Tax the poor - not the rich

crazyguy

The_White_Horse wrote: »

i have - it should be sealed and demolished with them in it.

They are coming to get you,

paulmapp8306

pinkteapot wrote: »

How on earth could that work in practice? You could have two people earning the same amount. One chooses to live in a huge house and do their weekly shop at Waitrose. They'd pay no tax. One could live frugally in a small house eating Tesco value beans cooked over a camping stove and pay 40% tax. It would encourage people to p*ss money up the wall - just what we need more of in this country.

Then you'd have to define essential. Is your entire electricity bill "essential" or is powering your TV for three hours a day optional?

I think this suggestion is actually more ill-conceived than the OP.

TWH you crack me up. I assume that the distinction between scum and non-scum isn't based on quantifiable measures but on guidelines set by you? Have you seen the news about the Occupy lot taking over a disused UBS building to set up a "Bank of Ideas" where people can go to talk and exchange thoughts. Bet you have some views on that.

Didnt say it would work, and the only way to even think it might would be for the government to set that level. - just making the point that you could only really have a one tax rate system if lifes essentials - being a roof, food, and warmth, were taken into account BEFORE the tax is implemented. In fact the "tax free" eliment of income kind of does this already - its just set much too low, as you couldnt live on that amount without government aide elsewhere.

Maybe making the first £15k tax free rather than £7k+ it is now - but charge a flat 30% on everything over that?

If effect its what they try to do with the multi rate system I guess.

dtsazza

Lady_Aga wrote: »

People do not get what they deserve in life. A working class genius versus a middle class moron may lose out every time in the job stakes because they do not have the contacts or money to fund an internship to get a foot in the door. There is not room at the top.

I broadly agree with you, though the notion of being "deserving" does depend on your preconceptions of what deserves success and what does not. There's a distinction between what one would do in an idealised world and what one can best do to succeed in this world. If someone doggedly leads their life in a way which should work but clearly doesn't in practice, then they're not going to get good results and this is unsurprising. Do they deserve to do better? On the one hand yes, on the other hand no.

Our young people have been lied to. Going to university does not guarentee you a good job.

I certainly hope that no-one ever thought that was the case. The mechanical act of going to university and getting a piece of paper doesn't and shouldn't guarantee you a job. In fact nothing can guarantee a job. However, making yourself extremely intelligent, educated, practical, empathic and ultimately employable is what gets you a job.

There should be no sense of entitlement that performing action A gets you a job; you'll be employed on the basis of what you have to offer to the company (or self-employed on the basis of what you have to offer to your customers).

People who earn a lot of money do not necessarily work harder or contribute more to society than hospital cleaners or care assistants on minimum wage. It is a real insult to claim that the harder you work the more you will be financially rewarded.

Nevertheless, their money comes from somewhere. If somebody earns £100,000 a year then ceteris paribus they are producing output that people are prepared to pay five times as much for, than someone on £20,000 a year.

Prices themselves are a way of allocating scarce resources, a voting system of sorts that says "I really want this to the extent that I'm prepared to pay more for it". Willingness to pay a higher price for something incentivises people/companies to produce and sell it to you.

All wages ultimately come from somebody somewhere voluntarily paying for whatever it is you're producing. In that regard, you've produced £100,000 (or more) worth of "happiness" for other people in the £100k job vs £20k worth of happiness in the other job.

Lady_Aga

dtsazza wrote: »

you'll be employed on the basis of what you have to offer to the company. Back in reality, people whose parents have contacts, use that network to secure their offspring into a job, elbowing out anyone else who may be better suited and more talented. The working classes cannot compete as they cannot afford to work as an intern.

All wages ultimately come from somebody somewhere voluntarily paying for whatever it is you're producing. In that regard, you've produced £100,000 (or more) worth of "happiness" i.e. money for other people in the £100k job vs £20k worth of happiness in the other job.

A hospital cleaner who does their job properly, saves the hospital thousands of pounds and prevents the spread of infection.

A kind and loving carer looking after one of your elderly relatives is worth their weight in gold to you.

A banker who speculates with other people's money and makes/loses more money has no-one to answer to. They have not provided any happiness to the majority of people in this country in the last few years.

The_White_Horse

does anyone ever consider that over the years, the rich and successful get that way because they are very clever, and that these people have children who are also very clever.

there seems to be this idea that rich clever people have ignorant children that only get into places because of the rich parents. it is not true. clever parents, with money, tend to have very clever offspring. if that clever offspring is also well educated, they go on to do well. thicko's on the dole tend to have thicko kids.

of course, there are a few exceptions, but generally, this is the way it is.

schools like eton want the top people there. they don't want rich idiots bringing down their status.

dtsazza

Lady_Aga wrote: »

A kind and loving carer looking after one of your elderly relatives is worth their weight in gold to you.

Then why do you not pay them that much for looking after your relative? Remortgaging your house if need be, or similar ways of liquidating assets?

If you could pay them say £100,000 a year but choose not to, then it's because they are not worth that much to you - you've made a rational decision that you would prefer £100,000 worth of other goods/services instead of the carer.


On the flip side of the coin, why doesn't the carer charge £100,000 a year for their services?

Lady_Aga

dtsazza wrote: »

Then why do you not pay them that much for looking after your relative? Remortgaging your house if need be, or similar ways of liquidating assets?

If you could pay them say £100,000 a year but choose not to, then it's because they are not worth that much to you - you've made a rational decision that you would prefer £100,000 worth of other goods/services instead of the carer.


On the flip side of the coin, why doesn't the carer charge £100,000 a year for their services?

I have often wondered why jobs looking after people ( for example, but not exclusively, mothers, childcare workers, carers, nurses) are so low-paid and undervalued.

Seems like the more selfish and driven you are, the more you are prepared to stamp on peole and push them out of the way so you can get to 'the top'

Peole who care, have empathy and really make a difference to people's lives don't do that.

dtsazza

Lady_Aga wrote: »

I have often wondered why jobs looking after people ( for example, but not exclusively, mothers, childcare workers, carers, nurses) are so low-paid and undervalued.

Seems like the more selfish and driven you are, the more you are prepared to stamp on peole and push them out of the way so you can get to 'the top'

Peole who care, have empathy and really make a difference to people's lives don't do that.

I think the wages more or less reflect supply and demand. If you were paying a care assistant £100k, there would be lots of people not currently employed as care assistants, yet equally skilled, prepared to do it for £99k, £98k, £97k... and so on. This undercutting would stop when the prospective care assistants could earn more* doing another job for which they have skills, to the extent that the number of still-willing prospective CAs is the same size as the number of CA vacancies. (Any less than that and the process works in reverse, with the scarce CAs able to play jobs off against each other and take the higher-paying position.)

This process doesn't work immediately and quite so visibly in real life, but it's broadly what happens.

So I suppose the reason why the caring professions make so little money is that they're relatively easy to do, or rather most people would be able to do them if they decided to. Hence there's a lot of implied competition and the wages are low.

Perhaps part of this is that there's a great deal of information asymmetry - it's hard to tell in advance if someone is a great care worker or merely adequate (or even a terrible neglectful one). So the only safe option is to assume everyone's mediocre and pay them the same, even if the great ones do have an equilibrium value of £100k (since there are very few of them and they're presumably in high demand). I'm not sure to what extent this applies to care work compared to other careers, but if it's above average it would also work to depress wages for above-average carers.

*Strictly not when they would earn more in another job, but when another job is preferable to them. For someone who has their heart set on being a care worker, this might be a salary of zero.