anyway been relatively stagnant for over a decade now, since around the financial crisis and, in this country at least, since the 2010 election and the resulting change in fiscal policy. I don't here intend to blame the Tory Government for this -- in particular, you can point the finger for the present spike in inflation largely at the twin pressures of Covid and the Ukrainian War -- but since both of those are recent, they can by definition not account for the previous ten years of virtually flat, at best, public sector pay. Depending somewhat on the source, real-terms teacher pay has decreased by around (or sometimes more than) 10% as it is in the last 13 years or so, which is even reported in OP's link (see also https:/
People will just have to adjust to the situation. That's what used to happen.
Of course I feel sorry for those in real poverty and need. But so many people just haven't any idea about budgeting and now expect government handouts so they can keep up their lifestyles. They don't care a jot about the economy or others as long as they're OK. They don't know what poverty really is!
Of course I feel sorry for those in real poverty and need. But so many people just haven't any idea about budgeting and now expect government handouts so they can keep up their lifestyles. They don't care a jot about the economy or others as long as they're OK. They don't know what poverty really is!
Maybe if the government had learned how to budget better it would have the money to afford paying for useful things like teachers rather than wasting money on extravagances like HS2, unused PPE, poor judgements on defence budgets, etc etc.
I'm being slightly facetious, but why is it always the little people who are expected to be perfectly responsible about their finances?
I'm being slightly facetious, but why is it always the little people who are expected to be perfectly responsible about their finances?
CTG, interesting article, especially this bit:
"In modern times, the quantity of
money is under the control of govern-
mental agencies. In the United States,
it is determined by the Federal
Reserve Board, the Treasury, the mon-
etary authorities. And that means that
if inflation is always a consequence of
an increase in the quantity of money,
the responsibility for inflation is
always governmental. " - So essentially inflation is caused b y QE, yes I agree but that QE is made necessary by circumstance, in this case in the UK it's to pay for lock down etc, now we are all paying for that. I take the point in that article and logically to reverse it, we need to be doing Quantitative tightening and it seems that we are. That alone though is not enough if there is continual pressure for higher public sector wages. Good article though.
"In modern times, the quantity of
money is under the control of govern-
mental agencies. In the United States,
it is determined by the Federal
Reserve Board, the Treasury, the mon-
etary authorities. And that means that
if inflation is always a consequence of
an increase in the quantity of money,
the responsibility for inflation is
always governmental. " - So essentially inflation is caused b y QE, yes I agree but that QE is made necessary by circumstance, in this case in the UK it's to pay for lock down etc, now we are all paying for that. I take the point in that article and logically to reverse it, we need to be doing Quantitative tightening and it seems that we are. That alone though is not enough if there is continual pressure for higher public sector wages. Good article though.
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