Yoghurt Posted February 24, 2011 Share Posted February 24, 2011 It's amazing how easy it is to stand back and pretend it isn't your fault. Iraq, Afghanistan, the enormous deficit, the need for cuts, undermining laws. Â It's easy to snipe, all they need to do is say "you had all these expensive services under us" and no amount of "we need to cut them to ensure the future" can overrule such sentiment. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The King Of Swing Posted February 24, 2011 Share Posted February 24, 2011 It's amazing how easy it is to stand back and pretend it isn't your fault. Â Something the Torie's were also guilty of when starnded in opposition after being booted out in 1997 fact is both parties are as bad as each other and the Lib Dems are not even worth mentioning anymore. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
David Posted February 24, 2011 Author Share Posted February 24, 2011 71% of people aged 16-24 are worried about immigration. I wonder what their opinion is of their trendy lefty teachers who promoted immigration as a wonderful thing throughout their school years? What will the teachers have to say now to the millions of school leavers and graduates who are unable to find employment? Vote Labour? I don't think so. Fascism is bred in conditions that include the likes of mass unemployment and destitution. Were more than likely going to see those conditions increase over the period of these spending cuts. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Happ Hazzard Posted February 24, 2011 Share Posted February 24, 2011 71% of people aged 16-24 are worried about immigration. I wonder what their opinion is of their trendy lefty teachers who promoted immigration as a wonderful thing throughout their school years? What will the teachers have to say now to the millions of school leavers and graduates who are unable to find employment? Vote Labour? I don't think so. Fascism is bred in conditions that include the likes of mass unemployment and destitution. Were more than likely going to see those conditions increase over the period of these spending cuts. So Labour encouraged mass immigration, kept the natiives happy with benefits and cushy public sector jobs, a situation not sustainable in the long term, and now it's the coalitions fault that people are justifiably upset at the situation? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mikey Posted February 24, 2011 Share Posted February 24, 2011 Why are people so hung up on banks and such like. Banks are owned by and run by rich people. Rich people are generally the sons and daughters of rich parents. The only genuine way to redistribute wealth is a 100% inheritance tax. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Happ Hazzard Posted February 24, 2011 Share Posted February 24, 2011 Why are people so hung up on banks and such like. Banks are owned by and run by rich people. Rich people are generally the sons and daughters of rich parents. The only genuine way to redistribute wealth is a 100% inheritance tax. Do you think people would be prepared to pay a 100% inheritance tax? Â It's human nature for parents to want to pass their wealth onto their children. You can't legislate against human nature, not that much anyway. If you do so more than people think is reasonable, then people are just going to flout the law. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
David Posted February 24, 2011 Author Share Posted February 24, 2011 So Labour encouraged mass immigration, kept the natiives happy with benefits and cushy public sector jobs, a situation not sustainable in the long term, and now it's the coalitions fault that people are justifiably upset at the situation? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members Chris B Posted February 24, 2011 Paid Members Share Posted February 24, 2011 71% of people aged 16-24 are worried about immigration. I wonder what their opinion is of their trendy lefty teachers who promoted immigration as a wonderful thing throughout their school years? What will the teachers have to say now to the millions of school leavers and graduates who are unable to find employment? Vote Labour? I don't think so. Fascism is bred in conditions that include the likes of mass unemployment and destitution. Were more than likely going to see those conditions increase over the period of these spending cuts. So Labour encouraged mass immigration, kept the natiives happy with benefits and cushy public sector jobs, a situation not sustainable in the long term, and now it's the coalitions fault that people are justifiably upset at the situation? Â How on earth did you read that into David's posts? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Loki Posted February 24, 2011 Share Posted February 24, 2011 Happ, are you using one of those Daily Mail headline generators for your posts, to keep this thread going? I love how you've managed to move so quickly from eugenics to immigrant-bashing without pausing for breath. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Happ Hazzard Posted February 24, 2011 Share Posted February 24, 2011 71% of people aged 16-24 are worried about immigration. I wonder what their opinion is of their trendy lefty teachers who promoted immigration as a wonderful thing throughout their school years? What will the teachers have to say now to the millions of school leavers and graduates who are unable to find employment? Vote Labour? I don't think so. Fascism is bred in conditions that include the likes of mass unemployment and destitution. Were more than likely going to see those conditions increase over the period of these spending cuts. So Labour encouraged mass immigration, kept the natiives happy with benefits and cushy public sector jobs, a situation not sustainable in the long term, and now it's the coalitions fault that people are justifiably upset at the situation? Â How on earth did you read that into David's posts? He's effectively saying the coalition are responsible for the high youth unemployment/disatisfaction due to cuts to public sector jobs and benefits. Ignoring the fact that the jobs that would have been done by school-leavers 10-20 years ago are now largely being done by immigrants. If there's another way of reading his post, I'll be happy to hear it. Â Happ, are you using one of those Daily Mail headline generators for your posts, to keep this thread going? I love how you've managed to move so quickly from eugenics to immigrant-bashing without pausing for breath. It's a general politics thread, is it not? Not a mutual leftie back-slapping thread? Â I'm not a supporter of eugenics btw. Just of people taking responsibility for their own lives. Â Nor am I a basher of immigrants. I can't blame immigrants for coming here for a better life. What I can blame is the politicians who encouraged them to come here regardless of the consequences to the people that were living here already. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members Ronnie Posted February 24, 2011 Paid Members Share Posted February 24, 2011 Well, OK. Why should I, who don't even have a damn mortgage, be paying additional VAT and suffering cuts to the public services I use in order to pay for a gigantic bailout of some spectacularly irresponsible banks? Poor people also played their part. It was the whole notion of taking on more debt than one could afford that caused the ship to founder.  I thoroughly agree that the banks lent irresponsibly (a colleague's boyfriend once introduced himself to me with a handshake and a comment of "Come see me for a mortgage mate, I'll sort you out, yeah?" without knowing anything about me), but without people choosing to take on unsustainable amounts of debt that wouldn't have mattered.  Let's not argue about the rich, middling, and poor. There are people from all three of those categories who borrowed far beyond their means, just as there were greedy cretins prepared to offer out unpayable debt as long as they thought that they could resell it to someone else.  Why not, at the very least, take every single penny of profit they make until their debt to the country is repaid  This, however, I agree with. I would also have left those who took on too much debt to weather the storm, instead of punishing people who were prudent (those who save and, in particular, those who live off returns to their savings) by dropping interest rates to such absurdly low levels.  Why are people so hung up on banks and such like. Banks are owned by and run by rich people. Rich people are generally the sons and daughters of rich parents. The only genuine way to redistribute wealth is a 100% inheritance tax.Do you think people would be prepared to pay a 100% inheritance tax? It's human nature for parents to want to pass their wealth onto their children. You can't legislate against human nature, not that much anyway. If you do so more than people think is reasonable, then people are just going to flout the law.  Well, maybe not 100%, but it's not as though there isn't precedent for extremely rich people to give away the bulk of their wealth. The richest people in America seem to, in general, be extremely generous. Warren Buffett, for example, rejects the absurdity of people becoming billionaires without having earned that status, and has famously pledged all save a pittance of his fortune to philanthropy. Ditto Bill and Melinda Gates. There are Carnegie libraries all over the country. Rockefeller donated $75m to the University of Chicago alone.  No, I don't expect that most people would be happy to give away nearly everything, nor would I be happy to think that something I'd earmarked for my son would never reach him, but I understand Kenny's point; it would stop X getting unmerited wealth that Y wouldn't. (Until the parents smarten up and set up trust funds or hand over their money before dying, anyway.) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Happ Hazzard Posted February 24, 2011 Share Posted February 24, 2011 Well, maybe not 100%, but it's not as though there isn't precedent for extremely rich people to give away the bulk of their wealth. The richest people in America seem to, in general, be extremely generous. Warren Buffett, for example, rejects the absurdity of people becoming billionaires without having earned that status, and has famously pledged all save a pittance of his fortune to philanthropy. Ditto Bill and Melinda Gates. There are Carnegie libraries all over the country. Rockefeller donated $75m to the University of Chicago alone. Giving away is one thing. The government taking it away is another thing entirely. Â Money given away philanthopically will generally reach where the donator wants it to go, without layer upon layer of government bureaucrats skimming much of it away before it gets there. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kenny McBride Posted February 24, 2011 Share Posted February 24, 2011 Yes, but philanthropy relies on people wanting to do nice things. The fact is that for every Carnegie or Buffett there's a Rupert Murdoch or five. If it were otherwise, there would never have been an aristocracy at all, nor would we be able to talk about the great "banking families" in the US. A 100% inheritance tax says very bluntly "you sink or swim on your own merits." If someone's parents are rich, they've already had a headstart that poor kids won't get, by having access to better education, better healthcare, contact with people of influence and so on. Why should they also get the cushiest tax set up on money they haven't even earned? Talking about a meritocracy and social mobility while giving the most generous tax cuts to people who aren't even earning the money the tax is no longer to be paid on is the most ricockulous hypocrisy. Â And Ronnie - it wasn't consumer debt in and of itself that caused the financial crisis. It may have been naive of people to take on debt they couldn't afford but by and large, that isn't even really what happened. The banks loosening their lending criteria was not necessarily a bad thing, provided that the people borrowing could actually afford to repay it, and by and large most could. In a buoyant housing market it didn't really matter anyway, because they could always sell up if things got difficult. The problems came when defaults did start to happen and the banks had been so spectacularly irresponsible as to structure, buy and sell debt obligations without any real clue as to the real risk or value of those packages. As it turns out, many of them weren't half as "toxic" as was first feared, but that's part of the problem. The banks just didn't have a clue what was going on and couldn't be relied on to make rational decisions based on accurate information. Once that position was reached, collapse was inevitable for one or more of them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members Ronnie Posted February 24, 2011 Paid Members Share Posted February 24, 2011 (edited) Well, maybe not 100%, but it's not as though there isn't precedent for extremely rich people to give away the bulk of their wealth. The richest people in America seem to, in general, be extremely generous. Warren Buffett, for example, rejects the absurdity of people becoming billionaires without having earned that status, and has famously pledged all save a pittance of his fortune to philanthropy. Ditto Bill and Melinda Gates. There are Carnegie libraries all over the country. Rockefeller donated $75m to the University of Chicago alone. Giving away is one thing. The government taking it away is another thing entirely. Agreed. Â I'm not even saying that I agree with the sentiment politically (though I hold it to be ludicrous that someone can become an instant billionaire without ever having earned a penny), but I understand mikey's point (which I erroneously attributed it to Kenny earlier); one way of equalising wealth across the board is to simply take it away at the point when someone dies and redistribute it between those at the bottom, instead of letting it go to someone higher up the rich list. Â Edit: Kenny verbalised it better. Edited February 24, 2011 by Ronnie Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members SpursRiot2012 Posted February 24, 2011 Paid Members Share Posted February 24, 2011 As someone who will never inherit a thing, I'm pretty much against the government taking away what someone has spent their life accumlating. If they want to pass it on to their children, that's their business. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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