Autumn Statement 2012

[estebanrey]

Such a bigoted response, I'm not even going to explain it to you, the fact is there are thousands of people living in poverty in this country right now. This crappy government is only making it worse.

 

[MrMoonX]

Please don't be offensive.

I think Africa would laugh when they hear the word poverty being incorrectly used in a first world country.

There are people out there that don't eat for long periods, have to drink poor quality water, are exposed to diseases, have no access to medical care (let alone free medical care), have no roof over their heads, have no shoes, do not have any money or access to any money, have no emergency services to call, have no school and have to work all day for almost nothing.

I didn't say anything offensive

There are thousands of people who have the same problems in this country, homelessness has increased in the last 2 years, people not eating because they can't afford to, have no access to money, many children miss school due to a multitude of problems such as homelessness due to lack of money, apprentices work all day for little money as well. Poverty in this country is very very real.

I've worked with a family recently who could only afford to feed their children and missed meals themselves, had no money to buy basic clothing for winter and were basically malnourished. That is pretty appalling that in a modern democracy we let people live like this.

The demand for food banks in this country is outstripping supply, yet you say we don't have poverty

 

[do_ron_ron]

History has shown that tax intake reduces over a certain percentage of tax. This was first discovered in the US. It was also noticed with the 50% tax rate here which is why it was cut. When taxes went up significantly here before it caused the brain drain.

It was cut for party political reasons and nothing else!! The Chancellor was asked to produce the figures to support this claim and he could not.

 

[delta0]

It was cut for party political reasons and nothing else!! The Chancellor was asked to produce the figures to support this claim and he could not.

They were produced, they showed the tax intake dropped after the tax intake was introduced. http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/budget2012/excheq-income-tax-2042.pdf

 

[estebanrey]

I didn't say anything offensive

There are thousands of people who have the same problems in this country, homelessness has increased in the last 2 years, people not eating because they can't afford to, have no access to money, many children miss school due to a multitude of problems such as homelessness due to lack of money, apprentices work all day for little money as well. Poverty in this country is very very real.

I've worked with a family recently who could only afford to feed their children and missed meals themselves, had no money to buy basic clothing for winter and were basically malnourished. That is pretty appalling that in a modern democracy we let people live like this.

The demand for food banks in this country is outstripping supply, yet you say we don't have poverty

Would you please stop trying to argue that the poor in this country are in anyway similar to the poor people of the third world.

Of course we should care and look after our poor but to argue your case on the basis that they are somehow in a similar position to a family in war torn Somalia is just ridiculous.

For a start, say what you like about the cuts to the welfare state but you can't ignore to make cuts to it, it has to exist in the first place. Which it basically doesn't in the third world and many countries across the globe.

In terms of the global population, the belief that the government have a responsibility to cloth, feed and house it's citizens to a good standard is a minority view.

 

[LordSplodge]

The demand for food banks in this country is outstripping supply, yet you say we don't have poverty

Shocking, isn't it?

This is OCUK. A (mostly) privileged bunch who have no idea what actual poverty is. Hence the above comparison with Africa. Almost as if that is the only type of poverty that exists.

Yes, Africa has a much worse problem with poverty, but as said above, the rise of the need for food banks in this country shows how poverty here is getting much, much, worse. Again it is no Africa but unlike Africa we have a government and economy that can, and should, help out those in poverty.

I think, possibly a majority, think that those on low income or benefits are living a tax payer funded dream of free housing, Sky TV, booze and fags. Most aren't.

Go ask somebody who works for charities dealing with the disadvantaged. It may open your eyes.

 

[delta0]

I didn't say anything offensive

There are thousands of people who have the same problems in this country, homelessness has increased in the last 2 years, people not eating because they can't afford to, have no access to money, many children miss school due to a multitude of problems such as homelessness due to lack of money, apprentices work all day for little money as well. Poverty in this country is very very real.

I've worked with a family recently who could only afford to feed their children and missed meals themselves, had no money to buy basic clothing for winter and were basically malnourished. That is pretty appalling that in a modern democracy we let people live like this.

The demand for food banks in this country is outstripping supply, yet you say we don't have poverty

It is difficult for many people here, but relative to the rest of the world they are in a much better position. For a start they have people helping them and they already have a lot more. It is tough, but poverty is relative. At least there are food banks etc. The benefits culture is not helping the image and the criteria for poverty seems too loose that someone can not have access to something others do in the same country and be classed as in poverty.

 

[do_ron_ron]

That would not be a bad thing really.

for a very subjective view on Victorian times.

* Women and men dressed well in public. No visible midriff, no tracksuits.

It was to keep warm. Clothes have evolved to be lighter and warmer. A lot was also fashion. In my youth only sailors and some brickies had tattoes and was looked down on.

* Stuff got done. Canals got built railways got built.

Because there were no NIMBY's to use delaying tactics and ordinary people had no say.

* People were not work shy.

They had to work to eat. Do you really want to go back to these days? You forgot to mentio the higher crime level as people stole to get money for food.

* The advancement of the UK through engineering and science was the number one priority.

I agee with this but our modern world has seen the rise of the beancounter into all positions of power rather than engineers who created wealth.

Obviously we don't want the rampant poverty of inner city slums, the early mortality and the high level of disease.

You cannot get that without the point you made above.

Oh and curiously despite being almost prudish in public the Victorians liked lots of sex behind closed doors. It just wasn't done to talk about it.

Th Victorians were into a lot of deviations if you believe the programs and they did talk of it but only in their own class. The public only got to know of such things through the modern newspapers.

 

[MrMoonX]

Shocking, isn't it?

This is OCUK. A (mostly) privileged bunch who have no idea what actual poverty is. Hence the above comparison with Africa. Almost as if that is the only type of poverty that exists.

Yes, Africa has a much worse problem with poverty, but as said above, the rise of the need for food banks in this country shows how poverty here is getting much, much, worse. Again it is no Africa but unlike Africa we have a government and economy that can, and should, help out those in poverty.

I think, possibly a majority, think that those on low income or benefits are living a tax payer funded dream of free housing, Sky TV, booze and fags. Most aren't.

Go ask somebody who works for charities dealing with the disadvantaged. It may open your eyes.

Exactly you're right! It might not be as bad as Somalia or where ever, but we have a democratic government and a massive economy that Africa doesn't, how many bankers in central Africa?

It is a test of a decent society, how that society looks after its most disadvantaged. At the moment the UK is severely failing that test, whilst the poor are facing the worst cuts and the Tories are giving their rich buddies a leg up.

The poster above clearly has never come into contact with anyone suffering real poverty. Instead he chooses the daily mail stereotype of fatties living in council homes with flat tv's and iphones's it's simply not the case. I know I'm a student social worker and I've had a placement working with poor families

 

[do_ron_ron]

They were produced, they showed the tax intake dropped after the tax intake was introduced. http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/budget2012/excheq-income-tax-2042.pdf

Although there is uncertainty around these estimates, sensitivity testing demonstrates that is difficult to construct a plausible outcome consistent with a yield estimate as high as those original forecasts. The conclusion that can be drawn from the Self Assessment data is therefore that the underlying yield from the additional rate is much lower than originally forecast (yielding around £1 billion or less), and that it is quite possible that it could be negative.

behavioural responses could be higher.....

It was based on people's responses.

The results can only be considered an estimate......

the analysis is only based on one year‟s data......

Rigourous or what?

Although subject to a wide range of uncertainty,.......

Because of difficulties in estimating the counterfactual incomes and the amount of unwinding in 2010-11, the estimates above are subject to a wide range of uncertainty.....

That says that it is a guess not something to base policy on. You could use the same moddelling to come to the complete opposite policy. Party political reasons.

 

[Theophany]

History has shown that tax intake reduces over a certain percentage of tax. This was first discovered in the US. It was also noticed with the 50% tax rate here which is why it was cut. When taxes went up significantly here before it caused the brain drain.

There are studies of the Laffer Curve of which you speak that suggest peak revenue generation is at marginal tax rates of between 60 and 70%. This means one of two things; either it is an irrelevance in terms of broad economic discourse in this country (and the majority of the West, for that matter) or that the Laffer Curve is a ******** theory heavily relied upon by low tax advocates with a tenuous understanding of first semester economics.

Brain Drains are not the result of taxation. They are the result of a decline in social and economic conditions (perceived or actual). The 1970s Brain Drain in the UK was not down to tax rates, which had been high for a long time, it was the fact that the country was in a right old mess with stagflation, political deadlock and not a great deal to sing and dance about.

People leaving a country for tax reasons are called Tax Exiles. It's something totally different and unrelated to brain drains, laffer curves or the like.

 

[estebanrey]

They had to work to eat. Do you really want to go back to these days?

Um yes (with the exception of the old, children and disabled of course).

Afterall, whatever happened to the expression 'there's no such thing as a free lunch'?

 

[wildman]

Afterall, whatever happened to the expression 'there's no such thing as a free lunch'?

it got booted out by Blair and his cronies when he realised that handing out free lunches to the Jeremy Kyle generation in the form of benefits would keep him in power.

 

[do_ron_ron]

Would you please stop trying to argue that the poor in this country are in anyway similar to the poor people of the third world.

Why do some poeple always bring in levels of poverty in Africa/Third World when talk of poverty in this country is brought up? It is nonsenical. Before those levels of poverty happened in this country there would be massive violence that would make the French Revolution look like a tea party. Stick to arguements of relative poverty, all else is meaningless.

 

[do_ron_ron]

Um yes (with the exception of the old, children and disabled of course).

Afterall, whatever happened to the expression 'there's no such thing as a free lunch'?

I will be at the opposite barricade with the machine gun pointed at you before we go back to these days.

 

[estebanrey]

I will be at the opposite barricade with the machine gun pointed at you before we go back to these days.

Eh? All I'm saying is that there is nothing morally wrong with people buying their own food?

Do I take it in your ideal world we'd have a communist system where the likes of Tesco etc have to give everything away for free?

 

[Theophany]

I will be at the opposite barricade with the machine gun pointed at you before we go back to these days.

 

[delta0]

There are studies of the Laffer Curve of which you speak that suggest peak revenue generation is at marginal tax rates of between 60 and 70%. This means one of two things; either it is an irrelevance in terms of broad economic discourse in this country (and the majority of the West, for that matter) or that the Laffer Curve is a ******** theory heavily relied upon by low tax advocates with a tenuous understanding of first semester economics.

Brain Drains are not the result of taxation. They are the result of a decline in social and economic conditions (perceived or actual). The 1970s Brain Drain in the UK was not down to tax rates, which had been high for a long time, it was the fact that the country was in a right old mess with stagflation, political deadlock and not a great deal to sing and dance about.

People leaving a country for tax reasons are called Tax Exiles. It's something totally different and unrelated to brain drains, laffer curves or the like.

Not the one i was referring. There is a US one that shows tax around 27%(ish) yielded the most. It was a long time ago since I have seen that reference, but if I come across it again I can post it up. It is quite clear that people will avoid the tax. I know many people that have done it back in the 70s through to now. I'm not against tax at all, it does a lot of good things. Just high tax tends to annoy people and cause them to seek a new place.

 

[elmarko]

Cut foreign aid, right now, 0% out
Close our borders, or lock them up so tight it resembles Australia Border control.
Kick every hate spewing Al-Qaida scumbag out, and their families.
Cut the tax on Petrol, Cigarettes and Alcohol by 10p
Bring Vat back down to 17.5%

Notice how people and government have considerably more money.
People will stop worrying so much about spending, spending will go up, Eventually, and probably faster than that asshat can manage, England will be out of recession

Racist diver who enjoys a drink & smokes wants to pay less tax & get rid of the darkies.

More news at 11.

 

[do_ron_ron]

Eh? All I'm saying is that there is nothing morally wrong with people buying their own food?

Assuming they have the money to buy it...not guanteed in Victorian times.

Do I take it in your ideal world we'd have a communist system where the likes of Tesco etc have to give everything away for free?

So not wanting to go back to times when people did not have enough food to eat and the ruling elite could not give a stuff makes me a Communist???????
Get a reality check!!