is there a war on the poor?

chrispy108

LoFi said:

chrispy108 said:

You can if you're married: https://www.gov.uk/married-couples-allowance/overview

Useful if you're married to an octagenarian - maybe look at this one instead: https://www.gov.uk/marriage-allowance

Whoops!

marantz1300

A5D5E5 said:

marantz1300 said:

Sporky said:

marantz1300 said:

The point is not how much you pay in tax.
It's how much do you have left to live on.

So what are you actually suggesting? Variable tax so that everyone ends up with the same net income? Same disposable income? 

Seems fair.  Presumably the people who get off their arse and do the physical work will also be happy to pay for a share of the losses and put their homes as risk to fund the company as well?

Minimum wage,zero hours,work till you die pensions.
Alot of people are paying for everything without much coming back.
Philip Green and Mike Ashley don't seem to be worried about the roof over their heads.

A5D5E5

marantz1300 said:

A5D5E5 said:

marantz1300 said:

Sporky said:

marantz1300 said:

The point is not how much you pay in tax.
It's how much do you have left to live on.

So what are you actually suggesting? Variable tax so that everyone ends up with the same net income? Same disposable income? 

Seems fair.  Presumably the people who get off their arse and do the physical work will also be happy to pay for a share of the losses and put their homes as risk to fund the company as well?

Minimum wage,zero hours,work till you die pensions.
Alot of people are paying for everything without much coming back.
Philip Green and Mike Ashley don't seem to be worried about the roof over their heads.

A load of random words with no point or meaning.  Picking one or two multi multi millionaires is an absurd way to set an economic policy.  

If if I mortgage my house to start a business, why should I share the profit with somebody who takes no risk?

marantz1300

The point o the thread is are those with power abusing and demonising the poor.
It 's not  about small business.

A5D5E5

marantz1300 said:

The point o the thread is are those with power abusing and demonising the poor.
It 's not  about small business.

Why not?  I might hate the poor.  Why should I be exempt from your policy of taking my profit just because my business is small?

On the other hand, why do you think pension funds invest in FTSE 100 equities?  Shall we redistribute their profits as well, or do you have a way of determining which shareholders deserve a return on their capital and which don't?  

marantz1300

Well ifyou insist.
Send me all your money and I will redistribute it.
Thanks.

Drew_TNBD

Y'know... back in 2009/2010 .... I thought Mags was a fucking idiot. I thought he was an ultra-right wing neo-con Tory wanker who only cared about himself.

I now realise that I was being a typical left-wing cunt. Judging someone who was more successful than me out of jealousy and misplaced rage.

Since recognising that in myself, it's quite remarkable how often I see it in others.

Governments exist to take things from you, by force if necessary.

Libertarian FTW.

Ro_S

chrispy108 said:

You can if you're married: https://www.gov.uk/married-couples-allowance/overview

LoFi said:

Useful if you're married to an octagenarian - maybe look at this one instead: https://www.gov.uk/marriage-allowance

What I had in mind was a fully transferable income tax personal allowance, not 1/10th of it as some tiny token gesture that amounts to less than £250 p.a..

Sporky

marantz1300 said:

But maybe the profits which are made with someone actually getting off their arse and doing the phsical work could be shared just a little instead of going in the pockets of just the shareholders and the bosses

They are. Where do you think their wages come from?

Or are you saying that physical work is more valuable than intellectual work, so those who organise and plan should get a subsistence stipend and nothing more?

marantz1300

Do you mean organise or delegate?

Sporky

Are you being condescending or patronising?

marantz1300

touché!

Sporky

Slightly more seriously, there are of course good businesses and bad businesses, and good managers and bad ones.

Delegation is fine if it's the right way to deal with the work. A good manager takes into account the task itself, the abilities of each team member and what other work they have on, so that everything gets done well and everyone has an appropriate amount of work to do. That's not a trivial task.

In most companies with more than a handful of employees you need people to keep things organised and running so that everyone can do the thing(s) they're good at. If you're a plumbing company, for instance, you don't want the plumbers havnig to stop plumbing to do the accounts or order more stationery or manage the fleet of vans or take customer enquiries. Certainly without the plumbers there'd be no business, but without the supporting staff and management the plumbers wouldn't be able to use their time and skills efficiently.

historyisjunk

Sporky said:

Evilmags said:

The rich also provide all the capital to industry  and commerce, enabling those without capital the means to work and support themselves. That is an important social function. 

Indeed - and is so regardless of their motivations (before anyone tries that gambit).

Damn it. I'm agreeing with Mags on economics. I must be slipping.

Sporky said:

marantz1300 said:

But maybe the profits which are made with someone actually getting off their arse and doing the phsical work could be shared just a little instead of going in the pockets of just the shareholders and the bosses

They are. Where do you think their wages come from?

Or are you saying that physical work is more valuable than intellectual work, so those who organise and plan should get a subsistence stipend and nothing more?

Firstly, @Sporky I'm not following you to have a row or sniping at you, I've got a lot of respect for you & enjoy a lot  of what you post, so apologies if it seems like that. Just covering two points that seemed worth taking up, though I usually steer clear of posting in this section.

Regarding @Evilmags point about "the rich" providing ALL the capital to industry & commerce & their motivation.
Even without considering motivation, what else are they going to do in the current social/economic system, assuming they want to make significantly more money? There still seems to be some implied virtue here, i.e "if there were no rich people where would the rest of us be?". Unfortunately, this is a bit circular, without the input from the rest of us how would they be rich? (Someone will be along to say because they are exceptional in some respect- I'll leave others to consider how often this is the case...)
Secondly, does ALL the capital/funding come from "the rich"? Perhaps there is a particular definition of capital I am not understanding here, but doesn't a significant amount of funding for industry & commerce come from banks & financial institutions which in fact belongs to the rest of us in the form of savings, pensions, investments etc, Or indeed from the state in either direct subsidy, tax breaks etc- which comes from everyone's taxes.

Regarding profits, I don't think wages come from profits, they're a cost of production, profits are the return left over & indeed some of these come back to the rest of us if we are fortunate enough to have investments in the form of dividends. There are arguments to be had about what is a reasonable amount to have left over before, or after dividends etc. I'd suggest in some cases this amount is too high, speaking normatively rather than from having an in depth understanding of any particular school of economics. I'd suggest though that matters of economics & social organisation are not some kind of natural phenomenon like the weather or gravity, they're socially created, therefore need too be and CAN be managed by social processes. I'm not getting into how this should be accomplished, as for one thing I don't have the answer.
I look forward to being called everything in the farmyard but a duck after this, so I might as well invite criticism from the left as well by saying that I don't support Marxist scientific theories of the inevitable course of history, as they also seem to deny the possibility of effective intervention. Also planned economies have produced some of the worst outcomes imaginable for their populations.

Lastly, if anyone is still awake. A personal observation mostly about envy. In our present system I think some highly anti-social behaviours & traits are rewarded financially & this is unfortunate to say the least. However, not all rich people are horrible by any means (I think someone mentioned JK Rowling who clearly hasn't forgotten what it was like not being rich). Nor are all poor people virtuous, though being poor should not be a punishment for anything, nor should being poor be accepted as the just result of some inadequacy.
I don't know who invented the slogan- "the politics of envy" which is usually used when trying to squash arguments for greater equality. Interestingly where I see most envy is between people not all that far apart in terms of their economic fortune & this is continually played on by politicians & others in positions of considerble advantage criticising so called gold plated pensions & terms & conditions often for those working in the public sector. Or possibly people they employ.
If someone gets a decent pension & has good terms & conditions better than mine, then good for them & good for their employer.
If someone manages a decent quality of life on what ever benefits they can still get & maybe has an extra room in their house, then good. We should want those things for everyone, not to have them taken off those who have them because we don't.
Peace.

Sporky

historyisjunk said:

Firstly, @Sporky I'm not following you to have a row or sniping at you, I've got a lot of respect for you & enjoy a lot  of what you post, so apologies if it seems like that. Just covering two points that seemed worth taking up, though I usually steer clear of posting in this section.

Your post doesn't come across as sniping, no worries. There's one bit I think I should clarify - not ignoring the rest, just that I don't particularly disagree with it - it's interesting reading.

historyisjunk said:

Regarding profits, I don't think wages come from profits, they're a cost of production, profits are the return left over

I think - and this isn't meant as criticism - that this is slightly semantic point, and I think you and marantz are using a different (and probably more common/more correct) one than me. I've been in technical sales for a good long time now, so to me "profit" is the margin you make on a project, whereas I think you're both saying that profit is what's left at the end of a financial year once all the overheads and wages and suppliers and so on have been paid?

In which case I was incorrect to say that employees are paid out of the profit, though their pay does decrease the profit. How much of the business's earnings "should" go to the owners/shareholders is, of course, rather open for debate...

historyisjunk

Glad no unpleasantness was felt. If that's how you were describing profit then fair enough, we're looking at the earnings at different stages.

Evilmags

Sporky said:

historyisjunk said:

Firstly, @Sporky I'm not following you to have a row or sniping at you, I've got a lot of respect for you & enjoy a lot  of what you post, so apologies if it seems like that. Just covering two points that seemed worth taking up, though I usually steer clear of posting in this section.

Your post doesn't come across as sniping, no worries. There's one bit I think I should clarify - not ignoring the rest, just that I don't particularly disagree with it - it's interesting reading.

historyisjunk said:

Regarding profits, I don't think wages come from profits, they're a cost of production, profits are the return left over

I think - and this isn't meant as criticism - that this is slightly semantic point, and I think you and marantz are using a different (and probably more common/more correct) one than me. I've been in technical sales for a good long time now, so to me "profit" is the margin you make on a project, whereas I think you're both saying that profit is what's left at the end of a financial year once all the overheads and wages and suppliers and so on have been paid?

In which case I was incorrect to say that employees are paid out of the profit, though their pay does decrease the profit. How much of the business's earnings "should" go to the owners/shareholders is, of course, rather open for debate...

They have to cover their cost of capital (between 7 and 15 % depending on size/solvency ect) or they start destroying the value of their business. Add a 3% dividend to that and it would be roughly value neutral. So something like a utility needs to generate around 9% ROE, year in year out, to be economically feasible. (At the profit before tax line in the P&L). Given that most companies have depreciation and financing costs on top of that, their real number is probably closer to 15% of business profits (EBITDA)

Gross profit would not normally include wages, but would include cost of sales. Net profit would include wages.  

Fretwired

marantz1300 said:

Sporky said:

marantz1300 said:

The point is not how much you pay in tax.
It's how much do you have left to live on.

So what are you actually suggesting? Variable tax so that everyone ends up with the same net income? Same disposable income? No disposable income and we all live in identical blocks of flats with ration packs delivered daily to ensure equality?

No.
But maybe the profits which are made with someone actually getting off their arse and doing the phsical work could be shared just a little instead of going in the pockets of just the shareholders and the bosses

Bear in mind that the vast majority of shareholders are essentially pension funds. They invest dividend payments and use their cash to pay pensions to the masses. Companies also need profits to reinvest in R&D. I'd scrap corporation tax and attract new high-tech businesses to the UK.

Government needs to stop wasting vast amounts of money on vanity projects like the NHS IT system, aircraft carriers and so forth.

Evilmags

Bear in mind that without the industrial capital, the people doing the jobs would have no jobs and no income...

capo4th

People should stop moaning. If your not happy with your lot then do something to change it for the better.