What do with think will be in Labour’s budget?

[tenpairsofshoes]

They don’t seem to be giving much away but any indication that they might help kickstart the economy or are we just going to get £2 bus fares, £45 off our elec bill a year and petrol prices on google map? None of Labour polices seem to help anyone that is really struggling but isn’t in receipt of UC! I’m speaking as a single mother who is trying to sell a property to move on with my life but can’t. Yes I know I’ve very fortunate to have bricks and mortar but that doesn’t mean I’m loaded (because the property isn’t worth much)! I feel like everyone is expecting the chancellor pull a rabbit out of a hat but I think we’ll all be very disappointed/pissed off!

It’d be better if it promoted food sales here to help farmers and keep distances lower. But I guess we’ll see what they put in the budget.

Working harder and perhaps also working smarter having increased their skills and knowledge.

But ultimately it's about sacrifice. Some people just want an easy life, to watch a bit of telly in the evenings instead of perhaps working late in the evening learning a new skill or building a business. To be paid for a days work without taking on the additional stress of working for themselves, finding customers, marketing themselves, risking their capital, and employing people.

Apart from inherited wealth, or the exceptionally lucky or gifted, I would challenge you to show me a successful business person who hasn't put in a sustained period of hard graft over many years to get things up and running.

People see the success, but they don't see the 'behind the scenes' of what it takes to get there. And most people don't have the desire to work their arse off for a few years, risking it all to achieve success. So wealthy people have often done what others simply won't do to get to where they are today.

Depends on what kind of "hard work".

If it's working evenings and weekends alongside a job to learn new skills, take professional/further exams, etc., then that's "hard work" as it eats in to personal/down time, relaxation, hobbies etc.

Likewise working evenings and weekends to set up a new business, or inventing a new product, again, alongside a job, is working hard, likewise for future prospects/earnings.

For me, it's going above and beyond, sacrificing relaxation/fun time or hobbies or holidays, etc with a view to longer term gain, i.e. investing in yourself.

I agree.

Agree. It's the same with things like investing. Most people would rather have a shiny new car on the drive for £500+ a month rather than drive a ten year old fully paid off car and invest that £500+ car payment every month into a stocks and shares ISA to become financially free at a relatively young age, and to be able to choose whether or not they want to work anymore.

Nothing wrong with either approach, just depends what your values are and whether those shiny objects are worth working for a few more years of your life to have owned.

I know exactly how hard you need to work to be successful. I think people who don’t see how hard most other people also work , with fewer rewards, have limited vision themselves.

@ruskins,plenty of people have huge wealth, and have sacrificed very little, except other people’s effort.

@mumumental

plenty of people have huge wealth, and have sacrificed very little, except other people’s effort.

Any examples?

We are now modestly successful, after 35 years work. For the first 15 years my dh took every contract that came his way, even the ones that trashed long planned reunion weekends and fucked Christmas, because someone else's holiday. For many years, I got out of bed at 2:30 am to be in Middlesex at 8:00am for a breakfast meeting so I could turn around work by late afternoon. I am sure plenty of people do the same nowadays. The rewards do tend to go to the people who put in the work.

I'd really like more detail here. How do you know?

I still don't have huge wealth, but I do have, with DH, a nice house and enough in the pension plan.... because I started the pension in 1989 when I went freelance, and I have paid attention.

DH has an SME. It's modestly successful, but we also take care of our employees. One is currently in pain with a sciatic nerve issue. We could leave him to the NHS who will see him in 18 months, but we haven't. We will pay for private physio treatment now.

@mumumental your knee jerk reaction is very unpleasant and antagonistic.

To me, it reads that anyone who is not wealthy did not try hard enough.
There are carers working 60 hour weeks just to keep a roof over their head. They are hard working.
They are working harder than people like my cousin who has never worked, but has happened to have rich parents.

Then unless it is inherited wealth, or that of criminal gains, then to accrue that wealth they must have provided some sort of service that was deemed to be of sufficient value to others, that people exchanged their money for it. And setting up that service in the early days likely did require a substantial amount of work before it became a business of scale. And they no doubt paid their employees too at the market rate, based on that employees individual value or contribution to the business, so that the employee can then fund their own families expenses and chosen lifestyle. And if that employee at any time felt that they were not adequately remunerated for their efforts, then that employee can choose to leave and work elsewhere. They have also probably paid an awful lot of tax both directly, and indirectly.

The caveat to the above is investing which can be relatively passive. Investing can generate huge wealth that leverages either debt against assets (e.g. rental property), or leverages the time of others to build wealth (e.g. owning shares in a company). But the exchange of value is still there. As a landlord you provide a home for your tenants, and your tenants provide you an income in return. As an investor in stocks and shares, your capital invested allows the company to expand its operations and improve the business, and in return the company will pay you regular dividends and hopefully increase it's share price, a return on your investment.

Many people have much to learn about money, how to make it, and how to use it effectively. Treat money like a scarce commodity to be saved and/or used to purchase unproductive things, and wealth will likely elude you forever. Treat it as a tool to serve others, to invest, to generate value for others, to make life easier or better for others, and to buy productive assets that serve others, and there is really no limit to the amount of money that can be made. It's a real shame they don't teach this in schools.

That is just not true @XenoBitch because the situations don't overlap at all. My efforts in corporate finance and investor communication are just much better rewarded than care work. But it is ridiculous to think that the jobs are interchangeable. I did wash my DMIL's bum and dry it and talcum it, because she could not, but I wasn't paid for it; I did it because I loved her and I wanted her to be comfortable and feel like a proper human being.

We are talking about the government penalising wealth creators (business owners), not people who have simply been born into money.

Ultimately it all comes down to exchange of value.

Being a carer is admirable and should for sure be better paid, but it is also a fairly low skilled job, the barrier to entry is low, there are many of them, and it seems that as a society we collectively do not value them enough to pay them better.

At the other end of the scale perhaps is a professional football player. We can argue that several £100k a week is obscene. And it likely is! But when you consider that the player makes the football club he plays for many times that in ticket sales, TV rights, sponsorship, increasing the number of supporters, etc, then the value that a player brings the football club paying his wages is huge. So the players renumeration is huge too by return. And should that player stop delivering the value that was promised (fails to score goals, does not perform as expected, or gets injured) then they will have their contract terminated, or be sold, and their market value to their next club will likely be a lot less.

The sad fact is that as a society, we value (in terms of money) the talents of a good football player far more highly than that of a good carer. But that is simply because (given that football is the most watched sport on the planet) the football player gets given an opportunity to generate far more value, to far more people, than the carer ever does.

Yes, exactly. Outrageous, but at least it reminds us of how superior some entitled people believe they are. Falsely, I might add.

Actually, I think what I mean here is that I wanted her to maintain her dignity, not to feel beholden to a paid person. She preferred me to help her wash and dress because we both considered it a familial thing.

Company owners, for example. However, I’m done educating people for today.

Have you ever owned or run your own company? Guessing perhaps not!

I own half a company, exactly 50%. It's worth about £250k after 35 years work. Hardly riches. I get your gripes @mumumental but there's 40% tax to pay when or if anyone buys it. And for 35 years, we have taken on all the admin and all the risk. We have cancelled weekends away and holidays at short notice to work when needed. I don't think you have any concept of how hard it is to build even the tiniest business.

I’m not sure why company owners get a hard time in particular. There are so many SME owners in the U.K. and it can be hard and risky to set up and keep going.

@mumumental is completely convinced by delulu politics.

You do realise that 99.8 of businesses in the UK are SMEs and that the median annual profit for said SMEs is £13k? I’m not seeing how that is demonstrative of “huge wealth” in the overwhelming majority of company owners.

I think that having never run a business, she just doesn't understand, yet despite this complete lack of understanding still somehow feels qualified to judge others. There are a lot like this in Government. And as far as I am aware there is no-one in the Labour cabinet who has ever run a business. Just goes to show.

The pp aside I agree the Labour gov suffers from a lack of insight into SMEs

You see the distinction I hope between working harder as, say, a cleaner, and working harder as, say, an entrepreneur or other material risk taker?