[gme]

New site re the support offered to companies.
https://www.businesssupport.gov.uk/coronavirus-business-support/

Looks pretty straight forward at minute in relation to the job retention scheme that is most pertinent to me, and probably other employers too.
Thought it might have been a slow complex thing to sort as with most gov stuff but guess not b

[Fultonius]

Well it would appear I timed the world's worst job change. Got offered a new (much better) job about 3 weeks ago, and finished up at my old place on 13th March (date of Boris' "we need to level with the public" speech).

I wasn't due to start new job till 6th April (their next available "bootcamp" for new starters). So, happy days I thought - a few weeks off, get stuff done on the house snagging list, climb myself back to fitness etc, generally de-stress.

How wrong I was. I managed all of a day of freedom, then my son had a slight (but over the limit) fever at nursery, triggering 14 days of self isolation for the whole family. Then, my new employer called to say that while they definitely still want me, given circumstances they can't commit to me starting until mid-July, and even that is a "wait and see".

Only positive is that with schools now closed, and a teacher as a partner I can at least be here to sort the kids without having to juggle working from home in a brand new job at same time.

Fortunately we have always been pretty prudent financially, so thankfully we have a decent contingency fund to draw off.

No idea what to do in meantime though. Just take the time, "enjoy" more time en famille, or maybe go help out at Tesco stacking shelves or on till. It won't pay big money but it'd keep us topped up.

That's shit timing. Maybe try to work at a local veg box supplier or something?

[Oldmanmatt]

New site re the support offered to companies.
https://www.businesssupport.gov.uk/coronavirus-business-support/

Looks pretty straight forward at minute in relation to the job retention scheme that is most pertinent to me, and probably other employers too.
Thought it might have been a slow complex thing to sort as with most gov stuff but guess not b

We already applied, this morning. Took about five minutes through the Torbay Council site.

[andy popp]

Good luck 3xT and all small business owners.

[gme]

New site re the support offered to companies.
https://www.businesssupport.gov.uk/coronavirus-business-support/

Looks pretty straight forward at minute in relation to the job retention scheme that is most pertinent to me, and probably other employers too.
Thought it might have been a slow complex thing to sort as with most gov stuff but guess not b

We already applied, this morning. Took about five minutes through the Torbay Council site.

Just need to actually be told to stop work rather than vague statements and we will be in it.
If not I am going to have to start payoffs which I really don’t want to do.

[SA Chris]

Bad Luck TTT. One of my ex colleagues is in the same boat, except he hasn't got a "definitely still want me".

[petejh]

New site re the support offered to companies.
https://www.businesssupport.gov.uk/coronavirus-business-support/

Looks pretty straight forward at minute in relation to the job retention scheme that is most pertinent to me, and probably other employers too.
Thought it might have been a slow complex thing to sort as with most gov stuff but guess not b

We already applied, this morning. Took about five minutes through the Torbay Council site.

Just need to actually be told to stop work rather than vague statements and we will be in it.
If not I am going to have to start payoffs which I really don’t want to do.

Aren't you the business owner? If so why do you need someone to tell you to stop?

[Oldmanmatt]

New site re the support offered to companies.
https://www.businesssupport.gov.uk/coronavirus-business-support/

Looks pretty straight forward at minute in relation to the job retention scheme that is most pertinent to me, and probably other employers too.
Thought it might have been a slow complex thing to sort as with most gov stuff but guess not b

We already applied, this morning. Took about five minutes through the Torbay Council site.

Just need to actually be told to stop work rather than vague statements and we will be in it.
If not I am going to have to start payoffs which I really don’t want to do.

Aren't you the business owner? If so why do you need someone to tell you to stop?

I understand your reluctance GME.
We went before we were pushed, but that’s because we were an obvious risk and the staff were on board and even grateful (one of our lads has a girlfriend with a serious autoimmune condition).

It was bloody hard and we lost a lot of sleep because of it. We actually, mainly, live on Polly’s part time salary (estate/lettings agent) and the rent from another house. I had already withdrawn from the business, intending to go back to the Royal Navy for a while.

My job start date is on hold, until further decisions are made, our tenant has chronic COPD and the agents shut down yesterday; so we very much dependent on the government making good on their promises.

So, yes, these are tough choices and not to be made under peer pressure alone. Follow the guidance, as best as you can interpret it and you are beyond blame.
If you have real, nagging, doubts about your choice, youmade the wrong choice. Change it.

That is all that can be expected, by anyone.

There will be vigilantes and hindsight “experts”.

They can go swivel.

[Oldmanmatt]

Oh yeah.

Screwfix and Toolstation are both shut  down today, on line and physically.

Screwfix looks temporary, but the Toolstation wording looks more permanent.

[gme]

New site re the support offered to companies.
https://www.businesssupport.gov.uk/coronavirus-business-support/

Looks pretty straight forward at minute in relation to the job retention scheme that is most pertinent to me, and probably other employers too.
Thought it might have been a slow complex thing to sort as with most gov stuff but guess not b

We already applied, this morning. Took about five minutes through the Torbay Council site.

Just need to actually be told to stop work rather than vague statements and we will be in it.
If not I am going to have to start payoffs which I really don’t want to do.

Aren't you the business owner? If so why do you need someone to tell you to stop?

If i stop on my own accord but sites continue i am in breach of contract.
If i shut shop i will have to pay people off, site lads, unless i can take up the governments offer to pay 80% of there salaries but to do so i think we will have to show i had legit reason to get rid of them, if i can still work why do i need to pay them off.

Our legal advice is we need to work until we have been stopped.

[ali k]

What I find baffling about the current scramble to come up with a coherent response to this pandemic is that none of it seems to have been gamed out in advance, and it's having to be made up as we go along with rushed legislation and numbers seemingly plucked out of thin air. Whether that's the overall measures to control the spread (e.g how to define essential work etc), the emergency legislation to provide extra powers (copy and paste rush job anyone?), mechanisms to avoid a complete economic meltdown (e.g. the job retention scheme), or avoiding people having to choose between health or poverty (the yet-to-be announced financial help for the self-employed).

I get that each pandemic will have slightly different characteristics, and the government of the time will react differently, but surely the general response would be very similar? And has no-one at the treasury or HMRC really ever been tasked with looking at what a system to cover self-employed workers under circumstances such as this would involve??

[petejh]

Gme I'm not under any illusions there's an easy answer.

Situation at our place is I just got informed by the client that one of the two jobs we were supposed to be starting and for which I've been making arrangements for labour /equipment has been postponed. Because in the current climate it can't be justified as essential work. Quite right that it can't. I'm just hoping they decide the same about the other job supposed to be starting next week. Reading between the lines, there are plenty of people among our clients (and in my own group) who are trying to justify these projects continuing because it justifies their job.
In construction and industrial workplaces right now, from the point of view of what action is potentially most damaging to health it's blatantly ridiculous to justify anything but a skeleton maintenance activity of critical infrastructure as essential for the next couple of months at least. That leaves looking at it from the perspectives of economics or legal obligations. Totally understand things look different from those two perspectives. Economically, the government are hopefully about to close down that justification for people continuing work when they announce today or tomorrow the financial aid for self-employed. So that will be a big chunk of construction workers no-longer justifiable. We're already losing people in our group who are refusing to come in because the don't consider it safe to do so, I can't fault their reasoning. Legally.. cockroaches.

[mark20]

Oh yeah.

Screwfix and Toolstation are both shut  down today, on line and physically.

Screwfix looks temporary, but the Toolstation wording looks more permanent.

Screwfix are still doing click &collect and delivery.
But Toolstation is closed altogether.

[tommytwotone]

Bad Luck TTT. One of my ex colleagues is in the same boat, except he hasn't got a "definitely still want me".

Thanks - I really, really hope we can make it work. We should be able to sit this thing out, and then assuming the world us going back to normal-ish in summer pick my job up then.

[Oldmanmatt]

What I find baffling about the current scramble to come up with a coherent response to this pandemic is that none of it seems to have been gamed out in advance, and it's having to be made up as we go along with rushed legislation and numbers seemingly plucked out of thin air. Whether that's the overall measures to control the spread (e.g how to define essential work etc), the emergency legislation to provide extra powers (copy and paste rush job anyone?), mechanisms to avoid a complete economic meltdown (e.g. the job retention scheme), or avoiding people having to choose between health or poverty (the yet-to-be announced financial help for the self-employed).

I get that each pandemic will have slightly different characteristics, and the government of the time will react differently, but surely the general response would be very similar? And has no-one at the treasury or HMRC really ever been tasked with looking at what a system to cover self-employed workers under circumstances such as this would involve??

I think it was gamed  and planned out, or at least “Pandemic” was. I think this one has wrong footed everyone.

“Stay in doors or you will die” would have been a relatively simple sell and straightforward response. Make your pandemic too specific, too selective, too broad a range of symptoms and this is what you get.

[gme]

All our site operations closed down as of today. Will need to go to a few to secure materials etc.

Crossrail shut, airports shut, HS2 shut. We risk assessed our works under the latest guidelines and reluctatly felt it was not possible to continue.

All the lads furloughed and all office staff working at home.

6-8 weeks minimum of zero income for the business when we normally invoice 750k a month. Going to be interesting.

[petejh]

Do you know how you got your lads 'furloughed' status? I'm trying to push it along for some employees but the HMRC portal doesn't seem to be up and running yet?

[Oldmanmatt]

Do you know how you got your lads 'furloughed' status? I'm trying to push it along for some employees but the HMRC portal doesn't seem to be up and running yet?

It wasn’t this morning, I planned to try again tomorrow.

[gme]

It’s not up and running yet. We pay monthly in advance so they are paid until 31/3.
You need to put it in writing to them and then you pay them as normal but claim it back.
We have a bit of info that it will be as simple as that but I will believe it when I see it.
Will let you know if I find out more.

[gme]

Deloitte have a good  Document relating to it but I only have it as a PDF and can’t link on here.

[petejh]

Would be interested to read that, have pm'd you.

[seankenny]

Erm, but wasn't I saying that labour couldn't be bartered? As far as I know, economic historians haven't actually found any evidence of societies with widespread barter... surely what happens when there is much, much less money floating around is that labour and goods become traded via an intricate and inflexible system of social relations underpined by violence.

Interesting. I'm not convinced - any sources you can recommend? As per your last post, book-keeping preceded writing so what evidence would there be? I'm thinking about pre-agrarian hunter-gatherer societies principally.

Apologies for the late reply to your question, anyhow here is an article on the barter economy:
https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2016/02/barter-society-myth/471051/

I had a quick look around and found a few papers that suggested barter was a thing in modern economies during periods of breakdown, particularly for Eastern Europe in the early 90s, ie they knew what a functioning financial system was, they needed it, but at that point they didn't have one. I don't find that particularly encouraging.

I'm not entirely convinced it makes sense. If by "the economy" you mean the financial sector, even Yemen has one and it is not a functioning society. In fact 17th/18th century Britain...

Clearly we've got very different definitions of society. I don't see any financial sector in chimp society. I can't see any room for argument on this, if there are no humans the economy will go with them, that's all I'm saying.

Chimps form groups for purposes of mating, hunting and rearing young but this isn't a society. To me, a society has two elements which animal groupings lack:
1) Fidelity to something non-physical, ie a set of beliefs or ideas. Religion, science, law, etc.
2) An apprecation that the society lasts longer than any one individual and will continue to exist after the individual's death. This is everything from heroism in battle to building the pyramids.

This isn't just amateur anthropology, but relates to my point: if you want to create stuff over long time periods, you need a way of moving consumption around in time. That's what financing does, at its most basic.

And then we can buy and sell those bonds on the assumption that the government is always going to be around to pay it back. This has been going on since the 17th century if not before, so it's probably pretty useful, right?

Pre-17th century, as I understand it, money was kept in a fairly tight box as a token of trade and a store of value. Both governments and religions forbade usury - Islam and the Catholic church still do with varying effects - so making money from money required actual work rather than just lending for interest - which was considered immoral. And usury for most of history didn't mean excessive interest, it meant any interest.

Post 17th century money was allowed out of that box and in many societies it became easier to make money from money than from work. The jury on that is still out, perhaps it enabled the industrial revolution but clearly it is a powerful engine of inequality. I'm not well informed on it but I'm planning to read some Piketty over lockdown.

Here's a working paper from the BoE which looks at long run interest rates, back as far as the 14th century:
https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/-/media/boe/files/working-paper/2020/eight-centuries-of-global-real-interest-rates-r-g-and-the-suprasecular-decline-1311-2018.pdf?la=en&hash=5197703E8834998B56DD8121C0B64BFB09FF4881

It's really long, but interest was definitely a thing: "I observe that the trend in “Carolingian Europe” aligns well with the “safe asset” and global trend posited: the average annual real rate between 1428 and 1499 was 5.6%..."

Clealry lending went on - that's what Jews did, isn't it - but with ineffective taxation systems, poor rule of law and a very slow growing economy, it was just hard to move spending around in time.

I would also take issue with the phrase "making money from money". Investment is not that easy (buy to let landlords in the UK excepted). You need to pick things which are definitely going to make a profit, and even if you get that right, there's risk involved - your ship full of pepper might sink on its way back from India, or consumer taste might suddenly change, or there could be a drought, whatever. I'm sure Andy has a much better grasp of the risk to reward ratio of early modern investors, but it investing isn't just a black box of putting money in and money coming out (okay it kind of was for Jane Austen's characters but that society sat on the back of something). Someone somewhere has to make decisions about how those investements are deployed.

I wonder if part of the problems about the "do we need money" type of conversation is that people get hung up on money when what is equally or more important is prices. Changes in price - ideally the real price, not the nominal one - are what motivates us to change our behaviour and it is prices that act as really efficient aggregators of information.

[Johnny Brown]

Apologies for the late reply to your question, anyhow here is an article on the barter economy:
https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2016/02/barter-society-myth/471051/

Thanks for that reply and those links. A lot to digest there, and clearly I'm in good company vis poor assumptions on barter! But that piece does illustrate very nicely the point I was trying to make, which is not that the alternative to money is barter, it's that there are alternatives:

But even though money has been around for a long time, humans have been around for hundreds of thousands of years longer, and it may be a mistake to imagine that modern economics reflects some sort of primordial human nature.

“Economic theory has always got to be historically bounded,” Beggs says. “I think it’s a mistake to think you’ll find the workings of modern money by going back to the origins of money.”

Graeber asserts that the barter myth implies humans have always had a sort of quid pro quo, exchange-based mentality, since barter is just a less efficient version of money. But if you consider that other, completely different systems existed, then money starts to look like less of a natural outgrowth of human nature, and more of a choice. 

Interesting also that she references 'trade' among indigenous australians - having done a bit of reading on them it has always struck me that not only did they not have money, they had no use for money. Each individual was allocated not only the skills to live (and typically live well) in the land, but also certain access rights to the land. As these rights were both strictly linear in nature and associated with totemic clans rather than tribes, they made boundaries as we understand them impossible. The only thing they 'traded' was knowledge, typically with a symbolic object being exchanged that conferred reciprocal rights. Violence was only resorted to when these inter-tribal promises were broken, whereas behaviour within the tribe would be encouraged via generally positive social pressure. So I'd take issue that non-monetary societies were 'inflexible and underpinned by violence' - it isn't supported by what I've read and could equally be said of modern economies. Once farming came along the only way they could be forced into work was either by taking their land rights away or by tricking them into debt.

1) Fidelity to something non-physical, ie a set of beliefs or ideas. Religion, science, law, etc.
2) An apprecation that the society lasts longer than any one individual and will continue to exist after the individual's death. This is everything from heroism in battle to building the pyramids.

This isn't just amateur anthropology, but relates to my point: if you want to create stuff over long time periods, you need a way of moving consumption around in time. That's what financing does, at its most basic.

Agree. But, as I hope your link and I've illustrated this doesn't inevitably lead to money. For me the culture created by aboriginal australians is one of the most impressive humans have created both in it's scope, success and longevity. But interesting you raise the pyramids - I guess the presumption would be a for such acts you'd require money. But (from a quick google) there is some evidence of a unit of account in ancient egypt but not currency - which 'symbolic and metaphysical reasons' prevented them from adopting.

How does this relate to the economy now? Well I'm not suggesting we could or should return to some pre-lapsarian state or even the land of little smallholders espoused by some on the green left. My beef is that (again, from your link):

For one thing, the barter myth “makes it possible to imagine a world that is nothing more than a series of cold-blooded calculations,” writes Graeber in Debt. This view is quite common now, even when behavioral economists have made a convincing case that humans are much more complicated—and less rational—than classical economic models would suggest.

My perception of our society is that with money we have made the mistake of confusing the map (the economy) with the territory (society). Every time we try to reduce value discussions down to money we ignore belittle other measures of worth and drivers of behaviour. Even economists agree that life is priceless, while of course attempting to price it. That end-of-life care may be subject to budgetary constraints doesn't make it a functioning market.

Changes in price - ideally the real price, not the nominal one - are what motivates us to change our behaviour and it is prices that act as really efficient aggregators of information.

It's clear to me that although we may treat money as a universal value system, it isn't. There are lots of real things it doesn't value and there seems to be no way the markets will prevent the economy from destroying the environment. So if it isn't a universal value system, what is it valuing? When we compare currencies, we can say their value is a reflection of the future of that economy. Within an currency, my belief is a monetary value expresses the potential to generate a return - in effect money values the potential to generate more money. Excel doesn't like circular references, and neither do I.

Here's a working paper from the BoE which looks at long run interest rates, back as far as the 14th century:
https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/-/media/boe/files/working-paper/2020/eight-centuries-of-global-real-interest-rates-r-g-and-the-suprasecular-decline-1311-2018.pdf?la=en&hash=5197703E8834998B56DD8121C0B64BFB09FF4881

It's really long, but interest was definitely a thing: "I observe that the trend in “Carolingian Europe” aligns well with the “safe asset” and global trend posited: the average annual real rate between 1428 and 1499 was 5.6%..."

Wow, that's an interesting piece! Admittedly I didn't make it more than about 20 pages in and them skim-read - but for anyone following there's a very good interview with the author here https://www.mercatus.org/bridge/podcasts/02242020/paul-schmelzing-suprasecular-decline-global-real-interest-rates

So the point I was trying to make was not exactly when interest began, but that for the majority of history it was considered immoral. There are snippets in here that allude to that:

but with very few exceptions, the embedded annual income streams are interest rate equivalents – hence repeated efforts by Church authorities to ban the practice

I'm interested as to why that was. It seems to apply across a broad range of religions and societies. Was it just a shallow prudism (cf sodomy) or were they aware of some deeper issue? Piketty's suggestion that it inevitably leads to inequality is challenged by this piece, but I suspect the debate will run.

I would also take issue with the phrase "making money from money". Investment is not that easy (buy to let landlords in the UK excepted).

Sure, I do have some personal experience here now I'm a moderately successful entrepreneur and that. But it remains that the easiest way to make a small fortune is to start with a large one. The only barrier to starting our company was the financial freedom to do so, and if you don't have sufficient spare capital you don't get a seat at the monopoly table (on the subject of which, I've always like the fact that Monopoly was originally 'intended as an educational tool to illustrate the negative aspects of concentrating land'). Having been 'lucky' enough to be educated at a top public school I remain confused as to why our careers advice didn't start by asking what we stood to inherit. Judging by my peers' progress it would have been very useful.

But what's really interesting to me from Schmelzing's BOE paper is that he can't really begin to answer why. Not only have we created this system that we have confused with both a universal value system, and much of the time society itself, but we've got surprisingly little idea of how it works, and even less control. I don't think it needs abandoning but I do think we need to look at our relationship with it. Right now, for once, we seem to be looking more at the territory than the map and that's surely a good start.

[Somebody's Fool]

Debt jubilee?

https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2020/03/michael-hudson-a-debt-jubilee-is-the-only-way-to-avoid-a-depression.html

[Johnny Brown]

Not opposed in principle, but any idea how that would actually be usefully implemented? All I can imagine is its going to penalise anyone sensible/ careful while rewarding those who've been unwise or irresponsible. How would you pivot towards it without everyone rushing out with credit cards?