'Rich Privilege'

I'm aware of this, it still doesn't remove the element where the opportunity to succeed later in life is seriously diminished. I have a friend who cares full time looking after her father, she has given up the prime part of her life where we would all be laying the ground work for our career.

Yes these may be exceptions to the general story but they exist all the same.

But again this is a rare case to make a point for the VAST majority it's irrelevant. My wife had a similar decision with her mum but we were able to fund care and sadly she passed away due to rapid onset Alzheimer's.
 
Sorry on a phone with old eyes :(

But again to my point it is often harder, much harder for some but that does not mean opportunity isn't thrre, just a bit harder

I don't disagree with what you are saying and I think we are really saying the same thing but the difference is how strong a line you want to take.
 
If you can come up with a workable solution I am all ears. You might have to move on from Marxism though as it never seems to get implemented right and tends to end up with another system where millions die. So I am going to need a lot of convincing before believing that "this time we will get it right".

Sure, I'll let you know when I present my next lecture. I think I'm at Lancaster Uni sometime in May.

It'll be on Altruistic Capitalism.
 
If I inherit my parents house tomorrow it wouldn't make someone poor. If I don't inherit it tomorrow it wouldn't make a poor person rich.

If anyone does/ doesn't inherit any some of money/ estate it would not change my life one bit.

If you inherited millions of pounds tomorrow it wouldn't change my life. If you didn't, my life wouldn't change. In fact no ones life would change in OcUK. In fact no ones in the world beside you and your family would change.

Poor would still be poor and rich will still be rich.

Try to use a more broad perspective when you analyse this issue and avoid thinking about you or me, focus on abstract ideas. If I inherit millions tomorrow and pay no tax, why does a good sales agent who reaches their targets have to pay taxes on the bonuses? I did bugger all to deserve the money while they worked hard so why should they get shafted?

Housey, Amp34 you two see poverty as a predominantly personal/cultural failing, I see it as a predominantly structural failing. If poverty is indeed a personal failing, why do programs aimed at reducing it actually work?

http://www2.hawaii.edu/~noy/300texts/poverty-comparative.pdf

As you can see, high social expenditure on non-elderly correlates with high rates of poverty reduction. Sweden invests ~11% of its GDP on such programs, which reduces poverty levels by 77%, the US invests just 2.3% of its GDP, which reduces poverty by 26%.
 
Are you seriously telling us that there was any point in the UK's history that was more "fair" and had a chance at a safer and more productive than it has now?

That is simply down to education of the masses, the so called ELITE are still there trying to put down there great **** up of educating the masses. The education system could be improved tenfold by simply reducing classroom size. Sure there is lack of teachers (hey what all those sill people going to uni now doing history and ART degrees going to do for a job)

The church of celebrities is nothing but a stupid fad and has done more harm giving false hope to kids thinking the can make just by singing ooo la laa look at my shiney new shoes.

All of our politicians and are educated at Cambridge or Oxford and pointed in the same direction by the same "chosen few" academics, You can get into these places if you lucky enough to be

A - Rich - Please take any course you wish (apart from the sciences)
B - The Sciences (here you actually need a mind and some ability)
C - You have some ability and are lucky enough to meet the standards, this is the token offering by the elite to show they "care"
 
Housey, Amp34 you two see poverty as a predominantly personal/cultural failing, I see it as a predominantly structural failing. If poverty is indeed a personal failing, why do programs aimed at reducing it actually work?

Its been said that no-one chooses to live in poverty.

Well I did.

I resigned form a job. And sold my car so had some cash to live off. I went out most nights of the week so blew through it fairly quickly.

By that point I had become pretty lazy and a job hadn't landed on me.
I ended up selling pretty much everything I had. And eating Pasta with ketchup every night.

I was down to my last £2 which instead of buying my girlfriend a card for her birthday I spent it on cigs. The only reason I had a roof over my head was because it was free.

All the above I had by omission chosen to do/happen.

Then I got offered. 1 days work which I jumped at. Which led to a week and then a few months until I had pulled myself out of the hole.

Being nearly 30 and having to ask your mum to lend you £800 for council tax so they don't send you to prison. Is a bit of a wake up call.

That'll be one reason why I work so hard now. Because it'll be very easy to do nothing again and end up poor.

TL;DR
Spent 12-18 months being poor so think I can speak on behalf of everyone thats poor *:rolleyes:


EDIT* to add :rolleyes:
 
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Try to use a more broad perspective when you analyse this issue and avoid thinking about you or me, focus on abstract ideas. If I inherit millions tomorrow and pay no tax, why does a good sales agent who reaches their targets have to pay taxes on the bonuses? I did bugger all to deserve the money while they worked hard so why should they get shafted?.

You would pay tax though? Inheritance tax???

And the worker isn't getting shafted, that's how the tax system works. He would still pay tax if you did/ didn't pay tax/ broke a world record/ died/ pooped through someone's letter box.

I believe this whole thread came about from the possibility of death tax. Which I don't a agree with. Inheritance tax, it's near the mark, but I can understand it's presence.

My whole issue is just this constant bashing on the rich. Constant extra taxation on the rich. The rich pay by far the most taxes, all their life and rightly so. Why just constantly bash them for more and more? Death tax. Mansion tax.

Will come a point where instead of getting a sensible amount of tax from something, you will get an obscene amount of tax from nothing. See France for details.
 
My whole issue is just this constant bashing on the rich. Constant extra taxation on the rich. The rich pay by far the most taxes, all their life and rightly so. Why just constantly bash them for more and more? Death tax. Mansion tax.

Will come a point where instead of getting a sensible amount of tax from something, you will get an obscene amount of tax from nothing. See France for details.
are you aware the rich keep getting richer whilst the poor keep getting poorer? by poor they aren't talking about people on the dole or people with minimum wage jobs lol...

they are talking about the widening gap of unfair wealth distribution that effects even the middle classes.

obviously with everything slowly trickling up to the few at the top the percentage of wealth they own grows eventually they will have almost all if it were left to continue.

system even fails or gets tweaked

go watch "the super rich and us" some of the richest people on the planet think it's wrong and are against it continuing

it's not a myth or nonsense there is statistical data behind it showing it happening.
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You would pay tax though? Inheritance tax???

And the worker isn't getting shafted, that's how the tax system works. He would still pay tax if you did/ didn't pay tax/ broke a world record/ died/ pooped through someone's letter box.

The worker virtually owns a very small % of the state's budget, just as I and every other citizen do. They get shafted because they contributed to that budget while I didn't, while retaining the virtual ownership.

I believe this whole thread came about from the possibility of death tax. Which I don't a agree with. Inheritance tax, it's near the mark, but I can understand it's presence.

My whole issue is just this constant bashing on the rich. Constant extra taxation on the rich. The rich pay by far the most taxes, all their life and rightly so. Why just constantly bash them for more and more? Death tax. Mansion tax.

Will come a point where instead of getting a sensible amount of tax from something, you will get an obscene amount of tax from nothing. See France for details.

The rich pay much lower taxes as a percentage of their income, compared to the poor. In example, almost 100% of a poor person's income is affected by VAT as they pay it every time they buy food, clothes etc. A large percentage of the income the rich have is not affected by VAT as they invest it, save it or move it to other countries.

I believe the rich should pay slightly higher taxes than they do now, as a percentage of their income. Not as much as the poor do (their savings are needed for investments and growth) but definitely more. I also believe that the extra revenue should be invested in programs that reduce poverty, as it happens in Scandinavian/Baltic countries.

Poverty is not a moral issue for me as much as it is an inefficiency issue because it puts millions of people in a position where they can't properly contribute to society, they are more susceptible to extremist ideas and violent behaviour and they can't help their children reach their full potential. I don't think about why poor people are poor as much as I think about what can be done to help them stop being poor.



What exactly is wrong with France?
 
Then surely its easier to sort the VAT issue than to try and close every loophole.

For instance No vat on clothes upto a certain price. The rich wont buy from Asda and the poorer will pay less VAT

Increase the TAX on luxury goods like Alcohol and Cigs. And Airport Taxes.

Tax the things the rich like to buy
 
Exactly this tbh.

Families should only be able to hold so much wealth and property.

Success should be earned - not given.

A lot of parents will say that the motive for them earning so much money is so that they can help their children in life.

Would you be the sort of person who would say people are free to do with their money whatever they wish? If so what is wrong with wanting to give what they have earned to their children. You can't take your money with you when you die so you have to leave it to someone and I think it is totally fair that they should be able to leave behind what they worked for throughout their whole life to their children.

All it boils down to, in my eyes, is jealousy. "I have to work so hard and they were just given it", so what? That attitude gets you nowhere. Somewhere in that families line someone has worked really damn hard to make their future generations comfortable. If you want that to happen you have to do it yourself.
 
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Try to use a more broad perspective when you analyse this issue and avoid thinking about you or me, focus on abstract ideas. If I inherit millions tomorrow and pay no tax, why does a good sales agent who reaches their targets have to pay taxes on the bonuses? I did bugger all to deserve the money while they worked hard so why should they get shafted?

Housey, Amp34 you two see poverty as a predominantly personal/cultural failing, I see it as a predominantly structural failing. If poverty is indeed a personal failing, why do programs aimed at reducing it actually work?

http://www2.hawaii.edu/~noy/300texts/poverty-comparative.pdf

As you can see, high social expenditure on non-elderly correlates with high rates of poverty reduction. Sweden invests ~11% of its GDP on such programs, which reduces poverty levels by 77%, the US invests just 2.3% of its GDP, which reduces poverty by 26%.

Sorry, haven't had a chance to look at the link properly but a quick skim implies it appears to be a paper explaining how giving people more money brings them out of relative poverty. I don't think anyone will argue against that.

How will that help people grab the opportunities they are presented and get themselves out of relative poverty themselves though? How will that help people change the way they think and push their child to do better than them? I wouldn't say it was predominantly a personal failing, rather a major cause (among many others) is how they were brought up by parents.

Of course we should be helping people if they can't get out of relative poverty and make sure they can survive, however we should spend more time, money and effort making sure people don't get into that state in the first place. Throwing money at the problem isn't going to solve everything, especially if the money is coming from horrendous rate of tax on people that were in that situation but decided to further themselves... I'd love to know if there are actually any studies about attitudes of parents (not money/wealth/education, but how much quality time they spend with their children and how driven they are) and success of children.

It's like the old saying, give someone some fish and they will feed themselves for a day, give them a net and they can feed themselves for life.
 
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