Dave's cuts are going be deep and they will hurt

[FellatioNelson]

I've been hearing this all day on the radio. I can't take the suspense any longer. They are going to affect the lives of 'every one of us'

I feel like a person wincing and clenching my teeth in anticipation of the big fuck-off needle the school nurse is wielding, and I'm next in the queue....

Come on then, what's it going to be?

No, They're rich because they had advantages that others didn't have.

From Dorling, my new love:

"Wealth is a measure of inequality, and most wealth in the world is amassed through inheritence and ursury not work. This is wealth that has not been earned by those who inherit and almost all of it was not fairly earned by those who give it. That tiny amount which was originally collected through the sweat of the holder's own labour is only a miniscule fraction of the wealth of the world. Most wealth comes from routes such as former plantation holdings that cascated down to families in the US, or from parents finding their home had increased in value because it was located in London, and London contained the bankers who had found a new way of making money, which for a time indirectly increased house prices there."

So being clever can help you in your business or trade; (obviously if you really are not that bright you aren't going to do well anywhere) but 'clevereness' of those at the top of the pile is not the reason they are where they are. They are there because the system is set up in their favour, at the expense of others.

There are so many people who come from nothing to be millionaires even just amongst people I know that I don't think that's entirely true. 50% of those at Oxbridge went to state schools and they tend to do well. We have quite reasonable social mobility in the UK compared with many other places and as someone quoted above in the depths of the thread internationally compared the UK does not have a massive rich and poor gap.

But there is not that much you can get from the very rich before revenues start to fall. The average wage is £20k so if you want to make a lot of cuts you're going to have to do something that affects the vast mass of the 60m people in the uK, not a tiny few who have just had their tax and NI hiked to 51% or whatever it is.

Xenia, I'm not dead against disparities in wealth, but let's call a spade a spade, shall we? The disparities don't exist because the poor are feckless or work-shy or scroungers or any of the other words the middle-class give to justify the fact there is a two tier education system in the UK; they are where they by mischance of having been born in the wrong place.

A bit like women more likely to be poor because they're women, not because they're workshy or feckless or lazy.

Yes, and I think it's dire that the 11 plus, which was designed to give the poorest a chance, has now been hijacked by the middle classes who can't quite afford private school. Their children have advantages that a bright child from poverty doesn't have, but the system now means that the poorest, from the worst back-grounds don'T even stand a chance.

Erm. . . not 100% sure but I think it has something to do with antiques tecnically being second hand goods. . .

and tbh although most of my furniture is pretty nice antique stuff it worked out much cheaper than buying high street stuff (BBC's Cracking Antiques anyone?)so unless you're talking about the very few customers right at the top end I don't think it would raise that much in revenue.

I think the idle rich are ridiculed certainly by the Doctor/Solicitor/Account types who actually have the real knowledge and the barrow boys made good who have the real balls in business.
The point is that really there aren't that many of them with any actual cash left, they have already been hung out to dry with property repairs.

'ensure retirement age in the upblic sector is a uniform 65 or 67, none of this early retirement in your 50s stuff' For some public sector workers there is no choice BUT to go in your 50s Xenia. My dh is in the RN, and he HAS to retire the day before his 53rd birthday, unless they give him an extension of service or he is promoted and that would only gain him another 2 years. He'd like to stay in longer, but can't.

We have started the looking around for jobs process now, so that if something comes up he can apply. His last two appointments and now the new one have all been chosen to make him more employable where we are posted at present.

'Yes, and I think it's dire that the 11 plus, which was designed to give the poorest a chance, has now been hijacked by the middle classes who can't quite afford private school. Their children have advantages that a bright child from poverty doesn't have, but the system now means that the poorest, from the worst back-grounds don't even stand a chance.'....that's if you live in an area where there is still 11 plus. Also, the parents of children of the middle classes do pay tax and NI, so therefore their children have as much right as anyone else's to take the 11 plus and take a grammar school place if they pass it. Just because the parents happen to earn in excess of say £30k doesn't mean that that the children should be penalised and not allowed to take exams.

It's like the comments from those currently reviewing the funding for uni, the middle class children should pay more - what with? Their parents are paying mortgages, travel costs, tax, NI, trying to support their own parents, trying to save for their own retirements so as not to be a burden on the state, so there is not a lot left to help their kids with for uni. You'll have a two tier uni system - only those from as poorer background and those who are rich will be able to go; the middle class kids will be priced out.

I know lots of people in the private sector who have had to tolerate income reductions in the last few years - either through having to drop to a 4 day week or through salary cuts. Forget about inflation increases.

I myself was made redundant a year ago when my company got taken over - and for years beforehand never got a salary increase. I am not complaining - I was extremely well paid.

I was on JSA for 6 months and then signed off, not because I had found a job but because I wouldn't qualify for income based JSA becasue of our savings and it wasn't worth the hassle of going along once a fortnight to explain what I was doing to find a job in my sector. 6 months later, I am now doing some work on behalf of a former customer which I generated off my own bat. I am happy with the flexibility it offers - and dh, who is working with me on the project - is also still free to work on setting up his wine business.

I was a higher rate tax payer - and would have happily paid more tax: if we want our public services, then we need to be prepared too pay for them.

For the last year, we have been living on our savings - which we had plenty of - plus my redundnancy package.

There is a lot in the public sector that can and should be cut. I've workd as a manager in the health service and know that there are lots of layers that don't contribute directly to fornt line services. The last government in particular was guilty of requiring lots of measurement as opposed to doing - just to prove that "they were doing a goood job".

Any manager - in both the public and private sector - should justify thems elves by what are they actually contributing to the purpose of the organisation - whther that be selling widgets or saving lives. Their job is - or should be - to facilitate those that actually "do" things to get results.

My boss in my last job refused to put herlsef forward for any of the roles in the re-organisation as she said that she didn't contribute any vale and that we, the sales force, were the real workers. She did herlsef a disservice, as the boss above her was a real bully and her value was in protecting us from him to leave us free to get on with the job of selling.

My dh once turned down a job telling the orgnaisation that they didn't need a higlhy paid one of him - they needed two much more lowly paid executives to actually get out and about and that that would deliver much grster returns.

It make me really angry that Gordon Brown squandered the benefits of the "good years". That is not "with the benefit of hindsight" - there had been plenty of commentators saying the bubble was going to burst and anyway, the basics of Keynesianism is that you are supposed to build up reserves in the good years so that you can spend them in the lean years on infrstracutre projects etc and so help smooth the effects of the recession. He didn't do that.

Xenia - the VAST majority of people who come from 'nothing' don't go on to become millionaires. There is a huge selection bias in the 'people you know'.

I know it isn't what you want to hear Lenin, but here is a link that demonstrates that the rich are already doing their bit :

news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/10096723.stm

I suspect that your dream is to create a more equal society through more tax, regulation and government intervention but as history continually shows us - it doesn't work.

At one point in the 1970s income was taxed at 83% - it was a disaster and the total tax take actually went down.

The link shows that there were only 13,000 people earning over £1 million last year (if that is your classification of rich), each paying an average of about £1 million in income tax. There aren't enough of them to make a significant difference and punitive taxes could only ever really be about stoking class resentment against the perceived greedy elitist.

"I'm talking about land taxes, mansion taxes" a lot of the people with "old mansions" can't even afford the upkeep let alone to pay extra tax based on the value of the property

Totally agree with what scaryteacher said, and I would like to refer anyone who thinks that middle class kids ahould pay more for uni etc. to a set of twins I taught a few years ago. Both wanted to go to uni, one to be a lawyer, the other a midwife, and their parents earned literally a couple of hundred over the threshold for help. The girls had been sat down in year 10 and told categorically that parental support would only be available for one of them and during the many conversations we had about it they were wondering whether to commit murder or toss a coin!

Exactly, nobody really wants those mansions the roofs cost £200k to repair, so a bit more land is sold off or turned into a theme park.
The people you want to capture are the likes of Rod Stewart and Paul Daniels who openly refuse to pay their share, or at least they did in the 70's

Are there seriously only 13000 earning over a million a year? Or are there only 13000 that the HMRC know about because the rest receive their remuneration in ways that avoid tax?

Regarding income tax.

It is human nature to want to avoid handing over cash, especially if you feel that you are already doing more than your fair share.

I had a quote from a plumber yesterday - he offered to reduce the price for cash in hand.

Is it worse to take legal steps to minimise your tax bill, or to illegally pocket earnings without declaring them?

Tax avoidance is widespread, and not just amongst the high earners.

I think the proportion of people who have acculumated real wealth through inheritance and privilege is actually very small indeed, even if the wealth of those few people may account for a disproportionate amount of the nation's personal wealth as a whole. Does that make sense?

I do not think that most self-sufficient people have achieved this status through anything other than their own efforts. I don't think we can really take into account relatively small amounts of inherited money, for example your share on the sale of a dead parents' esatate. For most people it proabaly averages no more than than a few tens of thousands, and tends to come at a stage when they are over their worst period of need, anyway.

People keep citing 'lack of opportunities' in education and life for poor people. Which opportunities are you referring to exactly? Given that only 7% of children are privately educated, that's an awful lot of people who supposedly all the had same educational opportunities. I know those 7% tend to have a good grip on the very top jobs, but there are millions of people in very good progressive employment who had a very average state education. The reality is that your life chances are determined by your parents -not by your school.

If you think it's the 'opportunity' to have with a full stomach and live in a safe, nurturing, non-dysfunctional home environment, and have parental encouragement to go into higher education that middle class children have the monopoly on, doesn't that rather suggest that we are making unfair judgements on the parenting ability and aspirations of a whole swathe of people, purely because they are fairly poor? After all, if we made a statement that all poor people are bad parents who don't care about education we'd get flamed, right?

It is not a given that low socio-economic status people will parent chaotically, or be unsupportive in education. Yet when certain societal groups consistently under-achieve we tell ourselves it's not their fault, it's our fault for allowing them to be poor.