A fair society ...

[HAL9000]

Spot on DJKQ. My work brings me into contact with the rich - almost every one of the ones I've known was in the right place at the right time. Shakespeare summed it up beautifully in Julius Caesar:

"There is a tide in the affairs of men. Which taken at the flood, leads on to fortune; Omitted, all the voyage of their life is bound in shallows and in miseries."

 

[mockney piers]

"can we please get away from this idea that hard work and education equate to wealth"

though in fairness it's a damn good start. I'd add ability to spot and exploit imbalances in the market or at least willingness to partake of a lucrative market rather than a depressed one. Oh and of course a healthy dose of luck always helps.

Though to move it back to fair societies, we do need nurses and teachers and so forth which we all know dont pay well, so fully support the idea of state funded or at the very least subsidised affordable housing. Something that might help us to avoid those awful housing bubbles too. A double win!

[DJKillaQueen]

Just to add...the reason why the middle-classes are complaining is not because they are selfish or greedy, it's because the cost of living and housing are so high in this country that a 40K salary is no longer a good living salary. That is the really awful thing about life in the UK...and a consequence of the stupid unregulated housing market we have. The deregulated free market has done nothing but widen the gap and make many left feeling they are working for nothing.

The other issues that others have raised...about the employed to unemployed (incuding pensioners) is a serious one...currently 60% of all welfare spending is on the over 65's....not the 'scroungers' at all. Housing Benefit also costs more than the meagre ?65 per week given to the 'scroungers'............something will have to change.

[david_carnell]

If we believe that the premise that a fairer society, one with a smaller income gap, is a desirable outcome then there are seemingly only two methods available:

smaller differences in pay before tax (like in Japan)

redistribution through taxes and benefits (like in Sweden and other Nordic countries)

Little has mean remarked of the "small-goverment" method employed by the Japanese yet theirs is as fair a society as the Scandanavians.

As well as more progressive income and property taxes and more generous benefits, we also need policies to reduce differences in incomes before taxes and benefits. That means higher minimum wages, more generous pensions, running the national economy with low levels of unemployment, better education and retraining policies, increasing the bargaining power of trade unions. Good labour law, protection of union rights and high minimum wages are amongst the factors contributing to greater equality of incomes in New Hampshire, another model of small-state governance with low income inequality.

One of the factors which makes a difference in Japan is how companies are owned and run. Differences in incomes of directors and employees in Japanese companies are smaller partly because almost all directors were people who had been promoted from among those who had worked their way up the firm. Other differences in corporate governance makes unions influential stakeholders and union leaders are sometimes given seats on the board. Patterns such as these lead to different ethical standards: it is not uncommon for directors of Japanese companies to take pay cuts themselves to avoid laying off junior employees.

Perhaps this would be a better direction for Britain to head in if we reject a high-taxation route.

[Huguenot]

I'm sorry DJKQ but I think your conviction that there is a conspiracy of rich people keeping all the money for themselves is hopelessly class war.

The housing boom took place because we created it, and nobody was wise enough to anticipate the likely outcome. Not very bright, but there was no room of purple faced satans deliberately trying to screw the country.

I suspect that your conspiracy theory convictions underpin a desire to see wholesale redistribution of wealth and an end to meritocracy. It's very Socialist Worker.

I've made myself moderately wealthy from a teaching household. I had no money, started at the bottom and worked my way to the top. All of my colleagues in the same situation did the same thing.

The majority of those super-wealthy traders are working class barrow boys who started with nothing.

Many of those who didn't make it as high as they may have wished have been unwilling to make the sacrifices necessary to achieve it - they might have wanted to start a family, or wouldn't move town or work late nights.

That's just life - it's a competition.

A fair society requires a good education, equality of opportunity and an incentive to progress. Making bankers scapegoats won't deliver on any of those objectives.

If people don't get the opportunity that's one thing - if they don't take an opportunity that's another.

BTW. I bought my house from a non-working family who acquired it from the council at discount price under 'right-to-buy'. They made an absolute packet, and went off to Bedford to live in a... you guessed it... council house. They are now richer than me, with lower outgoings. They didn't need money to make money.

[HAL9000]

The subject of this thread is being discussed right now (12:45pm) on Loose Women (ITV1). Almost word for word - how weird.

[david_carnell]

Huguenot IS Carol McGiffen and I claim my ?5.

[karter]

That's just life - it's a competition.

A fair society requires a good education, equality of opportunity and an incentive to progress. Making bankers scapegoats won't deliver on any of those objectives.

If people don't get the opportunity that's one thing - if they don't take an opportunity that's another.

Bang on old boy.

[JohnL]

Well apparently, Vortigern invited the Saxons in to fight his battles with the Picts and Irish, and that was it for the Britons.

louisiana Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> HAL9000 Wrote:

> --------------------------------------------------

> -----

> > Twirly Wrote:

> >

> --------------------------------------------------

>

> > -----

> > > I have no idea what the solution is.

> >

> > No one knows - we are on the cusp of a new

> > paradigm. No one alive has ever experienced

> what

> > is about to unfold. All we know from history is

> > that past civilisations have collapsed so

> suddenly

> > that no one survived to tell the tale - only

> > centuries of silence marked their passing.

> >

> > But that can't happen to us, surely - they say?

>

> I think it would be a good idea if a whole lot

> more people read Joseph Tainter's book The

> Collapse of Complex Societies. It's a great book,

> and has lessons for where we might be going wrong.

[DJKillaQueen]

'm sorry DJKQ but I think your conviction that there is a conspiracy of rich people keeping all the money for themselves is hopelessly class war.

Where have I said anything of the sort.....I am talking about the gap...has nothing to do with class but lack of opportunity and upward social mobility.....(although historically our class system has played a part).

EVERY piece of data shows this to be the case. The gap has grown and upward social mobility has decreased. You seem to have no concept of any of this...or worse still just how deregulation gave bankers a licence to print money.......regulations that had been formed after the 1930's Wall Street crash to prevent future global crisis and funnily worked for the fifty years they were in place before Thatcher, Regan et all and those after them (including Brown), stripped them away...end result..three crashes in thirty years, the third being the worst ever, so I think that proves my point.

[Mick Mac]

Huguenot Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

>

> The majority of those super-wealthy traders are

> working class barrow boys who started with

> nothing.

>

Yes - I work for two of the wealthiest.

Their role is to make money for their investors, and to the extent that they are successful, they take a cut. So their earnings cost the UK nothing.

Bearing in mind that a lot of this investor money comes from outside the UK, their success brings taxes to the UK from money that would not otherwise be here. These taxes are used to fund public sector expenditure.

This is the benefit of having a successful financial services industry in the uk. Tax it more or put obstacles in its way and the money closely followed by the indistry, will go elsewhere.

When public sector employees cry foul of the banking industry they should consider this.

The UK?s financial services sector contributed an estimated ?67.8bn to UK government taxes in the financial year ending 31 March 2007, 13.9% of the total UK tax take a new report by PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP (PwC) for the City of London Corporation has found.

[SeanMacGabhann]

It's not just people in public sector. There are people in the banking sector who feel there is a case to answer

I support any calls to not make banking the whipping boys of this mess. but let's not rewrite history and cast them as the good guys either

[JohnL]

Mick Mac Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> Huguenot Wrote:

> --------------------------------------------------

> -----

>

> >

> > The majority of those super-wealthy traders are

> > working class barrow boys who started with

> > nothing.

> >

>

> Yes - I work for two of the wealthiest.

>

> Their role is to make money for their investors,

> and to the extent that they are successful, they

> take a cut. So their earnings cost the UK nothing.

>

>

> Bearing in mind that a lot of this investor money

> comes from outside the UK, their success brings

> taxes to the UK from money that would not

> otherwise be here. These taxes are used to fund

> public sector expenditure.

>

> This is the benefit of having a successful

> financial services industry in the uk. Tax it more

> or put obstacles in its way and the money closely

> followed by the indistry, will go elsewhere.

>

> When public sector employees cry foul of the

> banking industry they should consider this.

>

> The UK?s financial services sector contributed an

> estimated ?67.8bn to UK government taxes in the

> financial year ending 31 March 2007, 13.9% of the

> total UK tax take a new report by

> PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP (PwC) for the City of

> London Corporation has found.

The burning money in pubs bit sticks in some of our memories. I work (and go out) in Canary Wharf and some of the arrogance has definitely gone .. but in my fathers day tax was 99% on anything above quite a low amount, Osborne so far seems more likely to head that way than Brown/Darling.

..and now 'Wall Street' is back.

[Huguenot]

I think what I'm trying to say DJKQ, is that I find you overly preoccupied with attacking those at the top of the pyramid instead of trying to find solutions at the bottom.

That last post of yours was a case in point - you mention social mobility, but expend all your energy on the perceived injustice of dergulation that "gave bankers a licence to print money"

It's like you want to punish 'them'.

A lack of social mobility doesn't always denote a lack of opportunity, but may be highlighting a blue collar cultural impasse. It's a culture that is often tribal, inert, rubbishes education and qualification, discourages mobility and lacks aspiration. Typified by my cleaner at Uni, who commented "I'm not sending my bloody daughter to University, if cleaning was good enough for me, it's good enough for her. She should stay here in Coventry where her family are."

It's typical of that culture that it blames other people for their own shortcomings, and would prefer to drag other people down rather than dragging themselves up.

[Jeremy]

Brendan Wrote:

> No but the rich poor divide in this country is so historically entrenched it is completely valid.

Sorry Brendan, got to pull you up on this one. Not only is that statement lacking basis, it's actually completely false!

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/01/Gini_since_WWII.svg/800px-Gini_since_WWII.svg.png

So while we're currently not in great shape by Western European standards, it hasn't always been the case. In fact, pre-Thatcher, the UK was something of a leading light in terms of wealth distribution.

[Mick Mac]

SeanMacGabhann Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> >

> It's not just people in public sector. There are

> people in the banking sector who feel there is a

> case to answer

>

The point is a positive one - that this is often foreign money being sucked into the UK tax system, which then benefits us all.

[HAL9000]

Actually, foreign money isn't taxed here - it's only the earnings of those managers or administrators who choose to be liable to UK taxation that are taxed. That amount represents a tiny fraction of the principal.

The fact is, the UK is one of the best tax havens in the world - as long as one is on the outside looking in.

[david_carnell]

Jeremy Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> So while we're currently not in great shape by

> Western European standards, it hasn't always been

> the case. In fact, pre-Thatcher, the UK was

> something of a leading light in terms of wealth

> distribution.

QED, Jeremy.

That's Keynsian economics for you, a post-war consensus that covered all government, Conservative or Labour, for 35 years. I don't want this to turn into a Thatcher-bashing or Thatcher-loving argument because they've been done to death but I think it's irrefutable that her period as PM and the legislation passed during that period led not only to wealth creation but a massive widening of the income gap and the associated issues I've highlighted elsewhere that unequal societies are susceptible too.

[Brendan]

Well the way I see it, in the middle of the last century the divide was lessened (unnaturally some [me perhaps] may argue) by the creation of the welfare state. But if you go back before that to the previously century during industrialisation when the current wealth and class divides were forged* it would be a different story.

It is the poor communities from then who then became the welfare dependent and who are still on the bottom wrung now that the gap has widened again.

I?ve intentionally left the Edwardian period out of this because apart from mustachios and striped blazers I don?t know much about it.

*Cemented, engineered ,cast or whichever other industrialisation themed metaphor you care to use.

[david_carnell]

And the idea that those societies that are fairer, or more equal, can only do so by becoming uncompetitive and unwelcoming to business is also nonsense.

In the European countries "Ease of Doing Business Index" of 2008, Denmark came top. A country reknowned for it's Nordic model of social democracy and wealth distribution.

[Brendan]

Commie!

[Mick Mac]

HAL9000 Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> Actually, foreign money isn't taxed here - it's

> only the earnings of those managers or

> administrators who choose to be liable to UK

> taxation that are taxed. That amount represents a

> tiny fraction of the principal.

>

> The fact is, the UK is one of the best tax havens

> in the world - as long as one is on the outside

> looking in.

It is in this case Hal.

The foreign investors are not taxed, but 20% of the profit generated on their investments is attributed to the UK resident fund manager for the benefit of mostly UK beneficiaries and taxed in the UK at either corporate tax rates, capital gains tax or employment tax rates.

[HAL9000]

Isn't that (more or less) what I said? Hmmm... earnings / profits - but you know what I mean.

I'm sure they could juggle things around a bit and avoid paying tax altogether if they were so minded - the UK is awfully good for that sort of thing.

[Mick Mac]

As Head of Tax, I do my best.

[Brendan]

No you don't, you piss about on an internet forum all day. ;-)