Agree completely, but there really is no point arguing with people so blinded by their own limitations that they can't allow for the success of others. Some of the arguments being put against being wealthy or saving and investing money are just absolutely ludicrous, I have 12-year old cousins that could form more rational arguments than the tosh we are reading in this thread.
'Rich Privilege'
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Agree completely, but there really is no point arguing with people so blinded by their own limitations that they can't allow for the success of others. Some of the arguments being put against being wealthy or saving and investing money are just absolutely ludicrous, I have 12-year old cousins that could form more rational arguments than the tosh we are reading in this thread.
Can you show me some evidence that savings made from aggressive tax avoidance are passed onto the consumer?
To be fair mate, I'm pretty sure Amazon has been making a loss for years and years in order to corner the market.
Can you show me where the additional costs would come from if not the consumer? Tax can only ever come from people, if not the customers, who else?
OK, lets substitute Amazon for Tesco or Apple then.
poor and middle classes are worst off since the reccesion the rich got richer it's backed upo by statistical data so how can the poor not of gotten poorer?
you understand when inflation goes up and wages remain frozen right? you understands that makes your money worth less and you get poorer?
people are worse off, public services are almost non existent or so poorly funded they are a joke.
If I recall correctly Amazon have been ploughing almost all if not all profit into expansion for years and years as a business strategy
it's not that they aren't making money it's they are putting that money straight back into the business
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That's because you're thinking in typical short-term, blink-of-an-eye logic of the small-minded. How long ago was the recession? A few years? Do you you think this is an accurate measure of living standards, despite the fact it is part of the normal up and downs of even stable economies? Standards will rise and fall by a few percent, and fluctuate on a constant basis... however as a whole we have never had it so good vs any other time in history.
Soldato
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7 years is not 'a few' I would argue that the golden age of capitalism was the best period for the UK with the mixed economy. From end of ww2 right up to the mid 70's. Then Nixon unpegged the dollar from gold in the US and that got the ball rolling on deregulation on the financial industry that had been unchanged since the Glass-Steagall act in response to the previous financial crisis : The Great Depression. All the crisis has done is allow a faster transfer of wealth to the super rich than before. Take RBS for instance. 46 billion ploughed into them in 2008 at our expense. Since 2008 they posted losses totalling the same amount and yet the 11 directors carved up 23 million in bonuses in 2013 after ****ing all the money away.
The swingeing cuts enacted by this coalition are not really a cost saving exercise they are ( and I'm talking about the conservatives here ) what they have always wanted which is the destruction of the welfare state. The Lib Dems will be a write off.
The people hit most by this appalling behaviour are of course the sick and disabled, driven to suicide by psychological torture put upon them by IDS and Esther McVey who are evil personified. Atos have had to withdraw from the work assessment programme they are so universally hated and have been replaced with an even dodgier company: Maximus. A US firm with an awful track record of fraud in America. Why have the con-dems allowed them to take over the admin of this book-cooking task euphemistically referred to as 'reducing unemployment'? Because they aren't afraid to get their hands dirty....
No one should be treated like David Clapson and 1000's have. When the sick and disabled get letters on their deathbeds telling them they are fit for work that is wrong. Yet David Beckham and Sam Laidlaw can happily hide 10's of millions in legal but immoral tax avoidance schemes (also this is what Dave Cameron's dad did once Maggie relaxed the rules on off shore tax havens once she got into power - Dave inherited that )
So no. The poor have not had it good in recent times in my opinion. The financial industry which caused the crash has not had any meaningful regulation imposed upon them and continue to defraud us through libor, PPI and the particularly horrific global restructuring group which has destroyed thousands of small businesses across the UK so the bank (RBS again) can turn a quick profit.
I think this behaviour needs to be addressed instead of repeating the same old scrouger narratives that the neoliberal elite keep spoonfeeding us through propaganda like 'benefits street'
The swingeing cuts enacted by this coalition are not really a cost saving exercise they are ( and I'm talking about the conservatives here ) what they have always wanted which is the destruction of the welfare state. The Lib Dems will be a write off.
The people hit most by this appalling behaviour are of course the sick and disabled, driven to suicide by psychological torture put upon them by IDS and Esther McVey who are evil personified. Atos have had to withdraw from the work assessment programme they are so universally hated and have been replaced with an even dodgier company: Maximus. A US firm with an awful track record of fraud in America. Why have the con-dems allowed them to take over the admin of this book-cooking task euphemistically referred to as 'reducing unemployment'? Because they aren't afraid to get their hands dirty....
No one should be treated like David Clapson and 1000's have. When the sick and disabled get letters on their deathbeds telling them they are fit for work that is wrong. Yet David Beckham and Sam Laidlaw can happily hide 10's of millions in legal but immoral tax avoidance schemes (also this is what Dave Cameron's dad did once Maggie relaxed the rules on off shore tax havens once she got into power - Dave inherited that )
So no. The poor have not had it good in recent times in my opinion. The financial industry which caused the crash has not had any meaningful regulation imposed upon them and continue to defraud us through libor, PPI and the particularly horrific global restructuring group which has destroyed thousands of small businesses across the UK so the bank (RBS again) can turn a quick profit.
I think this behaviour needs to be addressed instead of repeating the same old scrouger narratives that the neoliberal elite keep spoonfeeding us through propaganda like 'benefits street'
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Soldato
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Where in my post did I say Atos was hired by the conservatives? Google anything g I have written there. I think you don't really want to have a discussion and would rather try and undermine other people's opinion. Why don't you try actually arguing against my points than making up false arguments.
You are seriously saying that people were better off from the end of WW2 up to the 70's? Barely any kids getting university degrees? Little to no benefits or recognition for the poorest or most disadvantaged elements of society as we do have today? No avenues of communication like the internet which have opened up the worlds information to everyone? Relatively cheap worldwide transport that mean even poor folks get to see some of the world whereas mere decades ago generation of people had never left the country?
Dear lord, life must be very simple and uncomplicated for people with such limited vision as yourself.
Apologies, on rereading it was the below that I read as being about atos, rather than maximus.
However, with regards to the rest of your post;
Your talk of deregulation is largely out of place, because the UK never shared much of the us regulation anyway. We did deregulate somewhat, but our biggest issue was not deregulation, but poor regulation because the tripartite system introduced in the late 90s was terrible. Having said that, the big problem wasn't the banking crash itself, but that the public finances were completely unprepared for any form of downturn, which in turn meant that many of the conventional approaches were not available for use.
With regards to an ideological desire to shrink the state, again, it has to be taken in context. A party had been in power who had consistently expanded the state to an ever larger proportion of gpd, far outstripping the proportion of GDP taken in tax, either currently or historically. Any party with an ounce of honesty would have had to do the same, because the UK taxpayer is unwilling to give more than around 35% of GDP in tax however you structure how it falls. That means that is the sustainable level of public spending.
Your point about tax avoidance ignores the fact that the coalition has done more about tax avoidance than previous governments. Yes, they haven't eliminated it, but the tax gap is smaller now than it was under labour.
This is not to say reforms are unnecessary, nor that bailing out the banks in 2008 was the right decision (there certainly should have been better obligations written), but you seem to be approaching this from a very one sided viewpoint with a very clear narrative that doesn't fit the reality of why things have played out the way they have.
However, with regards to the rest of your post;
Your talk of deregulation is largely out of place, because the UK never shared much of the us regulation anyway. We did deregulate somewhat, but our biggest issue was not deregulation, but poor regulation because the tripartite system introduced in the late 90s was terrible. Having said that, the big problem wasn't the banking crash itself, but that the public finances were completely unprepared for any form of downturn, which in turn meant that many of the conventional approaches were not available for use.
With regards to an ideological desire to shrink the state, again, it has to be taken in context. A party had been in power who had consistently expanded the state to an ever larger proportion of gpd, far outstripping the proportion of GDP taken in tax, either currently or historically. Any party with an ounce of honesty would have had to do the same, because the UK taxpayer is unwilling to give more than around 35% of GDP in tax however you structure how it falls. That means that is the sustainable level of public spending.
Your point about tax avoidance ignores the fact that the coalition has done more about tax avoidance than previous governments. Yes, they haven't eliminated it, but the tax gap is smaller now than it was under labour.
This is not to say reforms are unnecessary, nor that bailing out the banks in 2008 was the right decision (there certainly should have been better obligations written), but you seem to be approaching this from a very one sided viewpoint with a very clear narrative that doesn't fit the reality of why things have played out the way they have.
Soldato
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I am referring to economic growth. So even the poorest in society were doing well. The UK incorporated huge elements of the welfare state starting with the Beveridge act in 1942. This made a huge difference to the poorest in society.It urged the government to take steps to provide citizens with adequate income, adequate health care, adequate education, adequate housing, and adequate employment.
It was amazing for society as a whole. No one gets left behind.
Coming from the capitalist Victorian times it must have been a huge paradigm shift.
And now what? The poor can go to university but they get saddled with 27,000 worth of debt? Of which almost half will never be able to pay off. That still sounds like the rich doing over the poorest people in society to me.
Tuition fees are far too high and don't affect the super rich. The system is still loaded to keep the poor out.
As for.means of communication technology has and always will be evolving. There was TV radio and newspapers such as there are todays not ideal but it wasn't as if people.lived in caves.
The idea that properly poor can jet off on a Ryanair flight is laughable. People are struggling to feed themselves. The rise in fodbank use under this government is scandalous. So I doubt this portion of society, and it numbers over a million people is really liberated by cheap air travel.
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You also realise we didn't just "give" the banks money right? They were either loans or in return for a (sometimes substantial) share in the banks.
If the poor get saddled with £27k of debt and half of them will never be able to pay it off so it will written off, then it doesn't sound like a very good plan for "doing over the poor"
Also the figures showing the increase of students from poor backgrounds applying for university would indicated that the system isn't keeping the poor out either.
As opposed to say, a graduate tax? Which would be just like a student loan except you never pay it off at all?
There is no up front cost going to go to University, you cannot default on the loan, if you never earn enough to reach the threshold you don't even have to pay any of the loan off. It is effectively a limited liability graduate tax by another name.
If someone cannot work that out then maybe the thing stopping them from going to University isn't their lack of wealth...
Jesus Christ. You really narrowing this down into a 15 year window? 'Since the recession'.
You mean the global one which affected a lot of countries? Of course it's going to affect the poorest. What happens when there is an economical meltdown.
More incentive to study hard, work hard. Get rich then economic crisis hit you less? Then again not always the case. Some of the super rich got hot very hard...
You clearly haven't been University. It's ok neither have I. Few of my friends have. The amounts they back pay scales with earnings. Below 18k you pay nothing back I believe. In fact my girlfriends is on 25k a year. She pays back ~70 a month. Think one of my friends has just broke the 18k mark, his is around 20 a month. And it's taken out before tax I believe. It's a laughable amount. Hardly noticeable!
Like someone else said if you can't pay it back by the time your 50 it's written off.
But you know what.. Do well at University. Like really well. Study, as you should be as your at University and why should you worry about money? Leave. Get a nice paid job. That is unless you studied photography or tourism.. Ha.