Double Dip Recession, ConDems and sniffling Ed

[Teh Mite]

Definitions of 'fair' aside, that is absolute ********.

I could wheel out about a million contradictions to your statement, from nurses to footballers, but I'm sure you've heard them all before.

If you want your 'fair' to be a flat rate for everything, then wages have to be included in your flat rate - it would be unnatural not to include them.

Nah. Sorry to say it but you're wrong.

Everybody costs the same to police and collect their bins. They don't all put the same effort in to do their work. If a business want's the best people, they will pay more for them. If you want to earn more, you become the best at your chosen field or skill set.

If you want to collect bins and put no effort whatsoever, you earn less. It's not rocket science.

The loony lefties would kick up a right fuss if the "fair" method of the current income tax system was a flat rate 33% of your earnings across the board. The more you earn, the more you pay.


But then to do that they would have to sacrifice their own benefit of crying about this "social equality"... Only equal because their better off in their own tiny bubble.

 

[lucky number 7]

Is this your delusion of a meritocracy?

It's bullshit and if you don't know it, you're blind. The society you talk of is Thatcher's 'no such thing'. It's the market. And in case you hadn't read any of my posts, I don't give a stuff about the market - our political system, our media, and our culture has become rotten because of worship of the market, which is why I'm advocating radical change.

I don't want to hear some obscure philosophical theory as to why present day Britain is or isn't 'fair'. I'm saying I'm not happy with it, I've suggested an alternative, and so far all I've got back is 'it won't work' or 'actually the present system blah blah blah'. My principle is that nobody, no matter how hard they work, needs more than a few hundred thousand a year as income. Disagree with that? Let's have a proper, well thought out reason, not skirting around the topic.

If someone has had the dream from a young age of wanting sniff cocaine off a hookers ***s while driving two Ferraris simultaneously through the hallway of his ridiculously sized mansion he should be fully allowed to make enough money to do so.

Why limit what a man can and can't do , if he is bothered to get up off his arse and work his balls off for it and be of the intellectual or physical capacity to be able to make it to the top of society then why should we stop him.

It's also a sociological theory as opposed to philosophical that has plenty of relevance to this argument.

 

[LittleGuy]

I'll let someone else who was much smarter than myself argue some points that I would make,

 

[gingergenius]

If someone has had the dream from a young age of wanting sniff cocaine off a hookers ***s while driving two Ferraris simultaneously through the hallway of his ridiculously sized mansion he should be fully allowed to make enough money to do so.

Why limit what a man can and can't do , if he is bothered to get up off his arse and work his balls off for it and be of the intellectual or physical capacity to be able to make it to the top of society then why should we stop him.

It's also a sociological theory as opposed to philosophical that has plenty of relevance to this argument.

That is why I want society changed, so that the people at the top have got there through hard work, honesty and public service - not through selfishness and greed, which I don't think are qualities that are worth rewarding.

I think we're about to pass go and collect our £200.. this is about as far as I can see this debate going without us repeating ourselves.

 

[lucky number 7]

That is why I want society changed, so that the people at the top have got there through hard work, honesty and public service - not through selfishness and greed, which I don't think are qualities that are worth rewarding.

I think we're about to pass go and collect our £200.. this is about as far as I can see this debate going without us repeating ourselves.

Yup , my belief that if a man works hard enough and is smart enough to get to the top if society then he can have as much as he wants has already been stated numerous times.. And I'm certainly not for the ridiculous taxation of such men , however I think there are plenty of other options available to the government in order to save some cash or at least get things done more efficiently

 

[Teh Mite]

Is it selfishness or ambition to work to get to the "top of society"? Define the difference.

 

[lucky number 7]

Is it selfishness or ambition to work to get to the "top of society"? Define the difference.

Depends on personal opinion , I'd argue it's ambition but can a person work that hard for themselves without having a degree of selfishness attatched ? I don't think so.

 

[William18]

I have a few points to add to thread. Some of which have sort have been said already but anyway:

There's a screaming, blatantly obvious alternative, but since British politics is dominated by people with no balls, it will never happen.

1) We waste money having a military and sending them on all sorts of missions around the world which have nothing to do with us. Ok maybe we need a small little army but no need for planes, aircraft carriers...

2) We waste money criminalising, policing (and not taxing) illegal drugs.

3) The biggest waste of money is allowing people to get away with having obscene amounts of money that they don't need. Hollande proposes a 75% top rate income tax; Melenchon proposes 100% tax on all earnings beyond 20x the national average. I prefer the latter.

The fact that the current wankers in government have continued on with point 1, and taken us into Libya, means there's still money available for expeditions like that. The fact that they haven't considered point 2 despite all of the advice from experts etc. means that they're too scared of losing middle England's vote to do it. The fact that they won't suggest 3 must be because they think it's fair that some people can work hard and earn £0000s and others don't earn much at all. Or they're too scared of middle England.

The fact that Labour aren't making any of the right noises about this shows that they're a bunch of useless wankers as well. It shows that having political parties in the UK has stagnated to the point where they represent neither democracy nor progress. Time for a different system.

Here I can agree with your 1st and 2nd points. Overseas wars and the drug war are the single biggest waste of money facing western nations. I would stop them and then lower taxes, rather than stop them and raise taxes, as you suggested.

I think your third point is terrible but what I really take exception to is your comment about labour. How do political parties not represent democracy? It seems to me that you are mad because your radical ideas will never get implemented. My radical ideas will never get implemented either but I don't call people stupid because they have a different political outlook to me. I think they are misguided but not stupid. Labour get a large amount of support, so their ideas must be popular amongst the people of your country. That is how democracy works. You can't force people to adopt a new system when they clearly don't want to.

B: Even allowing for the fact that financial and banking sectors will always be more lucrative, the amounts paid are still way out of proportion for a job.
.

I don't believe it is possible for someone to get paid out of proportion. People get paid based upon the skills the have - based upon how highly those skills are demanded and how many people have those skills.

My principle is that nobody, no matter how hard they work, needs more than a few hundred thousand a year as income. Disagree with that? Let's have a proper, well thought out reason, not skirting around the topic.

I agree with you. I would be more than happy with a couple hundred thousand per year. However, your problem is that you expect everyone in society to share your standards. While you and me would be happy with that kind of money, what gives us the right to force our views on to other people who want to earn far more? I should also add that if no one earned more than $200,000 a year surely all the professional sports teams in England would go bankrupt over night? I understand most of them are funded by rich people. You can't just ignore the positive effects which these people have on society.

 

[William18]

Is it selfishness or ambition to work to get to the "top of society"? Define the difference.

It's both. We're all selfish individuals. We all do what we think is best for us, always.

 

[donmcdazzle]

I think the political system is broken as it is. Seems to me politicians just spend money on policies that will get them re elected rather than actually solely spending tax payers money on benefitting the people who pay the tax (which I presume is the whole point of tax).

I'm sure they realize half of their policies are economically ridiculous, but if they will likely get a group of voters on side then they'll happily throw our money at it. I also can't stand all the perks and stuff that goes with it. They all fly around the place and go to overseas conferences etc which is probably a family's worth of tax per year for them (and partner) to attend some conference in the Hague or somewhere. It's all gone backwards.

I also think they do half of what they do to justify their own existence to a degree. I mean in NZ do we really need 120 odd of these people? And do we need them arguing wih each other everyday while we foot their accommodation and food bill? If I win lotto or become rich enough to retire I'm going to compaign to get parliament down to like 30 odd people, meet once a week and only deal with important issues. I feel like theyre enacting so many pointless, inconsequential laws just to justify them being there.

I don't mind paying tax, but it does my head in when I see the money taken out of my pay just to be ****** away by these idiots.

 

[lucky number 7]

I think the political system is broken as it is. Seems to me politicians just spend money on policies that will get them re elected

It's because everyone wants to be more centre than the next party , one need only look at the shifts to the centre made by British parties in order to encompass more voters as opposed to having policies and principles that they stick to..

 

[donmcdazzle]

It's because everyone wants to be more centre than the next party , one need only look at the shifts to the centre made by British parties in order to encompass more voters as opposed to having policies and principles that they stick to..

It shouldn't even be about parties and policies and who is right or left wing or whatever else. Politicians sole job should be to make decisions that benefit the majority of the population. They are blatantly not doing that any more so the whole system needs to be re-done.

It is so counter productive to have opposing political parties who just violently oppose whatever the other party is saying regardless of the merit of the idea/policy. They all just bag each other since they are the 'other side'. Is it just me that think this is such a waste of time to have it done this way? I realise debate is necessary in decision making but these guys take the ****. They should be working together to sort stuff out for the people whose money they're spending, rather than just arguing with each other and enacting policies detrimental to taxpayers just to get themselves back into power.

 

[lucky number 7]

That's how she goes sadly , the opposition normally act like ****wits.

But when a party actually has a set of staunch principles they do deserve more respect than the flip flopping goons that we normally have these days

 

[dullonien]

I've only quickly sifted through the thread, so apologies if I'm repeating anything. There seemed to be a lot of talk at the beginning about the rates of tax on individuals, on this point I lean more towards gingergenius' view that stupidly high earners should be taxed through the roof. But I don't think this is the most important thing to address.

The most important thing is to draw industry back into the UK. Unfortunately the current coalition government is doing nothing to do that. If anything they're doing the opposite. I was reading a news piece a couple of weeks ago about a new start-up British company who have just started producing the Rasperry PI, a credit card sized computer which will sell for £20-30. It's set to revolutionise the computing world, especially in emerging countries. They've been set-up as a non profit organisation, with all profits going to charity, but they also had an original goal of manufacturing the units in Britain, but simply couldn't for financial reasons, and this is where the current policies are a complete joke. If they imported all the separate components (transistors, chips, resistors etc. etc.) to be assembled in Britain they would have to pay tax on the components, but if the units were assembled outside of Britain, the final completed units could be imported with zero tax applied. How does this make any sense? They decided that keeping costs low so they could still sell at their targeted price was more important than anything else, hence the units are being manufactured over seas.

I know the last Labour government made plenty of mistakes, but I wish to god that the Tauries didn't get power, because they've just made things ten times worse. Mite can blame everything on Labour getting us into debt, but to pull the country out of recession required money being spent. Scrimping and saving, cutting funding left, right and centre was never going to be the answer, and this double dip recession has proven that. I'm not a fan of any of the big three parties, but I'd take anyone over this current joke of a party. The only thing they've done that I agree with is to revise the benefit system which was badly broken.

 

[Teh Mite]

I'm inclined to agree. I want Torys in power, no Nu-Labour in a blue dress.

 

[gingergenius]

Our political system (if we forget about greed, equality & left & right for a second) will forever be flawed. We know the flaws of first past the post, but more to the point, merely having two potential winners representing the entire plethora of the nation's view says it all. The Labour voter who always votes Labour and did in 1997 is a different man to the swing voter who voted Labour in 1997. But they both voted for the same manifesto - so clearly somebody's always going to get ****** off. Same for the Tories at the last election - which is why the Telegraph's comment section is now full of the fools who think the Tories should go back to the unelectable anti immigration, anti EU policies of Hague, IDS and Howard. Here is another reason why we need a change.

And against the social darwinist perspective, I just thought its supporters might want to see a little more depth to their view: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/may/06/leveson-murdoch-cameron-brooks-privilege

Having watched the first of the new series of School of Hard Knocks yesterday, it also reinforced my 'social conscience'. Not because they are all suffering poverty/ crime blah blah blah. But watch the programme, and watch quite how easily it is for the guys' confidence to be destroyed, for them to retreat into their very defensive 'street' persona, or simply to quit and go home. Some of those guys have been knocked down so many times and simply haven't had the opportunity to build their confidence and personal skills. I compare that to my own life and how easy everything has been for me, and I know exactly why someone like me would have ambitions and pursue them, and why someone who's been beat down all their life and had very little effort invested in them would remain in that situation. Yes there's always personal drive, but in most cases your drive is a product of your environment too.

 

[donmcdazzle]

.

 

[Cave Dweller]

For anyone who missed Eurovision, here's what songs were played:

France- Runaway
Iceland- Ashes to ashes
Greece- Money
Germany- Rule the world
Portugal- I want my baby back
Israel- Harder To Breathe
U.K.- Polish national anthem

 

[lucky number 7]

This was a ****ing brilliant thread.

Thoroughly enjoyed my time trolling and occasionally posting my opinions.

 

[LittleGuy]

This was a ****ing brilliant thread.

Thoroughly enjoyed my time trolling and occasionally posting my opinions.

I especially loved your snorting cocaine off hookers ***s line....

I also enjoyed my line about the 75% tax rate in France being Winnie the Pooh economics.....I beleive I saw something about wealthy French trying to GTFO of France ASAP before that kicked in.

Also where did Ginger go?