To think there is no more money?

[Rainbowsponge]

And Labour have admitted this.

So many threads saying X or Y needs to be ‘properly funded’ (even though most of the time our spending is actually in line with comparable countries), but no acknowledgment of the fact there’s no money to spend.

And when you bring it up, posters completely ignore you or accuse you of being Jacob Rees Mogg

Wouldn’t the quality of debate be improved if we stopped burying our heads in the sand?

The money markets and IMF also agreed the money had to be spent, not just in the UK but most other developed countries too. That’s why it didn’t crash the economy, bugger our credit rating nor cause massive inflation nor exchange rate disasters.

Massive amounts of what was spent was wasted - yet the news of that hasn't buggered our credit rating either.

If anything it was Liz Truss's low tax low spend offering that sent everything to shit . The money markets & imf like investment when its properly thought out.

It’s not a lie - and you are being overly simplistic just looking at the employment rate.

The number of workers to pensioners for example, is currently 3 workers per pensioner.

By 2050 that will more closer to 2 workers per pensioner.

Then we have the issue that the majority of the tax burden falls on a smaller and smaller group, as others are lifted out of tax entirely.

Pensioners pay tax on their income.

@Curryle3af they are eligible for an income from the state with amount to ~£10k a year minimum.

Plus winter fuel allowance, bus pass, free prescriptions etc.

Our model of funding the state pension assumed a large pool of workers and small number of pensioners - this now isn’t the case.

There's no money for schools. Only if you properly fund them, children get better educations and go on to have better jobs that pay more taxes.

There is no money for healthcare. Only if you provide timely, effective healthcare people get the treatment they need before things get so back that their treatment is costly and ineffective and they cannot work.

There is no money for prisons etc. Only if you provide prisons with enough support to help criminals turn their lives around, some will do so and won't be repeat visitors.

There is no money for social housing. Only good quality social housing is a great deal cheaper than paying private rents.

Money must be spent to save money.

Does anyone truly believe Labour have ‘no political will’ to tax billionaires?

Right but the vast majority have private or occupational pensions ( and other investments) in addition on which they pay tax.

Surely, giving 'poor' people money means it goes straight back into the system? UC, child benefit, disability etc... most people don't put it in the bank, they spend it benefiting, for example, businesses who employ people and pay tax.

A lot of 'benefits' like tax breaks favour the rich who tend to put that money in the bank and save it for their heirs.

Tightening up tax loop holes, stopping moving money offshore, too much foreign investment, cracking down on bad landlords and government spending waste, would be a start!

@Curryle3af doesnt make any difference if they have some private income, they are still costing the state a significant amount which is funded by current workers.

Money is a finite resource, yes. It can be invested, interest rates can be tweaked etc etc etc but yes, eventually there will be no more.

It's the way it's allocated and used that's important. For example, I was speaking to someone who works in a hospital near us. A million pounds was used to create a board room. Which was then turned back into office space (a cost there obviously). They are now talking about turning it back into a boardroom. That's not using their allocated funds correctly, in my opinion.

That's what needs to be looked at. The resource, the financials, all of it. Is it being used appropriately to run vital services? If not, what can be changed?

But not nic

It they will have paid tax and NI all their lives. What do you expect? People not to have a pension? How does that work?

There's three things that can be done, one is borrow more and another is make more and finally change the expenditure allocation. None of these things should be done without due consideration and it's only been 2 weeks, it would be irresponsible to make promises before you work out a plan

Our local council spent £300k to refurbish our tiny village library. Then closed it down less than a year later. Everything ended up in a few huge skips including all the new shelving, desks, chairs and loads of books. They cleared it out. Then they decided a year later to reopen it and bought everything new again. Monumental amounts of money are wasted due to poor administration and mismanagement.

@Curryle3af people pay nowhere near enough tax and NI to fund the benefits they currently receive in retirement.

No, I am not arguing we don’t have state pensions, I’m merely pointing out the issue that funding them through the current model is unsustainable.

Everyone needs to be paying more tax during their working life if they want a raft of state-backed benefits and services.

As @Badbadbunny days above, pensioners are for example excluded from NICs, despite many earning good incomes from private pensions.

Some will, some won’t. But most lower than average earners take out more than they put in, even if they have paid some tax and nic.

It's awful.

What we really need is people who know how to manage and resource in charge of things, but I think those people are in short supply (especially those that would actually want to do it).

You see it on a smaller scale in private companies with badly run teams. The resource could be used so much better but managers don't know how to do it.

We need the managers of well run, effective and efficient departments to be in charge of LAs and the country.

Yes but for much of that time on average they will have been taking out more than they are putting in.

No-one is saying that pensions shouldn't exist, just that we need to accept that if we are going to have benefits and public services then we have to pay for them in our working life and we haven't been paying enough for it to be sustainable.

And these mythical billionaires are not going to cover the shortfall.

Our birth rate is declining and this means that we will soon be in the position where we simply do not have enough working age people to fund all public services.

We have a number of options available to address this, but non are nice, easy, simple etc.

We can promote having children. More benefits, more childcare support. This is costly and the effects will take a long time.

We can increase immigration. This impacts on public services and there are cultural implications. It's also incredibly unpopular.

We can massively overhaul public services - austerity on crack. Means test pensions, these are the biggest cost of welfare whether you want to admit it or not. Increase retirement age. Bedroom tax for pensioners. Introduce fees for the NHS. Scrap benefits such as ESA and other working age benefits. Etc etc etc.

None of these are particularly appealing.

The State Pension on the other hand is explicitly tied to National Insurance contributions, and the number of years you have paid. Those on the left didn’t quite get the longer term implication of the conservatives removal of NI, opening the door as it did for exactly what you want - means testing of the state pensions. And in princplie, given enough notice, it makes sense. The problem is no one trusts Labour with private enterprise or pensions because they have a bistrot of destroying both.

Increasing retirement age beyond 67 doesn’t sound appealing. I speak as somebody 10 years off it in quite a tiring job.

Means testing pensions would never work and could well cause additional problems. You also can’t take state pensions off people who have paid into a system for years believing they’d get a state pension at the end.

Why shouldn’t you get a state pension and inherit? People pay tax over and again on what they leave their children and then it is taxed some more. People go without to pay into a private pension and own a home. There being no point to that would be catastrophic financially.

We can promote having children. More benefits, more childcare support. This is costly and the effects will take a long time.

Lots of people don't qualify for benefits but also wouldn't be able to afford another child. Longer term something which supports anyone with a child in my opinion would be better. Properly funded childcare for example- this would support those who don't qualify but also would take some financial pressure off those who do so benefits they do receive can be spent on other things. Not adverse of course to benefits rising, but when considering supporting families there's more to it.

This.

We both earn well. But even with the new 15 hours, and me working part time, childcare costs cripple us.

In a few years we'll be in an ok position (providing jobs stay secure), but if we had more than the one child we'd not be able to keep our heads above water.

I’m not sure more children ( beyond 2) crippling the planet and housing is the answer.