Another new Brexit thread

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Chippy_boy said:
Interesting comments.

I had not heard of "Atkinsons Inequality", so I did a quick google and considered perhaps buying a copy and having a read. And I read the precis on Amazon:

"Inequality is one of our most urgent social problems. Curbed in the decades after World War II, it has recently returned with a vengeance. We all know the scale of the problem talk about the 99% and the 1% is entrenched in public debate but there has been little discussion of what we can do but despair. According to the distinguished economist Anthony Atkinson, however, we can do much more than skeptics imagine. Atkinson has long been at the forefront of research on inequality, and brings his theoretical and practical experience to bear on its diverse problems. He presents a comprehensive set of policies that could bring about a genuine shift in the distribution of income in developed countries. The problem, Atkinson shows, is not simply that the rich are getting richer."...

I am significant deterred from further reading as a result of that line. It bothers me. Why, because that is not the problem at all. In fact it's great that the rich are getting richer. The problem is why are the poor not getting richer at the same rate. The poor ARE getting richer of course, although the left would have you believe otherwise. The "poor" now drive cars when only a few decades ago, they did not. They have large flatscreen TV's ditto. You get the picture. The standards of living of everyone in society are on an upwards trend and have been for decades. And yet the book seeks to describe "the problem" as "the rich are getting richer"??? Really???

In China only a few decades ago, 1 billion people - give or take - lived in abject poverty. Nowadays whereas many are still in poverty, tens if not hundreds of millions are not. And yet China now has hundreds of billionaires. Can China's problems be described as "the rich are getting richer"? Milllions in China have got richer to some degree. Would they prefer to go back to when everyone was poor? I doubt it.
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It is a problem if the rich are getting rich off rents earned from the poor (that is rent in the wider sense of the word, not just income from housing property). I recommend Atkinson's book. He's not a lefty, or a righty, and he was very well respected.
 
bluejon said:
It is a problem if the rich are getting rich off rents earned from the poor (that is rent in the wider sense of the word, not just income from housing property). I recommend Atkinson's book. He's not a lefty, or a righty, and he was very well respected.
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Is it?

So long as both rich and poor are getting richer, then that's a good thing, right? If the rich are getting richer and the poor getting poorer, then yes that's a problem, but I don't see that as a trend anywhere in the developed world. Over the course of a few years you get variations for sure but the long term trend for both rich and poor is upwards.

And inequality is a good thing. It is one of the prime motivations for hard work and excellence, since without the ability to be rewarded more than someone else, why work harder than them?

Seems to me the debate should be about how do we get faster growth in affluence amongst the poor, and really not much more than that. Am I bothered whether some billionaire has £3bn or only £2bn, or perhaps has £4bn? Honestly I don't give a stuff. I would hope people concentrated on how well off they are, rather than losing sleep about someone else being better off than them. It seems some people (on here especially!) are fixated on the latter.
 
Manc in London said:
If anything, I think such a deal would likely see us back in the EU in a few years. Which, personally, I would be happy about.
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Which is why I find most baffling why adamant remainers refuse to support one as a compromise to leaving.
 
Chippy_boy said:
Is it?

So long as both rich and poor are getting richer, then that's a good thing, right? If the rich are getting richer and the poor getting poorer, then yes that's a problem, but I don't see that as a trend anywhere in the developed world. Over the course of a few years you get variations for sure but the long term trend for both rich and poor is upwards.

And inequality is a good thing. It is one of the prime motivations for hard work and excellence, since without the ability to be rewarded more than someone else, why work harder than them?

Seems to me the debate should be about how do we get faster growth in affluence amongst the poor, and really not much more than that. Am I bothered whether some billionaire has £3bn or only £2bn, or perhaps has £4bn? Honestly I don't give a stuff. I would hope people concentrated on how well off they are, rather than losing sleep about someone else being better off than them.
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Rent seeking behaviour by capital is by it's very nature destructive to an economy. It doesn't produce anything of worth, it just sucks out value and hands it to those already with excess capital. I'm fully in favour of the productive use of capital, it built the societies we live in, but rent seeking is just fucking lazy and counter productive. As for inequality being a good thing, I'd argue that only stands true if inequality is balanced, which it is not at the moment. Billionaires do not need another billion when that money could be put to better use. Besides, when all the increase in income goes only to the richest, they don't spent anything like as much as a percentage of their earnings in the wider economy, which subsequently shrinks the economy. And finally, when you talk about trends in increase in wealth, those trends are only good at the point where the rate of growth is the same for both (or less for capital as those with capital consists of a much smaller percentage of the population). At this moment in time, the rate of return on capital is greater than the rate of growth in wages. Due to compound interest, this means we're moving back to a similar state of affairs that we had economically in victorian times. I'm paraphrasing from Piketty here, he describes it much more coherently than i ever could.
 
bluejon said:
Rent seeking behaviour by capital is by it's very nature destructive to an economy. It doesn't produce anything of worth, it just sucks out value and hands it to those already with excess capital. I'm fully in favour of the productive use of capital, it built the societies we live in, but rent seeking is just fucking lazy and counter productive. As for inequality being a good thing, I'd argue that only stands true if inequality is balanced, which it is not at the moment. Billionaires do not need another billion when that money could be put to better use. Besides, when all the increase in income goes only to the richest, they don't spent anything like as much as a percentage of their earnings in the wider economy, which subsequently shrinks the economy. And finally, when you talk about trends in increase in wealth, those trends are only good at the point where the rate of growth is the same for both (or less for capital as those with capital consists of a much smaller percentage of the population). At this moment in time, the rate of return on capital is greater than the rate of growth in wages. Due to compound interest, this means we're moving back to a similar state of affairs that we had economically in victorian times. I'm paraphrasing from Piketty here, he describes it much more coherently than i ever could.
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Great post. Economist Michael Hudson describes it as neo feudalism. That's where we are today and it's unsustainable. The question is where do we go from here.
 
We 100% need an election now. Nothing can actually get sorted until we do.

Right now politics and parliament in particular are a joke. I’d get rid of all of them
 
Mike D said:
Not sure who it was who challenged me on No Deal Brexiters being like a death cult here's further evidence to back up what was a flippant comment

Jess Phillips has said she received a death threat which quoted Boris Johnson.

“I have had a death threat this week that literally quoted the prime minister and used the prime minister’s name and words in a death threat that was delivered to my staff,” she said, while asking an urgent question in the House of Commons.

The threat read: “To quote Boris Johnson … people like you who don’t support Brexit will be found dead in a ditch’,” Ms Phillips told the BBC.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/...brexit-speech-labour-parliament-a9121231.html

Maybe some don't take this too seriously but we already have one dead MP and the PM describing her friends kind words about the tone of language as a humbug!!
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He’s been told to check his language but he won’t and him using the name of Jo Cox to push Brexit is a fucking disgrace.

He knows what he’s doing and he’s doing what Trump has done in America, the pair of cunts.
 
bluejon said:
Rent seeking behaviour by capital is by it's very nature destructive to an economy. It doesn't produce anything of worth, it just sucks out value and hands it to those already with excess capital. I'm fully in favour of the productive use of capital, it built the societies we live in, but rent seeking is just fucking lazy and counter productive. As for inequality being a good thing, I'd argue that only stands true if inequality is balanced, which it is not at the moment. Billionaires do not need another billion when that money could be put to better use. Besides, when all the increase in income goes only to the richest, they don't spent anything like as much as a percentage of their earnings in the wider economy, which subsequently shrinks the economy. And finally, when you talk about trends in increase in wealth, those trends are only good at the point where the rate of growth is the same for both (or less for capital as those with capital consists of a much smaller percentage of the population). At this moment in time, the rate of return on capital is greater than the rate of growth in wages. Due to compound interest, this means we're moving back to a similar state of affairs that we had economically in victorian times. I'm paraphrasing from Piketty here, he describes it much more coherently than i ever could.
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I fully get your arguments which are well explained. But I am not sure I agree with all of them. Whose to say that someone with £2bn doesn't need another £500m? That's for them to judge, not you or I. Yachts with helipads don't come cheap you know! And we talk about billionaires but in reality they are an extreme example and there aren't many of them. What about a millionaire, who has a nice house and a nice car, but who can't yet afford a Bentley? Should we take more of his money off him, because no-one *needs* a Bentley? Do you want to live in a society where no-one can afford a Bentley? I think some people on here do!

Your point about whether money tied up in rich peoples' bank accounts is being put to good use, is a strong one. It's hard to argue that more good for society as a whole could not be made of it. But looking at that in isolation is a very simplistic view. It doesn't ask how did that money get there in the first place, and would it ever have got there had the system been so penal as to prevent it? Will others take the risks and make the investments needed to be so succcessful, if the "reward" for doing so is either marginal, or worse perhaps even nil? Of course they would not. Why would anyone go the extra mile to earn 2p in the pound, which was the highest marginal tax rate under Harold Wilson's government. Indeed why would anyone even stick around to pay any tax at all, and of course they didn't - they buggered off.

Anyway, we're probably a bit off topic with respect to the Brexit discussion so I'll leave it there. I enjoyed our discussion however. Thanks!
 
aguerrrroooooooooooo said:
Do everyone's palaces and private islands disappear when labour goes into power? [emoji848]
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Many, yes. But more to the point, no-one has any chance of getting one if Labour gets into power. Because Labour will punish the rich and make it impossible for anyone new to gate crash the scene.

Incidentally, have you any clue how many "palaces" the National Trust and English Heritage owns because the former owners can no longer afford to keep them? Neither have I, but it's most of them.
 
I think if we could get a deal with some kind of altered backstop arrangement, whatever that would be - it would hopefully get through parliment.

If that didn’t get through. then I think the accusation of mps ‘basically not wanting brexit’ would be pretty clear.

We have a parliament at the minute that doesn’t know what it wants and will basically reject anything, without giving any answers to anything
 
robbieh said:
Great post. Economist Michael Hudson describes it as neo feudalism. That's where we are today and it's unsustainable. The question is where do we go from here.
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@Chippy_boy is right, we are moving a bit off topic here sooooooo, to bring it right back to the shit storm we currently find ourselves in right now, I don't think we can answer your question until we know what version of brexit (if any) is coming. No deal brexit, things are just going to get worse as all the indications from Lord Protector Johnson are he's going to turn us into a tax haven. And I don't know Michael Hudson, I'll check him out. Nice one.
 
Cheadle_hulmeBlue said:
I think if we could get a deal with some kind of altered backstop arrangement, whatever that would be - it would hopefully get through parliment.

If that didn’t get through. then I think the accusation of mps ‘basically not wanting brexit’ would be pretty clear.

We have a parliament at the minute that doesn’t know what it wants and will basically reject anything, without giving any answers to anything
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Yep a revised deal that alters or deals with the backstop in a meaningful way should get through but you know what mate?

It wont because despite the protestations of many in the house saying they just want to stop no deal.....its bullshit.

They want to stop brexit.
 
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