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.

I think one of the reasons we (in both our private lives and in the state of public services) feel so poor these days is due to years and years of government austerity policies, which lead to wage cuts for public employees such as teachers and NHS staff, the NHS is even more massively underfunded despite an aging and sicker population, councils have experienced major budget cuts and so things like social services and youth services have been cut to the bone.

Due to the years of austerity, our resilience to cope with the pandemic was lowered and then there was Brexit which has led to spiraling costs in many areas. Worldwide instability is not helping either - meaning many population are fleeing war torn countries and obviously those countries need our support.

i can’t imagine that 5 prime minsters since 2019 has helped matters.

State pensions are administered by the DWP who also administer other state benefits such as UC. So it makes sense to lump them together into the same pot.

Education is a completely separate budget administered by a different department so nothing to do with it.

So you think paying more on debt interest than on education is a good thing??

Because the people who lend governments money (which includes you if you have premium bonds) are demanding a rather higher interest rate than is affordable.

The other option is to simply ask the Bank of England to create more money (“quantitative easing”) - we did this after the 2008 crash and during COVID. But you can only get away with this when interest rates and inflation are low.

It’s on my medical notes and I will carry the relevant document at all times. My children will advocate for me. If a DNAR is enforceable - which it is - so should a refusal to accept treatment be.

It’s a lot less expensive than keeping someone alive for years on end. How much does a lethal dose of drugs cost?

So Government finance IS exactly like household finances then. They borrowed too much and now can't get a loan.

Yes, and in another way too, in that the "income" isn't enough to fund the debt interest and so they need to borrow to pay the interest, thus increasing debt and future interest. Just like a household that wasn't in control of it's finances and had to borrow just to service existing debt.

Oh they can always get a loan, just maybe not at the interest rate that they would prefer. The yield on 10 year gilts is currently 4.9%. Which means that if the government wants to borrow more by issuing more gilts, it will need to offer an effective interest rate of more than 4.9% otherwise no one would buy them, when gilts already on the market offer a higher effective rate.

And of course households don’t have the option of just printing money, unlike a government.

And households can and do default on loans, which governments can always avoid by simply printing money.

Well, you definitely win today’s prize for spectacularly missing the point of a post, but, hey, it’s hot, so crack on.

It's an interesting question if pensions are welfare or not.

But it's the triple lock that's the issue. Whichever party tackles the triple lock will have my vote. It would show that that party has guts and a long-term vision for the country. Something we haven't really had for well over a decade.

But it's the triple lock that's the issue. Whichever party tackles the triple lock will have my vote. It would show that that party has guts and a long-term vision for the country. Something we haven't really had for well over a decade.

Noone will tackle it because any party that does won’t get elected.

The social care cost, SEN, multiculturalism as regards signage etc. contractorisation of public services, and I’m saying this as a retired member of the civil service, too many ineffective staff and systems.

The local govt and NHS are not part of the CS…

An awful lot more people needing top ups due to lack of social housing , inability to buy due to prices ( particularly in citys and southern half of country ) - a lot more money needed by councils for social care - be it nursing homes or at home visits due in part to people living longer and uncontrollable prices at care homes, there’s a huge variety of reasons and a lot of it due to a changing world, less well paid jobs for those not with specialist skills, and a lot of insecure expensive housing

I completely agree. The thing I find most infuriating is the CS contractor culture, and in that, I’ll also include outsourcing. As a former civil servant, I’m guessing you’ve heard about the recent Capita pensions issue, where pensions services were transferred to Capita last December? As the transfer was handled poorly, pension payments were delayed for months and the website still isn’t working fully yet! It makes me really angry.

Haven't read the whole thread, but none of the first few answers mentioned debt interest and the insane expenditure during Covid when the country printed money to pay people to be off work unnecessarily.

Assisted suicide is not going to be more expensive that the 1:1 or even 2:1 care required to keep them alive in confused episodes let alone the years of healthcare on top.

Its a terrible disease.

BTw on a different topic @TempestTost im coming from a background of having to watch what were paying jobs being pushed into the voluntary sector for years and years so that the government can siphon off the cash somewhere else. Any job that requires training courses should be and most probably was a paying job 20-odd years ago. So it’s funny now that we can’t even afford for people to do those things for free.

Of course we never could in terms of keeping an economy going. If you make money central to an economy, as it is, if houses and food and clothing etc all need money in a system where people exchange their labour for money, then no jobs should be voluntary.

The massive cost of things relative to the value of labour for 20-odd years is what has caused the destruction of the economy. And it is a deliberate choice: these things are not acts of god, they are acts of the oligarchic elites.

There has been a sharp increase in social security and welfare spending (which amounts to more than income tax revenue) which will be having a big impact.

Also the fact that the country is in huge debt - £2.9 trillion which is just staggering. The Tories adopted austerity in an attempt to reduce it but obviously things started falling apart due to lack of investment and then Brexit and Covid have been costly.

I don;t envy any party trying to govern this country at the moment.

Assisted suicide is not going to be more expensive that the 1:1 or even 2:1 care required to keep them alive in confused episodes let alone the years of healthcare on top.

Most people don’t have care like that though? Assisted suicide is definitely more expensive than an older person dying of an infection they caught in the hospital or a lack of food and water in a hospital/care home….

How much do you think a lethal dose of drugs costs? People with advanced dementia need 24/7 care sometimes for years. My mum died of dementia, before she moved to a care home it took a team of 13 people to meet her needs - I counted them.

25% of hospital beds are occupied by people with dementia and an awful lot of those are supposed to have 1:1 care. Whats happening at the moment of course is that all the 1:1s are put in one bay with one person assigned there who is magically supposed to be able to catch all of the 4 at once, and then leaving the rest of the regular staffing - no extra - to run around after the other 8. Because there is no money for the extra staff, not right now.

More staff then go off sick with stress and demotivation and long term impacts on health of increasing stress over 12 hour days with fewer breaks.

Yep one little injection is a hell of a lot cheaper. The only reason I can think of for people suggesting it isn’t is that they’ve neglected to consider the staff required to do everything for that patient, feeding and toileting, following them around as they wander about and being hit by them, because healthcare staff are unvalued and beneath their notice just as much as retail staff ever were.

It won't get dealt with until we go cap in hand to the IMF and they insist on spending cuts. Then whichever Govt is in power at that time can claim "it's not our fault, the IMF told us we had to cut spending" as justification in the hope they won't get thrown out of power at the next GE and it gets them off criticism of imposing something not in their manifesto.

It is the economy, stupid (c). Sorry, showing my age. How is it that this simple thing is not understood? In our country, those who do not work, they eat. And it should be 'those who do not work, neither should they eat'. How is it so difficult to understand? Imagine a household where one person is working and the rest are social parasites. Now imagine the state of that household.

That also ties in with my view on those taking early retirement between 55 and 67 and are paying zilch in NI as it’s only earnings that attract NI - but no doubt still expect full health care - I would bring in a flat payment of £20 a week each - until 67 but it is voter suicide - same as if Refirm admit what insurance based schemes cost - which is why they are very vague - in Germany its380 euro a month each ( compulsory) and pensioners still pay in full