"we're all in this together"

[eFestivals]

back on topic

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-11512287

Philip Green says that the government could save what looks like billions if they took advantage of sopending power and their credit rating. Why don't they clean their own house before taking more money away from those people who need it.

:angry:

except of course that central buying also requires a central distribution operation, along with the fact that what gets bought is the lowest common denominator stuff - which a lot of the time ends up as not being suitable for where it ends up.

The govt would save more by properly taxing c**ts like Green rather than giving him a platform to tell us how to save money while he waltzes off with billions that should be ours.

[MrZigster]

except of course that central buying also requires a central distribution operation...

Edited October 11, 2010 by MrZigster

[RABun]

Panorama about Ashcroft on now if anyone hadn't noticed.

[Ed209]

wow was that disappointing... Very little substance just circumstantial evidence and hear say...

What a load of old tuna...

[feral chile]

Same old Conservatives. Peddling their conservative values - tax breaks for married couples, benefit breaks for the disabled. family values for the 'deserving', benefits being seen as a drain on society while tax avoiders are seen as respectable.

If we're all in it together, why aren't we helpling those most in need? Benefit cuts at a time when living costs are rising will hit the poorest the hardest.

This stuff really winds me up, because those at the margins of society are allowed to be hit the hardest, because of society's need to scapegoat those who are really most in need of our support.

I'm not sure this idea that we are taxing 'the rich' is helpful either. We're all in it together, remember, so we all will potentially pay a higher percentage of tax on our income above the basic rate threshold. There is no us and them, or a different taxation system for certain people. it's a fair system that should apply to everyone.

Though certain members of society are able to exploit loopholes, of course. But let's not forget, avoiding fulfilling your obligations to society is perfectly OK, claiming benefits fraudulently is evil.

Too many people buy into the capitalist value system, whereby the more affluent are somehow seen as entitled to their income and justified in avoiding paying taxes, and those unable to work are victimised with society's blessing. Each are a drain on our resources, with tax evasion and avoidance being a much bigger drain, and yet somehow avoids the stigma attached to 'benefit scroungers'.

I don't think we can call ourselves civilised until we show compassion to the disadvantaged and stop condoning the attitude of people who already have more than average, and are determined not to share.

It's not like there's a maximum wage, and those earning above it are forced to surrender it all in taxes.

[feral chile]

It depends iof you have a brain that's able to process choices. Currently you're demonstrating that you don't.

Yet if your sight goes it doesn't. You're f**ked.

But by that very line you're demonstrating that you believe that you have a right to that greater wage forever because you did go to uni. The reality is that you're only able to get that greater wage if you're able to utilise the extra skills you leant - no different to the hypothetical builder you mentioned.

Just as that builder wouldn't write himself down lightly, neither would you. So somewhere in there despite your inability to do joined up thinking, you're still doing the same thing and believing it right for you, and so also right for that builder you suggested to be wrong.

Edited October 11, 2010 by feral chile

[llcoolphil]

there is a lot of unfairness and blatant milking of the system which gets people's backs up and rightly so.

[llcoolphil]

This whole attack on disability benefits is the biggest irony. It was bloody Thatcher who started putting people on disability benefits in the first place so that she could hide how many people there actually were unemployed. And now yon f*ckin idiot is putting them back the other way so he can do exactly the same and claim that when unemployment shoots up its because they've recognised that there are people fit for work who aren't looking for it and he's addressed that problem and not because were entering another bloody recession. I haven't read the whole thread but to all those who don't know - and there will be some who have expressed the idea I guarantee it - just because you cant see someone limping or using a guide dog doesn't mean they aren't disabled.

This whole attack on benefits is a farrago. Last week's announcement that nobody would be able to claim more than the average wage is nonsensical. First of all, that actually affects around 900 families. If you are enacting legislation to affect 900 people, that is shit legislation. It is a nothing problem blown out of proportion by anecdotal bollox in the daily mail. It is punishing children for the situation their parent/s find themselves in - be that through wilful stupidity or just the way life sometimes goes for you. Are we really going to see children go hungry or cold or without clothing because of the way their parents' lives are? It's tantamount to state sponsored child abuse and puts Moron on a par with the pope. And it fails to take into account that by 2055 we will have a 1:1 ratio of tax paying adults to pensioners on current birth rate trends - we need to be encouraging and paying people to have more kids to secure the future, not bloody less.

If we want to save benefits money, let's start taxing the likes of BP and Tesco and Shell (and every other bloody company)for every pound their employees have claimed in working families tax credits - why is the state subsidising Tesco shareholders by allowing them to underpay their staff to make more profit? To make work more attractive to those on benefits, make work pay more not already meagre benefits less.

We're in a race to the gutter

[llcoolphil]

Same old Conservatives. Peddling their conservative values - tax breaks for married couples, benefit breaks for the disabled. family values for the 'deserving', benefits being seen as a drain on society while tax avoiders are seen as respectable.

If we're all in it together, why aren't we helpling those most in need? Benefit cuts at a time when living costs are rising will hit the poorest the hardest.

This stuff really winds me up, because those at the margins of society are allowed to be hit the hardest, because of society's need to scapegoat those who are really most in need of our support.

I'm not sure this idea that we are taxing 'the rich' is helpful either. We're all in it together, remember, so we all will potentially pay a higher percentage of tax on our income above the basic rate threshold. There is no us and them, or a different taxation system for certain people. it's a fair system that should apply to everyone.

Though certain members of society are able to exploit loopholes, of course. But let's not forget, avoiding fulfilling your obligations to society is perfectly OK, claiming benefits fraudulently is evil.

Too many people buy into the capitalist value system, whereby the more affluent are somehow seen as entitled to their income and justified in avoiding paying taxes, and those unable to work are victimised with society's blessing. Each are a drain on our resources, with tax evasion and avoidance being a much bigger drain, and yet somehow avoids the stigma attached to 'benefit scroungers'.

I don't think we can call ourselves civilised until we show compassion to the disadvantaged and stop condoning the attitude of people who already have more than average, and are determined not to share.

It's not like there's a maximum wage, and those earning above it are forced to surrender it all in taxes.

[rachbon]

great posts from phil and feral chile

[eFestivals]

Panorama about Ashcroft on now if anyone hadn't noticed.

Did they manage to include how the day before he became 'UK resident for tax purposes' he transferred all his UK assets into the name of his (non-dom) son, to ensure that the UK tax authorities don't actually get their hands on his money?

And did they also include how he then resigned his tory party post, because he's incredibly pissed off they they forced him to actually become UK resident for tax purposes - because although he and they had publicly agreed that he would do, the secret deal with the tories was that they'd never hold him to it?

The man is a c**t of the very highest order. And the tories are too, for going along with him (as well as all the other thieves which are bleeding this country dry [like Green] while telling us we have to suffer austerity measures).

[RABun]

Did they manage to include how the day before he became 'UK resident for tax purposes' he transferred all his UK assets into the name of his (non-dom) son, to ensure that the UK tax authorities don't actually get their hands on his money?

And did they also include how he then resigned his tory party post, because he's incredibly pissed off they they forced him to actually become UK resident for tax purposes - because although he and they had publicly agreed that he would do, the secret deal with the tories was that they'd never hold him to it?

The man is a c**t of the very highest order. And the tories are too, for going along with him (as well as all the other thieves which are bleeding this country dry [like Green] while telling us we have to suffer austerity measures).

[eFestivals]

just because you cant see someone limping or using a guide dog doesn't mean they aren't disabled.

soooo, soooooo true!! :angry:

I've got a friend who has been registered as blind for around 20 years (he has a degenerative genetic blindness of some kind, that effects all males in his family while the women carry the gene and pass it on to their offspring. He had reasonable sight until about aged 20, when it started to fade away quite fast).

He's recently been 'grassed up' to the social three times, by people who don't believe that he's blind, because he's managed to over-come some of the visible effects of his disability and live what looks to some as a normal life.

What is he doing that has made these people think that he's able to see really (yet I've seen him step in front of double decker buses that he's not seen)? He's able to walk his dog twice a day without assistance. His dog isn't an 'official' guide dog, but it has the same effect, and so that's how he does it.

Some people really are utter bastards.

[feral chile]

This whole attack on disability benefits is the biggest irony. It was bloody Thatcher who started putting people on disability benefits in the first place so that she could hide how many people there actually were unemployed. And now yon f*ckin idiot is putting them back the other way so he can do exactly the same and claim that when unemployment shoots up its because they've recognised that there are people fit for work who aren't looking for it and he's addressed that problem and not because were entering another bloody recession. I haven't read the whole thread but to all those who don't know - and there will be some who have expressed the idea I guarantee it - just because you cant see someone limping or using a guide dog doesn't mean they aren't disabled.

This whole attack on benefits is a farrago. Last week's announcement that nobody would be able to claim more than the average wage is nonsensical. First of all, that actually affects around 900 families. If you are enacting legislation to affect 900 people, that is shit legislation. It is a nothing problem blown out of proportion by anecdotal bollox in the daily mail. It is punishing children for the situation their parent/s find themselves in - be that through wilful stupidity or just the way life sometimes goes for you. Are we really going to see children go hungry or cold or without clothing because of the way their parents' lives are? It's tantamount to state sponsored child abuse and puts Moron on a par with the pope. And it fails to take into account that by 2055 we will have a 1:1 ratio of tax paying adults to pensioners on current birth rate trends - we need to be encouraging and paying people to have more kids to secure the future, not bloody less.

If we want to save benefits money, let's start taxing the likes of BP and Tesco and Shell (and every other bloody company)for every pound their employees have claimed in working families tax credits - why is the state subsidising Tesco shareholders by allowing them to underpay their staff to make more profit? To make work more attractive to those on benefits, make work pay more not already meagre benefits less.

We're in a race to the gutter

Edited October 12, 2010 by feral chile

[gratedenini]

Good point. Working Tax Credits are really a way to prop up businesses by allowing them to employ people at below the market value. So it's a crafty business subsidy presented as though it's helping the ordinary workers.

[Josie's Cat]

There is significantly less 'milking of the system' than The Daily Mail or that bloody awful show on BBC 1 earlier would have you believe - the bloody government reckons it pays out 4 times as much in wrongly calculated benefits as people claim that they aren't legitimately entitled to! We need to stop taking extreme anecdotal evidence as being symptomatic of the whole situation.

And you should know better!

[eFestivals]

Yes the gov probably does pay out far more in screwed up claims and inefficiency, but people DO still abuse the system, you can't deny that. It's doubtless not up to Daily Mail hysteria levels but it does happen.

And people go out on the rob, kill people, and all sorts.

Such things (including benefit fraud) shouldn't be accepted and action should be taken against offenders that can be identified as such, but just as no one expects crimes such as murder or robbing to disappear entirely there needs to be the same recognition towards things such as benefits too.

And the reality is: the amount of fraud in the system is tiny. It's at around the lowest that will ever be managed.

Having realised that fact, time should be spent on things that will make a difference, and not extra efforts made where little will result from it.

[Josie's Cat]

I don't think anyone expects it to disappear, I just think people do see examples of fraud happening around them and want to see something done about it, like tougher sentences when people are caught robbing the system and not just a few hours community service.

I think a lot of MP's should have had criminal convictions for their expenses racket too, so it's not just one end of the spectrum.

[worm]

Same old Conservatives. Peddling their conservative values - tax breaks for married couples, benefit breaks for the disabled. family values for the 'deserving', benefits being seen as a drain on society while tax avoiders are seen as respectable.

If we're all in it together, why aren't we helpling those most in need? Benefit cuts at a time when living costs are rising will hit the poorest the hardest.

This stuff really winds me up, because those at the margins of society are allowed to be hit the hardest, because of society's need to scapegoat those who are really most in need of our support.

I'm not sure this idea that we are taxing 'the rich' is helpful either. We're all in it together, remember, so we all will potentially pay a higher percentage of tax on our income above the basic rate threshold. There is no us and them, or a different taxation system for certain people. it's a fair system that should apply to everyone.

Though certain members of society are able to exploit loopholes, of course. But let's not forget, avoiding fulfilling your obligations to society is perfectly OK, claiming benefits fraudulently is evil.

Too many people buy into the capitalist value system, whereby the more affluent are somehow seen as entitled to their income and justified in avoiding paying taxes, and those unable to work are victimised with society's blessing. Each are a drain on our resources, with tax evasion and avoidance being a much bigger drain, and yet somehow avoids the stigma attached to 'benefit scroungers'.

I don't think we can call ourselves civilised until we show compassion to the disadvantaged and stop condoning the attitude of people who already have more than average, and are determined not to share.

It's not like there's a maximum wage, and those earning above it are forced to surrender it all in taxes.

[worm]

I don't think anyone expects it to disappear, I just think people do see examples of fraud happening around them and want to see something done about it

Edited October 12, 2010 by worm

[eFestivals]

I don't think anyone expects it to disappear, I just think people do see examples of fraud happening around them and want to see something done about it, like tougher sentences when people are caught robbing the system and not just a few hours community service.

I think a lot of MP's should have had criminal convictions for their expenses racket too, so it's not just one end of the spectrum.

I think you nail it at the end - if those MPs aren't being banged up for making false claims, why should people on benefits who do nothing different?

Yet benefit cheats DO get prosecuted, which is more than the vast majority of MPs have been, including those who committed clear fraud (step forwards David Laws, and others).

So unless the same attitude is taken all round, it is never the case of "we're all in this together", it's a case of going after the easy and weakest targets. It's sickening.

[worm]

we're all in this together

it's just that some are more in it than others

[eFestivals]

George Orwell:

'Everyone is equal, it's just that some are more equal than others.'

The irony in that maxim really did inspire me when I was a kid.

yet as the hear & now gets to show, it's a maxim that applies no less to committed capitalists as it did its original use.

[worm]

yet as the hear & now gets to show, it's a maxim that applies no less to committed capitalists as it did its original use.

[llcoolphil]

And the reality is: the amount of fraud in the system is tiny. It's at around the lowest that will ever be managed.