Colleague made sarky comment about me re. GB News

[OneStepBeyondd]

Discussion at work earlier - does anyone watch the news. Another colleague and I said we don’t mind GB news on occasion to which someone said (directed at me) - ‘I didn’t have you down as one of them’ in a judgemental tone.

Is it me or is that a bit rude and unnecessary?

Or, you can't judge anyone on a really complex political affiliation or ideology based on one thing. Especially when it's watching telly.

Something like a personal attack? Not sure, doesn't matter anyway because I think you were only joking.

That's too simplistic. The nature of Capitalism is that over time money tends to flow to the people who already have it because they can afford to make the investments/take the risks necessary to gain more of it.

(That is not to devalue what individuals who better themselves are doing - remorgaging your house to set up a business, for example, or working two jobs to fund private tuition for your kids are both hard things to do and any success they bring is earned, but if you don't own your home, or if you are already working two jobs just to afford food and rent for your kids, they are options you don't have.)

But economic success relies on there being a functioning and ideally growing economy to be successful in. If all the money flows to those who already have it and there's no mechanism to get it back to those who don't, the economy stagnates and starts to shrink because no one has any money to buy what the rich are selling. The poorest start to check out of society altogether because why follow the rules if you are condemned to the bottom? And all this is bad for the rich.

So there has to be a mechanism to move money from the rich to the poor, not because the poor "deserve" it or because the rich "took" it from them, but because the rich actually need the poor to have some money even if they don't realise it. No person is an island, and a functioning economy (even money itself) is a group undertaking.

"Nige"? Is he a personal friend? I refer to all politicians by their surname only or by both names.

Using the matey reference to Farage does suggest you're a fan. GB news broadcasts the the things that fans of Farage and his Reform company want to hear. There's next to no objectivity.

But people who object to the TV programme called GB news (for a variety of reasons) are being called ‘lefties’ (often in a ruder manner).

And we have a tax system that does precisely that. The overall effect of the system is to take money from wealthier/higher income people and redistribute it, through benefits etc, to less wealthy/lower income people.

Given the current right wing ideologies (far right populism), yeah, it is.

some will, some will endlessly threaten to, most won’t.

I understand what you are saying, but I dont think the rich will just hand over their money? And i dont think its ALL flowing to the rich - they have made their own individual flow surely? You can't stop people being successful?

Yes. I think some of the problems we have is that we've forgotten that's why it's there. It's not a cost or a punishment, it's investment in a functioning economy. That's why austerity was such a bad mistake, which we are now seeing the results of. It was a simplistic story that stopped us investing in the underlying public goods - the educational, social and physical infrastructure - that wealth-generating businesses implicitly rely on. It's the economic equivalent of overfishing - looks like it's working for a while then suddenly no fish.

Im not sure about that!!

Lefties objecting to that term? Should we change it to far left?

You tax them. That's the point. You have to tax them, not because it's politics of envy or whatever, but because otherwise the whole thing stops working, for them as well.

Tbe public and political debate should not be "tax is a dreadful, unfair thing, how can we make it as small as possible" and it should not be "the rish are dreadful people who got rich off everyone else's hard work", it should be "what does a functioning society look like and how do we manage the tax burden, government borrowing and public finances to achieve that?"

It uses in a disparaging way, not neutrally.

Anyway, I wouldn’t quite describe GB as ‘far right’ but in my views it’s definitely biased to the view of ‘right wing’ people.

There’s a bunch of disparaging terms on this thread about people who watch something others don’t. It seems a mild term in comparison to those posts.

It's all reductive bullshit.

What people tend to overlook in this narrative is that increasing public spending requires either, or both, increasing taxation (reducing living standards and incentives to work) or increasing public borrowing (which increases interest payments on the debt and reducing the proportion of government revenue which can be spent on services).

Of course, Governments, of any political hue, look for investments which can provide a return to society that justifies increased taxation/borrowing. But it's far too simplistic to say 'austerity was a mistake'. If we hadn't addressed the rate at which public debt was rising then, where would we have been when covid came along?

Hypothetically, if we had an economy where all the public services we wanted could be funded by eg interest from a sovereign wealth fund, do you think we should still have taxation?

Anyway OP, next time ask your colleague which programmes they watch. You can run through a list of reasons why you judge them on their choices. Send them into more of a frenzy by asking if they would consider being one of the many lefty plants in the Question Time audience.

But they already are getting taxed, a lot! Any more and I think they will go. And then taxed again when they die, taxed to death already IMO

How is it mad propaganda?

Are thousand of men arriving on boats?
Are they undocumented?
Are they committing crimes?

No.

ETA:

But in that scenario the wealth fund is taking the role of "the rich" in owning assets that produce an income. And the distribution to fund public services is in effect a "tax". So it's the same principle. Wealth pools around capital, capital has to do something to reinvest it into the economy in ways that enable less rich to also be economically active or the whole thing seizes up.

What is it that will go? The people, or the economic roles they play? If the entreprenuer moves to Dubai, yes her current bank balance goes with her but does that leave a gap for someone in the UK to start the businesses she isn't going to start? If the investment banker is sick of the tax and leaves the UK does his company move his role to somewhere that might not have the favourable location and regulations, or do they hire someone else?

And more generally, I hear your "No" but what is your suggestion? How would you fund public infrastucture and services, or what else would you change, such that the UK workforce can effectively generate wealth within the UK?

Background and intelligence? No not at all.
But would I make a judgement about your political beliefs and values? Yes I would, I don’t see why that is so controversial. I’d just assume we were quite different people and that’s okay. Watch what you want, it’s just not for me!