You just couldn't make it up......
Two headlines sum up everything that has gone wrong over the past 15-20 years in the attitude towards different sections of the community:
and
If high taxation (41%) is a disincentive for the wealthy, then WTF is an effective tax rate of 67% on the lowest earners?
It must make all those socialists in the Labour Party so happy to see the state screwing the poor and kow-towing to the rich. After all, they campaigned to get Labour in power..... to do this.
Benefit errors 'can be recouped'
The government is entitled to take legal action to recover social security benefits it paid "by mistake", a judge has ruled.
The government is entitled to take legal action to recover social security benefits it paid "by mistake", a judge has ruled.
and
Brown vows to claw pension back
Gordon Brown has repeated his threat of legal action against ex-Royal Bank of Scotland chief Sir Fred Goodwin over his "unacceptable" £16m pension.
It must make all those socialists in the Labour Party so happy to see the state screwing the poor and kow-towing to the rich. After all, they campaigned to get Labour in power..... to do this.
4 comments:
That is why we should all remember the old adage that "power corrupts" when it comes to election time - coming soon!
Angus,
Am I wrong but are you not comparing appleas and oranges here. You say a 41% tax rate for high earners and then an effective tax rate of 67% for the poorest. The difference being the word effective. Could you please clarify it please?
However, the concept is very easy to understand. The incentive behind the higher (effective) tax rake against the poorer is to encourage them to get decent jobs and start moving up the economic laddder. It is a salutory lesson against skipping school, having no useful qualifications and spending what money you have on booze and fags. Indirect taxation has always hit lower earners more than higher earners in relative terms.
my, my; 3:01 have you swallowed capitalist-clap-trap hook, line and sinker! Do you have any idea how difficult it is to get out, or even claw your way up the system once you've been put into it at a certain level? No, I didn't think so... got a nice little earner for yourself did you, maybe in daddy's little workshop/office... the rich need no incentive - they will get richer - unless the rate of tax rises to an incomparable level, but the poor NEED our help!
Presumably the africans/S. americans/mexicans/asian and where ever else in the world you find desperately poor people really just need to pull their socks up and you would go their and lecture them... Please DO!
Hi 1:59, it's 3:01.
A few things first.
1) I'm not a capitalist. I never have and never will vote tory.
2) I work, I don't have a rich daddy. I am where I am today by working to pass exams, become qualified etc. Not through being handed all sorts of handouts.
3) Yes I do know how hard it is to get out of a system. It all depends upon ones personal desire and drive.
The tax system has been deliberately designed in the way it has. Indirect taxation always has and always will hit the poorest the hardest. Paradoxically, it is the poorest who smoke and drink the most (both in absolute and relative terms) so it is they who will pay the most. Whether in taxes or poorer health.
I know many people from poor backgrounds (backgrounds that people on this island could not imagine). Many of those people are stuck there because they cannot be bothered. They get their dole money and it's off the boozebuster. It is sad but it is salutory lesson.
It is hard to feel sympathy for the "poor like that" when they spend so much money on things they don't need.
Helping people in foreign countries is an interesting issue. Should we help them in the normal course of events? I do not know.
Should we help them after natural disasters? Yes
By the way, I assume that you have sold your house and car etc. etc. and sent all the money to the poor to help them?
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