Tory cuts could be mighty unpleasant

Money_Grabber13579

Thrugelmir wrote: »

There are only 3 options.

Print more money.
Inflation would rocket and we'd be in another right mess

Borrow more money.
We can't afford to borrow any more. The interest of £40 billion currently is crippling enough

Pay our debt back. ( ie reduce expenditure).
It's all we can do, but it'll take a long time. £800-900 billion is a lot of money to pay back.

i.e. there's only 1 option.

Generali

Inflation would rocket and we'd be in another right mess

Also, the Government's biggest liabilities are inflation linked so it won't solve the problem.

moggylover

Old_Slaphead wrote: »

You've taken my posting completely out of context and I suggest you read the posting which led to my responses.

Original poster said that all front line staff were low paid. I responded with average salaries for teachers, nurses and police and suggested this was not so. Subsequent poster said the 'average' of £27,000 for nurses was fantasy but anecodotal evidence seems to suggest otherwise.

I made no observations as to what they were worth - merely that the vast majority of frontline staff (incl nurses) earn above national average average pay and consequently could not be considered 'low wage'.

As to what nurses are really worth - probably like most people I've mixed views. Some. in my experience have been excellent and should be paid a king's ransome, others poor and apparently uncaring and I wouldn't pay them in used stamps (having said that I've no idea as to what sort of shift they've had and there may have been good reason for their surliness - who knows?).

As a broad average £27000 (up to £30,000 with various allowances) seems not desperately out-of-line.

I think you may have taken me a little out of context as well as I wasn't "having a go" just asking a straight-forward question.:beer:

Thanks for the reply.

moggylover

kennyboy66 wrote: »

Whilst VAT is a regressive tax, all the UK studies have shown it is certainly not the poorest decile of people who are most affected, as most of their spending is on non VAT rated essentials.

As the poorest 10th decile have done worse than any other group under Labour, it will be a bit rich for Labour to claim foul on this.

The people who are generally the most adversely affected are middle income families. Families that have 1 or 2 cars, drink and smoke, have one foreign holiday a year, have teenage kids whose clothes often have VAT on them, etc, etc

Increase VAT also has the benefit of being easy to collect, hard to avoid and it doesn't interfere in the job market the way the myriad tax and benefit system clearly does.

Except that it is not only middle income families that have teenage kids you know;). Poor families have them as well, and the difference in prices between the "kids" sizes and the change to "adult" sizes can be quite a shock I can assure you. Don't know where they decided that a size 6 was an adult male shoe size though because I know litterally dozens of boys that were in that size before they had left first year seniors:rolleyes: I have NEVER known an adult male with such dinky little tootsies though, not even those who were positively vertically challenged:D

moggylover

Thrugelmir wrote: »

Also its an optional tax. That one only incurs if one spends giving one an option to save disposable income.

Unless, of course, your teenage son has gone and done the unthinkable and outgrown the shoes that you bought for him just over half a term ago, or your aged cooker has finally given up the ghost, of the central heating needs repairs, or a problem occurs with your roof tiles and you need a repair!

Personally, I dislike VAT entirely because it is altogether indiscriminate in who it hits. Perhaps instead of the dreadful Tax Credits system we could have one that refunds VAT on the above types of essentials to those earning below a certain income:D

Money_Grabber13579

moggylover wrote: »

Unless, of course, your teenage son has gone and done the unthinkable and outgrown the shoes that you bought for him just over half a term ago, or your aged cooker has finally given up the ghost, of the central heating needs repairs, or a problem occurs with your roof tiles and you need a repair!

Personally, I dislike VAT entirely because it is altogether indiscriminate in who it hits. Perhaps instead of the dreadful Tax Credits system we could have one that refunds VAT on the above types of essentials to those earning below a certain income:D

But then that gets us into another argument about why those better off should have to pay more for their essentials than those who aren't as well off. Stripping VAT from all essentials for everyone sounds a better idea. (Obviously what is an essential needs to be defined.)

The rich then could be taxed on luxury items the poor wouldn't be expected to have. Although, some "poor" people seem to have their fair share of luxury items. How does that work I wonder?

Generali

moggylover wrote: »

Except that it is not only middle income families that have teenage kids you know;). Poor families have them as well, and the difference in prices between the "kids" sizes and the change to "adult" sizes can be quite a shock I can assure you. Don't know where they decided that a size 6 was an adult male shoe size though because I know litterally dozens of boys that were in that size before they had left first year seniors:rolleyes: I have NEVER known an adult male with such dinky little tootsies though, not even those who were positively vertically challenged:D

Now regardless of whether your son has grown out of his shoes, your Granny has a particularly expensive disease to treat or you fancy going to see a opera, if any of those things are going to be paid for out of taxpayer's money, the taxpayer needs to stump up.

Unfortunately, the taxpayer is pretty much sucked dry and the Government is borrowing to try to fill the gap but that is unsustainable as anyone on the DFW board will tell you.

The point that has been reached is that the money isn't there to pay for what has been paid for in the past and if the money ain't there, it can't be spent. Now clearly the opera has to go. Will the next thing be shoes or cancer treatments do you think?

whathavewedone

Judging by the polls following the conference no one's been put off. Yesterday's You Gov showed the tories 17 points ahead of labour and this morning's poll shows them with a 14 point lead.

Not bad considering there weren't any crowd pleasers in there.

I haven't read all the posts on this thread but I find it amazing that there are so many people who seem to think we've been living in some sort of utopia for the last 12 years.

The complete and utter erosion of civil liberties - depicted beautifully by the two police officers who were suddenly criminals because they had the temerity to look after each other's children without being CRB checked. Meanwhile a CRB checked nursery nurse admits to abusing babies and toddlers in her care.

Far more people are angry about that than are angry about the pension age being lowered to 66 ten years earlier than labour would have done it. All the people I know who are that age are still working through choice. It will not be as unpopular as all that.

I will be voting tory - I don't care about losing a tenner a week in tax credits (we're on about 50k). Tax credits are stupid anyway. Why take more off people only to give some back and make almost everyone feel as though they need benefits to survive? How about taxing people less in the first place.

Public sector workers should have their pay frozen. People in the private sector have been made redundant and had to take pay cuts - why should the public sector be exempt?

I think the fact that the tories haven't gone down in the polls after that little dose of reality is a really good sign for them.

Labour can offer the sun, moon and stars but as they've already been to court to ascertain that they don't have to stick to manifesto pledges and have sneaked off to sign a treaty that they promised us a referendum on why should we believe a word they say?

I'm in rant mode now so will leave it there. As you can probably tell, my hatred of labour is visceral and I say that as an ex labour voter and active socialist in my youth. I just can't understand how so many people can still think they deserve to survive as a party, never mind win after the incompetence, lies and authoritarianism of the last 12 years.

carolt

whathavewedone wrote: »

I will be voting tory - I don't care about losing a tenner a week in tax credits (we're on about 50k). Tax credits are stupid anyway. Why take more off people only to give some back and make almost everyone feel as though they need benefits to survive? How about taxing people less in the first place.

I'm also an ex-labour voter, but unlike you can't see yself voting Tory any time soon (or Labour, either...).

Re the tax credits, personally I don't want to lose a tenner a week - not very moneysaving.

But if that is replaced by reducing taxes, so we pay a tenner a week less in tax, that would suit me fine. I'm not a big fan of tax credits, either.

Generali

carolt wrote: »

I'm also an ex-labour voter, but unlike you can't see yself voting Tory any time soon (or Labour, either...).

Re the tax credits, personally I don't want to lose a tenner a week - not very moneysaving.

But if that is replaced by reducing taxes, so we pay a tenner a week less in tax, that would suit me fine. I'm not a big fan of tax credits, either.

If you stop paying tax credits to so many people you could probably cut tax by £11 or £12 for each tenner that's being paid out.