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Thought I’d do a theatre mini-effortpost, since I don’t think a lot of people know how the industry is structured in terms of jobs, and why people have been crying out for help more and more these last few months. UK theatre is a mish-mash of humans flying along by the seat of its pants most of the time. This is partly driven by the nature of theatre production – a much larger staff is needed for the production period (making the show) than for the day-to-day run. Conversely, the front-of-house staff are not needed during this period, when there’s no audience, more on that below. Very broadly, theatre venues themselves can be divided into two types: producing houses and receiving houses. Producing houses generally produce their own work, i.e. the theatre venue has a theatre production company attached which produces the plays/musicals/dance etc. Think the National, the Royal Court, or Nottingham Playhouse. These venues generally have a larger permanent staff, and use them for the production period, while usually bringing in a creative team from outside. Receiving houses are just theatre buildings that receive productions from other companies, and tend to have a skeleton building staff, mainly to look after the venue itself. Most West End theatres are like this (though the theatre owner may also act as the producer for the show, but this doesn’t really affect staffing). On a limited run West End production then, you might have 4 different kinds of worker: The permanent building staff, who are always around and help out on the show, but also stop the building falling down, and who will be full-time employees. They will have been furloughed if the building’s still in business. The production team, who are creatives (lighting, sound, set, costumer designers; director) and technical (production manager, lighting programmer, sound production engineer), and are only around for the technical/dress rehearsal and preview period. They will be self-employed freelancers who invoice for their work, so would go for the self-employed support if they earn under £50,000 (most of them), unless they graduated from drama school last year, in which case you’re SOL (almost everyone starts off freelance out of drama school). The show staff, who stay with the show for its whole run (stage managers, actors, automation, lighting, sound operators). They will often be freelancers but on PAYE. Might be furloughable, but the production will run out of money pretty fast, and if you were between jobs when the pandemic hit, no furlough or self-employed support for you. Front-of-house staff, who are often on zero-hour contracts, so they can be let go during the production period. Lol no money for you in the pandemic! But there’s a lot more to UK theatre than London and the West End, and they’ll be suffering in the same way. A lot of my friends are doing shifts in supermarkets in the meantime, to keep some money coming in – it all depends on where you were when the music stopped. This is not an industry anyone goes into for the money (except fat cat producers, of which there are few), but it is possible to make a comfortable living off it on the technical side, thanks in no small part to decent unions. Actors less so, but that’s due to massive oversupply. However if you’re freelance, it does rely on coasting from job to job and hoping the gaps aren’t too big, and if you’re permanent, hoping the ticket revenue doesn’t dive off a cliff. Both of which have now happened. As we’ve seen in the last few weeks, venues are starting to run out of money and let people go, or even close permanently. I’ll wait and see what this support package is like in practice before passing judgement.
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Jul 6, 2020 13:24
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ZERO TOLERANCE https://twitter.com/PippaCrerar/status/1280112229191503873 OKAY SOME TOLERANCE. THERE IS ROOM FOR NUANCE. OH GOD WE hosed IT.
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Jul 6, 2020 13:24
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Flipswitch posted:what did she do this time I suspect there's a big thread linking terves, anti-menstrual suppression, 70s feminism, chemophobia, and antivax that all starts in a 60s essay saying that Valium is being deliberately over-prescribed to keep women docile.
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Jul 6, 2020 13:25
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Gonzo McFee posted:ZERO TOLERANCE I assume the MP in question isn't left wing or they'd be gone already So interesting to see if this satisfies
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Jul 6, 2020 13:27
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quote:following severe backlash to her actions, JK Rowling yet again decided to clarify her views by posting an 11-tweet thread on Twitter. 
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Jul 6, 2020 13:28
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Yeah student loans are a joke. As a current student myself I'm looking at having an end loan sum of £60k in total (including living allowance) for which I'm expecting the actual debt to have grown to over £70k by the time I graduate thanks to accruing interest at a rate of RPI (aka the higher interest rate) plus 3% whilst studying (for student loan interest calculations, this value only gets updated once a year). Once no longer studying, the applied interest rate depends on how much you earn: below the threshold of currently £26.5k and its just RPI, above it and it gradually increases until the cap of just under £48k where its RPI plus 3% again. Currently the applied RPI is 2.4% even though the actual RPI has plummeted down to 1% courtesy of the pandemic and assuming it stays at that level, I'd need a salary of almost £60k right off the bat just to match accruing interest from the compulsory payments. If RPI returns to the long term average by the time I graduate, I'd need a salary of over £70k just to match interest. Ignoring threshold and salary adjustments (which seems to be a yearly thing now and kinda cancel each other out for these calculations in a very loose way), I'd be needing to earn just over £50k a year every year for 30 years just to pay back via compulsory payments the actual amount loaned to me by the time it'd get written off, never mind all the interest that would have accrued by then. This would be the minimum point where it would be worthwhile to consider paying extra on top of the compulsory payment. I don't expect to ever earn an unadjusted average salary of over £50k a year for 30 years so I have absolutely no incentive to give a poo poo about paying anything more than the compulsory deductions. To actually completely pay off the debt from compulsory payments by the time it would have been written off, I would need a salary of £72k every year for 30 years. Again, this is based on the current low RPI of 1% whereas the average for the past 5-10 years has been between 2.5% and 3% so I would expect the actual number to be upwards of £80k. If this kind of money is being earned then it is very much worthwhile to pay more on top of the compulsory deduction, although If I'm earning this kind of money then I will have made poor life decisions...
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Jul 6, 2020 13:29
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Apparently calling anyone a puppet master (Jewish or not) is "rhetorical anti-semitism".
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Jul 6, 2020 13:36
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Jaeluni Asjil posted:Apparently calling anyone a puppet master (Jewish or not) is "rhetorical anti-semitism". 
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Jul 6, 2020 13:39
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Jaeluni Asjil posted:Apparently calling anyone a puppet master (Jewish or not) is "rhetorical anti-semitism". e: ^^ That's a muppet pastor.
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Jul 6, 2020 13:39
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Jaeluni Asjil posted:Apparently calling anyone a puppet master (Jewish or not) is "rhetorical anti-semitism". Well, it depends who's doing the calling. If it's someone you want to fire, it's obviously antisemitic, but if it's one of your buddies then it's an honest mistake.
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Jul 6, 2020 13:41
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We're definitely shooting for not being able to discuss anyone's wealth at all because that would be antisemitic and when you ask why that's antisemitic the press quotes a load of old blood libel at you E any tories, obviously you will still be able to talk about lansman
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Jul 6, 2020 13:41
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Bobstar posted:As we’ve seen in the last few weeks, venues are starting to run out of money and let people go, or even close permanently. I’ll wait and see what this support package is like in practice before passing judgement. to add to this, a big theatre show needs something like 75% of venue capacity just to break even on the cost of putting it on, compared to a cinema which is more like 15%. A 'socially distanced' arrangement in a theatre auditorium is essentially useless as you'll just keep on haemorrhaging money without the crowds.
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Jul 6, 2020 13:45
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lol the Protestants have taken Antisemitism for themselves.
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Jul 6, 2020 13:47
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Okay I think my brain just crack-pinged because I'm just looking and this and wondering how likely that this is purely coincidence. That's impressive dedication to being a terrible person if so.
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Jul 6, 2020 13:50
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People have brought that up before and apparently it's a "coincidence". You know, how when the right people do clearly lovely things it's a coincidence we can't hold against them.
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Jul 6, 2020 13:52
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Guavanaut posted:Okay I think my brain just crack-pinged because I'm just looking and this She’s claimed otherwise, but odds are good that she's lying.
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Jul 6, 2020 13:53
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Guavanaut posted:Okay I think my brain just crack-pinged because I'm just looking and this lol I thought this was about her pretending to be a man.
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Jul 6, 2020 13:54
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Gonzo McFee posted:Does anyone know any good books about the Slum Clearances? Just had a horrible thought about what life would be like if we hadn't gotten to indoor plumbing by the time neoliberalism fully took hold and the indoor toilet being described as a communist plot. "Indoor sanitation is a noble aspiration, but now is not the right time." "Labour unable to say how indoor bathrooms would be paid for." "Yes, I own several public toilets - but don't paint me as the bad guy." "People aren't stupid. Let the public choose whether they want indoor plumbing or not." "Indoor bathrooms would make housing unaffordable - that's no way to help the poor." The Guardian headlines write themselves.
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Jul 6, 2020 13:56
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Jedit posted:She’s claimed otherwise, but odds are good that she's lying.
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Jul 6, 2020 13:59
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https://tribunemag.co.uk/2020/07/our-vision-for-momentum Some good looking stuff from the new co-chairs of Momentum 
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Jul 6, 2020 14:00
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Pistol_Pete posted:"Indoor sanitation is a noble aspiration, but now is not the right time." Honestly we're so lucky that indoor toilets are so normalised that they don't even enter into imagination or we'd be hearing about marketing communal toilets in new buy to let slums. https://twitter.com/deletedbyMPs/status/1276171209852571648
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Jul 6, 2020 14:00
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I'm genuinely surprised that communal kitchens and bathrooms don't get sold more outside student lets and HMOs.
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Jul 6, 2020 14:12
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Pistol_Pete posted:"Indoor sanitation is a noble aspiration, but now is not the right time." It's also interesting just how quickly indoor plumbing became a thing for housing. When they knocked down the old slums around Abbey Park and Frog Island and moved everyone there to new estates, one of my nan's first comments about the new houses was apparently "you won't believe where the toilets are, they're indoors, right above the kitchen, it's disgusting" because those Victorian toilets were absolutely not something you'd want indoors. But it only took a few decades to completely normalize itself. That also means that it probably wouldn't take long to un-normalize itself and people would blame foreigners or something, so thespaceinvader posted:I'm genuinely surprised that communal kitchens and bathrooms don't get sold more outside student lets and HMOs. 
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Jul 6, 2020 14:18
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As expected, the arts money has strings and is "not for people". Good short thread from Dave, a comrade who should post in this thread if he doesn't already. https://twitter.com/mediocredave/status/1280104483721293831?s=21
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Jul 6, 2020 14:22
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chestnut santabag posted:Yeah student loans are a joke. As a current student myself I'm looking at having an end loan sum of £60k in total (including living allowance) for which I'm expecting the actual debt to have grown to over £70k by the time I graduate thanks to accruing interest at a rate of RPI (aka the higher interest rate) plus 3% whilst studying (for student loan interest calculations, this value only gets updated once a year). Once no longer studying, the applied interest rate depends on how much you earn: below the threshold of currently £26.5k and its just RPI, above it and it gradually increases until the cap of just under £48k where its RPI plus 3% again. Currently the applied RPI is 2.4% even though the actual RPI has plummeted down to 1% courtesy of the pandemic and assuming it stays at that level, I'd need a salary of almost £60k right off the bat just to match accruing interest from the compulsory payments. If RPI returns to the long term average by the time I graduate, I'd need a salary of over £70k just to match interest. The student loan is terrible for middle class earners. Anyone earning under 25k don't pay off anything Anyone earning between 30-50k will end up paying off their entire loan over the maximum period. Meaning they are saddled with every £ of interest possible. Anyone earning more than 70k will be able to pay off the loan very quickly.
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Jul 6, 2020 14:37
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It's almost like that's entirely on purpose. I really should chase up my student loan one of these days I haven't had a staement in years, I assume they lost me in a move at some point.
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Jul 6, 2020 14:41
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chestnut santabag posted:To actually completely pay off the debt from compulsory payments by the time it would have been written off, I would need a salary of £72k every year for 30 years. Again, this is based on the current low RPI of 1% whereas the average for the past 5-10 years has been between 2.5% and 3% so I would expect the actual number to be upwards of £80k. If this kind of money is being earned then it is very much worthwhile to pay more on top of the compulsory deduction, although If I'm earning this kind of money then I will have made poor life decisions... Out of curiosity, what happens if you were to move abroad and there earn ludicrous sums of money? I guess UK officials wouldn't have any way of clawing any of that back from you? This combined with Brexit and the Covid plague, and maybe it would be a good idea for masses of young graduates to simply move the gently caress out 
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Jul 6, 2020 14:47
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I think they send a bunch of increasingly snotty letters to your last known address.
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Jul 6, 2020 14:48
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indeed there's a fair amount of mutual moving-about : https://www.timeshighereducation.com/news/uk-and-australia-set-to-collaborate-on-student-loan-repaymentquote:Australia is the most popular destination for British university leavers who have a student loan, and correspondingly is home to the largest amount of outstanding debt apart from the UK itself.
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Jul 6, 2020 14:49
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Best way to avoid paying off a student loan is to do your first degree during retirement.
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Jul 6, 2020 14:50
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Gonzo McFee posted:Does anyone know any good books about the Slum Clearances? Just had a horrible thought about what life would be like if we hadn't gotten to indoor plumbing by the time neoliberalism fully took hold and the indoor toilet being described as a communist plot. thespaceinvader posted:It's almost like that's entirely on purpose. quote:More generally, the history of post-war housing provision in the UK poses questions about the political economy of the welfare state in general. If pursuit of the median voter and the preservation of vested interests created at earlier stages of reform have been the two great forces driving forward state involvement in the political economy of housing, what might that tell us, for example, about education? And if liberal democracies survive by buying-off trouble from new problems, while continuing to support the vested interests that have accrued in the past, how will they to manage in situations in which economic growth can no longer be relied upon? If the history of intervention in housing gives us anything to go by, it seems likely that they will focus their resources on preserving the interests of those in the middle. This does not bode well for the poor.
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Jul 6, 2020 14:52
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ronya posted:indeed there's a fair amount of mutual moving-about : https://www.timeshighereducation.com/news/uk-and-australia-set-to-collaborate-on-student-loan-repayment These schemes have been mooted every now and then but I'm not aware of any actual action taking place beyond the kind of small scale pilots mentioned in that article. It seems like there's not much in it for European countries, you need an expensive university system that creates a lot of debt like the US or Australia for a reciprocal agreement to make sense. If you're Germany (for example; most EU countries fit) and have workers who were educated in the UK and are now paying taxes in Germany, what do you care if they're repaying their foreign student loan? University is free (or close enough to make no odds) in Germany, so it's not as if the UK can reciprocate by snitching on German repayment delinquents living in the UK. So why would you go to the effort and expense of tracking them down just to disadvantage your own residents or citizens? How would you even enforce repayments?
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Jul 6, 2020 15:02
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thespaceinvader posted:I'm genuinely surprised that communal kitchens and bathrooms don't get sold more outside student lets and HMOs. Aargh, I can just imagine it: save on building costs by having 1 communal bathroom per 4 shoebox flats; the bathroom's cleaned once a week at the same time as the other communal areas of the block (this gets added to the service charge) and the whole thing's marketed as though it's an added bonus for the lucky residents. Everyone's a winner! 
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Jul 6, 2020 15:04
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jaete posted:This combined with Brexit and the Covid plague, and maybe it would be a good idea for masses of young graduates to simply move the gently caress out Conveniently, Brexit also makes it a whole lot harder for masses of young graduates to do that 
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Jul 6, 2020 15:05
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NGC773 posted:The student loan is terrible for middle class earners. OwlFancier posted:I think they send a bunch of increasingly snotty letters to your last known address. They sell them off to other collection agencies who aggressively try to get you to pay it quicker, as this is what happened to mine. I deferred mine for 10 years, as didn't have a 25k job during that time. The new agency were just bailiff type collectors basically, and they aggressively tried to get me to pay it off in one go. Found a paying job soon after and managed to pay it off over the next few years.
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Jul 6, 2020 15:15
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OwlFancier posted:I think they send a bunch of increasingly snotty letters to your last known address. Can confirm. They have different monthly installment sizes per country probably based on median earnings in that country and they threaten to charge you those installments unless you do a means adjustment by sending them wage slips. I moved to switzerland, paid by direct debit while there.
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Jul 6, 2020 15:32
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Can't let a good crisis go to wastequote:Johnson says driverless trains should be condition for new funding settlement for Transport for London
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Jul 6, 2020 15:44
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sinky posted:Can't let a good crisis go to waste gonna give a few million to a friend who has a driverless train startup (there are no trains)
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Jul 6, 2020 15:45
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sinky posted:Can't let a good crisis go to waste Oh good now the train nerd bit of my brain and the communist bit of my brain, usually best pals, are fighting, cheers.
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Jul 6, 2020 15:53
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Guavanaut posted:Oh hey I was just looking up some resources to see if I could find books about the slums and got this paper that concludes: Indeed, not very long ago we saw the party of labour today rally mainly around tuition fees and rail subsidies, both of which are massively skewed toward the upper middle class. The future is one where the middle class is mainly convinced it is the true working class and is baffled, even outraged, that anyone might deny it, I would think. LemonDrizzle brought up that move from "housing for all" to "housing for the needy" mentioned in the paper ITT way back when. This passage rings a familiar bell quote:Governments faced an intractable problem. Faced with scarce social housing, they had to impose rationing. But rationing had to be consistent in its application –and was increasingly subject to legal challenges. Allowing what many residents wanted –for example, ‘promotion’ to better homes by movement within the housing stock for better-behaved tenants, priority to the children of existing residents so that they could live near their families, and priority to applicants who had lived for a long time in a particular area – was increasingly made impossible by court decisions. Enthusiasm for urban anarchy has ebbed a fair bit, though, e.g. 10,000 more police, Tory cuts bringing knife crime to a street near you, moral crusades over street harassment &c. Contemporary UKpol has somewhat more nuance than 'lock 'em up and hang 'em all' vs. 'delinquency as an sociological feature of bourgeois degeneracy'. There are some 'outs' on the economic distribution side - the one Corbynism embraced was the 1%/99% lever. In this frame it is actually cool and good to mainly benefit the middle if it is taxed from the top 1/5% (a wonderful inversion of the neoliberal framing of means testing). The problem would be crafting a coalition of a middle suspicious that actually they're the ones who will be paying anyway (generally rightly so, mind you - they're where the taxable money is), a lower-income class keenly aware that they will have to kowtow to various cultural indignities to be accepted as the new deserving, and an activist base that responds to difficult tradeoffs by engaging in utopianism and assuring the other two camps that their darkest suspicions are actually one's earnestly-held brightest hopes. Good combination, that. quote:As, on the surface,the British housing market moved away from social democracy and towards market liberalism, its underpinnings moved in the opposite direction. Each government intervention created a new set of clients or a new set of interests; these could seldom be ignored or over ridden when it came to introducing the next set of changes. So measure was piled on measure, and subsidy on subsidy, until at the end of the century the influence of government had become all-pervasive. It controlled the physical expansion of the housing stock by imposing planning rules; it controlled the form of the stock through building standards; it controlled who could live in social housing by increasingly tortuous and potentially self-contradictory criteria of need (which also came to determine the nature of whole neighbourhoods, by acting as a lens to focus deprivation); it underpinned owner-occupation through tax subsidies and direct sales of its own housing stock; and it provided financial support for private renting, at the bottom end of the market by paying the rent, and at the top by providing continued tax-breaks for loan interest, and by propping up lending institutions. A great deal of other economic activity by consumers depended crucially on the health of the housing market, so the impact of decisions about housing reverberated way beyond the walls of the nation’s homes. Even when government wanted to withdraw from the market, it could not do so. something something universal basic services rapid growth certainly makes problems easier to solve by allowing for no-lose stakes...  but windfalls are, virtually by definition, random. Even when presented with an opportunity, it is certainly possible to rapidly dissipate a massive revenue windfall through giveaways to the middle class - between the North Sea oil boom and the Big Bang, the UK has certainly seen more than its fair share of economy-changing windfalls; yet both went largely to affording lower taxes on middle-income earners ronya fucked around with this message at 16:05 on Jul 6, 2020 |
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Jul 6, 2020 15:54
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