Do we really understand what’s happening to the cycle trade?

[djnotts]

I’m putting these points forward to get people to think …… to face up to reality if you will.

There is a meme abroad that if only all the working-age people in receipt of welfare were to work, which a high proportion do already BTW, The Problem would be solved. It wouldn’t.

Plus one!

[Cowsham]

Nearholmer:
"If the real wish is to cut the welfare budget, while focusing on getting people who aren’t working, but could, into work,..."

But into what jobs and where? There is a huge mismatch between vacancies and skills and surplus potential workers and vacancies in geographical terms.

There are many more jobs around now than when I was coming out of education early 80's

There are many more on benefits than then too.

It's a two edged sword -- I can't believe that cutting one number doesn't help the other.

[jimlews]

I'm not sure if this is relevant to this thread, given recent drift into royal yachts etc. but here goes...

UK Govt. to scrap tariff on Chinese E.bikes.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c75z9925lelo

[cycle tramp]

We must cut the welfare budget -- as posters have said there are too many healthy working age people on welfare.

As Wikipedia would say: citation needed.

Helping people in their hour of need (be that medical or financial) should be the absolute bedrock of a civilised society. It costs a lot less to treat the causes than it does to deal with the aftermath as people turn to crime, drugs or "final options" like loan sharks preying on the weak and vulnerable.

And people on benefits are not the problem, in spite of what the RW press would like you to believe. No-one is arriving in the UK by small boat and rocking up to a 5-bed mansion, all expenses paid while they both live on benefits AND take your job.

There's a lot about the welfare budget (and in fact most Government budgets) that could do with better management but cutting welfare costs WAY more in the long term than it saves in the short term.

Worryingly I find myself agreeing with Rareposter again... a safety net is required for assist those that fall... however I would prefer it viewed as a trampoline rather than a hammock....
....following another thread on another part of the forum... there is a lot which we need to do, our sewerage system is a mess, verges need cutting, pot holes filling, refuse being removed, homeless shelters need building, wind turbines to install, tidal power lagoons to build, without even approaching the whole mirco plastic issue... for those who do not have dependants, or are claiming universal credits or job seekers allowance- is it too much of an ask for them to work 2 days a week, to help improve the lives around them?

[edocaster]

I'm not sure if this is relevant to this thread, given recent drift into royal yachts etc. but here goes...

UK Govt. to scrap tariff on Chinese E.bikes.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c75z9925lelo

"We brought our manufacturing here with assurances that this [tariffs on Chinese bikes] was a long term change."

That's an incredibly shallow moat for them to have made a decision on.

Tariffs, strictly speaking anti-dumping duties in this case, are supposed to be assessed on the existence of dumping (i.e. selling below the market price in the exporter's home territory), and damage to a domestic industry (material injury). If the industry kicked off after tariffs, that gets into the murky definition of "material retardation" of a domestic industry, which is far less well-defined. And once tariffs become long term, who is to say whether existing industries are being protected, or new ones made from scratch?

In any case, it's supposed to be a technical exercise, although these things have become political - even long before current trade wars - because companies can lobby for protection (domestic producers) and exceptions (exporters).

I would hazard that in the current example, small players know that Brompton got the protection...

[Cowsham]

We must cut the welfare budget -- as posters have said there are too many healthy working age people on welfare.

As Wikipedia would say: citation needed.

Helping people in their hour of need (be that medical or financial) should be the absolute bedrock of a civilised society. It costs a lot less to treat the causes than it does to deal with the aftermath as people turn to crime, drugs or "final options" like loan sharks preying on the weak and vulnerable.

And people on benefits are not the problem, in spite of what the RW press would like you to believe. No-one is arriving in the UK by small boat and rocking up to a 5-bed mansion, all expenses paid while they both live on benefits AND take your job.

There's a lot about the welfare budget (and in fact most Government budgets) that could do with better management but cutting welfare costs WAY more in the long term than it saves in the short term.

Worryingly I find myself agreeing with Rareposter again... a safety net is required for assist those that fall... however I would prefer it viewed as a trampoline rather than a hammock....
....following another thread on another part of the forum... there is a lot which we need to do, our sewerage system is a mess, verges need cutting, pot holes filling, refuse being removed, homeless shelters need building, wind turbines to install, tidal power lagoons to build, without even approaching the whole mirco plastic issue... for those who do not have dependants, or are claiming universal credits or job seekers allowance- is it too much of an ask for them to work 2 days a week, to help improve the lives around them?

No but all of that is very labour intensive which means more NIC for potential employers to find which increases the government bill so maybe there's a case for government to utilize some of the able bodied people on benefits. The money is just doing a circuit to the detriment of everyone except the accountants.

[rareposter]

Related to the cycle industry and trade - this recent video from GCN looking at the problems of counterfeiting, how to spot fakes, how not to buy them in the first place and what the industry is having to do to combat the problem.

https://youtu.be/qhGaci44z-4?si=L8_RXaQSyqR0LnoN

30 minutes long, it's almost a documentary and some of it is pretty sobering stuff when it includes the problems of slave labour, human trafficking and links to crime.

[atoz]

Sadly my fave cycle shop and my wheelbuilder for the last 30 years is no more. Yes I'm one of those people that still want my wheels handbuilt. Given the state of our local roads there's a pretty obvious reason for that. But it's also to keep my ageing Claud Butlers going a bit longer (41 years old and counting). Wheelbuilding is a traditional skill that some in the trade don't want to do. They'd rather sell you stuff you don't need and can't afford.I do have a more modern bike available- and quel surprise the wheels are handbuilt by the very same shop.

I suspected this was coming but it's still a shock when it happens. It's almost like a bereavement. Yes there are other people out there who do this but not many and not always local.

I don't miss some of the casualties in the cycle trade. One in particular who shall be nameless was just too superior to stock anything approaching a pump washer. A neighbour of mine once described the cycle trade as being "the last refuge of neantherthal man". I think that was unfair to our ancestral relatives.Despite that you still need cycle shops. Without them it's going to be a bit difficult to do "active transport" whatever it is you ride.

[Bowak]

We must cut the welfare budget -- as posters have said there are too many healthy working age people on welfare.

As Wikipedia would say: citation needed.

Helping people in their hour of need (be that medical or financial) should be the absolute bedrock of a civilised society. It costs a lot less to treat the causes than it does to deal with the aftermath as people turn to crime, drugs or "final options" like loan sharks preying on the weak and vulnerable.

And people on benefits are not the problem, in spite of what the RW press would like you to believe. No-one is arriving in the UK by small boat and rocking up to a 5-bed mansion, all expenses paid while they both live on benefits AND take your job.

There's a lot about the welfare budget (and in fact most Government budgets) that could do with better management but cutting welfare costs WAY more in the long term than it saves in the short term.

Worryingly I find myself agreeing with Rareposter again... a safety net is required for assist those that fall... however I would prefer it viewed as a trampoline rather than a hammock....
....following another thread on another part of the forum... there is a lot which we need to do, our sewerage system is a mess, verges need cutting, pot holes filling, refuse being removed, homeless shelters need building, wind turbines to install, tidal power lagoons to build, without even approaching the whole mirco plastic issue... for those who do not have dependants, or are claiming universal credits or job seekers allowance- is it too much of an ask for them to work 2 days a week, to help improve the lives around them?

Well for an absolute starter, would 2 days a week at the going rate for the work you'd want them to do be more or less than the benefits?

I have no dependents and am over 25, so if I needed to could currently claim JSA of £90.50/week. With the minimum wage going to to £12.21/hour from April, I make that 7.4 hours of work.

So I would say that 2 days a week is definitely too much of an ask on minimum wage grounds alone.

[Nearholmer]

As usual with these conversations, a lot of assumptions about who is getting “welfare” for doing what, and very few solid facts, creep in.

The Welfare Bill, includes a lot of different things. It’s frustratingly difficult to find a recent set of numbers, so beware that this pie-chart is old, but it makes the point that there is a lot more to this than is often assumed.

What I can quickly find is that the overall budget is now c£319bn, so c50% larger than this ten year old pie chart, and this snippet from the DWP website that is current is very interesting:

“Around 55% of social security expenditure goes to pensioners; in 2024-25 we will spend £165.9 billion on benefits for pensioners in GB. This includes spending on the State Pension which is forecast to be £137.5 billion in 2024 to 2025.”

When I get a bit more time, I will hunt for an up to date pie-chart.

[Jdsk]

As usual with these conversations, a lot of assumptions about who is getting “welfare” for doing what, and very few solid facts, creep in.
...

Yes. It isn't actually in the forum guidelines, but it might as well be. And of course othering is much much easier if you avoid the facts.

I'm now expecting some pensioner or other to claim (!) that state pensions aren't benefits, see previous threads.

Jonathan

[djnotts]

^"I'm now expecting some pensioner or other to claim (!) that state pensions aren't benefits, see previous threads."

Different budget lines, different connotations, but they are of "benefit", so I don't think I will.

[Nearholmer]

I’m in a mischievous mood right now, so here’s a picture of that part of the welfare budget allocated to pensions.

[Nearholmer]

Less mischievously, this is helpful, extracted from this, which IMO we all ought to get through the letter box annually: https://obr.uk/forecasts-in-depth/brief ... -finances/

[djnotts]

I understand the ecomics of volume and the strength of Decathlon but FIVE grand off?:

https://www.decathlon.co.uk/p/mp/niner- ... f915d15961

Plenty of other e-mtbs with 1500-2000 quid reductions. Must be a loss even for the big D.