Green shoots?

[Johnny Bognor]

wow thats great the likes of McDonalds taking on more staff etc is really going to help get our deficit down rather than making real value added products to sell abroad;)

 

That's right, because services is all about flipping burgers. Financial Services, Telecoms, Consulting, Media/Publishing, Software, Advertising/Marketing, Retail, Transportation doesn't generate any wealth whatsoever. We could do without the likes of Barclays, HSBC, PWC, Deloitte, Sage, Tesco, Virgin, BA, BT, Vodafone etc etc. They don't really employ anyone, make any profit or export anything at all. I think we should shut them all down.

 

As an observation, it is quite funny how the lefties talk down the economy, it is almost as if they want it to fail, the result of which would be more cuts to the beloved public sector. Funny bunch really.....

[Tokyo-Saint]

I'm up for shutting down Virgin Johnny. You are right about the rest though.

[Johnny Bognor]

wow thats great the likes of McDonalds taking on more staff etc is really going to help get our deficit down rather than making real value added products to sell abroad;)

 

That's right, because services is all about flipping burgers. Financial Services, Telecoms, Consulting, Media/Publishing, Software, Advertising/Marketing, Retail, Transportation doesn't generate any wealth whatsoever. We could do without the likes of Barclays, HSBC, PWC, Deloitte, Sage, Tesco, Virgin, BA, BT, Vodafone etc etc. They don't really employ anyone, make any profit or export anything at all. I think we should shut them all down.

 

As an observation, it is quite funny how the lefties talk down the economy, it is almost as if they want it to fail, the result of which would be more cuts to the beloved public sector. Funny bunch really.....

[solentstars]

That's right, because services is all about flipping burgers. Financial Services, Telecoms, Consulting, Media/Publishing, Software, Advertising/Marketing, Retail, Transportation doesn't generate any wealth whatsoever. We could do without the likes of Barclays, HSBC, PWC, Deloitte, Sage, Tesco, Virgin, BA, BT, Vodafone etc etc. They don't really employ anyone, make any profit or export anything at all. I think we should shut them all down.

 

As an observation, it is quite funny how the lefties talk down the economy, it is almost as if they want it to fail, the result of which would be more cuts to the beloved public sector. Funny bunch really.....

this guy leftie is he related to righty by any chance;) my earler post was just abit of fun .

[buctootim]

We don't sell our services abroad? My company does... That's pretty much all we do.

 

I had you down more for buying services abroad.

[saintfully]

Good times

 

Yeeehah - whats your annual GDP guess for 2014 Trousers? 3%, 4%???

[trousers]

Yeeehah - whats your annual GDP guess for 2014 Trousers? 3%, 4%???

 

I tend to look further into the future than that. Some pain now to make life easier for the next generation. In fact, I care so much about other people I'd probably make a cracking socialist.

[saintfully]

I tend to look further into the future than that. Some pain now to make life easier for the next generation. In fact, I care so much about other people I'd probably make a cracking socialist.

 

Time to emerge from your closet then - standing proud and brandishing your red credentials!!!

 

(innuendo intended)

[Verbal]

As an observation, it is quite funny how the lefties talk down the economy, it is almost as if they want it to fail, the result of which would be more cuts to the beloved public sector. Funny bunch really.....

 

Actually, righties do a much better job at resorting to tired cliches to misrepresent economic activity to justify such cuts and ignore the extraordinary degree to which the private sector has in many cases developed a junkie's dependence on the public sector. The Victorian idea of a private sector rampaging away with innovation and wealth creation is a today a myth (it was never true anyway, in the sense that unregulated capitalism in Victorian times produced some spectacular disasters - economic and physical). Government and agency contracts issued to the private sector dominate in many parts of the economy, including defence, health and what's loosely called the cultural industries.

 

The fate of apprenticeships is a good example of this dependency culture among our great 'wealth creators'. Historically (and certainly until their sharp decline in the 1980s), apprenticeships were run entirely by companies or were organised by guilds and other craft organisations paid for by those companies. Today, apprenticeships rise and fall depending on the extent to which the government is prepared to subsidise them.

 

But perhaps both political wings could do well to be a little more evidence-based. Take the common moan from left and right about the decline of our ability to actually make things - the Left because of Thatcherism and the Right because of the unions. Actually, Britain exports more cars than Germany, Nissan's (government-intervened) Sunderland factory alone manufactures more cars than all of Italy, and so successful is Britain's car-making that Fiat is relocating its global HQ here.

 

So as important as the services sector is, it would be foolish to allow our routine prejudices about manufacturing to ignore the fact that a real recovery will need to be driven by other than the Barclays-to-McDonalds economy, and that the reason the car industry, for example, does so relatively well is because the real wealth creators are a skilled and committed workforce.

[Johnny Bognor]

this guy leftie is he related to righty by any chance;) my earler post was just abit of fun .

 

I know, but the underlying sentiment is one shared by the lefties as a whole.

 

But perhaps both political wings could do well to be a little more evidence-based. Take the common moan from left and right about the decline of our ability to actually make things - the Left because of Thatcherism and the Right because of the unions. Actually, Britain exports more cars than Germany, Nissan's (government-intervened) Sunderland factory alone manufactures more cars than all of Italy, and so successful is Britain's car-making that Fiat is relocating its global HQ here.

 

So as important as the services sector is, it would be foolish to allow our routine prejudices about manufacturing to ignore the fact that a real recovery will need to be driven by other than the Barclays-to-McDonalds economy, and that the reason the car industry, for example, does so relatively well is because the real wealth creators are a skilled and committed workforce.

 

I won't talk down any sector of the wealth creating economy. Britain still has the 5th largest manufacturing industry in the world based on total output. Something to be proud of considering we are a little rock off the coast of Europe. I have been an advocate of UK manufacturing as we are one of the key global players in high tech, aerospace, defence and research based manufacturing. In terms of total output, things have actually never been better (don't let the lefties have you believe otherwise). The issue for manufacturing is that employment in manufacturing has plummeted. The lefties like to blame maggie, some may blame the unions, but it is in large due to automation and globalisation as the trend has affected the whole of the westernised world.

 

So I wouldn't put down manufacturing in the same way that the lefties seem to always put down service industries. The future for the UK in this modern world is in design / IP / information / innovation and the UK is well placed to play its part. If a business makes profits, pays its taxes and exports, then for me it is to be championed, irrespective of what sector it operates in.

[buctootim]

I know, but the underlying sentiment is one shared by the lefties as a whole.

 

 

 

I won't talk down any sector of the wealth creating economy. Britain still has the 5th largest manufacturing industry in the world based on total output. Something to be proud of considering we are a little rock off the coast of Europe. I have been an advocate of UK manufacturing as we are one of the key global players in high tech, aerospace, defence and research based manufacturing. In terms of total output, things have actually never been better (don't let the lefties have you believe otherwise). The issue for manufacturing is that employment in manufacturing has plummeted. The lefties like to blame maggie, some may blame the unions, but it is in large due to automation and globalisation as the trend has affected the whole of the westernised world.

 

So I wouldn't put down manufacturing in the same way that the lefties seem to always put down service industries. The future for the UK in this modern world is in design / IP / information / innovation and the UK is well placed to play its part. If a business makes profits, pays its taxes and exports, then for me it is to be championed, irrespective of what sector it operates in.

 

No-one is talking down the British economy. Its the talking up of policies which are actually hindering recovery and / or are almost criminally counter productive (eg the Help to Buy scheme) as some how being the saviours of the UK economy which attract the criticism.

[OldNick]

No-one is talking down the British economy. Its the talking up of policies which are actually hindering recovery and / or are almost criminally counter productive (eg the Help to Buy scheme) as some how being the saviours of the UK economy which attract the criticism.

why is the help to buy scheme counter productive?

Surely we need people to start buying houses again, to help move the economy on.

[badgerx16]

why is the help to buy scheme counter productive?

Surely we need people to start buying houses again, to help move the economy on.

 

Why do the IMF, Mervyn King, and many leading city economists like Albert Edwards think it's a bad idea ? That all it is doing is fuelling a new house price bubble that, should it fail, will lead to the taxpayer ( as underwriters of the loans ) having to pick up the tab.

 

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/personalfinance/borrowing/mortgages/10074452/IMF-warns-on-dangers-of-Help-to-Buy-mortgage-scheme.html

http://www.irishtimes.com/business/london-briefing-osborne-savaged-over-moronic-help-to-buy-scheme-1.1416951

[buctootim]

why is the help to buy scheme counter productive?

Surely we need people to start buying houses again, to help move the economy on.

 

Because it uses £15.5bn of government money (£3.5bn expenditure and £12bn of loan guarantees) to enable people to saddle themselves with even bigger loans. In doing so the scheme is reversing the welcome trend of gently declining house prices (in real terms after inflation) which have long been too high due to lack of new building. Almost any other use of the money you could think of would have had more beneficial effects on the economy - a government backed house building program, tax cuts, investment in infrastructure, public services, paying down debt etc.

 

People in the UK already pay a very high proportion of their income for generally small and poor quality housing. Osbourne could have done something to improve that situation, it was a stroke of genius to find one of the few ways to spend taxpayers money to make things worse.

Edited 7 June, 2013 by buctootim

[solentstars]

Because it uses £15.5bn of government money (£3.5bn expenditure and £12bn of loan guarantees) to enable people to saddle themselves with even bigger loans. In doing so the scheme is reversing the trend of gently declining house prices (in real terms after inflation) and driving up the prices which are already too high due to lack of building.Almost any other use of the money you could think of would have had more beneficial effects on the economy - a government backed house building program, tax cuts, investment in infrastructure, public services, paying down debt etc.

 

People in the UK already pay a very high proportion of their income for generally small and poor quality housing. Osbourne could have done something to improve that situation, it was a stroke of genius to find one of the few ways to spend taxpayers money to make things worse.

 

Agree and its one of the most stupid uses of scarce resources.

 

Sent from my Nexus 4 using Tapatalk 2

Edited 7 June, 2013 by solentstars

[pap]

Because it uses £15.5bn of government money (£3.5bn expenditure and £12bn of loan guarantees) to enable people to saddle themselves with even bigger loans. In doing so the scheme is reversing the welcome trend of gently declining house prices (in real terms after inflation) which have long been too high due to lack of new building. Almost any other use of the money you could think of would have had more beneficial effects on the economy - a government backed house building program, tax cuts, investment in infrastructure, public services, paying down debt etc.

 

People in the UK already pay a very high proportion of their income for generally small and poor quality housing. Osbourne could have done something to improve that situation, it was a stroke of genius to find one of the few ways to spend taxpayers money to make things worse.

 

Over the long term, prices should stabilise if the laws of supply and demand come into effect, assuming, of course, that the house building that this scheme will generate creates enough supply. We're looking at a Redrow place at the moment, and they're already building two new developments in the area to keep up with demand.

 

The one thing that puts me off is potential value for money. The place we're looking at is £225K. There are similar sized places in the same area that have been there for ages going for £160-180K. If you've got the deposit, the latter looks a much better deal.

Edited 7 June, 2013 by pap

[trousers]

But perhaps both political wings could do well to be a little more evidence-based. Take the common moan from left and right about the decline of our ability to actually make things - the Left because of Thatcherism and the Right because of the unions.

http://www.adamsmith.org/blog/politics-government/ten-myths-about-margaret-thatcher-0

 

The left-wing commentariat seems to be using the argumentum ad nauseam against the Thatcher record. This consists of repeating an allegation, no matter how much evidence is produced against it, or how many times it has been shown to be false.

 

In City AM Allister Heath dealt with some of these assertions, but that has not stopped the anti-Thatcher brigade from repeating them. Here are ten claims they make which are not supported by the facts.

1. She destroyed UK's manufacturing base. No. Manufacturing output was 7.5% higher when she left office than when she began. It did decline as a proportion of the total economy, but only because other sectors, especially services and finance, expanded more rapidly as the economy changed. This happened in other advanced economies at about the same time as part of a general trend. It is true that three major industries, shipbuilding, steel and coal, did decline as they proved unable to compete with other countries in these areas, but other industries, such as advanced manufacturing, expanded.

2. She destroyed the Unions' power to protect workers. Her reforms empowered union members rather than union leaders. Previous Conservative and Labour governments had tried and failed to bring unions under the law. The UK's strike record, the worst in Europe, did not help workers. The Thatcher reforms gave union members the right to vote for their leaders in secret postal ballots, and gave them the right to be balloted ahead of possible strike action. These resulted in more moderate union leadership and greatly reduced industrial unrest.

3. She lowered income tax so that the rich paid less. She did change income tax, but the rich not only paid more, but paid a higher share of the total. Her governments steadily lowered the top rate from 83% (or 98% on investment income) down to 40%, and cut the basic rate to 25%. The low rates raised more revenue than the high ones had done as business boomed and the tax base expanded. The top 10% who had been paying 35% of total income tax saw this rise to 48% (from just over a third to just under a half of the total).

4. She turned vital state industries into private monopolies. Wrong. The privatization programme turned ailing state monopolies into competitive and successful private ones. Her government took care when it privatized to build in competition by whatever means it could. BT faced a competitor called Mercury, with periodic reviews that allowed more competitors. Most of the utilities were exposed to world competition as well as national competitors. An important key was to separate the infrastructure from the supply, so that different producers competed to send their products down the pipes or cables to consumers. Where this was impractical, suppliers had to bid competitively to win the franchise for a limited time frame. Loss-making state monopolies were replaced by competitive and profitable private companies.

5. She destroyed Britain's coal industry. Britain's coal industry had been in decline for decades. Many more pits were closed under Harold Wilson's Labour governments than under Margaret Thatcher's Conservative ones. One reason was the rise of oil and then gas and nuclear as cleaner alternative sources of power. Another was the decline of heavy industries that depended on coal. Domestic heating moved away from coal, and North Sea gas replaced coal gas. Added to this was lower cost foreign coal. All of these ultimately doomed loss-making subsidized coal mines, and the year-long miners' strike helped reinforce the case for alternatives.

6. She did not really cut taxes. Critics point to a slight increase in the government tax take over her 11 years as proof that her tax cuts were illusory. There were initial increases, especially of VAT, but under her there were major cuts in income tax and corporation tax that generated substantial economic growth. After the initial years of dealing with the financial mess and the inflation that had been left, the government took less of GDP. Tax Freedom Day, calculated by the ASI as the day of the year when people have paid off the government share, for 10 years after that either came earlier or stayed the same.

7. She unleashed the regulation that led to today's crisis. As Philip Booth at the IEA points out:

"the 1980s was not a period of financial deregulation. Insider trading was made illegal in 1980. The life insurance industry, which had been almost free of regulation for over 100 years from 1870, was re-regulated from 1980 to 1982. Bank deposit insurance was introduced in 1979. The sale of investment and insurance products came under statutory regulation from 1986. Further, the first ever regulation of UK bank capital took place under Basel I, agreed while Thatcher was Prime Minister."

The 'Big Bang' did allow more types of firm to trade in financial instruments, but it essentially replaced private regulation with public accountability.

8. She committed a war crime by the sinking of the Belgrano. The UK was in a war situation over Argentina's illegal seizure of the Falklands. The South Atlantic area was a war zone in which hostilities were under way. The 200 mile exclusion zone did not restrict fighting to within its limits. It was a warning to neutral ships to avoid it. The Argentine cruiser Belgrano was not a neutral ship and was on a zig-zag course, posing a menace to the British task force, and was sunk as an act of war, one that Argentine commanders accepted as legitimate.

9. Hers was a deeply unpopular and divisive government. She led the Conservatives to victory in three elections in a row, all with substantial majorities. She did not win over 50% of the vote, which no party has done since World War II, but she did win a higher share in 1979 than Tony Blair did in 1997, and more in her subsequent two victories than he gained in his. Her governments shunned the post-war consensus that had presided over Britain's decline to an economic basket case, and thus divided opinion. More to the point, socialists had hoped that their ideology might one day rule, but the Thatcher governments ended that hope within the UK and helped to end it on a world scale. The Left cannot forgive her governments for taking that future from them.

10. Her cuts slashed the public services. In fact public spending increased by 17.6% over the course of her governments. There were cuts to proposed increases, but core service spending expanded. Because the economy boomed under Thatcher governments, the total state share of GDP diminished as a proportion of the total. It declined from 45.1% when she came in to 39.4% when she left. She increased expenditure on health, education and social spending, but by less than the growth in the private economy.

Edited 7 June, 2013 by trousers

[Verbal]

I'm afraid, Lord Whatabout, that you might have missed the phrase "evidence-based". If you uncritically quote the ASI as your source, and not acknowledge that it is on the dry-as-dust right wing of the Tory Party, I assume you don't want us to notice that the "evidence" is being encased within a strident ideology.

 

Why, for example, did the proportion of income tax paid by the wealthy increase under her thumb, when she was cutting tax rates at the top end? Because throughout the Thatcherite eighties began a process that continues to this day - the rich are FAR richer than they were up to the 1970s, both in absolute terms and as a measure of inequality.

 

Her election victories were achieved at a time when the Social Democrats were formed in a breakaway from Labour and added to the way in which the Centre-Left was hopelessly divided in a way that had not been seen since Lloyd George.

 

Anyone paying energy or water bills who believes that they are NOT the victims of private and often distantly foreign monopolies is living in a presumably happy delusional world.

 

Does anyone still believe that the Big Bang in the City was NOT a problem for British manufacturing - the growth of casino banking at the expense of investment banking?

 

And what the hell is the Belgrano controversy doing in there? Are the Thatcherite dinosaurs still licking their wounds over Diana Gould's trouncing of her? God, what sore losers!

[trousers]

That's a better quality of bite than I was expecting to be honest

 

There's nothing I find more erotic than a slightly irked anti-Thatcherite

Edited 7 June, 2013 by trousers

[badgerx16]

I'm afraid, Lord Whatabout, that you might have missed the phrase "evidence-based".........!

 

There's nothing I find more erotic than a slightly irked anti-Thatcherite

 

Watch out Verbal, I think you may have pulled.

[Jonnyboy]

That's a better quality of bite than I was expecting to be honest

 

There's nothing I find more erotic than a slightly irked anti-Thatcherite

 

Proof, if needed, that the rich get a thrill out of f*cking the poor.

[trousers]

Rich my arse

[Johnny Bognor]

More good news for British manufacturing:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-22820402

[trousers]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-22868901

 

UK unemployment has fallen by an unexpected 5,000, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) has said.

ONS data indicated 2.51 million people were out of work in the three months to April. The jobless rate was unchanged from three months earlier, at 7.8%.

Average earnings in April were 1.3% higher than a year earlier, and 0.7% up on the previous month.

Meanwhile, Jobseeker's Allowance claimants fell by 8,600 in May from a month earlier to 1.51 million.

 

Sun Politics ‏@Sun_Politics

Total of 29.76m people in employment - 432,000 more than a year ago

Edited 12 June, 2013 by trousers

[Verbal]

Sun Politics ‏@Sun_Politics

Total of 29.76m people in employment - 432,000 more than a year ago

 

Just a word in your shell-like, Dr Pangloss. There are statistics and then there's the reality behind the statistics.

 

http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/2013/apr/13/work-doesnt-pay-multi-part-time-employees

 

They're the forgotten victims of Britain's long recession. The individuals and families who have lost well-paid work, but figure only briefly in the unemployment figures as they patch together poorly paid part-time work while struggling to cope with a collapse in their living standards.

[buctootim]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-22860320

[CB Saint]

Rich my arse

 

Is Verbal's name Rich?

[badgerx16]

Just a word in your shell-like, Dr Pangloss. There are statistics and then there's the reality behind the statistics.

 

http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/2013/apr/13/work-doesnt-pay-multi-part-time-employees

 

Does somebody taking 3 part time jobs count in the stats as 3 new jobs created ? If so, what a great way to inflate the figures !

[Wes Tender]

Why, for example, did the proportion of income tax paid by the wealthy increase under her thumb, when she was cutting tax rates at the top end? Because throughout the Thatcherite eighties began a process that continues to this day - the rich are FAR richer than they were up to the 1970s, both in absolute terms and as a measure of inequality.

 

 

I can assist your understanding of this concept, provided that you are open-minded enough to listen.

 

It's quite simple really. When tax rates are punitive, as they were under the Wilson Labour government for example, wealthy individuals find ways of avoiding paying them. Some use creative accounting, move their money abroad to offshore tax havens, or indeed remove themselves abroad to places with lower taxation levels under what used to be called the brain drain.

 

When the tax rates were lowered to a level deemed to be fair by these people, then they became far less likely to avoid paying them and many tax exiles returned to these shores. The end result was that top tax rates were lower, but the exchequer received a massive boost in taxation income.

[Verbal]

I can assist your understanding of this concept, provided that you are open-minded enough to listen.

 

It's quite simple really. When tax rates are punitive, as they were under the Wilson Labour government for example, wealthy individuals find ways of avoiding paying them. Some use creative accounting, move their money abroad to offshore tax havens, or indeed remove themselves abroad to places with lower taxation levels under what used to be called the brain drain.

 

When the tax rates were lowered to a level deemed to be fair by these people, then they became far less likely to avoid paying them and many tax exiles returned to these shores. The end result was that top tax rates were lower, but the exchequer received a massive boost in taxation income.

 

I see you've adopted number 29 in Schopenhauer's 38 Ways to Win an Argument:

 

If you find that you are being beaten, you can create a diversion that is, you can suddenly begin to talk of something else, as though it had bearing on the matter in dispose. This may be done without presumption if the diversion has some general bearing on the matter.

 

You need to grasp the reality of inequality in Britain, how the inequality map has changed radically in the last 40 years, and how that has a direct bearing on the greater tax take among the wealthy (who continue, of course, to hide VAST swathes of their loot in the Caymans and elsewhere so that some of them pay no tax at all!). You provide not the SLIGHTEST evidence for your fanciful assertion (the way, obviously, you want the world to be rather than any grounding in reality), and it is beside the point anyway.

 

For your education on the general point, try reading "The Spirit Level" by Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett. I don't think you'll find them blurting out "it's quite simple really" in that exasperated "I'm-a-thrusting-Victorian-entrepreneur (honest)" way of yours. You might also dig yourself out of a hole with Nobel prizewinner Joseph Stiglitz's "The Price of Inequality".

 

Happy reading!

[trousers]

I only take tax avoidance advice from John Mills Limited.

[Wes Tender]

I see you've adopted number 29 in Schopenhauer's 38 Ways to Win an Argument:

 

 

 

You need to grasp the reality of inequality in Britain, how the inequality map has changed radically in the last 40 years, and how that has a direct bearing on the greater tax take among the wealthy (who continue, of course, to hide VAST swathes of their loot in the Caymans and elsewhere so that some of them pay no tax at all!). You provide not the SLIGHTEST evidence for your fanciful assertion (the way, obviously, you want the world to be rather than any grounding in reality), and it is beside the point anyway.

 

For your education on the general point, try reading "The Spirit Level" by Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett. I don't think you'll find them blurting out "it's quite simple really" in that exasperated "I'm-a-thrusting-Victorian-entrepreneur (honest)" way of yours. You might also dig yourself out of a hole with Nobel prizewinner Joseph Stiglitz's "The Price of Inequality".

 

Happy reading!

 

I don't need any lectures about how Britain has changed in the last 40 years, having lived through that timespan. I was 24, forty years ago, old enough and interested enough in current affairs at the time to have formed a reasoned opinion about things.

 

Neither do I need to read those books that you have rather selectively chosen because they paint the picture that you want to look at. Ironically, they will no doubt be as representative of the views of the left as the views of the Adam Smith Institute will be of the right.

 

I don't need to provide any evidence for the assertion in that article (made by Allister Heath, not me) that the tax revenue increased after the top tax rates were reduced. If you refute the assertion, then it is up to you to provide the evidence that the facts are wrong. I am making the assumption that the statistics have been based on statistical evidence provided by HMRC. Feel free to dispute that assumption if you can by telling me how else the figures were obtained and what the real position was.

 

I'm afraid that Schopenhauer's 29 doesn't enter into it, much as you would like in your pseudo-intellectual arrogance to assume that you are winning the argument. Rather his number 36 applies to you.

[Whitey Grandad]

I don't need any lectures about how Britain has changed in the last 40 years, having lived through that timespan. I was 24, forty years ago, old enough and interested enough in current affairs at the time to have formed a reasoned opinion about things.

 

Neither do I need to read those books that you have rather selectively chosen because they paint the picture that you want to look at. Ironically, they will no doubt be as representative of the views of the left as the views of the Adam Smith Institute will be of the right.

 

I don't need to provide any evidence for the assertion in that article (made by Allister Heath, not me) that the tax revenue increased after the top tax rates were reduced. If you refute the assertion, then it is up to you to provide the evidence that the facts are wrong. I am making the assumption that the statistics have been based on statistical evidence provided by HMRC. Feel free to dispute that assumption if you can by telling me how else the figures were obtained and what the real position was.

 

I'm afraid that Schopenhauer's 29 doesn't enter into it, much as you would like in your pseudo-intellectual arrogance to assume that you are winning the argument. Rather his number 36 applies to you.

 

These.

[Verbal]

I don't need any lectures about how Britain has changed in the last 40 years, having lived through that timespan. I was 24, forty years ago, old enough and interested enough in current affairs at the time to have formed a reasoned opinion about things.

 

Neither do I need to read those books that you have rather selectively chosen because they paint the picture that you want to look at. Ironically, they will no doubt be as representative of the views of the left as the views of the Adam Smith Institute will be of the right.

 

I don't need to provide any evidence for the assertion in that article (made by Allister Heath, not me) that the tax revenue increased after the top tax rates were reduced. If you refute the assertion, then it is up to you to provide the evidence that the facts are wrong. I am making the assumption that the statistics have been based on statistical evidence provided by HMRC. Feel free to dispute that assumption if you can by telling me how else the figures were obtained and what the real position was.

 

I'm afraid that Schopenhauer's 29 doesn't enter into it, much as you would like in your pseudo-intellectual arrogance to assume that you are winning the argument. Rather his number 36 applies to you.

 

Wow! You've gone straight to number 38!

 

A last trick is to become personal, insulting and rude as soon as you perceive that your opponent has the upper hand. In becoming personal you leave the subject altogether, and turn your attack on the person by remarks of an offensive and spiteful character. This is a very popular trick, because everyone is able to carry it into effect.

 

Very good.

 

Now let's get down to business. As you have refused to do the homework I've set you, and prefer instead to rely on the dubious and evidently waning evidence of your own sense-perceptions, why don't you back up your claims with something as dubious and controversial as...EVIDENCE!

 

So:

 

1. Demonstrate, with statistics, the basis on which you arrived at the "wealthy individuals" move much less money abroad today than they did in the 1960s and 1970s.

 

2. Demonstrate with statistics, your contention that the "brain drain" is any different now than then (keeping in mind, of course, that draining brains and the wealthy do NOT amount to the same groups of people at all, despite your amusing assumption that they must be).

 

3. Demonstrate that the huge growth in inequality in the UK (and the US) is NOT connected to increased tax take from the wealthy.

 

And keep in mind that your own impressions mean sweet FA in this argument. The above are relatively simple points of fact, IF what you say is true.

[Lord Duckhunter]

I remember when there were people hailing Francois Hollande's new attack on the rich and how he was going to raise the tax rate to 75%. How did that work out, popular is he?

 

Milliband, Balls and co seem to have abandoned their love of him and embraced the coalitions policies. Cuts to child benefit, welfare caps and now an attack on universal benefits for pensioners. They also seem to be embracing the Laffer principle with their call for a cut in VAT to increase tax revenues. They wont even commit to raising the top rate of tax back to 50%. The reason is obvious, because their oppostition was just that, opposition, they didn't really believe it. They knew all along that they couldn't justify paying millionaires child benefit, knew that the 50% rate bought no extra money in and was just a trap set by Gordo for the Torys. The problem is they took people like Verbal in with their cynical posturing and he really does believe in the nonsense Utopian fair society lefties like to dream off. Back in the real world, the rich have never contributed more to the Revenue's coffers, too many people receive welfare and Gordon Brown left us ill equipped to deal with the crash and therefore ****ed the finances for a generation.

[Wes Tender]

Wow! You've gone straight to number 38!

 

Very good.

 

Now let's get down to business. As you have refused to do the homework I've set you, and prefer instead to rely on the dubious and evidently waning evidence of your own sense-perceptions, why don't you back up your claims with something as dubious and controversial as...EVIDENCE!

 

So:

 

1. Demonstrate, with statistics, the basis on which you arrived at the "wealthy individuals" move much less money abroad today than they did in the 1960s and 1970s.

 

2. Demonstrate with statistics, your contention that the "brain drain" is any different now than then (keeping in mind, of course, that draining brains and the wealthy do NOT amount to the same groups of people at all, despite your amusing assumption that they must be).

 

3. Demonstrate that the huge growth in inequality in the UK (and the US) is NOT connected to increased tax take from the wealthy.

 

And keep in mind that your own impressions mean sweet FA in this argument. The above are relatively simple points of fact, IF what you say is true.

 

As I don't accept that I am losing any argument with you, then Schopenhauer doesn't apply. In any event, you do realise, don't you, that these item numbers you quote are a satirical itemised interpretation of his treatise?

 

Regarding some perspective, you have questioned why the tax revenue take had gone up when the top tax rates decreased. I have given you some simple explanations as to why in my opinion that occurred. One doesn't need to read massively boring tomes from left wing pseudo-intellectuals to draw the simple conclusion that people are less likely to avoid paying taxes that they consider to be fair. Nor does it take any great leap of imagination to realise that if they are taxed punitively, many of the brightest scientists and entrepreneurs will emigrate to other countries with what they consider to be fairer tax regimes, this being the so-called brain drain. OK, emigration also included the pop stars, film stars, etc, who became tax-exiles, but when the top tax rates came down substantially, then many returned to live here.

 

I regret to inform you that I don't have the time or the inclination to dig for the statistics to prove my position, so if you wish to massage your ego, I invite you instead to provide the statistics to prove your position. I notice that you haven't yet managed to provide anything that shows that the assertion that the tax revenue increased following the reduction of the top tax rate is false.

 

It is you who have attempted to further the scope of the debate beyond that to comment on the resultant increased gap between the highest earners and the lowest and to label it as inequality, when those on the left advocate inequality themselves by proposing that wealthier people should pay more tax because they can afford to. In reality of course, even if wealthier people paid exactly the same tax rate, they would still pay substantially more tax because of their higher taxable income.

 

Although you denigrate my reliance on life experience in the forming of my opinions, I prefer that to the "hard evidence" that you call for. You obviously prefer to gain yours from books and statistics, when in reality books contain the opinions of individuals from one side of the political spectrum or another and are often based on selective statistical evidence that proves their position. As a cynic, I subscribe to the common opinion that there are lies, damned lies and statistics.

[Jonnyboy]

I don't find the vat increase fair, I feel inclined to not pay it on my utility and food bills. How do I go about avoiding this tax?

[Tokyo-Saint]

I don't find the vat increase fair, I feel inclined to not pay it on my utility and food bills. How do I go about avoiding this tax?

 

Register yourself as self employed and then put down that you work from home. Oh... Hang on. You were being rhetorical weren't you?

 

Sorry.

[Jonnyboy]

Register yourself as self employed and then put down that you work from home. Oh... Hang on. You were being rhetorical weren't you?

 

Sorry.

 

That might just work. please enter job desrcription: "hmmm....self-employed....work for myself scratching my nuts"

[hutch]

I don't find the vat increase fair, I feel inclined to not pay it on my utility and food bills. How do I go about avoiding this tax?

Emigrate

[buctootim]

I don't find the vat increase fair, I feel inclined to not pay it on my utility and food bills. How do I go about avoiding this tax?

 

Set up your own search engine or global coffee shop empire.

[Lord Duckhunter]

Set up your own search engine or global coffee shop empire.

 

Wrong answer, you'll get called evil by Labour politicians. The best bet is to donate to the Labour party and they'll give you advise on tax "efficiency"

[Johnny Bognor]

The is an upside to falling wages...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-22874889

[trousers]

@OliverCooper: EU car sales in May: France down 10.4%, Germany down 9.9%, Italy down 7.9%, Spain down 2.9%, but United Kingdom UP 11%. #SpotTheOddOneOut

[buctootim]

@OliverCooper: EU car sales in May: France down 10.4%, Germany down 9.9%, Italy down 7.9%, Spain down 2.9%, but United Kingdom UP 11%. #SpotTheOddOneOut

 

Is he related to Mini Cooper?

[saintfully]

@OliverCooper: EU car sales in May: France down 10.4%, Germany down 9.9%, Italy down 7.9%, Spain down 2.9%, but United Kingdom UP 11%. #SpotTheOddOneOut

 

That would be you Trousers

[bridge too far]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-22999023

[Jonnyboy]

That's what happens when you attack the disabled, go easy on bankers, and do nothing to promote growth.

[Batman]

Today, the labour leader is going to give a speech where he will say he accepts the cuts the coalition have had to make

[saintfully]

Today, the labour leader is going to give a speech where he will say he accepts the cuts the coalition have had to make

 

Actually he will say that the economy is now so fuc.ked he is unable to reverse them - which is not quite the same thing is it.