Ed Balls pledges to raise taxes if Labour win election

Tancred

danothy wrote: »

Fairer to whom exactly?



You assume wrong, and I am unsurprised about that. If fairness is about treating people the same then they should be paying the same in absolute terms. If it's about asking for the same financial 'effort' from them then they should be paying a flat rate, and if it's about making them the same as one another, then they should be paying progressively.

Fairer in general, fairer to society as a whole, not to any given group.

danothy wrote: »

Thing is, asking them for the same isn't fair because it potentially forces the poorest to place the 'grater good' above their own ability to support themselves. Asking people for different amounts (flat or progressive rates) leaves some people unfairly paying for other's use of the overall system. Specifically, progressive rates remove the reward for working harder than someone else, which isn't fair in terms of return on effort. Asking for a use based contribution limits the utility of centralising the effort to group buying.

You mention 'working harder' but there you are utterly wrong. There is no evidence that working harder equates to a higher income. You can work damn hard in a factory all day and earn a lot less than a manager who sits in an office and spends all his time posting on the MSE forum! :rotfl: Infact, many of these top earners don't work hard at all - they have people working hard for them! High salaries are paid for responsibility, not for hard work. And no, they didn't necessarily have to work hard to get that responsibility. The old school tie and knowing the right people still matters in a lot of cases, although not all, I do admit that.

danothy wrote: »

All are fair by one measure, and unfair by another, yet you pontificate your opinion as if it were fact set in stone that progressive taxation is fair with little more backup than "because it is". Personally, I think you should stop calling for a particular state of affairs until your arguments maturity has developed beyond "more spare cash means the rates shouldn't be the same".

Fairness can be defined is many different ways. My definition is what is fair for the nation and the whole of society as a whole, not for any particular group. And favouring the top 1% is most certainly not fair as they only represent 1% of the human population of the country.

danothy wrote: »

Are you implying that protecting the weakest boils down to ensuring they can choose what to spend their money on?

No, but enabling the poorest to have a greater share of the nation's wealth helps them to improve their lot and make a more significant contribution to society.

danothy wrote: »

I'm not sure what your point is? Are we to tax that choice away from the wealthy, or provide it to the poor? Or are you suggesting that we should all be the same, regardless of effort?

You're playing games.

I'm arguing for an equitable and modest redistribution of wealth - this is the rationale for progressive taxation.

danothy wrote: »

It's cool that you can decide on my moral position from examining my dissection of your statements from a logical perspective and from my assertions about the perspective of fairness that were presented for your benefit, as you clearly haven't considered them. I do take exception to you telling me what I believe though. You certainly have no right to do that. That you try to, I would say, speaks to your moral character.

I'm not telling you what to believe. And frankly I couldn't care less what you believe. But what I do believe is right is also what I believe is fair -let's just leave it at that.

danothy wrote: »

Yet it could be considered unfair on those who put the effort in to create that wealth to have it redistributed to those who didn't, while being told that it's only fair to redistribute it.

Maybe, but I am not interested in being fair to 1% of the population and unfair to 99%. Being fair in a generic sense logically applies fairness to the whole or the great majority of society, not a tiny percentage.

Therefore, what you are saying is complete and utter nonsense.

Tancred

lostinrates wrote: »

No, I really don't need to explain my circumstances. Its the Internet, there is no compulsion to do so. You are perfectly entitled to ask and I am perfectly entitled to withold information.

Fwiw, its not a secret and has been discussed here many times before, but your manner has been somewhat offensive, so I'm not terribly inclined to discuss it with you, unlike, say uk carper, who is arguing a similar point but with courtesy.


You could be earning now, surely?

I wasn't trying to be offensive. My point is that you would be better able to argue your point if you did clarify your circumstances. If you don't wish to do so, that's fine with me.

Tancred

lostinrates wrote: »

Do council execs opt out of work hours directives, for example? Genuine question, I have know idea? I do know from social circle that quite senior level council management have flexitime, which is something that doesn't really go with the sort of work sacrifice I'm comparing with my experience of DH and our friends who work those kinda salaries.

Flexitime doesn't apply to senior management and never has - in public or private sectors.

I do agree that high seniority people in the public sector probably are too well rewarded. However, in this case it's because of the fringe benefits such as the defined benefits pension etc rather than the actual base pay. This is another issue altogether.

Niv

Intoodeep wrote: »

Wayne Rooney £130,000 A WEEK :mad:

The poor lamb is about to get a pay rise from £250k pw to £300k pw

danothy

Tancred wrote: »

Fairer in general, fairer to society as a whole, not to any given group.

So to be fairer to some you must be less fair to others? Doesn't sound fair to me.

Tancred wrote: »

You mention 'working harder' but there you are utterly wrong. There is no evidence that working harder equates to a higher income. You can work damn hard in a factory all day and earn a lot less than a manager who sits in an office and spends all his time posting on the MSE forum! :rotfl: Infact, many of these top earners don't work hard at all - they have people working hard for them! High salaries are paid for responsibility, not for hard work. And no, they didn't necessarily have to work hard to get that responsibility. The old school tie and knowing the right people still matters in a lot of cases, although not all, I do admit that.

You're falsely equating physical effort to overall effort. Additionally, your last sentence in that quote contradicts the assertion that I'm "utterly wrong".

Tancred wrote: »

Fairness can be defined is many different ways. My definition is what is fair for the nation and the whole of society as a whole, not for any particular group. And favouring the top 1% is most certainly not fair as they only represent 1% of the human population of the country.

You're not advocating the elimination of favouring them though, you're advocating increasing the penalisation of them.

Tancred wrote: »

No, but enabling the poorest to have a greater share of the nation's wealth helps them to improve their lot and make a more significant contribution to society.

So it is about making everyone the same to you then?

Tancred wrote: »

You're playing games.

I'm arguing for an equitable and modest redistribution of wealth - this is the rationale for progressive taxation.

I'm not playing anything. The same could be achieved through flat rate taxation. Your fixation on progressive taxation seems to blind you as to the definition of modest.

Tancred wrote: »

I'm not telling you what to believe.

You did when you evangelated that:

Tancred wrote: »

As I keep repeating, if you can afford to pay more, you should!

Tancred wrote: »

And frankly I couldn't care less what you believe.

Then why did you proceed to tell me what I believed earlier in this thread?

Tancred wrote: »

But what I do believe is right is also what I believe is fair -let's just leave it at that.

Your faulty beliefs aside, your statements previously were presented as assertions of fact rather than the 'opinions' they actually are, and as such I challenged them. If you wish to step them down to beliefs then I could not care less, as I have still challenged the original assertions.

Tancred wrote: »

Maybe, but I am not interested in being fair to 1% of the population and unfair to 99%. Being fair in a generic sense logically applies fairness to the whole or the great majority of society, not a tiny percentage.

Therefore, what you are saying is complete and utter nonsense.

You're committing a new logical fallacy there, by way of excluding the middle ground. It's not necessarily unfair to society to not be unfair to this 1% you now cite. If you believe that fairness for 99% of society can only be achieved by being unfair to the remaining 1% then it is what you are saying that is "complete and utter nonsense". It says a lot that you are so driven to sacrifice this section of society.

Fairness isn't fair, unless it's for all.

lostinrates

Tancred wrote: »

I wasn't trying to be offensive. My point is that you would be better able to argue your point if you did clarify your circumstances. If you don't wish to do so, that's fine with me.

Well then I'd hate to see you if you tried! :rotfl:


I have a long term, neurological illness.

Its impact varies day to day. I am progressively better than I was some years ago, but certainly unemployable. Last summer for example I spent at least one day a week (accept one or maybe two weeks) in hospital. I have a complicated relationship with language and sometimes cannot form words (written usually sometimes, very rarely now spoken) or mistake words for other ones. (For example this weekend I thought the 'word' for insulation was 'tori Amos'. I cannot always get to places because sometimes ( a new thing as of summer before last) I lose vision . And sometimes I cannot hear things very well.

Sometimes, increasingly rarely, I cannot walk properly, or fall asleep in the middle of the day, and I have no functional metabolism, that (both thyroid and hypothalymus) are impacted by my issues.

One day I am bright, sparky happy and pretty good, and can be for a few weeks, then I can be pretty unalright for a while. There is very little predictability to my condition. No one expected vision problems (to the point its been considered they might just be migraines or something like it that cause no pain but just make me temporarily blind) and I was meant to be dead about six years ago at the latest.


That's the short version, and I hope answers your curiosity.

Tancred

danothy wrote: »

You're committing a new logical fallacy there, by way of excluding the middle ground. It's not necessarily unfair to society to not be unfair to this 1% you now cite. If you believe that fairness for 99% of society can only be achieved by being unfair to the remaining 1% then it is what you are saying that is "complete and utter nonsense". It says a lot that you are so driven to sacrifice this section of society.

Fairness isn't fair, unless it's for all.

You're just playing a silly game of semantics with the word 'fair'. It might be amusing to you, but it's just a waste of time and you are not proving anything or making any valid points. You can never have 'fairness' without someone complaining and !!!!!ing that it's not fair to them - fairness is not an absolute concept.
And I'm not excluding the middle ground - are you saying the top 1% are the middle ground?

Tancred

lostinrates wrote: »

Well then I'd hate to see you if you tried! :rotfl:


I have a long term, neurological illness.

Its impact varies day to day. I am progressively better than I was some years ago, but certainly unemployable. Last summer for example I spent at least one day a week (accept one or maybe two weeks) in hospital. I have a complicated relationship with language and sometimes cannot form words (written usually sometimes, very rarely now spoken) or mistake words for other ones. (For example this weekend I thought the 'word' for insulation was 'tori Amos'. I cannot always get to places because sometimes ( a new thing as of summer before last) I lose vision . And sometimes I cannot hear things very well.

Sometimes, increasingly rarely, I cannot walk properly, or fall asleep in the middle of the day, and I have no functional metabolism, that (both thyroid and hypothalymus) are impacted by my issues.

One day I am bright, sparky happy and pretty good, and can be for a few weeks, then I can be pretty unalright for a while. There is very little predictability to my condition. No one expected vision problems (to the point its been considered they might just be migraines or something like it that cause no pain but just make me temporarily blind) and I was meant to be dead about six years ago at the latest.


That's the short version, and I hope answers your curiosity.

I am genuinely sorry you have this illness - and I wasn't asking out of curiosity. You obviously have a very valid reason for not being able to work.

lostinrates

Tancred wrote: »

I am genuinely sorry you have this illness - and I wasn't asking out of curiosity. You obviously have a very valid reason for not being able to work.

My husband had a different career, as did I, before this. I was actually rather comfortably off.

You really do learn the difference between 'comfortable' and wealthy when you get ill.

Comfortable buys being ill at home. Super wealth buys health. ( or at least bloody stylish ill health....nothing like the 'middle' which I am afraid we very much are, whether you like it or not, have. If I were wealthy I'd have at least twice weekly physio (something that's gone to economise because not on bupa any more and NHs doesn't cover in my situation) or massage. And some sort of moral boost therapy a couple of times a week.

I was very lucky that a very wealth friend literally paid to save my life initially and got me on my feet, and DH dropped his promising but unreliable career to do something that gave bupa and ' reliable comfort'. His career pays to keep me ticking along, but not enough to get the treat ments I'd like to try. That's want real wealth would buy, experimental treatment that might make serious difference, or not.


Please don't feel sorry for me, I'm just fine,:D. I cope brilliantly, and plan to be here for a long time. I don't want your sympathy, I want you to understand that the sort of earni you and I are talking about doesn't buy what you think it might.


if you think that sort of earning makes all the difference in the choices you have when big things happen you are sadly mistaken, It just makes it more comfortable. I can go to a private hospital for the same treatments as an NHs one.

The people with the wealth that could do that sort of thing? That's the sort of money you might seriously aspire to catching in the tax catch......and the sort you never really will in serious numbers. Because they will run like crazy, yet in charitable work, I can say I have benefitted. I'd rather they were here paying a flat 30% and quietly helping people like me personally.

danothy

Tancred wrote: »

You're just playing a silly game of semantics with the word 'fair'. It might be amusing to you, but it's just a waste of time and you are not proving anything or making any valid points. You can never have 'fairness' without someone complaining and !!!!!ing that it's not fair to them - fairness is not an absolute concept.
And I'm not excluding the middle ground - are you saying the top 1% are the middle ground?

If you really have such a low level understanding of this discourse then you are right, it is a waste of time. Nevertheless, I shall press on.

The middle ground I was referring to was the choice you presented between being unfair to 99% of the population, and being unfair to 1% of it, i.e. being unfair to neither of them. It's hardly a subtle distinction between that and "the top 1%" in terms of what I was referring to, but you appear to have got confused anyway.

The semantics of fairness are also eternally relevant, and no more a silly game played by me than by you saying things like "fairness is not an absolute concept" out of one side of your mouth while saying "fairness is not something I would consider subjective" out of the other. If you are plucking a definition for fairness out of the air to suit your argument (which you are) then expect to have it challenged. Particularly if your argument is based on something being "fair".

If you really cared about fairness you would consider what was fair for everyone. But I suspect you don't. I suspect you care about wealth distribution and distort the concept of fairness to argue for it, possibly to mask cognitive dissonance.

You can pretend that this has been made about semantics, but really it's clear that this is about the fact that you won't consider an alternative point of view, as evidenced by your unwillingness to consider fairness for a hypothetical high earner with regards to appropriating their earnings. Suggesting that fairness for everyone else is contingent on treating them unfairly is fallacious too. But I suspect you won't accept that. I suspect there'll be some rambling about their discretionary spending ability that we need to strip from them to somehow be fair to everyone else.