More public spending cuts, FINALLY! :D
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Original post by Elipsis
You can't use the fact that money never stops to say that you can redistribute enormous sums from the private sector to the non-productive public sector. When the private sector gets money, it uses that money to MAKE something, which in turn INCREASES the money, which GROWS the economy. When you give it to the public sector they spend it, like you say. They don't invest it. The private sector then has to spend money trying to regain some of the money that was taken off of them back...
Errmm, you're missing the point. Circulation of money enables people to buy the products of the private sector. This false dichotomy between public and private is bull****. They rely on each other.
Original post by Kibalchich
Yes, I think more can be taken. The super rich don't actually pay tax. The rich are still getting richer.
http://www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2012/10/05/the-times-realises-tax-avoidance-costs-vastly-more-than-hmrc-says-it-does-why-do-ministers-deny-it/
http://www.therichest.org/nation/sunday-times-rich-list/
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-18944097
http://www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2012/10/05/the-times-realises-tax-avoidance-costs-vastly-more-than-hmrc-says-it-does-why-do-ministers-deny-it/
http://www.therichest.org/nation/sunday-times-rich-list/
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-18944097
When half of our economy is public, and that figure jumps even higher for NI and Scotland, and there is still massive poverty, you have to question whether the state is the answer or the problem. Are successive Leftist governments deliberately making people reliant on state handouts to secure their votes because they know the nasty tories will be forced to make the tough decisions?
Original post by The Gentle Giant
You do realise that, while the poorest in our society might be suffering under austerity, they will suffer a hell of a lot more if interest rates rise as well, right? We only have a limited amount of money, and money that is spent on interest has to be made up from somewhere. Considering that public spending on welfare, health and education is what benefits poor people the most and is most likely to be cut and reduced if we now have massively higher interest repayments to make, on a balance of harms it is comparatively better for them under austerity than it would be in a hypothetical alternative whereby until we regain international credibility (30 years) we cant borrow to invest in schemes which are specifically targetted to help the poor.
Austerity by its very nature harms the poor as state spending is designed to help them (whether or not it does is another matter). The question therefore becomes whether a short term aliviation of austerity is more or less harmful than the 30 years of cheap investment in social programmes at a lower rate which can no longer occur as we dont have access to cheap credit.
There is no silver bullett which helps the situation and doesnt harm the poor. Austerity is the least bad option.
Austerity by its very nature harms the poor as state spending is designed to help them (whether or not it does is another matter). The question therefore becomes whether a short term aliviation of austerity is more or less harmful than the 30 years of cheap investment in social programmes at a lower rate which can no longer occur as we dont have access to cheap credit.
There is no silver bullett which helps the situation and doesnt harm the poor. Austerity is the least bad option.
This is just rubbish. I've already shown the other options.
Original post by Elipsis
When half of our economy is public, and that figure jumps even higher for NI and Scotland, and there is still massive poverty, you have to question whether the state is the answer or the problem. Are successive Leftist governments deliberately making people reliant on state handouts to secure their votes because they know the nasty tories will be forced to make the tough decisions?
When did we have a leftist government?
Original post by Kibalchich
When did we have a leftist government?
now.....
Original post by Kibalchich
When did we have a leftist government?
When our public spending rivaled Eastern European countries under communism
Original post by OU Student
So, they're making cuts; but they can afford to give those earning over £150k a tax cut?
Wasnt this after they gave them a tax raise to start with....?
Original post by Arekkusu
I know the issue intimately as a relative has a progressive disability. But I don't understand what they're thinking from a political perspective, they must know this issue has made everyone hate them and if it's not even actually going to save any money what's the point?
I know it's all about handing over millions to Unum but why not just choose a different issue with its own attendant private company to enrich?
I know it's all about handing over millions to Unum but why not just choose a different issue with its own attendant private company to enrich?
The Department for Work and Pensions has a vested interested in keeping its "estimates" low. If the estimates were high, the public would quite rightly want to know what the hell is going on. On what basis can they possibly make these estimates? It annoys me as we continually see these low fraud rate figures being bandied about but don't appreciate how they've been calculated.
Politically it is suicidal. So do you not think there just may be a significant amount of fraudsters? Sheffield Hallam University put the figure at 50% for people on invalidity benefit.
"There was a remarkable rise in the number of people incapacitated by illness during the 1980s and early 1990s. People claiming invalidity benefit – now renamed ‘incapacity benefit’ – jumped from 600,000 in 1979 to 1.5 million in 1995.
There were a few curious things about this massive increase in incapacity that swept the country. One was the very particular nature of the kinds of long-term diseases and disabilities from which people suffered. Out of the 2.4 million people claiming incapacity benefit in May 2003, by far the biggest categories were the 819, 000 people apparently suffering ‘mental and behavioural disorders’, a category which includes ‘stress’, and 523,000 people afflicted with ‘diseases of the musculoskeletal system and connective tissue’, which includes backache. These two conditions have something in common. It is virtually impossible to prove whether people have them or not. The two categories account for over 56 per cent of all diseases causing incapacity.
A second curious characteristic about this wave of incapacity was that it predominantly affected people in areas with high unemployment. Backache appeared to be something people particularly got if wages were low in relation to invalidity benefit.
A third point worth noting is that the conditions attached to invalidity benefit were different from those relating to unemployment benefit. The benefit was paid indefinitely, not for a fixed term. This made it more desirable.
But the most notable thing about this sudden attack of disability was the timing. It took place after the invalidity rates were increased." (from The Welfare State We're In)
Original post by Kibalchich
This is just rubbish. I've already shown the other options.
I really dont think you have. You've just asserted that we can tax rich people more and control exports of capital and that is magically going to solve our problems.
The problem with that is that rich people didnt get rich by giving money away to the government. They will oppose any possible rise in taxes and do their very best to ensure that tax rises dont affect them by either moving abroad or by spending even more money on accountants and lawyers who will do even more to reduce their tax rates.
Don't get me wrong, it is my sincerest belief that we should use the tax system to raise as much from the wealthy as is possible, however having high tax rates doesnt help this. Thats why the 50p rate of tax only raised £200 million without considering the impact that it had on the wider economy. Compared to the additional £10 billion we now have to cut from the welfare budget, thats less than a rounding error.
The best example of this is france, where Hollande is constantly discussed as the guy who raised the tax rate to 75%. What we ignore is that he's also having austerity of over 30 billion euros in spending cuts, and the tax rise is only planned to raise around 300 million euros, a tiny amount of that.
If you look up the laffer curve, you'll realise that raising taxes does not always lead to higher tax yields. The question is setting it at the point where we raise the most money. Considering we allow rich people to alliviate losses in the economy by spreading it over 3 or 4 years, rises in taxes are unlikely to be effective while the economy is in meltdown as they can use tax liabilities to reduce how much they pay.
There are 2 questions. What is the most economically logical amount of money we can raise which benefits our economy, and how should we spend that money. Hypothetically raising taxes deals with the first one, austerity with the second.
(edited 11 years ago)
Original post by TimHuak
Why dont you start appreciating rich people a little more.
Er, why?
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Original post by Scots King
The Department for Work and Pensions has a vested interested in keeping its "estimates" low. If the estimates were high, the public would quite rightly want to know what the hell is going on. On what basis can they possibly make these estimates? It annoys me as we continually see these low fraud rate figures being bandied about but don't appreciate how they've been calculated.
Politically it is suicidal. So do you not think there just may be a significant amount of fraudsters? Sheffield Hallam University put the figure at 50% for people on invalidity benefit.
"There was a remarkable rise in the number of people incapacitated by illness during the 1980s and early 1990s. People claiming invalidity benefit – now renamed ‘incapacity benefit’ – jumped from 600,000 in 1979 to 1.5 million in 1995.
There were a few curious things about this massive increase in incapacity that swept the country. One was the very particular nature of the kinds of long-term diseases and disabilities from which people suffered. Out of the 2.4 million people claiming incapacity benefit in May 2003, by far the biggest categories were the 819, 000 people apparently suffering ‘mental and behavioural disorders’, a category which includes ‘stress’, and 523,000 people afflicted with ‘diseases of the musculoskeletal system and connective tissue’, which includes backache. These two conditions have something in common. It is virtually impossible to prove whether people have them or not. The two categories account for over 56 per cent of all diseases causing incapacity.
A second curious characteristic about this wave of incapacity was that it predominantly affected people in areas with high unemployment. Backache appeared to be something people particularly got if wages were low in relation to invalidity benefit.
A third point worth noting is that the conditions attached to invalidity benefit were different from those relating to unemployment benefit. The benefit was paid indefinitely, not for a fixed term. This made it more desirable.
But the most notable thing about this sudden attack of disability was the timing. It took place after the invalidity rates were increased." (from The Welfare State We're In)
Politically it is suicidal. So do you not think there just may be a significant amount of fraudsters? Sheffield Hallam University put the figure at 50% for people on invalidity benefit.
"There was a remarkable rise in the number of people incapacitated by illness during the 1980s and early 1990s. People claiming invalidity benefit – now renamed ‘incapacity benefit’ – jumped from 600,000 in 1979 to 1.5 million in 1995.
There were a few curious things about this massive increase in incapacity that swept the country. One was the very particular nature of the kinds of long-term diseases and disabilities from which people suffered. Out of the 2.4 million people claiming incapacity benefit in May 2003, by far the biggest categories were the 819, 000 people apparently suffering ‘mental and behavioural disorders’, a category which includes ‘stress’, and 523,000 people afflicted with ‘diseases of the musculoskeletal system and connective tissue’, which includes backache. These two conditions have something in common. It is virtually impossible to prove whether people have them or not. The two categories account for over 56 per cent of all diseases causing incapacity.
A second curious characteristic about this wave of incapacity was that it predominantly affected people in areas with high unemployment. Backache appeared to be something people particularly got if wages were low in relation to invalidity benefit.
A third point worth noting is that the conditions attached to invalidity benefit were different from those relating to unemployment benefit. The benefit was paid indefinitely, not for a fixed term. This made it more desirable.
But the most notable thing about this sudden attack of disability was the timing. It took place after the invalidity rates were increased." (from The Welfare State We're In)
I am afraid neither you nor the author you quote understand either claimant psychology or the bureaucratic psychology which has led us into this incapacity mess.
The two largest claimant groups are those with mechanical back pain and depression. Those claimants are not fraudsters; they have convinced themselves or have been convinced by others that they are unable to work.
Back pain is a fairly common incident of middle age. Most of these back pain sufferers have done physically demanding manual work when younger and lack transferable skills. When they become unable to do such physically demanding jobs, we have brought about a system where that is seen as incapacity rather than growing older.
Likewise, unhappiness is a fact of life and sometimes that unhappiness is so severe that it prevents people from working. However where that unhappiness is combined with worklessness, it has been turned into a chronic untreatable depression leading to permanent incapacity. That can be seen by the number of depressives who volunteer in charity shops but have convinced themselves they could not go back to work.
You don't make any progress looking for fraudsters. The people around these claimants know they have genuine illnesses. The question is not whether someone has an illness or disability but should they be expected, notwithstanding that condition, to work.
A large part of the historic problem has been jobcentre staff encouraging people onto the sick. It has been in claimants' financial interests to do this. At one time it suited politicians' purposes as well. What it also does is mean that jobcentres have not had to engage with difficult to place people.
Original post by coopsyy
In the UK they pay for all your stuff
Original post by TimHuak
In the UK they pay for all your stuff
How? Rich people don't pay for anything for me, not directly anyway. I pay taxes, just like them. We both use public services such as hospitals, roads, schools etc. Tell me again why I should appreciate them when I pay my fair share in tax too?
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Original post by coopsyy
How? Rich people don't pay for anything for me, not directly anyway. I pay taxes, just like them. We both use public services such as hospitals, roads, schools etc. Tell me again why I should appreciate them when I pay my fair share in tax too?
Posted from TSR Mobile
Posted from TSR Mobile
They are the ones who keep the social programmes, which British people love so much, afloat
Original post by Scots King
The Department for Work and Pensions has a vested interested in keeping its "estimates" low. If the estimates were high, the public would quite rightly want to know what the hell is going on. On what basis can they possibly make these estimates? It annoys me as we continually see these low fraud rate figures being bandied about but don't appreciate how they've been calculated.
Politically it is suicidal. So do you not think there just may be a significant amount of fraudsters? Sheffield Hallam University put the figure at 50% for people on invalidity benefit.
"There was a remarkable rise in the number of people incapacitated by illness during the 1980s and early 1990s. People claiming invalidity benefit – now renamed ‘incapacity benefit’ – jumped from 600,000 in 1979 to 1.5 million in 1995.
There were a few curious things about this massive increase in incapacity that swept the country. One was the very particular nature of the kinds of long-term diseases and disabilities from which people suffered. Out of the 2.4 million people claiming incapacity benefit in May 2003, by far the biggest categories were the 819, 000 people apparently suffering ‘mental and behavioural disorders’, a category which includes ‘stress’, and 523,000 people afflicted with ‘diseases of the musculoskeletal system and connective tissue’, which includes backache. These two conditions have something in common. It is virtually impossible to prove whether people have them or not. The two categories account for over 56 per cent of all diseases causing incapacity.
A second curious characteristic about this wave of incapacity was that it predominantly affected people in areas with high unemployment. Backache appeared to be something people particularly got if wages were low in relation to invalidity benefit.
A third point worth noting is that the conditions attached to invalidity benefit were different from those relating to unemployment benefit. The benefit was paid indefinitely, not for a fixed term. This made it more desirable.
But the most notable thing about this sudden attack of disability was the timing. It took place after the invalidity rates were increased." (from The Welfare State We're In)
Politically it is suicidal. So do you not think there just may be a significant amount of fraudsters? Sheffield Hallam University put the figure at 50% for people on invalidity benefit.
"There was a remarkable rise in the number of people incapacitated by illness during the 1980s and early 1990s. People claiming invalidity benefit – now renamed ‘incapacity benefit’ – jumped from 600,000 in 1979 to 1.5 million in 1995.
There were a few curious things about this massive increase in incapacity that swept the country. One was the very particular nature of the kinds of long-term diseases and disabilities from which people suffered. Out of the 2.4 million people claiming incapacity benefit in May 2003, by far the biggest categories were the 819, 000 people apparently suffering ‘mental and behavioural disorders’, a category which includes ‘stress’, and 523,000 people afflicted with ‘diseases of the musculoskeletal system and connective tissue’, which includes backache. These two conditions have something in common. It is virtually impossible to prove whether people have them or not. The two categories account for over 56 per cent of all diseases causing incapacity.
A second curious characteristic about this wave of incapacity was that it predominantly affected people in areas with high unemployment. Backache appeared to be something people particularly got if wages were low in relation to invalidity benefit.
A third point worth noting is that the conditions attached to invalidity benefit were different from those relating to unemployment benefit. The benefit was paid indefinitely, not for a fixed term. This made it more desirable.
But the most notable thing about this sudden attack of disability was the timing. It took place after the invalidity rates were increased." (from The Welfare State We're In)
The rise in incapacity claimants was a deliberate piece of social engineering to massage the unemployment figures, everyone knows that. So if people really did use backache and stress to claim incapacity, and we want to stop them, why can't we just introduce a sensible test which excludes just those sort of conditions rather than the new test where assessors fraudulently make up answers and refuse to use recording tapes and end up rejecting some poor bugger who's paraplegic or dying of a progressive disease. The private-company-as-advisors set-up is also an ingenious way to avoid both freedom of information requests and litigation at once. (Incidentally the fear is that the number of appeals that need to be made as a result of this test will result in the government suddenly declaring sometime in the next year that legal aid costs are too high and need to be withdrawn. I don't like to think of myself as a conspiracy theorist but if that comes to pass I feel I will have been vindicated.)
Incidentally, why should the DWP have a vested interest in keeping its figures low when the present rhetoric is precisely the opposite? Would there necessarily be job losses or worse cuts if they reported high figures to the rest of the government?
Original post by Elipsis
When our public spending rivaled Eastern European countries under communism
You're deluded if you think Labour have been even remotely leftist since '97.
Original post by liamb109
You're deluded if you think Labour have been even remotely leftist since '97.
Yeah, you're right. They just happen to think everyone who isn't in the top 10% should get every last thing they need for free at the expense of the top 10%
Original post by Elipsis
Yeah, you're right. They just happen to think everyone who isn't in the top 10% should get every last thing they need for free at the expense of the top 10%
They're pragmatic, idiot. They're centrists that, like the tories will say whatever it takes to get elected. If they were still leftists, they would bring back clause 4.
Original post by liamb109
They're pragmatic, idiot. They're centrists that, like the tories will say whatever it takes to get elected. If they were still leftists, they would bring back clause 4.
You clearly don't understand what leftist means... Just because the Tories are forced to have Leftist policies against their wishes, does not make them Leftist. Labour couldn't give the money away fast enough. They want people dependent on the state, because a state dependent is a Labour voter.
Original post by Elipsis
You clearly don't understand what leftist means... Just because the Tories are forced to have Leftist policies against their wishes, does not make them Leftist. Labour couldn't give the money away fast enough. They want people dependent on the state, because a state dependent is a Labour voter.
Ah yes, the tories are forced to have leftist policies. It has nothing to do with David Cameron being a left wing conservative that is only anti EU to excite the backbenchers?
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