The Tories are sorting out the wealthy tax-avoidant

[LittleFrieda]

members of our society. Why on earth did Labour fail to act during their long term in office? Eh? Eh?

I can't believe people are complaining about George Osborne doing something about it.

Oh, niceguy2, how pathetic - I didn't think you were the sort to stoop to selective quoting. Read all the posts.

Isn't the problem more that many people don't actually want to take care of their elderly mothers? Regardless of whether they could so a good job or not.

Of course you should always put your family first, niceguy2. That is not at all the same thing as arguing that you should put them on a colossal pedestal, because what is good enough for everyone else is never enough for you. That would create an entire family with the same sense of entitlement that you so despise in people who expect money from the welfare state. There comes a point where your own family does not need any more and you should start looking outward at your effect on other people. Some people have a remarkable capacity, however, to think that there isn't a point where their own family have enough, yet at the same time purse their lips and look down on people who have far less than they would ever be happy with and tell them they have a ridiculous sense of entitlement and don't deserve anything more than they already have. Such people somehow genuinely seem to believe that their luck in the lottery of life is entirely down to their own brilliance, hard work and superiority and nothing, for example, to do with their ability to be exploitative in thick skinned ways that others might balk at, or to deliberately close their eyes to any considerations besides their own profits.

So, niceguy2, are you looking after your elderly mother? What about if she suffers from severe alzheimers and becomes prone to violent outbursts, wandering off and putting herself and your home in danger, is doubly incontinent and needs 24-hour care? Can you care for her and earn a living without some outside help? And what if, say, you were unlucky enough also to have a child who needs constant care as a result of a serious childhood illness? And what if you had moved away from other family members at some point because you couldn't find work near them and didn't want to claim unemployment benefits? Do you really think our current welfare state tries to take such people away from their families? I think you will find it expects such families to care for their smelly old relatives and disabled children with little or no respite and provides them with very little in the way of help if they cannot cope. The state never tries to take such people off their families and care for them instead. Laissez-faire Victorian society, on the other hand, quite happily shut people away in asylums and workhouses to get them off other peoples' hands, though. Now we've done away with those, the problem is very firmly returned to the hands of the family.

Rabbit, don't get me wrong. I don't mean to imply that the state shouldn't help at all. Clearly there are situations where people do need help and we should as a decent society help.

But what I was trying to say is that families should be encouraged to look after themselves first before relying on state support.

You can always find some theoretical situation to try and prove a particular point. Like finding one tax dodging rich person to justify hammering many others who pay their taxes correctly....but a good government should govern for the greater good.

I?m going to put forward another idea about family and social responsibility that is the fact that Capitalism creates within in it a lot of contradictions.
Before the industrial revolution peasants worked within the home , the family shared the labour and the caring required to keep the family.

After the industrial revolution the factory acts banned children from working in certain conditions and eventually a law was passed to prevent children under 14 from working. In the late part of the 19th century the church and state became concerned about the number of delinquent children. Some MPs were not in favour of educating the working classes because they believed that it would lead to social unrest. This is the first illustration of how capitalism created the social conditions under which it became necessary to provide state welfare.

Over time men campaigned to try and keep women out of the factories, claiming that as the work became more technical and more mechanised that women lacked the skills to undertake the work. Families where women undertook most of the caring responsibilities became the norm as did the nuclear family. However one of the other contradictions of capitalism is the fact that through mechanisation fewer workers are required and less socially necessary labour time. The capitalist is able to exploit the worker for more surplus value. Through this and competition between businesses, wages are suppressed. In the 70?s wages started to stagnate and we have seen no real rise in wages since. Women started to re-enter the workforce, in part because many wanted to but also because one wage alone was not enough to support a family.

As more women work, working longer hours the responsibility for caring has increasingly become the business of the state. During the late 60?s and 70?s it became the norm for local authorities to provide homecare to the aging population as working women were less able to care for extended family.

Women are now quite rightly concerned about the cuts to welfare because many foresee that we will have to take on more caring, with less support and without the option to balance life, work and caring responsibilities.

In to this we have the fact that the highest percentage of tax is collected from corporations and wealthy individuals, people who don?t need the safety net of the state. A class of people who having run up against capitals inability to create sustained growth and its need to exploit new markets are now looking to, to take over more functions of the state for profit.

There are all sorts of problems with this, first corporations need to make money from the provision of services and secondly they need to make money from the investment that is necessary to fund this. When the profit imperative is followed it will have two quite contradictory outcomes. One it will make work where there wasn?t a need, (nursery provision is a good illustration of this) it will also seek to provide these services with the least labour possible, at the lowest wages, with the least attention to quality and it will do all of this to take more money from the state and provide less for it. Even if the social investment bonds do take off, the government will underwrite them because they don't want private pension schemes (amongst others) to crash and burn.

minimathsmouse ^ "But I freely admit it; I have very little interest in the fate of anyone or anything outside my immediate family, friends and neighbours

with half of my salary being redistributed amongst fellow Brits, it doesn't leave a lot for the other 6 billion people or so on Planet Earth

please reconcile these two opinions because they are contradictory." ^

It isn?t a contradictory stance in the slightest. Read the full quote. I don?t agree that wealth redistribution is the best way to make someone else rich. It?s an extension of the ?Give a man a fish? philosophy. This is as true for the long term unemployed in Britain as it is for the poor of Africa.

I was also making the point that the poor in Britain are reasonably well off compared to the poor in the third world. If giving rich people?s money away is going to make a difference anywhere, it would make sense to start with the poorest in the third world ? however, if you think that charity begins at home, and to hell with the rest of the world, I suppose that really shows that your love of your fellow man starts and ends at Dover!

But has capitalism created the welfare state? Is this why we pay high taxes? Is this the new frontier for capitalists to make money? Who will be the winners when others make money out of welfare? Will it cost the tax payer more?

Interesting point mouse "Will it cost the tax payer more/" I'm presuming that by this you mean if services like hospitals, prisons and schools are run by contractors, will it be necessary for them to charge more to make a profit?

Maybe and that means less will be provided for and we will become like a mini-America. I've been told that in places like New York most middle-class people see the state school system as a no-go area for their children.

I do believe most Brits want to maintain the NHS and public services and it bothers me that Cameron says he is selling it off/ reducing its ability to care for all.

should say Cameron says he is not selling off the NHS

I've been told that in places like New York most middle-class people see the state school system as a no-go area for their children they have a lot of charter schools in the states.

Unfortunately the Health bill was so complex that a lot of it's worst aspects have gone unnoticed.

What MrPants means is, why shouldn't he step over the beggar on his own street when he quite happily ignores the other six billion beggars elsewhere. His herd instinct, which he says he believes in, is limited to the world's smallest herd - an island per cow family, complete unto itself. And globalisation is hugely helpful in fostering this attitude. After all, it is fair to say that everyone in this country benefits from exploiting the poor beggars elsewhere, so nobody but the poorest should dare suggest that the exploitation is too extreme and, fortunately, the poorest have no voice whatsoever, so there's absolutely no need to do anything about any of it at all.

Oh, and MrPants also means it's better to have two greedy fat buggers presiding over a starving populace than for everyone to go hungry.

I do not know what charter schools are.

Complex health bill or not what has been filtered down to the ordinary folk like me is that profitable/affordable areas of the NHS will be open for patients to choose private contractors who I think still provide for the NHS and Health chiefs were worried that private investors will cherry-pick the services they offer and the more expensive so burdensome areas of health provision will be left for the NHS to provide.

The idea behind the NHS changes I believe is that as the NHS has no competition it is considered inefficient and wasteful.

As drug companies often ask for exhorbitant prices, I imagine private health providers will eventually do the same, making the NHS unaffordable.

I do apologise if I'm wrong about the above, I rely on BBC news and newspapers for my information so I'm sure my understanding is not sophisticated.

Actually, I think it isn't about patient choice but GP's choice and they can buy/choose services from different providers - and I'm sure they will be given incentives like drug companies offer now.

I think this is right - not sure but it does mean it is a change to the NHS/welfare system as we know it.

rabbitstew "There comes a point where your own family does not need any more and you should start looking outward at your effect on other people. "

And I suppose it's a good little socialist like you that gets to set that threshold right? I'll look after my family, you look after yours. If the level that you're prepared to accept for your family falls shorter than mine, then why not give the difference to the charity of your choice and let me get on with my life? Out of interest, why do you and your creed feel the need to interfere in other peoples lives? I don't understand your voyeurism, but most of all; I don't see why you feel a compulsion to drag us all into your big master plan.

"What MrPants means is, why shouldn't he step over the beggar on his own street when he quite happily ignores the other six billion beggars elsewhere."

MrPants is categorically NOT stating anything like that in the slightest. What you have done is totally misrepresented what I have said in the most disgraceful and cynical way. This is sheer cowardice on your part. Again, I find it typical of ignorant left wingers to play the man and not the ball. Well why not make up a whole load of other things I didn't say and use that straw man to disparage my opinions too?

Trade is the only way forward. Getting people into work is the only long term fix for more or less every problem this country faces - anything else is just socialist bullshit.

It's a similar story with the rest of the world. Trade will (albeit slowly) drag the third world into the first world. This is trickle down economics and it works. More people have been lifted out of poverty in the last twenty or thirty years or so than were lifted out of poverty in the previous millennia.

Face it, bigger governments, more laws and regulations and higher taxation will sink Europe and the 'developed' world - if that happens we will probably sink the third world too.

Mr Pants, again, has capitalism created the social environment that necessitated the creation of the welfare state?

As for teach a man to fish, I whole heartedly agree.

And how do you propose to "get people into work" when machines are cheaper and more efficient and you don't feel the need to interfere with anything? Socialists tend to be far less tolerant of unemployment than capitalists are.

I don't think taxing the wealthy more or interfering with peoples' private lives more is the answer to all our problems, either. That's just fiddling about with a corrupt system and not solving anything in the long term. It would be nice if people from all backgrounds looked at themselves and their own petty self justifications for greed and their unproven theories and started behaving better towards others and trading more responsibly without having to be told how to behave, rather than arguing quite unjustifiably given all the evidence, that there isn't a problem, or that the problem wasn't caused by people following their own greed and not giving a toss about the long term effect of anything they or anyone else does. And the wealthy and powerful don't have a monopoly on selfishness and greed, but they do set the tone for everyone else. And if you believe in the Rule of Law, then you believe too that it is not unreasonable to expect certain minimum basic standards of behaviour from others, even if they don't fancy abiding by them.

Basically, anyone who confidently asserts that their world view is the only correct one is talking out of their backside. All views are questionable, because none have been proven to work for everyone. That isn't an excuse for sticking rigidly by your pet favourite philosophy and refusing to listen to other perspectives.

"More people have been lifted out of poverty in the last twenty or thirty years or so than were lifted out of poverty in the previous millennia." For one, I'm not convinced that is true (but would be happy to be shown the figures), but also, how odd, when in the last 20 or 30 years, governments have been considerably bigger, laws and regulations more complex and controlling and taxation and its collection better co-ordinated and on average higher than for most of the last millenium. I think your argument on that point is remarkably poor, MrPants - perhaps you should go away and research it and then come up with some facts to convince me of your wild assertion, because it doesn't really ring true to me.

And if it does ring true, then it goes against your own argument.

If businesses weren't being taxed so highly there would be more of them to employ people. Take a look at Ireland. Before the financial crisis (In Irelands case caused exclusively by a stupid government that promised to underwrite all bank debts - that's one country that's been totally fucked up by big government) they had a low corporation tax rate. The number of businesses which flocked to Ireland was enough to lead to Ireland being dubbed the Celtic Tiger. Once Europe stepped in (big state, so watch the massive cock ups follow) to bail out the dumb-assed government, one of their first demands was the equalisation of corporate tax rates to stop businesses 'unfairly' piling into Ireland.

Similarly, reducing payroll tax burdens, and making it cheaper and easier to employ people, makes it cheaper to employ real humans as opposed to replacing them with robots.

Regarding your second post, the areas of the world that have seen poverty rates collapse also happen to be the same ones that have liberalised, reduced state interference in businesses and embraced trade. It's only in the developed west where governments have got more interfering.

Which areas of the world have seen poverty rates collapse with booming economies? Not China or India or Brazil and Africa which is in growth is not significantly reducing poverty either. So which countries are you talking about?

Absolutely Daffodilly2, and Chile is not quite the liberal economy that Mr pants tells us, it's major export is copper, an industry that is state owned. So its booming economy isn't down to small state, big business. Its rather that it has a resource which is in huge demand. Like Brazil, another place rich in resources that has some 16 million people still living in extreme poverty, defined as having 70 reais ($44; £27) or less a month.

And guess what, Brazils liberal small state HAS HAD to launch a new welfare scheme to ease poverty and ensure children are vacinated and educated.

Noam Chomsky on free markets, really interesting lecture that clearly sets out how free markets and small states are leading to greater inequality and poverty for the masses. He explains that the UK is not taking less in tax, it is simply right wing ideologues that choose not to fund a welfare state.

www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/04/30/stephen-king-tax-me-for-f-s-sake.html "Stephen King: Tax Me, for F@%&?s Sake!" .............Excellent - especially the final two paragraphs

"The Tories are sorting out the tax-avoidant"__www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2144000/Half-million-face-losing-disability-benefits-clampdown-costs.html "Losing a limb won't mean a payout, says Work Secretary as half a million face losing disability benefits in clampdown on costs"
'Mr Duncan Smith added that losing a limb should not automatically entitle people to a payout....

Mr Duncan Smith said: ?It?s not like incapacity benefit, it?s not a statement of sickness. It is a gauge of your capability. In other words, do you need care? Do you need support to get around?

?Those are the two things that are measured. Not ?You have lost a limb?.?

___ Arseholes. And why is IDS doing this job given the Betsygate [abuse of public funds] scandal of a few years ago?

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2144000/Half-million-face-losing-disability-benefits-clampdown-costs.html