Cost of Living Crisis

Absolutely true but it's slightly worrying that people can't place the obvious bias in some of the media they consume. Probably not unexpected though.

 

If you choose to read say, the Daily Mail or the Guardian then you choose those because they mirror your political leaning.And this will influence your thinking, sometimes to a point where that influence isn't a true reflection of what you think politically. Myself, coming from a background of not having a political home, i can take good and bad journalism from both publications. For me the problem comes from those blinded by the blinkered narrative that publications like that have. Even on this thread, most who quote articles will only quote from one side of the debate and for fairness thats not a good thing.

 

Partly I agree. The Guardian is probably my second mosy read media source (after the BBC) and I never read the Mail at all. Many would say that doesn't match my political persuasions at all.

To me it's less important what media you consume and more important to be able to critically analyse why they are giving you the information they are.

 

I've scoured all the papers and we still generally lose or draw in all of 'em ....

 

I agree, they were just two examples. To agree with you, for the very rare times i read journalism the guardian does put out some good thought provoking stuff amongst articles of sheer smugness. The Mail just seems more like Hello magazine. That said i vary rarely read newspapers or watch TV, most of it is just designed to appeal to folk who are happy to be spoonfed diatribe.

 

The markets decided on Truss's plan at the end of the day. Thats rich bankers who thought the proposals were bonkers.

I think we should allow people who are higher rate payers to earn more of their money. Most of these people are skilled workers who can actually leave the UK for work. What we should be doing is recouping hundreds of billions we pumped into the economy during QE and covid. This money is now in the hands of billionaires who increased their wealth from 2020 to 2021 by £160billion.

Billionaires dont pay themselves wages so the higher rate doesnt apply to them. They buy assets with their wealth also which means if they want to leave the UK they can but their assets cant. In covid we pumped £600bn into the economy. Thats why are prices are high. House prices, rents, food all going up has nothing to do with war in Ukraine.

We need the billions back. Otherwise we are all poorer. Tax the assets not the incomes.

Additionally, tax the mortage increases. Why should billionaires who have already earned so much that they are inflating the pound then receive more from our interest rate hikes. After all it all goes to shareholders of mortgage lenders. Tax those increases and give it back to homeowners via public services.

The thing is, taxation like this is anti-tory they will never do it. But it needs to be done.

 

Of all your posts you've ever done I think that is the one I agree with the most. Almost completely agree.

The tricky bit for me is that you're basically advocating a wealth tax which I'm actually fine with in principle but I've never seen a proposal for this that accounts for the flexibility of Millionaires/Billionaires. In the same way that high skilled workers can move around freely so need to be "attracted" the 'super rich' can do this even more simply. How many billionaires have business interests in a single locations or even just one country of domicile? I'm slightly uneasy about the fairness of taxing these people for both income and also wealth but that's a secondary issue, I've just never seen a proposal that is fair, simple, accounts for the flexibility of these people and also raises significant tax. It always ends up like the windfall tax on Shell where you can charge whatever rate you want but they can simply use clever accountancy to move the cash around. When countries want more wealthy people in their country its tricky to create a disincentive to invest here.

 

But it is a good thing isn't it? If I have a viewpoint then I will debate it with those who have an opposing one but I won't go and find a counter argument to debate with myself over my own viewpoint, why would I?

You say others are happy to be spoonfed diatribe -well that is your viewpoint. Doesn't make you correct though as it's your own opinion and that's fine. Others may say the same about you and your choice of media/news that you are being spoonfed diatribe.

You may assert you are more intelligent than others and that would be a subjective viewpoint, which you are perfectly entitled to have.

Like you I rarely read/watch any media (I hate the word consume when used in this context) I am not eating it for Christ sake.

My personal take is that most people have an opinion or political leaning and that is formed by their life events so it's entirely possible for a Labour voter to vote Lib Dem or Tory and vice versa depending on the situation in their life at that moment. Or for someone to stop reading one newspaper and start reading another.

I am glad we have free speech in this country.

 

It's definitely both. There's a relatively clear bias in both their selection of news and the way its reported. Which isn't particularly to the Guardian of course.

 

Let's be fair though, through 12 years of government they've been firefighting financial crisis for well over half that. That's not an excuse for them as they should do better but an honest appraisal is important. Also worthwhile noting that austerity was a political consensus.....Alistair Darling was promising basically the same cuts as George Osborne at the election.

But on the point at hand, I want balance, you may recall from our discussions during covid that I wanted a little bitbof reticence when the push was simply for more spending. The purpose of that wasn't because I want to be mean or for people to struggle but I knew what would happen after that.

I don't want American level taxation (I don't want Scandinavian level spending either) all I want is....

• Efficient public services with money spent to its full potential
• A fair tax system
• Spending that is targeted on things that only government can do
• A society where the answer isn't always "take more money off of someone else"
• Tax levels that are competitive against other nations in our proximity

I don't think it's that controversial. It's basically a Blarite stance with a bit of Thatcherism thrown in but it goes against the orthodoxy that only taking and spending more money is possibly good.

Taking money out of people's pockets in a cost of living crisis and making out taxation levels uncompetitive against similar European countries are not a good thing. I don't see any positives when we're not even getting an improvement in services from them.

 

It depends whose pockets you're taking money from.
At a time of recession and cost of living crisis it's obviously stupid to tax poorer people more heavily, for two reasons. Firstly, because it causes further hardship to already cash-strapped people. Secondly, because poorer people spend all their available money in the economy, creating demand and therefore keeping businesses going. Heavily taxing poor people is a sure way to shrink the economy even further..
However, people who are wealthy can a) afford it without hardship and b) tend to only spend a small proportion of their income/wealth in the domestic economy. Truss's absurd libertarian fantasy was that taxing the rich less would result in them investing the extra wealth in the economy and promoting economic growth. But all the evidence of the past few decades is that that simply doesn't happen. The markets recognised this reality, which is why they reacted so badly to the mini budget. The UK rich have been on an investment strike for decades, which is a big reason why we have such terrible productivity compared to most of the developed world.

Relying on the rich to get the economy going, as Truss did, is a recipe for failure. So is more austerity - which just accelerates the recession. We need government investment in infrastructure and other targeted areas to pump prime the economy, as Keynes pointed out before the war. Since government borrowing is already through the roof, for various reasons, the obvious place to raise funds for targeted investment is by taxing the rich a bit more.

In my book a 'fair tax system' is precisely one in which those who can afford it pay a bit more than those who can't.
Only spending money on things that 'only governments can do' is an interesting point. It should really be 'only things that are essential and that governments can do much better than the private sector'. There are many things that the private sector can do, and is currently doing, but which it does really terribly. We need to let government (local and national) take back the running of things that the private sector is doing shockingly badly, like social care, water and power utilities and the railways.

 

All fine but this idea that you can just fund a taxation system on the backs of the "wealthy" is pie in the sky. These people have options about where they put their money and how it's exposed to taxation so use this in the most efficient way possible as is their right. So in reality increasing tax means increasing tax for all and anything else is simply naive. What is the stat? The top 1% of earners pay 30% of the income tax? I want a fair system to but there surely has to be an acknowledgment that you can only push these people so far before it no longer becomes fair.

It's a little bit like the arguments about whether we should tax Shell at 65% or 78% but when push comes to shove they pay nothing either way because they can legally choose where their profits are generated so the rate becomes irrelevant. At some point when you push so hard you no longer get the income you expected and it becomes nonsense.

It's hardly a weird idea though - it's literally a Tony Blair idea of the world and I'm sure you'll agree that his leadership worked.

Whether it's a fantasy or not doesn't really matter. It's surely common sense that companies and extremely wealthy individuals look into their cost base before they choose a country to invest in and that will include the tax system. If you want investment, and acknowledge they have a choice where to spend their money then you need to be competitive. What flows from that is debatable but that underlying point is surely extremely straight forward. I completely agree about the government investment but we're not talking about investment, like in 2010 we're talking about plugging holes for cash that has already been lost, not investing in making the country better so the Keynesian aspect goes out of the water.

Part of the thing about wanting the government to only do what they must is that they've strung themselves out too thinly over time. It then makes reacting to issues on key aspects increasingly difficult. Plus there is the secondary case that whatever governments do (of any colour) is almost always automatically viewed negatively by 50% of the population so it's a a regressive idea. There are thing that the private sector or charities do that are viewed as problem solving and they get credit for it and positive publicity for. Neither aspects of society is perfect but if we could get government to be more focused on crucial aspects rather than always looking for them to fix every issue and allow other aspects to fill gaps you'd probably end up with a more positive and efficient society,

 

It wasn't Labour's fault. Of course not. You know how these things work though - the opposition will always blame the government for things that occur worldwide. Look at the laughable "Johnson variant" bollocks that we went through.

I want investment from the government but we're rarely talking about investment. They're just filling holes and have been for a decade.....But Alister Darling would have done the same thing, that's just a matter of recorded fact.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2010/mar/25/alistair-darling-cut-deeper-margaret-thatcher

The fact that we blame governments for suicides is almost my point. Governments can't solve these issues, they're too wide and too numerous. We need to stop looking for governments to improve society.

No multinational corporation will generate less tax than you. It might pay less corporation tax in a certain location if it doesn't make profit but it will still contribute NI, Income Tax, VAT, etc, etc and solving the issues with taxation on profit is bigger than a simple government. I'm open to other ideas on taxation, especially on FAIRLY taxing the wealthy by more but the percentages they contribute are already immense and the options they have to move cash make a lot of changes anti-compettieve.

 

But this is the problem – ANY time there is an issue you look to the government to fix it and they can’t do everything, Firstly because some of the situation are unfixable, secondly because they actually aren’t bright enough to come up with answers to everything and thirdly because they simply can’t do everything,

Of course the state should be used to improve people’s lives but with a narrower focus and higher levels of specialism. It’s the same as anything, if they’re doing everything with finite resources then some things will be done poorly. The more they do and the less efficent they are then the more they do badly. Let’s be focused on our expectation – it’s can’t just be any problem popping up and we automatically look to people like Starmer or Johnson. If they were heading up my company I wouldn’t look to them for answers let alone a country. Have priorities and let them forego things that aren't within those bandings.

And yes we need to simplify tax – but certain people will only accept a simplification of the taxation system if it ends up with rich people paying more. Sometimes a simplification has to benefit everyone and “we” need to stop being so kneejerk about some of the details around it.

 

Lot’s of people I suppose – charities arguably perform much better mental health care than anything the government can do. Why would the government be good at mental health care?

It’s not messiah complex. The government are made up of individuals and those individuals are rarely experts across multiple fields if any at all.

But you see you’ve done it again- overly simple. You’ve referenced Hong Kong as a simplified tax system we should aspire to – but what is the tax system in Hong Kong? A top rate of income tax at 17%, no capital gains tax, no dividend tax, no inheritance tax. The reason their tax system is so much simpler is because they don’t tax as much so they don't need loopholes for the wealthy.