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Pensions
Comments
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Loughton_Monkey wrote: »???????
Is it just me?
Or does anyone else feel that standards must have slipped, even at the Devon School of Economics?
No, I'm also thinking that Clapton is on a Devonian 'muddle' windup. He has to be because he's posting nonsense and avoiding direct questions and posting the same details that have just been debunked (and he has conceded has been debunked). It has to be a windup.
His 'argument' hinges on the fact that if you don't work, then you're a burden on workers, even if you are a Billionaire. I mean, it's just such huge nonsense that you don't know where to start with him. It's the same difficulty as trying to discuss evolution with someone who believes in Adam and Eve. It's a matter of faith, they believe what they believe, no matter how ridiculous it sounds and what arguments you put across, they just say the same thing over and over again.
Just like I can't convince a flat earther than the earth is round, I won't be able to convince Clapton that a Billionaire is not a financial burden on a street sweeper. Bonkers.0 -
I think the big thing is that the UK taxpayer is happy to subsidise poverty to an extent that the Aussie one isn't.
Australia's GDP has grown by nearly 10% in a period where western economies have flat lined and it spends £17,000,000 less on defence each year. Both of these have a far bigger influence on government spending in Australia compared to the UK than benefits.
That's not to say benefits aren't a factor, or defend either countries policy. But if Australia's economy hadn't grown so rapidly and it had maintained an armed force like the UK's then it's current level vs GDP would look like a car wreck
Having a signature removed for mentioning the removal of a previous signature. Blackwhite bellyfeel double plus good...0 -
... and it had maintained an armed force like the UK's then it's current level vs GDP would look like a car wreck
My hope is that the Scots vote for Independence (however misguided that is) and then the RoUK has to 'cut its cloth to suit its pocket' and we have to reduce the size of our armed forces to simply protect our national borders and not to get involved in financially (and morally) ruinous foreign interventions.0 -
Christ, this is the most circular argument I've ever had on MSE!
We're now back to globalisation and the debunking of your argument above. I refer you back to that discussion, which includes the rather nice map of the world I posted and you conceding that in a global marketplace we don't have the demographic problem.
As to your example about my pension. How can you say I contribute nothing when my pension is invested in the companies that employ the workers producing the goods (which gives them money to invest in their business) and my pension income is used to buy the goods and therefore pay your workers a wage?
How is that contributing nothing?
The world does not have a demographic problem.
The UK does have a demographic problem.
We by and large have options to
-allow/encourage large scale immigration to increase the working age population
- just accept being poorer
-hope that a combination of longer working live, some limited immigration, improvements in medicine and technology will be sufficient to mitigate the demographic changes
If of course we had a sovereign wealth fund or sufficient private investments abroad then we could 'cash in' this wealth, but my view is we don't really have this (always willing to hear other views on this ).
I don't doubt that you personally have investments in companies and this allows you to consume a lot of goods and service that you are not yourself producing.
Nothing wrong with that, it's exactly what I will do too.
So whilst we can be rich and consume what we like, the country as a whole can only consume what it can produce (give or take an import or two).
If this level of production is less than we would wish because of the aging population then we will collectively have to be poorer (you and I excepted of course).
Your funded pension and savings/investment allows you to have a larger share than the average of the population but does not of itself produce more wealth.0 -
No, I'm also thinking that Clapton is on a Devonian 'muddle' windup. He has to be because he's posting nonsense and avoiding direct questions and posting the same details that have just been debunked (and he has conceded has been debunked). It has to be a windup.
His 'argument' hinges on the fact that if you don't work, then you're a burden on workers, even if you are a Billionaire. I mean, it's just such huge nonsense that you don't know where to start with him. It's the same difficulty as trying to discuss evolution with someone who believes in Adam and Eve. It's a matter of faith, they believe what they believe, no matter how ridiculous it sounds and what arguments you put across, they just say the same thing over and over again.
Just like I can't convince a flat earther than the earth is round, I won't be able to convince Clapton that a Billionaire is not a financial burden on a street sweeper. Bonkers.
Actually, it is indeed an interesting economic issue of whether a rich man son who never works is, in any significant way, different from a unemployed layabout who lives on JSA all his life.
I feel this is probably not the right time.0 -
Australia's GDP has grown by nearly 10% in a period where western economies have flat lined and it spends £17,000,000 less on defence each year. Both of these have a far bigger influence on government spending in Australia compared to the UK than benefits.
That's not to say benefits aren't a factor, or defend either countries policy. But if Australia's economy hadn't grown so rapidly and it had maintained an armed force like the UK's then it's current level vs GDP would look like a car wreck
You should write a paper on it if you're that certain. It's certainly a view I've never seen from a professional economist.
What is well know. In economics is the principle of deadweight loss. Compare the taxation and spending levels of the countries and then consider why GDP growth is consistently higher in Australia.
You might then want to look up something called crowding out and then think about why investment in Aus is higher than in the UK.
Seek and ye shall find!0 -
Actually, it is indeed an interesting economic issue of whether a rich man son who never works is, in any significant way, different from a unemployed layabout who lives on JSA all his life.
I feel this is probably not the right time.
It's not interesting at all.
Both are useless !!!!!! who, personally, are not physically creating wealth.
However, the rich man's son is costing today's workers absolutley nothing, whilst the layabout is sucking £20K out of the tax taken from today's workers.
Both are spending. The layabout is 'returning' that £20K back into the economy by buying things he likes, whilst the rich man's son is (I'm guessing) throwing about 5 times that amount back into the economy. This £100K was sourced from the hard labour, in years gone by, of his father.
On balance, I'd prefer the rich man's son.0 -
Loughton_Monkey wrote: »It's not interesting at all.
Both are useless !!!!!! who, personally, are not physically creating wealth.
However, the rich man's son is costing today's workers absolutley nothing, whilst the layabout is sucking £20K out of the tax taken from today's workers.
Both are spending. The layabout is 'returning' that £20K back into the economy by buying things he likes, whilst the rich man's son is (I'm guessing) throwing about 5 times that amount back into the economy. This £100K was sourced from the hard labour, in years gone by, of his father.
On balance, I'd prefer the rich man's son.
It is absolutely essential to distinguish between real goods and services and booking keeping entries (money).
Excluding for a moment import/export, whatever the JSA worker or the idle richman consumes is produced by the working people.
Neither has produced anything of value in exchange for the work that has produced the goods and services.
Both have equally deprived the working people of the fruits of their labour.
The fact that our system uses money as a medium of exchange and a store of value doesn't alter the fact that the workers are poorer (i.e. have access to fewer goods and services) because these two idle wasters have consumed them instead.
On a small scale the rich man seems to have caused no harm but in reality he is no different to the man on JSA.0 -
This omnipresent talk of a pension time bomb always tickles me in the sense a good proportion of pensioners I know do not have much in the way of pension as they have property or sold a business or indeed still take earnings from a business they once owned and ran.
So for example a retired black cabby I know now leases cabs to others - he calls this his pension.
A few people in the villages here own property portfolios, others let out their places in the west country / Norfolk / France etc.
A tree surgeon has a massive stock of seasoned hardwood - I've worked it must be worth about £1m now as so many people are getting wood burners (I'm getting one). He calls this his pension.
Others have large equity portfolios made up of PEPS (now ISA's of course) and so on.
Do others of you think these pension scare stories are bit misleading?0 -
It is absolutely essential to distinguish between real goods and services and booking keeping entries (money).
Excluding for a moment import/export, whatever the JSA worker or the idle richman consumes is produced by the working people.
Neither has produced anything of value in exchange for the work that has produced the goods and services.
Both have equally deprived the working people of the fruits of their labour.
The fact that our system uses money as a medium of exchange and a store of value doesn't alter the fact that the workers are poorer (i.e. have access to fewer goods and services) because these two idle wasters have consumed them instead.
On a small scale the rich man seems to have caused no harm but in reality he is no different to the man on JSA.
The 'fruits' of the labour of the workers is money. If they work in a shoe factory, they may need a few pairs of shoes a year, but they can't eat shoes, they can't live in the shoes, they can't clothe themselves in the shoes, they can't drink the shoes, they can't watch the shoes for entertainment. They therefore exchange their shoe construction labour for money. Far from the 'depriving the workers from the fruits of their labour', the rich bloke is actually supplying the workers with the fruit of their labour 'money'.
On the other hand, the JSA bloke IS depriving the workers from the fruits of their labour (money) via taxes that pay for his JSA.
QED.0
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