UK Politics- A Taxing Transition

[Heartofice]

4 minutes ago, mormont said:

What I'm wondering is why, if you want these people to work more hours, the answer is to punish them if they don't: rather than rewarding them if they do?

Because then you are paying people who earn more, and less to people who earn less.. thereby punishing people indirectly for not working  .. which I’m sure you’d throw your arms up about as well

[Pebble thats Stubby]

Unless we are going to have Universal Basic Income, then I think everyone agrees that at some point if you earn over a certain amount you no longer should get benefits.   The big problem is people loosing benefits at a faster rate than they earn more money (working more often has additional costs - eg extra transport or child care).

 

I think a fair way to do it is for every £1 you earn over a basic amount you loose lets say 20p of benefits (including any extra tax you might need to pay for earning more).   exact amount can be worked out.  This way you will always get a reasonable extra bit of pay for doing more.

 

I remember when I was growing up, my Aunt received several benefits while also working  almost full time job.  I remember her boss wanted to give her a pay rise, but unless it was going to be a really big rise (and not just a very good one) she would actually loose money as she would loose all the benefits she got at the same time.  In this scenario My Aunt was punished if she worked any overtime. 

Doing work has to pay.  but equally not doing work for whatever reason should be more than just survivable.  The moment you start saying well a lazy person could benefit you will stop someone that has genuine reasons not to take work.  Its impossible to create a system that can separate the "lazy" from those "in need" 100% accurately.   Well I suppose it might be possible but the cost of implicating such a system would be far far more than any potential saving as every case would need to be fully accessed and repeatedly assessed with compassion.

 

[Varysblackfyre321]

 

 

1 hour ago, Heartofice said:

These people are already doing part time work. Gah will somebody read the actual article!!!!

.You literally advocated for the government to throw political power and hundreds of millions towards a family because they were born in the last opine pages of this thread

 

[Poobah]

1 hour ago, Spockydog said:

Great job, Kwasi.

 

You just know him, Rees Mog's firm and all their friends were shorting the pound in anticipation of this. They know exactly what they're doing and it's lining their own pockets. 

[Varysblackfyre321]

 

2 hours ago, Heartofice said:

Getting people working is generally good for societ

Generally it’s good for society when workers or potential workers have an adequate safety net to fall back on to avoid getting exploited.

 

[Raja]

 

[Week]

3 minutes ago, Raja said:

 

What's wrong with that? They pay the most in taxes?

/Asked in good faith -- completely ignorant of logic, administrative burden, and cruelty towards the working poor.

[James Arryn]

4 hours ago, Heartofice said:

Basically yeah, if you can get a job but choose not to because you can’t be arsed, why should the state subsidise your laziness?

Simple question, what is more important in your mind, that more people are able to live relatively comfortable lives, with food, shelter, etc. or that more people conform to your version of what makes someone morally or ethically deserving?

[Which Tyler]

It's not "trickle down" economics - because there's not even a pretence that anything is going to trickle downwards - it's outright class warfare

[Tywin et al.]

3 hours ago, mormont said:

Tory ideology, folks. Rich people are incentivised by giving rewards, poor people are incentivised by punishment.

This is actually a rather generous interpretation. Conservatives believe the rich deserve rewards for being rich, and the poor deserve to be punishment for being poor. 

[mormont]

1 hour ago, James Arryn said:

Simple question, what is more important in your mind, that more people are able to live relatively comfortable lives, with food, shelter, etc. or that more people conform to your version of what makes someone morally or ethically deserving?

See, this is the thing. People tend to think that conservative voters don't have a sense of fairness or don't care about fairness. But that's not true. Instead, what happens is that their sense of fairness has been essentially 'hacked': they've been fed distorted ideas about what's 'fair'. So they focus on why a person who is very poor shouldn't be treated in a better way than a person that's only somewhat poor, because they're told that's 'unfair', while ignoring the much better treatment the very rich receive: or they hyper-focus on examples of individual unfairness towards members of advantaged groups over the systemic unfairness shown to marginalised groups.

These things are taught to them using 'fairness' as the lever, not as an obstacle.

[Fez]

Seems relevant

 

[Heartofice]

One of the few good things in this budget however has been to reverse the nonsensical changes to IR35, rules which made it ridiculously complicated to be a freelancer, and at a stroke basically destroyed the contractor economy. No idea who thought those rules were good, so good to see they have been rolled back.

[Zorral]

You know Edmund Burke's solution to the hard cold facts that in this monarchal system from which depends (employing another meaning than the one most common these days) the entire system of privilege for the few, who also have all the resources and therefore the larger number of those who don't have privilege, much less full bellies, are very dangerous, and will try and take Our Stuff -- his solution was to build ever more distilleries and flood the slums and stews with cheap gin.  Thus still hungry, but inebriated and unhealthy, they are kept quiet and die sooner.

One might even think Reagan's clowns actually read Burke and thus, you know, Crack for black communities -- while also illegally funding weapons to use against Iran.  Win win.

~~~~~~~~~~~

In the meantime the death of this English woman makes me feel sad. 

Hilary Mantel has died, age 70, of a stroke, so says the NY Times obit that just went up.

Too soon.

She'd suffered, literally, nearly life long illness and pain from endometriosis and the associated maladies.  As all those who suffer chronic severe pain know, the pain itself is exhausting and debilitating.

https://variety.com/2022/tv/global/hilary-mantel-dies-dead-wolf-hall-1235381500/

https://www.vogue.com/article/hilary-mantel-obituary

 

[Raja]

Look, at least he is being honest.

[A Horse Named Stranger]

At least we now know the answer to the question what sound does a crashing currency make?

Kwarteeeeeng.

[Spockydog]

 

 

[mormont]

Kwasi Kwarteng really stood up there and convinced himself it was 1983, huh?

Worst budget I've ever seen in my life, and I've seen Norman Lamont.

[Spockydog]

The country is in the grip of Rees Mogg and his ERG hard Brexit nutters.

The cunts have been short selling the UK economy since 2016. Today was jackpot day. 

There should be a public inquiry, but there won't. 

[Which Tyler]

16 minutes ago, Spockydog said:

The country is in the grip of Rees Mogg and his ERG hard Brexit nutters.

The cunts have been short selling the UK economy since 2016. Today was jackpot day. 

There should be a public executions, but there won't. 

FTFY