How are we affording all this welfare?
- Thread starter jsmoke
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Could do with a rebrand, 'benefits' is low-key divisive if you think about it...
Entitlements.
What the heck does "That money is redistributed through services and an income that allows people the freedom not to work" mean?
The wealthy aren't the problem, they pay their fair share, i don't know why you want to punish the most productive people in society even more.
Wealth inequality has got worse, but thats not the fault of the people who are wealthy. Its central banks that have inflated financial assets through the money supply, the biggest holders of financial assets are people who've built a business, created prosperity, made a profit and put that money to work again through financial assets, so naturally they benefit when CB's take on unsound monetary policies.
The wealthy do not pay their share at all. I don't know how anyone can say that with a straight face.
And neither are they the most productive. Their capital maybe, but capital on it's own creates nothing and you have to question what their capital is and who created it.
Productive in what sense? Is owning lots of assets productive?
Soldato
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It's the magic money tree.
https://www.theguardian.com/busines...-income-tax-revenues-institute-fiscal-studies
Top 1% pay 33% of all income tax receipts.
I don't see how you can say the wealthiest don't pay their fair share with a straight face.
50% of the country pay no income tax at all.
Can be, but for those people to own those assets, they had to be productive.
Soldato
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It's taking anyone earning over £100,000 as a top earner. I assume people are talking about the super wealthy, who probably don't get any salary but take it as dividends.
Soldato
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I'm not so sure, would be interesting to see how much of the proper wealthy just inherited most of it/at least a good head start.
About a 25% is taken as dividends by the top 1%, 75% is salary.
So what if they inherited it. Do you think the state should take all your money when you die?
Someone has already been taxed throughout their life, and then they are taxed to die. Seems immoral to me.
Are you not gonna try and leave money for your children when you die?
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Soldato
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I'm talking about the people worth millions and millions not just everyone earning over £100,000k
What has that go to do with anything? My comment was in reply to you saying people had to be productive to get those assets but people who had inherited their wealth haven't been productive to get it.
Soldato
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The wealthy are actually a problem as they take more money out of the system and horde it than they put back into the system, there's trillions that just go into blackholes and never get seen put into economies ever again
Look at Bezos he's going to be the first trillionaire thanks to taking all that money out of the system and not spending it, how is that not a problem when all that money just stops circulating because of greed ?
Exactly. It's easy if you're very rich to be almost completely non-productive, as you can still easily support yourself via income generating assets.
It's not just a case of the total money supply. An increase in spending causes price inflation in whatever's being bought, so throwing a wad of cash (I assume roughly the amount that people need for whatever's deemed essential) at everyone each month will just cause those items to become more expensive. Once prices have caught up you're back to square one, so you can either keep increasing UBI each time inflation happens (clearly not sustainable) or accept that you achieved at best a temporary increase in spending for poor people and a long term reduction in spending power for everyone else, and then look for a real solution.
That includes people who are worth millions.
Their parents were productive. Inheritance tax has everything to do with it, inherited wealth makes up a tiny fraction as it only last 2 or 3 generations, then its pretty much gone. Me asking you whether you believe in inheritance tax is relevant
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That's corporations, not the majority of wealthy individuals who've done well for themselves.
Lets take Bezos for example, do you think he's got 100's of billions sitting somewhere in cash? Of course not, his net worth is on paper.
If you were to sit down and have a conversation with him, and you started critiquing him for having so much money (on paper). I bet he'd be thinking, what have you done to create value in the economy and that he can allocate capital better than pen pushers within the civil service. Why do we have such a high national debt? its years and years of wasted capital, money backed by nothing, governments just promising everything to everyone all the time with no thought about future generations paying it off. Civil servants didn't work for that money, no wonder they waste it constantly in government.
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Then you won't be very rich for very long..
The top 1% of income tax payers are not a stable group – a quarter of those in the top 1% in one year will not be there the next. After five years, only half will still be in the top 1%.