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?

@MidnightPatrol

Question here is, how much tax will workers be willing to pay for pensioners while living a pretty crap quality of life themselves.

I would happily pay it for pensioners but not lazy, workshy people or "refugees".

I think the foreign aid thing is a false economy. If we stop aid to Ukraine that is going to have massive repercussions.

There is money but they need to obtain it in a way that doesnt crash everything

I don’t want to pay for anyone else to have a better standard of living than I do and I don’t think that makes me remotely selfish

Hard to answer in a short message but… a few headlines IMO.

We need to understand what is a realistic retirement age. Even beyond the state pension, state-backed defined contribution pensions are absolutely crippling and the sum paid in is nowhere near the cost. If the state is going to be obliged to fund 20-40 years of retirement its needs to be funded by those receiving it - not future workers IMO.

Is there an ethical discussion about providing extensive (expensive!) medical care for a low quality of life for often several years) or more? Yes. I don’t think the NHS’ objective was spending a significant % of nation’s income on keeping the very elderly and infirm alive slightly longer. Ditto on the very wide-ranging treatment you can get for non-life threatening illness. Do I think we should get this help? Yes - but we need to actually work out how to pay for it.

Social care… feeds into both of the above really.

Meanwhile the future of the UK - education, childcare, housing for workers… barely even a topic of conversation re: state investment.

I’d be 1000x happier being taxed more to make schools better vs allowing Jean, 97, to stay at home in her final years fully-funded by the state so she can let her 68 year old millionaire child inherit her home.

Agree, and am fed up with the twee wittering of the bleeding hearts 'but but you should be grateful you are working and paying tax, you should embrace every opportunity to pay more...the greater good...'

Or ‘just feel lucky you aren’t XYZ’

I would happily pay it for pensioners but not lazy, workshy people or "refugees".

Why would you think these are exclusive groups though? does someone who is
lazy all their life become not lazy when they become a pensioner?

@Towelmode I don't have extra money in my budget, regardless of what it's spent on. I would not willingly pay more,

Well, with very low unemployment, a growing economy, inflation bang on target, incomes rising faster than inflation it’s easy to see what a terrible economic legacy Labour have inherited 😂There should be plenty of money ;)

I do see where you’re coming from but what was the alternative to borrowing during the pandemic and now that the pandemic is over can we just continue to borrow? Doesn’t debt have to be paid back eventually?
Personally, I’d like to see the NHS (and education, sorry 😞) stop wasting money. There are gross inefficiencies because experts don’t always make good business people. Our expects should teach and cure and other experts can manage the pennies 🤞

We need much higher wages, they have stagnated for years & assets were boosted instead.

@Notmycircusnotmyotter fair enough. I don’t really want to but I would be persuaded if I felt services were improving & the burden was spread across as opposed to just on workers.

Government debt does not need to be paid back eventually.

They issue 5,10 etc year government bonds and keep withdrawing and reissuing them,

The U.K. government has had debts for over 300 years. Some gets repaid and new debt issued.

It's an important part of the investment markets. It would be a very bad idea for the U.K. government to have no debt.

State retirement age should be higher. We can't afford to fund everyone for 20-40 years. If you earn enough for a decent private pension then retire when you like but accept the financial consequences.

Massive NHS reform. We can't afford everything free for everyone always. You eat too much / smoke / drink too much etc, you pay a contribution.

Britain has been wearing a fur coat and no knickers for decades. We absolutely are in the shit up to our necks. Why do you think Starmer wants to build all those houses? It’s not to bring the prices down, it’s to add more of the right kind of houses that the right kind of people will want to buy. If the housing market pops, we’re truly bankrupt.

Yep, Midnight has it.

Nutshell: pensions.

Every major country has the same problem. The old haven’t paid enough tax to cover 30-35 years of retirement and we probably haven’t either.

Don’t even start on social care: it’s the most expensive, most unproductive way to lose public funds you can think of, but old people vote.

Most of the nhs budget goes on the old, as you’d expect.

So short of execution squads, we need to redo the system.

There are more billionaires than ever before. There is plenty of money, it's being hoarded by a small and greedy few. We're living in the most unequal time ever in human history. The 1970s was the most equal decade. If the greedy individuals at the top, who have more money than they could spend in 20 lifetimes, actually paid there fair share of taxes, there would be enough money. And they bloody should pay it, as they don't create that wealth without exploiting the work of the majority.

Haven't Labour just announced a new wave of foreign aid to try to discourage more immigrants here though?
People saying there is always more money for defence etc - well we are living in the most dangerous times since the second world war with worldwide instability, so we do need to make sure we boost our defenses and help countries like Ukraine. People seem to forget that we haven't long finished paying for the debt of the second world war and back then there was no welfare state . If we had to suddenly fund a third world war alongside the current rising benefit bill we would be well and truly stuffed !

There is always enough money for an MP pay raise.

Look at your annual tax statement and it will tell you. The largest portion by far goes on welfare and benefits, not including state pension.

There are experts who believe Reeves saying she will continue with the Tories fiscal rules is a big mistake. These rules are self imposed. William Keegan in the Observer this week discussed this in his article. He points out Andy Haldane who was a chief economist at the Bank of England until 2021 said in the FT recently that these rules constrain investment and stunt growth, and are self-defeating. He believes they need to be replaced with rules that prioritise growth and seek to maximise national net worth, not minimise gross debt.

https://www.theguardian.com/business/article/2024/jul/21/a-respectful-question-for-labour-do-you-have-any-real-change

There was another article in the FT a month arguing similar saying investors believe a new Labour government could raise extra money for investment from bond markets without causing a Liz Truss-style gilts crisis. From the article:

”Bond investors said the market could be forgiving if a new government decided to boost borrowing and amend its debt rules, provided funds were channelled towards measures to stimulate the economy. If Labour borrows to invest, markets will not worry about it,” said Tom Roderick, portfolio manager at hedge fund firm Trium Capital. “What markets are more worried about is borrowing to cut taxes, or increase social security payments, which doesn’t sound that likely.”

https://archive.ph/pa2ta

MP’s salaries aren’t anything to write home about vs what they could probably earn elsewhere

The state pension is huge but the really massive a growing problem are state-backed pension schemes eg civil service, teachers, doctors and so on.

These are all state backed.

About 20% of council tax is spent on pensions. Another massive problem everyone had their head in the same about.

Most private companies shut down these schemes 20 years to due to being unsustainable financially. The state continues…

Yes and the current government knows that. They’re pausing a lot of the funding promised by the previous government at the moment