Essex Envy Economics

Is this guy for real?

What is good for companies need not be good for savers, borrowers, taxpayers, employees, or local communities.

Take companies away and see how many savers, taxpayers and employees you are left with. Take away the banked profits and where are borrowers to find a lender with a generous pot to play with? And is he seriously suggesting that local communities will function without a major source of employment?

There is an increasing disparity between the people's need for jobs, economic stability, quality of life and human rights, and corporate obsession with private profits.

No, this is backwards thinking. The obsession for private profits drives the supply of jobs and, therefore, the accompanying uplift in economic stability, quality of life etc. (more on human rights later).

This harsh lesson is once again evident in the aftermath of the takeover of Cadbury by Kraft. Workers had no vote or say in the take-over of Cadbury, and soon afterwards Kraft announced factory closures. This may make profits for shareholders, but does nothing for workers or local communities.

Firstly, why the fuck should employees, who have invested nothing in a business, be given a vote on economics they will almost certainly not understand? And secondly, if closures happen, this is more to do with a poor environment provided by the state than any imagined malfeasance by the business itself.

Christ! This is economics 101, isn't it? If infrastructure and conditions are advantageous to any company, they will not only remain there, but also avail themselves of the resources therein. Including creating jobs and spreading goodwill.

If Kraft close their operation, it's because they can get the job done more efficiently and economically elsewhere. They're not doing it out of spite. The one thing that businesses never do is reduce their profits to make a point, simply because they are accountable to their shareholders ... the very demons Prem Sikka appears to despise.

Diageo, Unilever and a number of other companies are threatening to move their headquarters to offshore locations unless the government shifts taxes away from corporations and their rich executives to ordinary people.

Bollocks, quite frankly.

The state has a balance to maintain with regard to taxes. Place the burden too high on employees and yield decreases at the expense of the welfare state (some tax receipts are better than none at all). Shift it unevenly onto companies and staff are shed extremely quickly ... again at the expense of the state's coffers.

Long run companies, such as those mentioned by Sikka, have an easy way out of such lunacy ... by moving to other, less financially restrictive, countries. Offshore locations is cleverly worded sleight of hand for his Guardian readership, hinting at connotations of being tax free. Of course, there are very few locations which can offer tax free status and probably none where such large operations can function optimally.

They will pay taxes. Just not here.

Of course, they still want to make profits in the UK and expect the taxpayer to pick up the tab for providing them with the legal system, policing, security, subsidies and an educated and healthy workforce.

COMPANIES ARE TAXPAYERS! It's not given free. Again, if the public want all those trappings of a successful country, businesses are needed to supply taxes, along with their suppliers who also pay taxes, and the companies' employees who pay more taxes, and the taxes of the companies who sell stuff to the employees.

Without the originator, the rest goes missing and savage cuts are required in the legal system, policing, security, education and health - all of which rely on massive injections of entrepreneurial cash.

The widening income and wealth inequalities are literally killing people.

Then why the fuck are you arguing in favour of driving businesses away and feeding poverty, you hideous prick?

An increase in the national minimum wage would go a long way towards achieving this. Company executives are still drawing mega bonuses, but they are not happy about the prospect of an increase in the minimum wage.

Again, no. An increase in the minimum wage will place pressure on job creation, pushing some employed people into the position where it is not economically viable to employ them. As far as I understand it, the wage is very carefully monitored to prevent exactly that, and so it should be. Raising it for the purposes of ideological fantasy will harm exactly the people this dolt wishes to protect.

Conflating the average anchored community worker with a highly mobile wealth creator, eminently capable of relocating elsewhere, is just gross laughable and based on nothing but envy.

Lose the wealth creators, you lose the, err, wealth. Capiche?

There is an urgent need to align corporate practices with social justice and democracy. Rather than being tossed aside in the takeover bazaars, workers should have a vote on all mergers and takeovers. Before moving to newer pastures, corporations should be required to return all public subsidies and grants and make good any environmental damage that they have caused. They should be required to ensure that after their departure the local community would not be worse off.

A whole lot of rhubarb which will merely result in no company worth a carrot bothering to invest here.

The tumbleweed would whip round poor areas as quickly as the government's social security reservoir dries up. Where's your fucking human rights, which have a cost themselves oddly enough, in that scenario, cocktard?

Therefore, they should be required to contribute to the retraining of the workforce and help with the development of small-scale workshops. The government should enact legislation to ensure that trade by UK companies is compatible with the universal declaration of human rights.

Small businesses would be crucified, thereby restricting further the employment options of local communities, whilst the large corporations, the ones who attract the subsidies mentioned for their huge advantage to any nation, piss off never to be seen again.

This guy is apparently a Professor of Accounting at the University of Essex. I pity the poor undergraduates that ever come into contact with such a hare-brained cunt.

Sikka talks of the UK government 'urgently' having to adopt such a ridiculous policy. If implemented unilaterally, the damage to the country would be disastrous.

Of course, there is one way the daft goals of which he speaks could be delivered, and that is to apply these rules globally through the UN, IMF, or some such body.

It would still mean a worldwide employment catastrofuck, but at least we wouldn't be alone in accommodating businesses paying incredible tax margins, to employ a minority proportion of the public, in order to finance the majority to sit on their arses in comfort.

They'd soon be fucking bored though, as investment in innovation would die on its arse in such an environment. Who would invest in producing an improved X-Box if the targeted consumer isn't able to afford the huge price which would be placed on it?

Isn't it about time these socialist idiots started recognising the comforts that capitalism has provided them, instead of being mealy-mouthed and jealous dickheads?

Eat this, Sikka.