Teenagers to be given jobs funded by taxpayers.

And who do you want to fund this bigger public sector? The Chinese government and banks buying gilts?

Apple do their manufacturing in China. The reason people buy them is because of their design quality that is almost exclusively done in California, that does not create the vast majority of jobs manufacturing does. The UK's problem is not that it is no longer a manufacturing economy, that is just an effect of cheaper economies with better attitudes. The UK's problem is the sense of entitlement the current generation has where a lifetime of cheap credit and living on the state has them believing they should get 26k an year for an 8 hour day because they did some liberal arts degree from a "university". You see EU workers in Britain still filling in manufacturing jobs because they work hard and have the attitude employers want because the memories of true hardship are fresh in their minds.

This isn't the public sector where the taxpayer can go on funding waste for fuzzy headlines on the Guardian.
If I am an employer in a poor economy, I would want to squeeze every last drop of profit from my business instead of wasting my personal money for some far fetched sense of national pride.

Blame Labour and "50% of young people need a degree" which inflated degrees for this. Employers are moving the goalposts on qualifications because politicians have devalued higher education.

Last I checked no one is forced to work. They are usually told what is on offer and if they thought it wasn't worth it they were free to take a hike.

Again...... no one forced you to take a credit card. Don't blame the rich for merely providing a service that had a demand.

Note I did not say a bigger public sector.
I said certain jobs need to be created.
Also, there are many many ways to raise more money.
Of course, those on the right will shout and scream at the idea of those earning more in a year than most people will earn in a lifetime paying.

I was using Apple as a quick example of people being willing to pay more (as manufacturing in this country would mean the product would cost a little bit more).
And the rest of what you say is just crap.

I am not talking about companies who are not making that much.
I am talking about companies who are seeing record profits.

1 - Please stop spreading lies. Labour never said that.
2 - It was the Tories who started the huge expansion of the higher education sector.

Abolish Labour target of sending 50% to university, report urges

The government's strategy has driven down standards and devalued degrees, say graduate recruiters


Rachel Williams
guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 9 March 2010 09.18 GMT

Labour's target of getting 50% of young people to go to university has driven down standards and devalued degrees – and the next government should abolish it, leading graduate recruiters argued today.

The Association of Graduate Recruiters (AGR), which represents 750 employers, many of them blue-chip companies, also called for a phased increase in top-up fees. It said its proposals would force higher education institutions to be more open about the job prospects their courses offered.

The body, whose members recruit around 30,000 graduates a year, said families should be encouraged to save for university through a national savings scheme. It wants the current cap on tuition fees, which restricts them to £3,225 a year, to be gradually removed – with no limit to remain by 2020.

The AGR's chief executive, Carl Gilleard, said: "Too many young people are left to graduate without vital employability skills. We urge all political parties to consider the practical recommendations in our manifesto – adopting them would have huge benefits for the economy and help to reaffirm the value of a degree.

"We know that some of these calls to action – particularly those which relate to funding and finance – are unlikely to receive a universal welcome. After careful consideration, however, we have concluded that this package of measures is the best way to drive up standards in higher education, provide a better return on investment for students and parents, and ensure the UK remains competitive in a global knowledge economy."

The report called for "employability skills" to be embedded in all degree courses, more high-quality work experience for students before and during university, better careers advice, and the introduction of a "higher education achievement report" alongside degree classifications, to measure and record student development.

A review into the future of fees, headed by Lord Browne, will not report back until after the general election, and both Labour and the Tories have refused to state a position on raising the cap.

The National Union of Students (NUS) branded the AGR's proposals offensive. Its president, Wes Streeting, said: "The AGR does not seem to appreciate how much its own members benefit from our higher education system. It is in the long-term interest of our economy that the number of highly skilled graduates entering our workforce continues to increase.

"At a time when students are leaving university with record levels of debt, and graduate job prospects are at an all time low, it is offensive to argue that the cap on fees should be raised at all, let alone lifted entirely.

"The vast majority of the general public is against higher fees. If the cap on fees were scrapped, a disastrous market in higher education would open up, which would see poorer students priced out of more prestigious universities, and other students and universities consigned to the 'bargain basement'. This would be a disaster for UK higher education and must not be allowed to happen."

The University and College Union (UCU) said the report was out of touch. The union's general secretary, Sally Hunt, said: "The future for the UK is at the forefront of a high-skilled knowledge economy – and we won't get there with less graduates. The three main beneficiaries of higher education have been identified as the state, the individual and the employer, yet only two of them are picking up the bill.

It is time that business started to make a proper contribution to university funding, instead of parroting its siren calls to increase the debt of students and the burden on hardworking families struggling in tough economic times."

Oh yes, starving is a much better idea

Credit card's should never have needed to be invented and thus, never needed to be offered in the first place had the top percent decided not to underpay the workers that do the brunt of the work for them

Note I did not say a bigger public sector.
I said certain jobs need to be created.

Also, there are many many ways to raise more money.

Of course, those on the right will shout and scream at the idea of those earning more in a year than most people will earn in a lifetime paying.

I was using Apple as a quick example of people being willing to pay more (as manufacturing in this country would mean the product would cost a little bit more).
And the rest of what you say is just crap.

I am not talking about companies who are not making that much.
I am talking about companies who are seeing record profits.

1 - Please stop spreading lies. Labour never said that.
2 - It was the Tories who started the huge expansion of the higher education sector.

Do you even know the history behind credit cards and why they were even invented in the first place? Go read up on it and understand it thoroughly it has nothing to do with what you are trying to say.

You can't blame the inventors of it if plebs want to abuse it.

The banks invented the credit card because the people weren't being paid enough... it's just one of capitalism's contradictions where you can't take money without someone else losing it so if your business plan sucks then you resort to paying less than fair to your serfs/employees

Yes, we can blame the inventors of such a useless invention because we shouldn't have needed it, we survived without it after all and it didn't help our lives one bit, it helped the banks profits though

If the state is having to "create" jobs(i.e. spend more taxpayer money) those jobs are artificial and not really needed.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/460009.stm
This is the full text of Tony Blair's 1999 speech where he set the 50% target. I know it doesn't quite fit in with the socialist view of the world but reality rarely does.

You sir, have discovered one of capitalism's contradictions - how does the company with all the money sell anything when there is no more money left? the economic cycle literally stops in their banks accounts and money is not unlimited

I won't bother with most of your rubbish. However I must pick up on two points.

So nurses, doctors, teachers, etc etc aren't needed

But if you actually bothered to read your own source, he said 50% going to higher education. Not specifically university. And if you actually bothered to looking into the policy / what actually happened, you would find out it was then set to include further training and stuff too.

And even then, that still ignores the point that the university system increased massively under the Tories. Indeed probably more so than it did under labour (thanks to the Tories turning the polys into unis).

Politician speak for "I really don't have anything concrete to say so I will just throw a tantrum". A career in the Labour party beckons.

The state doesn't have to "create" jobs for teachers and doctors, there is demand for them and hence the jobs exist.

What you are proposing however is somehow getting more teachers and nurses without actually explaining how you want to fund it.

Given how the policy was implemented and the shape of the HE sector at the time wrt the number of decreasing polytechnics and growing universities, it is clear to anyone that Labour pretty much meant to send 50% of young people to university. Unless in the 13 years of power they were so incompetent they could actually not set up any of the training and "stuff" you claim they were aiming to include.

The point isn't on number though, it is on expectation. Labour's target is what fueled the expectation of young people that a path into university and a high paying job was the only possible one and countless surveys of recruiters have acknowledged their failure in achieving their target.

No, I didn't reply to the rest, because, to be blunt, it is bull****.

But since the state runs the education and healthcare systems, then to have more jobs in those areas, the state DOES have to create them.
There IS a demand for more nurses. But to turn that demand into actual jobs, the state must pay.



I have explained it.
You just don't like the answer.

I take it you have not heard of HND's, or HNC's, etc etc.

Again not true at all.
It was the huge expansion in the number of universities under the Tories that started it all.

I thought it was illegal to discriminate based on age now? So they're encouraging companies to hire young people who are out of work, but they'll be punished if they pick them over someone older? Doesn't make much sense.

Out of the kindness of my heart to the working public, I wont get a job.

And so, picking older candidates over younger candidates wasn't discrimination? (The old scheme)
Interesting.

It's not discrimination, it's meritocracy.

Older people tend to have had more experience etc.

So it's fair to just keep taking people that have experience? So.. how do people without experience, obtain experience. It's still a form of discrimination.

So it's fair to just keep taking people that have experience? So.. how do people without experience, obtain experience. It's still a form of discrimination.

And so, picking older candidates over younger candidates wasn't discrimination? (The old scheme)
Interesting.

So it's fair to just keep taking people that have experience? So.. how do people without experience, obtain experience. It's still a form of discrimination.

Not this again.

Forcing the guys at the top to give more to the guys at the bottom so the guys at the bottom have more pieces of paper with which to buy crap back from the guys at the top will lead to inflation, because unless productivity also increases, you just have more pieces of paper floating around relative to the amount of stuff able to be bought. Stupid New Labour type policies of pushing money round in a circle and calling it growth.