to be utterly incensed that the gap between the very richest people and everyone else in society is getting wider and wider?

[Mintyy]

They are rich. Why can't it stop there?

Why do they have to go from being multi millionaires to billionaires to multi billionaires?

I wouldn't find it so hard to swallow if the opportunity to earn more was open to everyone, but it most definitely is not.

The fact that the gap between the richest and the poorest in our country is widening enormously really sickens me to the back teeth.

weird posting fails, sorry

Their money that they earned, no one can (nor should they be able to) tell them what to do with it.

So sorry, pomme, but you're wrong. Economies can't be run as a free-for-all. The whole thing has to work like a symphony () If you allow the Gini coefficient - income inequality - to get too high, the whole bloody thing grinds to a halt and there's no growth.

Think of it like a family. One member of the household has a super-cushty life, anything they want whenever they feel like it, top-notch healthcare, chauffeured limos, the works. The other people in this house all struggle to make ends meet. Some of them are close to starving, and they have to take sick kids on the bus to the doctor's.

Is this a healthy, well-run household? What happens when the roof leaks, and rich fella won't pay to mend it?

Oh do stop going on Garlic

It seems to have stopped triple-posting now. Thank god!

You can't have a society where the vast majority of people earn more in benefits and tax credits than they do in wages, and a very small minority of people pay almost all taxation. You're putting all your eggs in a very small basket, and if something happens to those few people, you're pretty much completely fucked, forever. You've got masses of people who don't know how to provide for themselves. You'd have civil war, and starvation, with no-one knowing how to put things right.

Couldn't agree more, OP.

And I'm so fucking bored of listening to all the justifications given for this state of affairs. Somebody on R4 yesterday was saying, in relation to ludicrous exec pay, that it's just what happens in a free market. Blah, blah, blah, whatever.

I was thinking today (at the school fair - I'm a cheerful sort) how hideous it is that poverty, relative or absolute, punishes children for the circumstances/choices of their parents. Really makes me sad.

I'd like to live in a society where achievement is rewarded more by esteem than by disproportionate access to resources.

Think of it like a family. One member of the household has a super-cushty life, anything they want whenever they feel like it, top-notch healthcare, chauffeured limos, the works. The other people in this house all struggle to make ends meet. Some of them are close to starving, and they have to take sick kids on the bus to the doctor's.

Indeed, Garlic.

I think we'd call that person an abuser, actually.

A lot of truth right there.

Ridiculous. Do you not take into the account people's actions that result in them being in the situation they in? A society where people are comfortable no matter how irresponsible they behave is a doomed society. What wealth there is just gets spread thinner and thinner until there is nothing left.

Tucson. If everyone is provided with a 'basic comfort level' as a matter of course, but behaves very irresponsibly with it, they will be left uncomfortable. Obviously.

Not all poor people are irresponsible.

It's not as simple as "you have to work harder in order to be rich".

For many people in this society, being rich, or even comfortably off without tax credits is simply not an option.

I'm no economist, and barely understand some of the arguments on this thread. But I do know that my neighbours who are slugging away on checkouts in Asda during the daytime and doing bar work in the evenings / cleaning in the early mornings are not lazy, nor is it their fault that they are reliant on tax credits to feed their families, buy school shoes etc. They just lack the opportunities to earn £15 an hour and start saving.

OK, I'll make this personal for a minute. The state affords me enough rent for a small, low-standard home and pays 80% of my council tax. It gives me £101.15 a week cash. I'm unable to work. As it happens, I'm still a net contributor - but that's by the bye, as insurance is supposed to pay out on claims rather than act like a savings scheme.

I think I should be getting enough to live a modest, but comfortable, life and I don't think I am. Do you, Tucson? How about people on JSA, who only get £72.40 a week? I had to live on that last year; it was awful. Pending current court cases, JSA claimants also have to work full-time for free.

I cannot agree - either morally or economically - that the super-rich deserve to keep a higher proportion of their income than the super-poor. I support a universal basic income, and I think it should be higher than current benefit levels. It should be funded by more efficient taxation of the top 5% or so. Simultaneously, tax credits should stop as should the provision of free labour. If jobs are there to be done, wages must be paid.

What do you do if "the top 5% or so" refuse to play ball and pay this "more efficient taxation"? Stick guns in their faces, I guess?

Plenty of people who aren't anywhere near the top 5% resent getting taxed to the hilt so that some people can live fecklessly and the public sector can spend money like drunken sailors. You CANNOT force some people to pay tax that they don't want to pay. It's just not possible. And there are some people who would refuse even at gunpoint. It's more feasible for the state to live within it's means, to base public spending on the previous years tax take, instead of making commitments to spend and then trying to find the money from somewhere.

"I think I should be getting enough to live a modest, but comfortable, life and I don't think I am. Do you, Tucson? "

No. As many people who work full time are unable to afford this. The lifestyle of people on benefits should never be better than the lifestyle of working people.

TucsonGirl, please note that Garlic said she is UNABLE to work, not unwilling to work.

We have a benefits system to support people who are unable to work. Okay, so some people do take advantage of the benefits system, but that does not mean that everybody who is on benefits should be tarred with the same brush.

I am proud to live in a society which provides some support for people who are unable to work and would otherwise be destitute, homeless, having to watch their children go hungry. There's a lot I'm ashamed of when I look at our society, but I do think it's right and fair that we have a safety net for people who genuinely need it.

Would you rather see disabled people, children whose parents are suddenly made redundant etc. sent to the workhouse???

It doesn't matter. People that are unable to work are entitled to help. But that help should never exceed the income of people that work full time and pay taxes. It's utterly crazy to think otherwise IMO. No they should not be left to starve or sent to the workhouse.

Interesting that you say help should never exceed the income of people that work full time. If you're under 40 you definitely weren't working when I was paying enormous amounts of tax & NI, while taking little back as I had private healthcare and don't have DC. How's this completely irrational "pay as you go" attitude to welfare supposed to work, exactly?

More importantly, you've ignored - or not understood - that I said I support a universal basic income. Anyone who can earn money will be better off than those who can't, as their earnings will be extra.

You can't have a society where the vast majority of people earn more in benefits and tax credits than they do in wages...

No, Tucson, of course you can't. I think pretty much everybody agrees that it's unsustainable. Particularly when the top earners are free to take their tax contributions elsewhere at any time and leave the rest of us in very deep trouble.

It would perhaps be a better idea to have a minimum wage that is actually a living wage. And to make sure that people in deprived communites are able to gain skills which will enable them to actually work. And to make sure that people earning say, 100K a year (unimaginable riches to everybody in my community) pay a level of tax which won't discourage them from achieving, but still helps to support those who are only earning £15K a year despite working like the clappers for 60 hours a week.

I don't think there are very many people who want to live on benefits or be a checkout operator or street cleaner all their lives and get 'topped up' with tax credits. For goodness sake, a newly qualified primary school teacher (very responsible and difficult job involving long hours and requiring much education and training) still doesn't earn enough to support a young family in very basic accomodation without tax credits!

Like I say, I am no economist, but neither I am a particularly stupid person. Your arguments don't make sense to me morally or economically.

These two statements seem to contradict each other.

"If you're under 40 you definitely weren't working when I was paying enormous amounts of tax & NI, while taking little back as I had private healthcare and don't have DC. How's this completely irrational "pay as you go" attitude to welfare supposed to work, exactly?"

"As it happens, I'm still a net contributor - but that's by the bye, as insurance is supposed to pay out on claims rather than act like a savings scheme."

That's how national insurance works. You aren't entitled to more money now just because you paid more money in in the past. You'd have been better off with a low tax system where you could have saved more money rather than having it taken from you in tax to help other people. But I am assuming you'd be against that, right?

(By supporting people who are only earning £15K a year despite working like the clappers, I mean by paying taxes to provide education and healthcare etc. - I am not a big fan of tax credits because they just enable employers to pay crap wages)

Yep, Tucson, that's right! As I said, my net contribution is incidental because National Insurance, etc, is insurance not savings. We agree on that. So how come you reckon you should be better off than me nowadays, simply because you have a job now and I don't?

I was making the point that, if anyone's daft enough to think payments in should equal benefits out, I shouldn't have paid for their costs in the past!

You'd have been better off with a low tax system where you could have saved more money - I disagree. My life was much improved by living among a healthy, educated and secure population with good housing & sanitation. And I couldn't have earned all that money if they weren't spending theirs :)

People earning £100K pay 60% marginal tax. That's pretty high.

I do think that it is worth pointing out that the top execs I know on huge money work 16 plus hours a day. The amount of work they do and the difficulty of the work they do is incomparable with people working 9 to 5 and not a minute over.

Ignoring that (as seems to be happening) is missing the point somewhat IMO.

Also fits in with the household analogy.

We have to pay enough tax to provide the NHS services which are so practically and psychologically important to us as a nation, and to ensure that every child gets a decent chance of an education whatever their parents' circumstances. Libraries, bus services... these things are all important.

We shouldn't pay more tax than we have to, and I actually agree with David Eton Boy Cameron when he says there was a lot of fat to be trimmed off public services (there isn't a lot left now!) - but that tax need to be fairer, so that people earning minimum wage aren't paying so much more as a proportion of their income than those that earn enough to go on four foreign holidays a year.

Police and fire services too.

When I hear tax cuts being discussed and people talking about how cuts to x, y, z are terrible I am always slightly confused by the blinkered approach. Where would they take it from?

You cannot tax too highly on the wealthy as you need to motivate the next generation of future high earners to keep the high percentage they pay stable. Any system where it is not worth earning higher wages is a bit shit.