General politics discussion thread

[Kenny McBride]

The marginal rates of tax are largely irrelevant as to whether such substantial cuts are appropriate or even remotely necessary. The amount we spent bailing out the banks should be recovered with profit when the banks recover enough to make those shares worth selling, plus there was a story a while back about how the banks largely over-estimated their bad debt and thus the Exchequer will make a profit on the insurance scheme set up to handle that side of things. Certainly, we'll want to cut our structural deficit in the not too distant future, but what's the point of making tons of civil servants unemployed when unemployment is already higher than it's been in years? With little or no bank lending to business (particularly start-ups), the whole idea of forcing people to "look for opportunities" to fend for themselves is crazy. Say I'm a civil servant, recently made redundant from my job near the bottom of the payscale. I don't want to be unemployed, so I develop a business plan. No matter how much I want to start up my business that will employ a hundred people, I can't because the banks just won't lend me the money I need. There are very few other jobs. Thus, I'm sitting on the dole until the market changes. In the meantime, my joblessness is costing the country money in benefits that, once you account for JSA, housing and council tax benefit, income support, free dental care, free prescriptions and so on, is not all that far from the net cost of the government employing me in the first place. Except that now I'm not providing any service to the country (which may have actually been helping stimulate the economy indirectly), my skills are getting rusty and I'm sinking into a depression that may well end up costing the NHS even more. I stay in this situation for a year or more, and now I'm far, far less employable even when the economy does improve, because I've not had a job for so long. Of course, by that time I'll have been unemployed for long enough that the Jobcentre will pay for me to get re-trained, so there's another whack of money spent on me. And all this time I'm bringing in so little cash that I have no room for spending on anything except the essentials, so all the little extras I used to treat myself to on payday each month are now not being bought, thus hurting other parts of the economy.

 

Modest cuts are almost certainly necessary at some stage. Bigger cuts might be. But now is absolutely the wrong time to be doing it. The threat to the country's financial stability is nothing like as great as some ideologues would have you believe. And believe it or not, cutting taxes for the rich is not the only way to stimulate the economy. Some stimuli don't even need to have a direct cost.

[Carbomb]

They're attacking the unemployed, the disabled, the vulnerable and the working class in order to pay for the mistakes of the banks, whilst completely ignoring the fact that if their friends actually paid the same rate of tax as the rest of us we wouldn't be in such a position.

 

 

Yo, squire.. What's this mythical different rate of tax all the rich pay whilst us proles suffer?

 

As I've said before, culmalatively those earning more will pay more into the system than the poor ever will same rate of tax on a higher amount means more tax going in to coffers. But apparently this is not good enough ( as some people buck the system, and I spose scrotes dont?) and creates social injustice.

 

Change the Record or come up with better arguments!

 

Indeed, Labour created [Just one piece of a very large pie] created too many public service jobs, they put nothing into the economy, even accounting for their tax they are a massive net loss on the country as their entire wages are already tax. There's a reverse snobbery that we must attack people like bankers, middle class business owners and the people who contribute money into the economy and help it grow effectively. The public services are absolutely necessary, but they are bloated and it's breaking the country.

 

That isn't saying Bankers aren't cunts, because they are, they also contribute an enormous amount of wealth to the country as a whole, far, far more than any other industry.

 

This puts me in mind of a recent edition of The Daily Show (a few days back, can't remember exactly when), where Jon Stewart showed a clip of Obama taking questions, and there was one from a banker, who had the nerve to stand up and ask when "the government was going to stop treating the banking industry like a pinata".

 

Stewart simply said: "When it starts giving out the candy, bitch."

 

It's all very well talking about how the bankers contribute all that wealth, but here's the thing: their fuck-ups cost us, and their most recent one has cost us several hundred billion pounds. The banks in question have been nationalised, effectively making us, the public, shareholders - but are we getting any dividends? Like fuck are we. They deserve to be taxed more; if we're not going to reap the benefits of the government having paid our money out to save them, the least they can do is fucking well pay us back.

[Carbomb]

I personally just dislike David's whole "expected this when the Tories got in" thing. So, were the rich paying that extra tax they should be paying under Labour then? Some people just have an issue with the Tories based on the fact that they are the Tories. No open mind whatsoever.

 

What's there to have an open mind about? They're Tories because they represent a certain ideology, methodology and philosophy of government, which means no matter how much time has passed, they're always going to do things the same way. They're libertarians, which means they're the party of low taxation, which in turn means severe cuts in public spending, even in services which shouldn't be underfunded. It also means they're the party of complete privatisation, which means they're always going to sell off services to the private sector; believe it or not, there are those of us who believe that certain services should NEVER be privatised. Given the Tories' track record, they're most likely to sell them off to their buddies in business, rather than because a particular company merits them.

 

And let's assume, for a second, that I'm wrong: what sort of logic do you have to say that we should trust them, given their history? Just because Labour turned out to be untrustworthy doesn't mean the Tories haven't stopped being so.

Edited September 28, 2010 by Carbomb

[patiirc]

Wait a minute. David's already stated that the amount of money received from those in high tax brackets is nowhere near as much as it's supposed to be. Until you refute that argument, or come up with a better argument yourself, I don't see why David should "Change the Record".

 

What is it with all these defenders of the status quo all of a sudden?

 

So its not as much as it should be? Is the 'total amount' than those considered poor, more or less than than the poor pay in?

 

The lower tax bands arent as much as they should be either ( See HMRC fuck ups effecting lots of people Rich and Poor, and then see beenefit cheats, cash in hand workers etc etc etc etc etc how are they different to rich tax dodgers?). but no one bats an eyelid about that do they?

 

Nah, lets get at those who are monetarily wealthy because they have more money and shouldnt have as much, seems to be the prevailing argument.

 

FFS Iam not even taking sides in this discussion, just pointing out that, Its fine to target the Rich who dont pay, but target the poor who dont pay and that's morally corrupt. Thus we will attack the Rich and the Tories without foundation If you are going to continually target one area and be socialist about it at least have an even spread?

 

Why is one more pertinent as a target or 'equal' if your prefer than the other?

[SpursRiot2012]

My logic would be: Coalition. They can't be the "same old Tories" in the current Government because they aren't the only party in Government.

 

Give me an hour or so and I'll go into your other points, Carbomb. Just about to eat.

[Loki]

The government seems keen to get the welfare bill down as it's absolutely massive, hence going after housing benefit fraud, getting people off disability where possible, and so on.

 

But by far the largest part of the welfare bill is none of these, or even unemployment benefit - it's state pension. That's an absolutely huge cost for the government.

 

 

Basically what I'm saying is that this country needs a really good flu bout over Christmas, because the really huge underlying problem we've got is that everyone's living longer.

[Carbomb]

Wait a minute. David's already stated that the amount of money received from those in high tax brackets is nowhere near as much as it's supposed to be. Until you refute that argument, or come up with a better argument yourself, I don't see why David should "Change the Record".

 

What is it with all these defenders of the status quo all of a sudden?

 

So its not as much as it should be? Is the 'total amount' than those considered poor, more or less than than the poor pay in?

 

The lower tax bands arent as much as they should be either ( See HMRC fuck ups effecting lots of people Rich and Poor, and then see beenefit cheats, cash in hand workers etc etc etc etc etc how are they different to rich tax dodgers?). but no one bats an eyelid about that do they?

 

Nah, lets get at those who are monetarily wealthy because they have more money and shouldnt have as much, seems to be the prevailing argument.

 

FFS Iam not even taking sides in this discussion, just pointing out that, Its fine to target the Rich who dont pay, but target the poor who dont pay and that's morally corrupt. Thus we will attack the Rich and the Tories without foundation If you are going to continually target one area and be socialist about it at least have an even spread?

 

Why is one more pertinent as a target or 'equal' if your prefer than the other?

 

It's not "without foundation", for crying out loud, this is what I'm getting at. It may be going overboard to say "tax the evil rich", but it's just as stupid to say "the poor, innocent rich people, they're being picked on".

 

I'm not saying lower tax-bands shouldn't be dealt with, but the amount of money lost through their dodging is nowhere near as much as that lost by the rich dodging it, and at the moment, this country needs that money. You want to talk practicality - THIS is practicality. Get the money that isn't being paid, because it makes a difference.

 

My logic would be: Coalition. They can't be the "same old Tories" in the current Government because they aren't the only party in Government.

 

Give me an hour or so and I'll go into your other points, Carbomb. Just about to eat.

 

You're talking about the difference between party and government. My point still stands. Sure, the Lib Dems are effectively being the hand preventing the pendulum from swinging too far, but that doesn't mean the Tories have changed, and when the Lib Dems are finally kicked out, as they inevitably will when people decide they'd rather have a government with a focused plan, it'll be a critical point if the Tories are the party in power.

[JNLister]

It's kind of irrelevant because the election is theoretically years away and may be under a different system, but if most of the recent opinion polls turned into actual votes, Parliament wouldn't just be hung again, but hung like Ron Jeremy. We're talking neither Conservative + Lib Dem nor Labour + Lib Dem being enough for a majority. The nationalists should be praying for an early election.

[patiirc]

It's not "without foundation", for crying out loud, this is what I'm getting at. It may be going overboard to say "tax the evil rich", but it's just as stupid to say "the poor, innocent rich people, they're being picked on".

 

I'm not saying lower tax-bands shouldn't be dealt with, but the amount of money lost through their dodging is nowhere near as much as that lost by the rich dodging it, and at the moment, this country needs that money. You want to talk practicality - THIS is practicality. Get the money that isn't being paid, because it makes a difference.

 

 

Iam slightly tipsy and angry about other stuff, what a combo!

 

Basically though it would help others arguments if HMRC gave a shit, thus rendering who pays more or whatever nearly useless despite any deological posturing.

 

If HMRC dont care, what chance the rest of us

[Carbomb]

It's kind of irrelevant because the election is theoretically years away and may be under a different system, but if most of the recent opinion polls turned into actual votes, Parliament wouldn't just be hung again, but hung like Ron Jeremy. We're talking neither Conservative + Lib Dem nor Labour + Lib Dem being enough for a majority. The nationalists should be praying for an early election.

 

I must admit, I'm very much intrigued by the current political situation, simply because now that the Lib Dems have experience of being in government, it may remove a huge barrier from people considering voting for them in future. A three-horse race is better than a two-horse one.

 

It's not "without foundation", for crying out loud, this is what I'm getting at. It may be going overboard to say "tax the evil rich", but it's just as stupid to say "the poor, innocent rich people, they're being picked on".

 

I'm not saying lower tax-bands shouldn't be dealt with, but the amount of money lost through their dodging is nowhere near as much as that lost by the rich dodging it, and at the moment, this country needs that money. You want to talk practicality - THIS is practicality. Get the money that isn't being paid, because it makes a difference.

 

 

Iam slightly tipsy and angry about other stuff, what a combo!

 

Basically though it would help others arguments if HMRC gave a shit, thus rendering who pays more or whatever nearly useless despite any deological posturing.

 

If HMRC dont care, what chance the rest of us

 

Yeah, but just because they don't doesn't mean we shouldn't.

 

I would say "We should demand more of our government", but who'd I be trying to kid?

[Glen Quagmire]

I wouldn't necessarily take praise from the IMF as being a gold-standard review, they don't have a particularly strong track record in terms of their involvement in countries where they have done so to produce good overall results. Jordan is the only country I can think of straight away that has had a definite positive result from IMF involvement. During the Asian financial crises a few years ago, Malaysia refused IMF help yet has bounced back reasonably well. Also, as already pointed out, the IMF have an unashamedly biased neo-liberal policy as a condition for help towards countries being asset-striped, which the late Harold MacMillan put it as "...selling the family silver".

 

Ireland's problems stem from relying too much on an inflated property & construction bubble coupled with too much cute-hoorism within political circles alongside an economy that through low corporation tax was becoming uncompetitive for foreign firms to manufacture compared to Eastern Europe or SE Asia. I really don't know what else can be done that won't involve the ECB or IMF, to be honest those responsible should be put to trial like the Icelandic government are doing with regards to their financial problems. The banks there have got away with even more murder in Ireland than in Britain if that can be believed.

 

As for pensions, this is a ticking time bomb in much of the Western world. The only two countries that are thought to be definitely solvent in their public pension funds are Australia and Canada, aided mainly by their large amount of immigrants, Norway is probably safe as well considering its public investments fund.

[Georgie Pin]

The people who work for HMRC generally do a give a shit about trying to collect taxes. However, when management are more intent on spending billions on new computer systems that don't work, getting rid of 1000s of years of experience so they can employ automatons who can only answer a question if it's on their script and slashing the number of collection staff and offices then there isn't a great deal they can do.

 

That's why simply saying, "Get rid of civil servants." is a gross over-simplification. And if you think the economy is fucked now, wait till we see what happens to any number of towns with big offices when swathes of civil servants are sent to the dole queue. To say that the money they earn is a nett loss is bizarre to say the least.

[Yoghurt]

They're attacking the unemployed, the disabled, the vulnerable and the working class in order to pay for the mistakes of the banks, whilst completely ignoring the fact that if their friends actually paid the same rate of tax as the rest of us we wouldn't be in such a position.

 

 

Yo, squire.. What's this mythical different rate of tax all the rich pay whilst us proles suffer?

 

As I've said before, culmalatively those earning more will pay more into the system than the poor ever will same rate of tax on a higher amount means more tax going in to coffers. But apparently this is not good enough ( as some people buck the system, and I spose scrotes dont?) and creates social injustice.

 

Change the Record or come up with better arguments!

 

Indeed, Labour created [Just one piece of a very large pie] created too many public service jobs, they put nothing into the economy, even accounting for their tax they are a massive net loss on the country as their entire wages are already tax. There's a reverse snobbery that we must attack people like bankers, middle class business owners and the people who contribute money into the economy and help it grow effectively. The public services are absolutely necessary, but they are bloated and it's breaking the country.

 

That isn't saying Bankers aren't cunts, because they are, they also contribute an enormous amount of wealth to the country as a whole, far, far more than any other industry.

 

This puts me in mind of a recent edition of The Daily Show (a few days back, can't remember exactly when), where Jon Stewart showed a clip of Obama taking questions, and there was one from a banker, who had the nerve to stand up and ask when "the government was going to stop treating the banking industry like a pinata".

 

Stewart simply said: "When it starts giving out the candy, bitch."

 

It's all very well talking about how the bankers contribute all that wealth, but here's the thing: their fuck-ups cost us, and their most recent one has cost us several hundred billion pounds. The banks in question have been nationalised, effectively making us, the public, shareholders - but are we getting any dividends? Like fuck are we. They deserve to be taxed more; if we're not going to reap the benefits of the government having paid our money out to save them, the least they can do is fucking well pay us back.

 

By the same token their day to day running keeps the economy ticking, they need regulating a whole lot better, but consistently attacking and many people like David would like to see it collapse clearly, weakening an industry we are very reliant on for wealth is daft. There are many things that contributed to the collapse of the economy, the banks shoulder some, profligate spending and borrowing by an idiotic government has most of the pie, and it's container as well.

[Carbomb]

They're attacking the unemployed, the disabled, the vulnerable and the working class in order to pay for the mistakes of the banks, whilst completely ignoring the fact that if their friends actually paid the same rate of tax as the rest of us we wouldn't be in such a position.

 

 

Yo, squire.. What's this mythical different rate of tax all the rich pay whilst us proles suffer?

 

As I've said before, culmalatively those earning more will pay more into the system than the poor ever will same rate of tax on a higher amount means more tax going in to coffers. But apparently this is not good enough ( as some people buck the system, and I spose scrotes dont?) and creates social injustice.

 

Change the Record or come up with better arguments!

 

Indeed, Labour created [Just one piece of a very large pie] created too many public service jobs, they put nothing into the economy, even accounting for their tax they are a massive net loss on the country as their entire wages are already tax. There's a reverse snobbery that we must attack people like bankers, middle class business owners and the people who contribute money into the economy and help it grow effectively. The public services are absolutely necessary, but they are bloated and it's breaking the country.

 

That isn't saying Bankers aren't cunts, because they are, they also contribute an enormous amount of wealth to the country as a whole, far, far more than any other industry.

 

This puts me in mind of a recent edition of The Daily Show (a few days back, can't remember exactly when), where Jon Stewart showed a clip of Obama taking questions, and there was one from a banker, who had the nerve to stand up and ask when "the government was going to stop treating the banking industry like a pinata".

 

Stewart simply said: "When it starts giving out the candy, bitch."

 

It's all very well talking about how the bankers contribute all that wealth, but here's the thing: their fuck-ups cost us, and their most recent one has cost us several hundred billion pounds. The banks in question have been nationalised, effectively making us, the public, shareholders - but are we getting any dividends? Like fuck are we. They deserve to be taxed more; if we're not going to reap the benefits of the government having paid our money out to save them, the least they can do is fucking well pay us back.

 

By the same token their day to day running keeps the economy ticking, they need regulating a whole lot better, but consistently attacking and many people like David would like to see it collapse clearly, weakening an industry we are very reliant on for wealth is daft. There are many things that contributed to the collapse of the economy, the banks shoulder some, profligate spending and borrowing by an idiotic government has most of the pie, and it's container as well.

I won't presume to speak for David, but I particularly want the banks severely regulated after this latest, damaging fuck-up. I don't want the banking system destroyed, I just think it's about time they had some severe kicks in the arse to make them realise that they can't get away with their irresponsible practices any more, as it's been made clear (if there ever was any doubt) that despite being private companies, their failures become costly for the public. That includes the whole bonuses scandal - the executives of the banks who fucked up are still continuing to get them, and that's wrong from every possible angle: from a business viewpoint, from a labour relations viewpoint, from an ethical viewpoint and, yes, from a moral viewpoint.

[bobbins]

There are many things that contributed to the collapse of the economy, the banks shoulder some, profligate spending and borrowing by an idiotic government has most of the pie, and it's container as well.

I don't want to be overly concise, but that's utter fucking bollocks.

Edited September 29, 2010 by bobbins