Jeremy Corbyn

[salcombebabe]

I see so many posters saying they won’t vote for Labour as they don’t like Jeremy Corbyn - why? If the Labour policies are good then why not vote for those rather than the leader?

BR - any evidence of these huge donations from CFI? And they're not connected to the Likud at all. Many of the CFI members I know would support Benny Gantz. The point about all these "Friends" groups is that they work with whoever the govt is. They are not saying they approve or disapprove of the particular government, but rather that they have confidence in whoever the electorate elects.

There is also a correlation between austerity being introduced and deaths rising.

We could just increase benefits by 100%, or 200%. This would probably improve the health outcomes of people on benefits at a population level, I have no doubt.

What if it can be demonstrated that 300% is better?

What happens in an economic downturn, when the welfare state has to contract?

Poverty is an inevitable consequence of freedom - people are free to make bad decisions. There's no viable welfare state that can prevent it entirely. We can try to reduce it, but it has to be balanced against the needs of people in work.

We can try to reduce it, but it has to be balanced against the needs of people in work.
People in work are in poverty. Underemployment, zero hours, similar shit. Employers who do anything to pay as little as possible.
And when economic downturn hits, it will only mean people OUT of work, not in.

“Poverty is an inevitable consequence of freedom - people are free to make bad decisions.”

That is a terrifyingly callous statement.

It certainly is.

and in total ignorance of economics

Not really sure how the suggestion that it's impossible to eliminate poverty is either callous or economically illiterate.

Not really sure how the suggestion that it's impossible to eliminate poverty is either callous or economically illiterate.

That’s self-evidently true, it’s just that your mentioning of obvious facts has produced a reflexive signalling of virtue

Poverty is an inevitable consequence of freedom - people are free to make bad decisions.

Saying poverty is a choice is, not only horrifically callous, but completely out of touch with reality. Just like Rees Mogg blaming the Grenfell fatalities for not having the common sense to defy the Fire Brigade’s advice. The worst of it is that people expressing these views can’t even see how abhorrent they are.

Saying poverty is a choice

No, poverty can be the outcome of choices, and couldn’t be eradicated even if we doubled the size of the welfare state. That’s a fact, however “abhorrent” you may think facts are.

Saying poverty is a choice is, not only horrifically callous, but completely out of touch with reality.

That's not what I said, but don't let that get in the way of your frothing.

Disagreement is not frothing.

That’s exactly what you said. I quoted you saying it. Is it a mandatory requirement that Tories lie, even when the evidence is used?

And objecting to the belief (a not uncommonly held one) that poverty is a choice is not “virtue signalling”.

If I'd wanted to say that poverty is always a choice, then that would have been my choice of words.

Labour and the Tories both put caps on what they spend. It is never easy to get the balance right. I would prefer a freer market - eg the payment of in work benefits subsidises low wages paid by employers. It would be better that those wages found their natural level.

The FT reported that roughly there was 1 - 10 x difference in incomes between rich and poor but that in the UKthat comes down to 1 - 4 when the biggest tax burden on the highest earners in British history is taken account of - 45% tax and 2% NI = 47% (plus 9% graduate tax for some etc etc) and at the other end benefits were taken account of. That brings the ratio down to about 1 - 4 in most cases (obviously with a very few rich footballers etc skewing things a bit). It is not too bad although I prefer lower tax at the upper end and a vast difference between not working and working in terms of what people have which we seem to have lost.

In the 1940s my socialist doctor uncle lived in a council house because the scheme then was everyone benefited rich or poor and lived next to all kinds of different people - you worked very hard, you paid in and you took uot. We have moved away from that now largely in that if you nevr work at all you get housing benefit and pension credit which are more than a state pension for soeone who worked for 50 years full time without a break. Bnefits used to be much smaller if you had never paid NI - I remember supplementary benefit v unemployment benefit ; whereas in much of the rest of the EU there is a contributory system wuith workers getting a payment when out of work for a year or so until they get back on their feet and your entitlement depends on what you paid in for national insurance. It is a pity we lost that. We seem to have the worst of all worlds now in the UK - high upper tax rates catching more and more people and a stripping of the universal provision such as child benefit we used to have that made us feel we were all part of the same team and all benefited.

Poverty is an inevitable consequence of freedom - people are free to make bad decisions.
yes, these people include politicians, bankers, business leaders - who make disastrous decisions affecting society as a whole.

Do people think Jacob Rees-Mogg should resign?

I do but I think the likelihood of that is as great as me getting the Nobel Physics prize.

@BertrandRussell

No.

My reasoning is that I would like to live in a world with fewer stage-managed encounters and PR layers in between me and the utterances of those in power (be they corporate or political).

His comments were crass and insensitive. But demanding that people resign for such comments only ensures that interactions between the powerful and the rest of us become more PR-sanitised than they already are.

I'd rather hear what people actually think, and that means we are grown up about opinions we don't like.

Not a great fan of Corbyn, but I'll voting tactically for Labour in my constituency to keep the awful Brexiter Tory out. Johnson's Brexit deal will be terrible for our rights and for the economy. Five more years of the Tories will be destructive and dangerous, as they have moved so far to the right. Corbyn won't get a majority - the maths isn't there. He'll have to cooperate with others. This is the lesser danger as far as I'm concerned.

Anyone but Corbyn ,he is clueless

Poverty is an inevitable consequence of freedom - people are free to make bad decisions. There's no viable welfare state that can prevent it entirely.

As someone who volunteers in a Foodbank every week, I wholeheartedly agree with this statement. I am neither heartless nor callous. I have a great deal of empathy with the clients that I serve every week. It doesn’t alter the fact that many clients’ situations are absolutely nothing to do with austerity/the government. I saw 9 clients today and only 1 of them would be in a different situation with a different government (and they certainly wouldn’t have been under the last Labour government).

Bnefits used to be much smaller if you had never paid NI - I remember supplementary benefit v unemployment benefit ; whereas in much of the rest of the EU there is a contributory system wuith workers getting a payment when out of work for a year or so until they get back on their feet and your entitlement depends on what you paid in for national insurance. It is a pity we lost that.

This is a really good point, @Xenia

I talked about it in the past with a friend whose husband lost his job with a very low redundancy payout (company in administration) and they very nearly lost their home before he found work again.

Surely it would be better, and fairer, to support such a short term scenario with a percentage of the earner's average salary over the past 5 years (or something) paid for 6 months, rather than paying them a few £ per week and then housing benefit once they become homeless.

We can try to reduce it, but it has to be balanced against the needs of people in work.
People in work are in poverty. Underemployment, zero hours, similar shit. Employers who do anything to pay as little as possible.
And when economic downturn hits, it will only mean people OUT of work, not in.

This.

And yes, we can and should "try to reduce it". At the moment it's far, far from balanced and getting worse. When the rich are getting richer and not paying their taxes.

As for that economic downturn you mentioned - well we'll get to see what that's like once Brexit bites.