To ask where has all the money gone/where does it go

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DH and I are late forties.

It feels like the country is crumbling around us and there is just no money for anything.

I've just seen something showing the tax thresholds that have been frozen for decades and this got me thinking where does all the tax go.

Why does the country feel so poor these days? Is it a slow.decline due to Brexit or it is world wide events wars etc that are biting.

The ridiculous summer savings scheme is hardly going to help but what can the govt actually do to get the wheels of the economy turning again.

There must some money but where has it all gone?

This isn't political just a genuine puzzlement that we are paying more tax than ever but the country and lots of people in it are skint.

He also has an enormous working population who work for peanuts, an unbelievable amount of poverty and a subsidy from the UK aid budget.

Strange then that they weren’t more cooperative during the negotiations. But that was part of the genesis of Brexit - Europe refusing to budge on David Cameron’s requests, some of which were reasonable.

And presumably very cheap energy.

Well wealth per capita in India is an issue of course. However we spend a lot more on our population so need a lot more.

The point being that any economy can be successful if it tolerates poverty at a level that would appal those of us in the west. It’s certainly not something to be admired or emulated.

@BlossomtoesThat’s clearly ludicrous. Look at most African countries.

Absolute poverty has fallen under Modi

Privatisation of essential services means profits go to shareholders but bill payers / talk payers end up bailing them out when things need fixing (water companies / rail etc).
Corporations generating huge profits but paying staff so poorly they need support from the state just to get by.
Bailout of the banks (as pointed out previously).
Brexit.
Lobying of MPs meand decisions are often made for the benefit of the already rich few rather than the good of society - you only need to look at the covid VIP lanes to see this explicitly, or consider Reform's push against net zero when a huge chunk of donations come from oil companies.

@StripyHorse And what amazing brilliant services did we have before privatization? Most people complained all the time! The governments never put money in, they argued and we didn’t have good state services. Most were a shit show! Water is a huge problem due to aging infrastructure and population growth. Shareholders are often pension companies by the way. It’s how the economy works. The water issue is lack of planning and failure to raise enough money because we want to pay peanuts.

We don’t pay peanuts. The reason the water industry is in such shag order is lack of investment in infrastructure and the payment of massive bonuses and dividends. Have you looked at the figures?

If you don't have money in The UK, you only have yourself to blame.

I agree this but caveat those with health issues or caring for disabled family

Agree on that caveat.

BA for examples and also BT great examples of privatisation working

@coulditbeme2323 We do. However we’ve had world issues to cope with and not just our own. We don’t have our own gas and now the oil has all but run out. We spent the oil revenues on welfare and the NHS. We always spend on the nhs when other countries don’t.

I agree. Most "nationalised" industries/services were a shambles.

Look at British Rail. Incredibly poor service, regular cancellations, strikes, etc in the 70s. Plus ancient engines and rolling stock that weren't compliant with the new H&S and disability and emissions regulations that were imposed in the 90s and 00s. Hence we needed privatisation to replace virtually all the engines and coaches to modern standards that cost billions which the taxpayer simply couldn't afford we we needed private monies to do it.

Like the NHS - ageing crumbling hospitals that needed private finance (PFI) to replace.

Rinse and repeat with the telecoms, water, drainage, electric and gas infrastructure. We can bemoan the wages and dividends, but that's the price you have to pay to get private finance to pay the billions needed to improve and modernise the infrastructure.

Look at all the old "council" run care homes and other convalescent homes, OAP homes, etc. All ancient and crumbling and rather than replace, it was "privatised" and council owned places shut down to be replaced by private ones. Again, because the taxpayer couldn't fund the new buildings required to replce, often, asbestos riddled old buildings.

The fact that a lot of the privatisations/PFI etc were foul ups, expensive, inefficient and no doubt many were fraudulent, is mostly the fault of the civil service due to poor/inadequate/incompetence procurement procedures for the civil engineering works etc required. Just look at HS2 - no way on Earth the £100 BILLION is all money well spent - huge amounts will have been lost to fraud and inefficiency, administered/managed by civil servants.

The oil revenues were spent on tax cuts and subsidising council tenants to buy social housing. And how anyone can justify privatising water when they look back at four decades of failure to maintain the infrastructure, let alone improve it, at the expense of dividends and seven figure bonuses astonishes me.

But where were Ofwat - what were those civil servants being paid to do?
nothing it seems

Not a lot, which is why it’s being abolished. I don’t blame the 254 civil servants, it appears to be the board that was asleep at the wheel.

Just look at HS2 - no way on Earth the £100 BILLION is all money well spent - huge amounts will have been lost to fraud and inefficiency, administered/managed by civil servants.

Can you imagine any private business writing off 100bn project??? No governance, no regular plan and budget checkpoints, no staged release of money once exit/entry criteria met? project management 101, in all businesses I used to work people would lose their jobs for write off 10-50k projects

Utter shite. to cut 10 minutes off a journey nobody makes anymore.