The argument/complete nonsense thread...

[originallambrettaman]

Using the governments own figures for 2025

Benefit fraud and error 6.5bn
Asylum seekers 5.4bn
Tax evasion 46bn

Pittance indeed. But, you know, brown people.

That £46b isn’t tax evasion, it’s the gap between what the government get and what they think they should get, 50% of it is just carelessness and inaccurate filings.

 

[DMD]

Interesting and surprising. Although, moving the goalposts a bit, how much do big businesses cost the public purse overall? Recording profits of hundreds of millions or billions yet paying most their workforce minimum wage or barely much above it, often to be topped up by UC? Whilst executives obviously take home mega salaries and shareholders take huge dividends. Probably completely unquantifiable but the cost of that would likely make any tax issues look insignificant you would have to think.

Technically legal but morally bankrupt?

If it's such easy money, it's surprising more people aren't doing it.

Making the rich poorer won't make you any wealthier, it'll just mean more money wasted on inefficient vanity projects.

Instead of the fixation with tax (check out the laffer curve) I'd rather some of the quangos and other NGO's (in name only) were better policed, and Governments were forced to spend our money more efficiently. I mean, I could have not built a tunnel under Stonehenge for a fraction of the price the Government paid to not have one.

 

[Ric Glasgow]

Wasn’t a comment aimed at anyone in particular despite replying to your post, more at how there’s so much more focus and anger about what is a relatively insignificant issue compared to those that are pulling the strings, writing the narrative and also really are taking the piss.

You know full well if I wanted to call you a racist I’d just call you a racist, I don’t beat about the bush

You racist ****.

I don't know anything about you but I'm assuming that you're a man of your word and if you wanted to call me a racist,you jolly well would.Of course me being an upstanding citizen and pacifist,I'd stand and let you.

Ric,a man of peace and goodwill and a turn the other cheek type fellow,Glasgow.

 

[Amin Arrears]

I don't know anything about you but I'm assuming that you're a man of your word and if you wanted to call me a racist,you jolly well would.Of course me being an upstanding citizen and pacifist,I'd stand and let you.

Ric,a man of peace and goodwill and a turn the other cheek type fellow,Glasgow.

It was in jest, not always obvious in text form. But I thought I’d best clear that up

 

[Amin Arrears]

That £46b isn’t tax evasion, it’s the gap between what the government get and what they think they should get, 50% of it is just carelessness and inaccurate filings.

That doesn’t suit my agenda so I’m going to ignore it.

 

[Ric Glasgow]

It was in jest, not always obvious in text form. But I thought I’d best clear that up

Yes,it was as clear as a piping hot pot of pea and ham soup from your home kitchen

 

[Amin Arrears]

Yes,it was as clear as a piping hot pot of pea and ham soup from your home kitchen

Never liked peas, with the exception of when accompanying a good steak, gammon or beef, and the fat drips out into them. Good flavour combination.

 

[Ric Glasgow]

Interesting and surprising. Although, moving the goalposts a bit, how much do big businesses cost the public purse overall? Recording profits of hundreds of millions or billions yet paying most their workforce minimum wage or barely much above it, often to be topped up by UC? Whilst executives obviously take home mega salaries and shareholders take huge dividends. Probably completely unquantifiable but the cost of that would likely make any tax issues look insignificant you would have to think.

Technically legal but morally bankrupt?

This is something I actually agree with you on.

If a Company is making a vast amount of profit and only paying it's workforce minimum wage(not that I think the minimum wage is something to be sniffed at and I'd grab it with both hands when I'm ready to go back to work,hopefully sooner rather than later),and the employee then has to claim Benefits to make ends meet,then the employer should be made to take up the slack?

I worked in the whisky industry a year and a half ago for William Grant & Sons as an agency forklift driver.We were well paid but it went with the territory when a pallet on your forks could be worth anywhere between £10k and £500k and you were left under no illusion that you wouldn't be there long if you dropped or damaged one(I never damaged anything in my year+ stint but telling a boss to go and stick their head up their arse was probably a poor bit of judgement on my part,though I did pick the time,in front of 50 other employees to do it).On the other hand,he was paying the girls on the production lines minimum wage!!!

This by a man who as owner of that Company had a personal wealth in the region of £5 billion!!! Some of the lasses in production(mostly Polish) had kids and were working to support their kid or kids,some as single Mothers(I know this as fact as my wife was on the lines for a short while and was friendly with 4 or 5 of them).

I for one would welcome any Government in place to send an itemised bill to people of this ilk on an annual basis demanding full repayment of any top up benefits paid to their employees during the course of that financial year.

The fat cat was getting fatter by allowing other tax payers to subsidise his own greed...

 

[Kalman II]

Interesting and surprising. Although, moving the goalposts a bit, how much do big businesses cost the public purse overall? Recording profits of hundreds of millions or billions yet paying most their workforce minimum wage or barely much above it, often to be topped up by UC? Whilst executives obviously take home mega salaries and shareholders take huge dividends. Probably completely unquantifiable but the cost of that would likely make any tax issues look insignificant you would have to think.

Technically legal but morally bankrupt?

The problem with raising corporation tax too high is that the big businesses will just **** off and the small and medium-sized ones will either go out of business or make redundancies.

Big businesses recording record profits whilst people live under the poverty line is understandably galling to a lot of people (myself included) but the reality is that taxing them more just isn’t a long-term solution. Anyone running for office on ‘tax the rich’ soundbites either don’t know this yet or they do but don’t care and just want to be elected. It’s a juvenile approach to the economy. Our corporation tax is already higher than the Scandinavian countries and they’re considered the benchmark of social democracy in the 21st century.

We definitely should not be subsidising private business though.

 

[springtiger]

That's what I call it ... my happy place

Me and my wife always head north up to Nthumberland and to the lothians . Quiet , great beaches , there’s something that drags us there maybe it’s the relative quiet and scenery - just can’t bring ourselves to go south .

 

[Edelman]

Me and my wife always head north up to Nthumberland and to the lothians . Quiet , great beaches , there’s something that drags us there maybe it’s the relative quiet and scenery - just can’t bring ourselves to go south .

Lack of traffic compared to down south helps

 

[Gone For A Walk]

It depends on what type of house they want. The average price today may well be £280K but there are plenty still available especially in Hull for well under £100K. My first place was a two up two down, with a back yard, no garden, and the 'bathroom' was a single brick building added onto the kitchen. No central heating, second hand furniture, black and white telly from Pools Corner etc etc. We didn't own a car for our first ten years of married life and no-one I knew went on a foreign holiday. It was hard, and that was the norm for the working man. I had to take on an extra job when the overtime dried up at work. We slowly did the house up bit by bit, sold it, and moved on to something a bit better, and I've done that ten times. Today people want everything straight away. I never earned £5k a year either working in the foundry at Ideal Standard when I started there in 1972, and Standard was considered as one of the best paid jobs in the city. We jumped for joy when we got a rise to £1 an hour just after the first miners strikes in the early 70's, that is £40 for a 40 hour week, less tax and NI. It was never easy. I've been in punch up's on the shop floor over overtime because we depended on it to pay our bills.
Not saying it's not hard today for kids to get on the housing ladder today either but I doubt if they would have lived like we did. Also don't forget it was my generation who fought to get a decent wage, by striking, three day weeks and so on. The unions were very strong in those days. Do you think we managed to get a rise to £1 an hour by the goodness of the employers hearts? We had to fight for everything.
Be honest, look how people live today, there is a lot more money about, I have a grandchild now backpacking in Thailand, her mobile contract cost more a month than our first car cost and I say good luck to her. I didn't know where Thailand was at her age, I was hampered with a mortgage and two kids but Its changing times, and as people, our values have changed too.
Some would say for the better?

Cracking response / post.
Home truths in there.
Like you, not saying it is easy for young uns these days, it isn't. It's different. A generalisation, but expectations, and as you say 'values', are so different nowadays.

 

[balkan tiger]

Cracking response / post.
Home truths in there.
Like you, not saying it is easy for young uns these days, it isn't. It's different. A generalisation, but expectations, and as you say 'values', are so different nowadays.

Something on the telly a little while back about a young working woman who couldn't get onto the housing ladder. When the looked at her spending it was clear why, £80 a month on takeaway coffee and near £200 a month on takeaway meal deals whereas in the old days you would make your pack up and a flask of coffee.
There was loads more like living in rented accommodation because her parents were "doing her head in" when living at home. A mobile phone package and a whole host of pay TV.

As said it's different times and different priorities.

 

[Heimdallr]

Something on the telly a little while back about a young working woman who couldn't get onto the housing ladder. When the looked at her spending it was clear why, £80 a month on takeaway coffee and near £200 a month on takeaway meal deals whereas in the old days you would make your pack up and a flask of coffee.
There was loads more like living in rented accommodation because her parents were "doing her head in" when living at home. A mobile phone package and a whole host of pay TV.

As said it's different times and different priorities.

How much did previous generations spend on alcohol? Is it not that social habits have changed - instead of drinking 4 nights a week, young ppl are having a coffee, a pizza, streaming netflix and going to the gym...

The facts remain that when wages, inflation, housing costs and spending power are compared, the working young these days, on average, are worse off, and most likely going to have to work beyond 70 before they get to retire. Plenty of facts about there stating that this generation are the first to be poorer than their parents in over 200 years. And workers are also carrying the highest tax burden since the 1970s.

Not sure why it's so unpalatable to accept. It's easy to find and interview someone who has been making the wrong choices, but it doesn't generalise to an entire generation. I guess we always feel we had it harder, but the facts don't indicate it that way.

 

[springtiger]

Look, Newland, it's not really on to blame the pensioners, who instead of voting for a well-run country, have consistently voted for the government which will guarantee that the working taxpayer pay them an inflation-busting triple lock pension, despite the fact they own 60% of the country's property wealth and paid their parents only poverty level pensions in the 1970-1990s.

It's clearly also a 19 year old's fault for buying an avocado on the way into work.

So you don’t blame the19 year olds for not having the brains or interest to vote at all then ?

 

[Gone For A Walk]

The thought of 16 & 17 year olds voting alarms me greatly!!
The vast majority haven't got the first clue about such things! That's not having a go at teens, it's just FACT.
(not meaning to imply that the same isn't the case for a fair few adults too like!).

 

[balkan tiger]

How much did previous generations spend on alcohol? Is it not that social habits have changed - instead of drinking 4 nights a week, young ppl are having a coffee, a pizza, streaming netflix and going to the gym...

The facts remain that when wages, inflation, housing costs and spending power are compared, the working young these days, on average, are worse off, and most likely going to have to work beyond 70 before they get to retire. Plenty of facts about there stating that this generation are the first to be poorer than their parents in over 200 years. And workers are also carrying the highest tax burden since the 1970s.

Not sure why it's so unpalatable to accept. It's easy to find and interview someone who has been making the wrong choices, but it doesn't generalise to an entire generation. I guess we always feel we had it harder, but the facts don't indicate it that way.

What I find unpalatable is all the winging and wineing about not being able to have everything all at once.

Of course I spent loads on alcohol but when it came time to save up a deposit for a house that got knocked on the head. I could go on and on about how it was in the 80s high unemployment, no jobs of any sort but oddly enough no food banks either. People cut their cloth accordingly. It's all about priorities.

 

[Edelman]

How much did previous generations spend on alcohol? Is it not that social habits have changed - instead of drinking 4 nights a week, young ppl are having a coffee, a pizza, streaming netflix and going to the gym...

The facts remain that when wages, inflation, housing costs and spending power are compared, the working young these days, on average, are worse off, and most likely going to have to work beyond 70 before they get to retire. Plenty of facts about there stating that this generation are the first to be poorer than their parents in over 200 years. And workers are also carrying the highest tax burden since the 1970s.

Not sure why it's so unpalatable to accept. It's easy to find and interview someone who has been making the wrong choices, but it doesn't generalise to an entire generation. I guess we always feel we had it harder, but the facts don't indicate it that way.

If the average price for a house in the UK had kept the same pace as inflation it would be less than half what it is today .

 

[Ernie Shackleton]

The thought of 16 & 17 year olds voting alarms me greatly!!
The vast majority haven't got the first clue about such things! That's not having a go at teens, it's just FACT.
(not meaning to imply that the same isn't the case for a fair few adults too like!).

The thought of 70 & 80 year olds voting alarms me greatly.

The vast majority haven't got a dog in the long term future game. It's not having a go at the elderly, it's just FACT.

 

[Cityzen]

The thought of 70 & 80 year olds voting alarms me greatly.

The vast majority haven't got a dog in the long term future game. It's not having a go at the elderly, it's just FACT.

The votes of the older and wiser ones are needed to balance out the clueless voting of the young.