Best Of

If you have hens that lay golden eggs, trying to squeeze more eggs out of them (or threatening to cut them open to get all of the eggs out) teaches them to fly

So, you're saying that additional taxation makes people work harder than ever before?

It always makes me laugh that the well-off (which let's be honest includes most of us on here) always assume that higher taxation leads to less inclination to work. That may be the case for the well-off (although in my experience most successful people work hard because they enjoy it, not directly because they calculate each penny they will earn).

But in any case, when you are less well-off if finances get tight whether because of increased costs or reduced income the first inclination is to see if you have get some extra hours, work longer, earn a bit more. I can remember this only too well from my younger day - a lot of Laffer followers seem to have completely forgotten (if they ever knew) what it is like to be really tight for money.

I've sat across from people rejecting more hours. Because their benefits get withdrawn, creating effective super tax rates.

Laffer Curve in action.

Why work a bunch of hours to end up with not enough money to cover travel costs for the day? Let alone buy a sandwich for lunch.

I'm a case in point. I dropped down to part time after my wife went back to work after her second maternity leave. Never went back up to full time. Why do 25% more work for 15% more pay? I'm not super rich. But the presence of the 40% tax band is a big disincentive to do any more.

This government is an utter fucking disgrace.

Led by a human rights lawyer, it
- ignores judgments it doesn't like,
- lies to Parliament and/or the courts or both,
- disregards rights for women,
- is utterly dishonest about pretending the AD Bill is not in reality a government bill (it is already spending money on how the Bill will be implemented before it's final form is determined and the law actually passed)
- thinks the test for such a law is that it should be "effective" not "safe" (which the PM is now conspicuously not saying),
- seems not to realise the one of the arguments for it - that it is ok for some to die wrongfully if this is for the greater good - totally undermines the chief objection to capital punishment
- Is happy for poverty to be a reason for the state to help you kill yourself, forgetting that Labour was originally set up to help the poor not kill them
- And now wants to abolish trial by jury, one of the few truly democratic elements of our justice system and constitution.

It is not the existence of juries which cause delays in our justice system. It is the failure by this and previous governments to fund the first and most basic function of the state properly.

This is a government which knows the price of everything but the value of nothing.

In June 2020 I wrote the attached about the last proposal to attack the jury system. https://www7.politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2020/06/24/12-good-men/

Every word I wrote then is valid, even more so, now. Every. Single. Word. And that utter idiot Lammy should be hanging his head in shame at what he is proposing, given the review he authored in 2017.



Yes I'm furious .......

StaLLMer will do nothing to help me, presumably I'm well enough off

@Keir_Starmer

From April, we're raising the National Living Wage and National Minimum Wage.

The cost of living is the number one issue people are facing, with too many struggling to make ends meet.

I am determined to tackle it.

https://x.com/Keir_Starmer/status/1993379464516939998

You can have too much of a good thing. It made a lot of sense to lift the NMW rapidly when we were short of labour and trying to entice people back into the job market. Now, with unemployment rising, I am really not sure it is a good idea. At the margins the employer will simply not be able to recover their costs so the employment will disappear. Conversely, in the public sector the cost of services will increase. In both cases the wage increase will be inflationary.

For those who lose their jobs but would have been willing to work for less this is not "tackling" the cost of living, it is aggravating it. For those on fixed incomes the cost of living gets worse as costs go up. This is pretty basic stuff and it is disappointing that the government seems to be finding it so difficult.

If you have hens that lay golden eggs, trying to squeeze more eggs out of them (or threatening to cut them open to get all of the eggs out) teaches them to fly

So, you're saying that additional taxation makes people work harder than ever before?

It always makes me laugh that the well-off (which let's be honest includes most of us on here) often assume that higher taxation leads to less inclination to work. That may be the case for the well-off (although in my experience most successful people work hard because they enjoy it, not directly because they calculate each penny they will earn).

But in any case, when you are less well-off if finances get tight whether because of increased costs or reduced income the first inclination is to see if you have get some extra hours, work longer, earn a bit more. I can remember this only too well from my younger day - a lot of Laffer followers seem to have completely forgotten (if they ever knew) what it is like to be really tight for money.

Most of you missing the point that gross inequality might be more than just a little bit corrosive.

The fact that inequality gets passed down the generations via inherited wealth, inequality of opportunity, etc. - meaning that we seldom put the best people in the top jobs - adds salt to the wounds that damage our country.

How would you define the top 100 jobs in Britain, and how many of them would that apply to? Would Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves be on the list?

Typically narrow thinking on your part.

This illustrates the issue:

Business: 68% of FTSE 100 chairs and 37% of FTSE 100 chief executives were privately educated.
Law: 62% of senior judges were privately educated.
Politics: 52% of the House of Lords are privately educated, and 47% of the shadow cabinet are too.
Media: One-third of regular newspaper columnists attended private schools, and one-third of high-profile actors are privately educated, per this report from The Stage.
Civil Service: 47% of permanent secretaries in the civil service were privately educated.

https://www.suttontrust.com/our-research/elitist-britain-2019/
https://elitistbritain.suttontrust.com

Is there any evidence that the people in each of those categories who weren't privately educated perform better?

Do you think the 7% who were privately educated deserve to take 63% of the senior judge positions? Were they inherently better at birth?

That's a contradictory complaint if it's their education that you take issue with. Even if they were not inherently better at birth, their education and training might make them more suited for a position of authority.

For your average successful Barrister or Advocate, becoming a Judge means a significant drop in income.

I suspect that those who are privately educated are more likely to come from relatively well off backgrounds, and are therefore better able to weather the income drop. While those who are state educated are more likely to still be paying off the mortgage.