Pop music management, Tax and Citizen's Income

[Andy Wainwright]

Consider a new pop singer, he's offered two deals.

1) A 25% gross management commission.
2) A 50% net management commission.

Lots of newbie musicians will often plump for the first. It's actually a
bit stupid though.

25% of record and ticket sales might seem less, but when you have to pay
out for recording, publicity, security and touring costs it's a
different matter. That 25% is essentially your whole profit margin.

The chances are if you sign to such a deal, you will go bust in a few
years. Both manager and artist suffer, as the end of the act is the end
of the income.

50% net is actually a much better deal. After all the costs have been
laid out, we go half on the profits. Assuming there's a degree of
commercical success, there's a guaranteed income for both parties. The
chances of bankruptcy are reduced, and thus increasing the chances of
income for all in years to come.

How does this relate to politics. Well the 25% typical tax with a
means-tested welfare system isn't as good value as a 50% tax with a
citizen's income based welfare system. In the latter, you get the basics
guaranteed, and whilst you're paying a higher rate of tax, what's left
is in effect pure profit. Whilst it seems like less of an incentive to
work, in marginal terms it's a much better one because it's consistant
whether rich or poor.

This consistant incentive encourages more to work and work harder, thus
tax revenue is boosted and as a result the overall burden could be cut
without loss of revenue.

[allan tracy]

>
> How does this relate to politics. Well the 25% typical tax with a
> means-tested welfare system isn't as good value as a 50% tax with a
> citizen's income based welfare system. In the latter, you get the basics
> guaranteed, and whilst you're paying a higher rate of tax, what's left
> is in effect pure profit. Whilst it seems like less of an incentive to
> work, in marginal terms it's a much better one because it's consistant
> whether rich or poor.
>

Nice try, unfortunately the tax on an average wage is neither 25% nor
50% but more like approaching 70% when all taxes are considered.

Thanks to Labour and their taxation, we get the 25% deal but at 70%
prices.

They promised us world class public services and all we got were the
world class prices.

Brown spent all our money, not on the services, but on buying Labour
votes by creating millions of extra pubic sector non-jobs in order to
secure his divine right to rule and then the money ran out.

[Norman Wells]

allan tracy wrote:
>> How does this relate to politics. Well the 25% typical tax with a
>> means-tested welfare system isn't as good value as a 50% tax with a
>> citizen's income based welfare system. In the latter, you get the
>> basics guaranteed, and whilst you're paying a higher rate of tax,
>> what's left is in effect pure profit. Whilst it seems like less of
>> an incentive to work, in marginal terms it's a much better one
>> because it's consistant whether rich or poor.
>>
>
> Nice try, unfortunately the tax on an average wage is neither 25% nor
> 50% but more like approaching 70% when all taxes are considered.

Absolute nonsense.

On an average salary of about �26,000, NI contributions will be �2220,
and income tax will be �3135. That leaves �20645 net income (79.4% of
gross income) to spend as you wish.

Even if you spend it ALL on goods and services carrying 20% VAT (ie not
buying any food or domestic fuel and not paying any housing costs) that
makes an absolute maximum VAT payment of �4130. That still leaves
�16515, which is 63.5% of gross income. A _maximum_ of 36.5% has been
taken in National Insurance, income tax and VAT. And that's
disregarding any benefits that may be payable.

Excise duties on petrol, alcohol and tobacco come nowhere near making up
the difference
between the actual level and your ridiculous claim that it's 'more like
approaching 70%'.

Perhaps you would explain the discrepancy?

[Andy Wainwright]

I don't disagree. I've actually a lot of time for GB, but as Blair
somewhat shiftly said (obviously he didn't think the electorate or
Labour party needed to know at the time) , he wasn't PM material. He
wanted to be popular as opposed to being practical, and it backfired.

I'd like to see taxation reduced to less than half of income. I'm not a
commie and don't think the rich should be punished for their success,
which progressive tax does.

As I said in a previous post, excessive tax on business has destroyed
jobs. I don't think it achieves anything paying welfare from that
taxation to the people whose jobs have been taken by it. Work isn't just
about money, it's about self esteem. For example, long term unemployed
will often turn to drugs and self-neglect, destroying their chances of
reemployment. One thing I'd do is bring back full student grants and
make study compulsory for those long term unemployed sufficiently able
and not on sabatical or rearly rtetirement paid for by saving. If the
state are going to pay benefit, why pay it to those sitting on their
arses and not to those bettering themselves?

As for non-jobs, where I live a businessman was actually jailed for
living in a caravan on his own land after losing his home. The amount
spent on putting him in jail, let alone keeping him there, would have
paid for a house to be built for him and his family. And why not, he
wasn't sitting on his arse, he was taking risks that didn't on this
occasion work out- that's not criminal, in fact we should encourage
those who *try*. Too much attention is given to the lucky and materially
successful- again, not that they should be punished for this, but in
competition it's the taking part that counts.

A lot of people spend money on the lottery, nothing wrong with having
such a dream, but shouldn't people be thinking of more practical ways of
self-betterment? Learning a trade, starting a business. After all, luck
is only luck, it doesn't say anything about the character of the "winner".

[JNugent]

On 27/02/2013 22:38, Norman Wells wrote:

> allan tracy wrote:

>>> How does this relate to politics. Well the 25% typical tax with a
>>> means-tested welfare system isn't as good value as a 50% tax with a
>>> citizen's income based welfare system. In the latter, you get the
>>> basics guaranteed, and whilst you're paying a higher rate of tax,
>>> what's left is in effect pure profit. Whilst it seems like less of
>>> an incentive to work, in marginal terms it's a much better one
>>> because it's consistant whether rich or poor.

>> Nice try, unfortunately the tax on an average wage is neither 25% nor
>> 50% but more like approaching 70% when all taxes are considered.

> Absolute nonsense.
> On an average salary of about �26,000, NI contributions will be �2220,
> and income tax will be �3135. That leaves �20645 net income (79.4% of
> gross income) to spend as you wish.

OK.

Spend it all on diesel fuel bought in the UK.
Now... out of your original �26,000, how much will have gone in taxes of
all sorts?

[An absolute cash answer will do, as will a percentage (of �26,000) answer.]

> Even if you spend it ALL on goods and services carrying 20% VAT (ie not
> buying any food or domestic fuel and not paying any housing costs) that
> makes an absolute maximum VAT payment of �4130. That still leaves
> �16515, which is 63.5% of gross income. A _maximum_ of 36.5% has been
> taken in National Insurance, income tax and VAT. And that's
> disregarding any benefits that may be payable.

That's OK for items carrying 20% VAT.

What about the following?

Petrol or diesel (each carrying taxation of around 400% inc VAT)?

Tobacco (with similar duty levels)?

Wine?

Spirits?

> Excise duties on petrol, alcohol and tobacco come nowhere near making up
> the difference between the actual level and your ridiculous claim that
> it's 'more like approaching 70%'.

> Perhaps you would explain the discrepancy?

Have you taken into account council tax?

Insurance premium tax?

Airport Passenger Duty? [I've paid about �2000 in APD in the last year
or so]

Let's re-do the calculation.

�26000

circa �9000 tax free.

Tax on �1700 = �3400
Nat "Insurance" (11%) = �2860
That's �6260 already.

Of the rest, let's say enough fuel for 12,000 miles in a car doing 40mpg
(that's 300 gallons at about �4.00 a gallon, making the tax around �1200)

�6260 + �1200 = �7460.

Then there's 20% VAT on everything else except food. Assuming �60 a week
(�3120 a year) on food, that's 20% VAT on �26,000 - �7460 (20% of �18450
= �3708.

That's a running total of �11,168 already.

Council Tax? Let's say �1600 for a Band D property somewhere.

Already, we're up to �12768. Then there's tobacco tax (admittedly not
for everyone, but there'll still be an average to be struck somewhere),
alcohol duties, insurance premium tax, air passenger duty. Let's make a
conservative estimate for those at �1725 (absolute minimum) for a household.

We're now up to �14493.

�14493 is 56% of �26,000.

That's not 70%, but it's more than you said and crucially, it's more (by
some way) than half the original �26,000.

[abelard]

On Thu, 28 Feb 2013 01:15:01 +0000, JNugent <jenni...@fastmail.fm>
wrote:

and there is still more...the manufacturer had to pay tax...
the seller has to pay tax...
those appear in the price of good sold...but it is in fact
more tax on the sales...

a better measure of tax is how much government spends
as a proportion of gdp...

all this carry on about n.i. payroll taxes...and on and on...
are just ways of deliberately confusing tax payers..
ie, those who produce...and pay all the tax...

[Norman Wells]

Indeed. And that's around 40%.

The average earner will not be paying far off that. It's how it works.

[Norman Wells]

JNugent wrote:
> On 27/02/2013 22:38, Norman Wells wrote:
>
>> allan tracy wrote:
>
>>>> How does this relate to politics. Well the 25% typical tax with a
>>>> means-tested welfare system isn't as good value as a 50% tax with a
>>>> citizen's income based welfare system. In the latter, you get the
>>>> basics guaranteed, and whilst you're paying a higher rate of tax,
>>>> what's left is in effect pure profit. Whilst it seems like less of
>>>> an incentive to work, in marginal terms it's a much better one
>>>> because it's consistant whether rich or poor.
>
>>> Nice try, unfortunately the tax on an average wage is neither 25%
>>> nor 50% but more like approaching 70% when all taxes are considered.
>
>> Absolute nonsense.
>> On an average salary of about �26,000, NI contributions will be
>> �2220, and income tax will be �3135. That leaves �20645 net income
>> (79.4% of gross income) to spend as you wish.
>
> OK.
>
> Spend it all on diesel fuel bought in the UK.

As you do.

> Now... out of your original �26,000, how much will have gone in taxes
> of all sorts?
>
> [An absolute cash answer will do, as will a percentage (of �26,000)
> answer.]
>> Even if you spend it ALL on goods and services carrying 20% VAT (ie
>> not buying any food or domestic fuel and not paying any housing
>> costs) that makes an absolute maximum VAT payment of �4130. That
>> still leaves �16515, which is 63.5% of gross income. A _maximum_ of
>> 36.5% has been taken in National Insurance, income tax and VAT. And
>> that's disregarding any benefits that may be payable.
>
> That's OK for items carrying 20% VAT.
>
> What about the following?
>
> Petrol or diesel (each carrying taxation of around 400% inc VAT)?
>
> Tobacco (with similar duty levels)?
>
> Wine?
>
> Spirits?

Why not read on?

>> Excise duties on petrol, alcohol and tobacco come nowhere near
>> making up the difference between the actual level and your
>> ridiculous claim that it's 'more like approaching 70%'.
>
>> Perhaps you would explain the discrepancy?
>
> Have you taken into account council tax?

No, but then you haven't taken account of all those things the average
earner buys that are either VAT-free or subject to just 5% VAT, like
food, gas, electricity, newspapers, children's clothing etc etc, which
more than compensate.
>
> Insurance premium tax?

No, but that's trivial, and on something that is not subject to VAT
anyway as I understand it.

> Airport Passenger Duty? [I've paid about �2000 in APD in the last year
> or so]

As of course the average earner does.

> Let's re-do the calculation.

No. Why don't we get real first?

>
> �26000
>
> circa �9000 tax free.
>
> Tax on �1700 = �3400
> Nat "Insurance" (11%) = �2860
> That's �6260 already.
>
> Of the rest, let's say enough fuel for 12,000 miles in a car doing
> 40mpg (that's 300 gallons at about �4.00 a gallon, making the tax
> around �1200)
> �6260 + �1200 = �7460.
>
> Then there's 20% VAT on everything else except food. Assuming �60 a
> week (�3120 a year) on food, that's 20% VAT on �26,000 - �7460 (20%
> of �18450 = �3708.
>
> That's a running total of �11,168 already.
>
> Council Tax? Let's say �1600 for a Band D property somewhere.
>
> Already, we're up to �12768. Then there's tobacco tax (admittedly not
> for everyone, but there'll still be an average to be struck
> somewhere), alcohol duties, insurance premium tax, air passenger
> duty. Let's make a conservative estimate for those at �1725 (absolute
> minimum) for a household.
> We're now up to �14493.
>
> �14493 is 56% of �26,000.

It is, but it's not for real.

> That's not 70%, but it's more than you said and crucially, it's more
> (by some way) than half the original �26,000.

The government spends about 40% of GDP. That's what the average earner
on average will pay, more or less.

[JNugent]

More like 44%.

>
> The average earner will not be paying far off that. It's how it works.

As I suspect you already knew, the "average taxpayer" is an artificial
construct.

It will consist of ordinary many people paying the above 55% - 60% of
their income in taxes, plus some paying even *more* because they are in
a higher income tax bracket and others paying more because more of their
expenditure than "average" comprises some combination of exceptionally
highly taxed items (petrol, alcohol, tobacco and maybe others).

But it will also comprise many people who pay no net tax, but who are
net recipients of money taken from the pockets of the others and others
whose receipt of such transfer payments mean that they pay (on balance)
much less of their earnings as taxes than do "ordinary" people. They
might pay some taxes, but they pay them with money handed to them out of
taxes, thus nullifying that effect.

There are a large number of such people - easily large enough to drag
the "average" take down to the mid-forties percent rather than the 55%
plus which is easy to show (as above). But it's certainly not as low as
40% overall (if only!) and ordinary people pay way more than 50% of
their economic output as taxes, as illustrated above.

[JNugent]

On 28/02/2013 06:32, Norman Wells wrote:

> JNugent wrote:
>> On 27/02/2013 22:38, Norman Wells wrote:
>>> allan tracy wrote:
>
>>>>> How does this relate to politics. Well the 25% typical tax with a
>>>>> means-tested welfare system isn't as good value as a 50% tax with a
>>>>> citizen's income based welfare system. In the latter, you get the
>>>>> basics guaranteed, and whilst you're paying a higher rate of tax,
>>>>> what's left is in effect pure profit. Whilst it seems like less of
>>>>> an incentive to work, in marginal terms it's a much better one
>>>>> because it's consistant whether rich or poor.
>
>>>> Nice try, unfortunately the tax on an average wage is neither 25%
>>>> nor 50% but more like approaching 70% when all taxes are considered.
>
>>> Absolute nonsense.
>>> On an average salary of about �26,000, NI contributions will be
>>> �2220, and income tax will be �3135. That leaves �20645 net income
>>> (79.4% of gross income) to spend as you wish.

>> OK.
>
>> Spend it all on diesel fuel bought in the UK.
>
> As you do.

Just showing one of the ways in which your nonseniical "40%" claim is...
er... nonsense.

>> Now... out of your original �26,000, how much will have gone in taxes
>> of all sorts?
>> [An absolute cash answer will do, as will a percentage (of �26,000)
>> answer.]

No attempt at an answer, then?

>>> Even if you spend it ALL on goods and services carrying 20% VAT (ie
>>> not buying any food or domestic fuel and not paying any housing
>>> costs) that makes an absolute maximum VAT payment of �4130. That
>>> still leaves �16515, which is 63.5% of gross income. A _maximum_ of
>>> 36.5% has been taken in National Insurance, income tax and VAT. And
>>> that's disregarding any benefits that may be payable.
>
>> That's OK for items carrying 20% VAT.
>> What about the following?
>> Petrol or diesel (each carrying taxation of around 400% inc VAT)?
>> Tobacco (with similar duty levels)?
>> Wine?
>> Spirits?
>
> Why not read on?

Why not answer the question?

>>> Excise duties on petrol, alcohol and tobacco come nowhere near
>>> making up the difference between the actual level and your
>>> ridiculous claim that it's 'more like approaching 70%'.
>>> Perhaps you would explain the discrepancy?
>
>> Have you taken into account council tax?
>
> No,

Why not?

Are you trying to claim that it isn't a tax which is part of the total
of 55% or more bearing on ordinary earners in ordinary circumstances?

> but then you haven't taken account of all those things the average
> earner buys that are either VAT-free or subject to just 5% VAT, like
> food,

A lie.

I *specifically* exempted food.

You either can't or don't, read, it seems.

> gas, electricity, newspapers, children's clothing etc etc, which
> more than compensate.

The expenditure I pointed out does not include anything on children.
Most people do not have dependent children for most of their lives.

There is still tax on fuel whether you like to admit it or not.

>> Insurance premium tax?
>
> No, but that's trivial, and on something that is not subject to VAT
> anyway as I understand it.

Are you under the impression that insurance premium tax is not tax?

Or that it is not paid out of income which has already been subjected to
income tax and national "insurance" tax (31% or more at the margin)?

>> Airport Passenger Duty? [I've paid about �2000 in APD in the last year
>> or so]
>
> As of course the average earner does.

The average earner certainly pays something in APD. The amount paid by
some (including at least one of my children) dwarfs the amount I have paid.

>> Let's re-do the calculation.
>
> No. Why don't we get real first?

"Real" like pretending that council tax, air passenger duty and fuel tax
aren't tases, you mean?

>> �26000
>> circa �9000 tax free.
>> Tax on �1700 = �3400
>> Nat "Insurance" (11%) = �2860
>> That's �6260 already.
>> Of the rest, let's say enough fuel for 12,000 miles in a car doing
>> 40mpg (that's 300 gallons at about �4.00 a gallon, making the tax
>> around �1200)
>> �6260 + �1200 = �7460.
>> Then there's 20% VAT on everything else except food. Assuming �60 a
>> week (�3120 a year) on food, that's 20% VAT on �26,000 - �7460 (20%
>> of �18450 = �3708.
>> That's a running total of �11,168 already.
>> Council Tax? Let's say �1600 for a Band D property somewhere.
>> Already, we're up to �12768. Then there's tobacco tax (admittedly not
>> for everyone, but there'll still be an average to be struck
>> somewhere), alcohol duties, insurance premium tax, air passenger
>> duty. Let's make a conservative estimate for those at �1725 (absolute
>> minimum) for a household.
>> We're now up to �14493.
>> �14493 is 56% of �26,000.

> It is, but it's not for real.

It is for a household which works for its money.

It might not be "real" in certain other sorts of household which manage
to avoid being in such a situation.

>> That's not 70%, but it's more than you said and crucially, it's more
>> (by some way) than half the original �26,000.

> The government spends about 40% of GDP. That's what the average earner
> on average will pay, more or less.

See my other post which refutes your attempt at deceit implicit within
your "average" claim. The "average" includes all those who pay *no*
taxes (other than spending taxes).

My illustrative example is that of an ordinary earner on average
earnings (*earnings*, not a receipt out of the pockets of others).
Including people who are takers, rather than givers, in the "average" is
an unsuccessful attempt at sleight of hand on your part.

[Mel Rowing]

On Feb 27, 10:49 pm, Andy Wainwright

<andrewrichardwainwri...@hotmail.co.uk> wrote:

> A lot of people spend money on the lottery, nothing wrong with having
> such a dream, but shouldn't people be thinking of more practical ways of
> self-betterment? Learning a trade, starting a business. After all, luck
> is only luck, it doesn't say anything about the character of the "winner".

Ok so when do you propose to start?

We have had several declarations of good intent but so far no reports
of progress.

[tim.....]

"Andy Wainwright" <andrewricha...@hotmail.co.uk> wrote in message
news:kglqs8$e4q$1...@dont-email.me...

> Consider a new pop singer, he's offered two deals.
>
> 1) A 25% gross management commission.
> 2) A 50% net management commission.
>
> Lots of newbie musicians will often plump for the first. It's actually a
> bit stupid though.

Except that in the "net" method there is scope for management to inflate
their costs so that you, the artistes, end up with nothing.

I have no idea if that's what happens with recording artists, but it's
exactly what happens in the film industry. Accept a "net" deal and you will
(often) receive absolutely nothing whilst the management waltz off with
millions.

I've no idea how this scales to your taxation system

tim

[tim.....]

"JNugent" <jenni...@fastmail.fm> wrote in message
news:ap7pcl...@mid.individual.net...

> On 27/02/2013 22:38, Norman Wells wrote:
>
>> allan tracy wrote:
>
>>>> How does this relate to politics. Well the 25% typical tax with a
>>>> means-tested welfare system isn't as good value as a 50% tax with a
>>>> citizen's income based welfare system. In the latter, you get the
>>>> basics guaranteed, and whilst you're paying a higher rate of tax,
>>>> what's left is in effect pure profit. Whilst it seems like less of
>>>> an incentive to work, in marginal terms it's a much better one
>>>> because it's consistant whether rich or poor.
>
>>> Nice try, unfortunately the tax on an average wage is neither 25% nor
>>> 50% but more like approaching 70% when all taxes are considered.
>
>> Absolute nonsense.
>> On an average salary of about £26,000, NI contributions will be £2220,
>> and income tax will be £3135. That leaves £20645 net income (79.4% of
>> gross income) to spend as you wish.
>
> OK.
>
> Spend it all on diesel fuel bought in the UK.

but you don't, do you!

so doing a calculation on that basis is stupid

[JNugent]

On 28/02/2013 10:49, tim..... wrote:
>
> "JNugent" <jenni...@fastmail.fm> wrote

Yet again, the over-snipping fairy strikes and traduces what has been
written in the manner of an accomplished and award-winning copy-writer
for theatre review posters.

The PP had claimed that no matter what pattern of expenditure, it is not
possible to show tax take at 70%. In fact, doing so is trivially easy
(see above).

However, that easy task did not form my case at all, precisely for the
reasons you have outlined. Instead, I showed that the total of all taxes
for a typical household on £26,000 can easily be in excess of 55% for a
standard rate taxpayer. on very average income.

1. Income Tax
2. National "Insurance" Income Tax
3. VAT
4. Fuel Duty (plus VAT on the duty)
5. Insurance premium tax
6. Air passenger duty
7. Council Tax (probably the biggest single tax after Income Tax and
National "Insurance")
8. Tobacco duty (which has to be averaged out)
9. Alcohol duty
10. Road Tax (I forgot that one first time round)

There must be others I cannot think of offhand.

HTH.

[Cynic]

On Wed, 27 Feb 2013 22:38:47 -0000, "Norman Wells" <h...@unseen.ac.am>
wrote:

>allan tracy wrote:
>>> How does this relate to politics. Well the 25% typical tax with a
>>> means-tested welfare system isn't as good value as a 50% tax with a
>>> citizen's income based welfare system. In the latter, you get the
>>> basics guaranteed, and whilst you're paying a higher rate of tax,
>>> what's left is in effect pure profit. Whilst it seems like less of
>>> an incentive to work, in marginal terms it's a much better one
>>> because it's consistant whether rich or poor.
>>>
>>
>> Nice try, unfortunately the tax on an average wage is neither 25% nor
>> 50% but more like approaching 70% when all taxes are considered.
>
>Absolute nonsense.
>
>On an average salary of about £26,000, NI contributions will be £2220,
>and income tax will be £3135. That leaves £20645 net income (79.4% of
>gross income) to spend as you wish.

You have completely ignored the tax that is taken as soon as you spend
it. VAT, alcohol, fuel and tobacco duty is taken directly. Fuel and
corporation tax is taken indirectly from the portion of the retail
price that is due to transport costs. Import duty is paid indirectly
on all goods you buy that were manufactured outside the UK, and
business tax is part of the price of any goods that *were* made in the
UK.

The percentage of your total salary that ends up going to the
government one way or another is indeed close to 70%

--
Cynic

[allan tracy]

> You have completely ignored the tax that is taken as soon as you spend
> it.  VAT, alcohol, fuel and tobacco duty is taken directly.  Fuel and
> corporation tax is taken indirectly from the portion of the retail
> price that is due to transport costs.  Import duty is paid indirectly
> on all goods you buy that were manufactured outside the UK, and
> business tax is part of the price of any goods that *were* made in the
> UK.
>
> The percentage of your total salary that ends up going to the
> government one way or another is indeed close to 70%
>

It's the great lie that all chancellors love and that the anti
corporate prejudice of the left is so keen to buy into - that business
can pay our taxes for us.

But then, which bit of petrol duty going up increasing the price of a
loaf of bread is a company paying some tax?

[Cynic]

On Thu, 28 Feb 2013 06:32:30 -0000, "Norman Wells" <h...@unseen.ac.am>
wrote:

>> Have you taken into account council tax?

>No, but then you haven't taken account of all those things the average
>earner buys that are either VAT-free or subject to just 5% VAT, like
>food, gas, electricity, newspapers, children's clothing etc etc, which
>more than compensate.

Huh? Dream on.

My council tax is about £120 a month. To save that amount in VAT I
would need to buy £600 of VAT-free goods per month. I doubt I spend
as much as £50 per month on VAT-free goods.

The amount "saved" on VAT-free goods is spent many times over on goods
that carries far more tax, such as fuel, booze and tobacco.

But as I explained previously, that's not the end of the amount of
your money ends up going to the government in indirect taxation.

Almost all the goods you buy had to be transported to the place you
bought them. The cost of that transport is paid for from a proportion
of the price you pay. Of which some represents the tax on the fuel
used to transport it, and the corporation tax on the company. The
retailer you bought from is also paying business tax and rates on the
property - which you partially pay for in the price of goods. The
factory that produces the goods is paying tax on the business and
rates on the property and VAT on their electricity and phones etc.
Which must be paid for by increasing the price of the goods they sell
by a proportionate amount. If the factory is outside the UK, you are
obviously paying the import duty on the goods.

And on top of all that it is an upward spiral. The reason gross
salaries need to be so high in the UK is so that the employees can
afford to pay all that tax and still live reasonably well. Salaries
are a big part of the manufacturing cost of all goods - so the goods
are more expensive - meaning people must earn higher salaries to live
reasonably .... and so on.

Go to a country with overall low taxation and you will see that not
only do you pay far less tax, but that all the goods and services are
also far cheaper for the same quality product.

A glass of beer in a pub in Venezuala used to cost 5 cents (U.S.)
Which happened to be the same price as a litre of diesel fuel.

--
Cynic

[Andy Wainwright]

Lots of hard work. This has involved radical new working methods and
business models , new technology, extensive market research and training.

We're essentially trying to do for media what the Rochdale Pioneers did
for grocery.

The co-operative movement and similar models has particular interest for
me, as it is free market private enterprise with trade and social integrity.

It represents an opposition to public and private monopoly and cartels
and effective legalised crime. I see this ethos, whether profit making
or not, as the only way of achieving long term stable enterprise and any
genuine economic advancement.

Unfortunately, it's a good way of generating indifference and outright
hostility from a market that isn't in any true form a free one, but a
vested interest's club.
Many would rather cling to an outdated business modelout of fear of
change, even if it's actually against their own long term personal and
commercial interests. It's quite strange to see the struggling smaller
players often side with the giants keeping them down against a new kid
on the block potentially offering a better deal for all concerned.

However this drives me and my colleagues towards futher passion to make
something work.

[Charles Bryant]

In article <512f8303...@127.0.0.1>, Cynic <cyni...@yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
}On Wed, 27 Feb 2013 22:38:47 -0000, "Norman Wells" <h...@unseen.ac.am>
}wrote:

}>On an average salary of about £26,000, NI contributions will be £2220,
}>and income tax will be £3135. That leaves £20645 net income (79.4% of
}>gross income) to spend as you wish.
}
}You have completely ignored the tax that is taken as soon as you spend
}it.

..

}The percentage of your total salary that ends up going to the
}government one way or another is indeed close to 70%

I'm not sure it's as high as 70%, but it's easy to prove that Norman's
20.6% is quite wrong. From:
<URL: https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/fields/2221.html >
we find that about 40% of the UK's GDP is tax. While this means that
the average per person works out at 40%, those who, because of
unemployment, illness, youth, retirement etc are not currently
contributing significantly to the GDP, the proportion of tax paid by
those who have a salary must be significantly higher than 40%.

[Mel Rowing]

On Mar 1, 12:44 am, Andy Wainwright

<andrewrichardwainwri...@hotmail.co.uk> wrote:
> On 28/02/2013 08:59, Mel Rowing wrote:

> >> A lot of people spend money on the lottery, nothing wrong with having
> >> such a dream, but shouldn't people be thinking of more practical ways of
> >> self-betterment? Learning a trade, starting a business. After all, luck
> >> is only luck, it doesn't say anything about the character of the "winner".
>
> > Ok so when do you propose to start?
>
> > We have had several declarations of good intent but so far no reports
> > of progress.
>
> Lots of hard work. This has involved radical new working methods and
> business models , new technology, extensive market research and training.
>
> We're essentially trying to do for media what the Rochdale Pioneers did
> for grocery.

I see! Or rather in fact I don't see and can't see such vagaries.

You will succeed in the media if a) you are good enough, b) you are
lucky enough or more usually c) you are both good enough and lucky
enough. It's little if anything to do with working methods, business
models, technology or market research. That's just flannel.

In short you do nothing and won't do whilst Joe Public picks up the
tab.

[Ste]

I often think these discussions are pointless unless you define what
outcome you are trying to achieve. For class warriors like yourself
who want the poor to be swindled by markets and the rich to be
unshackled from their obligations to pay progressive rates of tax,
it's perfectly obvious why you harp on about the percentage of tax
paid.

But for most people, it should be a relative non-issue. People get
direct benefits from public services and the maintenance of civil
society. If people are concerned that much of their spending is not in
fact discretionary, that unfortunately is the nature of life under any
model. Much of what people are currently obligated to pay in tax in
respect of public goods and services, they would otherwise be de facto
obligated to buy in the market, but at flat (or even regressive) rates
instead of progressive rates that reflect their ability to pay.

And there's really no reason to why people should be able to decide,
as individuals, and as the mood takes them, that they don't want to
pay for schools, hospitals, and elderly care.

[Ste]

Only when you accumulate it over multiple rounds, but then you also
have to accumulate people's incomes over multiple rounds (because what
one man pays in tax, another later receives as a result of the
spending of that tax money by the government). In other words, while
the price of goods you buy is inflated by taxes imposed earlier in the
supply chain, so too your income is inflated by *government spending*
earlier in the supply chain.

I have the vague recollection that we had this discussion once before
quite recently, and as Norman says, the best indicator of what
proportion of income the government is spending *at any one time*, is
by measuring it against GDP.

[JNugent]

What a wonderful example, offered gratis, of an "argument" from someone
who hasn't actually got the basis for one and can't think one up - so
resorts to a strawman instead.

70% of one's - anyone's - income being amputated in taxes would be an
outrage.

But 56% (it may well be more) for an ordinary run-of-the-mill average
earner is not far behind.

That you can't see that says a lot about you.

[JNugent]

On 02/03/2013 23:55, Ste wrote:

> On Feb 28, 4:23 pm, cynic_...@yahoo.co.uk (Cynic) wrote:

[ ... ]

>> The percentage of your total salary that ends up going to the
>> government one way or another is indeed close to 70%

> Only when you accumulate it over multiple rounds ...

IOW, only when you add it up.

Was your answer supposed to be a witty riposte to Cynic's point?

Take yourself to one side and have a serious word.

[Ste]

And you also find that salaries are lower in the first place, so the
relative cost of the goods and services is often basically the same.
It's nice to go abroad as a Brit, where in general you will comprise
the richest and most highly-skilled section of the population (because
you come from a high-tax, high-investment, high-productivity society
that can afford to produce such personalities), but there is really
nowhere in the world where economic standards of living for the
ordinary indigenous citizen is better than in the West.

> A glass of beer in a pub in Venezuala used to cost 5 cents (U.S.)
> Which happened to be the same price as a litre of diesel fuel.

They also have a quarter of the economic productivity of most European
nations, and in actual fact even that high level of productivity is
probably a result of 'uneven and combined development' rather than the
sustained success of their economic and social model over decades and
centuries. Frankly, it's a classic example of losing sight of the
bigger picture - if these notoriously poor societies really were so
cheap to live in relative to incomes, then why on Earth do they have
none of the normal trappings of advanced wealth like education,
healthcare, well-appointed homes, expensive cars, etc.?

Sure, many of these societies have valuable things that are lacking in
Britain, but it is certainly not economic wealth and spending power.

[Andy Wainwright]

I have plenty of experience in this field, and can tell you that there
certainly is a major fault with the business model.

Here's a little example.

The Sun is not a newspaper known for high-quality journalism. However, a
few years ago, a rookie reporter won the rag a national prize for a well
researched and presented piece.

The reporter concerned was from a lower-middle class background, whose
grandparents had come to the country as immigrants with nothing. They'd
saved to get their kids a good edcuation and so forth.

Unfortunately, what they paid him wasn't enough to cover even the
repayments of his student loan, and he had to quit the industry and get
a job somewhere else. Some senior executives at this organisation were
on seven figure salaries.

The case of News International versus the printers union in the 1984
conflict actually showed the company had a real point in that profits
had to be made to ensure it's survival and future jobs.

However, the union barons have in modern times been replaced by
similarly luddite, nepotistic and power crazed executives who would
rather fix the market than face it. The only difference is they're
earning many times what the union bosses and their members were. And
doing the same thing- promoting restrictive practices.

Just like the unions' hold over the government from the 1950s to the
1970s, such figures bribe and bully the political world to effectively
enshrine their vested interests thus insulating themselves from any real
market forces, more modern working practises, better productivity and so
forth.

It's not healthy to have 90% of every newspaper, film or record on the
shelves chosen by a handful of people, often that harly anyone even
knows who they are.

A demonstration of their effectiveness can be shown by the way you've
chosen to rubbish and belittle such as my good self.

I chose to invest my disability money in growing a business. Some in the
financial sector see fit to spend the money given to them by the state
in the form of artificially low interest rates on personal bonuses.

I don't want a mansion. Have lived in one. I don't want a brand new top
of the range car. Have driven one. I want to create a long term
employment prospect for myself and many talented friends, maybe save a
bit and give some to family and charity.

It seems the left are against free enterprise, but at the same time the
right wing are only for it if it's on behalf of their rich and powerful
already mates.

Something disturbing was how an element of the Conservative party in the
1970s and 1980s saw nothing wrong with apartheid- what they thought of
black South Africans unfortunately seemed to reflect what they thought
of working class people here. Capitalism, freedom, choice- but only for
the few- the rest have the right to work for them and have no choice,
and never get the chance to achieve anything, however talented they may be.

Labour, unfortunately shares a lot of the hypocritical puritanicalism of
the Tories, and have a vested interest in keeping the poor poor,
seemingly worried that if people make something for themselves they
might choose to vote differently.

[Mel Rowing]

On Mar 3, 12:57 am, Andy Wainwright

<andrewrichardwainwri...@hotmail.co.uk> wrote:
> On 02/03/2013 09:16, Mel Rowing wrote:

> >> We're essentially trying to do for media what the Rochdale Pioneers did
> >> for grocery.
>
> > I see! Or rather in fact I don't see and can't see such vagaries.
>
> > You will succeed in the media if a) you are good enough, b) you are
> > lucky enough or more usually c) you are both good enough and lucky
> > enough. It's little if anything to do with working methods, business
> > models, technology or market research. That's just flannel.
>
> > In short you do nothing and won't do whilst Joe Public picks up the
> > tab.
>
> I have plenty of experience in this field, and can tell you that there
> certainly is a major fault with the business model.

Then isn't it time you took advantage of all this experience?

> Here's a little example.
>
> The Sun is not a newspaper known for high-quality journalism. However, a
> few years ago, a rookie reporter won the rag a national prize for a well
> researched and presented piece.
>
> The reporter concerned was from a lower-middle class background, whose
> grandparents had come to the country as immigrants with nothing. They'd
> saved to get their kids a good edcuation and so forth.
>
> Unfortunately, what they paid him wasn't enough to cover even the
> repayments of his student loan, and he had to quit the industry and get
> a job somewhere else. Some senior executives at this organisation were
> on seven figure salaries.

What has all this to do with you earning a living?

> It's not healthy to have 90% of every newspaper, film or record on the
> shelves chosen by a handful of people, often that harly anyone even
> knows who they are.

The largest media organisation in this country is without doubt the
BBC the output of which certainly isn't controlled by a handful of
people.

The rest are commercial. Being commercial means it has to be funded
and that is perhaps a restraint on most commercial organisations. You
can open up a news sheet or an internet broadcasting service tomorrow
but your problem would be this funding. You would need to court
subscribers, seek advertising of other means of support just as media
organisations do. The chief bean counter is just as important as main
lead writers if not as visible. This is the situation that has evolved
as the successful have eaten up or simply eliminated any commercial
competitor. People buy newspapers for a read, watch TV essentially for
a little entertainment or enlightenment and not to become part of any
mission.

Just out of interest, when was the last time you submitted a serious
article to any media outlet? I mean an article not the inane letters
you published here from time to time. "I think ...", "I believe ...",
I suggest ..." does not make for a stimulating article. I am talking
about a well written, well researched, well argued, well sourced
article.

Frankly I don't think you have it in you and not many people have.
There is a dearth of such people and that is why the ones that do
exist dominate this field and always will.

I would have thought (now I'm at it) that before you could challenge
them you would first of all need to overcome the most basic of
challenges, that of earning a basic living.

The last time we discussed this, you rattled on about your ongoing
project of opening up the world to "talented musicians" What happened
to that?

[JNugent]

So it must all have happened quite recently, then?

After all, it wasn't until Blair/BrownBalls scrapped the student grant
and introduced the Higher Education Tax (which they misnamed "tuition
fees") after their 1997 election victory that it became necessary (in
the UK) for anyone to "[save] to get their kids a good education and so
forth".

Before BBB got their hands on educationeducationeducation, saving simply
was not necessary. I had no savings before or when I was a student (or
for a long time thereafter). My parents were not called upon to make any
financial contributions. Blair/BrownBalls changed that, for the worse,
for later generations.

> Unfortunately, what they paid him wasn't enough to cover even the
> repayments of his student loan, and he had to quit the industry and get
> a job somewhere else. Some senior executives at this organisation were
> on seven figure salaries.

It is possible that he had a student loan under the Conservatives, since
the facility for cheap loans was actually introduced by them, but there
was no Education Tax to pay until BBB introduced it and grants were
still available until BBB scrapped them.

> The case of News International versus the printers union in the 1984
> conflict actually showed the company had a real point in that profits
> had to be made to ensure it's survival and future jobs.
>

Fair enough.

>
> However, the union barons have in modern times been replaced by
> similarly luddite, nepotistic and power crazed executives who would
> rather fix the market than face it. The only difference is they're
> earning many times what the union bosses and their members were. And
> doing the same thing- promoting restrictive practices.
>
> Just like the unions' hold over the government from the 1950s to the
> 1970s, such figures bribe and bully the political world to effectively
> enshrine their vested interests thus insulating themselves from any real
> market forces, more modern working practises, better productivity and so
> forth.

So all the new newspapers* and other media outlets** which have arisen
since the 1980s are a figment of the imagination, are they?

[* The "Today" newspaper, the "Independent" newspaper are good examples,
and I name only the national dailies there.]

[** The Sky News television channel, as well as a plethora of others, in
English, from around the world, with several from the USA, including the
full range from Fox News to MSNBC (the "Guardian" of the USA]. I say
nothing of the several hundred new television general entertainment and
information channels, plus a number of new radio channels.]

No competition, no market entry, no risk, you claim?

What happened to the "Today" newspaper, then, after the Fleet Street
unions declared war on it and its proprietor, Eddy Shah?

> It's not healthy to have 90% of every newspaper, film or record on the
> shelves chosen by a handful of people, often that harly anyone even
> knows who they are.

Justify your claim. How many, precisely, is "a handful"? Is it greater
or lesser than a smidgeon? How about a comparison to a cupful? Or, more
realistically, how about quantifying it in numbers?

> A demonstration of their effectiveness can be shown by the way you've
> chosen to rubbish and belittle such as my good self.

You have a higher opinion of yourself than might be justifiable. No-one
would need to be a whisky-soaked, Daily Mirror-reading rou� in order to
form a negative impression of your *self-admitted* lifestyle. The
"rubbishing" and "belittling" has come from you.

> I chose to invest my disability money in growing a business. Some in the
> financial sector see fit to spend the money given to them by the state
> in the form of artificially low interest rates on personal bonuses.

What does that mean?

"Disability money" is paid by the state in order to cover living costs
and some of the extra costs faced by those with disabilities. If you can
save out of it, well done.

On the other hand "artificially low interest rates on personal bonuses"
is pure gibberish. Interest rates and bonuses (or any other forms of
remuneration are not linked, except insofar as anyone who has income to
save is better served by realistic interest rates which both give a
return (of at least several percent), plus protect the sum invested from
the ravages of inflation. If you have money, low interest rates are your
enemy and certainly not your friend.

> I don't want a mansion. Have lived in one. I don't want a brand new top
> of the range car. Have driven one. I want to create a long term
> employment prospect for myself and many talented friends, maybe save a
> bit and give some to family and charity.
>
> It seems the left are against free enterprise, but at the same time the
> right wing are only for it if it's on behalf of their rich and powerful
> already mates.

Nonsense. You may start a business any time you like. And good luck to
you with it.

Don't forget to declare it to the DWP as soon as you start.

[S]

When was that? Fuel is still cheap, but beer is more like a couple of
dollars for 1/2 litre. Motor fuel is subsidised since someone
introduced it I think in the 1940s and nobody has dared to abolish the
subsidy. As a result, everybody who can drives large cars, air quality
is terrible in Caracas. Venezuela actually has to import petrol to
meet demand, the subsidy costs a huge amount of money, without it the
budget would have a surplus. Unsurprisingly, there is also large scale
smuggling to neighbouring countries. While Venezuela exports oil, it
has no money to build power station and to provide a reliable
electricity supply in rural areas.

[Ste]

I'm pretty sure that the student grant was frozen, and loans
introduced, in 1990. For sure, Blair didn't reverse that, but New
Labour were just Tory shithouses anyway.

> Before BBB got their hands on educationeducationeducation, saving simply
> was not necessary. I had no savings before or when I was a student (or
> for a long time thereafter). My parents were not called upon to make any
> financial contributions. Blair/BrownBalls changed that, for the worse,
> for later generations.

Rubbish. *Thatcher* began the change to that state of affairs.

> > Unfortunately, what they paid him wasn't enough to cover even the
> > repayments of his student loan, and he had to quit the industry and get
> > a job somewhere else. Some senior executives at this organisation were
> > on seven figure salaries.
>
> It is possible that he had a student loan under the Conservatives, since
> the facility for cheap loans was actually introduced by them, but there
> was no Education Tax to pay until BBB introduced it and grants were
> still available until BBB scrapped them.

The last year that a full, inflation-linked grant was available to
students was 1989-90.

[JNugent]

You may be correct. But the grant was not abolished, it was still paid
out and just as importantly, there was no Higher Education Tax. Neither
would there be until Labour introduced it at the same time as abolishing
the maintenance grant, leaving students entirely dependent on loans or
family largesse. OK, there was also part-time work.

> For sure, Blair didn't reverse that,

Indeed he didn't. He made the situation much worse than anyone could
have imagined.

> but New Labour were just Tory shithouses anyway.

Whatever that means. Perhaps it's your new way of rationalising all the
nasty, mean-spirited, rotten little socialist things that
Blair/BrownBalls did.

>> Before BBB got their hands on educationeducationeducation, saving simply
>> was not necessary. I had no savings before or when I was a student (or
>> for a long time thereafter). My parents were not called upon to make any
>> financial contributions. Blair/BrownBalls changed that, for the worse,
>> for later generations.

> Rubbish. *Thatcher* began the change to that state of affairs.

It is you who is talking rubbish. The Conservatives kept the maintenance
grant, though they also introduced a system of cheap loans as a
supplement for those who wanted them. They certainly did not abolish the
grant: that was Labour, that was. And the Conservatives did not
introduce the Higher Education Tax. That too was Labour.

>>> Unfortunately, what they paid him wasn't enough to cover even the
>>> repayments of his student loan, and he had to quit the industry and get
>>> a job somewhere else. Some senior executives at this organisation were
>>> on seven figure salaries.
>
>> It is possible that he had a student loan under the Conservatives, since
>> the facility for cheap loans was actually introduced by them, but there
>> was no Education Tax to pay until BBB introduced it and grants were
>> still available until BBB scrapped them.
>
> The last year that a full, inflation-linked grant was available to
> students was 1989-90.

You seem to "think" that "full grant" meant an annually-uprated one. It
didn't mean that at all.

The grant was always a full grant as long as there was no parental
contribution to be met - which only applied to students under 25. I had
a full grant, and was very grateful for it.

What you are struggling to find the words to say is that from a certain
date, the grant (whether full or abated) was no longer annually uprated.

[Cynic]

On Sat, 2 Mar 2013 16:20:44 -0800 (PST), Ste <ste_...@hotmail.com>
wrote:

>> Go to a country with overall low taxation and you will see that not
>> only do you pay far less tax, but that all the goods and services are
>> also far cheaper for the same quality product.

>And you also find that salaries are lower in the first place, so the
>relative cost of the goods and services is often basically the same.

Indiginous goods and services are relatively cheaper, whilst imported
goods & services are more expensive. So people tend to buy a far
higher proportion of goods made in their own country than we do in the
UK - where as you are aware the opposite is the case.

>It's nice to go abroad as a Brit, where in general you will comprise
>the richest and most highly-skilled section of the population (because
>you come from a high-tax, high-investment, high-productivity society
>that can afford to produce such personalities), but there is really
>nowhere in the world where economic standards of living for the
>ordinary indigenous citizen is better than in the West.

Having lived for quite a while in several such countries, I can assure
you that you have over-generalised to the point where what you say
cannot be regarded as true. I'm not sure what you mean by "economic
standards of living," but I can assure you that the *general* standard
of living is better for the average person in quite a few countries
than it is in the UK. The biggest difference is that the gadgets and
toys owned by the average person is about 5 years out of date compared
with similar gadgets in the UK. As for average productivity - there
is no shortage of very skilled people, and the average productivity
per person AFAICS is a lot higher than it is in the UK, with a better
work-ethic.

>> A glass of beer in a pub in Venezuala used to cost 5 cents (U.S.)
>> Which happened to be the same price as a litre of diesel fuel.

>They also have a quarter of the economic productivity of most European
>nations, and in actual fact even that high level of productivity is
>probably a result of 'uneven and combined development' rather than the
>sustained success of their economic and social model over decades and
>centuries. Frankly, it's a classic example of losing sight of the
>bigger picture - if these notoriously poor societies really were so
>cheap to live in relative to incomes, then why on Earth do they have
>none of the normal trappings of advanced wealth like education,
>healthcare, well-appointed homes, expensive cars, etc.?

The average homes that I saw were *far* better than the average UK
home. I don't know about healthcare, but all the children I saw went
to school, and as far as I could tell were more literate than the
average UK schoolchild. They were also far better behaved in public.

>Sure, many of these societies have valuable things that are lacking in
>Britain, but it is certainly not economic wealth and spending power.

So what? The only thing that matters to the average person is his
personal standard of living and sense of wellbeing. As for cost of
living compared to income, I spent about a year in Venezuala and a
year in Florida aboard a yacht. I had no savings, and no income
except what I was able to earn. In Venezuala I worked about one day
per week and lived extremely well. In Florida I worked about 3 days
per week and couldn't afford a meal out or a visit to a pub except
once in a blue Moon.

--
Cynic

[Cynic]

On Sun, 3 Mar 2013 09:27:59 -0800 (PST), S <s_pick...@yahoo.com>
wrote:

>> > A glass of beer in a pub in Venezuala used to cost 5 cents (U.S.)
>> > Which happened to be the same price as a litre of diesel fuel.

>When was that?

About 1979

> Fuel is still cheap, but beer is more like a couple of
>dollars for 1/2 litre.

According to http://www.mytravelcost.com/alcohol-prices/
alcohol is now about 20% of the price in the UK. However, I suspect
that prices may be those charged in the tourist areas, which are
considerably more expensive than you will find in the pubs and clubs
frequented by most of the locals.

--
Cynic

[Cynic]

On Sat, 2 Mar 2013 15:55:49 -0800 (PST), Ste <ste_...@hotmail.com>
wrote:

>> The percentage of your total salary that ends up going to the
>> government one way or another is indeed close to 70%

>Only when you accumulate it over multiple rounds

Not at all. The fact is that you are taxed multiple times - so I am
*not* counting any form of taxation twice.

> but then you also
>have to accumulate people's incomes over multiple rounds (because what
>one man pays in tax, another later receives as a result of the
>spending of that tax money by the government).

I am interested only in the average amount that an employed person
ends up giving to the government. In most cases the amount that he
received back in the form of services is a tiny fraction of what he
has paid.

> In other words, while
>the price of goods you buy is inflated by taxes imposed earlier in the
>supply chain, so too your income is inflated by *government spending*
>earlier in the supply chain.

Only if you work for a company that the government buys from.

--
Cynic

[Ste]

They immediately stopped uprating it. That's what government's tend to
do when they intend to cut something that will otherwise cause
outrage.

> it was still paid
> out and just as importantly, there was no Higher Education Tax. Neither
> would there be until Labour introduced it at the same time as abolishing
> the maintenance grant, leaving students entirely dependent on loans or
> family largesse. OK, there was also part-time work.

Students were already dependent on loans by 1997. Thatcher abolished
the *principle* of free higher education, and Labour simply
accelerated it along that course.

> > For sure, Blair didn't reverse that,
>
> Indeed he didn't. He made the situation much worse than anyone could
> have imagined.

You're a real shyster to suggest that the Labour government was worse
than the Tories in this respect. The Tories have just put up fees to
£10k!

> > but New Labour were just Tory shithouses anyway.
>
> Whatever that means. Perhaps it's your new way of rationalising all the
> nasty, mean-spirited, rotten little socialist things that
> Blair/BrownBalls did.

It's just a way of distancing myself from Labour, since my attacks on
the Tories might suggest approval of Labour.

> >> Before BBB got their hands on educationeducationeducation, saving simply
> >> was not necessary. I had no savings before or when I was a student (or
> >> for a long time thereafter). My parents were not called upon to make any
> >> financial contributions. Blair/BrownBalls changed that, for the worse,
> >> for later generations.
> > Rubbish. *Thatcher* began the change to that state of affairs.
>
> It is you who is talking rubbish. The Conservatives kept the maintenance
> grant, though they also introduced a system of cheap loans as a
> supplement for those who wanted them. They certainly did not abolish the
> grant: that was Labour, that was. And the Conservatives did not
> introduce the Higher Education Tax. That too was Labour.

There is no "higher education tax" that I'm aware of.

> >>> Unfortunately, what they paid him wasn't enough to cover even the
> >>> repayments of his student loan, and he had to quit the industry and get
> >>> a job somewhere else. Some senior executives at this organisation were
> >>> on seven figure salaries.
>
> >> It is possible that he had a student loan under the Conservatives, since
> >> the facility for cheap loans was actually introduced by them, but there
> >> was no Education Tax to pay until BBB introduced it and grants were
> >> still available until BBB scrapped them.
>
> > The last year that a full, inflation-linked grant was available to
> > students was 1989-90.
>
> You seem to "think" that "full grant" meant an annually-uprated one. It
> didn't mean that at all.

That is exactly what it meant. "Full grant" meant "paid your basic
living expenses in full".

> The grant was always a full grant as long as there was no parental
> contribution to be met - which only applied to students under 25.  I had
> a full grant, and was very grateful for it.
>
> What you are struggling to find the words to say is that from a certain
> date, the grant (whether full or abated) was no longer annually uprated.

What I am saying is that the Tories abolished free access to
university education!

[Ste]

On Mar 4, 4:44 pm, cynic_...@yahoo.co.uk (Cynic) wrote:
> On Sat, 2 Mar 2013 16:20:44 -0800 (PST), Ste <ste_ro...@hotmail.com>

> wrote:
>
> >> Go to a country with overall low taxation and you will see that not
> >> only do you pay far less tax, but that all the goods and services are
> >> also far cheaper for the same quality product.
> >And you also find that salaries are lower in the first place, so the
> >relative cost of the goods and services is often basically the same.
>
> Indiginous goods and services are relatively cheaper, whilst imported
> goods & services are more expensive.

Given low levels of productivity, it follows logically that equivalent
indigenous goods are vastly more expensive in labour power. The cost
of imports is accounted for mostly by various inequalities, not by
inefficiencies.

> So people tend to buy a far
> higher proportion of goods made in their own country than we do in the
> UK - where as you are aware the opposite is the case.

Because we are on the opposite end of those global inequalities. The
poorest in our country wouldn't even be able to *afford* to buy
British anymore, and can only survive by taking advantage of those
international inequalities.

> >It's nice to go abroad as a Brit, where in general you will comprise
> >the richest and most highly-skilled section of the population (because
> >you come from a high-tax, high-investment, high-productivity society
> >that can afford to produce such personalities), but there is really
> >nowhere in the world where economic standards of living for the
> >ordinary indigenous citizen is better than in the West.
>
> Having lived for quite a while in several such countries, I can assure
> you that you have over-generalised to the point where what you say
> cannot be regarded as true.

It's not an over-generalisation, or untrue, if you focus on what I
mean by "economic standard of living" - more below.

> I'm not sure what you mean by "economic
> standards of living," but I can assure you that the *general* standard
> of living is better for the average person in quite a few countries
> than it is in the UK.  The biggest difference is that the gadgets and
> toys owned by the average person is about 5 years out of date compared
> with similar gadgets in the UK.

You can own 5-year-out-of-date gadgets in the UK. But the average Brit
is so wealthy relative to the rest of the world, that they don't have
to.

I've already accepted that in non-economic terms (that is, in terms
other than an ability to sustain a high economic cost of living), life
in many countries is indeed better.

> As for average productivity - there
> is no shortage of very skilled people, and the average productivity
> per person AFAICS is a lot higher than it is in the UK, with a better
> work-ethic.

Now that *is* tosh. Real productivity (that is, value produced per
time unit of work) is highest in the West, because we not only have
the highest skills, but the largest amount of investment in capital
machinery and infrastructure.

Either you've made a mistake, or you're using the bosses' measure of
productivity, which has nothing to do with labour (or resource)
efficiency, and everything to do with how much profit they make. A
legion of slaves working the economy with their hands and teeth, and
in the process polluting the oceans, clearing the rainforests, and
obliterating the landscape, and which produces even a single pound of
profit, is infinitely more "productive" to the boss, than an
automated, sustainable process that humans just tweak occasionally,
but which only breaks even once workers have met their cost of living,
and doesn't produce a penny for the boss.

> >> A glass of beer in a pub in Venezuala used to cost 5 cents (U.S.)
> >> Which happened to be the same price as a litre of diesel fuel.
> >They also have a quarter of the economic productivity of most European
> >nations, and in actual fact even that high level of productivity is
> >probably a result of 'uneven and combined development' rather than the
> >sustained success of their economic and social model over decades and
> >centuries. Frankly, it's a classic example of losing sight of the
> >bigger picture - if these notoriously poor societies really were so
> >cheap to live in relative to incomes, then why on Earth do they have
> >none of the normal trappings of advanced wealth like education,
> >healthcare, well-appointed homes, expensive cars, etc.?
>
> The average homes that I saw were *far* better than the average UK
> home.  I don't know about healthcare, but all the children I saw went
> to school, and as far as I could tell were more literate than the
> average UK schoolchild.  They were also far better behaved in public.

But we're at cross-purposes. A society doesn't have to be rich to have
well-behaved children. But it does have to be rich for every toddler
to have a mobile phone, and for every mother to take them to school in
a Chelsea tractor, 10 miles away from home.

> >Sure, many of these societies have valuable things that are lacking in
> >Britain, but it is certainly not economic wealth and spending power.
>
> So what?  The only thing that matters to the average person is his
> personal standard of living and sense of wellbeing.  As for cost of
> living compared to income, I spent about a year in Venezuala and a
> year in Florida aboard a yacht.  I had no savings, and no income
> except what I was able to earn.  In Venezuala I worked about one day
> per week and lived extremely well.  In Florida I worked about 3 days
> per week and couldn't afford a meal out or a visit to a pub except
> once in a blue Moon.

I agree, I agree. I can't say it any clearer than that. The point is
that what makes these societies so nice, is not their "low tax", and
their "cheap goods and services", but in fact their relatively low,
and much more efficient, consumption of goods and services, in the
context of daily lives that are not yet lived entirely in subservience
to capricious markets. Indeed, the most likely reason why you lived
well in Venezuela working one day a week, but lived like a pauper in
Florida working 3 days a week, is not because of the "high tax" USA,
but because of the high-inequality USA, where most of what you worked
to produce ended up in the hands of more powerful market players (and
not necessarily your immediate employer, but also the people in the
market he trades with in turn).

[Ste]

On Mar 4, 5:00 pm, cynic_...@yahoo.co.uk (Cynic) wrote:
> On Sat, 2 Mar 2013 15:55:49 -0800 (PST), Ste <ste_ro...@hotmail.com>

> wrote:
>
> >> The percentage of your total salary that ends up going to the
> >> government one way or another is indeed close to 70%
> >Only when you accumulate it over multiple rounds
>
> Not at all.  The fact is that you are taxed multiple times - so I am
> *not* counting any form of taxation twice.

These multiple slices of taxation are unlikely to add up to 70% of
gross income (unless you're extremely poor, and certain sharply
regressive taxes overwhelm your meagre basic income).

> > but then you also
> >have to accumulate people's incomes over multiple rounds (because what
> >one man pays in tax, another later receives as a result of the
> >spending of that tax money by the government).
>
> I am interested only in the average amount that an employed person
> ends up giving to the government.  In most cases the amount that he
> received back in the form of services is a tiny fraction of what he
> has paid.

Let's say the average person pays £5,000 a year in income taxes. If
they started work at 21, they'd have probably been 35 years old before
they've even paid enough to cover the cost of their own educations -
that's before we talk about *any* other of the vast array of necessary
public services that people consume in the course of their lives -
healthcare, roads, utilities, justice, law enforcement, military, old
age care, social security, etc. This idea that the "average employed
person" receives only a "tiny fraction" of the benefit of their tax
money is sheer lunacy.

And any sensible analysis of this issue can't just look at inputs to
government budgets as you say - it must look at outputs.

The only good reason why people would want individual discretion to
spend their own money, is if they intended to spend it on something
other than what the government already spends it on. Also, in all
likelihood, if the average individual acting on their own account (and
able to do so without any rational scrutiny or public discourse - just
headlines printed by the rich to inform their decisions), had had a
zero percent tax rate over the past 15 years, our country would be in
twice as much unaffordable mortgage debt, and we'd have no schools,
hospitals, or social security.

> > In other words, while
> >the price of goods you buy is inflated by taxes imposed earlier in the
> >supply chain, so too your income is inflated by *government spending*
> >earlier in the supply chain.
>
> Only if you work for a company that the government buys from.

Not necessarily. You need only work for a company that *trades* with
those who work for a company that the government buys from.

[Joe]

On Mon, 4 Mar 2013 21:21:11 -0800 (PST)
Ste <ste_...@hotmail.com> wrote:


>
> What I am saying is that the Tories abolished free access to
> university education!

No, it was done by whichever EU person/body decreed the target of half
school-leavers going into HE, which could never have been afforded from
taxation as there would obviously be no return on investment.

--
Joe

[Cynic]

On Mon, 4 Mar 2013 21:56:23 -0800 (PST), Ste <ste_...@hotmail.com>
wrote:

>>As for average productivity - there
>> is no shortage of very skilled people, and the average productivity
>> per person AFAICS is a lot higher than it is in the UK, with a better
>> work-ethic.

>Now that *is* tosh. Real productivity (that is, value produced per
>time unit of work) is highest in the West, because we not only have
>the highest skills, but the largest amount of investment in capital
>machinery and infrastructure.

I was talking in terms of the productivity that the average worker
produces himself (i.e. not machine productivity). But you are
inaccurate regarding machinery as well. South America has many large
automated factories with sophisticated mass-production machinery -
albeit many in factories owned by Western companies.

>> ><...> then why on Earth do they have

>> >none of the normal trappings of advanced wealth like education,
>> >healthcare, well-appointed homes, expensive cars, etc.?

>> The average homes that I saw were *far* better than the average UK

>> home. =A0I don't know about healthcare, but all the children I saw went

>> to school, and as far as I could tell were more literate than the

>> average UK schoolchild. =A0They were also far better behaved in public.

>But we're at cross-purposes. A society doesn't have to be rich to have
>well-behaved children. But it does have to be rich for every toddler
>to have a mobile phone, and for every mother to take them to school in
>a Chelsea tractor, 10 miles away from home.

I was responding to the part of your statement regarding eductation
and homes (quoted above). You are surely not going to argue that
mobile phones and being taxiied to school makes a child better
educated?

>> >Sure, many of these societies have valuable things that are lacking in
>> >Britain, but it is certainly not economic wealth and spending power.

But why should those things be at all important to any individual,
except if they are a means to a better life? Which quite frankly they
do not accomplish. I can enjoy a 10p pint of beer in South America
just as much as I enjoy a £3 pint in the UK. More in fact, because
usually the company I am in consists of happier people who are not
complaining all the time - which makes quite a bit of difference.

Sit for an hour chatting to someone you have just met in a pub in the
UK and it is almost certain that you will hear at least 3 different
complaints from the guy. Bad weather, bad roads, bad car repair, bad
supermarkets - people in the UK always seem to have *something* to
complain about. Perhaps you think that is the normal state of affairs
in all countries?

>> So what? The only thing that matters to the average person is his
>> personal standard of living and sense of wellbeing. As for cost of
>> living compared to income, I spent about a year in Venezuala and a
>> year in Florida aboard a yacht. I had no savings, and no income
>> except what I was able to earn. In Venezuala I worked about one day
>> per week and lived extremely well. In Florida I worked about 3 days
>> per week and couldn't afford a meal out or a visit to a pub except
>> once in a blue Moon.

>I agree, I agree. I can't say it any clearer than that. The point is
>that what makes these societies so nice, is not their "low tax", and
>their "cheap goods and services", but in fact their relatively low,
>and much more efficient, consumption of goods and services, in the
>context of daily lives that are not yet lived entirely in subservience
>to capricious markets. Indeed, the most likely reason why you lived
>well in Venezuela working one day a week, but lived like a pauper in
>Florida working 3 days a week, is not because of the "high tax" USA,
>but because of the high-inequality USA, where most of what you worked
>to produce ended up in the hands of more powerful market players (and
>not necessarily your immediate employer, but also the people in the
>market he trades with in turn).

By far the largest proportion of money earned by individuals in the UK
goes (via one route or another) to pay tax.

--
Cynic

[Cynic]

On Mon, 4 Mar 2013 22:34:04 -0800 (PST), Ste <ste_...@hotmail.com>
wrote:

>On Mar 4, 5:00=A0pm, cynic_...@yahoo.co.uk (Cynic) wrote:
>> On Sat, 2 Mar 2013 15:55:49 -0800 (PST), Ste <ste_ro...@hotmail.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>> >> The percentage of your total salary that ends up going to the
>> >> government one way or another is indeed close to 70%
>> >Only when you accumulate it over multiple rounds
>>

>> Not at all. =A0The fact is that you are taxed multiple times - so I am

>> *not* counting any form of taxation twice.
>
>These multiple slices of taxation are unlikely to add up to 70% of
>gross income (unless you're extremely poor, and certain sharply
>regressive taxes overwhelm your meagre basic income).

Do the sums. Assume a gross income of £24K with a person who spends
£150 per month on petrol, £60 per month on booze and £50 per month on
tobacco. Put any reasonable amount on council tax and
gas/electricity. Put a similar reasonable amount on the amount spent
on VAT-able goods.

Then see how *you* calculate the "hidden tax" that forms part of the
selling price of *all* goods we buy (including food & children's
clothes etc.)

>> I am interested only in the average amount that an employed person

>> ends up giving to the government. =A0In most cases the amount that he

>> received back in the form of services is a tiny fraction of what he
>> has paid.

>Let's say the average person pays £5,000 a year in income taxes.

That is ridiculously low for the average employed person.

> If
>they started work at 21, they'd have probably been 35 years old before
>they've even paid enough to cover the cost of their own educations -
>that's before we talk about *any* other of the vast array of necessary
>public services that people consume in the course of their lives -
>healthcare, roads, utilities, justice, law enforcement, military, old
>age care, social security, etc. This idea that the "average employed
>person" receives only a "tiny fraction" of the benefit of their tax
>money is sheer lunacy.

Many of the things you mention are paid for by the person directly
either completely or in part. I have received almost nothing in
healthcare, my car tax should pay for the proportion of road
construction & upkeep I use, I pay for my utilities of which a part
goes toward upkeep and construction of the infrastructure), I have
paid *huge* amounts for "justice" when I have needed it, I have not
received any social security payments and anyone who manages to have
any savings or assets by the time they need old age care will find
that they have to pay for it themselves. The military is the only one
that the average citizen is unlikely to pay for directly, and in the
past decade it would seem that the military have been engaged in
activities that make us *less* safe that we would otherwise be.

>And any sensible analysis of this issue can't just look at inputs to
>government budgets as you say - it must look at outputs.

I have.

>The only good reason why people would want individual discretion to
>spend their own money, is if they intended to spend it on something
>other than what the government already spends it on.

Absolutely - and why not?

--
Cynic

[JNugent]

On 05/03/2013 05:21, Ste wrote:

> On Mar 3, 8:28 pm, JNugent <jennings...@fastmail.fm> wrote:
>> On 03/03/2013 20:13, Ste wrote:
>>> On Mar 3, 11:58 am, JNugent <jennings...@fastmail.fm> wrote:
>>>> On 03/03/2013 00:57, Andy Wainwright wrote:

[ ... ]

>>>>> The Sun is not a newspaper known for high-quality journalism. However, a
>>>>> few years ago, a rookie reporter won the rag a national prize for a well
>>>>> researched and presented piece.
>>>>> The reporter concerned was from a lower-middle class background, whose
>>>>> grandparents had come to the country as immigrants with nothing. They'd
>>>>> saved to get their kids a good edcuation and so forth.
>
>>>> So it must all have happened quite recently, then?
>>>> After all, it wasn't until Blair/BrownBalls scrapped the student grant
>>>> and introduced the Higher Education Tax (which they misnamed "tuition
>>>> fees") after their 1997 election victory that it became necessary (in
>>>> the UK) for anyone to "[save] to get their kids a good education and so
>>>> forth".
>
>>> I'm pretty sure that the student grant was frozen, and loans
>>> introduced, in 1990.
>
>> You may be correct. But the grant was not abolished,
>
> They immediately stopped uprating it. That's what government's tend to
> do when they intend to cut something that will otherwise cause
> outrage.

But the grant was not abolished by the Conservatives.

Labour abolished the student maintenance grant.

*Labour* did it.

Is that now clear enough?

>> it was still paid
>> out and just as importantly, there was no Higher Education Tax. Neither
>> would there be until Labour introduced it at the same time as abolishing
>> the maintenance grant, leaving students entirely dependent on loans or
>> family largesse. OK, there was also part-time work.
>
> Students were already dependent on loans by 1997.

No, they weren't. Students could get grants in 1997.

You are therefore wrong.

To the extent that grants have never actually been enough for all the
needs of a student and therefore needed to be topped up by parental
largesse and/or part-time work (or both), there was no change in the
deendency status of students, except for the fact a source of cheap
loans became available in addition to the grant and other sources of
support. But students had always borrowed from other sources anyway.

> Thatcher abolished
> the *principle* of free higher education,

That is an outright LIE.

There were no fees to pay under the Conservatives. Higher education (or,
at least, a first degree) was free. *Free* under the Conservatives.

There had never been any guarantee of a maintenance grant (not everyone
qualified, though I did), but education was provided free of charge
under the Conservatives.

> and Labour simply...

...were the ones who abolished free higher education in the UK.

>>> For sure, Blair didn't reverse that,

>> Indeed he didn't. He made the situation much worse than anyone could
>> have imagined.
>
> You're a real shyster to suggest that the Labour government was worse
> than the Tories in this respect. The Tories have just put up fees to
> �10k!

Under Mrs Thatcher and Mr Major, higher education was *free*.

Under Labour (*Labour*), free higher education was *abolished*.

I'm sorry of that *fact* doesn't have much currency on your planet, but
that's not my fault.

>>> but New Labour were just Tory shithouses anyway.
>
>> Whatever that means. Perhaps it's your new way of rationalising all the
>> nasty, mean-spirited, rotten little socialist things that
>> Blair/BrownBalls did.
>
> It's just a way of distancing myself from Labour, since my attacks on
> the Tories might suggest approval of Labour.

Who can blame you for wanting to distance yourself from Labour?

Certainly not I.

>>>> Before BBB got their hands on educationeducationeducation, saving simply
>>>> was not necessary. I had no savings before or when I was a student (or
>>>> for a long time thereafter). My parents were not called upon to make any
>>>> financial contributions. Blair/BrownBalls changed that, for the worse,
>>>> for later generations.

>>> Rubbish. *Thatcher* began the change to that state of affairs.
>
>> It is you who is talking rubbish. The Conservatives kept the maintenance
>> grant, though they also introduced a system of cheap loans as a
>> supplement for those who wanted them. They certainly did not abolish the
>> grant: that was Labour, that was. And the Conservatives did not
>> introduce the Higher Education Tax. That too was Labour.
>
> There is no "higher education tax" that I'm aware of.

It is euphemistically termed "Tuition Fees". It is, in fact, a flat rate
tax.

I had to pay it (per annum, in advance) for my youngest son. That was
�4,000 I couldn't let him have whilst he was a student.

The money would certainly have been better in his pocket than in the
trough used by BrownBalls.

>>>>> Unfortunately, what they paid him wasn't enough to cover even the
>>>>> repayments of his student loan, and he had to quit the industry and get
>>>>> a job somewhere else. Some senior executives at this organisation were
>>>>> on seven figure salaries.
>
>>>> It is possible that he had a student loan under the Conservatives, since
>>>> the facility for cheap loans was actually introduced by them, but there
>>>> was no Education Tax to pay until BBB introduced it and grants were
>>>> still available until BBB scrapped them.
>
>>> The last year that a full, inflation-linked grant was available to
>>> students was 1989-90.
>
>> You seem to "think" that "full grant" meant an annually-uprated one. It
>> didn't mean that at all.
>
> That is exactly what it meant. "Full grant" meant "paid your basic
> living expenses in full".

You never went to university, I see. :-)

If you had, you wouldn't and couldn't come out with sheer nonsense like
that.

>> The grant was always a full grant as long as there was no parental
>> contribution to be met - which only applied to students under 25. I had
>> a full grant, and was very grateful for it.
>
>> What you are struggling to find the words to say is that from a certain
>> date, the grant (whether full or abated) was no longer annually uprated.
>
> What I am saying is that the Tories abolished free access to
> university education!

But that, as has been demonstrated above, a LIE, isn't it?

*Labour* abolished free higher education.

[Ste]

On Mar 5, 8:46 am, Joe <j...@jretrading.com> wrote:
> On Mon, 4 Mar 2013 21:21:11 -0800 (PST)
>

> Ste <ste_ro...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> > What I am saying is that the Tories abolished free access to
> > university education!
>
> No, it was done by whichever EU person/body decreed the target of half
> school-leavers going into HE, which could never have been afforded from
> taxation as there would obviously be no return on investment.

Nothing to do with the EU whatsoever. Scotland has a publicly funded
system.

[Ste]

On Mar 5, 1:10 pm, cynic_...@yahoo.co.uk (Cynic) wrote:
> On Mon, 4 Mar 2013 21:56:23 -0800 (PST), Ste <ste_ro...@hotmail.com>

> wrote:
>
> >>As for average productivity - there
> >> is no shortage of very skilled people, and the average productivity
> >> per person AFAICS is a lot higher than it is in the UK, with a better
> >> work-ethic.
> >Now that *is* tosh. Real productivity (that is, value produced per
> >time unit of work) is highest in the West, because we not only have
> >the highest skills, but the largest amount of investment in capital
> >machinery and infrastructure.
>
> I was talking in terms of the productivity that the average worker
> produces himself (i.e. not machine productivity).

There's no real distinction. No one produces anything with their bare
hands anymore, and even when that was the norm, cultural capital still
accounted for far more productivity than time spent or physical
effort.

> But you are
> inaccurate regarding machinery as well.  South America has many large
> automated factories with sophisticated mass-production machinery -
> albeit many in factories owned by Western companies.

I'm not saying they don't have these things in South America. I'm
saying that Western countries (being the first to develop, after all)
are much more advanced in this respect.

> >> ><...>  then why on Earth do they have
> >> >none of the normal trappings of advanced wealth like education,
> >> >healthcare, well-appointed homes, expensive cars, etc.?
> >> The average homes that I saw were *far* better than the average UK
> >> home. =A0I don't know about healthcare, but all the children I saw went
> >> to school, and as far as I could tell were more literate than the
> >> average UK schoolchild. =A0They were also far better behaved in public.
> >But we're at cross-purposes. A society doesn't have to be rich to have
> >well-behaved children. But it does have to be rich for every toddler
> >to have a mobile phone, and for every mother to take them to school in
> >a Chelsea tractor, 10 miles away from home.
>
> I was responding to the part of your statement regarding eductation
> and homes (quoted above).  You are surely not going to argue that
> mobile phones and being taxiied to school makes a child better
> educated?

Again, I think we're at cross purposes. I certainly don't think that
children are better educated by virtue of having a mobile phone - I'm
saying that these are the *trappings* of a highly economically-
productive society.

I'm rebutting you on a very narrow point: the assertion that people in
second- and third-world countries, are somehow either richer or more
productive than workers in the developed world. They are neither.

I agree wholeheartedly that most of them have happier lives for it,
but it doesn't make the assertion about wealth any more true - if
anything, it reinforces the point that you *don't* need to be rich to
be happy, but what you do need is to have a degree of control over
your life, a sense of security and stability for you and your family,
interest and dedication to your work, and dignity in the course of
your everyday life.

When people's jobs (or at least its pay and conditions) are under
constant threat, when their homes are under constant threat, when
their relationships are under constant strain from finances, when
they're demeaned on a daily basis by despotic and arrogant bosses,
when their communities and workplaces are relatively transient and
full of people feeing similarly insecure, when their kids are on the
dole year after year, that's when people don't perceive any quality of
life, even if for the time being they themselves are economically
comfortable.

> >> >Sure, many of these societies have valuable things that are lacking in
> >> >Britain, but it is certainly not economic wealth and spending power.
>
> But why should those things be at all important to any individual,
> except if they are a means to a better life?  Which quite frankly they
> do not accomplish.  I can enjoy a 10p pint of beer in South America
> just as much as I enjoy a £3 pint in the UK.  More in fact, because
> usually the company I am in consists of happier people who are not
> complaining all the time - which makes quite a bit of difference.

Indeed.

> Sit for an hour chatting to someone you have just met in a pub in the
> UK and it is almost certain that you will hear at least 3 different
> complaints from the guy.  Bad weather, bad roads, bad car repair, bad
> supermarkets - people in the UK always seem to have *something* to
> complain about.  Perhaps you think that is the normal state of affairs
> in all countries?

No, I don't think it's normal.

> >> So what? The only thing that matters to the average person is his
> >> personal standard of living and sense of wellbeing. As for cost of
> >> living compared to income, I spent about a year in Venezuala and a
> >> year in Florida aboard a yacht. I had no savings, and no income
> >> except what I was able to earn. In Venezuala I worked about one day
> >> per week and lived extremely well. In Florida I worked about 3 days
> >> per week and couldn't afford a meal out or a visit to a pub except
> >> once in a blue Moon.
> >I agree, I agree. I can't say it any clearer than that. The point is
> >that what makes these societies so nice, is not their "low tax", and
> >their "cheap goods and services", but in fact their relatively low,
> >and much more efficient, consumption of goods and services, in the
> >context of daily lives that are not yet lived entirely in subservience
> >to capricious markets. Indeed, the most likely reason why you lived
> >well in Venezuela working one day a week, but lived like a pauper in
> >Florida working 3 days a week, is not because of the "high tax" USA,
> >but because of the high-inequality USA, where most of what you worked
> >to produce ended up in the hands of more powerful market players (and
> >not necessarily your immediate employer, but also the people in the
> >market he trades with in turn).
>
> By far the largest proportion of money earned by individuals in the UK
> goes (via one route or another) to pay tax.

Maybe so. But bearing in mind what I've said about 'government
outputs', I still don't see the problem. I'd happily pay 99% tax, if
it meant I didn't ever again have to worry about paying for food,
housing, car repairs, or whatever.

[JNugent]

Re-read what he wrote.

You clearly didn't understand it.

[JNugent]

On 05/03/2013 19:58, Ste wrote:

> I'd happily pay 99% tax, if
> it meant I didn't ever again have to worry about paying for food,
> housing, car repairs, or whatever.

Sounds like being a cotton plantation slave would have suited you down
to the ground.

[Cynic]

On Tue, 5 Mar 2013 11:58:11 -0800 (PST), Ste <ste_...@hotmail.com>
wrote:

>> By far the largest proportion of money earned by individuals in the UK
>> goes (via one route or another) to pay tax.

>Maybe so. But bearing in mind what I've said about 'government
>outputs', I still don't see the problem. I'd happily pay 99% tax, if
>it meant I didn't ever again have to worry about paying for food,
>housing, car repairs, or whatever.

But that's not the case, is it? About the only significant advantage
of our high taxation that there is for myself compared with countries
with a much lower rate is free health service. And that is in fact
pretty limited when it comes to the crunch - if the treatment you need
is particularly expensive the NHS have all sorts of ways of wriggling
out of supplying or paying for it. And the medical care that is in
most demand - care for the elderly - must usually be paid for by the
elderly person if they have any assets, and IME is a very poor
standard of care anyway. The elderly in most cases are *far* better
off living in a culture where they are cared for by their extended
family or the local community rather than sterile "professional
carers" who in many cases don't give a damn.

--
Cynic

[Ste]

On Mar 5, 1:27 pm, cynic_...@yahoo.co.uk (Cynic) wrote:
> On Mon, 4 Mar 2013 22:34:04 -0800 (PST), Ste <ste_ro...@hotmail.com>

> wrote:
>
> >On Mar 4, 5:00=A0pm, cynic_...@yahoo.co.uk (Cynic) wrote:
> >> On Sat, 2 Mar 2013 15:55:49 -0800 (PST), Ste <ste_ro...@hotmail.com>
> >> wrote:
>
> >> >> The percentage of your total salary that ends up going to the
> >> >> government one way or another is indeed close to 70%
> >> >Only when you accumulate it over multiple rounds
>
> >> Not at all. =A0The fact is that you are taxed multiple times - so I am
> >> *not* counting any form of taxation twice.
>
> >These multiple slices of taxation are unlikely to add up to 70% of
> >gross income (unless you're extremely poor, and certain sharply
> >regressive taxes overwhelm your meagre basic income).
>
> Do the sums.  Assume a gross income of £24K with a person who spends
> £150 per month on petrol, £60 per month on booze and £50 per month on
> tobacco.  Put any reasonable amount on council tax and
> gas/electricity.  Put a similar reasonable amount on the amount spent
> on VAT-able goods.

To digress slightly, we were discussing here last year maybe about e-
cigs. I've suggested them to quite a few people now, and of the people
who've then tried them, they say they'll never go back to real
tobacco. More pertinently, I also gather than smokers could save a
substantial amount by using e-cigs.

> Then see how *you* calculate the "hidden tax" that forms part of the
> selling price of *all* goods we buy (including food & children's
> clothes etc.)

But we also then have to calculate the hidden income increment from
the economic effect of government spending.

> >> I am interested only in the average amount that an employed person
> >> ends up giving to the government. =A0In most cases the amount that he
> >> received back in the form of services is a tiny fraction of what he
> >> has paid.
> >Let's say the average person pays £5,000 a year in income taxes.
>
> That is ridiculously low for the average employed person.

I don't think it's far off the mark for the average person's income
tax - that is, PAYE. It might even be overly-generous, when you factor
in the effect of Tax Credits.

> > If
> >they started work at 21, they'd have probably been 35 years old before
> >they've even paid enough to cover the cost of their own educations -
> >that's before we talk about *any* other of the vast array of necessary
> >public services that people consume in the course of their lives -
> >healthcare, roads, utilities, justice, law enforcement, military, old
> >age care, social security, etc. This idea that the "average employed
> >person" receives only a "tiny fraction" of the benefit of their tax
> >money is sheer lunacy.
>
> Many of the things you mention are paid for by the person directly
> either completely or in part.

None of the things I mention are paid for by the person directly in
full, and most or all of the cost is met indirectly.

> I have received almost nothing in
> healthcare,

4 people in my immediate family, including myself, have various known
heart defects. One is about to have an actual operation. Another is
functionally asymptomatic but now treated with medication. There is a
good chance I'll need an operation at some point. Three of us,
including myself, are under periodic monitoring for these conditions.

And if I branch out to extended family and in-laws, there is really no
shortage at all of people with conditions that are substantial and
serious (or would be but for treatment).

It may be the case that you were born straightforwardly, had a healthy
childhood, fit as a fiddle now, and one day you keel over with a
massive heart attack whilst walking in the park and they throw you
straight in the box. But most people's lives are clearly not so
medically uneventful, so it is not really an argument against the
principle of taxation-funded healthcare - especially when comparable
private models of treatment are actually more expensive.

> my car tax should pay for the proportion of road
> construction & upkeep I use, I pay for my utilities of which a part
> goes toward upkeep and construction of the infrastructure),

I doubt you're meeting all but a fraction of the infrastructure cost
from the taxes that are proximate to things like fuel, energy, and
vehicles. Very little infrastructure is in fact being built these
days. That's why the morning news earlier this week says we had the
dubious distinction last year of having drought on one of every 5
days, whilst also having flooding on one in every 4 days.

> I have
> paid *huge* amounts for "justice" when I have needed it,

Which most people think was not justice at all, and what is more the
government appears determined to continue along that line.

> I have not
> received any social security payments and anyone who manages to have
> any savings or assets by the time they need old age care will find
> that they have to pay for it themselves.

Even if you do end up selling the family home, it meets only a
fraction of those old-age costs - and I'm inclined to think that the
elderly who have been helped to accrue such surpluses by underpaying
tax during their working lives, have little right to complain that
their daily care is not entirely free at the end of it. The logic of
eroding tax-funded services, is that people would be exposed even
moreso to end-of-life costs, should they happen to cling on, and less
so than now, their childrens would desperately need that capital to
keep their own heads above water in free markets. That's why some
people literally end up living in drainpipes in the USA, more end up
selling themselves on the streets, and more again end up in prisons -
you spoke yourself, of just how comparitively poor your quality of
life was when working in Florida, and yet you were living and working
in one of the richest and most powerful nations on Earth, which is
also the castle keep of free markets and individualism.

> The military is the only one
> that the average citizen is unlikely to pay for directly, and in the
> past decade it would seem that the military have been engaged in
> activities that make us *less* safe that we would otherwise be.

Quite so.

> >And any sensible analysis of this issue can't just look at inputs to
> >government budgets as you say - it must look at outputs.
>
> I have.
>
> >The only good reason why people would want individual discretion to
> >spend their own money, is if they intended to spend it on something
> >other than what the government already spends it on.
>
> Absolutely - and why not?

Why so? As I've said, over a lifetime I couldn't imagine purchasing a
radically different basket of goods than is already provided by the
government - and I'd more likely than not be robbed of any excess
earnings and savings by free markets, just as has happened to so many
people with the housing market, the employment market, the utility
market, .

Inded if the proposed alternative to the public sector is the private
sector, then I'm absolutely sure that waste would be vastly increased.
What the private sector spends marketing budgets alone (mostly zero-
sum activities), is probably the cost of several war chests.

If there are irregularities in public sector budgets, it is a matter
of the implementation rather than first principles - a position
reinforced by the fact that many of those with the power to determine
the implementation in recent times, don't actually start from first
principles that are pro-public sector, and their intellectual time and
political capital is spent scheming to erode the public sector behind
the backs of the electorate, rather than improving it. In the postwar
period when people and politicians across Europe were committed to
those principles, we saw not only rapid recovery from economic
devastation, but an improvement in general standards of living unseen
before or since.

The economic woes experienced at the end of that period, were severe
by the recent standards of the time, but have become the very norm
today. Even when one in ten were on the dole in the 80s, dole was
several times the amount in real terms than it is today - people on
the dole then even had football season tickets *and* could afford to
go to the pub every weekend! And they had freely-available housing,
and so did their children. The list goes on.

[Cynic]

On Wed, 6 Mar 2013 11:54:30 -0800 (PST), Ste <ste_...@hotmail.com>
wrote:

>To digress slightly, we were discussing here last year maybe about e-
>cigs. I've suggested them to quite a few people now, and of the people
>who've then tried them, they say they'll never go back to real
>tobacco. More pertinently, I also gather than smokers could save a
>substantial amount by using e-cigs.

A 20-a-day smoker will save between £100 and £180 per month depending
whether they smoke roll-ups or packet ciggies.

>> Then see how *you* calculate the "hidden tax" that forms part of the
>> selling price of *all* goods we buy (including food & children's
>> clothes etc.)

>But we also then have to calculate the hidden income increment from
>the economic effect of government spending.

Specify what you have in mind and we can see how it compares.

>> >Let's say the average person pays £5,000 a year in income taxes.

>> That is ridiculously low for the average employed person.

>I don't think it's far off the mark for the average person's income
>tax - that is, PAYE. It might even be overly-generous, when you factor
>in the effect of Tax Credits.

It is very dishonest of you to pretent that PAYE is the only taxation
when it has been pointed out to you at length that it is in fact only
a fraction of the total. Please tell me how I can get these tax
credits that you claim affects my total tax outlay.

>> > If
>> >they started work at 21, they'd have probably been 35 years old before
>> >they've even paid enough to cover the cost of their own educations -
>> >that's before we talk about *any* other of the vast array of necessary
>> >public services that people consume in the course of their lives -
>> >healthcare, roads, utilities, justice, law enforcement, military, old
>> >age care, social security, etc. This idea that the "average employed
>> >person" receives only a "tiny fraction" of the benefit of their tax
>> >money is sheer lunacy.

>> Many of the things you mention are paid for by the person directly
>> either completely or in part.

>None of the things I mention are paid for by the person directly in
>full, and most or all of the cost is met indirectly.

Whether it is met directly or indirectly is immaterial so long as it
ends up coming out of the pocket of the person using the facillity.

>>=A0I have received almost nothing in

>> healthcare,

>4 people in my immediate family, including myself, have various known
>heart defects. One is about to have an actual operation. Another is
>functionally asymptomatic but now treated with medication. There is a
>good chance I'll need an operation at some point. Three of us,
>including myself, are under periodic monitoring for these conditions.
>
>And if I branch out to extended family and in-laws, there is really no
>shortage at all of people with conditions that are substantial and
>serious (or would be but for treatment).
>
>It may be the case that you were born straightforwardly, had a healthy
>childhood, fit as a fiddle now, and one day you keel over with a
>massive heart attack whilst walking in the park and they throw you
>straight in the box. But most people's lives are clearly not so
>medically uneventful, so it is not really an argument against the
>principle of taxation-funded healthcare - especially when comparable
>private models of treatment are actually more expensive.

Heathcare is indeed one of the uses of my tax money that I am in full
agreement with - though whether we get good value for money is a
different question.

>> my car tax should pay for the proportion of road
>> construction & upkeep I use, I pay for my utilities of which a part
>> goes toward upkeep and construction of the infrastructure),

>I doubt you're meeting all but a fraction of the infrastructure cost
>from the taxes that are proximate to things like fuel, energy, and
>vehicles.

On the contrary, I bet I pay *far more* than the proportionate cost of
the infrastructure I use or the amount or wear & tear I cause.

>> I have
>> paid *huge* amounts for "justice" when I have needed it,

>Which most people think was not justice at all, and what is more the
>government appears determined to continue along that line.

Exactly - you appear to be arguing *agiant* one of your own points!

>> I have not
>> received any social security payments and anyone who manages to have
>> any savings or assets by the time they need old age care will find
>> that they have to pay for it themselves.

>Even if you do end up selling the family home, it meets only a
>fraction of those old-age costs - and I'm inclined to think that the
>elderly who have been helped to accrue such surpluses by underpaying
>tax during their working lives, have little right to complain that
>their daily care is not entirely free at the end of it.

The elderly to malign worked very hard to *earn* the assets that they
end up with - but which are often seized by the state.

>> >The only good reason why people would want individual discretion to
>> >spend their own money, is if they intended to spend it on something
>> >other than what the government already spends it on.

>> Absolutely - and why not?

>Why so? As I've said, over a lifetime I couldn't imagine purchasing a
>radically different basket of goods than is already provided by the
>government - and I'd more likely than not be robbed of any excess
>earnings and savings by free markets, just as has happened to so many
>people with the housing market, the employment market, the utility
>market, .

Oh, I would choose a significantly different basket of goods.

>Inded if the proposed alternative to the public sector is the private
>sector, then I'm absolutely sure that waste would be vastly increased.
>What the private sector spends marketing budgets alone (mostly zero-
>sum activities), is probably the cost of several war chests.

The same is true of party political marketing campaigns and government
propaganda.

--
Cynic

[Ste]

On Mar 7, 3:40 pm, cynic_...@yahoo.co.uk (Cynic) wrote:
> On Wed, 6 Mar 2013 11:54:30 -0800 (PST), Ste <ste_ro...@hotmail.com>

> wrote:
>
> >To digress slightly, we were discussing here last year maybe about e-
> >cigs. I've suggested them to quite a few people now, and of the people
> >who've then tried them, they say they'll never go back to real
> >tobacco. More pertinently, I also gather than smokers could save a
> >substantial amount by using e-cigs.
>
> A 20-a-day smoker will save between £100 and £180 per month depending
> whether they smoke roll-ups or packet ciggies.
>
> >> Then see how *you* calculate the "hidden tax" that forms part of the
> >> selling price of *all* goods we buy (including food & children's
> >> clothes etc.)
> >But we also then have to calculate the hidden income increment from
> >the economic effect of government spending.
>
> Specify what you have in mind and we can see how it compares.

I'm not going to engage in a guessing game, because I don't have
statistics to hand. My simple point is that the increment is there,
and it is not insignificant (because government spending is not
insignificant either). You seem convinced that government spending
somehow goes into an economic black hole (in a way that the private
spending of the rich and powerful presumably does not).

> >> >Let's say the average person pays £5,000 a year in income taxes.
> >> That is ridiculously low for the average employed person.
> >I don't think it's far off the mark for the average person's income
> >tax - that is, PAYE. It might even be overly-generous, when you factor
> >in the effect of Tax Credits.
>
> It is very dishonest of you to pretent that PAYE is the only taxation
> when it has been pointed out to you at length that it is in fact only
> a fraction of the total.

I did say "income taxes". I've only reinforced that by saying PAYE,
because that is how most people pay income tax.

> Please tell me how I can get these tax
> credits that you claim affects my total tax outlay.

HMRC Form TC600 if I remember correctly.

> >> > If
> >> >they started work at 21, they'd have probably been 35 years old before
> >> >they've even paid enough to cover the cost of their own educations -
> >> >that's before we talk about *any* other of the vast array of necessary
> >> >public services that people consume in the course of their lives -
> >> >healthcare, roads, utilities, justice, law enforcement, military, old
> >> >age care, social security, etc. This idea that the "average employed
> >> >person" receives only a "tiny fraction" of the benefit of their tax
> >> >money is sheer lunacy.
> >> Many of the things you mention are paid for by the person directly
> >> either completely or in part.
> >None of the things I mention are paid for by the person directly in
> >full, and most or all of the cost is met indirectly.
>
> Whether it is met directly or indirectly is immaterial so long as it
> ends up coming out of the pocket of the person using the facillity.

Indeed. We're not arguing about the fact that people do in one way or
another have to pay for things like the NHS. The question, as I saw
it, was whether the average person gets value for their money from the
principle of paying taxes, and undoubtedly they do - at least if the
comparator, and proposed alternative, is the private sector and free
markets.

> >>=A0I have received almost nothing in
> >> healthcare,
> >4 people in my immediate family, including myself, have various known
> >heart defects. One is about to have an actual operation. Another is
> >functionally asymptomatic but now treated with medication. There is a
> >good chance I'll need an operation at some point. Three of us,
> >including myself, are under periodic monitoring for these conditions.
>
> >And if I branch out to extended family and in-laws, there is really no
> >shortage at all of people with conditions that are substantial and
> >serious (or would be but for treatment).
>
> >It may be the case that you were born straightforwardly, had a healthy
> >childhood, fit as a fiddle now, and one day you keel over with a
> >massive heart attack whilst walking in the park and they throw you
> >straight in the box. But most people's lives are clearly not so
> >medically uneventful, so it is not really an argument against the
> >principle of taxation-funded healthcare - especially when comparable
> >private models of treatment are actually more expensive.
>
> Heathcare is indeed one of the uses of my tax money that I am in full
> agreement with - though whether we get good value for money is a
> different question.

I don't know what would lead you to think that you don't get good
value for money. Tories have been hacking away at the public sector
for 30 years, imposing "efficiency savings", with huge falls in its
extent, and they're still complaining that it's too big, wildly
mismanaged, and that it's poor value for money, and that's it's the
one and only thing that is stopping the little man from breathing.
It's makes you wonder how ordinary people survived in the postwar
period, with such an overbearing public sector, squeezing every penny
out of them.

And yet as the statistics and the incidents emerge of gross
mismagement in the private sector, of inefficiency, fraud, and of
constant inflation in the price of ordinary goods and services, and of
pay and conditions driven to historical lows, of pensions abolished,
you'd think by now that this mantra of how the private sector is the
only answer to "public sector waste" would have stopped resonating
amongst sensible people.

> >> my car tax should pay for the proportion of road
> >> construction & upkeep I use, I pay for my utilities of which a part
> >> goes toward upkeep and construction of the infrastructure),
> >I doubt you're meeting all but a fraction of the infrastructure cost
> >from the taxes that are proximate to things like fuel, energy, and
> >vehicles.
>
> On the contrary, I bet I pay *far more* than the proportionate cost of
> the infrastructure I use or the amount or wear & tear I cause.

Then let me ask outright, who do you think is the net beneficiary of
all this spending paid for out of your pocket? Who do you think pays
less than the proportionate cost of the infrastructure (because
logically this class of people must exist)?

> >> I have
> >> paid *huge* amounts for "justice" when I have needed it,
> >Which most people think was not justice at all, and what is more the
> >government appears determined to continue along that line.
>
> Exactly - you appear to be arguing *agiant* one of your own points!

No, I'm making the point that a society made paranoid by its sense of
insecurity, and a justice system that is steadily returning to the
days when only the rich could afford to access it, is not my idea of
justice. Just because I'm pro-public-sector, doesn't mean that I have
to be pro-status-quo.

> >> I have not
> >> received any social security payments and anyone who manages to have
> >> any savings or assets by the time they need old age care will find
> >> that they have to pay for it themselves.
> >Even if you do end up selling the family home, it meets only a
> >fraction of those old-age costs - and I'm inclined to think that the
> >elderly who have been helped to accrue such surpluses by underpaying
> >tax during their working lives, have little right to complain that
> >their daily care is not entirely free at the end of it.
>
> The elderly to malign worked very hard to *earn* the assets that they
> end up with - but which are often seized by the state.

No, they aren't "seized" by the state - as far as I'm aware, there's
no obligation to enter a state-run nursing home. Elderly personal and
social care is precisely a realm where provision still has a large
*private* element and paid for at the point of use. One of the Dragons
(of the Den - I forget which one) made a fortune off the back of
nursing homes.

The reason the very poorest still receive care effectively free, is
for the same reason that the Tories claim to be protecting the most
vulnerable, because you can't get blood out of a stone, and the effect
of the poorest of the elderly being left to die on the streets would
cause too much outrage, and it would almost certainly provoke the
poorest communities into outright rebellion. Meanwhile, those who've
had it good enough in their lives (ha!) to have tens of thousands of
pounds sunk into a property might be bitter about having to shell it
all out at the end on their own care, but they're showing no signs of
rebelling yet, and that means the richest can afford tax cuts for
themselves (because for millionaires and billionaires, they can afford
to pay half a million in private care costs for their parents, and the
cost will be far less than if they had had to pay for everybody else's
parents too through increased taxes).

> >> >The only good reason why people would want individual discretion to
> >> >spend their own money, is if they intended to spend it on something
> >> >other than what the government already spends it on.
> >> Absolutely - and why not?
> >Why so? As I've said, over a lifetime I couldn't imagine purchasing a
> >radically different basket of goods than is already provided by the
> >government - and I'd more likely than not be robbed of any excess
> >earnings and savings by free markets, just as has happened to so many
> >people with the housing market, the employment market, the utility
> >market, .
>
> Oh, I would choose a significantly different basket of goods.
>
> >Inded if the proposed alternative to the public sector is the private
> >sector, then I'm absolutely sure that waste would be vastly increased.
> >What the private sector spends marketing budgets alone (mostly zero-
> >sum activities), is probably the cost of several war chests.
>
> The same is true of party political marketing campaigns and government
> propaganda.

Absolutely so. It's worth mentioning in passing that the shower of
shits who ushered in this era of propaganda and spin in politics, are
bankrolled and enabled in the first place by the very rich. The House
of Lords is now stuffed with rich businessmen who were or are
political party donors - and they certainly didn't become that rich
from careers in the Civil Service.

[Charles Bryant]

In article <07d5cb52-1605-4b4f...@x13g2000vby.googlegroups.com>,

Ste <ste_...@hotmail.com> wrote:
} I'd happily pay 99% tax, if
}it meant I didn't ever again have to worry about paying for food,
}housing, car repairs, or whatever.

Then why not arrange to get yourself imprisoned? You'd not have to
worry about any of those things.

[Cynic]

On Fri, 8 Mar 2013 11:22:43 -0800 (PST), Ste <ste_...@hotmail.com>
wrote:

>> It is very dishonest of you to pretent that PAYE is the only taxation
>> when it has been pointed out to you at length that it is in fact only
>> a fraction of the total.
>
>I did say "income taxes". I've only reinforced that by saying PAYE,
>because that is how most people pay income tax.

Are you being obtuse? The point was that income tax is *not* the only
form of taxation, and is not even the majority of the total amount we
pay in tax.

>> Please tell me how I can get these tax
>> credits that you claim affects my total tax outlay.

>HMRC Form TC600 if I remember correctly.

Can everyone get them?

>> Heathcare is indeed one of the uses of my tax money that I am in full
>> agreement with - though whether we get good value for money is a
>> different question.

>I don't know what would lead you to think that you don't get good
>value for money. Tories have been hacking away at the public sector
>for 30 years, imposing "efficiency savings", with huge falls in its
>extent, and they're still complaining that it's too big, wildly
>mismanaged, and that it's poor value for money, and that's it's the
>one and only thing that is stopping the little man from breathing.
>It's makes you wonder how ordinary people survived in the postwar
>period, with such an overbearing public sector, squeezing every penny
>out of them.

>And yet as the statistics and the incidents emerge of gross
>mismagement in the private sector, of inefficiency, fraud, and of
>constant inflation in the price of ordinary goods and services, and of
>pay and conditions driven to historical lows, of pensions abolished,
>you'd think by now that this mantra of how the private sector is the
>only answer to "public sector waste" would have stopped resonating
>amongst sensible people.

ITYWF that the average public sector department is a lot less
efficient than the average private sector department.

>> On the contrary, I bet I pay *far more* than the proportionate cost of
>> the infrastructure I use or the amount or wear & tear I cause.

>Then let me ask outright, who do you think is the net beneficiary of
>all this spending paid for out of your pocket? Who do you think pays
>less than the proportionate cost of the infrastructure (because
>logically this class of people must exist)?

Many of the beneficiaries are large private sector businesses, many
being outside the UK, that inflate their prices when selling to
governments. We also have a huge number of public sector workers and
civil servants who benefit by dealing with the red-tape and doing
other non-productive tasks that are not necessary. If we lived in a
closed economy, those slaries and profits would not matter, because
the money would effectively simply be circulating round and round -
but the fact is that a heck of a lot more the money leaves the UK
system by paying for things produced outside the UK than the amount of
money coming in from elsewhere for things that we export.

>> The elderly to malign worked very hard to *earn* the assets that they
>> end up with - but which are often seized by the state.

>No, they aren't "seized" by the state - as far as I'm aware, there's
>no obligation to enter a state-run nursing home. Elderly personal and
>social care is precisely a realm where provision still has a large
>*private* element and paid for at the point of use. One of the Dragons
>(of the Den - I forget which one) made a fortune off the back of
>nursing homes.

One of the reasons our tax is high is to fund a national health
system. A huge proportion of people have to be in nursing care
because of a health issue. Therefore is should be funded by the
state. And in fact, if the elderly person was wise enough to get rid
of their assets several years before requiring such care, the state
*does* pay.

>The reason the very poorest still receive care effectively free, is
>for the same reason that the Tories claim to be protecting the most
>vulnerable, because you can't get blood out of a stone, and the effect
>of the poorest of the elderly being left to die on the streets would
>cause too much outrage, and it would almost certainly provoke the
>poorest communities into outright rebellion.

Not to mention the fact that it is part of the social contract that we
all have such a safety net in return for giving so much of the fruits
of our labour to the government.

The problem with all such "social security" systems is that it
*encourages* feckless and irresponsible behaviour in all sorts of
ways. Why bother saving money if you will end up in exactly the same
position if you don't? Why should a young woman behave responsibly
and ensure that she is in a reasonably position to raise a family
before getting pregnant when the fact in the UK is that she will be
*far* better provided for with a couple of sprogs that she cannot
afford than if she remains childless until she has worked hard and
earned enough to give them a decent family life?

>Meanwhile, those who've
>had it good enough in their lives (ha!) to have tens of thousands of
>pounds sunk into a property might be bitter about having to shell it
>all out at the end on their own care, but they're showing no signs of
>rebelling yet, and that means the richest can afford tax cuts for
>themselves (because for millionaires and billionaires, they can afford
>to pay half a million in private care costs for their parents, and the
>cost will be far less than if they had had to pay for everybody else's
>parents too through increased taxes).

More and more people are wising up and preparing for old age by
shedding assets in one of the many ways that are (currently) legal. I
have a good idea that the whole care-home industry is about to blow up
in the faces of the industry. Scandles regarding lack of care are
increasing, whilst more and more people are winning civil court cases
and getting back the money they forked out. A friend of mine is going
through that process right now wrt the cost of keeping his mother in
care.

>> Oh, I would choose a significantly different basket of goods.

>> >Inded if the proposed alternative to the public sector is the private
>> >sector, then I'm absolutely sure that waste would be vastly increased.
>> >What the private sector spends marketing budgets alone (mostly zero-
>> >sum activities), is probably the cost of several war chests.

Marketing budgets are usually spent entirely within the country.
Therefore the money ends up benefitting plenty of people.

>> The same is true of party political marketing campaigns and government
>> propaganda.

>Absolutely so. It's worth mentioning in passing that the shower of
>shits who ushered in this era of propaganda and spin in politics, are
>bankrolled and enabled in the first place by the very rich. The House
>of Lords is now stuffed with rich businessmen who were or are
>political party donors - and they certainly didn't become that rich
>from careers in the Civil Service.

A democracy often ends up spending more money of government
self-interst than a dictatorship. it is just spread around a lot
more. Instead of a single £20 million palace, 100 payments of £1
million are made to big business to "keep the wheels oiled".

--
Cynic