High earners to pay for their children state schools

[Verycold]

www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-25798659

Yes, tends to get you more money if you sell your brains not your brawn and pick a career accordingly, with a few exceptions of course. Plenty of people import cars and that kind of thing and do well.

Intmum said "I do think you've tried your hardest to inflame and bait and personally attack in many comments hence the negative reaction you've had."

No, I only spoke the truth, I made no personal insults, the inflammation is just the truth hitting the nail on its precious little head.

However if you just look above on the board you will see that plenty of very personal insults were made against me..

Quote 'Gaba you f'ing slut' WTF? What has got into you guys, must really be close to the curve on this one. You are not being very professional, but maybe not many of you are professionals?

Professional mouth artists maybe?

'My skills are in super high demand, rocket scientists like me are paid a super high premium in Abudabi..... I just dont like all the sand' .... ' I know many people who have been offered jobs in Australia at twice the rate here, but its too hot and sunny'

If you read my post, you would see that I am not on the side of all these politicians stealing your pound notes, all I am doing is pointing out there is nothing you can do about it. For that I get all this vitriol...

What did you think the government wouldn't spot all the money in your accounts?

gaba There's never a time to tell people 'there's nothing you can do about it'. Never.

As many already have told you, we can move. If the government would put stupid… really stupid… policies through like charging for state schools, putting up taxes even more, we would move.

It's all about we want the move enough. Not about our ability to move. I'm not sure you are 'getting' that.

The government know they can get more out of you, and you know it too, hence all the cufufal. Something is gonna hit you, maybe mansion tax, maybe school tax, something.

gaba - actually, no - they can't get more out of me. No mansion tax here. No school tax either.

They won't even get inheritance tax…

Since we are already waaaaay off topic, I'll add this link
www.nytimes.com/2014/01/20/opinion/krugman-the-undeserving-rich.html?ref=paulkrugman&_r=0
It articulates my feelings, after reading the last 17 pages better than I ever could!

"White-collar professionals, even if married to each other, are only doing O.K. The big winners are a much smaller group"

Agree with that statement and white collars are only doing OK if they keep the job for enough years. That smaller group at the top has got much much smaller and much much richer over the past few years and is often undeserving. It was Gordon Brown's policy of not taxing the worldwide income of "non-doms" that also greatly attracted all types here with all sorts of dubious wealth ....

SnowBells... That's the spirit

Anyway

Thing that gets me started is the way some on here start attacking some poor bar steward on benefits street, like its their fault the government want to bring in the latest fart tax, or swear tax.

The propaganda force truly is powerful on the weak minded.

By the way, the answer to what they only dream of paying is...
Sweet F.A.

That's a great article, missing.

Oxfam released figures recently that show the richest 85 people in the world are richer than the poorest 3.5 billion.

I don't think the middle classes are the real problem, here.

They are living in Elysium aren't they...the 'have yachts'.

www.oxfam.org/sites/www.oxfam.org/files/bp-working-for-few-political-capture-economic-inequality-200114-summ-en.pdf

Here's a link to the Oxfam report I think you are referring to perfectstorm.....what's interesting is that chart which shows how much of national wealth is going to that 1% in different countries. Again, I think real wealth is now very much in the hands of the 0.1% and showing how much proportinately has shifted into that top slice would be interesting

Am not quite understanding what is being said. Is it that if ou want to move abroad to avoid tax you can't? If that is being said it is simply not so. Many of us already have moved around a lot and have international careers and the UK population has often moved in response to various circumstances including the up to 99% tax rate in the 1970s.

Also if tax rates go up the amount of tax received by the state tends to go down and people engage in lawful avoidance which is why when Lawson reduced the upper rate to 40% MORE tax was recovered from the rich, not less. High tax rates don't really work very well.

At the moment the country is on the turn, even car manufacturing is up, tighter cuts which we sorely need are on the horizon and we are just about the best nation in the EU now because we cut hard and fast and are coming out of the worst. We just need to hold our nerve and keep the steady course. The worst of the worst is behind us.

LauraBridges Agree with what you say, but the UK is not the best nation in the EU. Everyone knows that Germany is king. It's like a world upside down when you're there. Record low unemployment, stable living standard, etc. And that type of buoyant news was there for years now.

LauraBridges

Did you just drag and drop that dross from the conservative website?

You don't really believe any of that drivel do you? I like the end bit, 'keep your nerve men and keep the tune playing' (as the old titanic slides under)

Reality check : The economy is false, the uk owes more money than ever before, and is still borrowing at a rate higher than when Gordon Brown was in office......
The uk makes nothing, the only jobs are 'service', the whole country has had its guts ripped out by consecutive bent politicians.....

Even Germany is tied to the sinking ship, unless you speak Chinese, you are going down with it. Sorry for the gloom and doom, but unless we face up to the corruption, admit it, and stop it, nothing will change.

Too many people are still in the denial stage.

I agree with gaba in that I listen to news of recovery with a high dose of cynicism...but clearly hope I am wrong.

Thing that gets me started is the way some on here start attacking some poor bar steward on benefits street,

Are there any bar stewards to attack on benefits street?
I don't think anybody is attacking low paid workers. Pointing out that they are not net contributors to the economy is not attacking them, it's just pointing out some factual information.
You might see some attacks on those who are on long term unemployment benefits through choice (they do exist) as these types give other benefit claimants a bad name.

gaba, those are my views and I am pretty sure it's correct. Look at this week's figures for car manufacturing for example.

As for my comment about the UK and others including Germany there was some evidence in the last few weeks that we were tackling some issues Germany has yet to tackle but certainly agree that Germany economically has in general in the last 5 years done better than the UK nd in fact now I've checked the recent news, articles etc about UK/Germany say in time we will be the best nation in the EU and overtake Germany - see

See articles like www.theguardian.com/business/2013/dec/26/britain-europe-top-economy-by-2030 and www.spectator.co.uk/features/9039871/why-britains-economy-will-overtake-germanys/

The economy is not on the turn. I agree with Gaba here. there are huge structural problems with the economy - we have massive debt and deficit. There are also sorts of financial shenanigans going between the BOE and Govt to keep the balls in the air. We pay something like £43bn pa just to service the debt. Buying a few more cars and houses (another bubble) is not going to paper over the cracks for long. We may be performing better than other countries but the reality is they are just in a bigger pile of poo than we are.
I agree there will be individuals who can move but the vast majority do not have transferable skills or can't move for personal reasons, also many may well move to countries whose economies are really just the same as the UK's but may well decide to take more direct action with regards to taking wealth for its citizens e.g Argentina - private pension nationalisation.

I also agree the economy is not on the turn, it's sidling back to its old ways of excessive mortgage debt (hence no-one daring to raise interest rates), excessive general spending on stuff we haven't made or grown ourselves, combined with less and less money available to provide a good education and healthcare for all, and less money to maintain law, order and infrastructure, which will ultimately result in all those mobile businesses and people deciding they've pissed enough in this pond and have no intention of helping to clear it up.

We shall wait to see. No one is saying it is brilliant now, just that the worst of the worst is over.
This week
"Car production in the UK is set to reach a six-year high of more than 1.5 million vehicles this year, the industry's trade body has said. The Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT) said the growth, driven by new models coming into the market, would continue into 2014. It said production had hit 1.42 million units for the first 11 months of 2013.
Growth was driven by an influx of new models, such as the third-generation Mini, the SMMT said. "

Well as someone who does speak Chinese and has already left this country once and will probably do so again once we get these years of govef public examinations out of the way I can say that there are plenty of UK residents in the high earner bracket with the skills and will to move abroad. Once you have done it you realise just how bitter and twisted the frustrated sense of entitlement has made the Brits, and how much of a handicap it is when competing with the can do mentality of other cultures. In many industry sectors now the marketplace really is global.

It isn't just industry sectors either, Australia is packed to the gunnels with refugees from the NHS, when you are a fully trained, to postgraduate level, neonatal nurse why would you stay in the UK where you have found yourself responsible for increasing numbers of babies with increasing ratios of untrained to trained staff, from 3 babies in 2008 to 10 with the help of one untrained assistant now ( so that you know that sooner or later you are going to be responsible for a death because you couldn't be in two places at one time) , when you can go to a hospital in Australia where you will be responsible and able to give the best possible care for just one baby.

I don't think this crazy Seldon idea is going to be the catalyst though, I think the ship is sinking without that.

gaba

Rich Chinese and Russians (and at the very least the aspiring ones) buy what type of car???

A German car.

unless we face up to the corruption, admit it, and stop it, nothing will change

And you hail China as the solution??? Right… like there's sooo little corruption there.

LauraBridges

Those articles miss important factors. In a country like the UK (which functions more like a Third World / feudal country) there is such a big gap between the very rich (multi-millionaires and billionaires) and the middle income (not even talking about the poor!) that I can only see the very rich get even richer if GDP grows (see Point 2 below). Also, bear in mind these are articles, and won't go into politically VERY sensitive factors:

1. An increase in population = higher house prices = less disposable income = lower living standards. According to both articles plainly looking at the number of people, China will be at the top. But does anyone know about the living standards there? For those who have never been there… it's a dog-eat-dog world. Partly because there are so many people, you need to be very cunning to make your mark. Those who aren't up to scratch will never have a nice life.

1. WHICH part of the population is actually growing, and having more than two children? Growth of population does not equal a growth in GDP per capita. What if it's those who have been unemployed for generations who keep reproducing, and not those who actually want to work (because they leave it too late to have kids)?

1. The UK produces… NOTHING. 'Services' is something very replaceable, and, to be honest, at which the British do not excel at even. For the UK to succeed, it has to find a real sector in which it excel in (it is doing well in the video games industry, it seems).

snowbells yes corruption, a Central government that has all but lost control of local government, huge inequality, 100 million itinerant workers travelling the country in search of employment, the legacy of a rust belt of inefficient monumental communist economic planning. I could go on with all the indicators that China should be a country in complete meltdown. It defies every normal western economic or social theory about stability. Yet no it is a country moving forward, and when you live there, you get an inkling why, it is the sheer energy and drive and will of ordinary people. Sadly lacking here, for all our rule of law, welfare system, democracy etc etc

Shooting

I think that drive you're talking about comes from knowing that if you don't do anything, things will go really bad. Also, labour (and just generally… stuff) is relatively inexpensive there. So building up a company (which some of my friends and their parents did) is much less of a daunting task.

Here in the UK, there are some people happy to do nothing, because the state (i.e. other working people) pick up the tab. In a way, all the protection the state provides for people come at a cost. Looking back in time, would the industrial revolution have ever happened, if we applied the rules of today to back then (including Health & Safety, etc.)?

No, of course the industrial revolution wouldn't have happened if we'd had all the protections (and democracy) in place we have now. When a country is on its way up in wealth from a low base, it allows pollution, appalling conditions, premature deaths, etc. Would any of it be worth it if it carried on being that shit? That's just the fast track to the end of humanity. Would all those who had bloody miserable lives working desperately to stay afloat think it was worth it if only those at the top of the pile benefited from it, whilst the children of the workers lived an eternity of pollution, itinerant travel, overwork and undernourishment? I think not - the wealthier China becomes, the greater the "sense of entitlement," as you like to call it from your high perches, of the general populace will become. Or do you think China's itinerant workers are having fun, using up all that energy?