It seems to be getting a bit too much for you, that news is from 2007.
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It seems to be getting a bit too much for you, that news is from 2007.
given you're legally meant to claim asylum in the first safe country you come to, why should we have any asylum seekers at all?
is France, Spain and Germany currently a war zone?
LOL fair play. I just saw it being upvoted on reddit - must be something to do with Schapps making the news today.
To be fair, this is more related to the state of the economy as opposed to welfare cuts, welfare caps, reductions of support for key services (Surestart etc) & various other programs aimed at assisting the poorest in society.
Don't get me wrong, I don't see you as a single party supporter (I recall from previous threads) just the trend of savings recently have been aimed at the unemployed & the disabled - those least able to shoulder the burden.
I'm classified in the top 5% of earners in the UK & can quite confidently say I've felt absolutely no burden or loss during this government & people like me should be expected to shoulder a greater burden of taxation when the other options involve pressuring those at the bottom. There is the other issue that average incomes have increased at a greater rate for those in the top quartile of earners (compared to the bottom where the average rise is less than inflation, with reductions for some of welfare).
Whilst I don't disagree with you that the wealthy should shoulder a greater burden of taxation, we already do. When you think that to be a net contributor into the system with respect to tax, you have to earn about £45k. If you then look at income distribution of the UK, only about 12% of the population earn above £45k. 12% of the population are net contributors! How much do you think the 12% can be squeezed and how far do you think it would go?
I think it very odd that a female asylum seeker would travel half way round the world to escape rape, torture, beatings and risk of being murdered yet can not handle living in a holding center which is warm, dry and you get fed.
Well my views on taxation are not that normal anyway, I'm not of the mind that income should be key thing taxed but actually wealth (not that I'm suggesting that I should get a tax cut, I don't think I need one at all & I would stand to lose out from a wealth tax also).
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Ed Miliband is running scared with the Tories up in the polls. He's going to have to climb in with the SNP if he wants to run this country and that will do no good for anyone, IMO.
Whats your occupation?
The Shapps thing seems weird because his camp are trying to make the whole argument seem like it's about whether he was doing this other work at a certain date, not what the actual question was. Now this might just be me, but it's not hard to forget the exact years that you may have done certain things, but associating two points in time is a lot easier - e.g. if someone asked you where you were living when you were working for x you'd probably get it right without much effort, but could potentially struggle with the years.
Which is the question that Shapps was effectively being asked, not if he could remember the relevant years.
Which is the question that Shapps was effectively being asked, not if he could remember the relevant years.
It seems to me pretty easy to remember if you stopped doing one job before you started another. Shapps repeatedly claimed he'd never worked a second job as an MP; he had.
It depends on how you measure it, exactly, but the IFS and Treasury agree that the hit is highest for the top 10%, however that obscures the broader picture (simply graph here) because the next highest hit is on the lowest 10% and then gets better, even going positive, for each decile up to the ninth. So, apart from the very richest, the changes have been regressive and hit the poorest most. Even then this ignores the differences in the marginal value of money between the deciles; if you're in the top decile, a 5% loss of income hurts a lot less than if you're in the bottom 5%.
There's a rather detailed analysis of it all here (.pdf) if you want a longer read on the subject.
It also doesn't factor in that net wealth increases exponentially as you go up the deciles, with the poorest 10% having virtually no savings & the top 25% likely to be able to obscure a larger amount of income via other legal means of avoidance out of each of the bottom portion.
As you also correctly point out, a 5% reduction is nothing when the remaining is still vastly more than you need to survive & life a very comfortable life. A 5% reduction for me is nothing, yet for somebody on the breadline it means the inability to pay bills & great hardship. Besides, income is only one aspect.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Income_in_the_United_Kingdom#Wealth
Shows that the top 10% have a total of 53% of total UK wealth, additionally - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Income_in_the_United_Kingdom#High_income
The top 10% have 27.6% of total income (showing that total wealth is doubly uneven in it's distribution)
It's difficult to see how you could set up a system where this wouldn't happen. Higher income allows the recipient to accumulate wealth, surely? Of course, under any capitalist, or semi-capitalist, system there's also causation in the other direction: wealth generates income.
Which is why incomes need to be balanced greater & wealth needs to be taxed at a higher rate.
Accumulation of wealth increases the income gap & widens the distribution which results in countless negative social consequences. Having 50% of the population with no real spending power is terrible for job creation as they effectively have very little demand. It also increases the burden on the state as they are required to top up incomes which in reality are too low to begin with. That's ignoring the impact of mental health, crime & social engagement (which we all pay the price for directly or indirectly)
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How does one stop a Lewis Hamilton then?
JK Rowling could have done it, and chose not to, as she wishes to pay her share, others in similar situations employ every dodge and deferment possible. I actually think removing lots of those, the madness of avoiding stamp duty and other various thing that was utilised by Tamara Ecclestone when she bought the most expensive properly in the UK, would generate much more income than raising a tax rate.
In this recession, my own income has changed, in a negative fashion, my costs have increased greatly, the fees I am paid haven't moved, the associated payments I used to receive are now consigned to history. Even though I earn well, I simply can't afford a loss of income currently. We don't have a massive house, and my mortgage is 10 years paid into a 25 year repayment. We haven't spent beyond our means, but when bills are paid, essential insurances are paid and other various 'necessary' direct debits are paid, I am left with a disposable income that would surprise most on these boards in how low it is.
If labour get in, they will twist and secondary tax and cost me lots of money. As they see me as a large earner. Anyone in, or close to a 40% bracket should be very worried at this juncture. Balls will destroy things.
There is a horrible frightening thought. Labour getting in and the country comes close to communism.
If you think that Labour are "close to communism" you so far divorced from reality; I don't know what to say. Labour are, at most, centre-left and, frankly, probably more centre-right (as Political Compass classes them). They're not even promising widely popular left wing policies such as a programme of renationalising the railways yet alone any kind of post-war socialist capture of the means of production by the state. Ed Miliband's Labour sits well to the right of the Tories through most of the last century.
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