I’m not letting that pass, what utter horseshit.
£2500 a month after tax is well into the richest few % of the country. Lose your zero hours job. Universal credit plus £ 20
Once again its the usual Stw total lack of understanding of how money gets funnelled tp the richest and how little money most people in the country have
Furlough mone was vastly skewed towards the well off. Its undeniable
Oil extraction companies pay a higher ring fence rate of corporation tax so the government should see a good chunk of the loaned funds back.
No chance. The profits will be declared in the tax haven of their choice. It won’t be declared in the U.K. so it’s liable for tax
The energy companies (BP / Shell) already pay c40% corporation tax on UK profits - so for the ones listed in London the country does very well out of that.
That’s on top of the license fees they pay to secure rights for reserves in UK waters and the per barrel tax they pay on everything they extract.
To listen to Sir Keir you’d be mistaken for thinking the oil / gas companies are making £170b excess profit on the back of Uk consumers - when he knows perfectly well it’s the estimate of profit from global operations. UK ops will generate c£20b a year excess profit of which we’ll get £8b a year anyway.
One other point that escaped Sir Keir in his criticism of government borrowing vs. a windfall tax is that the issue right now is liquidity for retail energy companies.
A windfall tax wouldn’t generate any returns until some time after the financial year ends with the result that the government would need to borrow even if it did a windfall tax - in order to offset the gap between market prices and the level paid by consumers and provide the liquidity that’s immediately required.
The windfall tax wouldn’t be used to buy the energy, it would be used to get excess money back afterwards rather than it disappearing into the profits of the energy producers (who the PM and her cabinet just happen to have strong connections with) as part of some huge perverse payout due to a war in Europe and a pandemic.
Expect liz and her bunch of lackies to push out a load of shit news now while nobody is looking
Jeremy, continually repeating your mantra that '...furlough was vastly skewed towards the well-off' doesn't make it correct - which it isn't.
Where is your hard, fact based, incontravertable evidence?
You know - proper research undertaken by an established, proven and authoritative individual/organisation.
Not random quotes from the guardian or similar.
kelvin - substantiate your statement that truss and her cabinet have strong connections to energy producers.
Articles from the guardian etc don't substantiate anything.
Evidence from independent, proven and authoritative sources - individuals or organisations - have some relevance.
Anything else is just noise.
Expect liz and her bunch of lackies to push out a load of shit news now while nobody is looking
parliament is suspended for 10 days (bloody stupid) so they can’t. 10 days of moaning I think
£2500 a month after tax is well into the richest few %
More utter horse poop, this equates to £40k which is 59th percentile for individual salaries, along way from the top few percent. As a household income it represents the 46th percentile, so less than average.
Are you not familiar with the term “working poor”?
Who were still eligible for furlough, the least well off TJ refered to usually don't work at all and therefore did not lose money by being furloughed. Most people's outgoing also dropped as they weren't travelling to work, a bigger percentage of a low income families out goings.
Furlough money was vastly skewed towards the well off.
Rubbish, the well off got no more in real terms than the less well off and received significantly less as a percentage if their normal income. Even if your income is higher it doesnt mean you can reduce your out goings quickly.
"Rubbish, the well off got no more in real terms than the less well off"
I remember starting a thread called corporate socialism at the begining of furlough, when the govt chucked millions in the direction of Easyjet, whilst they were paying out substantial millions in dividends and bonuses.
Ditto with the railways, where the Govt subsidised the industry to the tune of 2.5 billion 500 million of which is now sitting in offshore tax havens as company profits, when there were no actual 'profits'.
So whilst there might be an argument that the well off did not do proportionately better than the poor, the stinking rich did exceptionally well out of furlough.
It's one thing protecting jobs in large corporations during the pandemic but dividends and bonuses paid out of the public purse for businesses that aren't at that time profitable is grotesque.
stumpyjon
Full MemberRubbish, the well off got no more in real terms than the less well off and received significantly less as a percentage if their normal income.
This is... complicated. For one, you need to consider who was actually furloughed and for how long (ie, were the well off more or less likely to benefit from furlough) and how they benefitted.
For instance, less qualified and lower paid people are much more likely to have been made redundant at the end of a furlough period. Clearly that means they've benefitted less than someone whose job was saved, even if they received the exact same amount of money. Furlough wasn't just to pay the wages, it was to preserve the jobs.
Self employment makes it bloody complicated too.
And "the well off got no more in real terms than the less well off and received significantly less as a percentage if their normal income" depends entirely on where you think the "well off" line is. The break point for the 80% support was, I think, £37500 (£2500 per month max, 80% of earnings) which is a decent chunk above the median income... So I think you can only really say that "the well off received less as a percentage" if you think someone earning £37500 falls into the "less well off" category. A matter of definition, really but I think most people wouldn't put "earns 20% more than the median fulltime salary" in the "less well off" group.
You can also make a good argument that while the less well off benefited only via their wages, the better off could benefit multiple times, as a personal recipient and also as an employer or an investor. You don't have to have been furloughed to have benefited from furlough.
Full time workers were more likely to be furloughed than part time in equivalent roles, and part time and especially zero hours workers were more likely to lose hours instead.
And by far the biggest individual beneficiaries will be investors and senior staff. They're less likely to have got money directly of course. This mostly comes down to the lack of obligations for employees benefitting from the furlough scheme, which imo is the one really big failing of it. You could take the taxpayer cash, and still pay out dividends, bonuses etc.
TLDR- I definitely can't say with confidence whether furlough money was skewed towards the better or worse off, there are too many variables and not enough good data. It is bloody complicated. But I can definitely say that furlough benefits were skewed towards the better off.
But to go right back to the original question, is it something the government did well? They kinda just copied what other countries were doing, arguably a bit slow, just like with lockdowns. And it was pretty much essential and commonsense. There was definitely a possibility that "small government" supply side maniacs could have derailed it, or that a bank manager like Hammond might have lacked the vision and competence to deliver enough. SO I'll give them credit for doing what they had to but I'd call it adequacy not a shining achievement.
Rubbish, the well off got no more in real terms than the less well off and
Obvious nonsense
The well of got 2500 a month. The vast majority of the country do not earn that much. No one earning 1000 a month got given 2500 a month. So clearly the well off got more
Also your sums are wrong 2500 per month as 80% of your take home pay puts you firmly into the well off category
The break point for the 80% support was, I think, £37500 (£2500 per month max, 80% of
Take home not top line
earning net 2.5k a month is not well off these days. using PAYE INCOME as a proxy for being rich is dumb.
plenty of people who are well off earn less than that or even nothing at all.
income v cost of living v personal/family wealth are part of the equation
and whilst I saw furlough as super important, and largely successful it was clear some big business and their leaders took advantage
And once again we have tbe nonsense that earning more than tbe vast majority of the country does not make you well off0
2500 as 80% of your take home wage puts you in the top earners. That well over 50 000 pa pre tax earnings is it not?
TJ you've argued this point so many times. Your viewpoint is too simplistic to the point of being idiotic.
you won't change or shut up about it so that's the last I'll say on the matter
Because on here there is a constant ridiculous assertion that being in the best paid 10% of the country dies not make you well off.
Some folk on here are so detached from reality
Some folk on here are so detached from reality
That’s the first sensible thing you’ve said in a long time.
earning net 2.5k a month is not well off these days
Bloody hell, this place sometimes. I earn less than that (not by very much though tbf) and I livw in the expensive Thames Valley. I wasn't worried about the up coming energy rises for myself, we could have dealt with it. It would be noticeable for sure but we'd have coped.
So the game plan for Truss will be to spend big now. She has to, for even a hope of getting the economy away from recession. The real economy is drained of money.
I've been saying for months the only way out of this is to spend big - and society's main deficit is energy. Same as Covid in terms of immediate attention. Years of bad taxation structure, and starving the bottom end of wages has robbed consumers of money.
Forget the taxation part for now - that comes later when the economy is doing something. Those up in arms about taxation for energy companies misunderstand how the system works.
All government spending reaches the private sector eventually. It's all a handout. That's how money works. I mean clearly there's been a disparity for several decades of how that money gets distributed and to whom.
By identifying the biggest problem and plugging the hole now is a good thing to do. You can save your screams for what comes next I think.
The ideology will kick in once the economy starts to move (if at all.)
Then you need to be on the lookout.
The next thing to look at will be the funding of all of this. I'm taking a guess this will be done by Q/E. It satisfies all camps currently. That will define how smart she is or isn't.
To out manoeuvre Truss, Starmer has to go big and start putting a long term plan out with massive investment - including nationalisation, and other restructuring. He will need to go where Corbyn (on an economic footing) went for the left to have a chance.
Oh and next GDP reporting will likely give Truss problems.
Also those on the left when you criticise 'money printing' you are effectively denying the left of its future ability to intervene with the state. That doesn't put you on the left at all. You have to accept it's tool of the state or the left with never have the capacity to fix things.
Some of the people on this site remind me of that thick bloke on QT who appeared to genuinely believe his 80k salary was below average. Just utterly divorced from reality.
More utter horse poop, this equates to £40k
If you're going to quote numbers, best they're accurate. You're approximately 10 to 11% out on the gross pay figure. Which then skews all your other figures and makes the percentiles look like they are out too.
*sigh*
earnings do not equal "well off"
disposable income equals "well off"
scenario A
semi retired couple late 50s joint income £30k 2 bed bungalow up north no mortgage. dependents grown up left home. bunch of inheritance in the bank due to parents dying and selling family home
scenario B
young professional couple joint income £80k. £250k mortgage on 2 bed terrace in the SE one child in nursery one on the way. trying to save to move home for expanding family
who has more disposable income? who is "well off" in this scenario?
if your definition of well off is solely based on paye income then I'm afraid its like talking to a colour blind person and trying to explain colours
And again it was a rush job. If they'd sat down n messed about with it the damage would be greater than it was.
It was flawed but it was 1st Aid treatment
TJ is right.
As for Truss and her cabinet’s links to fossil fuel companies. It’s going to be a long list… not got the time now, but start with her launching the parliamentary group of the IEA, and the fact she worked for Shell.
https://metro.co.uk/video/liz-truss-denounces-monarchy-resurfaced-clip-2734899/ lets hope the media really go to town on her about this
If you’re going to quote numbers, best they’re accurate.
I did, £40k gross equates to £2573 net take home, £457 tax and £302. Unlike TJ who's plucking numbers out of the air I actually checked before posting. It's also not in the top few percent of salaries and when taken as household income, be it via one or two earners it brings it below average once again blowing TJs assertion that furlough disproportionately benefited the well off out of the water.
Talking about employers etc. is not comparing apples with apples. Even the lower paid who were eventually made redundant (many fewer than were expected) managed another 18 months on 80% of their wages which was a lot better than being on UC plus 20 quid. The Tories have screwed much up but furlough was one thing they generally got right.
£2500 is 80% of the (EDIT) take home wage not the whole wage, not everyone received this as they didn't earn in excess of £44,000 before furlough.
I’ve got nothing more to back this up other than who I talk too, but has Liz Truss got a women problem?
Nearly every woman I’ve talked to has said ‘Liz Truss, can’t bloody stand her’. No matter their political background.
Most blokes have been more on the ‘can’t be worse than the **** we had before’ comments.
Re Furlough - it wasn’t perfect - perhaps they should have run it through a few focus groups, trialled it in a few areas, met up again, do a few more trials in a few more areas.
Gone all over it again, decided 82% of £2435 was a better figure, then tweak it a bit more.
At normal government speed we’d still be tweaking it now!! 🤣🤣
The government did tweek the furlough scheme, several times. They didn’t prioritise the low paid then. The more well off, who were receiving more furlough money, ideally wouldn’t have been living pay cheque to pay cheque the way poorly paid people are forced to. Anyway, I haven’t read much about Truss being key to that policy in any way. Shall we move on?
earnings do not equal “well off”
disposable income equals “well off”
So if I mortgage myself to the hilt or take out an expensive loan or payment plan so I can have an expensive car, leaving me with no disposable income I'm no longer well off? 🤣
t’s also not in the top few percent of salaries and when taken as household income
But were not talking about household income, we're talking about straight up salaries.
And stop talking about median wage ffs, that's literally just the middle between the highest paid person and the lowest paid person in the country, if you're going to try to talk statistics at least get the terminology right.
I did, £40k gross equates to £2573 net take home, £457 tax and £302. Unlike TJ who’s plucking numbers out of the air I actually checked before posting. It’s also not in the top few percent of salaries and when taken as household income,
But you forgot the 80% bit. So to receive the 2500 per month you need a salery of 50 000 pa which most certainly puts you amongst the well off
So if I mortgage myself to the hilt or take out an expensive loan or payment plan so I can have an expensive car, leaving me with no disposable income I’m no longer well off?
I agree with your comment about the car but regards housing it's not straight forward.
Sometimes inflated housing costs are unavoidable, people have to live in certain areas because of their jobs.
Higher salary - higher mortgage - less disposable income.
£40k gross equates to
But you forgot the 80% bit. So to receive the 2500 per month you need a salery of 50 000 pa which most certainly puts you amongst the well off
So technically you really need to look at median wages.. because 'a few' well paid skew the mean considerably.
Even then this is still missing a lot as it's usually only known/quoted for income tax payers...
I agree with your comment about the car but regards housing it’s not straight forward.
Sometimes inflated housing costs are unavoidable, people have to live in certain areas because of their jobs.
Higher salary – higher mortgage – less disposable income.
This isn't China... we do have some say in what jobs we do or even having a job at all even though it often feels like we don't. In other words there are other sources of income than PAYE employment ...
Reason I'm saying that is I've said that myself and been trapped by it.
In other words there are other sources of income than PAYE employment
There is but not for everyone.
So technically you really need to look at median wages..
Once again, no, we don't. You have that arse about tit. The median is literally the middle of a data set and takes no consideration for the distribution of that data. That's fine for calculating door heights but not when considering the wage that most people are on. For that you want the mode.
https://differencecamp.com/mean-vs-median-vs-average/
@gobuchul Yeah I'm aware housing is a different argument, I know a couple of doctors in exactly that situation you described. But consider this, are they or are they not earning more than someone on minimum wage with the same housing requirements?
I wouldn't consider them well off relative to myself but next to someone on minimum wage or zero hours I would. Which is the point being made here.
gobuchul
There is but not for everyone.
That depends how you mean "for everyone".
Can ALL of the British people of employment age all be otherwise making a living OR can "EVERYONE" (most) of those in salaried positions do something else instead?
Obviously if we have a civil service then salaried positions seem fairly compulsory or at least difficult to think how these position might otherwise be done... however whilst not everyone can just quit and do something else simply because we would have no civil service doesn't mean those individuals can't as individuals.
My point really is about the mindset, I'm not saying everyone should. I'm just saying it's an option most of us have been conditioned not to see or consider.
I’ve got nothing more to back this up other than who I talk too, but has Liz Truss got a women problem?
Nearly every woman I’ve talked to has said ‘Liz Truss, can’t bloody stand her’.
She has a bit of an issue with her presentation and delivery style that has a swatty school girl vibe to it that maybe gets under women's skin more than mens maybe. She's obviously aware of it and tries to suppress it but its pretty baked in. I've noticed in radio interviews during the campaign she starts with a deeper voice (with echos of the voice Thatcher had to be taught to use early in her poilictal career to stop her sounding like an angry head teacher) and a more measured international but it starts to slip after a few minutes and she's back to that risible 'pork markets!' thing.
Compare Truss' and Johnson's speeches in parliament just now. He'd have made so much more (for himself) out of this period than she will, if he'd still been PM. Don't get me wrong, that skill is dangerous, I'm glad he's moved on, but Truss doesn't have any of that (fake) connection to the listener/watcher that he does (nor do many other politicians, that's not just a dig at her alone). Starmer's speech fell somewhere between the two, but closer to Truss than Johnson.
May's speech also head and shoulders above Truss' effort. Theresa May!
I’m glad he’s moved on, but Truss doesn’t have any of that (fake) connection to the listener/watcher that he does
The wall she'll hit is that she's courted Johnson's supporters in the campaign. What brought Johnson down was his lying but that wasnt a problem for his supporters it was to just a problem for everyone else. Johnson's fans liked his lies not just in the end but in the beinging - he got the job not by telling lies and getting away with it but by telling what were obviously lies - it didn't matter to them that he was lying because the lies were all things they wanted to hear. Having got in post with their support what they're not going to get from Truss is the lies they want.
I see from my Apple news feed that Liz Truss is tackling the most important parliamentary issues. Ties, bringing back ties. If you’re going to get caught fiddling expenses or watching porn in the house, then by god, you best be wearing a tie whilst doing it!
