Bus Vannin. More waste/good idea?

[finlo]

37 minutes ago, thesultanofsheight said:

Why? What has government done for it to demand that companies hand over more profits as government cannot possibly think of any savings it can make? 

I could trim £30M of operating cost in IOMG in two years. Easy. If they gave me a commission on savings made I’d start tomorrow as it’s the easiest project in Town.

Only £30M Sultan?  that could easily be doubled or trebled.

[thesultanofsheight]

Just now, finlo said:

Only £30M Sultan?  that could easily be doubled or trebled.

You build up to the true savings. 

[pongo]

10 hours ago, thesultanofsheight said:

Why? What has government done for it to demand that companies hand over more profits as government cannot possibly think of any savings it can make? 

The society owns the power to levy zero taxation. It's like a common wealth. And it's zero taxation (our common asset) which is the thing which brings in the money. Except of course it doesn't. 

And that's why it would not be unreasonable to at least explore other ways of the society and infrastructure earning a slightly greater share of the profit from zero taxation.

Well funded public services and infrastructure is a positive goal.

[thesultanofsheight]

22 minutes ago, pongo said:

The society owns the power to levy zero taxation. It's like a common wealth. And it's zero taxation (our common asset) which is the thing which brings in the money. Except of course it doesn't. 

And that's why it would not be unreasonable to at least explore other ways of the society and infrastructure earning a slightly greater share of the profit from zero taxation.

Well funded public services and infrastructure is a positive goal.

That’s just doesn’t make sense with respect. Zero taxation probably underpins about 10,000 jobs here and all those employees are paying tax and NI at the full rate. That is IOMGs share and it’s a big share. If we expected all companies to pay tax then they simply wouldn’t be here in the first place and we’d lose 10;000 taxpayers and the money they pay to Treasury. If you wanted to steal part of their dividends or be paid to run their businesses then we’d have even less. We have well funded public services - it’s just the money is going on wages and pensions not actually on doing much that benefits society as a whole. That is why Government needs to be cut back. Front line services should be preserved and everything else cut back significantly. We don’t need a multi million pound fleet of new buses, then we dont need another multi million pound fleet of mini buses stealing fares off taxi companies, and we don’t need people on very good wages (considerably higher than equivalent UK workers) still driving round vehicles that are largely empty. It’s the basic model you saw in any communist country. 

[woody2]

iomg isn't interested in public services or infrastructure, its aim is to keep the inefficient gravy train running....

[thesultanofsheight]

3 minutes ago, woody2 said:

iomg isn't interested in public services or infrastructure, its aim is to keep the inefficient gravy train running....

Correct and if to do that it has to put every tax paying taxi firm in the IOM out of business it will. 

[pongo]

13 minutes ago, thesultanofsheight said:

Zero taxation probably underpins about 10,000 jobs  etc

The point of low / zero taxation is that the client companies should be zero taxed. That's what keeps some people in work. But there is no reason why the profitable business of hosting those companies could not contribute more to the society as a whole - whether via taxation or via some other mechanism.

Govt jobs, a strong public sector, pensions etc are part of the quid pro quo. Apart from anything else the private sector is far too small to support anything even close to full employment.

[thesultanofsheight]

1 hour ago, pongo said:

The point of low / zero taxation is that the client companies should be zero taxed. That's what keeps some people in work. But there is no reason why the profitable business of hosting those companies could not contribute more to the society as a whole - whether via taxation or via some other mechanism.

Govt jobs, a strong public sector, pensions etc are part of the quid pro quo. Apart from anything else the private sector is far too small to support anything even close to full employment.

I can’t agree. The reason the private sector is so small is that government makes it so difficult to do business here and it has also artificially pushed up salaries that make it less attractive to employ here. Your suggestion of some government CSP running businesses would make it even more difficult to do business here. They would literally leave in droves rather than sign up to be part of some socialist paper farm. The fact is that government cannot make money (that isn’t its function anyway). The cash cow is the private sector which is turning, largely, off Island wealth and off Island transactional activity into IOM taxes and IOM employment. Even more so with our artificial VAT structuring. Without that conversion of non domestic activity into domestic taxes IOMG has nothing as our local economy would basically support nothing let alone a £400M wage and pensions bill. The real problem is complete over employment in IOMG and the fact that the financial footprint of IOMG has completely outgrown anything our economy could logically support. That isn’t the private sectors fault at all. 

[pongo]

43 minutes ago, thesultanofsheight said:

Your suggestion of some government CSP running businesses would make it even more difficult to do business here. They would literally leave in droves rather than sign up to be part of some socialist paper farm.

This is an Aunt Sally. You're arguing only with yourself. Since I haven't suggested this. It's you who keeps suggesting it and then knocking it down.

I am not suggesting some mad revolution - simply a re balancing in favour of strong and always improving public services - including the buses. 

Quote

The reason the private sector is so small is that government makes it so difficult to do business here and it has also artificially pushed up salaries

Govts are always accused of making it difficult to do business. It's a thing people always say everywhere. But it clearly isn't the reason why the private sector on the IOM is relatively small. And it is worth remembering that the public sector has been partly paid for from VAT. And that the public sector itself creates work for the private sector - for example construction, retail, deliveries, farming etc.

If the public sector has pushed up salaries in the private sector then good, frankly. Relatively higher wages is a good thing in general.

ETA: personally I believe that we actually have a relatively effective government. And that's partly why we have such a relatively vibrant private sector. It's a positive story for the most part.

[thesultanofsheight]

2 hours ago, pongo said:

This is an Aunt Sally. You're arguing only with yourself. Since I haven't suggested this. It's you who keeps suggesting it and then knocking it down.

With respect you did 

The main problem is that the IOM has outgrown its ability to feed the public sector. That hasn’t got anything to do with zero taxation because without zero taxation our national income would be even lower than it is now as we would have much less higher earning private sector taxpayers and VAT paying entities. The fact is that mass over employment and waste in the public sector cannot be supported by our private sector or our revenue model anymore so that has to change first. 

[pongo]

3 hours ago, thesultanofsheight said:

Your suggestion of some government CSP running businesses

Again. I have not suggested this.

18 minutes ago, thesultanofsheight said:

The fact is that mass over employment and waste in the public sector cannot be supported by our private sector or our revenue model anymore so that has to change first. 

This is not fact. It's a point of view.  And it's a point of view which sees the private sector as primary and assumes that the revenue model is inflexible.

If you make people unemployed without a realistic strategy to sustainably build jobs in the private sector then you risk shrinking the economy.

I don't think what we mean is really that far apart TBH.

[thesultanofsheight]

We aren’t that far out but I just can’t see how we can accept that the government we have is in anyway near the right size to be effective to society. It’s constrains almost everything here and ties it all up in red tape. We need less managers and more actual workers. It needs to downsize it’s footprint considerably. 

[GreyWolf]

I hope Mr longworth and 2 others enjoyed there jolly to Switzerland at the taxpayers expense but didn’t end up buying any old defunked trains or bendy buses.

[pongo]

17 minutes ago, thesultanofsheight said:

I just can’t see how we can accept that the government we have is in anyway near the right size to be effective to society. It’s constrains almost everything here and ties it all up in red tape

I don't see much evidence of this. It seems like an exaggeration.

Everyone always believes that they could "cut through the red tape". But for the most part it's nearly always about being standards compliant. And you get a similar sort of nonsense in the private sector - for example the whole utterly daft business of ISO 900x and similar.

[Manx Bean]

By Christ, there's some right shite being spouted on here fellas!