General Election June 8th

[cibaman]

This is the biggest misconception in right aligned politics in the world. Government's budgets don't work like your household budget and they're not comparable at all.

Money doesn't run out. Every piece of spending is an INVESTMENT in the country.

We put money into the NHS for example because healthy citizens can work and spend money.

We put money into the Police because safe communities with low crime means less people in jail, more people willing to spend and more money in the economy.

We put money into elderly care because it incentives people to continue working knowing that they'll be taken care of.

This isn't a shopping bill.

Didn't the money effectively "run out" when Denis Healey needed a bail out from the IMF? Or can that not happen again?

 

[Blue Mooner]

This is the biggest misconception in right aligned politics in the world. Government's budgets don't work like your household budget and they're not comparable at all.

Money doesn't run out. Every piece of spending is an INVESTMENT in the country.

We put money into the NHS for example because healthy citizens can work and spend money.

We put money into the Police because safe communities with low crime means less people in jail, more people willing to spend and more money in the economy.

We put money into elderly care because it incentives people to continue working knowing that they'll be taken care of.

This isn't a shopping bill.

It's exactly like a household budget. I make investments in my house which I am hoping give me a return, but other sorts of spending, like netflix (The comparison that the Guardian journalist used, not me) or eating out are for personal enjoyment that might enrich my life, but somewhere down the line might indirectly return to me if the company I work for secures a contract with that business but essentially that money has gone and I have no control over it. In my case i work in sales so the link might be even more direct I might sell to the business I have consumed from.

Governments face exactly the same spending choices. Some are infrastructure investments that provide a return, some like spending on consultants, spending on benefits, public sector salaries, extra police wages might flow back but some of it might be spent abroad, transferred home in the case of temporary migrants and disappear out of the country.

The fact is there is money coming in, and money coming out, too much of the latter over the former and there are massive negative consequences as we have seen in history. Countries can go bankrupt, as can people, it doesn't mean the end of the world but it means your credit rating goes down, borrowing becomes stupidly expensive and your ability to make best use of continued tax receipts is removed. Its selfish behaviour quite frankly putting the burden of your borrowing on following generations.

You really do believe in a magic money tree,..

 

[Chippy_boy]

This has never been proven by any wide ranging study done on it. For the record.

Well, I didn't have to search too hard. Here's a wide ranging study for you, in the form a 60 page report from HMRC, which uses data from actual UK tax returns and also cites 11 studies conducted across the world.

The report is too long and would require too much of my time to fully digest, but it's pretty comprehensive and looks at all sorts of aspects of behaviour. Anyway, I noticed this:

Executive Summary <except>

The uncertainty regarding the extent to which the unwinding of this forestalled income depressed incomes in 2010-11 makes isolating the true underlying behavioural response to the additional rate challenging. A number of approaches were considered but the most statistically robust model has much in common with the approach contained in the Mirrlees review1 , which examined responses to tax rates changes in the 1970s and 1980s.

The modelling suggests the underlying behavioural response was greater than estimated previously in Budget 2009 and in March Budget 2010, decreasing the pre-behavioural yield by at least 83 per cent. This result is also consistent with that contained in the Mirrlees review, and suggests the additional rate is a highly distortionary form of taxation.

Although there is uncertainty around these estimates, sensitivity testing demonstrates that is difficult to construct a plausible outcome consistent with a yield estimate as high as those original forecasts.

The conclusion that can be drawn from the Self Assessment data is therefore that the underlying yield from the additional rate is much lower than originally forecast (yielding around £1 billion or less), and that it is quite possible that it could be negative.

http://webarchive.nationalarchives.....gov.uk/budget2012/excheq-income-tax-2042.pdf

 

[Ancient Citizen]

This has never been proven by any wide ranging study done on it. For the record.

Check out when the tax rates were 83%, plus 15% on anything in the bank.
'Exile on Main Street' was an album by the Stones, why did these multi millionaires, and many more with them, leave?
Bit of a flippant source, I agree, but people in this bracket can go where the fuck they like, because they've got
umpteen properties abroad.
Just imagine if they'd stayed here, the UK would have received 45% of an awful lot of money, with a sensible
tax rate, instead it received 100% of jack shit.

 

[hilts]

So if I've got a gun pointing at your head and tell you I'm not going to use it so why don't you pick yours up would you believe me ? Anyway I'm hardly going to vote for him, I helped design the fucking things.
PS there are some protocols in place that can take it out of the PM's hands if that puts your mind at rest, having said that with someone as stupid as me being one of the principle designers they probably won't get off the ground, sleep well :-)

Your expertise in this field is irrelevant to the question at hand. Should a PM say he would use a nuclear deterrent as a last resort. By your logic I cannot answer you gun analogy unless name is Mr Gloch

 

[Prestwich_Blue]

What would stop anyone using a nuclear weapon knowing that they would not endure any consequences for doing so?

So how many nations that don't have the ability to retaliate against a nuclear attack in kind have suffered nuclear attacks since 1945?

 

[kevin horlocks wand]

Check out when the tax rates were 83%, plus 15% on anything in the bank.
'Exile on Main Street' was an album by the Stones, why did these multi millionaires, and many more with them, leave?
Bit of a flippant source, I agree, but people in this bracket can go where the fuck they like, because they've got
umpteen properties abroad.
Just imagine if they'd stayed here, the UK would have received 45% of an awful lot of money, with a sensible
tax rate, instead it received 100% of jack shit.

With higher rates these people are not bothered about the tax take they are bothered about punishing people. It makes them feel great that high achievers can get their hard earned money off them and they rub their hands in glee when they do.

Half is plenty.

 

[hilts]

So a politician should be dishonest with himself or the voters. I thought I had seen it all on blue moon.

In this case he should tell a big whopper absolutely and for very obvious reasons

 

[jay_mcfc]

Governments face exactly the same spending choices. Some are infrastructure investments that provide a return, some like spending on consultants, spending on benefits, public sector salaries, extra police wages might flow back but some of it might be spent abroad, transferred home in the case of temporary migrants and disappear out of the country.

Congratulations, you managed to get in benefits, public sector salaries and money going abroad all into one paragraph. Which money going abroad is the biggest problem for the economy, the rich sending their money to offshore tax havens or the migrant sending his £30 pw to his family in Poland? Benefits to Brits go straight back into the system, police need paying believe it or not and you're completely ignoring money coming into the country from abroad.

 

[cibaman]

Check out when the tax rates were 83%, plus 15% on anything in the bank.
'Exile on Main Street' was an album by the Stones, why did these multi millionaires, and many more with them, leave?
Bit of a flippant source, I agree, but people in this bracket can go where the fuck they like, because they've got
umpteen properties abroad.
Just imagine if they'd stayed here, the UK would have received 45% of an awful lot of money, with a sensible
tax rate, instead it received 100% of jack shit.

I'm not sure there will be a mad scamble to the airports next Friday. Most businesses and wealthy individuals will probably initially work on the assumption that its a 5 year problem. That Corbyn will not be re-elected. In that context there's a massive amount of legitimate tax planning that they can do to defer tax for a few years. Plough money into their pensions, re-structure their compensation packages etc. Businesses will also defer investment decisions. There'll still be a huge hole in the tax revenues without necessarily many leaving the country.

 

[Chippy_boy]

I'm not sure there will be a mad scamble to the airports next Friday. Most businesses and wealthy individuals will probably initially work on the assumption that its a 5 year problem. That Corbyn will not be re-elected. In that context there's a massive amount of legitimate tax planning that they can do to defer tax for a few years. Plough money into their pensions, re-structure their compensation packages etc. Businesses will also defer investment decisions. There'll still be a huge hole in the tax revenues without necessarily many leaving the country.

Inevitably. Pay themselves less for a while. Pay themselves in dividends instead of income. Pay themselves abroad.

I'll repeat what HMRC said in their extensive analysis following the last introduction of a 50p rate:

The conclusion that can be drawn from the Self Assessment data is therefore that the underlying yield from the additional rate is much lower than originally forecast (yielding around £1 billion or less), and that it is quite possible that it could be negative.

 

[Vic]

I guess you're one of those, who, shall we say, hasn't yet grasped exactly what's happened,
and indeed, still happening. The Deficit v Debt structure has been explained in extremely simple terms,
obviously not simple enough.

I understand the distinction. It's still a crap debt, higher than the Tories promised because 7 years of ideological austerity have not cut the deficit.

Oh dear oh dear. The "pitch" is simple, because that's just what it is, a pitch. Have you ever heard of being over-sold and under-delivered?

And the crap debt has gone up, because of Labour's deficit. The one Labour presided over, and which they created BEFORE the crash of 2007. The crash made it worse, but they had already managed to turn a surplus into a deficit and rising debt, BEFORE the crash. They had already increased taxes on everyone and it still didn't raise enough money to stop us going into deficit.

Now, if you want to engage your mind for a moment, you might want to stop and ponder why that was?

Why is it that despite raising taxes right across the board, Labour managed to turn a budget surplus into a significant deficit? If Jeremy's plans are to be believed, this should not happen. So why did it happen under Blair and Brown? Puzzling eh?

The answer is so obvious and yet very very very unfortunate for anyone who likes the idea of a Labour government: Raising taxes depresses the economy. Raising tax rates, generates less tax revenue. Corbyn's money-tree is a big fat lie.

I know that's painful, and nearly half the electorate cannot bring themselves to face the truth, because that would mean accepting that they cannot vote Labour. So they ignore it and pretend it will be OK this time, when it's NEVER been OK before.

• Taxing the rich more, just causes them to move. It doesn't generate anything like the predicted additional tax revenues.
• Big corporations pay corporation taxes almost voluntarily. They employ fancy lawyers and complex financial affairs to obfuscate and confuse their tax affairs. Put corporation taxes up and they just move profits elsewhere so they can pay less. Or they leave the country altogether, and jobs with it. Smaller businesses have to pay it, so it's like penalising small businesses and not the larger ones. Very unfair.
• Putting up the minimum wage will put people out of work. Every Labour government ends up putting people out of work. Check the historical stats. Labour put people out of work. That's what they do. Tories get people back to work. That's why we have record employment levels now.

Labour. A nice idea. Doesn't work.

So much tosh in there. The huge post war spike in unemployment was down entirely to Thatcher and her ideology.

The tax arguments are rather down to choice between those who think inequality is choice and those who would rather not let people choose to have inequality.

In any case the biggest increase in tax to GDP ratio was under the coalition and it's now just back to where Labour left it in 2010 (having had it lower before the crash).

They get you one way or another. Save income tax and pay more VAT and the stealth taxes like insurance and flying (Thomson offering £60 return flights to various places of which £45 is tax).

 

[Ancient Citizen]

Didn't the money effectively "run out" when Denis Healey needed a bail out from the IMF? Or can that not happen again?

That's exactly what happened, and it happened when Healey imperiously declared that he'd 'Tax the Rich until the Pips Squeak'
Those with the kind of money he lusted after, as Jezza is doing now, immediately decamped abroad or re-arranged their
tax affairs to massively avoid these punitive rates.
So, again, 83% of jack shit.

 

[Ancient Citizen]

I understand the distinction. It's still a crap debt, higher than Osborne promised because 7 years of ideological austerity have not cut the deficit.

Wrong again, the deficit is now around a quarter of what it was before the Tories took over, it was around £170 billion,
it's far lower now and is forecast to continue to do so, when it does the debt can be addressed.
So you still don't understand.

 

[Ancient Citizen]

I'm not sure there will be a mad scamble to the airports next Friday. Most businesses and wealthy individuals will probably initially work on the assumption that its a 5 year problem. That Corbyn will not be re-elected. In that context there's a massive amount of legitimate tax planning that they can do to defer tax for a few years. Plough money into their pensions, re-structure their compensation packages etc. Businesses will also defer investment decisions. There'll still be a huge hole in the tax revenues without necessarily many leaving the country.

Yes, I'd go along with that scenario, but many will indeed go, the question is when. However, rearranging tax affairs as you describe
will certainly be happening, which further compounds the problem.
Either way, tax revenues will take a hit.

 

[Blue Mooner]

Congratulations, you managed to get in benefits, public sector salaries and money going abroad all into one paragraph. Which money going abroad is the biggest problem for the economy, the rich sending their money to offshore tax havens or the migrant sending his £30 pw to his family in Poland? Benefits to Brits go straight back into the system, police need paying believe it or not and you're completely ignoring money coming into the country from abroad.

You can't stop any migrant doing what they want with the cash they have earned in this country but it doesn't mean it isn't happening. As for the offshore stuff clearly if tax rules are being broken then the government should look to recover that money, if it's legitimate tax planning it's for the government of the day to assess what is reasonable and ensure they do it in a way that doesn't de-incentivise successful people to live, work and and contribute to the country.

I haven't ignored money coming into the country that is one source if money on the income side of the equation.

I don't begrudge anyone benefits that need them, police who do a fantastic job, it was simply to highlight that you can't claim all government spending to be an investment. I might choose not to spend any of my police salary and live off my wife's wage, at which point I might emigrate to Australia and all that 'investment goes with it.

 

[arbabarshad]

Oh dear oh dear. The "pitch" is simple, because that's just what it is, a pitch. Have you ever heard of being over-sold and under-delivered?

Oh yes, immigration targets over the last 7 years is a great example.
And the £350m a week in the last 12 months.

 

[Metal Biker]

So how many nations that don't have the ability to retaliate against a nuclear attack in kind have suffered nuclear attacks since 1945?

zero, because when you cannot threaten to use them, there is no need for the 'threatened' to retaliate with them, which was kind of the point about M.A.D.

The US could have used them in Vietnam, the Soviets in Afghanistan, but neither did as each one feared the others capability to intervene by using them. The Cuban Missile Crisis is the best example of what happens when two nations with a large nuclear arsenal, were capable of using their nukes against the other, but due to the threat of mutually assured destruction, held off until a diplomatic answer was able to resolve the issue.

 

[The perfect fumble]

The scary thing about Corbyn and McDonough is that they plan to take this socialist dogma to levels never seen before and at a time when we are still running a deficit of 40billion. To say it's a frightening thought is an understatement.

I'll tell you what's scary, just how much the right hates the British people, how fearful Tories are, how miniscule their aspirations and how skin crawlingly deferential.

The right embraces a vision of this country where the great unwashed must forever live in vain hope, but not expectation, that the rich (the wealth creators! A race apart!) might, from time to time, throw them the odd scrap, if not pestered too much.

It's this odd combination of pathetic little englander chest beating and supine, forelock tugging, take it up the arse cowardice, that makes me loathe the right so much. I can understand why a hedge fund managers might be a Tory, but the vast majority of Tory foot soldiers have little more than a few crumbs more than the next guy, but that is enough to differentiate them, and in fear that these pathetic extra crumbs might be snatched from them by the undeserving poor, they'll kick the man below them, while simultaneously licking the boots of their masters.

These sad souls live in a world so tiny, so full of prejudice, a world of no hope, where the great majority must live and die by the grace of others. A place where the masses are viewed as nothing more than unthinking cattle.

The right reduces people to figures on a balance sheet, they are either an asset or a liability, in an economic system controlled by a tiny minority and designed for their benefit, and anyone with more than half an ounce of sense can see it.

 

[Vic]

That's exactly what happened, and it happened when Healey imperiously declared that he'd 'Tax the Rich until the Pips Squeak'
Those with the kind of money he lusted after, as Jezza is doing now, immediately decamped abroad or re-arranged their
tax affairs to massively avoid these punitive rates.
So, again, 83% of jack shit.

It isn't exactly what happened. I can't be arsed going through why Healey had to ask for a loan (which wasn't all needed anyway). Who does this government borrow from?

Wrong again, the deficit is now around a quarter of what it was before the Tories took over, it was around £170 billion,
it's far lower now and is forecast to continue to do so, when it does the debt can be addressed.
So you still don't understand.

It's still a deficit they said we wouldn't have and the debt is still getting crappier.