LETTER: Pay demands not linked to productivity
Too many people have been demanding and getting excessive pay awards. The net result is that there is too much cash in the system with not enough productivity to finance it. Hardly a day went by with out pay demands for 35% or similar being made. There has been a disconnect between pay and productivity without these increases being justified.
Now we see a the whole economy spiralling out of control. Workers saying "inflation has eroded my pay packet and now I want a pay increase to get back to where I was ten years ago." I blame Brexit.
Brexit was the spanner in the works. Suddenly we were uncompetitive in world markets and Joe Bloggs failed to see you cannot get something for nothing.
If Gross Domestic Product declines by 5% you either take the hit and accept the blow or come back with a 35% pay demand. No guessing what happens. You see teachers, doctors and the like making ludicrous demands. I say ludicrous because the fact that productivity must go up is usually not possible. Does a teacher work 35% harder or a doctor do 35% more operations? No way. They see a weak government and go for the jugular.
The key to this disaster is that this valueless money simply chases product without productivity! The result is inflation. Inflation means rising prices and the cure for that is to pour water on the flames with interest rate increases. The effect is selective. Those that can least afford it get hit the hardest.
The economy is out of equilibrium and only bigger interest rate increases will slow it. The cure is worse than the disease and those that can least afford it are the young, the poor, the disadvantaged and the old.
Stopping a runaway train is a damn side harder than just having the brakes on to begin with!
These 35% pay claims should never have been given a chance.
I could go on but quite frankly it is depressing. If people don't realise the economics of a total disaster by now they never will.
Robin Lloyd, Ellesmere
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