To ask what should be being done about the economy and the country generally

[AlertCat]

I’m fairly Keynesian in my economics (I’m not an economist) but there are so many problems in society at the moment that I’m not sure even a massive programme of work like in the 1950s would really help.
There’s another thread where people are expressing unhappiness at the levels of tax they’re being asked to pay and it’s easy to find lots of threads about benefit claimants and immigration.

If we take as given that (a) our birthrate means we need immigration; (b) we have a benefits system that’s both overly punitive and (apparently) overly lenient if you say the right things (I’m not sure I personally believe the second part, but it’s an opinion I see a lot); (c) climate change means more and more people from the global south moving north; (d) the days of good state services, free at the point of use may be over-

what would you do differently to the government? Could we get back to the kind of services provision we had in the post-war consensus era (up until the Thatcher government)? Is that a pipe dream? Is it even desirable?

Precisely. And much higher tax thresholds in real-terms. And much higher salaries in comparison to essential living costs (housing costs orders of magnitude lower and affordable on one salary therefore very low/ no childcare costs - by far the largest expenses for families with children compared to which things like food costs are fairly irrelevant).

Quid pro quo for that kind of cooperation - which will never happen anyway due to nationalism and geopolitical issues - would be that living standards are equalised across countries. That would involve people in developed countries having a vastly lower standard of living than now. Part of the reason living standards here are decreasing is because globalisation has caused some small moves in that direction and people aren’t overly keen on it, are they?

Strange how redistribution of wealth is only welcomed by people when it would be to their own benefit. If it involved making it fairer amongst all of humanity i.e. HUGE reduction in living standards even for the poorest in the UK, suddenly support for such policies seems to evaporate.

Indirect taxes were lower. Yes
MIRAS tax relief on mortgages Didn’t help renters
Married man's tax allowance Didn’t help the unmarried
No means tested child benefit No child benefit at all for the first child
Tax relievable/repayable tax credits on dividends Benefited only the rich
No loss of personal allowance over £100k £100k in the 1970s 😂
No graduate tax (student loan repayments) Only 5% of the population were graduates

If you were a single renter like me in 1971 you paid 42% tax.

Rents were a lot cheaper because house prices were cheaper and there was more council housing. Your rent will have been much less in proportion to your earnings than it would be for a comparable home/job today.

Tax credits on dividends benefitted everyone with investments such as an endowment policy, private pension etc - it was Brown scrapping tax credits on dividends that has caused a lot of the problems with pension funds (and other investments) - it certainly wasn't "only the rich" that benefitted from tax credits.

The thresholds and allowances have been held back due to fiscal drag meaning more people are caught into higher rates of tax and there was no comparable £100k threshold - the figure is irrelevant, the principal is what matters and back then everyone got a personal allowance regardless of income.

Degrees are now essential for far more jobs than they were back then. In those days you could get a good job with a handful of O levels and a professional job with 2 or 3 A levels - now a degree is minimum requirement for most decent jobs - another way the boomers have pulled up the drawbridge behind them.

It's far too simplistic to take a couple of random percentage figures from 50 years ago, compare them today, and say things were worse back then. You have to look at the bigger picture and consider ALL relevant information, not just random figures that suit your agenda.

“100k in the 1970s”

You don’t understand inflation or real-terms value, do you?

of course these things didn’t all affect every single person. What a ridiculous comment. The point is that the combined impact of these various factors and many others like them affect general standards of living across the economy as a whole, making the general tax burden now higher than it has been in over 70 years. This is an established fact. Likewise, it’s an established fact that the tax burden is distributed far less equally than it used to be and in fact the UK has one of the most top heavy tax regimes in the entire world now. This also makes it precarious and unstable.

Ah Dan Niedle the member of Labour Party who claims to be independent you mean?

I agree he’s got a bias - but given he says tax take on higher earners is bigger than ever, and, that wealth taxes are ineffective, maybe some will listen?

policies have to be practical and effective after all!

I'm not sure Labour understand that "policies have to be practical and effective after all"

Yes, they’ve done a somewhat poor job of not rushing things in so far, agree. It can always get worse though!

Again, rubbish. £87bn per year is allocated to Councils from general taxation on top of Council tax (the majority of which again is paid by those of working age), and the majority of all of this funding to Councils is spent on social care for the elderly which is why all other Council services have been cut to the bone. Only the care in care homes is contributed to from assets and it is only a minority that pay because so many of the current retirees didn’t bother to save for their retirements and are having all of their living costs and healthcare costs paid by working aged people already, far in excess of the amounts they paid in tax during their own working lives and with far more extensive services and healthcare demanded even for those who have assets and could fund themselves, much more generous pensions and much longer retirements than they provided to the generation before them. Etc.

My council spends vast amounts on social care for dc and adults. Huge numbers of people needing services. Obviously some elderly pay but so many don’t. Those that pay don’t get access to much as the companies don’t have capacity.

You don’t understand inflation or real-terms value, do you?

Yes I do. Which is why its inclusion in that highly misleading list is risible.

Only the care in care homes is contributed to from assets

Not true. Anyone with more than £23.5k in savings pays for their own care, regardless of where it’s provided. It’s when residential care is required that a house enters the equation.

Agreed. All care is paid for if you have assets. However some councils are more flexible than others. The truth is that working people pay more tax. Younger people have the grad tax and homes cost more. Child care costs more. Not so many non working mums as people cannot manage on one income in order to buy a home. This is causing a decline in births and it’s going to cost us by immigration. However some sectors of society still have a higher birth rate.

Yet its been proven that trickle down capitalism doesn't work.

It's frustrating because wealth - if you think of it in terms of human capacity to innovate - is infinite.

There is some hope in philanthropy - many of the richest philanthropists have pledged to give almost all their wealth away - that will go to Developing countries and issues being faced.

The drop in living standards is coming anyway for the west- so we should start with some redistribution in the UK.

Also agree that a huge proportion of people are selfish. It drives me mad. A high level of wealth doesn't make people happy (or nice) and it is absurd how much unnecessary choice we have in the West. And why we making clothes in India, sending them to US, then returning them to Africa to landfill? Totally unsustainable for the planet.
Why do I need 5 brands of baked beans to choose from?

We’re about to do the same with those clothes. People applaud it. Interrupting that model is incredibly hard.

There are so many problems, and big changes all at once spook global markets and (almost) everyone suffers then.

Someone whose parent needs healthcare to live well a bit longer but is deteriorating fast on a long waiting list isn’t going to care your child isn’t getting an adequate education.

Parents who are packing up their belongings again to move into another, more expensive private rental aren’t going to care you can’t heat your own draughty house.

The calmest way forward is for things to improve a little for as many as possible.

5 year rental agreements, shorter health waiting lists, more children able to cope a little better at school, cheap home insulation schemes.

And some greater acceptance that things will never be perfect for you as an individual, but they could just about be a little bit better, then a little bit better, gradually, for all.

Personally I would have a huge push for public transport, for many reasons but they all boil down to making transport more egalitarian. It would open up opportunities for youngsters starting out and keep older people more mobile and less isolated, as well as allowing those unable to own or use private transport (for health or wealth reasons) to access work and leisure facilities.

Many private landlords would rather sell than offer 5 years. Landlord bashing is why there’s a shortage of properties and prices are escalating. We simply need more homes to give renters a change. Bashing who is left won’t increase supply. It does the opposite. As we have now discovered.

I'm not sure why you think this. Maybe I'm missing something? Surely if landlords want to get out they'll sell rather than keep empty property? So that would presumably help keep property prices lower?

It also depends what you mean by trickle down capitalism. It has worked since ww2. I grew up without a bathroom. I grew up wearing lots of hand me down clothes. I found it easy to get a job. DH got a degree and started a business. We are considerably more wealthy than our parents ever were and DH employed 120 people. They benefitted not just from wages but profit share too. Over the years some left and started their own businesses. Of course wealth created by businesses trickles down. However only a relatively small number of people run successful businesses. It is only fair they are rewarded. They take the risk. If you want a stab at high rewards, take risk. Sitting back and letting others take the entrepreneurial load, and then complain about it, sucks.

There is not an endless supply of billionaires. At the last count (last year), there were 165 in the whole of the UK - not just England.

Tax reforms need to be more structural and systemic.

”Tax Amazon!” “Tax the coffee chains!’ “Tax the billionaires!” is a lazy argument

OP: I personally think some form of UBI may be inevitable, given increasing levels of AI impacting various jobs at different levels of work (from creative to menial).

I agree. Maybe I've been reading too many posts about benefit cheats and/or intrusive benefits checks, but I there is no doubt UBI would reduce the cost of administration.

I see much in the debate about the distribution of wealth.

Distribution is necessary, obviously, but it cannot solve our economic crisis.

I am not a supporter of this government, but active policies are showing that they do believe that productivity, innovation and entrepreneurialism are essential too!

A constant narrative of wealth distribution discourages investment and aspiration. This country so underplays aspiration, maybe because of it’s socialist leanings.

As well as redistribution, a huge focus must be directed to:

Education - state education is failing our DC and therefore the country. Until we take that on we are on a loosing battle.

Productivity - how productive are our public services? And that question needs to be addressed by those that work in these sectors.

Regional underinvestment - the north/south divide.

Wealth distribution seems like a quick fix. Tax the wealthy more and tax them now!

Is the belief that the wealthy cause inequality? Your post suggests that you believe that is the case. I am not categorically saying that you are wrong though, that’s not my point.

I believe that structural and global economic forces are areas that we have to acknowledge and engage in if we are ever going to turn the tide.

It actually has worked, not as much as many people (including me) would like, but it has been the most effective system in the entirety of human history for creating (relatively) more peaceful societies and enormously reducing poverty across the globe.

It needs refining, it needs managing better, it needs tighter and more sensible regulation (which unfortunately requires a less stupid electorate to vote for this rather than voting for policies that will exacerbate current problems). But if you believe you have an example of a better system that works at scale and has better outcomes and have any evidence to support that assertion then please do share it with everyone.

This comments also makes no sense. Just by virtue of being born in the UK at this point in history you are among the richest humans who have ever lived on this planet, even if you are the poorest in this country. If the aim is redustribution then the first thing to do would be to take a huge amount of wealth from everyone in the UK and similar developed countries (including the poorest in those countries) and distribute it to the global poor.

Why would redistribution of wealth only within arbirtrary national boundaries be a moral aim? What makes a human life born on one side of a notional line worth more than another?

This is where such arguments fall down. There isn’t actually any inherent rational basis of why someone born in one place on the Earth is less deserving of sufficient food or healthcare or shelter than someone born someone else. Selecting such arguments based on so-called morality but only to the extent that it would advantage you personally and refusing to accept them when it would disadvantage you and benefit someone else far, far poorer is irrational and exposes it for what it is: self-interest.