Billionaire, morally defensible?

[diy_fun_uk]

Two years ago... A group of 30 UK millionaires have called on the chancellor to tax them and other rich people more because they can afford to pay it and “the cost of recovery cannot fall on the young or on those with lower incomes”. The millionaire signatories, who cover multiple industries and backgrounds from across the UK, said they want Sunak to “address the economic imbalance of the current tax system which places a deeply unequal burden on working people”.

A wealth tax on the top 1% of UK households – those with fortunes of more than £3.6m – could generate at least £70bn a year, according to research by Greenwich University. That would be equivalent to 8% of the current total tax take but affect only about 250,000 households. Such taxes are beginning to be introduced in Argentina, Bolivia and Morocco to help pay for the recovery. In Norway, about 500,000 people pay an 0.85% charge on their assets above the value of about £125,000.

What concerns me about stuff like this is, let's say they did it, and let's say it did indeed raise £70+ billion a year.

Great ... on the surface.

However, governments have a knack of p1ssing much of our hard earned up against the proverbial wall. So this sort of initiative would, in my opinion, only be truly worth while if the high majority of the £70+ billion actually went towards identifiable tangible improvements.

 

[JonathanM]

A very useful way to break down the numbers

 

[berty3000]

A very useful way to break down the numbers

View attachment 339437

Hmm...

So a million unemployed even though there are loads of job vacancies and huge numbers of foreigners doing low or no-skill work...

Then categories of several million including "sick" and "other"... whatever that means. This has created more questions than answers.

The other issue of course is that we have an absolutely vast public sector compared to the past, many of the roles are fake jobs, and this removes people from the labour market and means less people available to do productive work in the real economy.

Then add in the mountains of unnecessary legislation that have been passed into law over the past 25 years and that has also created enormous amounts of fake work for lawyers and other forms of consultant.

Basically, as well as the unemployed, sick and other, we have a lot of people doing work that isn't really needed, whilst we have major shortages in things like trades and all the roles that immigrants are being brought in to do - which then crushes infrastructure and public service capacity along with access to affordable housing.

What an absolutely stupid system. We would be better off as a country with 10 million less people than we currently have, a smaller public sector and less burdensome legislation, with more people working in the private sector and less people being unemployed. We would experience less crowding, better services, a more harmonious society, and a more productive economy delivering a higher standard of living.

Rubbish situation created by New Labour and carried on by their identical twins in the tory party.

 

[Notch7]

The other issue of course is that we have an absolutely vast public sector compared to the past

Yes, it’s increased by 100,000 due to Brexit red tape

Did you vote for brexit……yeah, that’s a given

 

[berty3000]

Yes, it’s increased by 100,000 due to Brexit red tape

Did you vote for brexit……yeah, that’s a given

Mm... I'm sure some will have been created as a result of brexit but that would be to replace the tens of thousands of fake jobs in Brussels. Replacing Euro administrators with local ones to administer the mountains of pointless legislation that mostly emanated from the EU.

A lot of the fake jobs in the public sector are linked to DEI, environmental nonsense, health and safety, and other bloated areas.

The British Empire was run by an administration less than 1% the size of what we now have.

If they all started working from home and getting nothing done we wouldn't notice. Oh wait... that is what's happening. And now they're threatening to go on strike because they believe they're overworked by having to do a 5 day week... from home... doing meaningless work that produces nothing socially or economically useful.

Needs cutting in half, all quangos abolished, and stupid devolved administrations deleted, including the one in London. All run by total lemons.

 

[JohnD]

Meaningless ranting from berty the troll.

 

[fillyboy]

 

[JonathanM]

Meaningless ranting from berty the troll.

It certainly seems to be a case of throwing everything at the wall and hoping something sticks.

 

[Justin Passing]

I do think much of the above couple of pages IS , really, criticism!

I have many suspicions but don't know where/when it started to go wrong. Back in the day, a young e.g. plumber who'd finished (PAYING for in some cases) his apprenticeship, with regular work could afford his Ford Pop and start to pay for a house and clothe his kids. Women stayed at home.
Fat chance of that now. Property prices are stupid but it's more than that. Whatever we did to those is common eg in Canada or Oz too. Much of EU always, and still do very often, rent for life.

Back then the Bowler Hat brigade fleeced people who assumed because they were told that they didn't understand , and we see it still in penson fund returns - deplorable, with fees often being as much or more than the returns, which are far less than bldg soc rates. New institutions have sprung up, and let's be fair governments have given access to the hoi poloi. Maybe some of that used to go to HMG.

Some pie charts showing where goct money came from and went, then and now, would be interesting. When I have time...

We do need a tonne of money. It's bloody frustrating when I can demonstrate one solution, which could I assume, be scaled up. Maybe the rest of the world has caught up with our financial institutions. Reminder - there is £12 trillion a day traded in foreign exchange. How much of the profit from that does the UK get? (I don't do forex, haven't got the cahoonas to trade 100's of millions at a time.)

 

[Notch7]

I'm sure some will have been created as a result of brexit but that would be to replace the tens of thousands of fake jobs in Brussels

Please could you provide an example of some of these “fake jobs”

There are 500,000 civil servants, how many do you think are fake?

BTW Brexit did increase civil service by 100,000

100,000 extra civil servants have struggled to cope with Brexit - report

The UK has still not managed to cope with Brexit despite hiring 100,000 extra civil servants to cope with the extra demands.

www.thelondoneconomic.com

 

[motorbiking]

Anyone who has anything to do with advising on Equality, Diversity & Inclusion. This should never be a job for one person, rather a forum of stakeholders and HR should be perfectly capable of running the stats.

But in the public sector, it seems every public body has one from the council to plod. Thats at least 200 non-jobs

Then we have the Woke enforcers employed to check that all NHS staff include their pronouns in emails and avoid gender assuming medical terminology. They also write the Woke policy and source outside consultants (not medical consultants) from "experts" like stonewall who have self appointed themselves literally as the Gay police. 50+

Anyone working on 25 year plans. Thats another 100.

The people who install stupid road blocks LTNs as trials and then remove them 6 months later because residents would quite like to leave their homes occasionally. At least 10 people per local authority could be freed up.

 

[Notch7]

Anyone who has anything to do with advising on Equality, Diversity & Inclusion

There are 500,000 civil,servants

How many are in EDI roles?

Why are they “fake roles”

Thats at least 200 non-jobs

Wow 200

What percentage is that

Then we have the Woke enforcers employed to check that all NHS staff include their pronouns in emails and avoid gender assuming medical terminology. They also write the Woke policy and source outside consultants (not medical consultants) from "experts" like stonewall who have self appointed themselves literally as the Gay police. 50+

So now we have a bit of phoney culture war….just a deflection

Number of “fake jobs” in your argument her = 0

Anyone working on 25 year plans. Thats another 100.

Why is that a fake job?

Lots of government plans need a long horizon…..I wish we had more long term planning.

Please can you provide evidence there are 100 people doing that

The people who install stupid road blocks LTNs as trials and then remove them 6 months later because residents would quite like to leave their homes occasionally. At least 10 people per local authority could be freed up

Do you have evidence there’s “10 people per authority”




So far you’ve accounted for 200 + 100 + 3170 = 3470 people out of 503,000 jobs

So using your figures the civil service has 99.4% real jobs


Conclusion
civil service is not made of fake jobs

 

[motorbiking]

It's £170M a year, that I came up with in 2 minutes. Right now, I'd rather that money was spent on training and equipping troops, treating people with cancer or simply taking a £10er off council tax.

 

[Notch7]

It's £170M a year, that I came up with in 2 minutes. Right now, I'd rather that money was spent on training and equipping troops, treating people with cancer or simply taking a £10er off council tax.

What’s £170m per year

Is that a figure you found in the Daily Mail

 

[JohnD]

I came up with in 2 minutes.

Gives us a clue of the care, accuracy and reliability of the number you plucked out of your arse.