Poll: Poll: Prime Minister Theresa May calls General Election on June 8th
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We had that under Labour before too.
Such as Labour's commitment to only increase tax on those earning over £80,000 (top 5%)? They're hardly going after the average person.
Is he anything more than a paper millionaire (i.e. he bought a home in London and saw its value rise)?
Anybody who is poor and wants better is envious. Anybody who is rich and wants better for the poor is a hypocrite because they remain rich.
What's an acceptable way to point out that inequality might just be a problem worth attempting to do something about?
What's an acceptable way to point out that inequality might just be a problem worth attempting to do something about?
Only not to increase income tax or vat, not to increase the tax burden. Basic maths dictates they will have to increase the tax burden a lot more to fund all their spending commitments.
As for his worth, he's been an MP for over 30 years, which is a well paid job, if he's failed to accumulate money beyond the value of his home, it would be somewhat worrying. His parliamentary pension is worth over £1.5million alone.
How can you have more wealth than 99% of the population and claim to be socialist/left wing?
When you propose a solution that doesn't involve the enforced redistribution of property, perhaps?
So what you're saying is that he could afford to pay a little more tax on his high salary? That's all that so-called champagne socialists are advocating.
It's not credible though because they are not admitting to cuts and everything is spun.
If the Tories are serious about balancing the books they will need to cut pensions as the single biggest expense of the budget. But they won't as it will lose them too many votes.
The state is not required in order to do good things.
I don't believe there is a solution that doesn't involve higher taxation for people who can most afford it. Call it property theft if you want, but nobody is truly self-made and nobody acquires their wealth in a vacuum. There is a huge amount of luck involved that people are very rarely prepared to admit to. Moving to a flat rate of tax or whatever your preferred option looks like is pointless if it just bakes in the current levels of inequality, though I'd be all for trying it out as an idea if everybody started from the same point.
So you are more interested in equality of outcome than anything else? The only answer you can come up with is to punish people for their success?
Equality should never be about equal outcomes, because that can only be achieved by either limiting personal freedoms or punishing personal success.
No, but it's certainly the most efficient way. Even if people are well-meaning, a small state society leads to well-funded donkey sanctuaries.
I think if you don't attempt to do anything about the outcomes then you can't be too surprised when people end up being easily led by nasty politics and threaten the position of those at the top.
Feel free to explain how somebody born into a family bringing in the median household income has the same equality of opportunity as a household bringing down five times that, or say with a straight face that someone living off investment income from inherited wealth has created that success. The idea of equality of opportunity is commendable but utterly impossible to create.
Feel free to explain how somebody born into a family bringing in the median household income has the same equality of opportunity as a household bringing down five times that, or say with a straight face that someone living off investment income from inherited wealth has created that success. The idea of equality of opportunity is commendable but utterly impossible to create.
It's also the most coercive, hence why it should not be allowed to act in an arbitrary and discriminatory fashion when using that coercive power.
Do you feel people should be punished (because taking a disproportionate amount of their property cannot be considered anything else) because their parents were successful?
What is your solution for dealing with parents who try to enrich their children's lives (regardless of income), or those utterly evil parents who read to their children, who work to give them more than the basic education currently provided by the state? How do you plan to punish them for not being feckless, because clearly, the problem is not people who don't think, who don't consider the consequences of their actions, who don't consider their children. The problem, by the logic above, must lie with those who actually try.
I think people should be prepared to recognise that they are in a fortunate position, whether by their own actions or the actions of those who brought them up, and currently that means a higher tax rate. If you have no actual suggestions for providing the equality of opportunity that you are such a fan of then it makes your aversion to equality of outcome look a little bit opportunistic. You could just say "it's my money, I want to keep more of it please" and then people would at least know where you stood, and it would take a lot less time than comparing everything to perfection, deciding it isn't perfect and declaring it bad.
His face getting redder and redder is impressive.
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