In not having much sympathy with a couple on £45k plus per year having some benefits cut?

[ssd]

There is loads of this on the news just now about how "middle income" families will be having some child tax credits cut and might be paying more tax. They news are showing what to me looks like comfortable off families having to do with a bit less. Is this really so bad? I know an income of £45-£50k per year might not be much in central London but will keep you in style in parts of the north, but how bad will it be? So people might have to change jobs/give up the second car/holiday at home instead of Spain every year? SO WHAT? There are plenty of us living on less than £25k a year who have had to cut back since having kids and take this as a fact of life.

I know MN is made up of mostly middle earners and I'll get pelters for this, but I don't really care. Anyone I know on a middle income can afford to give up some things _ its called life.

But Xenia, you're not just like a single mother on benefits. You're not on a small fixed income.

I hope you never lose your home/job/health, nor are your children in a position where they would have to accept a lower paid job for the purposes of making ends meet rather than fulfill their potential, but believe me, there are a lot of very qualified people out there who take jobs purely for income. The low IQ = bad job; high IQ = good job, isn't really a tenet I subscribe to anyway.

What do people need in a recession? If it was me, I'd set up a business going around food shops where they have to dump food due to best before dates, and buy it at a reduced rate, and sell it quickly. Maybe deliver? But would have it all on a web site or something so people could choose. Would also go around farms and ask about meat/produce, and maybe make soups/stews...

you see, though, ilove, that is resourceful and creative.

my concern is for those who have not that ability.

but again, it's all speculation until the budget is announced.

so children can't possibly get a good job if they don't go to private school then...right.

plenty of children from working class backgrounds have accomplished great things in their careers after having attended a state school.

I agree with secondcoming there's a certain poster on this thread who seems to be v smug about her situation. And it's not just as simple as going out and looking for work for some people. In some parts of the UK there is no work to be had.

I thin it might be illegal to sell food which is beyond sell by dates but I might be wrong. Smug? No, not really. I'm lucky to be naturally fairly happy but I've certainly had problems from time to time. Everyone does. My views are being a bit misconstrued above. 94% of children go to state schools and plenty get good jobs.

Helping women start businesses would be a good policy for this Government, sort of micro loans although supposedly the banks are lending but apparently not. I do know about the difficulty in getting jobs. I've two student children.

There should probably be a mumsnet business section or perhaps there is already.

Meant food on short dates, not actually out of date food. Not a good business plan to give your customers food poisoning

What is really disposable income? (genuine question).

I thought it is anything after paying for the basics. I concidare as 'basics' a 2 bed flat, gas/electricity/water bills, certain amount of protein/veg/fruit. What we choose to pay after that, even 'only' a bottle of wine, 'only' study room, 'only' 2 old cars, it is disposable income, no?

I'm not saying people shouldn't have the extras. I do have them and i enjoy them but i don't moan. I don't say 'oh poor me, after i pay for my 4 bed house in a catchment area and my iphone and broadband bill and my isas and my reiki session i dont have much left, and it's no fair because i have a degree'. It is a choice to invest in property not compulsory.

Oh i forgot to ask

Xenia, you have mentioned few times about opportunities in the recession.
Can you expand a bit? Please??

(give us a list of ideas?)- i'm serious btw not sarcastic.

Look, if anyone here, including Xenia, were born into a family on their second generation on benefits, you too would go down the same route. It has fuck all to do with intelligence or moral fibre or even work ethic ('moonlighters' are very hardworking!!) It's to do with poverty and education.
If you want to live in a society with large amount of people living on its outskirts; or full of destitute children if you take benefits away; or a return to the days where a woman was forced to have an abortion because she knew she couldn't raise the child alone (remember the dads are often nowhere to be found) then carry on your merry way talking about people on benefits as though they were scroungers.

I think a good idea is what they do in Japan. The Japanese government create a lot of fluff jobs (the people doing them don't know that obv). It gives people a reason to get up in the morning, a sense of work ethic to pass onto their children, but there's not really a job "there" in the economy IYSWIM. There are LOTS of unecessary parking attendants, park "weeders", people telling you which way to go when there's roadworks etc. This system is a kind of communism I suppose !!! But it works

Sakura, are the Japanese people willing to support this through higher taxes?

Serious question, because this is what the UK is facing now.

And as you can see, people on £45K can be struggling here.

Well the Japanese have withdrawn from Afghanistan and they don't have an army per se so that means, like Germany, they have a hell of a lot of money freed up for social policies.
They are all middle class give or take- there is no rich/poor divide, so the wealth is already distributed. Nobody really owns a house,　everyone lives in flats unless you live in a very rural area like we do. We live in a drafty wooden shack that'll soon be brought down by an earthquake, but we've got a garden. We have one bedroom and the kids sleep on futons like everyone else"s kids. Everyone knows that everyone else has got roughly the same income that they have, give or take a bit.
Big bonuses are not allowed for people high up in a company. A CEO can never earn more than 6 times more the lowest paid worker in his company.
It's basically socialism. NOt slagging off Britain coz its my country and I love it and miss it and there are loads of other BIG problems in Japan that Britain doesn't have, but this isn't one of them.

The Japan example is interesting to me.

It's a much more equal society but do please not that the top rate of income tax in Japan is 40% whereas ours is now 50%.

This suggests to me that the equality has been achieved by differentials in government spending patterns rather than anything else.

I think it is to do with the following - although this is purely hypothetical and I'd be interested in what Sakura has to say

1. Less greed generally - people don't spend on Sky/Designer clothes etc
2. The government doesn't spend on things like wars, a royal family etc which is essentially wasteful and unproductive
3. Education is better all round enabling free and equal access to opportunities
4. People have a better work ethic and the emphasis is on contribution (how much tax can | pay) as opposed to self-promotion (how much tax can I avoid paying)

What do you think?

1. NO, Japanese are renowned for being obsessed with brands: I didn't even know what Louis Vitton was until I came here

2.They have a royal family (

1. Education isn't "better" but I'll definitely say that everyone has equal access to the same standard of education. There's no real difference between state and private. You can get scholarships for private schools but if you're clever you're better off going for a state school.

I say it's not better because it's specifically designed to produce good little workers, whereas I think the British system still fosters creativity. OR at least it did when I was in school (am 29 now). I remember not being given homework until I was 14 when we had to start thinking about GCSEs. Japan has one of the only real meritocracies in the world in that it doesn't matter if you're from a farm labourer or a doctor's family: if you do well in the high-school exams you can go to one of the best 2 unis and the gov't pays for everything. Very VERY hard to pass though.

1. I think the work ethic thing is interesting because yes I do think its better here, but like worker ants. It's good for the smooth-running of society, but it results in a society lacking in zest and imagination. It's very peaceful here though if you like that kind of thing.

Oh, what I meant about meritocracy was that if you did go to one of the top two unis you can walk into any job here. They are worth the paper they're written on, unlike a lot of degrees.

wrt no 2, yes I think that if a country doesn't spend money on an army that ends up being better for the society. Germany was not allowed an army after they lost WW2. It went on to become the economic superpower of Europe specifically because of this.

"I wonder at the value of a standing army now. I can see our navy dealing with pirates and such and the airforce dealing with rogue planes/shooting down bombs (?) but any big war is going to be all nukes isn't it. Mind you, those cost a vast amount just for MAD."

The Forces do a lot more than just fight wars, you know. The recent floods in the Lake District/Cumbria? The Army rebuilt/repaired the bridges. Foot and Mouth? The Army conducted the cull. Firemen on strike? The Army provided the cover. Stranded by volcano ash - hitch a lift with some soldiers coming home from Afghanistan courtesy of the Navy. The Forces are the back-up plan for any large scale civil emergency at home and abroad.

Now, I'm not saying that the wars we have fought and are fighting are not expensive and I'm not saying that we as voters have no right to question our government about the necessity of fighting said wars. I am simply saying that there are times when intervention has done much good (Sierra Leone, Kosovo, Bosnia etc) and was morally necessary.

Obviously, I'm slightly biased - my husband is in the Army and if the government decided to stop funding the Forces, he'd be out of a job.

sakura The Germans were also pretty nifty on the old "war front" because they were light years ahead of the rest of the world in terms of engineering weapon brilliance. So post war it wasn't as if they had no skills and they economy boomed by accident - they had realms upon realms of extremely skilled engineers - and to this day, German engineering is about quality.

Riven, I'm sure someone will correct me, but I thought that the post war agreement was that Germany and Japan were not allowed to have armies on the same scale as most developed nations and in return the USA, UK etc (ie NATO) would protect them should the need arise.

"'m not against the armed forces I'm interested in how the examples of germany and Japan having more money to spend on social stuff because they don't have an army."

The post WWII treaty only forbade Germany from having a standing Army as a temporary measure. Germany Had no Army from 1945 until 1955 when it was re-formed. They have a form of limited conscription, rather akin to National Service. They've served in Bosnia, Sierra Leone, Kosovo and Afghanistan in recent years. West Germany joined in 1955 with East Germany following in 1990.

As skihorse rightly stated, Germany was also heavily industrialised and they used their war experience to leapfrog into other technological and engineering areas, where they excelled.

"West Germany joined in 1955 with East Germany following in 1990."

Sorry, that should read:

"West Germany joined NATO in 1955 with East Germany following in 1990."

I wasn't saying it was a reason to keep the Army going - merely pointing out that when civilian public services are overloaded by some (often one-off) event, like foot and mouth, it's the Army/Forces that take up the slack and provide back-up.

So, their purpose is more than just fighting wars - it's defence, civil emergencies, disaster relief at home and abroad amongst other things.

No one would suggest that we maintain a standing army solely in case of an outbreak of foot and mouth disease. My point was merely to illustrate that the Armed Forces have a broader remit/purpose than some people assume.