Yet more shortages of workers.

[patman post]

I like to keep a ton in cash as you never know when a card might stop working. I'm with Santander and all their cards stopped working a few weeks back, other banks have had similar problems.
Some would say that a cashless society provides a perfect data trail for others to use for their own purposes.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vJYaXy5mmA8

[johnofgwent]

Not quite true. EU students havent paid tuition fees in scotland  , and this has only now ended because of brexit.

Indeed. Students from the other 26 countries had to be allowed in free, but Scottish hatred of the English was allowed to continue; special.arrangements were written to allow Scotland to continue screwing the English.

[Borchester]

I know your posts are often tongue in cheek, but the fact that as time goes by the economy will need fewer hours worked is a problem when that same economy relies upon high consumer spending.

Possibly not.

We need less and less folk to produce our needs, something that has been going on since the digging stick was replaced by the plough. That should create more and more leisure. But it doesn't because humans have the nervous habit of work. Most of the jobs are pointless, but that does not stop people turning up and sighing that the world would end if they weren't there to keep things running.

As has often been said but is now a distinct possibility, we are reaching the stage where one man will press a button and provide everything the world needs. Then one day he will have a lie in and find that someone else has automated the process. Then everyone will go potty because we really aren't geared to do sod all.

[Thomas]

Well that's the problem for those that see cash payments as a necessary part of the job to make it viable  .

The hole in the wall that are currently free withdrawals will no doubt soon charge to take your own money out and the cashless society will take another step toward the day when we wished we had objected to it .

I think the cashless society is a long way away yet.

Various factors contribute for and against cashless , but i suppose the biggest factor in your game mate is the madness of the government forcing builders to levy a 20 % VAT charge when you do domestic work .

There is definetly a generational divide when talking about cash , i would say 60 yr olds and over prefer cash , the rest primarily prefer cashless.

Pros and cons mate like i said , one thing we are happy with being cashless is now receving prompt payment almost instantaneously when invoicing commercial customers , unlike in the old days when you had to send in the invoice , then wait for some arsehole in an office to take weeks to sort out and post a cheque.

[Thomas]

Sounds very similar to what is going on in Scotland. As you know Scottish students don't pay tuition fees but foreign students do, guess what? The universities prefer to take foreign students, think there is a parallel here.

Not quite true. EU students havent paid tuition fees in scotland  , and this has only now ended because of brexit.

[Thomas]

Nowhere to eat in Helston?

Ignore him ratcliff.

Pappysmurf is the biggest feckin exaggerater on the internet.

Earlier on this year , he was regaling us with horror stories of cornish supermarket shelves being empty and the cornish dying of starvation in their thousands till one of the forum members nick went down to cornwall for a holiday and posted pictures of happy smiling cornish people all well fed and stacked supermarket shelves.

Pappy was shattered.

Pappy doesnt eat out in cornwall not because there isnt anywhere to eat delicious food , but because he is the biggest tight arse in cornwall.

He made his money selling ex council flats in buckinghamshire , depriving the needy of roofs over their heads , and retired on his ill gotten gains to cornwall pushing up house prices for the locals in the process.

A luxury meal for pappy contains a tin of corned beef he stashed by in the war , a packet of mashed totties and a bottle of white lighting cider. His poor long suffering wife gets treated to a bag of fish and chips once a year at christmas , and thats it.

Asking pappysmurf about eating out in Helston is like asking grandad from only fools about eating at a posh restaurant in peckham.

As del boy would say , asking pappysmurf about culinary delights is like giving sunglasses to a bloke with one ear.

[johnofgwent]

I know your posts are often tongue in cheek, but the fact that as time goes by the economy will need fewer hours worked is a problem when that same economy relies upon high consumer spending. People earning less due to working less will spend less, leading to a downward spiral in the economy. Somehow less hours will need to be wiorked but people will still need the same money in their pockets if not more.

Accepting a permanent class of unemployed people allowed to sit around getting paid for it when others have to work for it will never be acceptable to most working people. The unemployed tend to be expected to seek work as a condition of their safety net. Yet there will undoubtedly be fewer working hours needed in the economy as time goes by, especially with the advance of AI.

Solving this conundrum in my view requires radical thinking. Somehow people need to maintain their incomes whilst working less on average. There are only two ways I can see of doing this. Either employers have to pay more for fewer hours which is probably unfeasible for quite a few of them if it was going to be done to the necessary extemt. Or else the state must take up the slack by providing a Universal Basic Income to every adult. This way, every adult would be given what the unemployed are given, but those working would have their ipay as additional to that. With everyone getting it, the opposition to those choosing not to work getting it would diminish. And getting work would be incentivised as all income would be additional with no clawback beyond the usual taxes.

There is of course the tricky problem of who pays for this. Essentially, what I think needs to happen is we have to tax the robots being used instead of human labour, so that those companies divesting themselves of large chunks of the workforce  are taxed on the basis of the robots replacing them.

This will be too radical for many here I know, and some of the details of it in practice would be complex, but how else is the conumdrum going to be solved? How else can incomes and consumer spending be maintained with ever fewer hours of work being available?

The reality is someone somewhere, probably one of the many countries who have no problem with the "poor" starving to death in their gutters, will welcome the robot filled factories and thus taxing them won't work as robots can be set up anywhere.

[papasmurf]

2.5 miles is nothing , point is there are restaurants to eat at as has now been admitted but he doesn't like their menus 

Due to staff shortages the majority of menus have been "burgerised," with little choice. A waste of time money and effort to visit those restaurants. (Pubs are even worse, they all seem to have the same or similar very limited menus.)

[papasmurf]

On the barbecue you built in the garden?

Possibly but it could be on the beach or on the cliff top near the lifeboat station. (The tide times will mean the beach will be difficult.)

[Ratcliff]

None nearer than 2.5 miles according to your post. The rest non-Michelin look to have "interesting" menus. If I am visiting I might think of chancing one or two. If I lived there, I'd possibly go for an Indian, or home cook...

2.5 miles is nothing , point is there are restaurants to eat at as has now been admitted but he doesn't like their menus so prefers to cook for himself .
Looks like a wide choice of restaurants to me but each to their own
Bit like condemning all bakers in an area just because the one you went in didn't have lemon drizzle cake and you refused to try anything else.

[srb7677]

Ideally we need an enhanced dole so that the unemployed can sit on their arses in reasonable comfort. Modern technology is making that possible,  but traditional morality is holding us back.

I know your posts are often tongue in cheek, but the fact that as time goes by the economy will need fewer hours worked is a problem when that same economy relies upon high consumer spending. People earning less due to working less will spend less, leading to a downward spiral in the economy. Somehow less hours will need to be wiorked but people will still need the same money in their pockets if not more.

Accepting a permanent class of unemployed people allowed to sit around getting paid for it when others have to work for it will never be acceptable to most working people. The unemployed tend to be expected to seek work as a condition of their safety net. Yet there will undoubtedly be fewer working hours needed in the economy as time goes by, especially with the advance of AI.

Solving this conundrum in my view requires radical thinking. Somehow people need to maintain their incomes whilst working less on average. There are only two ways I can see of doing this. Either employers have to pay more for fewer hours which is probably unfeasible for quite a few of them if it was going to be done to the necessary extemt. Or else the state must take up the slack by providing a Universal Basic Income to every adult. This way, every adult would be given what the unemployed are given, but those working would have their ipay as additional to that. With everyone getting it, the opposition to those choosing not to work getting it would diminish. And getting work would be incentivised as all income would be additional with no clawback beyond the usual taxes.

There is of course the tricky problem of who pays for this. Essentially, what I think needs to happen is we have to tax the robots being used instead of human labour, so that those companies divesting themselves of large chunks of the workforce  are taxed on the basis of the robots replacing them.

This will be too radical for many here I know, and some of the details of it in practice would be complex, but how else is the conumdrum going to be solved? How else can incomes and consumer spending be maintained with ever fewer hours of work being available?

[Borchester]

This is so true. The system is now sending most kids with half a brain to university.
What the system needs to do is send the creme de la creme to university and the others on apprenticeships, on the job training, driving courses and practical skills courses. Getting into work experience and on the job training is so important.

Well yes and no.

We don't really need that many people anyway and sending them off to study something or other does no harm and keeps them off the dole for a bit.

The real problem is that we have this nervous habit of work. Most folk want to work and need to feel that what they are doing is important. They are usually wrong on both counts, but that won't stop them thinking that way.

Ideally we need an enhanced dole so that the unemployed can sit on their arses in reasonable comfort. Modern technology is making that possible,  but traditional morality is holding us back.

[cromwell]

As explained Trip advisor  has listed restaurants with a Helston POSTAL address, that is not the same thing as the restaurants being in Helston.  My home has a Helston postal address but it is 13 miles away from Helston.
There are no restaurants IN Helston I would bother with because of very limited menus and nothing on the menus my wife and I like.
Which is why if we want a decent meal we cook it ourselves.
It is also why with our wedding anniversary in a few weeks we will be cooking at home.

On the barbecue you built in the garden? 

[Streetwalker]

I haven't used cash since before the lock down. I would think there are very many the same. I don't think I even have any coins in my purse. I must look, but everything now is done by card or phone. I should think Rishi is very happy about that. I noticed just the other day that all 3 of the banks locally have closed leaving holes in the wall and the Post Office as cash sources but I don't see queues like I used to.

Well that's the problem for those that see cash payments as a necessary part of the job to make it viable  . 

The hole in the wall that are currently free withdrawals will no doubt soon charge to take your own money out and the cashless society will take another step toward the day when we wished we had objected to it . 

[Nick]

Not any longer.When unis start talking about having to level down their first year or possibly have their own entry exams or ignore bad spelling and grammar you  know something isn't working.

Sounds very similar to what is going on in Scotland. As you know Scottish students don't pay tuition fees but foreign students do, guess what? The universities prefer to take foreign students, think there is a parallel here.