Any (post 2008) Economists in the house? - Inflation.

[Spectric]

My suggestion was that Labour need a Boris;

No more than the torries need a corbyn, british politics is shot, nothing more than a circus and hence why we have a bumbling borris. The BIG BIG issue, worry, concern is that we don't have much in the way of choice, I would not trust any of them as the common denominator is incompetance. The first step has to be to change the system, make it compulsory for all to vote so the results are representative and not just 18% in a given area.

 

[Jameshow]

this goes to the heart of the dilemma of politics.

does a politician
1) have policies which would be best for the country
or
2) choose policies that will win elections.

the public may claim they want honest politicians, but they vote for option 2

Problem is the Labour party dosent imho support the working man. It would rather support the boat loads coming over the channel, rather than the working man hence the working man in desperation has turned to Boris which is really no help to him. The working class don't have a party, that creates jobs, working conditions and tax regime which supports them.

Cheers James

 

[D_W]

Can anyone really justify a wage packet in excess of £300K, if all earnings above this were evenly distributed amongst all other workers pay then poverty would drop drastically.

What would actually happen is people capable of earning in excess of 300k after taxes would just leave instead. And whatever business they operate, that would leave, too.

 

[sploo]

What would actually happen is people capable of earning in excess of 300k after taxes would just leave instead. And whatever business they operate, that would leave, too.

That's the root of the problem; if there were no tax havens available (such that the ultra wealthy couldn't leave to avoid taxes) then that issue would solve itself. I'm not talking about "punishing" high earners; just ensuring that those individuals and companies who are raking in huge sums of cash couldn't then use their wealth to avoid contributing back to the society that's made them rich.

 

[D_W]

That's the root of the problem; if there were no tax havens available (such that the ultra wealthy couldn't leave to avoid taxes) then that issue would solve itself. I'm not talking about "punishing" high earners; just ensuring that those individuals and companies who are raking in huge sums of cash couldn't then use their wealth to avoid contributing back to the society that's made then rich.

This is where idealism falls apart, and you have to actually look at outcomes (which people like Jacob have trouble with, as do "free market no barrier to entry" capitalists, who really just want no barrier to their entry and then change their tune once they have market share).

If you had a majority of countries that were very harsh to high income earners, it would take only one haven country to loot all of the business owners and then attract away all of the true high value talent in the world.

And then even people who aren't making 300k yet, but who want to in the future would leave.

This is also the stupidity of jacob's comment about not allowing wealthy people to send themselves to space or embark on costly far off scientific ventures. They'll just go to a place where they can, and then they'll draw all of the talent out of other geographies. Idealism without ever measuring accomplishment gets you bernie sanders and corbyn. That is, nothing, but sitting and arguing about ideals. Thinking is required to make doing efficient. Thinking and not doing or thinking and making excuses for doing poorly is just stupid. That's idealism.

 

[Jacob]

Labour need to find themselves a Dominic Cummings.

and have one single strategy: win power, win power, win power

and when they are in, ditch their manifesto and start doing what they want -maybe some of your socialist policies like renationalisation.

Labour need to find themselves another Corbyn with some straightforward pragmatic socialist policies.
In 2017 Corbyn almost pipped Blairs best result:
1997 Blair vote 13,518,167 swing 8.8%.
2017 Corbyn vote 12,878,460 swing 9.6%
Blair’s famous phrase was that Labour should win because of its policies not in spite of them. Corbyn was doing exactly that.
It's OK Robin I know you are still under the brain washing spell so you probably will find this comment upsetting, sorry about that!

 

[RobinBHM]

They did Alistair Campbell!

They were centerist though so nothing changed.

Cheers James

yes they made Labour electable.

and Blairs time in govt:

reduced pensioner poverty
reduced child poverty
lowered NHS waiting times
lowered class sizes
increased number of police
introduced min wage.

life was certainly better then compared to now.

 

[sploo]

This is where idealism falls apart, and you have to actually look at outcomes (which people like Jacob have trouble with, as do "free market no barrier to entry" capitalists, who really just want no barrier to their entry and then change their tune once they have market share).

If you had a majority of countries that were very harsh to high income earners, it would take only one haven country to loot all of the business owners and then attract away all of the true high value talent in the world.

Personally, I'm not after harsh taxation; just preventing the massive tax avoidance that allows large profits to be made with almost zero tax payment.

Agreed that it'd "take only one haven country" to cause problems, but it would surely be possible for a nation to introduce rules to try to bar companies operating on their soil whilst shifting the profits elsewhere. I.e. you can be registered in a tax haven, but you cannot shift profit made in "our" country out to a tax haven. Given the choice of a large market, but paying some tax, or being barred from that market, I doubt companies would boycott a country.

That said, I'm sure there would then be other dodges to allowed profits to be reported as tiny, or some other (legal) accounting scam.

 

[RobinBHM]

Labour need to find themselves another Corbyn with some straightforward pragmatic socialist policies

simple answer to that:

2019

 

[D_W]

Personally, I'm not after harsh taxation; just preventing the massive tax avoidance that allows large profits to be made with almost zero tax payment.

Agreed that it'd "take only one haven country" to cause problems, but it would surely be possible for a nation to introduce rules to try to bar companies operating on their soil whilst shifting the profits elsewhere. I.e. you can be registered in a tax haven, but you cannot shift profit made in "our" country out to a tax haven. Given the choice of a large market, but paying some tax, or being barred from that market, I doubt companies would boycott a country.

That said, I'm sure there would then be other dodges to allowed profits to be reported as tiny, or some other (legal) accounting scam.

I don't disagree with that. The trick, I guess, is for politicians to extract money from companies with an implicit threat - 'i'm your buddy, keep the money coming, or else, but we're still buddies'.

The other thing that's underestimated is that obscure bits added to the tax code will find takers, even if the CBO thinks they will only apply to people running the same scheme right now.

I'd venture to guess that if you had another location 10% lower taxed and with less interference, you'd find a business in your locale relocating headquarters. California is finding that and will continue to find that.

On the low end, incentivizing people who live a lifetime in debt and who don't pay their debts could be incentivized a little better to do that, even though they don't like to, but it's more profitable in votes to cater to them as a voting group.

 

[Jacob]

yes they made Labour electable.

and Blairs time in govt:

reduced pensioner poverty
reduced child poverty
lowered NHS waiting times
lowered class sizes
increased number of police
introduced min wage.

life was certainly better then compared to now.

And Labour was clearly "electable" in 2017.
It's interesting reading the contorted arguments in the attempts to deny the recent past - but it is the brain washing still working away.

 

[RobinBHM]

OK Robin I know you are still under the brain washing spell

says Jacob, who still believes Corbyn almost won.

and somehow Corbyns paltry 200 odd seats were virtually the same as Blairs 400+ seats.

you poor thing, you’ve brain washed yourself

 

[RobinBHM]

And Labour was clearly "electable" in 2017

despite a terrible decade of Tory austerity and the worst Tory leader ever, Corbyn still lost by 50 seats.

 

[Jacob]

simple answer to that:

2019

Following the most intensive right wing media vilification of any politician in a hundred years or more.
The brain washed now struggling to ignore that Starmer's polling so far has been far worse than Corbyn's very worst.

 

[selectortone]

Labour need to find themselves another Corbyn.

Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.

 

[D_W]

Following the most intensive right wing media vilification of any politician in a hundred years or more.
The brain washed now struggling to ignore that Starmer's polling so far has been far worse than Corbyn's very worst.

Hilarious. You pine for the days that the public polled for 20% thinking your favorite leader was competent. And he did nothing to prove he's incompetent, and the best you can come up with is "I can find a guy that people like less".

How's that working out so far? You've got brexit, and probably no chance of a leftward move in the next election.

 

[Jacob]

Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.

Do something similar with a careful look at what happened then, in 2019, and of course in 1997, with the intention to improve slightly on the 2017 result.
Interesting how 2017 is being written out of history as though of no significance. MSM propaganda.
In 2017 Corbyn almost pipped Blair's best result:
1997 Blair vote 13,518,167 swing 8.8%.
2017 Corbyn vote 12,878,460 swing 9.6%
Blair’s famous phrase was that Labour should win because of its policies not in spite of them and he was right, though he blew it later.

 

[D_W]

Show something done without blaming it on the media. The media hates conservative politicians. Stop trying to pretend that being a liberal idealist is a detriment from the media standpoint.

Trump was a crackpot, but he wishes the media liked him half as much as they liked corbyn.

 

[selectortone]

The media hates conservative politicians.

I had to chuckle at that. That's the baseball 'World Series' viewpoint (only American teams compete, the rest of the world doesn't count).

That might arguably be true in the USA, but here, the media, especially the old print media, is almost entirely right wing. And Jacob would argue that out of the two left-leaning mainstream papers, even one of those is rabidly anti-Corbyn.

 

[sploo]

The other thing that's underestimated is that obscure bits added to the tax code will find takers, even if the CBO thinks they will only apply to people running the same scheme right now.

I guess that's always the problem with tax laws; simple and people will (rightly) point out that there are exceptions who are unfairly hit due to their specific circumstances. Complex and you introduce loopholes that are exploited by those with the resources to do so.

That said, I'm pretty certain I recall hearing something a few years ago about tax accountants (used by the UK government to draw up tax rules) then offering their services to companies - to explain exactly where the loopholes are in the rules they'd advised the government to run. If I were a cynic I'd wonder if said loopholes were not there by accident...