To be sick of politicians using 'fairness' as justification for tax rises?

We lent you Mark Carney :)

In that case, I think Andy Burnham will have a job for him. Numeracy seems to be actively discouraged.

But it is never going to be a vote winner unless we deport all foreign criminals before their sentence. Women who have children and live on benefits have always been targeted. But if you add up the stupid behaviour of lads, who land themselves in hospital, then the criminal system, then the unlimited spending on asylum costs, welfare becomes a drop in the ocean. At least giving money to families, has a return.
So there are ten teens in an area. Five are job seeking and getting nowhere. Two have jobs. The three who sit off and won't look for work doesn't matter. There aren't jobs for everyone. We need to start with sensible discussions about population levels. Globally people can't keep having children. How do we tell a British person, who has failed your test that we won't support any children they have. But then say it was fine to have lots of children, in a war zone, In a place were you knew couldn't sustain human life, or to a Mother who hasn't been allowed to learn to read, or a underage girl, who your society has ok'd child marriage in? I'm a child of immigrants, even as a child of immigrants, it seemed to me that it was only British women in the 80s being told that they shouldn't be having children.

Question for you, OP

Is it fair that many opportunities to become self-sufficent are mired in prohibitive cost, debt creation and bureaucracy?

Is it fair that the unprecedented speed of technological progress (yea, AI and automation) is changing the economic, cultural / socioligical and psychological working landscape so fast that as fast as one expensive qualification is achieved, it is almost rendered obsolete?

Is it fair that since the pandemic we have seen the biggest recorded wealth shift from the middle and working classes into the hands of the already wealthy?

Is it fair that billionaires are sinking money into insane vanity projects like colonising Mars and building bunkers "just in case" while avoiding tax and buying political leverage?

Is it fair that the cost of living outstrips dual income households and requires state support?

Who do you think has allowed this utter geopolitical shitshow to evolve, and why? Do you think there might just be a tiny bit of manipulation going on to divert attention away from the "do as I say not as I do" brigade and their nefarious behind the scenes immorality? Do you think there might just be a bit more to it than Shaz and Gaz and their 18 children living it up on White Lightening and selling pit bulls on the side?

And finally, because I caught a certain whiff from one or two posts - what IS your final solution? Because yes, the numbers of those who won't be able to "contribute" will rise. The goalposts will move. Those who thought themselves untouchable because "right thinking, responsible, etc etc" will certainly be very bewildered when they can't rely on the industries and networks and suddenly their lot is defined by an arbitrary cut off point for a multitude of reasons that it wasn't possible to plan for. Or it was, but the plans have been thwarted by mysterious "market forces."

Because from where I'm sitting none of what's going on in the world is fair to anybody other than those with the sharpest elbows, the biggest guns and the least understanding of humanity.

I wouldn’t waste time on that poster. He thinks business owners can sell the same business every year 😆

you clearly have no direct experience of running a Ltd business. Director’s loans are fully taxed. You won’t get your accounts signed off with balances on Director Loan account. Yoh may squeak it through one year with a note on the company filing that the balance was cleared in the next tax year. You can only sell a company once. You cannot draw down a regular income and circumvent the taxman.

Most of us can distinguish between people in need of benefits, and people not in need - ie people who could strive to be self sufficient, but choose not to be. People for whom welfare is designed tend not to have to protest their entitlement, because it's generally obvious.

The answer no one is giving you is simple - self responsibility. I was on benefits for about 6 months in my youth, and I fought tooth and nail to get back to full health (because I wanted more than a month to month existence). I had peers doing the opposite, fighting tooth and nail to retain benefits; the people doing that tend to be obvious, I'm afraid.

Also Pat McFadden in the last week or two - “I don’t think the govt should be writing an open cheque for health and disability claimants”

Okay, so if we ignore my single child household, and the many others I know from obviously being in that specific community, and the many others who have two children who are both disabled…

I don’t fundamentally disagree with having a disability in the household lifting the benefit cap. The cost of disability can be huge, and it cannot always be adequately planned for, without not having children at all. We’ve only got one, so not having multiples wouldn’t have helped. We have one specifically because of his disability.

Having disability in your household also makes it significantly harder to work or enhance your income.

So, IMO, it’s fair that it does lift the benefit cap, because those benefits may be your only viable income opportunity.

I’d make clear here that I don’t claim benefits, of any kind, aside from my son’s DLA. Both myself and my partner work full time, and pay HR tax. So I have no skin in the UC game.

Ah. I see my irony died in transit. Ok, I'll dispense with it: the biggest issue facing Britain today isn't benefit cheats (yes I've known one or two), nor yet the well-off wanting to keep more of their wealth, whether hard-earned or handed over by forebears, so that they can hand it over to their offspring. It's the supra-national super-rich and their offshored wealth being taken out of circulation.

I don't have a problem with the rich being rich, within reason. But spend the money. In the UK. That way, it gets taxed and "contributes" as you put it. People who "work the benefits system" are morally base, sure, but economically pretty insignificant. How is hoarding billions any less reprehensible? But somehow society doesn't seem to count that as a personal or institutional failing - quite the opposite. We glorify money, but reserve our disapproval for the smallest of small-time grifters. All that tax Jeff Bezos doesn't pay (quite legally) is much more of a drain on your resources than the feckless woman with 6 kids down the council estate. Tell you what, I want to see him brought to book way more than her.

It’s not mn it’s a gov problem.

Look at Pat McFadden summing up his own party:
‘Every meeting I have is “who can we tax in order to pay benefits to others”.

Other countries don’t do this - so it’s pretty obvious there are other ways of sharing the tax pot- like there are also ways of providing healthcare

Exactly. I'm fed up of people being bitter, selfish, and moaning about vulnerable groups of people on MN with absolutely nothing productive or helpful to contribute.

This is it - it's just moan, moan, UNDESERVING scroungers are getting MAH money! Sometimes I wonder if these posts are just written to stir up discontent among the MN masses.

I asked OP if she had any ideas for a better, fairer system - she said she did, she just didn't feel like airing them here. 💁

I never said we let it continue to spiral. But there are issues that need properly and sensibly addressing, without a media frenzy and without stigmatising people on benefits.

What actually is the point of your thread? What are you contributing to the conversation? It's just rehashing the tired old 'some people are FALSELY CLAIMING benefits and TAXPAYERS have to pay for it!!!' Yes we know. Is your thread doing anything other than making people suspicious of those on benefits? Are we all to spy on our neighbours and see if we can spot who is and isn't a genuine claimant?

🤣

Are you personally paying peoples benefits?

It’s not disingenuous. Obviously there are differences. But ultimately all governments face fiscal constraints and household finances are a sensible analogy to explain those constraints to non-specialist voters.

There is widespread agreement among investors and economists that the UK currently faces particularly acute fiscal constrains so it’s no use saying “oh but this particular fiscal stimulus will generate some marginal GDP growth.” Especially at a time when inflation is stubbornly above target and a good Keynesian would recommend government run a fiscal surplus rather than an ever increasing deficit.

I think 'fairness' might be about giving every child a decent start despite their parents. I completely agree with this idea. The problem is that then you can have people using their children for an income. So hard to help the vulnerable without indulging the lazy.

The role of growth is a major difference.

It is completely disingenuous to compare national economies with household finances.

Whether something will generate growth is a different question.

A separate factor is whether increased money at household level could reduce future costs.