Have you edited my post!? I wrote (or intended to!) "...in their terms."

They are suffering from under-investment - or at least they feel they are - as they are talking of spending hunddred's of millions revamping their shabby stores.

They clearly have paid their tax "bill" otherwise HMRC would be taking recovery proceedings.

LOL, you clearly don't understand that supermarkets have a refurb scheduled and any announcement to deflect a less than stellar performance is most welcome. Tesco spend millions on their stores every year, clearly not an under-investment

Yes, of course they must.
I mean David Hartnett has never let a company off has he?

Or Tesco has taken the defence of, we've got more lawyers than you.
Hardly justice.

That's not paying the bill (sic)! It means either the money was not due, it was unclear in law that it was due and so HMRC took a "commercial" decision or HMRC were incoompetent. Or, are you saying openly on this [upublic[/u forum that Tesco deliberately evaded part of it's tax liability?

Wages should be paid from income, which is based on sales. The price of the sales is generally set by including fixed and variable costs in the calculation. When the product is sold, the costs of staff, buildings, rent, rates, utilities should be covered.

Any company that covers rent etc, but not staff in their pricing will clearly need a sale just to pay the people who produce/sell the product in the first place. In your example, Tesco would never be able to pay their staff, as they wouldn't be able to sell any products, let alone make a profit.

Profits can be used as a basis for recruiting more staff, but as I've said, anyone relying on profits to pay staff at the outset is not going to be in business for long.

What on Earth are you waffling on about? It is quite clear that pricing cannot just be an arbitrary mark up on costs, it needs to take account of the market place. That's one of the main reasons why efficient businesses survive and less eficient ones go under.

I am saying that your logic is seriously flawed.
You say that HMRC would be chasing Tesco if they hadn't paid their "bill", therefore they must have paid.
I say not necessarily ... as we have seen a case recently where billions that were due by Vodafone (and had been found to due by the court and were upheld to be due by a higher court ... how much clearer in law do you want it?) were nonetheless written off on the say-so of one man, without reference to tax experts within HMRC or to HMRC's own auditors.

I'm "waffling" about you recommending that companies pay staff out of profits, which is lunacy of the highest order, even for you. For the 4th time, staff costs should be covered by turnover, not profits. Do you think Tesco don't factor the costs of having people work for them into the price they sell things for?

How does a not-for-profit organisation operate in Dallyworld? Presumably on the goodwill of staff who realise that they'll never be paid.

What your Ladybird book of Successful Business Management probably doesn't mention is the fact that a very large number of people on minimum wage, working for supermarkets (which together are the second largest employer after the NHS) are dependent on tax credits (which is paid for by taxpayers, and most of which comes from individuals not from companies).
The likes of Tesco are paying a large proportion of their workforce less than a living wage and "we" are subsidising their profits.

Then the bstrds don't do the decent thing by paying their whack.

So please don't try to make out that they are saving on tax in order to pay their employees, because that's total bollox.

I have never said wages are paid "out of profits" indeed I explicity said the opposite.

As to your points:

1. The Labour party distorting the workings of the free market.

2. Have you evidence they don't pay their true tax liability?

3. I never said any such thing.

You said "If the companies were taxed more heavily that would mean they had less avaiable to pay wages."

In the context of Vodafone and Tesco the tax that they've been "let off" was on profits. They would clearly not be paying the wages from profits, so how would they suddenly have less money for wages if taxed on profits?

Both wages and tax (and dividends) need to be paid by CASH though.

And?

Not if you're Vodafone, then you can get it on several years interest free credit. Or don't you read the papers?

Pretty obvious I'd have thought.

He only reads one.

Never knew Gideon frequented RLFans...

Maybe, if you had. But as you clearly didn't . . . ?

Absolutely spot on!

My voluntary work is valued by a number of respectable people in society. I’d have to say that the highlight of my voluntary work so far was the smiles on fellow rap artist faces when I arranged for they music to be played on BBC raw talent. Now there’s a chance that on the back of that they could be on the BBC Intro stage at Leeds fest. However it is a team where I volunteer and the CEO is close to closing a negotiation which will see them same artist rap at Bestival. Rob Da Bank like’s my dancing so there’s half a chance I could be the resident radio dancer for the festival.

Now I don’t just pop up at the organisation when good things are happening. Last year I helped refurbish the building by lending my hand. I have done the tea round a couple of times. Heck last year I even helped co-host the stall that we had at the breeze youth festivals. I also empty bins.

On top of all that I do a regular blog which has won an award.

Another thing I just want to confirm that when I was diagnosed with Aspergers a couple of years ago I had a breakdown. When I left school I wanted to work in travel and tourism so I pursued that career by studying a couple of BTEC’s at college which I passed with distinction and merits. After college I ended up working abroad and it really wasn’t for me. I think my autism pretty much explains why a career in that industry wasn’t realistic for me. It was a nice thought though.

Funnily enough I’m still in touch with someone (well a few people) who I worked abroad with and he had a grandson with the same condition as myself. His grandson wanted to work with his granddad but the type of working environment that we was in wasn’t suitable for people with Aspergers. I’m aware that Cronus worked in that industry and it’ll be interesting to know if he came across many people with my disability working abroad. I’m sure he’ll have the odd antidote to support his hatred towards me as there’s always exceptional cases.

If I’d got diagnosed at a young age I would have never had gone down the misguided paths that I’ve gone down on. I’d probably finished university by now and had a degree behind me.

But here I am and despite all the s**t I’ve had to endure over the years, I wouldn’t change it for the world because it’s made me the person that I am today. I could be going back into education (university this time) to pursue a career in the creative industries where I have thrived and will continue to thrive if I remain focused. But in the meantime the whole unemployment process is hard to ignore and I have often wondered if I’ll survive this year if my circumstances don’t change soon.

So people should feel free to criticise me at every opportunity that they get. It is a public forum and I can take such criticism. But what I find hard to take is years of unemployment and every visit to the job centre still overwhelms anything good I try to do.

I take some responsibility for the situation that I’m in but not full responsibility. After all I can’t control what society gives me. But people in society could work to give me something just a little bit better than unemployment.

I also want to add that there is one person on RLFANS who offered me work that I turned down. And before people ask it wasn’t from Sal. The reason why I turned that worked down is between me and that person who would not use his engagement with me as some kind of ammunition to attack me on these forums. Plus I don't want to get dragged into another debate with people who will probably now use this ammunition without knowing the full facts.

Finally anyone can deconstruct this comment at their peril. Alternatively people could try and help my situation by sending me a PM with offers of how you can help. However I’m fully aware that this is a forum and not some one stop website where the unemployed will be flooded with offers of work. A lot of us including myself come here to enjoy the company and musing of fellow rugby league fans. Some people stopped enjoying my comments ages ago and now have me on ignore which I fully understand and respect. At the end of the day I don’t even enjoy the stuff that I write at times so how could I expect others to..

Yet something else that you don't understand.

Why not everyone 'volunteer' to become "a wage slave" – then there'll be nobody in work to pay for them to take that magnificently principled decision.

I doubt anyone here has a problem with his doing voluntary work (if he does). The problem people here have is – based on his own posts (and there have been many) – that he won't apply for paid jobs, sees most paid work as beneath him, and is perfectly happy to expect that those of us who [ido[/i work pay for his upkeep.

He's a fine example, in other words, of the lumpen proletariat. Perhaps you should read Marx on that subject so that you actually have a clue about classical left political theory on the matter.

You have had them. You chose to reject them.

Your been extreme and you know it.


With this comment I am now convinced that you’ve been taking lessons from the Daily Mail handbook of ‘How to slightly misrepresent what people actually say‘.

The reason why at one point I didn’t bother applying for paid jobs is because so many potential employers turned me down. Most didn’t even bother to reply to me. It was a fruitless task that I undertook for a long time and it depressed me like it depresses so many people who have the misfortune to be unemployed for so long. It’s a fact that long term unemployed causes undesirable side affects and people deal with them differently. Well this is how I dealt with mine.

Roll on 2012 I’m not wasting my new found confidence on potential employers who would more than likely choose someone else over me. So yes it is beneath me approaching these people just as it’s beneath them to employ me. It works both ways. However doing a majority of paid work isn’t beneath me unless it’s something that is morally wrong. For example I read an article the other day from 2005 where in Germany you could lose your benefits if you turned down sex work.

I also have people who I went to school with who have given me opportunities to get into criminal enterprise. That’d get me off the dole but it’d also mean prison if I got caught. I guess prison and criminal enterprise is beneath me as well.

And I’ll have you know that in the past I have lobbied the staff at the job centre to take my benefits off me because I couldn’t be bothered corresponding with those who didn’t want to give me a job. Yet they still gave me my benefits despite me insisting that they more than welcome to take them away.


Overall I’ve had two offers of job opportunities and one offer of paid work. It’s not like I’ve been blessed with help. More like people spending a small part of their day to have a word with me. I thanked all three people for doing just that and there’s very little else that I can do. I have my reasons why I didn’t go for them and I stick by those reasons.

Holding such things against me is been overly dramatic as it is just nit picking of the highest order.

I’m not going to brown nose anybody for opportunities and I’m certainly not going to send myself off on a fruitless job search. If people don’t want to help on the basis of what they’ve seen then I’m fine with that because you can’t please everybody in this world.