What would the economic implications of salary capping be?

Communist countries came up with a few scientific innovations when they were busy competing with capitalist countries. And are we now saying that China is not Communist? In which case, surely you can argue that there hasn't actually been a proper communist country, yet? It's not as if the name means anything if the practice is actually contrary to the principle, is it? A bit like New Labour being assumed to be left wing, just because it has the word "Labour" in it.

Thta is exactly why communist countries are not as innovative and productive as capitalist countries. Why bother busting a gut if there is no incentive and you earn the same as an unskilled worker?

employers would surely struggle to fill some jobs. why would you take a job that was very demanding and had previously had 100k + salary if you could take a much less demanding job that paid the same - ie 80k? my husband earns 100k + as a consultant - usually because companies can't get permanent employees to do what he does. there's no way he would do this role for 80k as it involves lots of stress and living away from home. he would take a local job instead. so the companies would struggle even more to fill specialist technical positions and projects would be lost as a result.

I believe in regulation. I am against MPs flipping their homes. But the regulation must not stifle small business and enterprise, it must incentivise productivity, profit and business. John Redwood is the expert on cutting out regulation that stifles enterprise.

I am against ripoff cowboy builders and dodgy traders, but Redwood and the Tories have identified lots of regulation that stifles productive businesses.

We need regulation to ensure a free and fair market and to stop reckless risks which crash the economy, but we don't need the type of elf and safety regulation that prevents emergency services rescuing or helping people

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2007246/Elf-n-safety-red-tape-prevents-half-police-quarters-paramedics-helping-public.html

It's funny how you talk about both needing more regulation and having too much red tape. How will you separate out those businesses in need of more regulation from those in need of less red tape? And how will you stop some of those now held back by red tape from adopting the sorts of unscrupulous business strategies of which most of us disapprove if some of that red tape is removed? It's not as if most people haven't suffered at the hands of unscrupulous small businesses, whether that be plumbers, carpenters, electricians, builders, independent shops, etc, etc... Lots of people go to big businesses instead because, ironically, they feel better protected going to big business, even if in the long term they are more shafted by it. And that's because big business can cope better with regulation.

And it those people who voted against Labour in the hope that they would no longer be squeezed. It is those people who are against salary caps and against restrictions and for freedom, unlike the bien-pensants in Islington and Primrose Hill who read the Guardian in their midllion pound homes and are not part of the squeezed middle and have the luxury to priortise issues like sustainability and saving the planet, while the ordinary people are trying to save their jobs.

We all started in Africa and mankind has emigrated ever since. It is how it is. Things go in cycles. I had great uncles who emigrated in the 20s after the great crash. Things were even worse here then than they are now. People didn't have much food nor shoes. There will always be cycles in both markets and in terms of which economies on the planet are in the ascendancy. I don't think the fact people might want to move to other countries means capitalism and free markets don't work.

However we certainly could do with cutting back state provision hugely. increasing the band of people who pay no tax and reducing taxes all round. If that causes people to move to Angola or wherever because state benefits are better there then so be it.

Oligarchs don't struggle, they choose to set up home here. The tax regimes don't seem to affect them.

It is ordinary people who are buckling under the strain, the squeezed middle, the ever-shafted middle.

It is not the super rich that are leaving. Millionaires like Osborne etc. don't leave and Rusian oligarchs come here.

It is ordinary people who leave. Listen to radio phone-ins and you will see that cab drivers, farmers, nurses and scientists talk of moving to Canada or Australia for a better life. They say the country is going to hell in a handcart, that political correctness has gorn mad, that they are too highly taxed and too poorly paid and that they struggle to make a good living here with ever increasing house prices and stealth taxes and red tape that restricts their enterprise and growth.

What I'm saying is that the article guesses the reasons for professionals leaving the country in 2008 as high house prices, high taxes and poor climate. Reasonable to add 'better wage prospects' and 'more opportunities' to that. Austerity measures will have increased the flow of emigrants, although the weakness of the global economy may have offset some of that. What is clear, however, is that capping wages would not be an incentive for them to stay home.

So, are you saying these people aren't leaving the UK any more, then, Cogito?... Or that they would be leaving it, anyway, because they are never happy?

Let's create more dctors, let's train more of them, let's increase the number of places in medical schools. Let's create more competition, that will reduce the amount they earn. There is no need for us to import foreign doctors from countries where they are needed most, we could train more of our own. A greater supply of labour will reduce their wages. It's the same with dentists.

As the article was from early 2008, it's clear that professionals were unhappy with their prospects under a Labour government even before austerity measures were even a possibility. Doctors are notoriously well-rewarded within the NHS. Teachers are never happy whoever is in charge. And engineers are not necessarily public sector workers in the first place. :)

Do you think the answer is more of New Labour's 'light-touch regulation'? Even Gordon Brown admitted that he should not have listened so much to the bankers who wanted the 'light-touch regulation' he gave them.

The powerful people and powerful lobbyists became too strong and influential, and there were some 'politicians and also some 'cabs for hire' who were overly influenced by these lobbyists. Some of teh checks and balances were scrapped under a policy of deregulation of the financial markets which Thatcher started and which was continued by successive politicians. But it wasn't inevitable, it wasn't always so, and an alternative of effective regulation exists.

It is not true that what bankers do is so clever that mere mortals can't understand it and regulate it. Our scientists working in CERN and in our universities are far cleverer than our bankers and getting to grips with their financial instruments and their regulation is peanuts to our brainy graduates. We need a policy of effective independent regulation. It is not true that we will all be doomed and the bankers will leave the country if we don't give them 'light-touch regulation'. Let's regulate them, hold them liable and create some nationalised banks to give them some competition.

It's about people and power. We have the people, we have the human capital in our universities and the government of the people has the power.

So, lots of doctors, teachers and engineers are leaving the UK. In response, the government attacks teachers' pay and pensions and seeks to alter the NHS in ways the majority of the medical profession now appear to be opposing. Oh, and does nothing to improve things for the industries that employ engineers, instead focusing on keeping the financial sector happy in case bankers decide to leave.

Urrgghh. If America is the heart of capitalism and is more regulated than we are, yet is the main cause of the current global chaos, then regulation apparently isn't the answer.

"> Professionals are already leaving the UK in higher numbers than in the past.

And what evidence do you have of this? Did you just make it up?"

I don't like being accused of lying. This article from 2008 claimed that Record numbers of Britons are leaving - many of them doctors, teachers and engineers - in the biggest exodus for almost 50 years. And if that was the picture in 2008, and since the economy hasn't got better since, I believe the same would be true today.

Yes I think you are right joan.

What we all want is more democracy, more transparency, more freedom.more checks and balances, more regulation of the powerful and more representative government. The more of those things we have, the less is likely to go wrong, because scrutiny and transparency prevent the powerful from rigging the free market.

Yes, i think the exemptions in ours cover more ground.

I also think that whenever an American cottons on to just how unfettered the power of a UK prime minister is, as opposed to the real checks and balances in the US government, they realise we're effectively an oligarchical dictatorship. However, since we are just a little chunk of Europe, it doesn't really matter.

I was wrong about Clinton repealing the Glass Steagall Act. He signed the repeal into law but only because some Republicans had initiated it and it won a majority in the House etc.

'The bill that ultimately "repealed" the Act was brought up in the Senate by Phil Gramm (R-Texas) and in the House of Representatives by Jim Leach (R-Iowa) in 1999. The bills were passed by a Republican majority, basically following party lines by a 54?44 vote in the Senate[15] and by a bi-partisan 343?86 vote in the House of Representatives.[16] After passing both the Senate and House the bill was moved to a conference committee to work out the differences between the Senate and House versions. The final bill resolving the differences was passed in the Senate 90?8 (one not voting) and in the House: 362?57 (15 not voting). The legislation was signed into law by President Bill Clinton on November 12, 1999.[17]'

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glass%E2%80%93Steagall_Act

Agree joan, Labour did a good thing with the Freedom of Information Act, but I don't think that our one is as effective as teh American one, but I don't really know.

America takes regulation very seriously. Gillian Tett was on Newsnight a few days ago and Paxman mentioned that in America quite a few powerful people have gone to jail and he asked her how many had gone to jail here, and I think she said that she thinks none.

Well claig, we do have a basic Freedom of Information Act, thanks to the last government. What we don't have is a written constitution. I think that guarantees a lot more freedom to Americans.

'All these things require systemic change.'

We don't need seismic change or revolution, all we need is regulation, laws and the enforcement of law. Those who pretend that these things are not possible are deceiving the public. There is an alternative to 'light-touch regulation' and knighting people for their 'services to banking;.

'Also, you can't 'regulate people'. It's complete nonsense.
'

You regulate people by making and enforcing laws, just like the anti-smoking laws in pubs etc.

Saying it is complete nonsense is defeatist and smacks of 'light-touch regulation'

Powerful people do need regulating.
Power needs regulating.