A new coronavirus testing centre has opened in Rochester....
That is as silly story as the Weatherspoons positive cases.
Yet no doubt the media will still run with a story that the Government isn't preparing for Brexit despite concrete teps like getting the lorry park ready.
A very satisfying day in parliament yesterday. Majority of 77. woof. Country is so much bettter off than with the paralysis of 12 months ago. Long may it continue.
Yes, right or wrong, clever or stupid, doing anything is better than the paralysis of the remainer Parliament.
Indeed. Shooting onself in the testicles is preferable to the endless indecision about whether shooting your bollocks off is a Good or Bad idea
Voters prefer tax rises to spending cuts by 59% to 16%.
However while 57% support increasing tobacco duty and 55% back a corporation tax rise and 37% back increasing CGT or alcohol duty only 20% back increasing income tax, just 12% back increasing inheritance tax and only 9% back increasing national insurance and a tiny 7% want a fuel tax rise or VAT rise.
People hate inheritance tax, don't they? For me, this is a close psychological fit to our attachment to private schools. In both cases it goes way beyond those who pay IHT or use private schools. And for me it also explains why it is next to impossible for Labour to win power here unless they abandon any serious ambitions to fight inequality. The fact is, we value other things far higher than that. Sad face.
People spend their whole lives building up assets - it represents their life's work.
They don't want to see the whole lot confiscated by the State when they die.
They want to choose how to leave their own legacy instead.
I understand the psychology of it but find it ridiculous as an argument as it rather perversely treats the deceased as the beneficiary of the post-death disposal of assets, rather than the people getting a big cheque for doing essentially sod all.
I'm all in favour of people doing what they like with the money they've earned in their lifetime, including being generous with friends and family if that makes them happy. After they are gone and have been given a decent send off, it simply ceases to be their money - it's literally no good to them.
We don't get a say on other things that happen after we are dead - we don't get a vote for example. Why, uniquely, assets?
The reason, in truth, is that those of us with parents who have a few quid squirreled away would like our share. People who say "my old Dad should be able to leave his millions to me out of respect for him" are lying to themselves. The truth is they'd like the old boy's money when he's gone... and I don't blame them but don't elevate it to the level of high principle.
Personally, I'd treat inheritance as income in the hands of the beneficiary rather than as inheritance tax. This would encourage people to be generous in their lifetime, and spread it about to a wider group to minimise liability.
They already paid tax on it when they earned it though
Voters prefer tax rises to spending cuts by 59% to 16%.
However while 57% support increasing tobacco duty and 55% back a corporation tax rise and 37% back increasing CGT or alcohol duty only 20% back increasing income tax, just 12% back increasing inheritance tax and only 9% back increasing national insurance and a tiny 7% want a fuel tax rise or VAT rise.
People hate inheritance tax, don't they? For me, this is a close psychological fit to our attachment to private schools. In both cases it goes way beyond those who pay IHT or use private schools. And for me it also explains why it is next to impossible for Labour to win power here unless they abandon any serious ambitions to fight inequality. The fact is, we value other things far higher than that. Sad face.
People spend their whole lives building up assets - it represents their life's work.
They don't want to see the whole lot confiscated by the State when they die.
They want to choose how to leave their own legacy instead.
I understand the psychology of it but find it ridiculous as an argument as it rather perversely treats the deceased as the beneficiary of the post-death disposal of assets, rather than the people getting a big cheque for doing essentially sod all.
I'm all in favour of people doing what they like with the money they've earned in their lifetime, including being generous with friends and family if that makes them happy. After they are gone and have been given a decent send off, it simply ceases to be their money - it's literally no good to them.
We don't get a say on other things that happen after we are dead - we don't get a vote for example. Why, uniquely, assets?
The reason, in truth, is that those of us with parents who have a few quid squirreled away would like our share. People who say "my old Dad should be able to leave his millions to me out of respect for him" are lying to themselves. The truth is they'd like the old boy's money when he's gone... and I don't blame them but don't elevate it to the level of high principle.
Personally, I'd treat inheritance as income in the hands of the beneficiary rather than as inheritance tax. This would encourage people to be generous in their lifetime, and spread it about to a wider group to minimise liability.
But the psychology is everything in this debate, above all the psychology of the family: whereas the State and many lefties see death as simply the end of the individual and thus an opportunity to seize their assets, most of those individuals see their death as just an unfortunate incident in the unbroken chain of genetic and material inheritance that is their family. I know how much people love Orwell, so let's quote him out of context again: 'the weariness of the cell is the vigour of the organism'. The individual dies; their legacy, literal and metaphorical, lives on. Woe to the party that attempts to interfere with that natural human desire.
Most people don’t have to worry about IHT those that do are desperate to maintain their privileged position in society which is theirs by right.
A very satisfying day in parliament yesterday. Majority of 77. woof. Country is so much bettter off than with the paralysis of 12 months ago. Long may it continue.
Yes, right or wrong, clever or stupid, doing anything is better than the paralysis of the remainer Parliament.
Indeed. Shooting onself in the testicles is preferable to the endless indecision about whether shooting your bollocks off is a Good or Bad idea
Not quite the analogy I would use, but colourful, I'll give you that.
Voters prefer tax rises to spending cuts by 59% to 16%.
However while 57% support increasing tobacco duty and 55% back a corporation tax rise and 37% back increasing CGT or alcohol duty only 20% back increasing income tax, just 12% back increasing inheritance tax and only 9% back increasing national insurance and a tiny 7% want a fuel tax rise or VAT rise.
People hate inheritance tax, don't they? For me, this is a close psychological fit to our attachment to private schools. In both cases it goes way beyond those who pay IHT or use private schools. And for me it also explains why it is next to impossible for Labour to win power here unless they abandon any serious ambitions to fight inequality. The fact is, we value other things far higher than that. Sad face.
People spend their whole lives building up assets - it represents their life's work.
They don't want to see the whole lot confiscated by the State when they die.
They want to choose how to leave their own legacy instead.
Nevertheless a world where everyone started off without any financial inheritance would probably be a better one.
No it would be a world where all our assets we worked for were returned to the state on death
As I was saying. Making possible a more true meritocracy
No, meritocracy in reality just mainly reflects inherited IQ, it just means an expanded state and less private wealth
Utter rubbish. You can have a high IQ and yet still be extremely lazy.
To be a doctor, lawyer, software engineer ie the highest paid jobs, you need a high IQ.
Apparently one of the problems with testing resource is students going back to uni, obviously an unpredictable situation.
Following the incredibly unexpected increase in demand when pupils returned to school and caught the sniffles. Who could possibly have foreseen that?
I should of made it clear that they were working on the provision and processing of tests not just requiring them.
Certainly in the UK the problem seems to be at the processing of test point in the labs. Many of the testing centres seem to be sitting relatively idle but there is still a back log in results. Increasing that processing capacity will allow more use to be made of the testing centres already available. As you say failing to address that when carrying out policies that were inevitably going to greatly increase the demand for tests was sub-optimal.
Good article on an important issue. Considering how much governments are paying for vaccine development, why is information about them restricted to the @Charles amongst us ?
Vaccine Transparency https://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2020/09/14/vaccine-transparency ...I suppose as drug discovery researcher I am a small member of that community of experts, so let me add my voice. We are indeed entitled to know more. I realize that Pfizer and BioNTech have deliberately chosen to fund all their own work without any help from the “Warp Speed” initiative, but plenty of others have taken such funding. And even in Pfizer’s case, the government is going to be one of the largest customers for any vaccine that emerges from their work, and it is obviously in the public interest that people have confidence in such a vaccine and in its development process and regulatory approval...
Voters prefer tax rises to spending cuts by 59% to 16%.
However while 57% support increasing tobacco duty and 55% back a corporation tax rise and 37% back increasing CGT or alcohol duty only 20% back increasing income tax, just 12% back increasing inheritance tax and only 9% back increasing national insurance and a tiny 7% want a fuel tax rise or VAT rise.
People hate inheritance tax, don't they? For me, this is a close psychological fit to our attachment to private schools. In both cases it goes way beyond those who pay IHT or use private schools. And for me it also explains why it is next to impossible for Labour to win power here unless they abandon any serious ambitions to fight inequality. The fact is, we value other things far higher than that. Sad face.
People spend their whole lives building up assets - it represents their life's work.
They don't want to see the whole lot confiscated by the State when they die.
They want to choose how to leave their own legacy instead.
I understand the psychology of it but find it ridiculous as an argument as it rather perversely treats the deceased as the beneficiary of the post-death disposal of assets, rather than the people getting a big cheque for doing essentially sod all.
I'm all in favour of people doing what they like with the money they've earned in their lifetime, including being generous with friends and family if that makes them happy. After they are gone and have been given a decent send off, it simply ceases to be their money - it's literally no good to them.
We don't get a say on other things that happen after we are dead - we don't get a vote for example. Why, uniquely, assets?
The reason, in truth, is that those of us with parents who have a few quid squirreled away would like our share. People who say "my old Dad should be able to leave his millions to me out of respect for him" are lying to themselves. The truth is they'd like the old boy's money when he's gone... and I don't blame them but don't elevate it to the level of high principle.
Personally, I'd treat inheritance as income in the hands of the beneficiary rather than as inheritance tax. This would encourage people to be generous in their lifetime, and spread it about to a wider group to minimise liability.
But the psychology is everything in this debate, above all the psychology of the family: whereas the State and many lefties see death as simply the end of the individual and thus an opportunity to seize their assets, most of those individuals see their death as just an unfortunate incident in the unbroken chain of genetic and material inheritance that is their family. I know how much people love Orwell, so let's quote him out of context again: 'the weariness of the cell is the vigour of the organism'. The individual dies; their legacy, literal and metaphorical, lives on. Woe to the party that attempts to interfere with that natural human desire.
Now that is a much better argument. Question. Why does the chain stop at the family and genetics? You have rightly identified that "man is not an island", but survives only with the help and co-operation of others. You are accusing the left of seeing an individual in isolation (a rare take), but you then elevate their progeny to the same unique position. You are correct to emphasise the psychology, but isn't that just personal? Anyone with a large estate has relied to a great extent for their fortune on wider non-familial networks for education, health care, employment, etc, etc. Do they not deserve some recognition? Or is my family mine, and the rest other? Leaving aside when one is dead nothing is "mine". PS. Am agnostic on IHT. It is one of the things which regularly come up and on which I can appreciate both sides' arguments.
But the psychology is everything in this debate, above all the psychology of the family: whereas the State and many lefties see death as simply the end of the individual and thus an opportunity to seize their assets, most of those individuals see their death as just an unfortunate incident in the unbroken chain of genetic and material inheritance that is their family. I know how much people love Orwell, so let's quote him out of context again: 'the weariness of the cell is the vigour of the organism'. The individual dies; their legacy, literal and metaphorical, lives on. Woe to the party that attempts to interfere with that natural human desire.
It is only "everything" in this, or other, debates if your objective to get to the popular rather than right answer.
I appreciate this is a political betting website and so we focus on what is likely to be popular among the public and what isn't. That's the dominant angle here, and that's fine. But it isn't the only, or the most important, perspective.
I suppose some would also argue that popular is everything in a democracy - it's either what people want or it isn't. But I don't agree with that. If you give the majority everything they want on each individual issue in isolation, they actually get nothing they want in aggregate - mainly because pain (in the form of taxes) is almost never popular, and gain (in the form of spending) almost always is.
The thing is that the extreme unpopularity of IHT doesn't arise out of nothing - it's a tax that most people feel is unjust and immoral in their bones, and they're quite right to do so. We pay a superabundance of national and local taxes at every stage throughout our lives - what we manage to save from those depredations should be sacrosanct and untouchable. Or to put it another way, if you want heavy IHT, scrap those recurring taxes; if you want heavy recurring taxes, then scrap IHT. Can't have them both.
A very satisfying day in parliament yesterday. Majority of 77. woof. Country is so much bettter off than with the paralysis of 12 months ago. Long may it continue.
Yes, right or wrong, clever or stupid, doing anything is better than the paralysis of the remainer Parliament.
Indeed. Shooting onself in the testicles is preferable to the endless indecision about whether shooting your bollocks off is a Good or Bad idea
Not quite the analogy I would use, but colourful, I'll give you that.
Voters prefer tax rises to spending cuts by 59% to 16%.
However while 57% support increasing tobacco duty and 55% back a corporation tax rise and 37% back increasing CGT or alcohol duty only 20% back increasing income tax, just 12% back increasing inheritance tax and only 9% back increasing national insurance and a tiny 7% want a fuel tax rise or VAT rise.
People hate inheritance tax, don't they? For me, this is a close psychological fit to our attachment to private schools. In both cases it goes way beyond those who pay IHT or use private schools. And for me it also explains why it is next to impossible for Labour to win power here unless they abandon any serious ambitions to fight inequality. The fact is, we value other things far higher than that. Sad face.
People spend their whole lives building up assets - it represents their life's work.
They don't want to see the whole lot confiscated by the State when they die.
They want to choose how to leave their own legacy instead.
Nevertheless a world where everyone started off without any financial inheritance would probably be a better one.
No it would be a world where all our assets we worked for were returned to the state on death
As I was saying. Making possible a more true meritocracy
No, meritocracy in reality just mainly reflects inherited IQ, it just means an expanded state and less private wealth
Utter rubbish. You can have a high IQ and yet still be extremely lazy.
To be a doctor, lawyer, software engineer ie the highest paid jobs, you need a high IQ.
Have you met a lot of Premiership footballers?
I doubt there is a single Premiership footballer who has no talent and doesn't work extremely hard to ensure they can perform as they do. From what they eat, to how they exercise for many their whole life revolves around what is required for their career and for many it has done since they were a child.
Voters prefer tax rises to spending cuts by 59% to 16%.
However while 57% support increasing tobacco duty and 55% back a corporation tax rise and 37% back increasing CGT or alcohol duty only 20% back increasing income tax, just 12% back increasing inheritance tax and only 9% back increasing national insurance and a tiny 7% want a fuel tax rise or VAT rise.
People hate inheritance tax, don't they? For me, this is a close psychological fit to our attachment to private schools. In both cases it goes way beyond those who pay IHT or use private schools. And for me it also explains why it is next to impossible for Labour to win power here unless they abandon any serious ambitions to fight inequality. The fact is, we value other things far higher than that. Sad face.
People spend their whole lives building up assets - it represents their life's work.
They don't want to see the whole lot confiscated by the State when they die.
They want to choose how to leave their own legacy instead.
Nevertheless a world where everyone started off without any financial inheritance would probably be a better one.
No it would be a world where all our assets we worked for were returned to the state on death
As I was saying. Making possible a more true meritocracy
No, meritocracy in reality just mainly reflects inherited IQ, it just means an expanded state and less private wealth
Utter rubbish. You can have a high IQ and yet still be extremely lazy.
To be a doctor, lawyer, software engineer ie the highest paid jobs, you need a high IQ.
Even most wealthy entrepreneurs have a high IQ.
Plenty of cleaners work hard, does not mean they are rich.
Many cleaners work hard and most deserve to be paid better for a job that in many cases is very necessary. The problem is supply ad demand. It is easy to become a cleaner so the supply outstrips demand keeping wages low.
Voters prefer tax rises to spending cuts by 59% to 16%.
However while 57% support increasing tobacco duty and 55% back a corporation tax rise and 37% back increasing CGT or alcohol duty only 20% back increasing income tax, just 12% back increasing inheritance tax and only 9% back increasing national insurance and a tiny 7% want a fuel tax rise or VAT rise.
People hate inheritance tax, don't they? For me, this is a close psychological fit to our attachment to private schools. In both cases it goes way beyond those who pay IHT or use private schools. And for me it also explains why it is next to impossible for Labour to win power here unless they abandon any serious ambitions to fight inequality. The fact is, we value other things far higher than that. Sad face.
People spend their whole lives building up assets - it represents their life's work.
They don't want to see the whole lot confiscated by the State when they die.
They want to choose how to leave their own legacy instead.
Nevertheless a world where everyone started off without any financial inheritance would probably be a better one.
No it would be a world where all our assets we worked for were returned to the state on death
As I was saying. Making possible a more true meritocracy
No, meritocracy in reality just mainly reflects inherited IQ, it just means an expanded state and less private wealth
Utter rubbish. You can have a high IQ and yet still be extremely lazy.
To be a doctor, lawyer, software engineer ie the highest paid jobs, you need a high IQ.
Have you met a lot of Premiership footballers?
I doubt there is a single Premiership footballer who has no talent and doesn't work extremely hard to ensure they can perform as they do. From what they eat, to how they exercise for many their whole life revolves around what is required for their career and for many it has done since they were a child.
And what relevance does that have to @HYUFD ’s point about IQ?
Apparently one of the problems with testing resource is students going back to uni, obviously an unpredictable situation.
Following the incredibly unexpected increase in demand when pupils returned to school and caught the sniffles. Who could possibly have foreseen that?
Our university apparently has dedicated testing capacity through facilities at the local hospital that we helped set up (donated/loaned the kit and did the training, I believe). I don't know how much capacity or whether we get guaranteed priority access, but the senior management in charge seem fairly relaxed that testing capacity is not going to be a problem (they're far less relaxed about other logistical issues, so I don't think they're just underestimating the problems).
Apparently one of the problems with testing resource is students going back to uni, obviously an unpredictable situation.
Following the incredibly unexpected increase in demand when pupils returned to school and caught the sniffles. Who could possibly have foreseen that?
I should of made it clear that they were working on the provision and processing of tests not just requiring them.
The techniques for pooled processing of tests have been known for many months now. Why someone didn’t think to implement this for clearly defined groups like... school classes or year groups, to take a random example, is beyond me.
But the psychology is everything in this debate, above all the psychology of the family: whereas the State and many lefties see death as simply the end of the individual and thus an opportunity to seize their assets, most of those individuals see their death as just an unfortunate incident in the unbroken chain of genetic and material inheritance that is their family. I know how much people love Orwell, so let's quote him out of context again: 'the weariness of the cell is the vigour of the organism'. The individual dies; their legacy, literal and metaphorical, lives on. Woe to the party that attempts to interfere with that natural human desire.
It is only "everything" in this, or other, debates if your objective to get to the popular rather than right answer.
I appreciate this is a political betting website and so we focus on what is likely to be popular among the public and what isn't. That's the dominant angle here, and that's fine. But it isn't the only, or the most important, perspective.
I suppose some would also argue that popular is everything in a democracy - it's either what people want or it isn't. But I don't agree with that. If you give the majority everything they want on each individual issue in isolation, they actually get nothing they want in aggregate - mainly because pain (in the form of taxes) is almost never popular, and gain (in the form of spending) almost always is.
It explains why most of us on here aren't politicians.
As on here think-tanks and universities are full of bright intelligent people who think up ideas that work well in theory but not in practice.
“ Well the many hands began to scan around for the next plateau Some said it was Greenland and some said Mexico Some decided it was nowhere except for where they stood But those were all just guesses, wouldn't help you if they could”
Russia opens the door to sell its vaccine to Saudi Arabia. The fund that has promoted the Russian vaccine, the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF), has signed a memorandum of understanding with the Saudi pharmaceutical company Saudi Chemical Holding Company so that it can process the registration and clinical studies necessary to distribute Sputnik before the Saudi authorities. V in the Arab country, reports the Al Arabiya television network. 2:29 PM Trump says there could be a vaccine "in weeks." US President Donald Trump has said on Fox that a COVID-19 vaccine could be available "in a matter of weeks." However, he assures that he is not pressing for it before the presidential elections on November 3. "I am not doing it for political reasons. I want there to be a vaccine quickly," he said.
But the psychology is everything in this debate, above all the psychology of the family: whereas the State and many lefties see death as simply the end of the individual and thus an opportunity to seize their assets, most of those individuals see their death as just an unfortunate incident in the unbroken chain of genetic and material inheritance that is their family. I know how much people love Orwell, so let's quote him out of context again: 'the weariness of the cell is the vigour of the organism'. The individual dies; their legacy, literal and metaphorical, lives on. Woe to the party that attempts to interfere with that natural human desire.
It is only "everything" in this, or other, debates if your objective to get to the popular rather than right answer.
I appreciate this is a political betting website and so we focus on what is likely to be popular among the public and what isn't. That's the dominant angle here, and that's fine. But it isn't the only, or the most important, perspective.
I suppose some would also argue that popular is everything in a democracy - it's either what people want or it isn't. But I don't agree with that. If you give the majority everything they want on each individual issue in isolation, they actually get nothing they want in aggregate - mainly because pain (in the form of taxes) is almost never popular, and gain (in the form of spending) almost always is.
The thing is that the extreme unpopularity of IHT doesn't arise out of nothing - it's a tax that most people feel is unjust and immoral in their bones, and they're quite right to do so. We pay a superabundance of national and local taxes at every stage throughout our lives - what we manage to save from those depredations should be sacrosanct and untouchable. Or to put it another way, if you want heavy IHT, scrap those recurring taxes; if you want heavy recurring taxes, then scrap IHT. Can't have them both.
There are two problems with the "feeling it's unjust and immoral in their bones" argument.
One is that it's a pure appeal to emotion rather than reason. I've given the reasoned argument, as have others. Inheritance is not meaningfully a case of taxing the dead on earned income, because they are dead and beyond such things. However it is branded, the reality is it is taxing recipients on an unearned windfall. You may disagree with that "in your bones" but that isn't an argument.
The other is that the reason people "feel it in their bones" may not be wholly honourable. I can get why my parents emotionally want me to get an unearned windfall when they are dead rather than others. But they might not be right in an objective sense - I am not at all badly off. And for the beneficiaries, it's often an excuse whether they admit it to themselves or not. It's very easy to pretend to myself, as I bank the cheque, that I am honouring the dead in a way that is good and decent and right... so I feel good about myself AND have a massively expanded bank balance, which is a double win.
But the psychology is everything in this debate, above all the psychology of the family: whereas the State and many lefties see death as simply the end of the individual and thus an opportunity to seize their assets, most of those individuals see their death as just an unfortunate incident in the unbroken chain of genetic and material inheritance that is their family. I know how much people love Orwell, so let's quote him out of context again: 'the weariness of the cell is the vigour of the organism'. The individual dies; their legacy, literal and metaphorical, lives on. Woe to the party that attempts to interfere with that natural human desire.
It is only "everything" in this, or other, debates if your objective to get to the popular rather than right answer.
I appreciate this is a political betting website and so we focus on what is likely to be popular among the public and what isn't. That's the dominant angle here, and that's fine. But it isn't the only, or the most important, perspective.
I suppose some would also argue that popular is everything in a democracy - it's either what people want or it isn't. But I don't agree with that. If you give the majority everything they want on each individual issue in isolation, they actually get nothing they want in aggregate - mainly because pain (in the form of taxes) is almost never popular, and gain (in the form of spending) almost always is.
The thing is that the extreme unpopularity of IHT doesn't arise out of nothing - it's a tax that most people feel is unjust and immoral in their bones, and they're quite right to do so. We pay a superabundance of national and local taxes at every stage throughout our lives - what we manage to save from those depredations should be sacrosanct and untouchable. Or to put it another way, if you want heavy IHT, scrap those recurring taxes; if you want heavy recurring taxes, then scrap IHT. Can't have them both.
Or, to turn it round the other way, you are taxed on most income, earned or unearned, so why should income left to you be any different?
If you run a consumer facing business, your income is (a share of) the money people have earned and paid tax on already, but you are still expected to pay tax on your profits. You get taxed on the money people give to you, even though they already paid tax on it. Why should it be different if someone leaves you money?
Apparently one of the problems with testing resource is students going back to uni, obviously an unpredictable situation.
Following the incredibly unexpected increase in demand when pupils returned to school and caught the sniffles. Who could possibly have foreseen that?
Our university apparently has dedicated testing capacity through facilities at the local hospital that we helped set up (donated/loaned the kit and did the training, I believe). I don't know how much capacity or whether we get guaranteed priority access, but the senior management in charge seem fairly relaxed that testing capacity is not going to be a problem (they're far less relaxed about other logistical issues, so I don't think they're just underestimating the problems).
Voters prefer tax rises to spending cuts by 59% to 16%.
However while 57% support increasing tobacco duty and 55% back a corporation tax rise and 37% back increasing CGT or alcohol duty only 20% back increasing income tax, just 12% back increasing inheritance tax and only 9% back increasing national insurance and a tiny 7% want a fuel tax rise or VAT rise.
People hate inheritance tax, don't they? For me, this is a close psychological fit to our attachment to private schools. In both cases it goes way beyond those who pay IHT or use private schools. And for me it also explains why it is next to impossible for Labour to win power here unless they abandon any serious ambitions to fight inequality. The fact is, we value other things far higher than that. Sad face.
People spend their whole lives building up assets - it represents their life's work.
They don't want to see the whole lot confiscated by the State when they die.
They want to choose how to leave their own legacy instead.
I understand the psychology of it but find it ridiculous as an argument as it rather perversely treats the deceased as the beneficiary of the post-death disposal of assets, rather than the people getting a big cheque for doing essentially sod all.
I'm all in favour of people doing what they like with the money they've earned in their lifetime, including being generous with friends and family if that makes them happy. After they are gone and have been given a decent send off, it simply ceases to be their money - it's literally no good to them.
We don't get a say on other things that happen after we are dead - we don't get a vote for example. Why, uniquely, assets?
The reason, in truth, is that those of us with parents who have a few quid squirreled away would like our share. People who say "my old Dad should be able to leave his millions to me out of respect for him" are lying to themselves. The truth is they'd like the old boy's money when he's gone... and I don't blame them but don't elevate it to the level of high principle.
Personally, I'd treat inheritance as income in the hands of the beneficiary rather than as inheritance tax. This would encourage people to be generous in their lifetime, and spread it about to a wider group to minimise liability.
But the psychology is everything in this debate, above all the psychology of the family: whereas the State and many lefties see death as simply the end of the individual and thus an opportunity to seize their assets, most of those individuals see their death as just an unfortunate incident in the unbroken chain of genetic and material inheritance that is their family. I know how much people love Orwell, so let's quote him out of context again: 'the weariness of the cell is the vigour of the organism'. The individual dies; their legacy, literal and metaphorical, lives on. Woe to the party that attempts to interfere with that natural human desire.
Now that is a much better argument. Question. Why does the chain stop at the family and genetics? You have rightly identified that "man is not an island", but survives only with the help and co-operation of others. You are accusing the left of seeing an individual in isolation (a rare take), but you then elevate their progeny to the same unique position. You are correct to emphasise the psychology, but isn't that just personal? Anyone with a large estate has relied to a great extent for their fortune on wider non-familial networks for education, health care, employment, etc, etc. Do they not deserve some recognition? Or is my family mine, and the rest other? Leaving aside when one is dead nothing is "mine". PS. Am agnostic on IHT. It is one of the things which regularly come up and on which I can appreciate both sides' arguments.
'Why does the chain stop at the family and genetics?'
The blessed Margaret would say that it's because there is nothing beyond them - there are individual men and women and there are families. I would instead make a distinction between those recurring taxes paid throughout our lives, which we can assign as the due paid to those 'non-familial networks' you mention, i.e. wider society. But the lump sum that is left over after that due has been paid, belongs, in the view of most, to the family unit alone.
And this is indeed a rare case in which the left actually indentifies the individual as a socio-economic unit worth taking into account - but, to their discredit, they do so only to take advantage of them, and at a time that many resent and find distasteful.
But the psychology is everything in this debate, above all the psychology of the family: whereas the State and many lefties see death as simply the end of the individual and thus an opportunity to seize their assets, most of those individuals see their death as just an unfortunate incident in the unbroken chain of genetic and material inheritance that is their family. I know how much people love Orwell, so let's quote him out of context again: 'the weariness of the cell is the vigour of the organism'. The individual dies; their legacy, literal and metaphorical, lives on. Woe to the party that attempts to interfere with that natural human desire.
It is only "everything" in this, or other, debates if your objective to get to the popular rather than right answer.
I appreciate this is a political betting website and so we focus on what is likely to be popular among the public and what isn't. That's the dominant angle here, and that's fine. But it isn't the only, or the most important, perspective.
I suppose some would also argue that popular is everything in a democracy - it's either what people want or it isn't. But I don't agree with that. If you give the majority everything they want on each individual issue in isolation, they actually get nothing they want in aggregate - mainly because pain (in the form of taxes) is almost never popular, and gain (in the form of spending) almost always is.
It explains why most of us on here aren't politicians.
As on here think-tanks and universities are full of bright intelligent people who think up ideas that work well in theory but not in practice.
It's not really a question of what would "work" in this case. Inheritance tax works, and taxing in the hands of the recipient would work. They are not popular things to tinker with, but that's a different point.
I actually believe think tanks are full of people thinking up ideas that would work well in practice, but wouldn't provide sufficient real benefit to be worth burning political capital on.
Politicians have to take a view on whether something is right in principle, would work in practice, and is worth it in terms of political impact. Some - and Johnson is a good example - think exclusively of the third as they have little interest in either principle or detail. Others - Corbyn? - think only of the first. Rare to have good coverage of all three.
Apparently one of the problems with testing resource is students going back to uni, obviously an unpredictable situation.
Following the incredibly unexpected increase in demand when pupils returned to school and caught the sniffles. Who could possibly have foreseen that?
Our university apparently has dedicated testing capacity through facilities at the local hospital that we helped set up (donated/loaned the kit and did the training, I believe). I don't know how much capacity or whether we get guaranteed priority access, but the senior management in charge seem fairly relaxed that testing capacity is not going to be a problem (they're far less relaxed about other logistical issues, so I don't think they're just underestimating the problems).
Voters prefer tax rises to spending cuts by 59% to 16%.
However while 57% support increasing tobacco duty and 55% back a corporation tax rise and 37% back increasing CGT or alcohol duty only 20% back increasing income tax, just 12% back increasing inheritance tax and only 9% back increasing national insurance and a tiny 7% want a fuel tax rise or VAT rise.
People hate inheritance tax, don't they? For me, this is a close psychological fit to our attachment to private schools. In both cases it goes way beyond those who pay IHT or use private schools. And for me it also explains why it is next to impossible for Labour to win power here unless they abandon any serious ambitions to fight inequality. The fact is, we value other things far higher than that. Sad face.
People spend their whole lives building up assets - it represents their life's work.
They don't want to see the whole lot confiscated by the State when they die.
They want to choose how to leave their own legacy instead.
I understand the psychology of it but find it ridiculous as an argument as it rather perversely treats the deceased as the beneficiary of the post-death disposal of assets, rather than the people getting a big cheque for doing essentially sod all.
I'm all in favour of people doing what they like with the money they've earned in their lifetime, including being generous with friends and family if that makes them happy. After they are gone and have been given a decent send off, it simply ceases to be their money - it's literally no good to them.
We don't get a say on other things that happen after we are dead - we don't get a vote for example. Why, uniquely, assets?
The reason, in truth, is that those of us with parents who have a few quid squirreled away would like our share. People who say "my old Dad should be able to leave his millions to me out of respect for him" are lying to themselves. The truth is they'd like the old boy's money when he's gone... and I don't blame them but don't elevate it to the level of high principle.
Personally, I'd treat inheritance as income in the hands of the beneficiary rather than as inheritance tax. This would encourage people to be generous in their lifetime, and spread it about to a wider group to minimise liability.
But the psychology is everything in this debate, above all the psychology of the family: whereas the State and many lefties see death as simply the end of the individual and thus an opportunity to seize their assets, most of those individuals see their death as just an unfortunate incident in the unbroken chain of genetic and material inheritance that is their family. I know how much people love Orwell, so let's quote him out of context again: 'the weariness of the cell is the vigour of the organism'. The individual dies; their legacy, literal and metaphorical, lives on. Woe to the party that attempts to interfere with that natural human desire.
Seeing one's life as a link in the "unbroken chain of genetic and material inheritance" ignores the influence on life provided by others, who do not share the same genes. This might be a primary school teacher, a doctor, a dustman, your nanny or butler. Some call this society, but as some people have a problem with that word, you could also call them your acquaintances.
The idea that most people are out to benefit their genes and only their genes is a very selfish way of looking at life.
I also see the comment down thread "People spend their whole lives building up assets - it represents their life's work."
Money and material assets is a sad way of evaluating a person's life. Do people really want their loved ones to remember them in terms of their assets?
Good article on an important issue. Considering how much governments are paying for vaccine development, why is information about them restricted to the @Charles amongst us ?
Vaccine Transparency https://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2020/09/14/vaccine-transparency ...I suppose as drug discovery researcher I am a small member of that community of experts, so let me add my voice. We are indeed entitled to know more. I realize that Pfizer and BioNTech have deliberately chosen to fund all their own work without any help from the “Warp Speed” initiative, but plenty of others have taken such funding. And even in Pfizer’s case, the government is going to be one of the largest customers for any vaccine that emerges from their work, and it is obviously in the public interest that people have confidence in such a vaccine and in its development process and regulatory approval...
Voters prefer tax rises to spending cuts by 59% to 16%.
However while 57% support increasing tobacco duty and 55% back a corporation tax rise and 37% back increasing CGT or alcohol duty only 20% back increasing income tax, just 12% back increasing inheritance tax and only 9% back increasing national insurance and a tiny 7% want a fuel tax rise or VAT rise.
People hate inheritance tax, don't they? For me, this is a close psychological fit to our attachment to private schools. In both cases it goes way beyond those who pay IHT or use private schools. And for me it also explains why it is next to impossible for Labour to win power here unless they abandon any serious ambitions to fight inequality. The fact is, we value other things far higher than that. Sad face.
People spend their whole lives building up assets - it represents their life's work.
They don't want to see the whole lot confiscated by the State when they die.
They want to choose how to leave their own legacy instead.
Nevertheless a world where everyone started off without any financial inheritance would probably be a better one.
No it would be a world where all our assets we worked for were returned to the state on death
As I was saying. Making possible a more true meritocracy
No, meritocracy in reality just mainly reflects inherited IQ, it just means an expanded state and less private wealth
Utter rubbish. You can have a high IQ and yet still be extremely lazy.
To be a doctor, lawyer, software engineer ie the highest paid jobs, you need a high IQ.
Have you met a lot of Premiership footballers?
Having a high skill in football is also a form of intelligence and as the likes of Jamie Redknapp or Frank Lampard show in some cases inherited too
Voters prefer tax rises to spending cuts by 59% to 16%.
However while 57% support increasing tobacco duty and 55% back a corporation tax rise and 37% back increasing CGT or alcohol duty only 20% back increasing income tax, just 12% back increasing inheritance tax and only 9% back increasing national insurance and a tiny 7% want a fuel tax rise or VAT rise.
People hate inheritance tax, don't they? For me, this is a close psychological fit to our attachment to private schools. In both cases it goes way beyond those who pay IHT or use private schools. And for me it also explains why it is next to impossible for Labour to win power here unless they abandon any serious ambitions to fight inequality. The fact is, we value other things far higher than that. Sad face.
People spend their whole lives building up assets - it represents their life's work.
They don't want to see the whole lot confiscated by the State when they die.
They want to choose how to leave their own legacy instead.
Nevertheless a world where everyone started off without any financial inheritance would probably be a better one.
No it would be a world where all our assets we worked for were returned to the state on death
As I was saying. Making possible a more true meritocracy
No, meritocracy in reality just mainly reflects inherited IQ, it just means an expanded state and less private wealth
Utter rubbish. You can have a high IQ and yet still be extremely lazy.
To be a doctor, lawyer, software engineer ie the highest paid jobs, you need a high IQ.
Have you met a lot of Premiership footballers?
Having a high skill in football is also a form of intelligence and as the likes of Jamie Redknapp or Frank Lampard show in some cases inherited too
Yeah, but it is not “IQ”, which is what you were talking about.
Apparently one of the problems with testing resource is students going back to uni, obviously an unpredictable situation.
Following the incredibly unexpected increase in demand when pupils returned to school and caught the sniffles. Who could possibly have foreseen that?
Our university apparently has dedicated testing capacity through facilities at the local hospital that we helped set up (donated/loaned the kit and did the training, I believe). I don't know how much capacity or whether we get guaranteed priority access, but the senior management in charge seem fairly relaxed that testing capacity is not going to be a problem (they're far less relaxed about other logistical issues, so I don't think they're just underestimating the problems).
Apparently one of the problems with testing resource is students going back to uni, obviously an unpredictable situation.
Following the incredibly unexpected increase in demand when pupils returned to school and caught the sniffles. Who could possibly have foreseen that?
Our university apparently has dedicated testing capacity through facilities at the local hospital that we helped set up (donated/loaned the kit and did the training, I believe). I don't know how much capacity or whether we get guaranteed priority access, but the senior management in charge seem fairly relaxed that testing capacity is not going to be a problem (they're far less relaxed about other logistical issues, so I don't think they're just underestimating the problems).
Voters prefer tax rises to spending cuts by 59% to 16%.
However while 57% support increasing tobacco duty and 55% back a corporation tax rise and 37% back increasing CGT or alcohol duty only 20% back increasing income tax, just 12% back increasing inheritance tax and only 9% back increasing national insurance and a tiny 7% want a fuel tax rise or VAT rise.
People hate inheritance tax, don't they? For me, this is a close psychological fit to our attachment to private schools. In both cases it goes way beyond those who pay IHT or use private schools. And for me it also explains why it is next to impossible for Labour to win power here unless they abandon any serious ambitions to fight inequality. The fact is, we value other things far higher than that. Sad face.
People spend their whole lives building up assets - it represents their life's work.
They don't want to see the whole lot confiscated by the State when they die.
They want to choose how to leave their own legacy instead.
I understand the psychology of it but find it ridiculous as an argument as it rather perversely treats the deceased as the beneficiary of the post-death disposal of assets, rather than the people getting a big cheque for doing essentially sod all.
I'm all in favour of people doing what they like with the money they've earned in their lifetime, including being generous with friends and family if that makes them happy. After they are gone and have been given a decent send off, it simply ceases to be their money - it's literally no good to them.
We don't get a say on other things that happen after we are dead - we don't get a vote for example. Why, uniquely, assets?
The reason, in truth, is that those of us with parents who have a few quid squirreled away would like our share. People who say "my old Dad should be able to leave his millions to me out of respect for him" are lying to themselves. The truth is they'd like the old boy's money when he's gone... and I don't blame them but don't elevate it to the level of high principle.
Personally, I'd treat inheritance as income in the hands of the beneficiary rather than as inheritance tax. This would encourage people to be generous in their lifetime, and spread it about to a wider group to minimise liability.
But the psychology is everything in this debate, above all the psychology of the family: whereas the State and many lefties see death as simply the end of the individual and thus an opportunity to seize their assets, most of those individuals see their death as just an unfortunate incident in the unbroken chain of genetic and material inheritance that is their family. I know how much people love Orwell, so let's quote him out of context again: 'the weariness of the cell is the vigour of the organism'. The individual dies; their legacy, literal and metaphorical, lives on. Woe to the party that attempts to interfere with that natural human desire.
Seeing one's life as a link in the "unbroken chain of genetic and material inheritance" ignores the influence on life provided by others, who do not share the same genes. This might be a primary school teacher, a doctor, a dustman, your nanny or butler. Some call this society, but as some people have a problem with that word, you could also call them your acquaintances.
The idea that most people are out to benefit their genes and only their genes is a very selfish way of looking at life.
I also see the comment down thread "People spend their whole lives building up assets - it represents their life's work."
Money and material assets is a sad way of evaluating a person's life. Do people really want their loved ones to remember them in terms of their assets?
Worth noting too that less than 5% of deaths result in any inheritance tax. The vast majority of estates fall below the threshold.
Apparently one of the problems with testing resource is students going back to uni, obviously an unpredictable situation.
Following the incredibly unexpected increase in demand when pupils returned to school and caught the sniffles. Who could possibly have foreseen that?
Our university apparently has dedicated testing capacity through facilities at the local hospital that we helped set up (donated/loaned the kit and did the training, I believe). I don't know how much capacity or whether we get guaranteed priority access, but the senior management in charge seem fairly relaxed that testing capacity is not going to be a problem (they're far less relaxed about other logistical issues, so I don't think they're just underestimating the problems).
Good article on an important issue. Considering how much governments are paying for vaccine development, why is information about them restricted to the @Charles amongst us ?
Vaccine Transparency https://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2020/09/14/vaccine-transparency ...I suppose as drug discovery researcher I am a small member of that community of experts, so let me add my voice. We are indeed entitled to know more. I realize that Pfizer and BioNTech have deliberately chosen to fund all their own work without any help from the “Warp Speed” initiative, but plenty of others have taken such funding. And even in Pfizer’s case, the government is going to be one of the largest customers for any vaccine that emerges from their work, and it is obviously in the public interest that people have confidence in such a vaccine and in its development process and regulatory approval...
It's bollocks by AntiVaccers - even if you were to explain why things were paused (and there is zero need) the time scales required to document the reason are far longer than the time between the pause, the restart and now.
On the US election, I've been looking for a safety bet that will come in, even if Trump does a bit better than expected. I think I've found it.
Lay Republicans to win 30 or more states @3.65 on betfair. Trump won 30 exactly last time.
He could certainly win the election with fewer than 30.
But state polling would have to be off this time in a wide variety of states for him to keep all the ones from last time.
In a sense, it's a reverse accumulator bet on Trump winning AZ, FL, TX, NC, GA, MI, OH, WI & PA. And it yields a 27% return. DYOR (or preferably correct mine if it's wrong!).
Good to see some interesting betting ideas such as this, which are unfortunately all too rare on PB.com these days. Of the seven states to which you refer, Trump appears likely to win four, i.e. TX (Odds 1.29), NC (1.84) GA (1.42) and OH (1.5). FL looks like a coin toss at 2.02, so you are really pinning your hopes on him losing either AZ (2.38) and/or more likely MI (3.2). At these odds, especially taken together your lay odds of 3.65 looks like sound value, especially if, as I did, you ask for and obtain odds of 3.45, thereby increasing the return to 29% or 27.5 after BtfrEx's 5% commission.
The messaging missing from mask wearing is a) it isnt an invincibility shield, b) how to wear it properly and c) not to keep bloody taking off and on again.
Basically it's impossible to moderate Social media sites without completely change how they work (and that won't work as others would spring up in their place).
Sad news is you are going to have to live with it until people get fed up with social media.
Voters prefer tax rises to spending cuts by 59% to 16%.
However while 57% support increasing tobacco duty and 55% back a corporation tax rise and 37% back increasing CGT or alcohol duty only 20% back increasing income tax, just 12% back increasing inheritance tax and only 9% back increasing national insurance and a tiny 7% want a fuel tax rise or VAT rise.
People hate inheritance tax, don't they? For me, this is a close psychological fit to our attachment to private schools. In both cases it goes way beyond those who pay IHT or use private schools. And for me it also explains why it is next to impossible for Labour to win power here unless they abandon any serious ambitions to fight inequality. The fact is, we value other things far higher than that. Sad face.
People spend their whole lives building up assets - it represents their life's work.
They don't want to see the whole lot confiscated by the State when they die.
They want to choose how to leave their own legacy instead.
I understand the psychology of it but find it ridiculous as an argument as it rather perversely treats the deceased as the beneficiary of the post-death disposal of assets, rather than the people getting a big cheque for doing essentially sod all.
I'm all in favour of people doing what they like with the money they've earned in their lifetime, including being generous with friends and family if that makes them happy. After they are gone and have been given a decent send off, it simply ceases to be their money - it's literally no good to them.
We don't get a say on other things that happen after we are dead - we don't get a vote for example. Why, uniquely, assets?
The reason, in truth, is that those of us with parents who have a few quid squirreled away would like our share. People who say "my old Dad should be able to leave his millions to me out of respect for him" are lying to themselves. The truth is they'd like the old boy's money when he's gone... and I don't blame them but don't elevate it to the level of high principle.
Personally, I'd treat inheritance as income in the hands of the beneficiary rather than as inheritance tax. This would encourage people to be generous in their lifetime, and spread it about to a wider group to minimise liability.
But the psychology is everything in this debate, above all the psychology of the family: whereas the State and many lefties see death as simply the end of the individual and thus an opportunity to seize their assets, most of those individuals see their death as just an unfortunate incident in the unbroken chain of genetic and material inheritance that is their family. I know how much people love Orwell, so let's quote him out of context again: 'the weariness of the cell is the vigour of the organism'. The individual dies; their legacy, literal and metaphorical, lives on. Woe to the party that attempts to interfere with that natural human desire.
Seeing one's life as a link in the "unbroken chain of genetic and material inheritance" ignores the influence on life provided by others, who do not share the same genes. This might be a primary school teacher, a doctor, a dustman, your nanny or butler. Some call this society, but as some people have a problem with that word, you could also call them your acquaintances.
The idea that most people are out to benefit their genes and only their genes is a very selfish way of looking at life.
I also see the comment down thread "People spend their whole lives building up assets - it represents their life's work."
Money and material assets is a sad way of evaluating a person's life. Do people really want their loved ones to remember them in terms of their assets?
On the first point, see my other answer about recurring taxes - which are huge - being a perfectly sufficient contribution to society already.
'Do people really want their loved ones to remember them in terms of their assets?'
Would children be grateful to their departed family members for helping them to live in a nice house, giving them the freedom to follow their dreams rather than have to take the first job offered, and taking away the daily stress of not knowing if they can pay their bills? Of course they would!
Come on: assets are everything - they are freedom, and they are power. That's why the Left, the Right, and everyone in between is utterly obsessed with them.
Good article on an important issue. Considering how much governments are paying for vaccine development, why is information about them restricted to the @Charles amongst us ?
Vaccine Transparency https://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2020/09/14/vaccine-transparency ...I suppose as drug discovery researcher I am a small member of that community of experts, so let me add my voice. We are indeed entitled to know more. I realize that Pfizer and BioNTech have deliberately chosen to fund all their own work without any help from the “Warp Speed” initiative, but plenty of others have taken such funding. And even in Pfizer’s case, the government is going to be one of the largest customers for any vaccine that emerges from their work, and it is obviously in the public interest that people have confidence in such a vaccine and in its development process and regulatory approval...
It's bollocks by AntiVaccers - even if you were to explain why things were paused (and there is zero need) the time scales required to document the reason are far longer than the time between the pause, the restart and now.
Sue culture in the USA not helpful to vaccine development maybe ?
In a blow* to the treasury, my Spoons bound on Thursday group has decided its too much of a risk, and one is hosting a BBQ instead.
The only shops we visit these days are the supermarkets. We are not Eating Out to Help Out, we are not going to pubs, cinemas or coffee shops.
Why not?
Because there is a pandemic. Pubs and restaurants are known to be higher risk so we just minimised all that sort of thing and we just socialise at a distance with people. No one gets invites to come round to ours and we do not visit their place.
Voters prefer tax rises to spending cuts by 59% to 16%.
However while 57% support increasing tobacco duty and 55% back a corporation tax rise and 37% back increasing CGT or alcohol duty only 20% back increasing income tax, just 12% back increasing inheritance tax and only 9% back increasing national insurance and a tiny 7% want a fuel tax rise or VAT rise.
People hate inheritance tax, don't they? For me, this is a close psychological fit to our attachment to private schools. In both cases it goes way beyond those who pay IHT or use private schools. And for me it also explains why it is next to impossible for Labour to win power here unless they abandon any serious ambitions to fight inequality. The fact is, we value other things far higher than that. Sad face.
People spend their whole lives building up assets - it represents their life's work.
They don't want to see the whole lot confiscated by the State when they die.
They want to choose how to leave their own legacy instead.
I understand the psychology of it but find it ridiculous as an argument as it rather perversely treats the deceased as the beneficiary of the post-death disposal of assets, rather than the people getting a big cheque for doing essentially sod all.
I'm all in favour of people doing what they like with the money they've earned in their lifetime, including being generous with friends and family if that makes them happy. After they are gone and have been given a decent send off, it simply ceases to be their money - it's literally no good to them.
We don't get a say on other things that happen after we are dead - we don't get a vote for example. Why, uniquely, assets?
The reason, in truth, is that those of us with parents who have a few quid squirreled away would like our share. People who say "my old Dad should be able to leave his millions to me out of respect for him" are lying to themselves. The truth is they'd like the old boy's money when he's gone... and I don't blame them but don't elevate it to the level of high principle.
Personally, I'd treat inheritance as income in the hands of the beneficiary rather than as inheritance tax. This would encourage people to be generous in their lifetime, and spread it about to a wider group to minimise liability.
But the psychology is everything in this debate, above all the psychology of the family: whereas the State and many lefties see death as simply the end of the individual and thus an opportunity to seize their assets, most of those individuals see their death as just an unfortunate incident in the unbroken chain of genetic and material inheritance that is their family. I know how much people love Orwell, so let's quote him out of context again: 'the weariness of the cell is the vigour of the organism'. The individual dies; their legacy, literal and metaphorical, lives on. Woe to the party that attempts to interfere with that natural human desire.
Seeing one's life as a link in the "unbroken chain of genetic and material inheritance" ignores the influence on life provided by others, who do not share the same genes. This might be a primary school teacher, a doctor, a dustman, your nanny or butler. Some call this society, but as some people have a problem with that word, you could also call them your acquaintances.
The idea that most people are out to benefit their genes and only their genes is a very selfish way of looking at life.
I also see the comment down thread "People spend their whole lives building up assets - it represents their life's work."
Money and material assets is a sad way of evaluating a person's life. Do people really want their loved ones to remember them in terms of their assets?
Worth noting too that less than 5% of deaths result in any inheritance tax. The vast majority of estates fall below the threshold.
Only as Osborne raised the inheritance tax threshold to £1 million
Good article on an important issue. Considering how much governments are paying for vaccine development, why is information about them restricted to the @Charles amongst us ?
Vaccine Transparency https://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2020/09/14/vaccine-transparency ...I suppose as drug discovery researcher I am a small member of that community of experts, so let me add my voice. We are indeed entitled to know more. I realize that Pfizer and BioNTech have deliberately chosen to fund all their own work without any help from the “Warp Speed” initiative, but plenty of others have taken such funding. And even in Pfizer’s case, the government is going to be one of the largest customers for any vaccine that emerges from their work, and it is obviously in the public interest that people have confidence in such a vaccine and in its development process and regulatory approval...
It's bollocks by AntiVaccers - even if you were to explain why things were paused (and there is zero need) the time scales required to document the reason are far longer than the time between the pause, the restart and now.
There's not a Concorde, DNA-profiling thing going here is there - the US using any excuse to discredit a British invention because they didn't get there first?
Basically it's impossible to moderate Social media sites without completely change how they work (and that won't work as others would spring up in their place).
Sad news is you are going to have to live with it until people get fed up with social media.
A long time ago I gave up on on social media being a force for good.
Voters prefer tax rises to spending cuts by 59% to 16%.
However while 57% support increasing tobacco duty and 55% back a corporation tax rise and 37% back increasing CGT or alcohol duty only 20% back increasing income tax, just 12% back increasing inheritance tax and only 9% back increasing national insurance and a tiny 7% want a fuel tax rise or VAT rise.
People hate inheritance tax, don't they? For me, this is a close psychological fit to our attachment to private schools. In both cases it goes way beyond those who pay IHT or use private schools. And for me it also explains why it is next to impossible for Labour to win power here unless they abandon any serious ambitions to fight inequality. The fact is, we value other things far higher than that. Sad face.
People spend their whole lives building up assets - it represents their life's work.
They don't want to see the whole lot confiscated by the State when they die.
They want to choose how to leave their own legacy instead.
I understand the psychology of it but find it ridiculous as an argument as it rather perversely treats the deceased as the beneficiary of the post-death disposal of assets, rather than the people getting a big cheque for doing essentially sod all.
I'm all in favour of people doing what they like with the money they've earned in their lifetime, including being generous with friends and family if that makes them happy. After they are gone and have been given a decent send off, it simply ceases to be their money - it's literally no good to them.
We don't get a say on other things that happen after we are dead - we don't get a vote for example. Why, uniquely, assets?
The reason, in truth, is that those of us with parents who have a few quid squirreled away would like our share. People who say "my old Dad should be able to leave his millions to me out of respect for him" are lying to themselves. The truth is they'd like the old boy's money when he's gone... and I don't blame them but don't elevate it to the level of high principle.
Personally, I'd treat inheritance as income in the hands of the beneficiary rather than as inheritance tax. This would encourage people to be generous in their lifetime, and spread it about to a wider group to minimise liability.
But the psychology is everything in this debate, above all the psychology of the family: whereas the State and many lefties see death as simply the end of the individual and thus an opportunity to seize their assets, most of those individuals see their death as just an unfortunate incident in the unbroken chain of genetic and material inheritance that is their family. I know how much people love Orwell, so let's quote him out of context again: 'the weariness of the cell is the vigour of the organism'. The individual dies; their legacy, literal and metaphorical, lives on. Woe to the party that attempts to interfere with that natural human desire.
Seeing one's life as a link in the "unbroken chain of genetic and material inheritance" ignores the influence on life provided by others, who do not share the same genes. This might be a primary school teacher, a doctor, a dustman, your nanny or butler. Some call this society, but as some people have a problem with that word, you could also call them your acquaintances.
The idea that most people are out to benefit their genes and only their genes is a very selfish way of looking at life.
I also see the comment down thread "People spend their whole lives building up assets - it represents their life's work."
Money and material assets is a sad way of evaluating a person's life. Do people really want their loved ones to remember them in terms of their assets?
On the first point, see my other answer about recurring taxes - which are huge - being a perfectly sufficient contribution to society already.
'Do people really want their loved ones to remember them in terms of their assets?'
Would children be grateful to their departed family members for helping them to live in a nice house, giving them the freedom to follow their dreams rather than have to take the first job offered, and taking away the daily stress of not knowing if they can pay their bills? Of course they would!
Come on: assets are everything. That's why the Left, the Right, and everyone in between is utterly obsessed with them.
On your first point I did not mention taxes. I was referring to your comment about 'seeing one's life as a link in the "unbroken chain of genetic and material inheritance"'
On your second point. Most children would much rather live a life in a family that cares for each other rather than be bequeathed a large house.
Voters prefer tax rises to spending cuts by 59% to 16%.
However while 57% support increasing tobacco duty and 55% back a corporation tax rise and 37% back increasing CGT or alcohol duty only 20% back increasing income tax, just 12% back increasing inheritance tax and only 9% back increasing national insurance and a tiny 7% want a fuel tax rise or VAT rise.
People hate inheritance tax, don't they? For me, this is a close psychological fit to our attachment to private schools. In both cases it goes way beyond those who pay IHT or use private schools. And for me it also explains why it is next to impossible for Labour to win power here unless they abandon any serious ambitions to fight inequality. The fact is, we value other things far higher than that. Sad face.
People spend their whole lives building up assets - it represents their life's work.
They don't want to see the whole lot confiscated by the State when they die.
They want to choose how to leave their own legacy instead.
I understand the psychology of it but find it ridiculous as an argument as it rather perversely treats the deceased as the beneficiary of the post-death disposal of assets, rather than the people getting a big cheque for doing essentially sod all.
I'm all in favour of people doing what they like with the money they've earned in their lifetime, including being generous with friends and family if that makes them happy. After they are gone and have been given a decent send off, it simply ceases to be their money - it's literally no good to them.
We don't get a say on other things that happen after we are dead - we don't get a vote for example. Why, uniquely, assets?
The reason, in truth, is that those of us with parents who have a few quid squirreled away would like our share. People who say "my old Dad should be able to leave his millions to me out of respect for him" are lying to themselves. The truth is they'd like the old boy's money when he's gone... and I don't blame them but don't elevate it to the level of high principle.
Personally, I'd treat inheritance as income in the hands of the beneficiary rather than as inheritance tax. This would encourage people to be generous in their lifetime, and spread it about to a wider group to minimise liability.
But the psychology is everything in this debate, above all the psychology of the family: whereas the State and many lefties see death as simply the end of the individual and thus an opportunity to seize their assets, most of those individuals see their death as just an unfortunate incident in the unbroken chain of genetic and material inheritance that is their family. I know how much people love Orwell, so let's quote him out of context again: 'the weariness of the cell is the vigour of the organism'. The individual dies; their legacy, literal and metaphorical, lives on. Woe to the party that attempts to interfere with that natural human desire.
Seeing one's life as a link in the "unbroken chain of genetic and material inheritance" ignores the influence on life provided by others, who do not share the same genes. This might be a primary school teacher, a doctor, a dustman, your nanny or butler. Some call this society, but as some people have a problem with that word, you could also call them your acquaintances.
The idea that most people are out to benefit their genes and only their genes is a very selfish way of looking at life.
I also see the comment down thread "People spend their whole lives building up assets - it represents their life's work."
Money and material assets is a sad way of evaluating a person's life. Do people really want their loved ones to remember them in terms of their assets?
On the first point, see my other answer about recurring taxes - which are huge - being a perfectly sufficient contribution to society already.
'Do people really want their loved ones to remember them in terms of their assets?'
Would children be grateful to their departed family members for helping them to live in a nice house, giving them the freedom to follow their dreams rather than have to take the first job offered, and taking away the daily stress of not knowing if they can pay their bills? Of course they would!
Come on: assets are everything. That's why the Left, the Right, and everyone in between is utterly obsessed with them.
BiB - That's because since 2008 none of our politicians have been brave enough to suggest that we need to stop living for today. I started work in May 2009. For my entire working life the BoE base rate has been below 1.0%. As long as we have a society built on bribing those with mortgages, nothing will change and inheritance tax will remain an incredibly emotive subject.
Voters prefer tax rises to spending cuts by 59% to 16%.
However while 57% support increasing tobacco duty and 55% back a corporation tax rise and 37% back increasing CGT or alcohol duty only 20% back increasing income tax, just 12% back increasing inheritance tax and only 9% back increasing national insurance and a tiny 7% want a fuel tax rise or VAT rise.
People hate inheritance tax, don't they? For me, this is a close psychological fit to our attachment to private schools. In both cases it goes way beyond those who pay IHT or use private schools. And for me it also explains why it is next to impossible for Labour to win power here unless they abandon any serious ambitions to fight inequality. The fact is, we value other things far higher than that. Sad face.
People spend their whole lives building up assets - it represents their life's work.
They don't want to see the whole lot confiscated by the State when they die.
They want to choose how to leave their own legacy instead.
I understand the psychology of it but find it ridiculous as an argument as it rather perversely treats the deceased as the beneficiary of the post-death disposal of assets, rather than the people getting a big cheque for doing essentially sod all.
I'm all in favour of people doing what they like with the money they've earned in their lifetime, including being generous with friends and family if that makes them happy. After they are gone and have been given a decent send off, it simply ceases to be their money - it's literally no good to them.
We don't get a say on other things that happen after we are dead - we don't get a vote for example. Why, uniquely, assets?
The reason, in truth, is that those of us with parents who have a few quid squirreled away would like our share. People who say "my old Dad should be able to leave his millions to me out of respect for him" are lying to themselves. The truth is they'd like the old boy's money when he's gone... and I don't blame them but don't elevate it to the level of high principle.
Personally, I'd treat inheritance as income in the hands of the beneficiary rather than as inheritance tax. This would encourage people to be generous in their lifetime, and spread it about to a wider group to minimise liability.
But the psychology is everything in this debate, above all the psychology of the family: whereas the State and many lefties see death as simply the end of the individual and thus an opportunity to seize their assets, most of those individuals see their death as just an unfortunate incident in the unbroken chain of genetic and material inheritance that is their family. I know how much people love Orwell, so let's quote him out of context again: 'the weariness of the cell is the vigour of the organism'. The individual dies; their legacy, literal and metaphorical, lives on. Woe to the party that attempts to interfere with that natural human desire.
A leftie like JK.Rowling can write a best-selling book series based on the idea of a mother's willingness to die for her son, and yet lefties can't grasp the visceral desire to pass on assets to one's descendants.
Bizarre. And all in the name of chasing the mirage of meritocracy.
Come on: assets are everything - they are freedom, and they are power. That's why the Left, the Right, and everyone in between is utterly obsessed with them.
If you are utterly obsessed with assets, I'm glad I do not know you personally.
Most people I know work to have a comfortable life. I do not know many people at all who are "utterly obsessed with assets".
There is however an apparent levelling off for a period beginning about 2-3 weeks after mask wearing was enforced more strongly (which is about the time lag you'd expect if it had an effect). Then yes, a recent increase - other reasons? School term starting (quick Google says 1 September for that).
Voters prefer tax rises to spending cuts by 59% to 16%.
However while 57% support increasing tobacco duty and 55% back a corporation tax rise and 37% back increasing CGT or alcohol duty only 20% back increasing income tax, just 12% back increasing inheritance tax and only 9% back increasing national insurance and a tiny 7% want a fuel tax rise or VAT rise.
People hate inheritance tax, don't they? For me, this is a close psychological fit to our attachment to private schools. In both cases it goes way beyond those who pay IHT or use private schools. And for me it also explains why it is next to impossible for Labour to win power here unless they abandon any serious ambitions to fight inequality. The fact is, we value other things far higher than that. Sad face.
People spend their whole lives building up assets - it represents their life's work.
They don't want to see the whole lot confiscated by the State when they die.
They want to choose how to leave their own legacy instead.
Nevertheless a world where everyone started off without any financial inheritance would probably be a better one.
No it would be a world where all our assets we worked for were returned to the state on death
As I was saying. Making possible a more true meritocracy
No, meritocracy in reality just mainly reflects inherited IQ, it just means an expanded state and less private wealth
Utter rubbish. You can have a high IQ and yet still be extremely lazy.
To be a doctor, lawyer, software engineer ie the highest paid jobs, you need a high IQ.
Have you met a lot of Premiership footballers?
Having a high skill in football is also a form of intelligence and as the likes of Jamie Redknapp or Frank Lampard show in some cases inherited too
Yeah, but it is not “IQ”, which is what you were talking about.
Mean IQ of US welfare recipients 92, mean IQ of the median American 100, mean IQ of US self-made millionaires 118, mean IQ of US Decamillionaires 118, mean IQ of US billionaires 133.
Voters prefer tax rises to spending cuts by 59% to 16%.
However while 57% support increasing tobacco duty and 55% back a corporation tax rise and 37% back increasing CGT or alcohol duty only 20% back increasing income tax, just 12% back increasing inheritance tax and only 9% back increasing national insurance and a tiny 7% want a fuel tax rise or VAT rise.
People hate inheritance tax, don't they? For me, this is a close psychological fit to our attachment to private schools. In both cases it goes way beyond those who pay IHT or use private schools. And for me it also explains why it is next to impossible for Labour to win power here unless they abandon any serious ambitions to fight inequality. The fact is, we value other things far higher than that. Sad face.
People spend their whole lives building up assets - it represents their life's work.
They don't want to see the whole lot confiscated by the State when they die.
They want to choose how to leave their own legacy instead.
Nevertheless a world where everyone started off without any financial inheritance would probably be a better one.
No it would be a world where all our assets we worked for were returned to the state on death
As I was saying. Making possible a more true meritocracy
No, meritocracy in reality just mainly reflects inherited IQ, it just means an expanded state and less private wealth
Utter rubbish. You can have a high IQ and yet still be extremely lazy.
To be a doctor, lawyer, software engineer ie the highest paid jobs, you need a high IQ.
Have you met a lot of Premiership footballers?
Having a high skill in football is also a form of intelligence and as the likes of Jamie Redknapp or Frank Lampard show in some cases inherited too
Yeah, but it is not “IQ”, which is what you were talking about.
Mean IQ of US welfare recipients 92, mean IQ of the median American 100, mean IQ of US self-made millionaires 118, mean IQ of US Decamillionaires 118, mean IQ of US billionaires 133.
@BluestBlue then why didn’t “the blessed Margaret” abolish all forms of IHT if it was so objectionable, or is she a pathetic “leftie”?
She slashed Labour's confiscatory IHT rate of 75%, so not too shabby. Plus she had to leave something for future Conservative Governments to finish off, didn't she?
You could argue that inheritance tax encourages selfishness. If someone knows most of their wealth is going to be taxed before they can pass it on, they'll probably spend most of it on themselves instead.
Voters prefer tax rises to spending cuts by 59% to 16%.
However while 57% support increasing tobacco duty and 55% back a corporation tax rise and 37% back increasing CGT or alcohol duty only 20% back increasing income tax, just 12% back increasing inheritance tax and only 9% back increasing national insurance and a tiny 7% want a fuel tax rise or VAT rise.
People hate inheritance tax, don't they? For me, this is a close psychological fit to our attachment to private schools. In both cases it goes way beyond those who pay IHT or use private schools. And for me it also explains why it is next to impossible for Labour to win power here unless they abandon any serious ambitions to fight inequality. The fact is, we value other things far higher than that. Sad face.
People spend their whole lives building up assets - it represents their life's work.
They don't want to see the whole lot confiscated by the State when they die.
They want to choose how to leave their own legacy instead.
I understand the psychology of it but find it ridiculous as an argument as it rather perversely treats the deceased as the beneficiary of the post-death disposal of assets, rather than the people getting a big cheque for doing essentially sod all.
I'm all in favour of people doing what they like with the money they've earned in their lifetime, including being generous with friends and family if that makes them happy. After they are gone and have been given a decent send off, it simply ceases to be their money - it's literally no good to them.
We don't get a say on other things that happen after we are dead - we don't get a vote for example. Why, uniquely, assets?
The reason, in truth, is that those of us with parents who have a few quid squirreled away would like our share. People who say "my old Dad should be able to leave his millions to me out of respect for him" are lying to themselves. The truth is they'd like the old boy's money when he's gone... and I don't blame them but don't elevate it to the level of high principle.
Personally, I'd treat inheritance as income in the hands of the beneficiary rather than as inheritance tax. This would encourage people to be generous in their lifetime, and spread it about to a wider group to minimise liability.
But the psychology is everything in this debate, above all the psychology of the family: whereas the State and many lefties see death as simply the end of the individual and thus an opportunity to seize their assets, most of those individuals see their death as just an unfortunate incident in the unbroken chain of genetic and material inheritance that is their family. I know how much people love Orwell, so let's quote him out of context again: 'the weariness of the cell is the vigour of the organism'. The individual dies; their legacy, literal and metaphorical, lives on. Woe to the party that attempts to interfere with that natural human desire.
Seeing one's life as a link in the "unbroken chain of genetic and material inheritance" ignores the influence on life provided by others, who do not share the same genes. This might be a primary school teacher, a doctor, a dustman, your nanny or butler. Some call this society, but as some people have a problem with that word, you could also call them your acquaintances.
The idea that most people are out to benefit their genes and only their genes is a very selfish way of looking at life.
I also see the comment down thread "People spend their whole lives building up assets - it represents their life's work."
Money and material assets is a sad way of evaluating a person's life. Do people really want their loved ones to remember them in terms of their assets?
Worth noting too that less than 5% of deaths result in any inheritance tax. The vast majority of estates fall below the threshold.
Only as Osborne raised the inheritance tax threshold to £1 million
No he didn’t. Stop repeating this rubbish. It’s much more technical than that.
Voters prefer tax rises to spending cuts by 59% to 16%.
However while 57% support increasing tobacco duty and 55% back a corporation tax rise and 37% back increasing CGT or alcohol duty only 20% back increasing income tax, just 12% back increasing inheritance tax and only 9% back increasing national insurance and a tiny 7% want a fuel tax rise or VAT rise.
People hate inheritance tax, don't they? For me, this is a close psychological fit to our attachment to private schools. In both cases it goes way beyond those who pay IHT or use private schools. And for me it also explains why it is next to impossible for Labour to win power here unless they abandon any serious ambitions to fight inequality. The fact is, we value other things far higher than that. Sad face.
People spend their whole lives building up assets - it represents their life's work.
They don't want to see the whole lot confiscated by the State when they die.
They want to choose how to leave their own legacy instead.
Nevertheless a world where everyone started off without any financial inheritance would probably be a better one.
No it would be a world where all our assets we worked for were returned to the state on death
As I was saying. Making possible a more true meritocracy
No, meritocracy in reality just mainly reflects inherited IQ, it just means an expanded state and less private wealth
Utter rubbish. You can have a high IQ and yet still be extremely lazy.
To be a doctor, lawyer, software engineer ie the highest paid jobs, you need a high IQ.
Have you met a lot of Premiership footballers?
Having a high skill in football is also a form of intelligence and as the likes of Jamie Redknapp or Frank Lampard show in some cases inherited too
Yeah, but it is not “IQ”, which is what you were talking about.
Mean IQ of US welfare recipients 92, mean IQ of the median American 100, mean IQ of US self-made millionaires 118, mean IQ of US Decamillionaires 118, mean IQ of US billionaires 133.
In a blow* to the treasury, my Spoons bound on Thursday group has decided its too much of a risk, and one is hosting a BBQ instead.
The only shops we visit these days are the supermarkets. We are not Eating Out to Help Out, we are not going to pubs, cinemas or coffee shops.
Why not?
Because there is a pandemic. Pubs and restaurants are known to be higher risk so we just minimised all that sort of thing and we just socialise at a distance with people. No one gets invites to come round to ours and we do not visit their place.
I suppose we all have to deal with this in our own ways. Out of interest, how long will you be keeping this up for? Is there a particular target, perhaps statistical, which will trigger a change in your preferences in this regard?
You could argue that inheritance tax encourages selfishness. If someone knows most of their wealth is going to be taxed before they can pass it on, they'll probably spend most of it on themselves instead.
@BluestBlue then why didn’t “the blessed Margaret” abolish all forms of IHT if it was so objectionable, or is she a pathetic “leftie”?
She slashed Labour's confiscatory IHT rate of 75%, so not too shabby. Plus she had to leave something for future Conservative Governments to finish off, didn't she?
There is however an apparent levelling off for a period beginning about 2-3 weeks after mask wearing was enforced more strongly (which is about the time lag you'd expect if it had an effect). Then yes, a recent increase - other reasons? School term starting (quick Google says 1 September for that).
As they are now back in lockdown it is hardly a ringing endorsement for mask wearing
Voters prefer tax rises to spending cuts by 59% to 16%.
However while 57% support increasing tobacco duty and 55% back a corporation tax rise and 37% back increasing CGT or alcohol duty only 20% back increasing income tax, just 12% back increasing inheritance tax and only 9% back increasing national insurance and a tiny 7% want a fuel tax rise or VAT rise.
People hate inheritance tax, don't they? For me, this is a close psychological fit to our attachment to private schools. In both cases it goes way beyond those who pay IHT or use private schools. And for me it also explains why it is next to impossible for Labour to win power here unless they abandon any serious ambitions to fight inequality. The fact is, we value other things far higher than that. Sad face.
People spend their whole lives building up assets - it represents their life's work.
They don't want to see the whole lot confiscated by the State when they die.
They want to choose how to leave their own legacy instead.
Nevertheless a world where everyone started off without any financial inheritance would probably be a better one.
No it would be a world where all our assets we worked for were returned to the state on death
As I was saying. Making possible a more true meritocracy
No, meritocracy in reality just mainly reflects inherited IQ, it just means an expanded state and less private wealth
Utter rubbish. You can have a high IQ and yet still be extremely lazy.
To be a doctor, lawyer, software engineer ie the highest paid jobs, you need a high IQ.
Have you met a lot of Premiership footballers?
Having a high skill in football is also a form of intelligence and as the likes of Jamie Redknapp or Frank Lampard show in some cases inherited too
Yeah, but it is not “IQ”, which is what you were talking about.
Mean IQ of US welfare recipients 92, mean IQ of the median American 100, mean IQ of US self-made millionaires 118, mean IQ of US Decamillionaires 118, mean IQ of US billionaires 133.
This is, of course, because EU central banks understand that you need years to make fundamental changes to how markets work, not the hours Boris and Co believe it requires.
In reality nothing changed today, the EU central banks just applied a bit of sanity to things.
The government's COVID rule of six will mean that Remembrance Sunday will probably have to be cancelled. How could it be otherwise?
The ritual gathering to remember those who fought and died for our freedoms will be cancelled by those who are restricting those freedoms. All the while, those graphs stay flat.
The optics of that are, to say the least, not great for the tories. Or labour. Or anybody in government.
Guido reckons that nobody appears to have thought about this, including the British Legion.
Voters prefer tax rises to spending cuts by 59% to 16%.
However while 57% support increasing tobacco duty and 55% back a corporation tax rise and 37% back increasing CGT or alcohol duty only 20% back increasing income tax, just 12% back increasing inheritance tax and only 9% back increasing national insurance and a tiny 7% want a fuel tax rise or VAT rise.
People hate inheritance tax, don't they? For me, this is a close psychological fit to our attachment to private schools. In both cases it goes way beyond those who pay IHT or use private schools. And for me it also explains why it is next to impossible for Labour to win power here unless they abandon any serious ambitions to fight inequality. The fact is, we value other things far higher than that. Sad face.
People spend their whole lives building up assets - it represents their life's work.
They don't want to see the whole lot confiscated by the State when they die.
They want to choose how to leave their own legacy instead.
I understand the psychology of it but find it ridiculous as an argument as it rather perversely treats the deceased as the beneficiary of the post-death disposal of assets, rather than the people getting a big cheque for doing essentially sod all.
I'm all in favour of people doing what they like with the money they've earned in their lifetime, including being generous with friends and family if that makes them happy. After they are gone and have been given a decent send off, it simply ceases to be their money - it's literally no good to them.
We don't get a say on other things that happen after we are dead - we don't get a vote for example. Why, uniquely, assets?
The reason, in truth, is that those of us with parents who have a few quid squirreled away would like our share. People who say "my old Dad should be able to leave his millions to me out of respect for him" are lying to themselves. The truth is they'd like the old boy's money when he's gone... and I don't blame them but don't elevate it to the level of high principle.
Personally, I'd treat inheritance as income in the hands of the beneficiary rather than as inheritance tax. This would encourage people to be generous in their lifetime, and spread it about to a wider group to minimise liability.
But the psychology is everything in this debate, above all the psychology of the family: whereas the State and many lefties see death as simply the end of the individual and thus an opportunity to seize their assets, most of those individuals see their death as just an unfortunate incident in the unbroken chain of genetic and material inheritance that is their family. I know how much people love Orwell, so let's quote him out of context again: 'the weariness of the cell is the vigour of the organism'. The individual dies; their legacy, literal and metaphorical, lives on. Woe to the party that attempts to interfere with that natural human desire.
Seeing one's life as a link in the "unbroken chain of genetic and material inheritance" ignores the influence on life provided by others, who do not share the same genes. This might be a primary school teacher, a doctor, a dustman, your nanny or butler. Some call this society, but as some people have a problem with that word, you could also call them your acquaintances.
The idea that most people are out to benefit their genes and only their genes is a very selfish way of looking at life.
I also see the comment down thread "People spend their whole lives building up assets - it represents their life's work."
Money and material assets is a sad way of evaluating a person's life. Do people really want their loved ones to remember them in terms of their assets?
On the first point, see my other answer about recurring taxes - which are huge - being a perfectly sufficient contribution to society already.
'Do people really want their loved ones to remember them in terms of their assets?'
Would children be grateful to their departed family members for helping them to live in a nice house, giving them the freedom to follow their dreams rather than have to take the first job offered, and taking away the daily stress of not knowing if they can pay their bills? Of course they would!
Come on: assets are everything - they are freedom, and they are power. That's why the Left, the Right, and everyone in between is utterly obsessed with them.
The thing that doesn't really help with the "helping your children get on in life" narrative is that with life expectancy at 81 years (and likely higher for those with £1mn+ in assets) most "children" will be not far off retirement age themselves when they inherit the money. So I guess "helping your grandchildren get on in life" is what it's really about. I'm not sure the grandparent-grandchild bond is anywhere near as strong as the parent-child one. But maybe I just grew up in an unsentimental family! The reality is that after old age costs most inheritances are tiny and the really big ones are tied up in trusts to escape tax. So while I approve of IHT and think that the public's dislike of it is totally irrational, it's not worth expending political capital on increasing it for the amount it brings in or the small positive effect it has on furthering meritocracy.
Voters prefer tax rises to spending cuts by 59% to 16%.
However while 57% support increasing tobacco duty and 55% back a corporation tax rise and 37% back increasing CGT or alcohol duty only 20% back increasing income tax, just 12% back increasing inheritance tax and only 9% back increasing national insurance and a tiny 7% want a fuel tax rise or VAT rise.
People hate inheritance tax, don't they? For me, this is a close psychological fit to our attachment to private schools. In both cases it goes way beyond those who pay IHT or use private schools. And for me it also explains why it is next to impossible for Labour to win power here unless they abandon any serious ambitions to fight inequality. The fact is, we value other things far higher than that. Sad face.
People spend their whole lives building up assets - it represents their life's work.
They don't want to see the whole lot confiscated by the State when they die.
They want to choose how to leave their own legacy instead.
I understand the psychology of it but find it ridiculous as an argument as it rather perversely treats the deceased as the beneficiary of the post-death disposal of assets, rather than the people getting a big cheque for doing essentially sod all.
I'm all in favour of people doing what they like with the money they've earned in their lifetime, including being generous with friends and family if that makes them happy. After they are gone and have been given a decent send off, it simply ceases to be their money - it's literally no good to them.
We don't get a say on other things that happen after we are dead - we don't get a vote for example. Why, uniquely, assets?
The reason, in truth, is that those of us with parents who have a few quid squirreled away would like our share. People who say "my old Dad should be able to leave his millions to me out of respect for him" are lying to themselves. The truth is they'd like the old boy's money when he's gone... and I don't blame them but don't elevate it to the level of high principle.
Personally, I'd treat inheritance as income in the hands of the beneficiary rather than as inheritance tax. This would encourage people to be generous in their lifetime, and spread it about to a wider group to minimise liability.
But the psychology is everything in this debate, above all the psychology of the family: whereas the State and many lefties see death as simply the end of the individual and thus an opportunity to seize their assets, most of those individuals see their death as just an unfortunate incident in the unbroken chain of genetic and material inheritance that is their family. I know how much people love Orwell, so let's quote him out of context again: 'the weariness of the cell is the vigour of the organism'. The individual dies; their legacy, literal and metaphorical, lives on. Woe to the party that attempts to interfere with that natural human desire.
Seeing one's life as a link in the "unbroken chain of genetic and material inheritance" ignores the influence on life provided by others, who do not share the same genes. This might be a primary school teacher, a doctor, a dustman, your nanny or butler. Some call this society, but as some people have a problem with that word, you could also call them your acquaintances.
The idea that most people are out to benefit their genes and only their genes is a very selfish way of looking at life.
I also see the comment down thread "People spend their whole lives building up assets - it represents their life's work."
Money and material assets is a sad way of evaluating a person's life. Do people really want their loved ones to remember them in terms of their assets?
Worth noting too that less than 5% of deaths result in any inheritance tax. The vast majority of estates fall below the threshold.
Only as Osborne raised the inheritance tax threshold to £1 million
No he didn’t. Stop repeating this rubbish. It’s much more technical than that.
Remember HYUFD is a Tory, complexity is only an issue for experts and they don't believe in experts.
This is, of course, because EU central banks understand that you need years to make fundamental changes to how markets work, not the hours Boris and Co believe it requires.
In reality nothing changed today, the EU central banks just applied a bit of sanity to things.
Come on: assets are everything - they are freedom, and they are power. That's why the Left, the Right, and everyone in between is utterly obsessed with them.
If you are utterly obsessed with assets, I'm glad I do not know you personally.
Most people I know work to have a comfortable life. I do not know many people at all who are "utterly obsessed with assets".
If you're going to insist on misunderstanding my points, there's not much I can do.
To put it as succinctly as possible: accumulating assets and leaving them to your kids is not just Scrooge-McDuck-style narcissicism. It's an act of love - those children will have the very obvious advantages of comfort, opportunity, and freedom from stress that a material cushion provides. People who've earned their money through hard graft and menial labour feel this emotion just as strongly as privileged plutocrats do - often more so, because they know what life is like without those advantages. That's why IHT polls so disastrously across the population.
Voters prefer tax rises to spending cuts by 59% to 16%.
However while 57% support increasing tobacco duty and 55% back a corporation tax rise and 37% back increasing CGT or alcohol duty only 20% back increasing income tax, just 12% back increasing inheritance tax and only 9% back increasing national insurance and a tiny 7% want a fuel tax rise or VAT rise.
People hate inheritance tax, don't they? For me, this is a close psychological fit to our attachment to private schools. In both cases it goes way beyond those who pay IHT or use private schools. And for me it also explains why it is next to impossible for Labour to win power here unless they abandon any serious ambitions to fight inequality. The fact is, we value other things far higher than that. Sad face.
People spend their whole lives building up assets - it represents their life's work.
They don't want to see the whole lot confiscated by the State when they die.
They want to choose how to leave their own legacy instead.
Nevertheless a world where everyone started off without any financial inheritance would probably be a better one.
No it would be a world where all our assets we worked for were returned to the state on death
As I was saying. Making possible a more true meritocracy
No, meritocracy in reality just mainly reflects inherited IQ, it just means an expanded state and less private wealth
Utter rubbish. You can have a high IQ and yet still be extremely lazy.
To be a doctor, lawyer, software engineer ie the highest paid jobs, you need a high IQ.
Have you met a lot of Premiership footballers?
Having a high skill in football is also a form of intelligence and as the likes of Jamie Redknapp or Frank Lampard show in some cases inherited too
Yeah, but it is not “IQ”, which is what you were talking about.
Mean IQ of US welfare recipients 92, mean IQ of the median American 100, mean IQ of US self-made millionaires 118, mean IQ of US Decamillionaires 118, mean IQ of US billionaires 133.
Comments
https://twitter.com/GerryHassan/status/1305845045845778432?s=20
Considering how much governments are paying for vaccine development, why is information about them restricted to the @Charles amongst us ?
Vaccine Transparency
https://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2020/09/14/vaccine-transparency
...I suppose as drug discovery researcher I am a small member of that community of experts, so let me add my voice. We are indeed entitled to know more. I realize that Pfizer and BioNTech have deliberately chosen to fund all their own work without any help from the “Warp Speed” initiative, but plenty of others have taken such funding. And even in Pfizer’s case, the government is going to be one of the largest customers for any vaccine that emerges from their work, and it is obviously in the public interest that people have confidence in such a vaccine and in its development process and regulatory approval...
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-54158091
Question. Why does the chain stop at the family and genetics? You have rightly identified that "man is not an island", but survives only with the help and co-operation of others.
You are accusing the left of seeing an individual in isolation (a rare take), but you then elevate their progeny to the same unique position.
You are correct to emphasise the psychology, but isn't that just personal?
Anyone with a large estate has relied to a great extent for their fortune on wider non-familial networks for education, health care, employment, etc, etc. Do they not deserve some recognition? Or is my family mine, and the rest other?
Leaving aside when one is dead nothing is "mine".
PS. Am agnostic on IHT. It is one of the things which regularly come up and on which I can appreciate both sides' arguments.
https://www.vice.com/en_uk/article/y3zeew/gun-enthusiasts-celebrate-man-who-shot-himself-in-the-balls-as-their-king
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-8734897/Lewis-Hamilton-Florence-Mueller-live-Phillip-Green.html
And clearly Dido, too.
As on here think-tanks and universities are full of bright intelligent people who think up ideas that work well in theory but not in practice.
Some said it was Greenland and some said Mexico
Some decided it was nowhere except for where they stood
But those were all just guesses, wouldn't help you if they could”
https://twitter.com/cricketwyvern/status/1305848514799427589?s=21
2:29 PM Trump says there could be a vaccine "in weeks." US President Donald Trump has said on Fox that a COVID-19 vaccine could be available "in a matter of weeks." However, he assures that he is not pressing for it before the presidential elections on November 3. "I am not doing it for political reasons. I want there to be a vaccine quickly," he said.
One is that it's a pure appeal to emotion rather than reason. I've given the reasoned argument, as have others. Inheritance is not meaningfully a case of taxing the dead on earned income, because they are dead and beyond such things. However it is branded, the reality is it is taxing recipients on an unearned windfall. You may disagree with that "in your bones" but that isn't an argument.
The other is that the reason people "feel it in their bones" may not be wholly honourable. I can get why my parents emotionally want me to get an unearned windfall when they are dead rather than others. But they might not be right in an objective sense - I am not at all badly off. And for the beneficiaries, it's often an excuse whether they admit it to themselves or not. It's very easy to pretend to myself, as I bank the cheque, that I am honouring the dead in a way that is good and decent and right... so I feel good about myself AND have a massively expanded bank balance, which is a double win.
If you run a consumer facing business, your income is (a share of) the money people have earned and paid tax on already, but you are still expected to pay tax on your profits. You get taxed on the money people give to you, even though they already paid tax on it. Why should it be different if someone leaves you money?
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-devon-54099782
Not so easy for primary schools.
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/why-pennsylvania-could-decide-the-2020-election/
tldr is that FL and NC do a lot of processing of mail votes early, so we should know pretty fast. But PA/MI/WI could takes days.
On the "they'll vote like the mid-terms" theory Trump will take FL and NC pretty easily and it'll look like he won for a couple of days...
https://www.politico.com/news/2020/09/15/swing-states-election-vote-count-michigan-pennsylvania-wisconsin-414465
It follows on from this.
https://techcrunch.com/2020/09/13/graphic-video-of-suicide-spreads-from-facebook-to-tiktok-to-youtube-as-platforms-fail-moderation-test/
The blessed Margaret would say that it's because there is nothing beyond them - there are individual men and women and there are families. I would instead make a distinction between those recurring taxes paid throughout our lives, which we can assign as the due paid to those 'non-familial networks' you mention, i.e. wider society. But the lump sum that is left over after that due has been paid, belongs, in the view of most, to the family unit alone.
And this is indeed a rare case in which the left actually indentifies the individual as a socio-economic unit worth taking into account - but, to their discredit, they do so only to take advantage of them, and at a time that many resent and find distasteful.
I actually believe think tanks are full of people thinking up ideas that would work well in practice, but wouldn't provide sufficient real benefit to be worth burning political capital on.
Politicians have to take a view on whether something is right in principle, would work in practice, and is worth it in terms of political impact. Some - and Johnson is a good example - think exclusively of the third as they have little interest in either principle or detail. Others - Corbyn? - think only of the first. Rare to have good coverage of all three.
The idea that most people are out to benefit their genes and only their genes is a very selfish way of looking at life.
I also see the comment down thread "People spend their whole lives building up assets - it represents their life's work."
Money and material assets is a sad way of evaluating a person's life. Do people really want their loved ones to remember them in terms of their assets?
https://twitter.com/HenryJFoy/status/1305789109127000066?s=20
Though they don’t really have the same choice about holding face to face classes, for example.
As Selebian’s comments about funding suggest, this is an existential threat for some universities.
https://twitter.com/benedictevans/status/1305786805460107264
Basically it's impossible to moderate Social media sites without completely change how they work (and that won't work as others would spring up in their place).
Sad news is you are going to have to live with it until people get fed up with social media.
'Do people really want their loved ones to remember them in terms of their assets?'
Would children be grateful to their departed family members for helping them to live in a nice house, giving them the freedom to follow their dreams rather than have to take the first job offered, and taking away the daily stress of not knowing if they can pay their bills? Of course they would!
Come on: assets are everything - they are freedom, and they are power. That's why the Left, the Right, and everyone in between is utterly obsessed with them.
It gives a megaphone to any idiot.
On your second point. Most children would much rather live a life in a family that cares for each other rather than be bequeathed a large house.
Bizarre. And all in the name of chasing the mirage of meritocracy.
Jesus that swing
Most people I know work to have a comfortable life. I do not know many people at all who are "utterly obsessed with assets".
https://pumpkinperson.com/2016/02/11/the-incredible-correlation-between-iq-income/
62% of academic achievement is determined by genetics
https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2014/10/genes-dont-just-influence-your-iq-they-determine-how-well-you-do-school
https://twitter.com/BBCDanielS/status/1305858781444792320
A bit of tax planning helps avoid/minimise IHT.
In reality nothing changed today, the EU central banks just applied a bit of sanity to things.
The government's COVID rule of six will mean that Remembrance Sunday will probably have to be cancelled. How could it be otherwise?
The ritual gathering to remember those who fought and died for our freedoms will be cancelled by those who are restricting those freedoms. All the while, those graphs stay flat.
The optics of that are, to say the least, not great for the tories. Or labour. Or anybody in government.
Guido reckons that nobody appears to have thought about this, including the British Legion.
One of the problems of rule by decree, I guess.
The reality is that after old age costs most inheritances are tiny and the really big ones are tied up in trusts to escape tax. So while I approve of IHT and think that the public's dislike of it is totally irrational, it's not worth expending political capital on increasing it for the amount it brings in or the small positive effect it has on furthering meritocracy.
To put it as succinctly as possible: accumulating assets and leaving them to your kids is not just Scrooge-McDuck-style narcissicism. It's an act of love - those children will have the very obvious advantages of comfort, opportunity, and freedom from stress that a material cushion provides. People who've earned their money through hard graft and menial labour feel this emotion just as strongly as privileged plutocrats do - often more so, because they know what life is like without those advantages. That's why IHT polls so disastrously across the population.
I don't think anyone would have thought 54% was sustainable.
https://twitter.com/DPJHodges/status/1305855796618592260