[Closed] anyone on here voting tory. why?

Unless you are rich, own multiple properties or own a decent sized business, you are a moron for voting Tory and do not understand how MY VIEW OF the world works.

FTFY

How anyone can claim to know how 'the world works' is hilarious!

The elephant in the room for both parties is productivity.

Indeed. The result of a total lack of business investment, while companies pay out all profits to shareholders (instead of investing it back , a la Germany), and still unreformed banks seek to lend out all that money they got as bailouts and QA as mortgages (fuelling a housing boom) and easy credit (to buy shiny things), instead of providing investment funds to SME's.

Any of this sounding eerily familiar? Ringing any worrying bells?

Unfortunately, and somewhat unbelievably, none of the main parties are even discussing this. Which I think we can assume means they intend to do absolutely nothing at all about it.

Remember all that 'rebalancing the economy' guff from Osborne? So much for that!

So Mol given that large government and the issues that you mention currently co-exist - your solution seems somewhat misplaced. Plus strip out government interference and you find most of the educational establishment happy - in some cases, truly world class!

The oposing view point is that growth is good for all and the best way to make the size of the welfare budget bigger is not to take a larger proportion of the overall pot but to make the pot bigger in the first place.

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The elephant in the room for both parties is productivity. Neither seem to be addressing that issue and that is really why we don't feel that well off, Labour or Tory, if they don't address the productivity issue then they are just fiddling round the edges

Worse than that - basic wage economics - increase wages without increasing productivity and you end up with fewer people in work but earning more - in normal parlance that is called increasing inequality. So odd which part of the political intelligentsia are proposing that Band-Aid.

They've a history of really screwing it up for the children (not talking about teachers here)

also interested in the evidence of this and why if gove was so good he is not still doing the job ...

Plus strip out government interference and you find most of the educational establishment happy

Its just not true to claim that simply removing govt "inteference [ most would call it oversight or regulation ] remarkably makes all education better*. Even the briefest glimpse at the stats will confirm this, even to you.

* I am not sure why you said happy - was it because it was bit more nebulous and imprecise?

http://www.theguardian.com/education/2013/dec/13/government-shuts-free-school-discovery-west-sussex

This really is a stupid point to make one can have access to the internet and also care about the poor and those in need. You can object to the excesses of the capitalist model without wanting to return to a cave dwelling feudal barter system. Its only minor use is it is an easy way to identify those who struggle to construct coherent arguments to justify their own selfishness.

Why would I need to argue my own selfishness? I said in my first post that Ive no interest in supporting people I don't know and will never meet.
I want what will benefit me and people I know and care about, hence I'll vote for the party that provides it.
If you hate capitalism and wish to borrow more money to pay for benefits and create more public sector jobs, then you carry on, that's why you have a vote.

So Mol given that large government and the issues that you mention currently co-exist - your solution seems somewhat misplaced

Ah you mis-understand. I was speaking about general principles. In practice, either flavour of government can **** it up!

Government interfering with education is unwelcome, but government money is not. Our government is always somewhat left wing anyway, like most developed countries - they pay for our education, health, pension and so on, and this is good.

This raises another point. Gove is an absolute ****, and his ego-maniacal buggering about with education is what's damaging. That would be the same regardless of party affiliation, probably, so that's not an ideological point. The cutting of budgets though, that is.

I said in my first post that Ive no interest in supporting people I don't know and will never meet.

So you wouldn't care if there were beggars on the street and slums all around? You'd just avoid them and carry on with life? If that's really true then you are selfish, and selfishness is bad.

@wrecker, the big changes to regulation have tried to ensure "it will never happen again". Certainly many 100'000s have lost their jobs and substantial amounts of money from owning shares in bankrupt banks (you tend to get paid in shares) but of course they are not destitute. It's quite difficult as someone like Fred Goodwin (RBS) made some idiotic decisions but he didn't do anything illegal (so isn't going to jail). The fines which have been made on banks are huge, many many billions (admitedly mostly in the US as they are more aggressive on litigation there). I am all for the UK having a more balanced economy but every other country is trying to do the same thing too, eg move into high tech manufacturing etc

@JY, hum I seem to have blanked out from 1990 to '97 😳 . Scary how the deficit was spiraling out of control though up to 2010

even when we continue to spend more than we earn? interesting....

So you wouldn't care if there were beggars on the street and slums all around? You'd just avoid them and carry on with life? If that's really true then you are selfish, and selfishness is bad.

Would it be possible to walk around the outside of these hypothetical slums?

even when we continue to spend more than we earn? interesting....

Who was that aimed at?

They've a history of really screwing it up for the children (not talking about teachers here) and if you thought Gove was a meddling twonk, you've obviously forgotten how much worse it can be under a bureaucratic, authoritarian, left wing version.

Gove was trying to introduce a "...bureaucratic, authoritarian..." system. Ex-military teachers anyone?

I live with a teacher. My old man's a teacher. Two of my best friends are teachers. They have all worked under both Labour and Tory governments.

Your statement, sir, is utter crud.

" even when we continue to spend more than we earn? interesting...."

Who was that aimed at?

I suspect that THM might have been thinking out loud after reading this comment in his beloved FT today:

[i][b]"The time has surely come to shift the focus from the obsession with fiscal deficits and debt. These were neither the cause of the crisis nor the solution". [/i][/b]

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/3249930a-f27c-11e4-892a-00144feab7de.html

They increased VAT, the rich pay much more VAT.

Just saying. 🙂

Thanks but as usual Ernie, you are wide of the mark. Stick to voicing your own opinions rather than speculating on other people's please.

Good to see you reading a quality paper though.

The financial crises was one where too much debt caught up with a lot of people/businesses/countries. The fact our debt levels where pretty high due to large budget deficits run up under Labour meant we had little flexibility in how we dealt with the crises. Spending our way out simply wasn't an option.

The fact our debt levels where pretty high due to large budget deficits run up under Labour

Hindsight is great of course.

I'm not saying they were blameless, but I think they were trying to undo previous under-investment no?

It's always more complicated than you think.

Would it be possible to walk around the outside of these hypothetical slums?

The fact our debt levels where pretty high due to large budget deficits run up under Labour

In a normal world the budget deficit run up to invest in schools, hospitals and other public infrastructure would have been perfectly manageable. As with the bloody gold, if labour are guilty of anything, it's of not being able to predict the future. And much as I don't want to repeat myself for the nth time, nothing would have been any different had the tories been in power at the time.

The fact our debt levels where pretty high due to large budget deficits run up under Labour meant we had little flexibility in how we dealt with the crises.

Shame they wasted the Major surplus they inherited eh 😆
Nicely ignored 😆

what molly and daz said the global crises was not their fault nor were the consequences

in a normal world the budget deficit run up to invest in schools, hospitals and other public infrastructure would have been perfectly manageable.

If the budget deficit had been run up by investing in schools, hospitals etc. then there wouldn't be a bloody problem

In fact it was run up employing hundreds of thousands of civil servants pushing around pointless paperwork (ever filled in a tax credits form?) diversity officers, Millenium domes, hosting the Olympics and invading other countries!

@Pipmaster reading that now, thanks for the link. Organisations like the Equality Trust love to talk about "percentages of income" and "indirect" taxes. Here are some numbers I posted up a while ago.

[img] [/img]

On VAT (page 20) they don't say that much other to show a chart that says the bottom 10% pay 11.6% of their income on VAT and the top 10% pay 4.39% in VAT

So using £25k gross as a proxy for bottom 10% household income. Post income tax and NI that's £20k pa. 11.6% of that is £2,300 which would mean they would have to be spending £11,600 pa on VAT-able items. Now rent, food and utilities are all low/zero rated - the numbers just don't work as they'd be spending just £8,400 on rent, food and utilities and £11,600 on "luxuries" ie VAT rated items. It does not compute, the numbers just don't stack up unless they are living in a shoe box and eating hardly anything whilst living it up on VAT-able items.

This is also where we get back to portions of income, the better off save more for example so of course it doesn't attract tax on a portion of income basis. What you need to do to make a reasonable comparison is look at the absolute amount of taxes paid and compare that to the portion of society that pays them.

If the budget deficit had been run up by investing in schools, hospitals etc. then there wouldn't be a bloody problem

So all the new schools and hospitals didn't cost money?

@molgrips yes agreed always more complicated than we'd like

@JY I posted up an 😳 earlier. Labour had the reigns and a chancellor who announced the end of boom and bust, they are gong to have to carry the can electorially as did pretty much every government apart from the Germans who co-incidentally had the a good budget surplus and low debt levels. I said the Labour policies gave the UK far less room to manouver post crises. We are also overly reliant and thus exposed to financial services, 13 years of Labour didn't change that much either - they where happy to take the taxes and economic benefits.

So all the new schools and hospitals didn't cost money?

No, but like he said, they're an [i]investment[/i] that (if run well) will pay back in the long term

Pointless make-work for civil servants isn't!

Another post on VAT as a regressive tax - or not, bear with me 😐

So using my table above at the 25k gross = £20,088 net and £100k gross and £65,328 net points as an example

Making assumptions for food/rent I estimate the £25k pa household spends £5k pa on VAT-able items so pays £1k a year or 5% of their income on VAT. The £100k household I estimate spends £26k on VATable items (they save money also as well as spending more on rent/mortgage/food) so that generates £5+k in VAT or 8% of their net income.

So the £25k earner pays a lower rate of VAT, whilst the higher earner pays a higher rate and 5 times the total amount. Using income tax, NI and VAT the £25k earner pays a total tax take of 25% whereas the £100k earner pays 43% - getting on for double the tax rate and would certainly be more than double if you include employers national insurance.

Our deficit was run up, in part, Greek style with the borrowing used to pay state sector wages and benefits. We don't build [s]£90bn[/s] £40 billion worth of roads, schools and hospitals EVERY year, the deficit doesn't represent investment.

EDIT: I edited £90bn above to £40bn to exclude national debt interest

So all the new schools and hospitals didn't cost money?

Yes, but not money included in the figures is financed by PFI as you have replaced financial gearing with operational gearing.

@JY I posted up an earlier.

It does not compute, the numbers just don't stack up unless they are living in a shoe box

the figures come from the ONS _ I suspect they are correct but I agree there is nothing in the way of explanation.
This is the best i can find
http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/rel/household-income/the-effects-of-taxes-and-benefits-on-household-income/2012-13/info-taxes.html

I assume the source is in here somewhere
http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/rel/household-income/the-effects-of-taxes-and-benefits-on-household-income/index.html

Before taxes and benefits, the richest fifth of households had an average income of £81,300 in 2012/13, almost 15 times greater than the poorest fifth, who had an average income of £5,500.

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How easily we forget!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-14974552

JY the poorest fifth cannot have an income of 5k pa, thje chart shows that how much they pay in taxes. Also you cannot discount benefits/tax credits, they make a huge difference to the income of the poorest. Also that post talks about "equivilised" whatever that means, I think it's a way of saying poor families tend to be larger so they need more money.

JY, two posts together ?

😉

How easily we forget!

It will never catch on @allthepies 😉

It was done as a deliberate homage

Please feel free to write to the ONS and explain to them what they have done wrong and why their figures are wrong. I feel certain they will change it based on your calculations and objections on here

As for equaivalised it said big families need more money than smaller families to have the same standard of living. It makes no mention nor assumption of where they lie on the income distribution scale [ Do I really need to explain why?] . I am sure this comes a shock to you and you can do some quick calculations to negate this out of the box thinking 😕

http://www.ifs.org.uk/wheredoyoufitin/about.php

here is a explanation for you

it might 😛

If a household has two earners and posts about 360 quid in income tax then each one pays about 180 quid suggesting they earn very slightly more than the personal allowance limit, ie about 10k each. Alternatively if there is only one earner they still only earn a bit more than the 10k mark. That's my wild speculation anyway.

as you are to lazy to click on the link 😉

The income that a household needs to attain a given standard of living will depend on its size and composition. For example, a couple with dependent children will need a higher income than a single person with no children to attain the same material living standards. "Equivalisation" means adjusting a household's income for size and composition so that we can look at the incomes of all households on a comparable basis. Official income statistics use the 'Modified OECD' equivalence scale, in which an adult couple with no dependent children is taken as the benchmark with an equivalence scale of one. The equivalence scales for other types of households can be calculated by adding together the implied contributions of each household member from the table below.

Modified OECD Equivalence Scale

Head 0.67
Subsequent adults 0.33
Each child aged 0-13 0.20
Each child aged 14-18 0.33

For example, a household consisting of a single adult will have an equivalence scale of 0.67 - in other words he or she can typically attain the same standard of living as a childless couple on only 67 percent of its income. In a household consisting of a couple with one child aged three, the head of the household would contribute 0.67, the spouse 0.33, and the child 0.20, giving a total equivalence scale of 1.20. In other words this household would need an income 20 percent higher than a childless couple to attain the same standard of living. To gauge where you are in the income distribution, we ascertain the equivalence scale of your household and then calculate where you would lie if the rest of the population lived in households of the same type.

Not too lazy. Just too slow to type my post before you posted the link 🙂

Jambas - of course you don't analyse this data pre tax and benefits alone - unless of course

From the ONS

•Before taxes and benefits the richest fifth of households had an average income of £81,300 in 2012/13, almost 15 times greater than the poorest fifth who had an average income of £5,500.

•Overall, taxes and benefits lead to income being shared more equally between households. After all taxes and benefits are taken into account the ratio between the average incomes of the top and the bottom fifth of households (£59,900 and £15,600 per year respectively) is reduced to four-to-one.

(A progressive system?)

•Fifty-two per cent of households received more in benefits (including in-kind benefits such as education) than they paid in taxes in 2012/13. This is equivalent to 13.8 million households.

Etc

The actual research on VAT which should be measure differently (since it is not a tax on income and needs to be considered over the lifetime) is actually progressive in the sense that this term is used.

Of course, this stuff gets misused/abused to make false statements as we see on a regular basis

Indeed, I have a few friends in IT who have made some very good money working on various failed government IT projects, eg around the NHS

Aah.. well that's an interesing one.

The reason these projects fail is because of the way they're run. Government agencies have to use these big IT companies like Accenture etc, and whilst they do their best they are under pressure to reduce their own costs to a minimum, which can impact quality, and they are not integrated into the Agency for whom they are working.

The latter of those points is a huge issue. They expect the agency to be able to give them requirements for a solution, but the agencies are staffed with civil servants who know their legislation and business but have no idea how to express that to IT companies, but they need to keep the boundaries for some reason so that the IT companies cannot really place people to sort things out. Basically, it's like when Homer Simpson designs a car. They don't really have any idea what they are asking for.

For example, one govt agency I worked for, traditionally you sent them a form to change an address or some detail etc. Lots of different forms you could send in. So when it came to implementing the system they made a system that processed these forms, with lots of code specific to validating each one. Why? Why not make a website where you can log on and just type in your new details? They couldn't change the way they work.

Then I worked for another agency that again made you send in paper forms. They also needed validating, so I wrote almost the exact same code twice for two different agencies.

But that's the Tory way - we outsource everything regardless of the results. Much of the profit is going overseas because most of the companies are foreign. What we really need is a government IT agency that keeps core skills and pays well; then we need to give them the power to run the projects.

Current rules even have different companies working on different bits of large solutions, and they end up not talkign to each other and spending millions trying to determine the boundaries between each company's area and figuring out how to get the bits to communicate. It's a disaster.

A progressive system?)