Viewing 40 posts - 161 through 200 (of 273 total)
  • A truly sad day for British society…
  • teamhurtmore
    Free Member

    Yes, some “facts” that I had not heard of before.

    But be careful, is someone finds being called princess and buttercup offensive then we can be sure that the consistency of the hammer will be maintained.

    slimjim78
    Free Member

    You accuse other people of being nasty but the number of mean-spirited, judgmental assumptions just in that little bit is quite astonishing.

    I was stating what my interpretation of another persons statement was.
    However:

    According to a doc, there is no such thing as executive stress

    I’m no doc, but I do know how easy it is to be signed off from work with stress! Some people crack up at work and need serious help and support – many many others use their GP and position as a meal ticket. For example.
    To suggest otherwise is just niaive.

    Anyway, Im not here to decipher other peoples lack of reading skill – nor explain how some people, may just possibly abuse benefit systems.

    I would probably be interested in a discussion on how to best go about ommiting the genuine scroungers from the welfare state without hitting the genuine claimants though. Because from what I can tell on here, the general concensus is to just keep increasing the budget at all costs.
    Maybe that is possible and maybe we should. Sounds expensive though.

    Thestabiliser – when you read a story like yours it does put it all into perspective, my best wishes to your folks.

    docrobster
    Free Member

    Well I was paraphrasing Professor Sir Michael Marmot thm, have a read, it’s quite interesting.
    https://www.ucl.ac.uk/whitehallII/pdf/wii-booklet
    Executives by definition have more control of their lives and therefore mental and physical health than those in low status jobs.
    Obviously some people feel stressed in their high status jobs, I do sometimes. But I could make changes if it started to damage my health.

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    badnewz
    Free Member

    Of the people that go into high level politics, the percentage of sociopathic personalities is far higher than the population at large.
    It goes beyond not caring.

    slimjim78
    Free Member

    Sounds like a fact badnews – source?

    DrJ
    Full Member

    If you look at the cost of welfare year on year you’d have to say its expanding

    And how much of that is spent on pensions and other spending related to the ageing population?

    teamhurtmore
    Free Member

    Ok some something a bit closer to reality on stress!

    Osborne is in a mess. Growth is slowing v forecasts and productivity is mixed at best which is bad news for wages and for tax revenues. Welfare reform is going pear shaped as a policy after the tax credit fiasco and the subsequent decision on disability benefits which is both economically questionable and politically idiotic – where are all the headlines?

    And taxes? Ok they are a buggers middle and largely incomprehensible but still higher rate tax payers pay more of the total income tax than in 2010. Some friends eh? And heaven forbid if you own property or are a bank!!

    teamhurtmore
    Free Member

    Zero DR. Pensions are different from welfare.

    slimjim78
    Free Member

    economically questionable and politically idiotic

    Finally, something I can agree with.

    Sounds like a u-turn on the cuts is in the pipeline now though?

    teamhurtmore
    Free Member

    True plus more missed targets. Old austerity George will be spending more that he is earning for some time yet!!

    konabunny
    Free Member

    teamhurtmore – Member
    Zero DR. Pensions are different from welfare.
    POSTED 10 MINUTES AGO # REPORT-POST

    How?

    teamhurtmore
    Free Member

    Different pots of money (oh and one is basically an unfunded ponzi scheme)

    binners
    Full Member

    Is sugar-tits ok?

    As a top rate taxpayer, hasn’t she been persecuted enough? It seems they’re the only minority that it’s acceptable to be prejudiced against. It’s really, like, SOOOOOOOO not fair!

    I’d just like to apologise for being simply beastly, and letting the reality of the lives of horrid poor and disabled people intrude on the middleclasstrackworld bubble.

    As penance I’ll go and start a thread about what buy-to-let mortgage, or the dilemma of which large German company car to choose?

    grum
    Free Member

    Zero DR. Pensions are different from welfare.

    http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/nov/04/welfare-tax-statements-prime-minister-pension

    What does zero DR mean?

    docrobster
    Free Member

    austerity George

    Or “pensioner killer George”
    https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/03/160315220308.htm

    teamhurtmore
    Free Member

    One is capped (welfare) the other isn’t (pensions). Treated differently.

    DrJ
    Full Member

    Welfare spending to fall to 25-year low, warns IFS
    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-33009399

    The IFS said protecting pensioner benefits meant cuts of almost 10% over two years to the welfare budget.
    That would take welfare spending as a share of GDP to its lowest since 1990.
    The government has committed to taking £12bn out of social security spending by 2018.
    Welfare spending currently amounts to £220bn annually. That includes £95bn on the state pension and universal pensioner benefits, such as the winter fuel allowance, free bus travel and television licences for the over-75s.
    The Conservatives have promised those areas of welfare spending will remain protected throughout the life of the current parliament.
    But the remaining £125bn of welfare spending could be subject to freezes or cuts.
    Unprotected welfare benefits include child benefit, housing and disability benefits and jobseekers’ allowance.

    http://visual.ons.gov.uk/welfare-spending/

    Welfare covers a number of benefits, and many people don’t realise that the largest amount is actually spent on pensions at £108 billion.

    airtragic
    Free Member

    My name’s Paul and I’m a 40% taxpayer. But only just. I’ll try not to get too vulgar when spending my £11 a month extra. As jamba and stumpyjon have said though, very rich people/companies have options. If you keep squeezing them, a significant number will avoid harder/go elsewhere, especially when you’ve got near neighbours who will tout for their patronage. You can pass judgement on this all you want, but it’ll still happen. ISTR that the City accounts for something like 10% of the Treasury’s tax take. So, are Britain’s poor better or worse off for it’s presence? Take squeezing the rich to its logical conclusion and you get communism, which has a much poorer track record than capitalism for lifting people out of poverty, because of that basic human instinct to do the best for oneself and one’s family.
    I get that it’s a sliding scale, and there are successful examples of sliding it further left, like Nordic socialism. FWIW I think that cutting disability benefits at the same time as higher rate taxes is wrong, but the general direction of travel of shrinking the deficit is a good thing. Demonising anyone who takes a different viewpoint seems to be an increasing problem in modern politics, from the US elections to the Scots’ indyref. Maybe it’s the decivilising influence of the internet?

    binners
    Full Member

    Maybe it’s the decivilising effect of living an increasingly unequal and unjust society, which seeks to blame, then punish the poor and disadvantaged for the mistakes of the ‘elite’, who have got off Scott free

    Maybe it’s really that black and white?

    airtragic
    Free Member

    But haven’t the poor and disadvantaged reaped the benefits of the “elite”‘s actions in better times? Are the poor and disadvantaged worse off if the “elite” are punished, ie banks allowed to go bust etc? That’s the judgement the Govt have to make. Is it even a valid comparison? By dint of being poor and disadvantaged, their mistakes are less likely to have a knock on effect on others, whereas with great power comes great responsibility.
    I also find the scapegoating of the poor and disadvantaged distasteful btw, but it’s not just the Govt, it’s the print media and even TV, with stuff like benefit street. Plays on the old confirmation bias that everyone else has it easier than you!

    fin25
    Free Member

    How many higher rate taxpayers have ever been made homeless by government policy?

    Get some bloody perspective.
    People are dying because of welfare cuts.

    cchris2lou
    Full Member

    according to bbc website i ll be £6.67 better off every month .

    it is a disgrace that disabled people are going to be worse off because of it .

    G O and his pals have no morals whatsoever .

    Why are people not in the streets is beyond me , i think you need a training course with french farmers .

    edenvalleyboy
    Free Member

    Context is everything… Maybe making disabled benefits more streamlined in the right palces is appropriate but there will always be collateral damage which will result in deaths, increased suffering and hardship within a section of society who are already having it hard enough compared to the majority of others..howver it’s the context this is done in..MP’s kept their payrise and economists today all agreed that it was the top 10% wealthiest who ‘made the most’ out of this budget…so quite obviously these cuts are not equal across all social boundaries.

    Simple fact is…it’s choices. Government are choosing to cut benefits (knowing full well the consequences) when they could quite easily choose to leave them alone and raise the money elsewhere. They have chosen to hit some of the most disadvantaged…how you perceive that is obviously up to you. But if you know anything about politics you’ll also know if was simply choice – not necessity – to hit the most disadvantaged ( As has been demonstrated by Tories own backbenches telling them to choose not to do it)..

    chestrockwell
    Full Member

    Since old Gideon seems to be missing all his targets and the amount of borrowing keeps going up and up along with a noticeable decrease in public services offered for the (increased) money we put in are we going to admit he’s made a pigs ear of the finances yet? I thought they told us they were the safe bet and labour would mess things up?

    It’s quite obvious that this mob had thought they’d spouted enough guff that people seemed to believe, scared enough people into not taking a risk (ha,ha) and diverted enough attention on to the scrounging immigrants/disabled/jobless/homeless/low paid that they could do exactly as they liked. Seems there might actually be some resistance and fight left after all!

    PimpmasterJazz
    Free Member

    …the general direction of travel of shrinking the deficit is a good thing…

    I agree with this, but am also deeply shocked by how much this government has borrowed.

    I saw a breakdown of where my tax goes the other day – the amount servicing the interest on the national debt is horrendous. It’s more than is spent on defence!

    I’d be interested to know what constitutes ‘welfare’ too. I can’t imagine running job centres costs more than a modern army, navy and air force.

    This isn’t the same image as the one on my tax return, but is certainly in the same ballpark.

    julianwilson
    Free Member

    Pm-j, iirc the ‘welfare’ part of that diagram includes public sector pensions which in effect were paid for/into by public sector employees a generation ago: although ‘ponzi scheme’ has a slight whiff of of sour grapes, i agree that the funding is rather different and stupidly short-termist compared to a ‘normal’ pension, and anyway maybe better off breaking public sector pension expenditure into the relevant areas and including them in the spend eg health service pensions into health spending, teachers in education etc. . I had a similar government funded conservative party mailshot helpful tax summary in the post a couple of years ago.

    Full Fact sauce from 2014 here.

    airtragic
    Free Member

    Probably quite a few, if they lose their jobs. Being a higher rate taxpayer doesn’t make you rich (my definition of that being someone who isn’t immediately in trouble if they don’t get paid at the end of the month!).

    allthepies
    Free Member

    IDS resigns over the cuts.

    mefty
    Free Member

    First major resignation under Cameron, will be interesting, however the fact he is an outer is probably a factor too.

    binners
    Full Member

    IDS resigns over cuts?

    Do you hear that?

    That’s the sound of irony being brutally murdered.

    It appears that all government activity now revolves around who gets to be big chief big bollocks in the Tory party.

    Hurray for democracy!

    teamhurtmore
    Free Member

    Julian thanks for the good news. Public sector pensions paid for. Phew all the scare stories about they way they are funded just nonsense. We can all sleep easy now

    julianwilson
    Free Member

    Thm, where did I say all that?

    teamhurtmore
    Free Member

    Damn misread it. Still a Ponzi scheme then.

    konabunny
    Free Member

    Demonising anyone who takes a different viewpoint seems to be an increasing problem in modern politics

    Who’s being demonised?

    julianwilson
    Free Member

    Uh, that Ponzi scheme comes up again and again in your posts and yet still no one does anything about it. Along with “theft”: you should really report these crimes.

    [edit] Wandering off my post pointing out the unhelpfulness of the tax summary graphic and that state, private and public sector pensions all come from different places and different times. In doing so, I thought ‘stupidly short term ist’ was probably a more helpful description than what if it was in the legal sense a Ponzi scheme, would be a phenomenally large scale pan-government pan-generational financial crime that has inexplicably never been brought to justice.

    Perhaps for the purposes of balance you could also suggest a more accurate description and to-approved term of reference for tendering/contracting of health than ‘privatisation’ since you (in the true legal factual sense correctly!) point out that it isn’t.

    chestrockwell
    Full Member

    THM, my scheme was funded by the members but various governments stole the money put in to spend as they wished. The money has been paid in yet we got blamed after it had been spent and now needs to be replaced.

    footflaps
    Full Member

    The cynic in me thinks IDS is resigning solely to damage Osbourne and the “In” campaign re Brexit. By kicking Osbourne and Cameron right now he’s helping Brexit, a cause he is championing and nailing his colours to Boris’ mast as he’s next in line if they pull off Brexit.

    I honestly don’t beleive IDS gives a toss about the disabled.

    binners
    Full Member

    In the absense of an opposition, the entire countries political system is now devalued to the extent that it’s been reduced to a bunch of posh boys, all having a bun fight about who gets to be the next big swinging dick.

    And it doesn’t matter about what the consequences are of the outcome, because for the top percentile there are no consequences. Not for them. There are for the rest of us, of course. But not for them

    So … Meh… who cares? It’s all just a jolly big game, isn’t it?

    binners
    Full Member

    Actually….. Using an apparent new concern for the plight of the disabled (yeah….. right) as a front to further your own political agenda surely marks a new low even for the Tory party.

    They truly are a bunch of utter ****s!!!

    jambalaya
    Free Member

    See the other thread, IDS has resigned to campaign for Leave. Osbourne is tied to Remain as is Cameron, Remain is a sinking ship.

    Hats off to the elements of the press that have managed to link cuts to the disabled as being the result of tax cuts to the middle classes. The headlines don’t play as well if they read “Tories honour commitments to increase NHS spending by scaling back welfare budgets”

    @binners the lack of an opposition is the fault of the Labour MPs who decided to “broaden the debate” by allowing Corbyn to stand and to those that voted for him. Thats the beauty of democracy, they got what they voted for.

Viewing 40 posts - 161 through 200 (of 273 total)

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