'If no-one will fully repay £9,000 student fees, how is the system sustainable?' blog

Lokolo

2sides2everystory wrote: »

You mean me I think callum.Unfortunately you have been brainwashed. Banking has been around for centuries but in the last twenty years the financial services industry has become an absolute disgrace. Those that run the biggest companies have not simply made mistakes, they are crooks. There is nothing good about the industry full stop. Tell us one thing that is an example of them doing good which outweighs the harm they have done to our economies.

Most of the "jobs" they provide are non-jobs - they are contracts to do dirty work barely one step above the "roles" in emails that jobseekers commonly receive with invitations to apply for nefarious money transacting activities.

Sure, the banks and insurance companies and pension "providers" pay lip service to supporting community but look at the damage they have done.

I suggest you wise up.

As this is the UK and we no longer make anything I suppose if you are not in retail then you may well be in "financial services". You may be one of those who has a "retail" job in "financial services". I feel sorry for you if you are - either you will continue in your brainwashed state doing the rest of us harm directly or indirectly, or you will have a hard time keeping your job if you decide at some point that you wish to keep your head high.

I'm sorry but a lot of your posts seem to just moan without any real depth.

Not all the banks have done damage due to the UK economy. One example of a big business wanting to leave the UK because of costs is HSBC, who threatened to leave because of higher costs being in the UK.

In every industry there are crooks, not just the finance industry. And even if a lot of the jobs are "non jobs", they are still jobs which people need, providing them with income, which they pay tax on.

I think YOU need to wise up. The UK economy cannot keep spending and spending. With the increase of the number of students going to university, the budget will have to increase even more. Now you keep saying "oh just raise taxes", which frankly, isn't going to happen. As explained above, some people already put a lot of their income and assets abroad to avoid tax, the more tax that's charged the more this will happen.

2sides2everystory

Well if you are so anxious to answer in callum9999's stead, Lokolo, I ask you again, what on earth do you think qualifies YOU to lecture so incessantly on the topic? I muddled your background with some more mature ex student the other day, but you came back and reminded us that you were just 22 years old.

I have been working on and off around the City for 30 years longer than you. You wonder why I don't go into much depth? On the one hand, I have no personal need to deny any holocausts like some much younger than me apparently do, but on the other I don't wish to continually stick my head above the parapet and damage myself more than I need to just because I am one of a few lone voices who is prepared to shout "foul" out loud when it is needed.

You may well be 2010's answer to the latest requirement for a perpetual motion mean lean earning machine, and for your sake, long may you remain so, but you need to understand and experience a lot more in life and business before you start telling posters like me which way is up.

We lose far far more than we gain by allowing ruthless finance industry executives to have the run of the place in the UK. Their corporate employers pay them rewards for stealing wealth from people like me, and from you when you eventually get distracted by a broader idea of what life might become for you.

You yourself said in another post that you had "investments" - well done. I imagine you count yourself sufficiently on the ball at the moment not to get ripped off. Long may that remain so too.

But you may wish to spare a thought for people not quite so blessed with your £33K salary at age 22, or your brains perhaps, who are contributing in much broader ways by struggling to bring up families of good kids, and have to keep their heads down at work to avoid bullying and discrimination by people in a hurry to retire early via some get rich quick scheme which inevitably means them trampling over anything or anyone in their way.

These are people that do not get time to deal with defending their investments (their pensions largely) from banks and insurance companies who are intent on nothing more than milking the funds for all they are worth day in day out year in year out, chasing markets up, running them down, even their own shares, dreaming up fees for this and for that, reasons to run funds into buffers, reasons for sale of funds to more ruthless "managers", and of course whipping their recent rocket scientist graduates into creating ever more sneaky devices for creaming off money which they never made but for some reason the government still licenses them to hold in trust for customers.

Your naivity in defending Big Corporate almost makes me weep. Go and watch Wall Street 2 again. As was the case with Wall Street 1 there is a huge amount of very current truth in it.

You may be playing the odds like Martin when you say that swinging taxes will never be applied to the high earners, but that is what would make the most sense if we had some decent government leaders who had it within them to surprise Big Corporate.

Libya is/was supposedly a very rich country. It even had an ecomony as big as some parts of Big Corporate. With a bit of leadership the assets of that entire economy were pretty quickly sewn up and frozen once a few leaders put their minds to it. Wobbled the price of oil a bit, but no great shakes really.

Why would it really be so surprising if some banks and insurance company CEOs woke up one of these Monday mornings and found their assets were frozen worldwide for the worldwide public good? We could make an example of one or two at least. Who shall we chose? Afterall, there's quite a number of them who know for sure that they are not in anyone's good books.

Some of the frauds that have taken place are quite breathtakingly arrogant.

Lokolo

2sides2everystory wrote: »

Well if you are so anxious to answer in callum9999's stead, Lokolo, I ask you again, what on earth do you think qualifies YOU to lecture so incessantly on the topic? I muddled your background with some more mature ex student the other day, but you came back and reminded us that you were just 22 years old.

And yet you did think I was a mature student, so you can hardly come back and call me naiive can you? My thoughts were clearly mature and thought through.

I have been working on and off around the City for 30 years longer than you. You wonder why I don't go into much depth? On the one hand, I have no personal need to deny any holocausts like some much younger than me apparently do, but on the other I don't wish to continually stick my head above the parapet and damage myself more than I need to just because I am one of a few lone voices who is prepared to shout "foul" out loud when it is needed.

Well the whole point of a discussion is to have depth, to have reasons. But all you do on this forum is vent and come up with these wild ideas such as freezing assets of companies who want to leave the UK!

You may well be 2010's answer to the latest requirement for a perpetual motion mean lean earning machine, and for your sake, long may you remain so, but you need to understand and experience a lot more in life and business before you start telling posters like me which way is up.

Age is just a number, doesn't mean I don't have experience does it? And yet, the person who "has 30 years experience", can't come up with better ideas and reasoning as to what the UK should do apart from give free education to university students (even though the number of university students is rising year on year....) and to pay for this, increase taxes.

We lose far far more than we gain by allowing ruthless finance industry executives to have the run of the place in the UK. Their corporate employers pay them rewards for stealing wealth from people like me, and from you when you eventually get distracted by a broader idea of what life might become for you.

Once again, all talk, no depth.

You yourself said in another post that you had "investments" - well done. I imagine you count yourself sufficiently on the ball at the moment not to get ripped off. Long may that remain so too.

Thank you.

But you may wish to spare a thought for people not quite so blessed with your £33K salary at age 22, or your brains perhaps, who are contributing in much broader ways by struggling to bring up families of good kids, and have to keep their heads down at work to avoid bullying and discrimination by people in a hurry to retire early via some get rich quick scheme.

As my mum used to say "where there's a will there's a way".

These are people that do not get time to deal with defending their investments (their pensions largely) from banks and insurance companies who are intent on nothing more than milking the funds for all they are worth day in day out year in year out, dreaming up fees for this, reasons to run funds into buffers, reasons for sale of funds to more ruthless "managers", and of course whipping their recent rocket scientist graduates into creating ever more sneaky devices for creaming of money which they never made.

Your naivity in defending Big Corporate almost makes me weep.

Nowadays technology is an amazing thing. With the majority of people in the UK having an internet connection, and sites like this, people can find out all the information they need.

As you know yourself, I have investments, and have done quite well (although a little luck was involved with this ), however, I have had no education in finance, I have primarily used sites like this, and Google, to find out all the information I need.

Yes I agree, sometimes there are things which aren't fair and a lot of big bosses get bonuses, huge charges on investments (which aren't that huge nowadays) and I'm not defending them, all I am saying is that your idea of taxing them higher amounts isn't going to help the UK economy as they may end up leaving the country.

I would be all for free university education if it was viable. But the increase in the number of students going to university will increase the university budget and as we both know, the UK is still in deficit, and spending more money isn't going to help.

Money_Saving_Dude

Lokolo wrote: »

But if you keep raising the taxes of the higher earners, they will leave the country and go elsewhere.

Then what would that achieve?

Please read my post again. It talks of LVT -- a mechanism whereby the rich cannot avoid paying tax. Yes they can go abroad, yes they can hide their assets from IHT via trusts and companies, but LVT forces payment *somewhere* in that chain.

The Mansion Tax is a brilliant idea -- which is why it is so viscerally opposed.

2sides2everystory

Lokolo wrote: »

And yet you did think I was a mature student, so you can hardly come back and call me naiive can you? My thoughts were clearly mature and thought through.

I made no judgement other than that you were clearly arguing a narrow case based on a not very typical rosey view on prospects for young people in the UK.

Nowadays technology is an amazing thing. With the majority of people in the UK having an internet connection, and sites like this, people can find out all the information they need.

Now that is a breathtakingly narrow view. Just because you can average 10 posts a day on MSE over 4 years and I can manage 2 doesn't mean that most working or retired people can do the same. Far from it. They clearly do not. They have more important things to worry about than the internet, and so will you if you don't get out more and get some exercise over the next 30 years away from the screen.

...all I am saying is that your idea of taxing them higher amounts isn't going to help the UK economy as they may end up leaving the country.

If that was all you were saying, I wouldn't be quite so bothered about responding.

MSD's idea is sound. I was chatting to someone earlier who recently discussed land prices with a long term landowner. Apparently, because of the unbridled greed and government connivance in giving developer's free rein, almost any old land that is not up some barren mountainside is worth almost three or four times what simple arable farmland was worth a mere six or seven years ago. Those that own this land are now smiling sweetly knowing that it is all just a windfall treasure chest that they can open up and sell off a few trinkets from anytime it suits. They don't even have to be choosey what they hold anymore, because it all now has a value much more than can be justified if it were simple farmland.

Some European countries have long realised that land-ownership must be controlled in order to safeguard fair distribution of wealth in their societies (e.g. no family can own more than a certain number of hectares). That's part of the reason why in the UK we have so many new land barons - they can use or misuse big corporate clout to sequest huge UK land tracts for themselves as individuals and their families. It is quite obscene.

Tax it until it squeals and has to be sold, and then tax it some more. That'll pay for the education of a few million students each year.

Lokolo

2sides2everystory wrote: »

Now that is a breathtakingly narrow view. Just because you can average 10 posts a day on MSE over 4 years and I can manage 2 doesn't mean that most working or retired people can do the same. Far from it. They clearly do not. They have more important things to worry about than the internet, and so will you if you don't get out more and get some exercise over the next 30 years away from the screen.

I don't tend to ask questions with the amount of posts, I tend to answer them. It takes all of 10minutes to post a question. Come back after a few hours and there will likely be a reply - this is hardly something that takes up too much time!

By all means, I'm sure the majority of the UK won't have time to answer questions and debate such as myself (and I will be not as active on MSE from next week), but as I just said, it doesn't take a lot of time to sign up and ask a few questions.

Lokolo

Money_Saving_Dude wrote: »

Please read my post again. It talks of LVT -- a mechanism whereby the rich cannot avoid paying tax. Yes they can go abroad, yes they can hide their assets from IHT via trusts and companies, but LVT forces payment *somewhere* in that chain.

The Mansion Tax is a brilliant idea -- which is why it is so viscerally opposed.

Not if they aren't living in the UK! I'm not talking of people just moving their money aboard, I'm talking of them actually MOVING abroad. And not just individuals, but businesses.

We've seen it before with manufacturing industry, and most recently with Cadbury's who are moving jobs to Poland to save costs.

2sides2everystory

People may move, but land doesn't and it is not easily liquidated. All it needs is a government prepared to act fast and to exploit further the common taxation initiatives that it is already fast developing across borders. Afterall, the plundering of global wealth is exactly that - global, so track the barstewards down and let them go live in the jungles of Paraguay if they are so intent on not getting caught.

Braveheart100

Currently a graduate pays on average £45,000 in tax between the age of 22 and 50 more than an average non-graduate; due to the extra earning power of having a degree.

This EXTRA £45,000 in tax more than pays for a the cost of obtaining a degree.

By charging fee's for university education; students effectively PAY TWICE for their degree...........There is no economic argument for charging ANY university tuition fee's; even the fee's introduced by Blair.

What we are seeing here is an immoral tax on students who wish to benefit from Higher Education. Immoral, because THESE people were still at school when the Banking Sector brought the country to it's knees. These kids had nothing to do with the World Banking Crisis but they are being hit harder than any banker in terms of bailing the country out.

Even the way the Tories have organised the fee collection is corrupt. It is all about moving liabilities off the Government balance sheet; so we have this terrible new loan system costing far more than the current subsidised system (yes the whole exercise will cost the country MORE money for less education!) designed so that a few Billion in government debt can be hidden from view. No wonder Cameron needed to buy Murdoch off so that newspapers don't dwell on this.

I did not pay a penny for my degree in 1978-81 and sleep easily at night knowing that I have more than paid back my debt to society. Most of the Tory & Liberal MP's who voted these £9000 fee's also had free Higher Education; I hope they DON'T sleep easily at night knowing how much damage they have done to today's students, tomorrows young people and the whole Higher Education system.

Honestly, I have no idea why ML has become the chief cheer leader for this pile of carp.

melancholly

Braveheart100 wrote: »

Honestly, I have no idea why ML has become the chief cheer leader for this pile of carp.

i agree in the sense that i think university education should be free..... but once the battle was lost way back in December, what should MSE do? pretend that fees aren't happening and refuse to explain the system? at this point, looking at what the pros and cons of the student loans versus any other form of funding is the only way to play it...... until there's a new government (which may not even be at the next election!) who may change the whole funding structure.

fees are going up. it's a poor solution, but it's happening. we're past the point where complaining about it is going to make any difference so it's time to face the facts of the situation. there is a time for lobbying and a time for clear explanations. sadly, we've been in the latter for many months already.....