Korean forced labour

[nod]

I had to chuckle whilst watching a documentary on North Korean labour 

The gang master at a shipyard in Poland said The problem with Polish workers is they won’t work exstra shift and don’t want weekend work 

He obviously not been to the U.K. 

[Ed_MK]

but then again , the wage over there is possibly... 
$2 an hour, a bowl of rice a day and a FREE "Kim" haircut once a month 

[SteamyTea]

There was a story in the 1960 about the UK trade delegation having a tour of a Russian factory.

The Russians were very proud to show how efficient and hard working their staff were.

 

Russian "They start 6AM, work until 12 Noon, 15 minutes break for sandwiches, Russian sandwiches, from the machine.  Then start work again on the tractor line until 6PM.  The second shift takes over, works until 12 Midnight, 15 minutes break for soup, Russian soup, from the machine, then work until 6AM.  They do this 7 days week."

 

Brummie trade delegate "You would not get our lads working like that, they are all communists."

Edited April 19, 2018 by SteamyTea

[nod]

2 hours ago, Ed_MK said:

but then again , the wage over there is possibly... 
$2 an hour, a bowl of rice a day and a FREE "Kim" haircut once a month 

Yes the state was taking all of there earnings 

A billion $ per year

 

Its a bit of a myth how hard the Euro workers will work 

My brother worked as a Brickie in Germany back in the early 80s and was earning five or six times what he could earn here 

So would go anywhere and work silly hours 

[daiking]

Living the European dream...

[joe90]

It’s all relative, working 7 days a week with long shifts and getting paid very little is still better than starving with no work back in North Korea. Not right,  I would agree but what would you do to support your family?

[daiking]

2 minutes ago, joe90 said:

It’s all relative, working 7 days a week with long shifts and getting paid very little is still better than starving with no work back in North Korea. Not right,  I would agree but what would you do to support your family?

 

So now the local Poles must work 7 days a week with long shifts and paid very little to “compete”?

[Ed_MK]

1 hour ago, nod said:

Yes the state was taking all of there earnings 

A billion $ per year

 

Its a bit of a myth how hard the Euro workers will work 

My brother worked as a Brickie in Germany back in the early 80s and was earning five or six times what he could earn here 

So would go anywhere and work silly hours 

 

no migrating for work for them peeps

 

[joe90]

1 minute ago, daiking said:

 

So now the local Poles must work 7 days a week with long shifts and paid very little to “compete”?

 

I did say it was not right but asked what would you do?. I don’t blame the North Korean workers. A pittance wage to support a lavish lifestyle for the leader and nuclear weapons is oh so wrong but how to deal with it is a problem for the wider world.

[SteamyTea]

In Economics, there is something called 'competitive advantage'.

Basically it is just saying that you should do what you do best, and let others do what they do best.

The UK, for some reason, thinks that we can 'do best' in everything.  This is total nonsense, but led to the referendum and us voting to leave the EU.

Now the general public are starting to understand what CA is about.  The USA likes to skew CA with taxes, I suspect that we will follow this, and that has disastrous consequences.

 

There is also a difference between living and working in a  fully developed economy and not working in one, but having access to their market.

This was very apparent in Brazil in the 1990's.  The developed economies wanted timber, Brazil wanted to sell it.  Brazil had access to millions of hectares of hardwood forests, cheap labour and a transport infrastructure.  Inward investment happened from large US and Canadian logging companies with the consequences being both environmental and social devastation in Brazil.

No one can blame an individual for wanting a bit of hardwood furniture, or wanting to work in the best paid jobs at their skill levels, so it has been down to the non-governmental organisations to highlight the issues and how national governments need to work together to change working practices.

Thankfully this is happening and there are schemes in place to change logging and farming to tourism (it is easier to point to a fish than catch one).

Tourism can only help in some areas though, so other industries will have to be developed, or created, in 'hard to treat' areas.

The UK had a stab at this in the post war years with building of new towns with light industrial units built in.  This has led us to believe that this 'small is beautiful' model is the way forward.

In my opinion, and this is just an opinion, we have gone too far down this road and lost our competitive advantage compared to some existing fully developed economies (Germany, USA, France even) and we need to encourage large, multinational organisation to either move to the UK or develop out own.

Not sure the best way to do this, it is usually done with tax breaks, so why not abolish corporation tax (gets rid of the non-payment of CT as well).  We would have to tax individual more, which never goes down well, but if more people are working, earning a higher wage, on average, they are all better off (we have cut income taxes too much for low earners that now 40%(ish) of workers are out of the tax system).

 

To conclude and sum up, let the best workers do what they do best, encourage them to work here, then tax them more.

Edited April 19, 2018 by SteamyTea

[daiking]

4 hours ago, joe90 said:

 

I did say it was not right but asked what would you do?. I don’t blame the North Korean workers. A pittance wage to support a lavish lifestyle for the leader and nuclear weapons is oh so wrong but how to deal with it is a problem for the wider world.

 

I don’t think that’s the choice at all, putting your own values to them of doing any job to support their families. They’re slaves for the N. Koreans and Poles. The choice is be weak and do what what’re told or be strong and resist (and die).

 

I would also accept that 99.99% of us are SS prison guards in waiting.

 

 

4 hours ago, SteamyTea said:

In Economics, there is something called 'competitive advantage'.

Basically it is just saying that you should do what you do best, and let others do what they do best.

The UK, for some reason, thinks that we can 'do best' in everything.  This is total nonsense, but led to the referendum and us voting to leave the EU.

Now the general public are starting to understand what CA is about.  The USA likes to skew CA with taxes, I suspect that we will follow this, and that has disastrous consequences.

 

There is also a difference between living and working in a  fully developed economy and not working in one, but having access to their market.

This was very apparent in Brazil in the 1990's.  The developed economies wanted timber, Brazil wanted to sell it.  Brazil had access to millions of hectares of hardwood forests, cheap labour and a transport infrastructure.  Inward investment happened from large US and Canadian logging companies with the consequences being both environmental and social devastation in Brazil.

No one can blame an individual for wanting a bit of hardwood furniture, or wanting to work in the best paid jobs at their skill levels, so it has been down to the non-governmental organisations to highlight the issues and how national governments need to work together to change working practices.

Thankfully this is happening and there are schemes in place to change logging and farming to tourism (it is easier to point to a fish than catch one).

Tourism can only help in some areas though, so other industries will have to be developed, or created, in 'hard to treat' areas.

The UK had a stab at this in the post war years with building of new towns with light industrial units built in.  This has led us to believe that this 'small is beautiful' model is the way forward.

In my opinion, and this is just an opinion, we have gone too far down this road and lost our competitive advantage compared to some existing fully developed economies (Germany, USA, France even) and we need to encourage large, multinational organisation to either move to the UK or develop out own.

Not sure the best way to do this, it is usually done with tax breaks, so why not abolish corporation tax (gets rid of the non-payment of CT as well).  We would have to tax individual more, which never goes down well, but if more people are working, earning a higher wage, on average, they are all better off (we have cut income taxes too much for low earners that now 40%(ish) of workers are out of the tax system).

 

To conclude and sum up, let the best workers do what they do best, encourage them to work here, then tax them more.

 

Witchcraft masquerading as science, from you of all people 

[SteamyTea]

More a case of the Dismal Science (Economics is not a science).