Ed Milliband - tax and benefits to improve living standards
Discussion
Ed was on BBC news TV this morning. He reckons living standards of basic rate (20%) taxpayers have fallen over the past 20 years and will continue to fall unless the tax and benefits system applies a suitable redistribution of wealth. No mention, of course, that New Labour was in power for 13 of those last 20 years! I guess his message will look attractive to a lot of people so hold onto your hats!
Quite how he would pay for it naturally remains to be decided....
Quite how he would pay for it naturally remains to be decided....
Ozzie Osmond said:
Ed was on BBC news TV this morning. He reckons living standards of basic rate (20%) taxpayers have fallen over the past 20 years and will continue to fall unless the tax and benefits system applies a suitable redistribution of wealth. No mention, of course, that New Labour was in power for 13 of those last 20 years! I guess his message will look attractive to a lot of people so hold onto your hats!
Quite how he would pay for it naturally remains to be decided....
I recall reading that the purple headed warrior wants to bring 50% tax down to 100k. Found itQuite how he would pay for it naturally remains to be decided....
http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-239...
Ozzie Osmond said:
That's what I find so staggering about it. Red Ed claims Conlib policies are responsible for all the evils in the world whilst conveniently ignoring 13 years of New Labour! I guess it's now 100% clear that he's very much "Old Labour".
Short term memory loss, always the other party's fault, that'll be a politician then.'They all do that, sir'.
I have to wonder exactly what 'redistribution of wealth' means to the average Joe on the street and where exactly this wealth comes from that is be redistributed. Unfortunately I suspect to most of them it's some nebulous concept linked to 'greedy bankers' and fat cat corporate types. I wonder if they'd be so keen on the idea if they realised it's their wealth that Ed wants to redistribute as well...?
judas said:
I have to wonder .... where exactly this wealth comes from that is be redistributed.
Exactly. Somehow Ed and his ilk always just want to slip their hands into somebody else's pocket. By all means do a little "redistribution" Eddie-boy, but a bit of "wealth creation" beforehand would be altogether more positive! FourWheelDrift said:
DonkeyApple said:
Milliband is just the middle class, public school voice w
e of the unions.
Lord HawHaw of the 21st century, but without the wit or guile.
So can we still hang him?
e of the unions.Lord HawHaw of the 21st century, but without the wit or guile.

judas said:
I have to wonder exactly what 'redistribution of wealth' means to the average Joe on the street and where exactly this wealth comes from that is be redistributed. Unfortunately I suspect to most of them it's some nebulous concept linked to 'greedy bankers' and fat cat corporate types. I wonder if they'd be so keen on the idea if they realised it's their wealth that Ed wants to redistribute as well...?
Who are the mysterious 'average Joe's' I wonder. It can't be the Joe's on benefits, it can't be the top one percent of tax payers, so that's everybody else then!No worries though as Ed Milliband-aid will not be the Labour leader come next election, its going to be the other Ed.
NoelWatson said:
I recall reading that the purple headed warrior wants to bring 50% tax down to 100k. Found it
http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-239...
Which, if I'm not mistaken, he flatly denied this morning. Well, for the duration of this parilament if they'd got into power.http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-239...
crankedup said:
Who are the mysterious 'average Joe's' I wonder. It can't be the Joe's on benefits, it can't be the top one percent of tax payers, so that's everybody else then!
No worries though as Ed Milliband-aid will not be the Labour leader come next election, its going to be the other Ed.
Balls.No worries though as Ed Milliband-aid will not be the Labour leader come next election, its going to be the other Ed.
OY Minigland NO!!!!!
I find it rather amusing how these damn socialists have the nerve to talk such rubbish after 13 years of deliberately destroying the british economy. They should be banned from any post anywhere where they'd have a say in anything monetary. Any normal housewife can do better (running finances) than that bunch of thieving socialist idiots.....
Do nothing except steal, lie and fill their boots at others expense.
I find it rather amusing how these damn socialists have the nerve to talk such rubbish after 13 years of deliberately destroying the british economy. They should be banned from any post anywhere where they'd have a say in anything monetary. Any normal housewife can do better (running finances) than that bunch of thieving socialist idiots.....
Do nothing except steal, lie and fill their boots at others expense.
What do you expect? He's a Socialist. The only way to give money to the poor, is by taking it from the rich.
What he and all Socialists have never understood, is that the only way to improve the living standards of the poor, is by growing the economy and generating wealth.
Who does this? Not the government. Business leaders, entrepeneurs and small companies, that's who.
Take money from them, and you will reduce their willingness to take risks, which is from where properity ultimately comes.
This is a very good blog on the subject by Paul Graham:
Inequality and Risk
What he and all Socialists have never understood, is that the only way to improve the living standards of the poor, is by growing the economy and generating wealth.
Who does this? Not the government. Business leaders, entrepeneurs and small companies, that's who.
Take money from them, and you will reduce their willingness to take risks, which is from where properity ultimately comes.
This is a very good blog on the subject by Paul Graham:
Inequality and Risk
Alex said:
What he and all Socialists have never understood, is that the only way to improve the living standards of the poor, is by growing the economy and generating wealth.
And growing the economy as said by Balls is not about increasing/not cutting the public sector jobs...you need to increase private sector profits to pay taxes so that you can maintain public sector services (Jobs & benefits). The lower the pressure on private sector..the more taxes you raise! A Labour style spending spree (vote buying) is not exactly the best idea for national balance sheets!bobbylondonuk said:
Alex said:
What he and all Socialists have never understood, is that the only way to improve the living standards of the poor, is by growing the economy and generating wealth.
And growing the economy as said by Balls is not about increasing/not cutting the public sector jobs...you need to increase private sector profits to pay taxes so that you can maintain public sector services (Jobs & benefits). The lower the pressure on private sector..the more taxes you raise! A Labour style spending spree (vote buying) is not exactly the best idea for national balance sheets!For starters, too many people were being employed in public-sector non-jobs. Plenty of contact centres and the like were just plonked in areas of low employment to give the local population administrative jobs. Sounds very laudable on the surface but in reality they didn't do much other than give people jobs at other taxpayers' expense while making life in the country unnecessarily bureaucratic, cumbersome and partisan. Same goes for farming people off on unemployment and sickness benefit or keeping them in education for as long as humanly possible.
But on the other hand, it seemed Labour's economic policy put all its eggs in the banks baskets. Banking was the only industry they seemed to care about. Well, that and making sure people's houses just kept going up in value so the credit-control agencies could stay in business.
That was the key problem - they didn't really support anything that kept the majority of the populace gainfully employed, only the bit that made loads of money, paid loads of taxes (when it wasn't offshoring it), and the bit they could effectively pay to keep happy with benefits, education and public-sector jobs. Oh, and shops. Retail boomed under Labour but unless you're actually making the things you're selling as a country all retail does is move money around a bit.
My main fear about the coalition's current policy is that it seems to be cutting wildly into the bloated public sector without really doing anything to free money up in the banks to help the private sector employ more people. The demand and the jobs need to be there before you put lots of people out of work, otherwise all the money that's being saved cutting the public sector will end up going to support the people who are now unemployed as a result.
Edited by Twincam16 on Monday 28th February 17:24
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