su lazy bum

absolutely nothing wrong increasing the upper income tax, it has been under taxed for years, even decades, relative to lower income tax.

while I agree that it's okay for the upper income tax to be higher I would like you to elaborate how it has been "under-taxed" reltive to lower incomes.
I would think it is the same as here that higher incomes pay a higher percentage (which is the relative measurement). Or do you have so many loopholes (as they do here) that sometimes richer people cna write off large sums?

i said relative because who knows if the population as a whole is being over taxed, i'm simply comparing upper and lower income.

even ignoring evasion, i'm reasonably sure that as a percentage of income, high income is lower, as an actual figure there's little difference i think with mid income. trying to find the numbers, needs double checking i admit. if only mainstream media wasn't so shit.

also, while it's difficult to find the info to work this sort of thing out, it's very probable it's unfair because the lower your income, the less represented you are in politics.

I don't like taxes. It's a legal way to steal people their hard earned cash. Sure, if it was reasonable, okay. But it's nowhere near reasonable, you pay too much and when you see what the government spends it on.. it just makes you sick sometimes heh :D

then you don't really have any problem with taxes but with corruption and stupidity

I like taxes, improving soceity benefits everyone so everyone so contribute.

Yeah but too bad it never gets used for that.... :D

How would you prioritise the spending?

That's a good question. Im not really the guy to answer that . what do you think, how would you prioritize the spending?

I'm not sure either :)

I'd divert a lot of funding away from the military into Education and Health Care though (So maybe I have answered it...)

Yeah i was thinkin about those 2 things aswell:) but as long as we've got all these corrupt people in the parlament who think the people are there for them instead of them being there representing the people... we'll never get anywhere

is the problem in education actual money?

every teacher I speak to it's a case of crowd control and little teaching :(

More money, more teachers (in theory), smaller classes, et cetera.

and the opportunity to educate the teachers even further, better teachers = better students (in most cases)

http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2009/apr/...-academies

pwopow

State schools receive more money per head than plenty of good private schools, it's having to deal with fucktard childen (and sometimes their fucktard parents) that makes state school teaching so much harder. If they had the balls to bring back proper streaming and grammar schools then the brightest kids from any background could get ahead, Comprehensives have reduced social mobility.

More money would mean you could hire prostitutes to suck off the chavs and make them motivated to get 6 Ds and 3 Cs instead of just failing outright/quitting.

I'm a dreamer.

htf do you know d3c4y's grades?

people also tend to ignore some other important stuff. Like roads and traffic lights.

I'm unsure how much is already spent on that in the UK and where it would be best spent/increased for those types of things.

I'd put more money into public transport though.

Of course there is a lot of waste that would need to be sorted first.

1) Infrastructure, mainly roads and communications
2) Health, best used through a socialised system payed for by a levy on the population
3) Education, much higher increased spending in the public sphere, and on skills training (blue-collar). Also, although not relevant to tax I would like to see Universities offer free education again.
4) Welfare system based on a living-wage, with a wide range of additional benefits.
5) Defence, no idea really.

I'm Australian by the way so I already have socialised health care and the welfare system I've mentioned. At the moment our Prime Minister is spending alot of money on exactly the things I've mentioned so perhaps my opinions are abit biased seeing as how I lean rather heavily to the left.

If it pays off it will I think really help our nation become a stable of international quality, either way, my (eventual) children and I will be paying for it :)

I think Australia should put all its tax money on preventing drought and having fresh water in the rivers... :D

*improving the economy benefits everyone. taxes won't improve any economy.

The economy cannot take care of everything on its own and therefore taxes are needed.

The amount and how they are collected is a much more worthwhile discussion.

sure it can. if there is a demand for something, somebody somewhere will supply what is wanted. all government is doing is monopolizing certain areas of industry.

So why don't we do that?

It has by no means been proven that the free market can provide everything.

because people like power.

Yes, that's the only reason.

If people like power so much why do so many allow themselves to subjected to it?

What if the free market doesn't want to provide a service?
What if the free market decides that it will cut everyones wages in half?

go do some reading first.


If people like power so much why do so many allow themselves to subjected to it? complacency

What if the free market doesn't want to provide a service? Then there isn't demand for it. Why provide something that nobody wants. Malinvestment at its best.

What if the free market decides that it will cut everyones wages in half? If someone feels they aren't being paid a fair wage they can go work elsewhere. Either the business will catch on and raise employee wages or go out of business because nobody wants to work there. Besides, wages are only relevant when compared to prices.

The problem ultimately is, business needs some control. For example the construction industry needs control to ensure quality is provided (And please don't say the market ensures this as it doesn't, otherwise we wouldn't have builders cutting corners and costs).

So you need an operation, but you're a lowly shop worker and can't afford the procedure and nobody will give you a loan. You just die?

lawsuit for damages/breach of contract. builders that demonstrate habitual poor quality will decline in demand for their services. and eventually go out of business. as far as the operation, charity exists for a reason.

What stops them from doing it now?
Can charity really support a whole nation?

Also, who pays for the courts?
Who makes the laws?
Who enforces the laws?
What about town planning?

Are all of these private organisations?
I can't see a reason for a private organisation to care what a private town planning company says.

What authority does a private law maker have to decide laws?
Same goes for enforcement.

What stops them from doing it now? Stops people from building crappy goods or from people suing? It's nothing either way.

Can charity really support a whole nation? People can support themselves for the most part. Charity and welfare should be the exception, not the norm.

Are all of these private organizations?
Sure.

What authority does a private law maker have to decide laws?
The law-maker(s) isn't a private individual, common law is formed by a participatory consenting public based on natural law.

Go read some liberalism theory.

What if people don't come to a concensus?
If I disagree with a decision what right do you have to force anything upon me?
What if I never signed up to your society and am just subsistence farming but you want to build a road right through my house/farm, or mine it for a rare resource?

Liberlism theory is just that, theory. There is a very good reason why it is just theory and isn't just because some people like power and everyone else is just complacent.

The reason why the political systems we have work the way they do is because they are the most efficient ways of managing all the complexities of modern societies.

efficient? hahaha

most efficient

Modern parliamentary style governments are DESIGNED to be inefficient. Significant change is SUPPOSED to be slow and take time. In an absolute monarchy or despotism it can be very efficient but not in any western country today. Because of this, the government shouldn't try to get involved in short term economic issues. It inevitably worsens the situation because it tries to keep wages or prices too high, keep afloat failed companies, etc. Instead of letting them fail and freeing up capital for new startups or investment in stronger businesses. 1921 recession in the U.S. is a perfect example of what relative government inaction can do.

That's got nothing to do with anything I said.

yeah, how about we make health care voluntary and have companies take what they deem necessary.

I heard it works like a charm in the US...

The U.S. should repeal the HMO law and allow insurance to serve as insurance should and not pay everything. My car insurance doesn't pay for oil changes so why should a health insurance company pay for regular checkups? Allowing insurance companies to go back to paying for major unforseen problems will drastically reduce costs to all and will teach people to safe for normal health care costs. This would also reduce the burden on business because they won't have to pay for employee coverage and can then pay higher wages or expand their company.

The regular checkups help reduce expensive cases. So they can help prevent high payments and therefore are in everybody's best interest.

Either make those checkups mandatory for everybody or let the insurances pay them. Everything else is worse for the patients and more expensive.

Higher insurance costs = more people end up uninsured. More uninsured people end up needing charity care for major issues. This drives up the expenses of the hospital. The hospitals raise their prices for paying customers and insurance companies. Which in turn drives up insurance costs. By targeting those that need charity care at a less expensive level of care, future costs can be significantly reduced.

Or do it like pretty much every European state and have a strong insurance lobby dictate the prices to the doctors and cover everything.

Don't get me wrong they are many negative sides to what we have here, but everybody gets care and the doctors can't simply dictate prices.

That doesn't work long term for the same reasons that communism doesn't work. No functional price system.

Are you sure about that?



Don't know if you considered that I never said there should be only one insurance company and if that affects your reasoning. Because our first health care system was established in 1883.

Get a clue, taxes is a big part of what the government takes money from. I really think think most taxes are reasonable considering what I get from them. At least that's the way here.

Well i have lived in 4 diffrent countries so far and i've come to learn that taxes are a legitimate way to steal peoples money. And usually, you don't get much in return when it comes to health care and social stuff then for what you put in! So, you, get a clue. Be happy what you have in sweden and don't take it for granted because it's not the same for everybody in the world. Bye

I am aware of that the rest of the world doensn't work like sweden does. Afaik we have one of the highest taxes in the world but I feel like we get a lot back. All kids up to 20 years old have free medical treatment when something happens, we have good schools that we don't pay anything to attend to (excluding uni).

If some are to blame it's bad governments that make money disappear into thin air instead of blaming taxes :)

(I should say I was slightly drunk when I made the last post, sorry about the hard words :D )

aha the alcohol was the culprit :) no offense taken :)))

and yes you put it real nice there 'make tax money dissapear into thin air' that's what most countries do ! :P

It's a silly choice because 50% tax tends to reduce the tax take as far more people attempt to avoid it. I think there's also a psychological element involved when the state takes half of everything you do. Just NuLabour showing their true colours, 2nd Labour government in a row to fuck the country, last time we had the winter of discontent.

I wouldn't like to make a call on whether it will work or not, but it seems to me they are trying to get the popularity of the low income population.

i have no idea about how the tax is implemented, but tax needs to increase or spending decrease, to pay for bank capital.

ironically, conservatives deregulated banking in the 80's, regulation that was designed to keep the banks well capitalised to avoid this sort of crisis. regulations formed after the great depression to stop the suicidal behaviour of the business community.

so many of the comments i've seen both on the news and online, are so delusional ie. letting the banks go bust, no bailouts and spending/taxes shouldn't go down/up. absolutely crazy, if you think the crisis is bad now with the current level of lending, imagine it with no lending.

i'm not saying spending is being done correctly or labour is a perfect government, they could have prevented this or the tax is correctly implemented. but the banks need capital, the bailouts had to happen.

no one complained about new labour until it looks like it's dead, now old labour might be making a return, more people seem against them than ever. by anti-god, how backwards can so many people be. we experience a crisis caused by deregulation and the next government is almost certainly going to be a right wing party if the economy doesn't recover by mid 2010, absolutely crazy. end of rant.

Barclays and other well managed banks are doing just fine, I'm not so sure the bailouts for badly run businesses was the correct decision, we will have to foot the bill for this for the next 10 years at least.

if people have secure jobs and money to spare by being not over-taxed then any sensible business would lend them money for home buying anyway as it makes good business sense, so lending to the right people would go on regardless, banks will just be more fussy who they lend to, which is a good thing

barclays raised capital from middle eastern investors at extra cost, they would have taken a bailout if it didn't cost them their bonuses.

what do people think will happen if even one major bank is left to fail? a revolution? it perplexes me how people can be for bank failure. it doesn't work. direct bank recapitalisation does work, this isn't voodoo as it's been shown to work, south korea is a shining example.

keeping the banks capitalised, keeps lending going, money flowing, production going and jobs. if it were to almost completely stop, as in banks failing, it would be so much worst, the jobless numbers would be at an even higher number, money would simply stop flowing. i dread to think how bad it could be if even one bank failed and if anything i wish they recapitalised sooner.

i don't know if people are against it because it's non-traditional, blood lust or what, but it's ridiculous the opposition. i'm not saying the details of the plan have been great, but letting banks fail is madness. why would any economy want to subject them selves to a worst recession?

i'd say we capitalise the banks no matter what, either through regulation or directly through tax. regulation is preferred but it's a bit late now, should still be done though.

well yea hopefully it will work

I'm not against bank recapitalisation, but I'm extremely concerned that I'm going to be paying for this for 10 years+ (maybe even the rest of my life?) I mean is it just a short term fix? lessening the blow now, but spreading the problem over the long term?

would a few badly run banks going down really be the end of the world? and something we could not recover from in a couple of years?

i'm not concerned, prices adjust and we pay no matter what, like not receiving interest on current accounts or by tax. besides what can you do about it? *shrug* just consider it catch up for the last decade or two.

my take on a bank failing, i think it's difficult to tell. thing is, uk banks are so large, so if one of them did go under, i think it could be really bad. as long as peoples savings are insured, i think lending would decrease a lot, much lower production etc.

thing is, they're so entwined that it would have a knock on effect, you'd probably end up paying the same amount to the banks that get caught up in the storm that you would pay to save the bank in the first place.

of course i could be completely wrong about this.

good american based article on the deregulation written in 1999 by milton friedman, he was so fucking right - http://www.cato.org/pubs/policy_report/v21n2/friedman.html

bruce greenwald(he's the first lecturer, fat guy with walking stick) has talked on this a few times. this one is difficult to follow but this is the only talk i could find (part 1 and 2, use hq to see tables in video) - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z8HJeeolx8Y

regulation smooths out the business cycle, tax doesn't. that's the only concern i have with tax instead of regulation.

wanted to add, if we didn't help the banks, we would end up with an incredibly long recession, like japans lost decade - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lost_Decade_(Japan)

How is Japan coping with this recession?

I dont think the asian countries are as much affected as the western countries are, but that's just an assumption

i think, production down due to drop in demand for goods, but lending is ok as the banks haven't been hit as they had a home grown version (lost decade). growth is similar to the euro zone i think(bit below zero?).

on the other asian countries, at least china has been hit badly, unemployment very high, exports dropped dramatically, factories closing etc.

Think I read S.Korea narrowly escaped recession.

yeah, south korea i think did some big stimulus package, japan bailed out banks but it didn't stimulate, should have made that clear.

s.korea actions, banks were affected by american links, but they handled it very well. seriously, imagine if they did nothing, or the bare minimum - http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/financetop...risis.html

massive increase in suicides.

And I am no kidding. Apparantly if someone loses his job and can't get something new soon he thinks he loses his face. I even read a story of a 40-something computer specialist temp who was fired at the start of the crisis and starved to death in his empty appartment with only some small coins next to him.


But I suppose you meant the economic reaction. And I don't recall any specific numbers, but I heard they are struggling hard. That is because their economy is so export based and also depends a lot on other industries, and more luxurious consume goods not basic consume goods such a food, etc.
They have pretty much the same problems we (Germans) have with our 6% decline estimate.

if the government needs more tax money then in my layman eyes it's a very good thing to take it from the rich.. fuck em.

£75,000 take home (+ anyone on 150k is going to have huge bonuses) is enough for any family to live very comfortably whereas people on sub £30k salaries can in no way afford to pay more tax with mortgages being as over inflated as they are (even considering the recent dip in prices).

but I question the governments decision to throw money at the banks, imo they should have been left to go under and let the economy take the hit to not leave the people with inflated taxes for the next 10 years

I know I'm over simplifying everything but I don't care, the basic values of this labour government are indeed messed up, but luckily for them the joke of a party that is the conservatives have no chance of getting into power ever again, they are a relic of the past. Here's hoping a pirate party will start up in the uk :)

I can very much see the Conservatives getting into power next May.

no chance

I've got a bad feeling about them :/

What's the point of raising taxes when it reduces the tax take?

"but luckily for them the joke of a party that is the conservatives have no chance of getting into power ever again"

You have to be kidding. They'll win the next election, either you're being mindlessly partisan or you're totally disconnected from politics. I'm not arguing about their worth, just saying they will win.

not saying reduce tax for those on low income, just put the bulk of additional tax on the rich

As for the Conservatives unless the economy turns completely catastrophic, and we vote them in out of desperation just for the sake of trying something different, I think their time has passed.

Labour /Conservatives are so sickeningly similar policy wise these days if people want real change they will go elsewhere. The Conservatives whine about everything Labour do but never offer any solid alternative polices. On a personality level the old-school stiff upper lip authoritarian type politicians that the Conservatives still seem to stick with is not something that appeals to people anymore. Down to earth politicians that people can relate to as peers, your charismatic Obama/Blair type characters, that do not come across as closet pedophiles, seem to be what its all about.

That's normal for an opposition party. You're imagining political cloud cuckoo land, we're where the Conservatives were in '96 for Labour, the Conservatives will win a 100+ majority and probably be in for 2-3 terms before Labour returns.

You're missing my point about the tax take- boosting the level of tax to 50% reduces the tax take from that income bracket as people leave the country or put more effort into tax evasion.

Something real big would need to happen for Labour to survive, like all the conservatives dieing.

i think they didnt want to banks to go under because of Londons position in the financial world. Let the banks go under, and some other country will take our place as financial leaders in the world.

i think that was the thinking at least, besides, the financial industry will probably recover soonish. the financial industry is one of the governments biggest revenue sources.

itt: stop bailing companies and banks out and give everyone a couple of grand to spend, or save. win win

Election day in Iceland. For the first time it looks like we're voting a left wing government. The right wing (Reagan-Thatcher ideology) party that has been in control pretty much always is being punished. I understand it's the other way around in the UK, you're about to punish the left wing for the conservative right wing. We'll be doing that again in a couple years I'm sure.

Here, a high income tax is among the things the crazy left wing communist party (TCLWCP) is trying to introduce right now. Additionally they're looking at raising the general income tax plus introducing property tax. I'm hugely against it since tax raises in our current situation will only suffecate things more. Since we're so few, for a high income tax to count at all it'll be more like a "medium income tax" for people with 2500-3000+ GBP a month. And even then it counts very little. For Britain and US where a high income tax will actually count for something I don't see a problem with it. Certainly the guys in that BBC article don't have my sympathy AT ALL. Particulalry the swedish cunt. What an idiot, moving his family to Jordan or Hong Kong to save a few bucks. Good riddance I'd say.

What age do you get to vote and how often do elections happen?

We vote at 18 years old. Normally election is every four years. Last government only lasted 18 months though. Followed by a temporary "minority government" that has been governing since february, today's election will be probably make them a majority government. However it's two parties that are located quite differently on the political spectrum. For instance they're completely split in the EU debate. One is rooting for EU membership talks immediately in the summer with the other one entirely against it. If we do decide to join the EU, much constitutional changes are needed so a parliamentary dissolution is necessary. So I'd say it's unlikely this government will last a four year term.

Schools, hospitals and all that shit is great but who really wants to pay for bombs that blow up little brown kids? (aside from Jamerio and Daily Mail readers obviously)

complaining about taxes.. ESR is getting old.

This was supposed to be about the people in the article.

oh yeah! :)

a few points on that(especially the comments on "hard work" in the article):

there is a lot research showing the advantages of being a wealthy as a chlid, even in neuroscience. and loads of people work hard who aren't paid highly. there are good, hard working nurses, teachers, cleaners etc. hardly any get highly paid for it. pay never represents hard work alone.

simon taylor from st albans, herts says "It seems to me that the harder you work, the higher you earn and the higher you get taxed". looks like simon will be asking for a pay cut this year. simon also says "I have two daughters and I have made sure they know where they come from.", i'm guessing they're not from a coal mining village like you simon?

jonny from london says "I've booked an appointment with an estate agent and am now looking to move my family to either Jordan or Hong Kong. Mr Darling has really under-estimated the value of non-domiciles like myself. He has made a big mistake". jordan in the west bank and hong kong with one of the largest wealth divides in the world. well hong kong makes sense - really, and i'm guessing he'll have a job in jordan what with it's high unemployment.

david from burntwood will be dead in 5-8 years from stress.

anonymous from the uk unfortunately forgot to give his/her income to compare with his/her 'losses'.

are these for real?

wasn't the thatcher era 60%? wasn't the minimum wage imposed in 1999? during labour? i'm not a big fan of labour but it really looks odd.

I am happy to pay taxes in exchange to social stability, however this has been compromised years ago, the Nordic countries were rules for a short time but the global trend of neo-liberal economics raped them. sadly :( It was probably the best economic model the world has seen, waiting for the inevitable spam of Vernon et.al.

No Order without unity

*ninja edit* the biggest fault is the hyper-individualistic age that we live in, but that's a whole other kettle of fish.

Go vegan - Lose the unnecessary!

lol welcome to Denmark. Taxes here start at 43-50% for anyone, if you make more than 40k£ a year or so you pay 70% up to some higher limit where it decreases a bit again.

btw i'm amazed at the lack of focus on the mp damian green police raid, the whole incidence seems to have vanished along with torture, iraq and ever increasing surveillance and police powers.

most seem more concerned by large amounts of money being used to save the banking system and peoples pay. well people, it's the stuff money buys that makes it valuable, not the money its self.

the damian green police raid is scary shit in my opinion.

just saw this too http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/8021661.stm

There is absolutely no rational argument for a variable income tax.

I say if you want to increase taxes for the high earners, then you need to give them a corresponding amount more in terms of voting power.

So if you are a low earner (in effect a massproduced idiot) you'd not control the country as much, as more intelligent people. Sounds fair no?

That makes the assumption that high earners are more intelligent.

Several studies link intelligence with place in society.

That may be but it clearly isn't a universal fact that all high earners are intelligent.

Better to just give votes to people with proven intelligence, and only allow people with proven intelligence to be elected.

impractical.

Of course, but so is giving more weight to the rich.

true.


how about give most votes to peolpe of middle to upper middle class. They don't have any lobby connections and are tendentially supoosed to be smarter than lower class.
And they already pay lots of taxes.

I mean even my salary drops by 40% because of insurances + taxes.

I don't really see what this would achieve anyway.

In the UK we would probably just see the same old situation albeit with a few more Lib Dem MPs and a few less Labour, BNP MPs.

More likely to be a Conservative government but it looks like it'll end up that way regardless and the politicians seem to do as they please anyway :D.

not like I vote in the UK ;)


Oh, wait I gotta choose among the parties here.

FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU-

I didn't want to talk about how it might affect Germany since I've no idea since you've got a better system than us :)

while I do agree that we have a better system as it makes the politicians make their positions clearer, the people we can choose from really suck.

At least we have some fn parties to vote. like this one: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZalC8kwl3QY&hl=de

http://www.omrlp.com/

don't know how it works in the UK, can they actually get voted?

Because the party I showed you can, and they promised to buy beer for everybody with all the money the receive for the votes :P

Yeah but they don't have many people stand for elections and they don't get many votes (usually just enough so that it's free).

You vote for your local MP directly rather than a party/leader.

studies also show wealth creates intelligence.

i guess that depends on definition of intelligence, but thats definitely interesting

well, I don't think wealth itself helps, but connected factors. For one thing you can afford tutors and such, additionally richer people often have better food which is also a positive factor.

working memory at least. working memory is strongly linked to academic success, so academically probably too. i wouldn't be surprised if iq was there also, but iq has basically been abandoned in serious research.

there's a very good book on the subject, 'whatever it takes' by paul tough. and a paper - http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2009/03/27/...l.pdf+html

private tutoring has been shown to do wonders, i think there was one study took children at the bottom of the school, after less than a year of private tutoring they were on par with the top students. i can't find it unfortunately, but i don't think it's difficult to believe. anders ericcson mentions it in one of his 'deliberate pracitice' papers.

also, a cool study about social rank in rats, even when rats start off as equals a social hierarchy occurs - http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=hierachies-among-equals - i can't see why this wouldn't be the same in humans. another article on social status and infants - http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/fb7535b4-dc30-11dc-...ck_check=1

interesting

wouldn't parental help constitute private tutoring as well?

sure, but even private tutoring by parents requires them to have time and money, and maybe limited by their own education.

Tax the lower income people more as they're earning less imo :P TBH your argument about voting power is quite valid. And the tax system is unrewarding. Why and try and move into a higher tax bracket when your taxes will compensate for the difference in pay. It's quite socialist, I know my government (South Africa) has similiar tax schemes to the rest of the world, it's like the government wants you raking in no more than R20 000 per month (~$2000pm).

£150,000 makes any income look low

Even though I don't love the tax policy of my country, I still think all the athletes/businessmen/celebrities who earn millions but betray their country as tax runaways should go fuck themselves.

You are member of the country where you pay your taxes to. Kimi Räikkönen that piping-voiced wanker should race in the name of Monaco or whatever country's citizen he is. In my eyes he is as finnish as Robert Mugabe.

Reminds me of when Lewis Hamilton said he was moving to Monaco to 'escape the paparazzi in the UK' ... hahaha yeah right ... tax dodging cunt

cunt period. also fia needs to go kill itself.

on a more serious note this thread is pointless. so i guess we shouldnt go into more serious notes :).

don't know why i didn't mention the toxic asset buy up before.

if the central banks who bought up toxic assets from banks, bought the toxic assets at a good price, then they could pay for them selves and even be profitable, paying for the 'saving the banks' deficit in less time and less by the tax payer than people realise.

not that this recession isn't bad, it's hugely bad.