Vince Cable Finally Wakes Up

[Spacecadet]

remembers where he is, finds his glasses, folds the paper up and drains the last of his now cold tea

2010: Vodafone tax protests
BBC News - Vodafone shops blockaded in tax protest

2012 Vince Cable condemnes corporate tax avoidance
BBC News - Vince Cable attacks corporate 'tax abuse'

[mos]

2010: Vodafone tax protests
BBC News - Vodafone shops blockaded in tax protest

Yeah ... I am wondering how much tax Lebara is paying ...

[Spacecadet]

Yeah ... I am wondering how much tax Lebara is paying ...

About £2M per year

[mos]

About £2M per year

http://www.lebara.com/lebara-bbc-documentary

[Spacecadet]

http://www.lebara.com/lebara-bbc-documentary

How about a synopsis and stop beating round the bush

Or are you contracting for them now and too scared in case they trace it back to you?

[Doggy Styles]

Feck knows what this thread is about.

[xoggoth]

Purely applying my engineering principles here, but it seems to me that there is no grasp among those responsible for our economy of what an economy is. In particular, they fail to realise that simply because a business can make a profit, that does not mean it is of any benefit to the UK economy.

We are told we must attract successful companies, but surely it matters what they do? If they are an intrinsic part of our market economy like Google or Amazon, or a company that provides valuable expertise or gives its British employees useful skills, that's one thing, but what is the point of companies like Starbucks? It pays little tax and if it was shut down it's employees could find jobs at the other coffee shops that would spring up to replace it. The market for coffee in any city is pretty constant.

Equally, with this daft idea of migrants doing jobs that the British "don't want to do" Actually, too many of those jobs don't need doing at all. Little ethnic restaurants that are empty much of the time and barely break even, data processing companies that supply those damn telepests, what use are they? Competion is only good when it is between high performing companies who strive to provide a better service than the other, just adding more and more indifferent little strugglers that each take a little business from the good ones is not positive at all, especially when the wages are so low they need benefits to raise a family.

We need vibrant and productive companies who províde the goods and services we need or can sell abroad. Obviously, we also need things like shops, garages, public services etc to service those companies and support the people who work in them but our economy has become unbalanced. To many businesses of the second sort, not enough of the first.