The politics of envy – To me the continual cries of soak the rich seem to be completely devoid of any sense of fairness, in general the rich already pay a larger amount into the coffers in real terms, what is rich anyway?. In London 60k a year is hardly touching the sides, elsewhere it’s a good wage. It seems that many people are happier apportioning blame to the rich for our supposedly unhappy state of affairs than entertaining for a second the idea that people have at least some responsibility for their own circumstances. It doesn’t get away from the fact that the degrees of separation are minimal between parties and that party politics is a stupid way of running things. It’s laughable that people believe for a second that Labour is the party for working people.

Oh come on man go the full hog will you – poorer people are a greater burden because they get ill more often than rich people. Therefore they should pay more …..they are freeloaders basically surviving of the wealth of the rich who give so much for the love of the nation.
And then all of a sudden…. I knew it wouldn’t last.

The ole Junky is back, everyone, BOOOM !
😆

From the ONS link on page 4:

On average, households in the top two income quintiles paid more in taxes than they received in benefits, while households in the bottom three quintiles received more in benefits than they paid in taxes.

The politics of envy – To me the continual cries of soak the rich seem to be completely devoid of any sense of fairness,

Oh the irony
So it is fair that we have a massive disparity in earning but unfair if there is even the vaguest attempt to address this via tax.

Funny how the “politics of envy” crowd only want fair taxes and not fair wages.
Its not fair when you tax us but it is fair than I ends x 4 the national average. Why is fairness only applied on side here?

‘s interesting the views that Tories are selfish, if we just assume, for a moment, that the average Troy voter is better off than the national average then they are actually the most generous as they are paying the most tax.

I love Tory logic!

The other argument is the top 1 percent pay the rates they do because they should bear more of the costs of a system that allowed them to become wealthy.

Most of them wouldn’t survive in a taxless anarchy. The state is an instrument used to appease the poor and stop them from murdering the rich in their beds, over the course of history groups such as the french aristocracy and middle eastern dictators have forgotten this.

Most of them wouldn’t survive in a taxless anarchy. The state is an instrument used to appease the poor and stop them from murdering the rich in their beds.

Wow, I couldn’t make this shit up. This thread is going to have me chuckling on my trip home, comedy gold.
😉

So someone works in a bakers as a shop assistant and earns 18k a year, someone else works as an estate agent and earns 250k a year.

This, apparently, is wrong. Why? Why should the tax burden be proportionally more for the higher earner I don’t get it. It we applied a flat rate of 20% to both with a 10k threshold would that be fair?

Interesting to note the terminology being used in this thread. The Tory apologists are referring to actually paying their tax as an act of ‘generosity’.

Sort of says it all really

This, apparently, is wrong. Why?

Estate agents should be murdered to death no matter of politics.

What’s so funny solo? Government is there to provide a framework for industry, industry needs a stable happy populace free from corruption. In democracies and even countries that aren’t you have to appease the largest amount of people possible.

If people start to feel that society is unjust, then they rebel. It’s within the interests of the rich to be seen to give a fair contribution to the society from which they extracted wealth from.

It seems that many people are happier apportioning blame to the rich for our supposedly unhappy state of affairs than entertaining for a second the idea that people have at least some responsibility for their own circumstances.

Do you not understand how politics in this country works? The rich donate to the political parties either in the form of personal donations or via corporations, they are not doing it out of the kindness of their hearts are they?

And you seem to be making out that they got there because they worked hard and the rest didn’t. How bloody naive can you get. The rich now hold the rest of us back.

Precisely, hence they vote for the conservatives. You should try it.

Tell me, does solo refer to your brain cell?

Shop assistants dont earn 18k a year. Its more like 9k, graduate laboratory jobs often barely pay over 18k.

It’s interesting the views that Tories are selfish, if we just assume, for a moment, that the average Troy voter is better off than the national average then they are actually the most generous as they are paying the most tax.

So they are not selfish at all, that’s why they vote Tory – because they want to be generous and pay more tax ?

Your sense of logic really does enter the realms of absurdity.

Maybe they did work harder? All the really minted people I’ve met work loads harder than I’m prepared to. Maybe just maybe there is a correlation between work and wealth. Not in 100% of cases I’ll grant you but for the majority I reckon there could be something in this hard graft malarky.

The shop assistant in my example would work tax free then eh.

Surely the greatest Tory self-delusion of all: that they got where they are due to their own genius and limitless ability. Instead of nepotism, numerous inherited inbuilt advantages, and the least social mobility of any developed nation

It’s as if they’ve convinced themselves, against all evidence to the contrary, that they live in a meritocracy.

If we actually did, then I doubt people would resent the success and wealth of those at the top. But look at the present Tory cabinet (just as one example) , and try and tell me that any of looks justified.

entertaining for a second the idea that people have at least some responsibility for their own circumstances

Can we all make it to the top then?
It is not true to claim we can all be richard branson/make it if we just tried as hard as the succesful ones have,

So someone works in a bakers as a shop assistant and earns 18k a year, someone else works as an estate agent and earns 250k a year.

This, apparently, is wrong. Why? Why should the tax burden be proportionally more for the higher earner I don’t get it. It we applied a flat rate of 20% to both with a 10k threshold would that be fair?
No – it would be fair if we all earned the same – until that point we should tax folk like they earn – disproportionately.
Its principle free to think differential pay is OK yet differential tax is unfair

Many folk think the tories want their cake and to eat it. IMHO you are not helping dispel this myth.

jambalaya – Member

@ransos – this is where some of these stats make no sense. The poorest are getting the same benefit from the NHS, education, police etc as everyone else

Actually, not so much. Employers benefit disproportionately from the NHS, education etc compared to the employed- as an individual, you benefit once, but your employer benefits from every one of his employers being educated and healthy. Every businessman benefits from his customers, and so on. Something that seems to be unfashionable to remember now, when apparently rich people get rich purely on their own labour.

Its principle free to think differential pay is OK yet differential tax is unfair

Sorry I just don’t accept that and I don’t think I’m a Tory, I certainly don’t vote Tory.

so what is the principle at work ? Clearly it is not fairness so what is it ?

Joolsburger.

I’m a care woker.
Halfway through yet another 60 hour week on minimum wage.

Do me a favour?
If we ever meet, please tell me again about your hard working friends.
I could do with a laugh.

Depends on your definition of fairness. That’s where the variability lies. I don’t think it’s fair for someone to pay more tax to subsidise another to live a lifestyle they couldn’t otherwise afford. I think it’s fair that there is a safety net available to all to protect them from being denied the very basics in life they require. Currently the benefits system is aligned towards the former not the latter. The benefits system is not a mechanism to redistribute wealth, it’s to provide a minimal provision for everyone. The problem is the tax and benefits systems have become so twisted over the decades they no longer work as they should, hence the great resentment on both sides of the debate. I have no problem paying tax, or paying more tax even, just how it’s spent…or rather squandered. I certainly don’t want to pay more tax into the current system.

Just out of interest, how much do you think JSA is? It’s just that when the Daily Mail foam at the mouth about benefit scroungers, they generally omit any actual figures. As most people realise that 60 quid a week doesn’t buy you much of the ‘lifestyle’ you refer too.

As has been stated many times on this thread already. The lions share of benefits doesn’t go to ‘scroungers’, (as we must all now assume anyone unemployed most definitely is) it goes to the working poor. The people on minimum wages, who despite working full time, still can’t afford to live without state subsidy. This is who Osbourne is clobbering. Without even the slightest pretence at addressing the root of the problem… Employers not paying a living wage. It’s madness!

And the huge amounts paid out in housing benefit aren’t a sign of a dysfunctional benefits system, they’re the sign of a dysfunctional, and frankly nonsensical housing market

Heres a question for you

What would you call an acceptable differential between benefits (taking into account the entire package, ie. JSA/Income support, council tax benefit, rent, free prescriptions, school means, BT basic etc. etc.) and minimum/living wage? (eg 37 hours at living wage)

£12.50, a reach round and a thank you card from the Queen?

Maybe just maybe there is a correlation between work and wealth

You are naieve and inexperienced, I’m afraid.

BT basic?

Its a difficult question to answer as rent is the huge elephant in the room. Its so huge it makes it look like people are getting massive handouts yet they dont get the vast majority of it. I’d like some one a living to be able to save for their future.

Cosy little arguments on an Internet forum don’t really cut it, though, do they.

To pretend that the government are really in control is also naive. We are flotsam and jetsam on the sea of the world economy. We have to pander to that set up because, like it or not, that’s the way it is.

Anyhow, the lefties will get their way eventually. The Tories will do all the dirty work to ensure we are at least slightly better positioned when the pieces finally reassemble themselves globally. Then we will revert to type and elect a labour government to spunk it all away when the good times are here again.

Some other global crisis will then kick this cycle off again and we will find ourselves taking a further hit in our impossibly deluded standard of living.

I believe the solution is to start working now to differentiate ourselves from other competitor countries in the world. We have the infrastructure to allow us to have one of the best educated populations in the world, but we piss our pants every time someone dares to suggest that maybe some people are just more intelligent than others and so should be educated at a different rate. And I am not saying that the ‘plebs’ should be left to rot. The 90% who shouldn’t go to university should be vocationally trained and have a three year head start in the real world compared to the graduates. When the graduates then arrive in the workplace they had better be pretty damned good as they will be dealing with skilled people with a good base.

Instead we choose to devalue our education by dumbing it down. The first thing that blue chip companies did in recruitment after we decided that university was a right rather than an achievement was to alter their application forms from “must have an honours degree” to “must have an honours degree from a reputable university”.

Anyhow, the lefties will get their way eventually.

How’s that going to happen then, given that there are no ‘lefty’ political parties any more.

Rusty no disrespect meant but why are you doing that?

dannyh – Member

We have the infrastructure to allow us to have one of the best educated populations in the world…….Instead we choose to devalue our education by dumbing it down.

So we’ve got one of the best educated populations in the world with a dumbed down education system ?

I don’t understand.

What’s this got to do with Tories behaving like Tories and freezing benefits btw ?

Are you going to do it?

I do it because I discovered I’m bloody good at it.

I enjoy trying to make a difference to the lives of people less fortunate than myself.

It is not an easy job, but someone’s got to do it.

But the privatisation of the care sector means I’m percived by my rapacious employers and a large percentage of the population as a replaceable drudge worthy of little more than contempt.

Otherwise you’d pay me a living wage, wouldn’t you?

Nope. But as has been established I’m a terrible person. I just wonder why you are as you sound peeved with it.

cmon rusty think of your wallet will you and not your conscience

PFFT bedwetter do gooders eh what did you ever do for the great in great britain

Ps we could do with meeting up,when you have time. as you owe me a ride

All the really minted people I’ve met work loads harder than I’m prepared to.

A lot of stupidly rich people don’t get rich by working hard, they get rich by making other people do the work or through investing family money.

If hard Work made you rich, every woman in africa would be a millionaire

I just wonder why you are as you sound peeved with it.

Does he sound peeved with his job ?

You suggested that if people wanted more money perhaps they should work harder.

Rusty Spanner makes a perfectly reasonable point imo by pointing out that he works many hours, 50% more than the norm apparently, on the minimum wage.

I believe the solution is to start working now to differentiate ourselves from other competitor countries in the world. We have the infrastructure to allow us to have one of the best educated populations in the world, but we piss our pants every time someone dares to suggest that maybe some people are just more intelligent than others and so should be educated at a different rate. And I am not saying that the ‘plebs’ should be left to rot. The 90% who shouldn’t go to university should be vocationally trained and have a three year head start in the real world compared to the graduates. When the graduates then arrive in the workplace they had better be pretty damned good as they will be dealing with skilled people with a good base.

We need a high tech industry like Germany and Japan, which means educating people. Not turning them all into glorified mechanics and plumbers, if it weren’t for the EU we would not have anywhere near enough decent science graduates to fill laboratories in this country.

So we’ve got one of the best educated populations in the world with a dumbed down education system ?

I don’t understand.

What’s this got to do with Tories behaving like Tories and freezing benefits btw ?

Hell, Ernie, I didn’t think I’d ever have to explain something to you. You should have noted my use of the phrase “to allow us”. The implication is that we don’t currently utilise it properly. I don’t think we do.

It has everything and nothing to do with “Tories behaving like Tories”.

Everything because the Tories feel in thrall to the global corporations, so have to toe their line.

Nothing because Labour will spout the usual rhetoric about being on the side of the people, before toeing the corporate line and doing 99% of what the Tories are doing, because they have no alternative.

Adapt or die. We are ailing because we are living on past glories. I don’t think we should race to the bottom against countries whose populations will work for a pittance. I think we should seek to be world leaders in technology and services, but we are being usurped now by ‘developing’ economies, most of whose graduates can speak better English than most Brits and add two and two together and get four.

Yes I’d say he did sound peeved.

On another note

A lot of stupidly rich people don’t get rich by working hard, they get rich by making other people do the work or through investing family money.

Really, people actually think this, how does someone “make” someone else do the work? Sounds like bitter nonsense. Yes some people have family wealth, some even have employees.

Man has a successful garage, takes home 250k employs 10 mechanics on decent money, 2 office staff and has a couple of apprentices on 8k, what an absolute bastard, let’s rise him for 50% and mansion tax his house too, because that’s fair.

Adapt or die. We are ailing because we are living on past glories. I don’t think we should race to the bottom against countries whose populations will work for a pittance. I think we should seek to be world leaders in technology and services, but we are being usurped now by ‘developing’ economies, most of whose graduates can speak better English than most Brits and add two and two together and get four.

Which is an effect of being better educated. It’s not because they work for a pittance, it’s because they take higher education more seriously.

Really, people actually think this, how does someone “make” someone else do the work? Sounds like bitter nonsense. Yes some people have family wealth, some even have employees.

Man has a successful garage, takes home 250k employs 10 mechanics on decent money, 2 office staff and has a couple of apprentices on 8k, what an absolute bastard, let’s rise him for 50% and mansion tax his house too. That’s the reality not a few gazzillionaires who went to Harrow.

I’ve known or known of plenty of people who got to places purely because they were good at selling themselves, delegating and dodging blame, social climbing managerial types etc.