To wonder how the UK will look in 3 years time?

[Labradorlover987]

I was inspired to write this after reading the UC post that was just reported - the govt’s welfare bill has passed but was watered down so unlikely to make any real savings.

I earn 40k, have a school age child and just feel like I am living hand to mouth 😩 I 100% think there should be a welfare systems that supports people on low incomes but I wonder how the current system will be sustained in the long run?

Just wondered what other people thought.

I actually wouldn’t mind paying more in taxes if we could be guaranteed more in services etc - for example my council tax just went up and the services seem even worse this year than usual.

OK so if 10 per cent of people are paying most of the taxes but only getting 10 per cent of the vote? That is why the politicians keep coming for this same ten percent. Because 90% are in favour of it.

101 of taxation. Everyone is happy for someone else to pay. We have reached the Laffer curve for those in the 10 per cent who are not actually rich. And so they have started to vote with their feet, don’t produce the next generation, retire early, cut back on working hours etc.
For now, because of fiscal drag and bringing more into the higher tax bracket due to inflation, it looks like tax receipts are OKish.
But on the ground, hardly anyone is incentivised to be productive and better themselves, move house for better employments. There are so many brakes on growth in this country and people at the bottom rung are trapped in a benefits trap and that is not doing anyone any favours either.

Yet here we have Angela Rayner thinking it is OK to take money out of London which is still relatively speaking productive, to buy Reform voters off in deprived regions.

The problem is democracy is now collapsing. Because the 10 per cent you do need are not going to be mugs forever. The politicians think they are the cash cows but I can see people leaving the country or City pretty much every day now. And educated people not being incentivised to have children is a massive massive long term mistake. They are typically the ones who put a lot of effort into their DCs education and making them good little citizens long term.

@EasternStandard so it that a yes, ignore it?

You know very well that self made doesn't mean adding £1 to inheritance.

It's only 55 billionaires in the UK.
The Countries With The Most Billionaires 2025

Wonder why so few?

Ever heard of Michael Platt? UK's richest man? coming from very modest middle class background, mother university administrator?

Nailed it. 100%. As always

No I think Labour will have to do something. Not higher taxes if they don’t want more depletion of growth.

So why can they do it not raise taxes?

sorry for shameless reposting - it got hidden for some reasons.

There are quite a few people who take Dan Niedle a gospel

if not

I did 🤣🤣

An overarching statement on say where we are in relation to the few of the richest and how this will pan out is of interest to me. Especially as AI picks up and our dc will be impacted. Who has the wealth then. And since you’re mentioning climate I think you’re looking at it from a bigger perspective and long term.

The trouble I find is this gets tagged on to domestic taxes which get sold in and hamper growth, and that doesn’t actually help anyone. Not even those at the lower end.

So if I had the energy to try to work out how to square that I’d get (clever) people in a room and be open to what they’d say about the long term problem and the higher taxes reducing receipts and growth issue.

No I don't. How was it defined in the graph? If it just means that you're the first billionaire in your family, then £1 would be sufficient to meet that definition.

There are various numbers floated for how many billionaires we have. They are all pretty small numbers though, and if your figure is correct then your graph is even less useful as the data is even less robust.

taxjustice.uk/blog/scale-of-extreme-wealth-in-uk-revealed/

you've shared an anecdote about the life of a single man. Personally I will base my beliefs on evidence taken from the hundreds of millions of people used to formulate the Gatsby curve.

You are most definitely not paying for Araminta's life choices with your £600 pa council tax difference. I'd imagine their stamp duty on London property was enough to compensate for several years of all of her kids education

@Araminta1003 a lot of your post is correct but how do you solve the problem?

The core issue is we haven't really had any consistent growth from the financial crash which we never recovered from.

Low interest rates masked a lot of it and inflated assets & wage stagnation. Austerity meant little investment. The can was kicked down the road and now we are at the end of the road.

Brexit hit the strong part of our economy, financial services.

Covid means a sicker population and add in the costs of a ageing population plus our benefits system isn't really aligned with what you pay in as per other European countries.

So you have young workers & families getting hit by wage stagnation, higher taxes due to frozen bands, housing is incredibly costly (because for some reason so many think ever increasing house prices is a good thing) add in inflation & people feel rightly that they are paying more for less. And that's before you consider the state of public services. But how do you solve years of underinvestment in people & services?

I have to agree on this

"Especially as AI picks up and our dc will be impacted. Who has the wealth then."

Could not agree more. Inequality may about to go stratospheric. Anyone who is not e.g. a founding partner in openai is at risk from this scenario.

"I’d get (clever) people in a room and be open to what they’d say about the long term problem"

Absolutely. We're currently giving this even less attention than climate change. It needs to be the focus of much more attention and solution-seeking.

Republicans spent less on the 2024 presidential election than the Democrats did (see Opensecrets.org).

Musk’s contribution didn’t distort anything. The democrats just had (and have) a crap message and bad policies, accompanied by persistent lying about the fact their existing head of state was senile, and the populace had had enough.

Nobody who is fit and young should be doing nothing. If you look at Scandinavia and Switzerland that is what they do.

So you want to move to their tax systems?

Well, for one, progressive taxation imposes a higher tax rate on higher taxable incomes. I currently pay 45% on a portion of my income so I certainly wouldnt be up for that, I feel that I pay enough while reaping no benefits. So without them stating how they will allocate that money, that's a hard no, and even if they had a plan it would still be a no. I think if you have tax increases just for those in that bracket, they would just leave, which is exactly what we are going to do.

What about universal basic income? Every adult receives an unconditional cash payment which they can use as they wish. Reduce the waste in a benefits system that doesn't work and allow those who dont just take from the system, who don't have kids, don't claim benefits, pay their fair share to actually benefit in some way. I won't go into a load of detail as it's accessible online but there is quite a lot of data and research about how it could work.

Did I say I was? And did I say I live in Hartlepool? If she’s got four kids someone is definitely subsidising her choice even if it’s her childfree colleagues on similar salaries.

you did:

why should I pay for your choices?

Re four kids - I wouldn't make any assumptions. There were a number of families in my DCs private school with three of four kids. Araminta's ones seem to go to state but it doesn't necessary mean their household are net takers. In any case these highly intelligent and educated kids will most likely become at least high earners/taxpayers if not wealth creators.
Unlike many families of unemployed generations.

Agree. I’ve thought this on other AI threads. No one is looking at it from what I can tell.

Araminta's ones seem to go to state but it doesn't necessary mean their household are net takers.

Doesn’t it? £32k a year for education before any contribution to any of the other services used sees a penny. And apparently they’re all going to be encouraged to leave the country.

Completely agree that the democrats offering was crap.

Disagree that Elon was irrelevant; he was the largest individual donor, spent something like $250m I think? Buying social media platforms and using them to campaign etc etc

But I don't think that's a key point to be honest, he's just a figurehead for the larger and more indisputable fact that wealth exerts lots of influence in politics. There's loads of evidence for that, from lots of sources.

Science.

I reckon T-Swizzle and Clooney swung it for the Republicans. Nobody likes being told what to do or how to think by pop singers and luvvies.