frankie_baby
Member
I'm inclined to think (at the very least when it comes to election time) newspapers should have the same coverage restrictions as television
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Margaret Thatcher has died
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I'm inclined to think (at the very least when it comes to election time) newspapers should have the same coverage restrictions as television
Stumpokapow
listen to the mad man
While that's certainly true and the left has a tendency to assume, despite a discourse of pluralism, that someone's identity can so simply be connected to their politics... it's also true that agenda-setting, campaigning, advertising, and frankly manipulation of the public by politicians can lead to people confusing their own interests, confusing how policy impacts their interest, and demonstrating transparent examples of voting against their own interests. To steal a recent American cliche, "Keep the government out of my medicare" reveals a person who has been bamboozled into believing their interests are something that they aren't.
I don't say this to deny intersectionality of identity--someone who is poor does not need to vote for the monolithic we-give-the-poor-goodies party, someone who is black does not need to vote for the party that offers the most to minorities--but rather to point out that politicians of all stripes win by confusing people's identities, and the presumption that an average voter has a clear grasp of what their interests are and which policies benefit those interests is comparably problematic.
Makes too much sense to be put into law.
Plus whoever Murdoch is backing at the time will oppose it (Labour, Lib Dem, Tory doesn't matter).
frankie_baby
Member
16k millionaires??? Hahaha if you think there is so few
QuicheFontaine
Member
Oh you should deffo participate in that thread then. My thoughts on the referendum are basically this, but I'm trying not to derail this thread with Scottish independence chat.
A slight example of this
A co worker was pro the benefit uprating of 1% then he found out it affected his tax credits
I think you should look at the 1970's. When the rich paid over 90% tax... Yet the country still went bankrupt.
Another example. In 2009 there were 26k millionaire's in the UK. After Labour hiked up the tax to 50p. 10k disappeared.
Reason why is the very rich have planes.
CHEEZMO
Obsidian fan
Whilst this is brought up, the reason for the breaking-off of the brief sustained-eye-contact-across-the-cafe between Murdoch and UKIP is pretty funny.
frankie_baby
Member
I'd like to hope that with the decline of print media that more people are getting their news from more balanced sources, everyone i know at least will go to bbc.co.uk but we will have to wait and see
Slighlty less rich people is not inherently a bad thing. Infact at this point I'd view it as good as they have a crazy amount of power over politicans and policies like benefits.
The Librarian
Banned
US had a top tax rate of 90% for those who had over $250,000 until 1964, then it was 77% until 1980-ish. Country didn't go bankrupt. Pretty sure a lot of people still got wealthy.
CHEEZMO
Obsidian fan
The solution to the threats from the super-wealthy that they'd take their ball and go home is to threaten them back. If they do decide to go just seize all their assets and tell them to fuck off.
Sorry I meant multimillionaires... and there are only 10k now
EDIT. Lets have a trivia quiz (no googling)
What UK town/city has the highest number of multimillionaire's per 100k people
QuicheFontaine
Member
CHEEZMO;53193714 said:
After a few gins I have occasionally advocated sending the gunboats in to Jersey, Guernsey, the Isle of Man, the Cayman Isles and the British Virgin Isles and going all Robin Hood on these guys asses. Technically, Liz is the Monarch of all those places so wouldn't it be kosher to fund the NHS for the next hundred years just on those accounts?
Fun story, I worked with Barclays Wealth for a while handling stock accounts, there was a kind of account people could have that restricted mail going out to hide it from spouses.
I just found it funny that they even hid money from their SOs
Politics is cultural and familial. While they might not have been alive during Thatcher's regime, the people who raised them were. The people who gave them their political identity. They know dozens or hundreds of adults and families who were damaged, or believed they were damaged, by Thatcher's government. Why would it be at all surprising that they would react with jubilation?
CyclopsRock
Member
You're absolutely right that the right's clearly losing the argument, and I think it's the biggest challenge that the modern right faces - how to present the argument that caring isn't just about spending the most money, that the imbalance between classes in the UK can't be fixed by welfare programmes or nationalised industries, and that the private sector is the only way for genuine prosperity to grow, because it's makes the most effective use of our workforce whilst freeing the government coffers to do things that only the government can do (such as large infrastructure projects and working with industry for housebuilding projects etc), without comoeting with the private sector with what it can do. Indeed, to get back on topic vaguely, I think this is exactly what happened when Thatcher was eected in 1979 - that people realised that the good initial intentions of the unions had lead the economy to a place where no one wanted to invest in us, there was little money to go around and that the policies that were intended to help the workers ended up harming them because of lack of jobs. I think this is a relatively cyclical thing, but it's a cycle that has been busted somewhat by the fact that our latest recession has been debt-induced rather than inflation-induced. It makes the "cure" far less obvious, and it's a lot easier to point to the specific people and groups of people that are harmed by spending cuts than to point to the nebulous concept of "the economy" that benefits when those cuts are done.
But I think the fact that this recession has been debt-induced (private and public, of course) has also made this even less clear - The UK has undergone the developed world's largest money printing exercise used to buy our own bonds, and it's had two main effects - it has pushed inflation up (around 15% in the last 5 or so years, in a time when our incomes have more or less remained static) and our interest rates down (all interest rates - saving accounts, variable rate mortgages and, crucially, government bonds). Of course, the fact that our own central bank (owned 100% by the Treasury) buys bonds from the Treasury means that the money is given from the right hand to the left hand. This has the effect of lowering our bond yields to a measly 1.7%. So far, so MMT. But the problem is that, whilst this saves the Treasury over £9bn a year in debt interest vs what it would have been paying without those QE exercises, it takes money both from savers and those without payrises - it means that, unless you have a very fancy bank account, your savings are losing value. And unless you're constantly getting promotions, you're income is losing value. This is the price of that £9bn a year saved by the treasury - it's a tax by any other name, and it's basically as much as the originally Cypriot haircut offer, harming (almost) everyone from minimum wage part timers to pensioners, via those on welfare and those with savings. And yet not a peep is heard on the media about this. People talk about a cut to the top rate of income tax here, a change to VAT there - this is what's really harming people's dwindling purchasing power.
What does this have to do with the right's inability to sell its message to people? This easy method of raising tax without raising eyebrows has allowed the government to continues its spending, for the most part. The UK's government spending has gone down at a far slower rate than was originally intended, and every time theres a budget or Autumn statement, the cuts get pushed further and further back. But you don't really hear about this, either. What you do hear about is a cut in the top rate of tax from 50% to 45%, coupled with a scarcely a change in public spending, and yet the public are convinced that this is the right's economic solution to our malaise, and are pointing to our lack of economic progress as an example of the right wing response therefore not working. When monetary activism allows the government to effectively delay significant reform of the balance of the economy, it becomes very difficult to sell your message to why you need to.
Edit: I also think I need a nice new label to bow-wrap myself in. I believe in the power of free markets but the need for as great-a equality of opportunity as possible. I believe in a safety net. I believe in publicly funded but privately administered healthcare. I believe in publicly funded but privately administered schools. I believe that any utility that cannot sustain reasonable competition - such as water utilities - should be nationalised, and those that can sustain inter-company competitions for tendering (such as contracts to run a certain train service - using contracts that are actually good and ruthlessly enforced) should be opened out to the private sector. I think the university education shouldn't be publicly funded but that interest-rate loans should be available from the government for fees and living expenses. I think the banks should be allowed to fail, even if it results in short term economic chaos. I think that large infrastructure projects are very much the business of government, but that funding enormous media companies is not. I think that immigration should be limitless, and that welfare should be tapered to counter the situation of those from outside the UK having a greater incentive to get a job than those in the UK due to the significant effective tax rates on work that welfare creates. I believe that Tottenham will get into the Champions League if only we sold Adebayeor and put someone more useful up front, like Gallas. I think the Emirates should be burnt to the ground as a purely Keynsian stimulus measure. What am I?
Edit 2: I also believe I should base less of my post's on the metered rhythm of Savage Garden songs.
CHEEZMO
Obsidian fan
UKIP would ban benefit claimants from buying things with their money, including subscriptions to satellite TV.
Hohoho
frankie_baby
Member
The 50p tax isn't something labour intended to implement they knew although good in principal it wouldn't work in practice, they knew they weren't getting reelected So left it as a post election time bomb, with the incoming government forced to either abandon it and look bad, implement it and be economically incompetent or implement a conteversial alternative such as the much vaunted but likely very effective and conservatively unpaletable mansion tax so in the end they kept the 50p tax for 2 years, dropped it at a time of terrible cuts and taxes elsewhere and looked terrible, job done, quite possibly the most skillfull and sly measure the labour party has introduced in their history
speculawyer
Member
Thatcher . . . lucky enough to get into power at the right time and thus look good.
The numbers on the graph refer to oil-related moments in Thatcher's career as Prime Minister.
1) Thatcher became leader of the opposition two years after the 1973 oil shock at a time when UK imports of increasingly expensive oil were at their height, the balance of payments was terrible and unemployment was high
2) Thatcher became Prime Minister just as the second oil shock was getting underway. This time, however, North Sea output had increased so much that it equalled the shock-reduced demand by 1981.
3) The UK could afford the Falklands war in 1982 because they were starting to earn revenue from oil exports.
4) Quoting wikipedia: "By 1983 overall economic growth was stronger and inflation and mortgage rates were at their lowest levels since 1970, although manufacturing output had dropped by 30 per cent since 1978 and unemployment remained high, peaking at 3.3 million in 1984."
5) The Thatcher administration was able to thwart the UK miners strike of 1984 by having power plants switch to burning oil, causing a blip up in oil consumption and down in exports.
6) The Piper Alpha disaster of 1988 and ensuing investigation shut down a lot of North Sea oil production but not so much as to discontinue exports in Thatcher's final years.
An easily ignorable sentence from the Wikipedia article sums up the financial situation during her Prime Ministership:
So Thatcher had the genius to be in the right place at the right time. Her "Iron Lady" temperament was a good match for the UK's renewed economic strength derived from oil and gas despite the hollowing out of the UK's manufacturing sector.
The same is true for Reagan and Clinton. But at least Clinton used the good times to eliminate the deficit.
I don't envy the UK's current predicament. They sold all that oil for $20/barrel. Now they need to import oil at Brent prices for $110/barrel. It hurts to go from making money to paying money out. Especially when you now have to pay 5X to repurchase something that you used to sell for X. Ouch!
The numbers on the graph refer to oil-related moments in Thatcher's career as Prime Minister.
1) Thatcher became leader of the opposition two years after the 1973 oil shock at a time when UK imports of increasingly expensive oil were at their height, the balance of payments was terrible and unemployment was high
2) Thatcher became Prime Minister just as the second oil shock was getting underway. This time, however, North Sea output had increased so much that it equalled the shock-reduced demand by 1981.
3) The UK could afford the Falklands war in 1982 because they were starting to earn revenue from oil exports.
4) Quoting wikipedia: "By 1983 overall economic growth was stronger and inflation and mortgage rates were at their lowest levels since 1970, although manufacturing output had dropped by 30 per cent since 1978 and unemployment remained high, peaking at 3.3 million in 1984."
5) The Thatcher administration was able to thwart the UK miners strike of 1984 by having power plants switch to burning oil, causing a blip up in oil consumption and down in exports.
6) The Piper Alpha disaster of 1988 and ensuing investigation shut down a lot of North Sea oil production but not so much as to discontinue exports in Thatcher's final years.
An easily ignorable sentence from the Wikipedia article sums up the financial situation during her Prime Ministership:
Iron will? No, buried treasure was the key.
So Thatcher had the genius to be in the right place at the right time. Her "Iron Lady" temperament was a good match for the UK's renewed economic strength derived from oil and gas despite the hollowing out of the UK's manufacturing sector.
The same is true for Reagan and Clinton. But at least Clinton used the good times to eliminate the deficit.
I don't envy the UK's current predicament. They sold all that oil for $20/barrel. Now they need to import oil at Brent prices for $110/barrel. It hurts to go from making money to paying money out. Especially when you now have to pay 5X to repurchase something that you used to sell for X. Ouch!
Hard to have figures, but It is always south of what the mail believes.
ANYTHING is south from what the Mail believes
Its my rule of thumb.
frankie_baby
Member
I'm certainly inclined to think that full British taxation and full British inclusion should be introduced on the channel islands (though to a bizare quirk.of history it is actually the channel islands that have sovereignty over the uk not the other way round) at least, any losses they suffer fr losing their off shore banking industry could easily be compensated for by developing tourism
CHEEZMO
Obsidian fan
No idea and I don't care anyway. There's much bigger fish to fry than making people on the bottom rung of society have even harder lives.
Not that people would think that (thanks, class war).
I gotta admit I find it totally fucking vile that, when people complain about working all day in shit conditions for awful pay and have little money at the end of it and crow about how people on benefits make almost as much (in extreme circumstances that the tabloids love to report on almost fucking daily), it's with an air of "Wow, they should really make that person's live shittier so I can feel slightly better about my own position" and not "hold the fuck on, I'm being treated like total shit here. I want better conditions and better pay!".
But that's what you get when you convince people to kick down and not up.
QuicheFontaine
Member
frankie_baby
Member
CHEEZMO;53194719 said:
Fucking disgusting, at the end of the day people are given benefit money to spend how they want to, who dare critisise a benefit claimemt that buys all his food from the tesco value range and reduced to clear shelf or maybe even grows some of his own veg in his garden and then spend the few quid a week he saves on sky tv???
frankie_baby
Member
The channel islands is all that remains of the duchy of Normandy, king William the 1st (the conqueror) was duke of Normandy, does it make sense now
CHEEZMO
Obsidian fan
You must understand: the life of the benefit claimant must be devoid of any pleasure or relaxation.
They must suffer and be thankful for any morsel that is so generously allowed to fall from the table.
frankie_baby
Member
CHEEZMO;53197605 said:
As sarcastic as your comment is, the benefit claimant that spends several hours each day in his garden or allotment probably has less time for pleasure and relaxation than the one that sits on his arse all day, its just possible he wants to spend the moneney he saves on his food bill on subscription tv because he wants to watch newer episodes of futurama
CyclopsRock
Member
Brown's Broken Britain
radioheadrule83
Banned
If a millionaire is valued by the value of his stock, or in the value of his property holdings and estate - and he doesn't invest or create jobs that common people can aspire to, do you really think it matters to most people if he fucks off? It doesn't matter whether he made it himself or inherited it -- we should dis-incentivise non-productive wealth, we shouldn't be protectionist about it, we should encourage productivity in people from ALL economic ranges. One of the biggest problems facing normal working people, and particularly young people today, is the increasing difficulty with getting on to the property ladder. Instead of actually creating more property for people to live in, what we have actually done is say that from January, we will help you get in to debt, and back your debt at a government level, in order to ensure you can get a house. There are men and women in this country who have attracted great wealth simply by hoarding property to reap the benefits of policies like that. Instead of being a roof over your head, a house is a commodity, a golden ticket. We are protecting beneficiaries of a ridiculous boom and a property racket at the expense of peoples' futures. Likewise we have insulated a financial sector from its own mistakes at the expense of absolutely everybody. Are we supposed to feel grateful for the presence and operation of men like Philip Green in our society when they actively seek to protect themselves from paying for the benefit of it? We have one of the worst rich-poor divides in the Western world, and that is frankly an absolute national shame. Maybe it would behove us all to be more pragmatic about how we resolve that without worsening it, and worry less about the fortunes of our richest, the likes of which 99% of us will never experience before we cease to exist.
The richest people undeniably pay the most tax, that is true under even this government, but they never have to pay with their future prospects or their quality of life. People on the lower end of the spectrum and those who fall foul of certain polices most certainly do.
I'd love to see you try this sentence on with someone living in a council house or rented shithole that lives on meals bought almost exclusively in Farmland or Iceland.
PJV3
Member
Even if workers in the private sector challenge for better pay, people complain.
Waaah, your causing inconvenience.
With people at the bottom, try counting what they haven't got tor a change.
That's not how sovereignty works in the modern world, bro.
Edit: Hell, I'm pretty sure that's not how sovereignty worked in the Middle Ages either.
CHEEZMO
Obsidian fan
Pretty much it's generally I'm all right Jack until they find out someone has a nice thing so they have to take that nice thing away instead of all having nice things.
CHEEZMO;53197605 said:
As someone who has worked for the Jobcentre for a shot time (3months during uni break). I can say that the majority of people do have it hard. The problem is there are an awful lot who are either comfortable with their lives or just play the system as they know the loopholes.
An example, a quantity surveyor who told me he desperately needed work etc. So I got him an interview with a company a relative of mine worked for.
He walked into the interview, took out a book, opened it and put it on his own head.
He wasn't even sanctioned...
The benefit system in this country has been a complete joke for decades and is in serious need of reform full stop.
frankie_baby
Member
I am on benefits at the moment me and my partner have a child my partner specially looks fo work regularly but there is nothing she could do local, there us even less I could do local (we live in a big villaged sized rural town) and I act as a carer for a relative so we get slightly more than most on benefits than the average and don't get the hassle from the job centre but we pay for subscription TV but as I suggested earlier most of our food is tesco value and we fill up our freezer whenever we can with meat from the reduced shelf
Problem is everyone is treated as a cheat or a liar.
When the vast majority are not, but they get painted with the same brush regardless.
EDIT- Also with my work with the tribunal service I basically found the motto of the dwp to be THEY ARE LYING.
The real problem is that the benefit system is very one dimensional. It just cannot cope with every single persons unique set of circumstances.
You tighten the grip, the abuse reduces (till another loophole is exploited) but others who really do need help get caught in the crossfire.
Loosen your grip, its gets ripped to shreds by those who know how to manipulate the system.
It needs reform seriously, I just haven't got a bloody clue how anyone can change it to help those in need and also tells the abusers to fuck off
frankie_baby
Member
As has been pointed out before tax abuse by the rich is a far bigger problem than benefit abuse by the poor
SniperHunter
Banned
dont know much about UK politics but she seemed like a good leader and a strong woman overall. rip
Yes, but that brings up problems with their party so instead they focus on the dirty poors.
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