Pension tax relief. For those (like me) who think it should be limited to 20%, it is worse than the 40% relief you think it is.
0% personal allowance is lost at rate of £1 for every £2 earned over £100k, so If someone earns a little over £100k then their marginal rate of tax is 60% and so they will get 60% tax relief on contributions which bring their income down towards 100k.
Back when I was working and at the same time flush with cash I opened a SIPP with a lump sum equal to my annual salary. I could do this only because my financial situtation was fortunate enough not to need my salary to live on. I was then astonished to get from HMRC a payment equal to all the tax I'd paid inc higher rate. A quite amazingly regressive regime, I thought. Seek out people who don't need money and damn well give them a wodge of it.
I think pension relief should be uncoupled from tax. Government should match fund contributions up to a modest limit. It could be linked to a Citizens Bond. You then get that - depending on performance - plus your state pension. Anything higher should come from personal resources. I've sent this one in to Starmer for the policy review Waiting for him to get in touch to explore further. Maybe a Zoom.
It's totally mean and anti-aspirational - he will love it.
Which is that while on the one hand it is just a sporting occasion, on another it is an opportunity where the hopes and dreams of a whole people come together – even for a moment.
We all focus on the same ball, we all focus on the same goal. There is nothing bad about this. It reminds us that there can be things that unite us and that they should survive off the pitch as well as on it.
'Genocide is fine if you're doing it for Jesus' is not a hot take I ever expected to read outside of The Onion/Daily Mash.
It's a very, erm, 'traditional' view. Taking things waaay back to the good old days. Things were so much simpler when dealing with the infidel or heathen.
Well, obviously.
The infidel/heathen/devil worshiper/pineapple-on-pizza-people aren't just evil. Their existence is an insult to God. So their continued existence risks the Wrath of God.
So it it much better, safer etc for all concerned if we slaughter them.
Jesus is Love, now die!!!
(No, other religions are not without incident).
Look at what the Japanese Militarists achieved with Buddhism....
The dramatisation of the Wannsee meeting makes the uncomfortable point that a majority of the worthies who decided the final solution policy were qualified lawyers.
How many more times. Professional qualifications do not confer morality.
The danger of being a lawyer is that you can become completely detached from the morality of your actions.
The ones that would tend to be attached to the morality of their actions in the first place anyway.
Pensions should rise in line with inflation not earnings but the Tories are bound by their manifesto commitment until the next general election
Why? Do you want people who rely on the state pension only to keep getting poorer compared to the rest of the population.
Only if they are also prepared to face a cut in the state pension too as their was a large fall in average earnings over the last year and a half
Yes but that was an aberration caused by the pandemic which should be corrected. The norm is for pay to outstrip inflation. We generally get better off over time and the pension is so small for people who rely on it you shouldn't make poor people poorer relative to the norm.
Most pensioners own a property outright so do not need to spend as much as those still earning in the workforce and paying rent or paying off a mortgage.
Those still renting get housing benefit anyway based on what they need
25% who own homes don't own their home outright by 65 and for those that rent you want to force them onto housing benefit. Wouldn't it better if they didn't rely on top ups and got an adequate pension.
I can't believe you actually want to reduce their pension in relation to the rest of the population.
The remaining quarter will have been relatively poor anyway and likely claiming housing benefit even before they retired, so no reason they cannot still use housing benefit to pay their rent on retirement.
What! You have just said exactly the same thing as you said in the previous post and given a stat and link to that stat that I just gave you which is just weird. Do you read the posts that you reply to? I did respond to the point you made already and you have ignored them so I won't repeat them.
Have a go at answering my earlier question though. I repeat:
Would you be happy to be paid the same salary for your job in 1910 plus inflation and if not why do you think it is ok to impose that on others?
If I was paid the same salary for my job in 1910 plus inflation it would be significantly higher than it is now.
I also repeat the same point you have ignored because 74% owning their homes outright amongst over 65s is clearly higher than the '25% who own homes don't own their home outright by 65 and for those that rent you want to force them onto housing benefit' you were suggesting earlier.
So the vast majority of over 65s have neither rent nor mortgage payments to pay which is the main payment those earning and in work have to pay each month
Sorry you are accusing me of ignoring a point? You mean the very point that I raised first? You really don't read the posts do you? I pointed out first that 25% of over 65s don't own their home outright! You seem confused by this as you state the same thing back to me (all bar a difference of 1%) as if I have got something wrong, yet you quote the same statistic!
Yes people who are retired often don't have mortgages to pay, but equally the pension is rightly significantly lower than their old pay. You want to make it even lower? You also seem to want to keep those that rent in poverty by forcing them to claim housing benefits by pushing them further into poverty.
Pensions should be related to earnings not inflation to keep in line with living standards. You want to degrade it year on year? I'm sure you don't mean that.
Re your job. Are you really saying your job was paid better in real terms in 1910 than now? Did you really check that? That is incredibly difficult to believe. Although as has been pointed out the PMs job was worth a lot more then. You aren't Boris are you?
The dramatisation of the Wannsee meeting makes the uncomfortable point that a majority of the worthies who decided the final solution policy were qualified lawyers.
How many more times. Professional qualifications do not confer morality.
Some years ago an insurance lawyer and I, who had been concerned in a professional capacity with the reliability of doctors evidence in other than directly medical matters, and where their own money was concerned, were discussing this subject when we were joined by someone who expressed amazement that professional people, such as doctors, didn't always tell the truth where money was concerned.
Reminds me of that wonderful bit in Fawlty Towers where Basil instantly goes into fawn mode when he learns one of his guests is a doctor.
Mr. kle4, in one of Livy's books (Rome and Italy, I think) the author comments approvingly on the near total extermination of a rival city's adult male population on the basis they won't be a threat for at least 20 years.
Pensions should rise in line with inflation not earnings but the Tories are bound by their manifesto commitment until the next general election
Why? Do you want people who rely on the state pension only to keep getting poorer compared to the rest of the population.
Only if they are also prepared to face a cut in the state pension too as there was a large fall in average earnings over the last year and a half state pensioners were protected from.
Inflation reflects rises in prices in the shops so is what pensions should be based on
So you would be happy if your current pay was equally to the pay for the same job in 1910 plus inflation would you?
Inflation by definition means it would not be the same as pay for a job in 1910
Sorry I have no idea what you are saying. I was giving you an analogy. You seem happy that one group in society should only have their pay increased by inflation only forever, so I was asking you if you would be happy with that for yourself by accepting the pay for your job based upon the 1910 pay for it plus inflation.
You do appreciate don't you that, that would almost certainly be a much lower figure than you get now? Yet you are happy to impose that on others in society.
That's right. The earnings link is key. Without that, in a society growing more prosperous, a pension linked only to inflation would condemn those relying on it to abject relative poverty - and relative is the only meaningful metric here - over the long run. Time would work its magic and in this case it would be of the black variety.
No it wouldn't, as most pensioners do not have to pay rent or a mortgage unlike those working and earning as they own their own properties outright.
The only non tax payments most pensioners have to pay on a monthly basis are for shopping and the odd meal or trip out, which can be linked to inflation and they get free bus passes and Freedom Passes for London travel anyway
It would over time. That's certain given growth. We're talking relativities. It's why the earnings link was introduced.
It wouldn't, provided the state pension increased with inflation there would be no impact on spending in the shops and cafes which is what most pensioners spend most of their money on, inflation also rises with energy costs anyway too
Mr. Contrarian, it was a while ago that I saw it, but I think it's rather more useful than most war dramatisations because it lays bare the bureaucratic, almost everyday nature of the mechanics that can lie beneath genocide and totalitarianism.
Less fun than machineguns and Spitfires, but rather more menacing.
It's actually why I struggle with some more simplistic fantasy stories about traditional evil overlords and type now - even in simpler times organising mass invasions and evil actions seems to require a heck of a lot of bureaucracy, or at least organisation involving a lot of people sorting out the mechanics of it all. I don't know how anyone ever found the time (I think that's from an Eddie Izzard joke).
Though that does make me think of a darkly comic premise to a Cadfael book I read - One Corpse Too Many, the premise of which was the King took a castle and put something like a hundred people to the sword, and then someone noticed that one more person than was supposed to be killed was among the bodies and the mystery needed solving. What an outrage!
Mr. kle4, in one of Livy's books (Rome and Italy, I think) the author comments approvingly on the near total extermination of a rival city's adult male population on the basis they won't be a threat for at least 20 years.
Slackers. If you delete the entire population, that solves the issue permanently.
Pensions should rise in line with inflation not earnings but the Tories are bound by their manifesto commitment until the next general election
Why? Do you want people who rely on the state pension only to keep getting poorer compared to the rest of the population.
Only if they are also prepared to face a cut in the state pension too as their was a large fall in average earnings over the last year and a half
Yes but that was an aberration caused by the pandemic which should be corrected. The norm is for pay to outstrip inflation. We generally get better off over time and the pension is so small for people who rely on it you shouldn't make poor people poorer relative to the norm.
Most pensioners own a property outright so do not need to spend as much as those still earning in the workforce and paying rent or paying off a mortgage.
Those still renting get housing benefit anyway based on what they need
25% who own homes don't own their home outright by 65 and for those that rent you want to force them onto housing benefit. Wouldn't it better if they didn't rely on top ups and got an adequate pension.
I can't believe you actually want to reduce their pension in relation to the rest of the population.
The remaining quarter will have been relatively poor anyway and likely claiming housing benefit even before they retired, so no reason they cannot still use housing benefit to pay their rent on retirement.
What! You have just said exactly the same thing as you said in the previous post and given a stat and link to that stat that I just gave you which is just weird. Do you read the posts that you reply to? I did respond to the point you made already and you have ignored them so I won't repeat them.
Have a go at answering my earlier question though. I repeat:
Would you be happy to be paid the same salary for your job in 1910 plus inflation and if not why do you think it is ok to impose that on others?
If I was paid the same salary for my job in 1910 plus inflation it would be significantly higher than it is now.
I also repeat the same point you have ignored because 74% owning their homes outright amongst over 65s is clearly higher than the '25% who own homes don't own their home outright by 65 and for those that rent you want to force them onto housing benefit' you were suggesting earlier.
So the vast majority of over 65s have neither rent nor mortgage payments to pay which is the main payment those earning and in work have to pay each month
Sorry you are accusing me of ignoring a point? You mean the very point that I raised first? You really don't read the posts do you? I pointed out first that 25% of over 65s don't own their home outright! You seem confused by this as you state the same thing back to me (all bar a difference of 1%) as if I have got something wrong, yet you quote the same statistic!
Yes people who are retired often don't have mortgages to pay, but equally the pension is rightly significantly lower than their old pay. You want to make it even lower? You also seem to want to keep those that rent in poverty by forcing them to claim housing benefits by pushing them further into poverty.
Pensions should be related to earnings not inflation to keep in line with living standards. You want to degrade it year on year? I'm sure you don't mean that.
Re your job. Are you really saying your job was paid better in real terms in 1910 than now? Did you really check that? That is incredibly difficult to believe. Although as has been pointed out the PMs job was worth a lot more then. You aren't Boris are you?
Given most pensioners don't have mortgages to pay or rents to pay as they did when they were working obviously they don't need as high a monthly income as they did then and an inflation linked state pension would be fine for their needs. Taxpayers, most of whom will have a mortgage or pay rent, should not have to subsidise earnings linked state pensions for the 3/4 of pensioners who own their own homes outright.
The small minority who still rent even as pensioners will likely already have been claiming housing benefit during their working lives anyway.
More re lab tests vs real world....recent lab tests said immunity probably lasted for years. Pfizer seen real world data for Israel and they think it is waning a bit after 6 months, and a 3rd shot is the way forward.
What is surprising is they don't seem to be planning on deploying a reformulated version to specifically target the variants. I thought it was a day job in the factory to retool and then surely sensible to repeat the same real world test agreement with Israel?
I think we are all getting booster shots though now.
It's still got to be trialled and once approved there's a 3-4 month lead time on it reaching the end of the supply chain into people's arms. The UK government asked if Pfizer could supply the gen 2 vaccine for the second order but was told it would mean waiting until 2022 Q1 because it wasn't likely to be ready in time for H2 delivery. The government then decided to get 60m of gen 1.
The only company that might be ready with a gen 2 by Q4 is AZ.
It's interesting that Israel seems to be finding less Pfizer efficacy against the Delta variant than we are in the UK (albeit with probably quite large error bars on both sets of figures), and possibly more tail-off in the protection. See good summary here:
Pension tax relief. For those (like me) who think it should be limited to 20%, it is worse than the 40% relief you think it is.
0% personal allowance is lost at rate of £1 for every £2 earned over £100k, so If someone earns a little over £100k then their marginal rate of tax is 60% and so they will get 60% tax relief on contributions which bring their income down towards 100k.
The fact that we can have a marginal rate of tax of 60% under a Conservative Government is what is shocking - who on earth wouldn’t try to mitigate that obscenity?
It's really 66.6%.
On a pay rise of £1,000 for a £100K earner:
Income tax £600 Employee's NI @2% £20 Employer's NI at 13.8% £138
Total tax: £758 Received by the employee: £380 True marginal rate = 758 / (758+380) = 66.6%
Which is an absurdity, as are the true marginal rates for various other situations (withdrawal of benefits etc).
Just getting rid of these absurd perverse incentives would help the economy and boost total tax receipts.
If a pay rise of £1,000 leaves the taxpayer with £380, that's a marginal rate of 62%. Either way, it's obscene.
By that logic if we called all tax 'employer's contribution' the marginal rate would be zero. That of course is why employer's NI exists - it's a handy and very effective sleight of hand by which Chancellors can disguise the true rate of tax on your income. It's astonishing how many people are taken in by it.
I don't really understand your point. References to an individual's marginal rate of tax refer to how much tax an extra £1 of income is going to cost them in income tax. So if a £1,000 pay rise sees someone have an additional tax bill of £600, then that's a 60% marginal tax rate (or 62% if you are using a wider- NI inclusive definition of tax). Pretty good at this - being doing it nigh-on 30 years.
Pensions should rise in line with inflation not earnings but the Tories are bound by their manifesto commitment until the next general election
Why? Do you want people who rely on the state pension only to keep getting poorer compared to the rest of the population.
Only if they are also prepared to face a cut in the state pension too as there was a large fall in average earnings over the last year and a half state pensioners were protected from.
Inflation reflects rises in prices in the shops so is what pensions should be based on
So you would be happy if your current pay was equally to the pay for the same job in 1910 plus inflation would you?
Inflation by definition means it would not be the same as pay for a job in 1910
Sorry I have no idea what you are saying. I was giving you an analogy. You seem happy that one group in society should only have their pay increased by inflation only forever, so I was asking you if you would be happy with that for yourself by accepting the pay for your job based upon the 1910 pay for it plus inflation.
You do appreciate don't you that, that would almost certainly be a much lower figure than you get now? Yet you are happy to impose that on others in society.
That's right. The earnings link is key. Without that, in a society growing more prosperous, a pension linked only to inflation would condemn those relying on it to abject relative poverty - and relative is the only meaningful metric here - over the long run. Time would work its magic and in this case it would be of the black variety.
No it wouldn't, as most pensioners do not have to pay rent or a mortgage unlike those working and earning as they own their own properties outright.
The only non tax payments most pensioners have to pay on a monthly basis are for shopping and the odd meal or trip out, which can be linked to inflation and they get free bus passes and Freedom Passes for London travel anyway
It would over time. That's certain given growth. We're talking relativities. It's why the earnings link was introduced.
It wouldn't, provided the state pension increased with inflation there would be no impact on spending in the shops and cafes which is what most pensioners spend most of their money on, inflation also rises with energy costs anyway too
Bonkers, absolutely bonkers. Suggest you look at a few stats.
Also not only do you want to impose what funding a pensioner gets you seem to want to impose what they do with it which is limited to spending in shops and cafes. We are not all doddering old gits you know. Life doesn't stop at 65.
Pensions should rise in line with inflation not earnings but the Tories are bound by their manifesto commitment until the next general election
Why? Do you want people who rely on the state pension only to keep getting poorer compared to the rest of the population.
Only if they are also prepared to face a cut in the state pension too as there was a large fall in average earnings over the last year and a half state pensioners were protected from.
Inflation reflects rises in prices in the shops so is what pensions should be based on
So you would be happy if your current pay was equally to the pay for the same job in 1910 plus inflation would you?
Inflation by definition means it would not be the same as pay for a job in 1910
Sorry I have no idea what you are saying. I was giving you an analogy. You seem happy that one group in society should only have their pay increased by inflation only forever, so I was asking you if you would be happy with that for yourself by accepting the pay for your job based upon the 1910 pay for it plus inflation.
You do appreciate don't you that, that would almost certainly be a much lower figure than you get now? Yet you are happy to impose that on others in society.
That's right. The earnings link is key. Without that, in a society growing more prosperous, a pension linked only to inflation would condemn those relying on it to abject relative poverty - and relative is the only meaningful metric here - over the long run. Time would work its magic and in this case it would be of the black variety.
No it wouldn't, as most pensioners do not have to pay rent or a mortgage unlike those working and earning as they own their own properties outright.
The only non tax payments most pensioners have to pay on a monthly basis are for shopping and the odd meal or trip out, which can be linked to inflation and they get free bus passes and Freedom Passes for London travel anyway
It would over time. That's certain given growth. We're talking relativities. It's why the earnings link was introduced.
It wouldn't, provided the state pension increased with inflation there would be no impact on spending in the shops and cafes which is what most pensioners spend most of their money on, inflation also rises with energy costs anyway too
Bonkers, absolutely bonkers. Suggest you look at a few stats.
Also not only do you want to impose what funding a pensioner gets you seem to want to impose what they do with it which is limited to spending in shops and cafes. We are not all doddering old gits you know. Life doesn't stop at 65.
Sunak should be bold, not only should be get rid of the triple lock he should introduce things like NI for (working) pensioners.
I am less than a decade away from the state pension, that and my relatively pathetic private pension won't cut the mustard so I will remain scratching around to make a living until I drop. And you want to tax me more!
The people who should have been taxed are the current and recently departed pensioners who enjoyed tax free jam and cream final salary pensions and triple locks, and you want me to cough up NI.
Currently home owning, BMW driving, 'I done good' Boris voters of my generation are going to get a big shock when they arrive at the day they draw their pensions, and when we hit 85 and incontinence and immobility are the order of the day. We will realise then, that our split-level executive style Barratt houses from the 1990s will be the downpayment on the incontinence nurse's salary.
And you want to tax me more ..
Yup, for the greater good
I mean you don't hear me complain paying 45% income tax.
The whole system is messed up.
I'm a diabetic, so I get my prescriptions for free.
Yet someone who earns slightly above the minimum wage, has to pay for theirs.
Pension tax relief. For those (like me) who think it should be limited to 20%, it is worse than the 40% relief you think it is.
0% personal allowance is lost at rate of £1 for every £2 earned over £100k, so If someone earns a little over £100k then their marginal rate of tax is 60% and so they will get 60% tax relief on contributions which bring their income down towards 100k.
The fact that we can have a marginal rate of tax of 60% under a Conservative Government is what is shocking - who on earth wouldn’t try to mitigate that obscenity?
It's really 66.6%.
On a pay rise of £1,000 for a £100K earner:
Income tax £600 Employee's NI @2% £20 Employer's NI at 13.8% £138
Total tax: £758 Received by the employee: £380 True marginal rate = 758 / (758+380) = 66.6%
Which is an absurdity, as are the true marginal rates for various other situations (withdrawal of benefits etc).
Just getting rid of these absurd perverse incentives would help the economy and boost total tax receipts.
If a pay rise of £1,000 leaves the taxpayer with £380, that's a marginal rate of 62%. Either way, it's obscene.
By that logic if we called all tax 'employer's contribution' the marginal rate would be zero. That of course is why employer's NI exists - it's a handy and very effective sleight of hand by which Chancellors can disguise the true rate of tax on your income. It's astonishing how many people are taken in by it.
The thing is that the employers contribution isn't in the £1000 it's on top of it. And it's probably not 13.8%, it's likely to be 14.3% because of the apprenticeship levy.
So £1000 increase in salary from £100,000 to £101,000 will cost the company £1143
And result in the worker receiving £380 extra... which is why at that point you start seeing pensions being maxed out....
Pensions should rise in line with inflation not earnings but the Tories are bound by their manifesto commitment until the next general election
Why? Do you want people who rely on the state pension only to keep getting poorer compared to the rest of the population.
Only if they are also prepared to face a cut in the state pension too as there was a large fall in average earnings over the last year and a half state pensioners were protected from.
Inflation reflects rises in prices in the shops so is what pensions should be based on
So you would be happy if your current pay was equally to the pay for the same job in 1910 plus inflation would you?
Inflation by definition means it would not be the same as pay for a job in 1910
Sorry I have no idea what you are saying. I was giving you an analogy. You seem happy that one group in society should only have their pay increased by inflation only forever, so I was asking you if you would be happy with that for yourself by accepting the pay for your job based upon the 1910 pay for it plus inflation.
You do appreciate don't you that, that would almost certainly be a much lower figure than you get now? Yet you are happy to impose that on others in society.
That's right. The earnings link is key. Without that, in a society growing more prosperous, a pension linked only to inflation would condemn those relying on it to abject relative poverty - and relative is the only meaningful metric here - over the long run. Time would work its magic and in this case it would be of the black variety.
No it wouldn't, as most pensioners do not have to pay rent or a mortgage unlike those working and earning as they own their own properties outright.
The only non tax payments most pensioners have to pay on a monthly basis are for shopping and the odd meal or trip out, which can be linked to inflation and they get free bus passes and Freedom Passes for London travel anyway
It would over time. That's certain given growth. We're talking relativities. It's why the earnings link was introduced.
It wouldn't, provided the state pension increased with inflation there would be no impact on spending in the shops and cafes which is what most pensioners spend most of their money on, inflation also rises with energy costs anyway too
Bonkers, absolutely bonkers. Suggest you look at a few stats.
Also not only do you want to impose what funding a pensioner gets you seem to want to impose what they do with it which is limited to spending in shops and cafes. We are not all doddering old gits you know. Life doesn't stop at 65.
At 80+ I'm hoping for another trip to Thailand. And I know a lot of pensioners who are looking forward to their next trip to warm places in (especially) South-West Europe.
Pensions should rise in line with inflation not earnings but the Tories are bound by their manifesto commitment until the next general election
Why? Do you want people who rely on the state pension only to keep getting poorer compared to the rest of the population.
Only if they are also prepared to face a cut in the state pension too as there was a large fall in average earnings over the last year and a half state pensioners were protected from.
Inflation reflects rises in prices in the shops so is what pensions should be based on
So you would be happy if your current pay was equally to the pay for the same job in 1910 plus inflation would you?
Inflation by definition means it would not be the same as pay for a job in 1910
Sorry I have no idea what you are saying. I was giving you an analogy. You seem happy that one group in society should only have their pay increased by inflation only forever, so I was asking you if you would be happy with that for yourself by accepting the pay for your job based upon the 1910 pay for it plus inflation.
You do appreciate don't you that, that would almost certainly be a much lower figure than you get now? Yet you are happy to impose that on others in society.
That's right. The earnings link is key. Without that, in a society growing more prosperous, a pension linked only to inflation would condemn those relying on it to abject relative poverty - and relative is the only meaningful metric here - over the long run. Time would work its magic and in this case it would be of the black variety.
No it wouldn't, as most pensioners do not have to pay rent or a mortgage unlike those working and earning as they own their own properties outright.
The only non tax payments most pensioners have to pay on a monthly basis are for shopping and the odd meal or trip out, which can be linked to inflation and they get free bus passes and Freedom Passes for London travel anyway
It would over time. That's certain given growth. We're talking relativities. It's why the earnings link was introduced.
It wouldn't, provided the state pension increased with inflation there would be no impact on spending in the shops and cafes which is what most pensioners spend most of their money on, inflation also rises with energy costs anyway too
Bonkers, absolutely bonkers. Suggest you look at a few stats.
Also not only do you want to impose what funding a pensioner gets you seem to want to impose what they do with it which is limited to spending in shops and cafes. We are not all doddering old gits you know. Life doesn't stop at 65.
So you effectively want taxpayers who have rents or mortgages to pay to subsidise earnings linked state pensions for the 3/4 of pensioners who own their own home outright.
Plus pensioners get concessionary tickets to museums, cinemas etc too
The dramatisation of the Wannsee meeting makes the uncomfortable point that a majority of the worthies who decided the final solution policy were qualified lawyers.
How many more times. Professional qualifications do not confer morality.
Some years ago an insurance lawyer and I, who had been concerned in a professional capacity with the reliability of doctors evidence in other than directly medical matters, and where their own money was concerned, were discussing this subject when we were joined by someone who expressed amazement that professional people, such as doctors, didn't always tell the truth where money was concerned.
Reminds me of that wonderful bit in Fawlty Towers where Basil instantly goes into fawn mode when he learns one of his guests is a doctor.
Danny Baker tells the story of his excellent treatment because the hospital misheard when he said his father was a docker.
Pension tax relief. For those (like me) who think it should be limited to 20%, it is worse than the 40% relief you think it is.
0% personal allowance is lost at rate of £1 for every £2 earned over £100k, so If someone earns a little over £100k then their marginal rate of tax is 60% and so they will get 60% tax relief on contributions which bring their income down towards 100k.
The fact that we can have a marginal rate of tax of 60% under a Conservative Government is what is shocking - who on earth wouldn’t try to mitigate that obscenity?
It's really 66.6%.
On a pay rise of £1,000 for a £100K earner:
Income tax £600 Employee's NI @2% £20 Employer's NI at 13.8% £138
Total tax: £758 Received by the employee: £380 True marginal rate = 758 / (758+380) = 66.6%
Which is an absurdity, as are the true marginal rates for various other situations (withdrawal of benefits etc).
Just getting rid of these absurd perverse incentives would help the economy and boost total tax receipts.
If a pay rise of £1,000 leaves the taxpayer with £380, that's a marginal rate of 62%. Either way, it's obscene.
By that logic if we called all tax 'employer's contribution' the marginal rate would be zero. That of course is why employer's NI exists - it's a handy and very effective sleight of hand by which Chancellors can disguise the true rate of tax on your income. It's astonishing how many people are taken in by it.
Yes. So for someone who believes their pay is £30,000 as far as their employer is concerned their pay is £32,920 and the employee is paying £2920 more tax than they think they are.
Sometimes a bit of make believe is necessary to square the low taxes/high-quality public services circle.
Pension tax relief. For those (like me) who think it should be limited to 20%, it is worse than the 40% relief you think it is.
0% personal allowance is lost at rate of £1 for every £2 earned over £100k, so If someone earns a little over £100k then their marginal rate of tax is 60% and so they will get 60% tax relief on contributions which bring their income down towards 100k.
The fact that we can have a marginal rate of tax of 60% under a Conservative Government is what is shocking - who on earth wouldn’t try to mitigate that obscenity?
It's really 66.6%.
On a pay rise of £1,000 for a £100K earner:
Income tax £600 Employee's NI @2% £20 Employer's NI at 13.8% £138
Total tax: £758 Received by the employee: £380 True marginal rate = 758 / (758+380) = 66.6%
Which is an absurdity, as are the true marginal rates for various other situations (withdrawal of benefits etc).
Just getting rid of these absurd perverse incentives would help the economy and boost total tax receipts.
If a pay rise of £1,000 leaves the taxpayer with £380, that's a marginal rate of 62%. Either way, it's obscene.
By that logic if we called all tax 'employer's contribution' the marginal rate would be zero. That of course is why employer's NI exists - it's a handy and very effective sleight of hand by which Chancellors can disguise the true rate of tax on your income. It's astonishing how many people are taken in by it.
The thing is that the employers contribution isn't in the £1000 it's on top of it. And it's probably not 13.8%, it's likely to be 14.3% because of the apprenticeship levy.
So £1000 increase in salary from £100,000 to £101,000 will cost the company £1143
And result in the worker receiving £380 extra... which is why at that point you start seeing pensions being maxed out....
Yes, which is the 62% marginal rate I noted - I'm agreeing with you.
More re lab tests vs real world....recent lab tests said immunity probably lasted for years. Pfizer seen real world data for Israel and they think it is waning a bit after 6 months, and a 3rd shot is the way forward.
What is surprising is they don't seem to be planning on deploying a reformulated version to specifically target the variants. I thought it was a day job in the factory to retool and then surely sensible to repeat the same real world test agreement with Israel?
I think we are all getting booster shots though now.
It's still got to be trialled and once approved there's a 3-4 month lead time on it reaching the end of the supply chain into people's arms. The UK government asked if Pfizer could supply the gen 2 vaccine for the second order but was told it would mean waiting until 2022 Q1 because it wasn't likely to be ready in time for H2 delivery. The government then decided to get 60m of gen 1.
The only company that might be ready with a gen 2 by Q4 is AZ.
It's interesting that Israel seems to be finding less Pfizer efficacy against the Delta variant than we are in the UK (albeit with probably quite large error bars on both sets of figures), and possibly more tail-off in the protection. See good summary here:
I wonder whether the difference might be down to the larger interval between doses which we applied in the UK?
I'm on a 3 week gap Richard !
& No I didn't ask for it early, simply responded to the appointments my surgery pinged to me.
Spain has a 3 week gap for all of its Pfizer jabs. I had AZT and get my second jab a week tomorrow brought forward to 10 weeks and 2 days from an initial 12 week gap. Some 60% of 65-69 years olds in Spain are only one jabbed thanks to Spain's messing around over who to give AZT to! I think the efficacy will be good in my case but it won't be until 2 weeks after my 2nd jab. Fortunately atm, my area of SE Spain is seeing few cases right now - 19 today compared to several hundred in the CDS!
Pensions should rise in line with inflation not earnings but the Tories are bound by their manifesto commitment until the next general election
Why? Do you want people who rely on the state pension only to keep getting poorer compared to the rest of the population.
Only if they are also prepared to face a cut in the state pension too as their was a large fall in average earnings over the last year and a half
Yes but that was an aberration caused by the pandemic which should be corrected. The norm is for pay to outstrip inflation. We generally get better off over time and the pension is so small for people who rely on it you shouldn't make poor people poorer relative to the norm.
Most pensioners own a property outright so do not need to spend as much as those still earning in the workforce and paying rent or paying off a mortgage.
Those still renting get housing benefit anyway based on what they need
25% who own homes don't own their home outright by 65 and for those that rent you want to force them onto housing benefit. Wouldn't it better if they didn't rely on top ups and got an adequate pension.
I can't believe you actually want to reduce their pension in relation to the rest of the population.
The remaining quarter will have been relatively poor anyway and likely claiming housing benefit even before they retired, so no reason they cannot still use housing benefit to pay their rent on retirement.
What! You have just said exactly the same thing as you said in the previous post and given a stat and link to that stat that I just gave you which is just weird. Do you read the posts that you reply to? I did respond to the point you made already and you have ignored them so I won't repeat them.
Have a go at answering my earlier question though. I repeat:
Would you be happy to be paid the same salary for your job in 1910 plus inflation and if not why do you think it is ok to impose that on others?
If I was paid the same salary for my job in 1910 plus inflation it would be significantly higher than it is now.
I also repeat the same point you have ignored because 74% owning their homes outright amongst over 65s is clearly higher than the '25% who own homes don't own their home outright by 65 and for those that rent you want to force them onto housing benefit' you were suggesting earlier.
So the vast majority of over 65s have neither rent nor mortgage payments to pay which is the main payment those earning and in work have to pay each month
Sorry you are accusing me of ignoring a point? You mean the very point that I raised first? You really don't read the posts do you? I pointed out first that 25% of over 65s don't own their home outright! You seem confused by this as you state the same thing back to me (all bar a difference of 1%) as if I have got something wrong, yet you quote the same statistic!
Yes people who are retired often don't have mortgages to pay, but equally the pension is rightly significantly lower than their old pay. You want to make it even lower? You also seem to want to keep those that rent in poverty by forcing them to claim housing benefits by pushing them further into poverty.
Pensions should be related to earnings not inflation to keep in line with living standards. You want to degrade it year on year? I'm sure you don't mean that.
Re your job. Are you really saying your job was paid better in real terms in 1910 than now? Did you really check that? That is incredibly difficult to believe. Although as has been pointed out the PMs job was worth a lot more then. You aren't Boris are you?
Given most pensioners don't have mortgages to pay or rents to pay as they did when they were working obviously they don't need as high a monthly income as they did then and an inflation linked state pension would be fine for their needs. Taxpayers, most of whom will have a mortgage or pay rent, should not have to subsidise earnings linked state pensions for the 3/4 of pensioners who own their own homes outright.
The small minority who still rent even as pensioners will likely already have been claiming housing benefit during their working lives anyway.
You really don't read other's post do you? Again you repeat back to me what you have said over and over again and repeat back what I have said as if I was saying the opposite!
I actually said pensioners don't need as high a pension as earners. I ACTUALLY SAID THAT! And they don't have as high a pension. And I am not arguing for that. But if you link their pension to inflation and not earnings their pension compared to earning will be dropping.
You do understand the maths don't you?
Nobody is arguing their pensions should equal earnings, but that the ratio to earnings should be maintained otherwise over time you will drive them into poverty.
Pensions should rise in line with inflation not earnings but the Tories are bound by their manifesto commitment until the next general election
Why? Do you want people who rely on the state pension only to keep getting poorer compared to the rest of the population.
Only if they are also prepared to face a cut in the state pension too as there was a large fall in average earnings over the last year and a half state pensioners were protected from.
Inflation reflects rises in prices in the shops so is what pensions should be based on
So you would be happy if your current pay was equally to the pay for the same job in 1910 plus inflation would you?
Inflation by definition means it would not be the same as pay for a job in 1910
Sorry I have no idea what you are saying. I was giving you an analogy. You seem happy that one group in society should only have their pay increased by inflation only forever, so I was asking you if you would be happy with that for yourself by accepting the pay for your job based upon the 1910 pay for it plus inflation.
You do appreciate don't you that, that would almost certainly be a much lower figure than you get now? Yet you are happy to impose that on others in society.
That's right. The earnings link is key. Without that, in a society growing more prosperous, a pension linked only to inflation would condemn those relying on it to abject relative poverty - and relative is the only meaningful metric here - over the long run. Time would work its magic and in this case it would be of the black variety.
No it wouldn't, as most pensioners do not have to pay rent or a mortgage unlike those working and earning as they own their own properties outright.
The only non tax payments most pensioners have to pay on a monthly basis are for shopping and the odd meal or trip out, which can be linked to inflation and they get free bus passes and Freedom Passes for London travel anyway
It would over time. That's certain given growth. We're talking relativities. It's why the earnings link was introduced.
It wouldn't, provided the state pension increased with inflation there would be no impact on spending in the shops and cafes which is what most pensioners spend most of their money on, inflation also rises with energy costs anyway too
Bonkers, absolutely bonkers. Suggest you look at a few stats.
Also not only do you want to impose what funding a pensioner gets you seem to want to impose what they do with it which is limited to spending in shops and cafes. We are not all doddering old gits you know. Life doesn't stop at 65.
67 ... or is it 68?
Not at 67 - so far! Although I am rather grumpy at times - but that started in my late teens.
Mr. Contrarian, it was a while ago that I saw it, but I think it's rather more useful than most war dramatisations because it lays bare the bureaucratic, almost everyday nature of the mechanics that can lie beneath genocide and totalitarianism.
Less fun than machineguns and Spitfires, but rather more menacing.
It's actually why I struggle with some more simplistic fantasy stories about traditional evil overlords and type now - even in simpler times organising mass invasions and evil actions seems to require a heck of a lot of bureaucracy, or at least organisation involving a lot of people sorting out the mechanics of it all. I don't know how anyone ever found the time (I think that's from an Eddie Izzard joke).
Though that does make me think of a darkly comic premise to a Cadfael book I read - One Corpse Too Many, the premise of which was the King took a castle and put something like a hundred people to the sword, and then someone noticed that one more person than was supposed to be killed was among the bodies and the mystery needed solving. What an outrage!
The Haus am Grosser Wannsee (I think it was called) is well worth a visit if you are in Berlin, it's a bus ride out of town but it has its own bus stop and I think I did it on the same day as a trip to Gatow and Spandau. They have the conference table that Heidrich et al sat round. Chilling.
Pensions should rise in line with inflation not earnings but the Tories are bound by their manifesto commitment until the next general election
Why? Do you want people who rely on the state pension only to keep getting poorer compared to the rest of the population.
Only if they are also prepared to face a cut in the state pension too as there was a large fall in average earnings over the last year and a half state pensioners were protected from.
Inflation reflects rises in prices in the shops so is what pensions should be based on
So you would be happy if your current pay was equally to the pay for the same job in 1910 plus inflation would you?
Inflation by definition means it would not be the same as pay for a job in 1910
Sorry I have no idea what you are saying. I was giving you an analogy. You seem happy that one group in society should only have their pay increased by inflation only forever, so I was asking you if you would be happy with that for yourself by accepting the pay for your job based upon the 1910 pay for it plus inflation.
You do appreciate don't you that, that would almost certainly be a much lower figure than you get now? Yet you are happy to impose that on others in society.
That's right. The earnings link is key. Without that, in a society growing more prosperous, a pension linked only to inflation would condemn those relying on it to abject relative poverty - and relative is the only meaningful metric here - over the long run. Time would work its magic and in this case it would be of the black variety.
No it wouldn't, as most pensioners do not have to pay rent or a mortgage unlike those working and earning as they own their own properties outright.
The only non tax payments most pensioners have to pay on a monthly basis are for shopping and the odd meal or trip out, which can be linked to inflation and they get free bus passes and Freedom Passes for London travel anyway
It would over time. That's certain given growth. We're talking relativities. It's why the earnings link was introduced.
It wouldn't, provided the state pension increased with inflation there would be no impact on spending in the shops and cafes which is what most pensioners spend most of their money on, inflation also rises with energy costs anyway too
Bonkers, absolutely bonkers. Suggest you look at a few stats.
Also not only do you want to impose what funding a pensioner gets you seem to want to impose what they do with it which is limited to spending in shops and cafes. We are not all doddering old gits you know. Life doesn't stop at 65.
67 ... or is it 68?
Not at 67 - so far! Although I am rather grumpy at times - but that started in my late teens.
Me too -but I was thinking of the pension age as being redefined by the Conservative Party (prop: HYUFD, who I suspect is rather on the younger side of 50).
Mr. Contrarian, it was a while ago that I saw it, but I think it's rather more useful than most war dramatisations because it lays bare the bureaucratic, almost everyday nature of the mechanics that can lie beneath genocide and totalitarianism.
Less fun than machineguns and Spitfires, but rather more menacing.
Indeed v. good point Mr Dancer. As you say, at times the participants get bored, frustrated, restless, crack jokes etc as at any normal business meeting.
And Branagh is utterly chilling as the charismatic and clubbable organizer of it all.
Pensions should rise in line with inflation not earnings but the Tories are bound by their manifesto commitment until the next general election
Why? Do you want people who rely on the state pension only to keep getting poorer compared to the rest of the population.
Only if they are also prepared to face a cut in the state pension too as there was a large fall in average earnings over the last year and a half state pensioners were protected from.
Inflation reflects rises in prices in the shops so is what pensions should be based on
So you would be happy if your current pay was equally to the pay for the same job in 1910 plus inflation would you?
Inflation by definition means it would not be the same as pay for a job in 1910
Sorry I have no idea what you are saying. I was giving you an analogy. You seem happy that one group in society should only have their pay increased by inflation only forever, so I was asking you if you would be happy with that for yourself by accepting the pay for your job based upon the 1910 pay for it plus inflation.
You do appreciate don't you that, that would almost certainly be a much lower figure than you get now? Yet you are happy to impose that on others in society.
That's right. The earnings link is key. Without that, in a society growing more prosperous, a pension linked only to inflation would condemn those relying on it to abject relative poverty - and relative is the only meaningful metric here - over the long run. Time would work its magic and in this case it would be of the black variety.
No it wouldn't, as most pensioners do not have to pay rent or a mortgage unlike those working and earning as they own their own properties outright.
The only non tax payments most pensioners have to pay on a monthly basis are for shopping and the odd meal or trip out, which can be linked to inflation and they get free bus passes and Freedom Passes for London travel anyway
It would over time. That's certain given growth. We're talking relativities. It's why the earnings link was introduced.
It wouldn't, provided the state pension increased with inflation there would be no impact on spending in the shops and cafes which is what most pensioners spend most of their money on, inflation also rises with energy costs anyway too
Bonkers, absolutely bonkers. Suggest you look at a few stats.
Also not only do you want to impose what funding a pensioner gets you seem to want to impose what they do with it which is limited to spending in shops and cafes. We are not all doddering old gits you know. Life doesn't stop at 65.
67 ... or is it 68?
I thought about that as I typed. For me 66 and then thought oh for goodness sake I don't want to make this more difficult as I am pulling my hair out currently with this argument.
Mr. Contrarian, it was a while ago that I saw it, but I think it's rather more useful than most war dramatisations because it lays bare the bureaucratic, almost everyday nature of the mechanics that can lie beneath genocide and totalitarianism.
Less fun than machineguns and Spitfires, but rather more menacing.
It's actually why I struggle with some more simplistic fantasy stories about traditional evil overlords and type now - even in simpler times organising mass invasions and evil actions seems to require a heck of a lot of bureaucracy, or at least organisation involving a lot of people sorting out the mechanics of it all. I don't know how anyone ever found the time (I think that's from an Eddie Izzard joke).
Though that does make me think of a darkly comic premise to a Cadfael book I read - One Corpse Too Many, the premise of which was the King took a castle and put something like a hundred people to the sword, and then someone noticed that one more person than was supposed to be killed was among the bodies and the mystery needed solving. What an outrage!
The Haus am Grosser Wannsee (I think it was called) is well worth a visit if you are in Berlin, it's a bus ride out of town but it has its own bus stop and I think I did it on the same day as a trip to Gatow and Spandau. They have the conference table that Heidrich et al sat round. Chilling.
It's a beautiful spot also which sort of adds to the horror.
Pension tax relief. For those (like me) who think it should be limited to 20%, it is worse than the 40% relief you think it is.
0% personal allowance is lost at rate of £1 for every £2 earned over £100k, so If someone earns a little over £100k then their marginal rate of tax is 60% and so they will get 60% tax relief on contributions which bring their income down towards 100k.
The fact that we can have a marginal rate of tax of 60% under a Conservative Government is what is shocking - who on earth wouldn’t try to mitigate that obscenity?
It's really 66.6%.
On a pay rise of £1,000 for a £100K earner:
Income tax £600 Employee's NI @2% £20 Employer's NI at 13.8% £138
Total tax: £758 Received by the employee: £380 True marginal rate = 758 / (758+380) = 66.6%
Which is an absurdity, as are the true marginal rates for various other situations (withdrawal of benefits etc).
Just getting rid of these absurd perverse incentives would help the economy and boost total tax receipts.
If a pay rise of £1,000 leaves the taxpayer with £380, that's a marginal rate of 62%. Either way, it's obscene.
By that logic if we called all tax 'employer's contribution' the marginal rate would be zero. That of course is why employer's NI exists - it's a handy and very effective sleight of hand by which Chancellors can disguise the true rate of tax on your income. It's astonishing how many people are taken in by it.
The thing is that the employers contribution isn't in the £1000 it's on top of it. And it's probably not 13.8%, it's likely to be 14.3% because of the apprenticeship levy.
So £1000 increase in salary from £100,000 to £101,000 will cost the company £1143
And result in the worker receiving £380 extra... which is why at that point you start seeing pensions being maxed out....
Yes, which is the 62% marginal rate I noted - I'm agreeing with you.
It's actually 66.8% going in tax from the employers point of view - it would be way better all round to suggest an increased pension contribution from the employer or an electric company car...
Owen Jones 🌹 @OwenJones84 · 1h The government is planning to reject an 8% increase in the state pension. But our state pension is one of the lowest in the Western world - an 8% increase is too low, not too much.
Pension tax relief. For those (like me) who think it should be limited to 20%, it is worse than the 40% relief you think it is.
0% personal allowance is lost at rate of £1 for every £2 earned over £100k, so If someone earns a little over £100k then their marginal rate of tax is 60% and so they will get 60% tax relief on contributions which bring their income down towards 100k.
The fact that we can have a marginal rate of tax of 60% under a Conservative Government is what is shocking - who on earth wouldn’t try to mitigate that obscenity?
It's really 66.6%.
On a pay rise of £1,000 for a £100K earner:
Income tax £600 Employee's NI @2% £20 Employer's NI at 13.8% £138
Total tax: £758 Received by the employee: £380 True marginal rate = 758 / (758+380) = 66.6%
Which is an absurdity, as are the true marginal rates for various other situations (withdrawal of benefits etc).
Just getting rid of these absurd perverse incentives would help the economy and boost total tax receipts.
If a pay rise of £1,000 leaves the taxpayer with £380, that's a marginal rate of 62%. Either way, it's obscene.
By that logic if we called all tax 'employer's contribution' the marginal rate would be zero. That of course is why employer's NI exists - it's a handy and very effective sleight of hand by which Chancellors can disguise the true rate of tax on your income. It's astonishing how many people are taken in by it.
The thing is that the employers contribution isn't in the £1000 it's on top of it. And it's probably not 13.8%, it's likely to be 14.3% because of the apprenticeship levy.
So £1000 increase in salary from £100,000 to £101,000 will cost the company £1143
And result in the worker receiving £380 extra... which is why at that point you start seeing pensions being maxed out....
Yes, which is the 62% marginal rate I noted - I'm agreeing with you.
It's actually 66.8% going in tax from the employers point of view - it would be way better all round to suggest an increased pension contribution from the employer or an electric company car...
But marginal tax rates refer to what the EMPLOYEE pays. Sorry, I totally understand how the total tax take is higher, but I am referring to what the EMPLOYEE ends up with, which is the standard definition. "The pound in your pocket" to misuse a phrase.
It occurred to me last night that, but for the intervention of a newspaper, Sam Allardyce would have inherited this platinum generation of soccer talent that Southgate has at his disposal.
& No I didn't ask for it early, simply responded to the appointments my surgery pinged to me.
That's probably a good thing, because you have to balance the (possible, unconfirmed) improvement in long-term protection of a longer delay against the advantage of getting double-jabbed protection against delta as soon as possible, with case rates highish and increasing as they now are. It's a different calculation from that made earlier in the year where the priority was to get as many people with at least the partial single-jab protection as possible.
And of course if longer-term protection requires a booster, that's not a big deal.
Pensions should rise in line with inflation not earnings but the Tories are bound by their manifesto commitment until the next general election
Why? Do you want people who rely on the state pension only to keep getting poorer compared to the rest of the population.
Only if they are also prepared to face a cut in the state pension too as there was a large fall in average earnings over the last year and a half state pensioners were protected from.
Inflation reflects rises in prices in the shops so is what pensions should be based on
So you would be happy if your current pay was equally to the pay for the same job in 1910 plus inflation would you?
Inflation by definition means it would not be the same as pay for a job in 1910
Sorry I have no idea what you are saying. I was giving you an analogy. You seem happy that one group in society should only have their pay increased by inflation only forever, so I was asking you if you would be happy with that for yourself by accepting the pay for your job based upon the 1910 pay for it plus inflation.
You do appreciate don't you that, that would almost certainly be a much lower figure than you get now? Yet you are happy to impose that on others in society.
That's right. The earnings link is key. Without that, in a society growing more prosperous, a pension linked only to inflation would condemn those relying on it to abject relative poverty - and relative is the only meaningful metric here - over the long run. Time would work its magic and in this case it would be of the black variety.
No it wouldn't, as most pensioners do not have to pay rent or a mortgage unlike those working and earning as they own their own properties outright.
The only non tax payments most pensioners have to pay on a monthly basis are for shopping and the odd meal or trip out, which can be linked to inflation and they get free bus passes and Freedom Passes for London travel anyway
It would over time. That's certain given growth. We're talking relativities. It's why the earnings link was introduced.
It wouldn't, provided the state pension increased with inflation there would be no impact on spending in the shops and cafes which is what most pensioners spend most of their money on, inflation also rises with energy costs anyway too
Bonkers, absolutely bonkers. Suggest you look at a few stats.
Also not only do you want to impose what funding a pensioner gets you seem to want to impose what they do with it which is limited to spending in shops and cafes. We are not all doddering old gits you know. Life doesn't stop at 65.
So you effectively want taxpayers who have rents or mortgages to pay to subsidise earnings linked state pensions for the 3/4 of pensioners who own their own home outright.
Plus pensioners get concessionary tickets to museums, cinemas etc too
Oh for goodness sake read my bloody posts.
A pension is not equivalent to a salary. It is always significantly less. This caters for your difference re mortgages.
Taxpayers are not being asked to subsidies pensions any more at all by linking pensions to earnings, because doh they are linked to earnings.
Status Quo is maintained, although many would argue the state pension should be a bigger percentage of average earning.
You on the other hand want to link the state pension to inflation which will reduce the percentage link to earnings every year making pensioners poorer and reducing the burden on the taxpayer year after year.
Some reports that Johnson may declare 19th July a national holiday.
Just for England? What about Scotland, Wales & Northern Ireland?
We get one if Italy win
*banter*
Apparently this European football competition is a recent creation in its present form. Until 1980 only 4 teams were involved in the final stages. Post 1980 it became 8 teams - and has now increased to 24! A lot of fuss and hysteria over an event with little real history behind it.
The dramatisation of the Wannsee meeting makes the uncomfortable point that a majority of the worthies who decided the final solution policy were qualified lawyers.
How many more times. Professional qualifications do not confer morality.
The danger of being a lawyer is that you can become completely detached from the morality of your actions.
The other problem is what I call the Lawyer's Syllogism.
1) I can *just* squeeze this action inside the law 2) Therefore it is lawful 3) Since it is lawful, it is moral. 4) Since it is moral, I need to do this.
I first encountered this, when, early in the Blair government, The Chinese president visited. The UK government used some really ancient laws to arrest protestors who were doing things like holding up signs about Tibet.
When I asked a lawyer involved in making the case for doing this, he gave me 1-4 above. Almost exactly.
See why Dolores Umbridge is seen as such an awful villain in Harry Potter - it's the moral justification she uses to allow herself to do things that makes her so bad.
At least with Bellatrix Lestrange she isn't trying to justify her actions..
Pensions should rise in line with inflation not earnings but the Tories are bound by their manifesto commitment until the next general election
Why? Do you want people who rely on the state pension only to keep getting poorer compared to the rest of the population.
Only if they are also prepared to face a cut in the state pension too as there was a large fall in average earnings over the last year and a half state pensioners were protected from.
Inflation reflects rises in prices in the shops so is what pensions should be based on
So you would be happy if your current pay was equally to the pay for the same job in 1910 plus inflation would you?
Inflation by definition means it would not be the same as pay for a job in 1910
Sorry I have no idea what you are saying. I was giving you an analogy. You seem happy that one group in society should only have their pay increased by inflation only forever, so I was asking you if you would be happy with that for yourself by accepting the pay for your job based upon the 1910 pay for it plus inflation.
You do appreciate don't you that, that would almost certainly be a much lower figure than you get now? Yet you are happy to impose that on others in society.
That's right. The earnings link is key. Without that, in a society growing more prosperous, a pension linked only to inflation would condemn those relying on it to abject relative poverty - and relative is the only meaningful metric here - over the long run. Time would work its magic and in this case it would be of the black variety.
No it wouldn't, as most pensioners do not have to pay rent or a mortgage unlike those working and earning as they own their own properties outright.
The only non tax payments most pensioners have to pay on a monthly basis are for shopping and the odd meal or trip out, which can be linked to inflation and they get free bus passes and Freedom Passes for London travel anyway
It would over time. That's certain given growth. We're talking relativities. It's why the earnings link was introduced.
It wouldn't, provided the state pension increased with inflation there would be no impact on spending in the shops and cafes which is what most pensioners spend most of their money on, inflation also rises with energy costs anyway too
Bonkers, absolutely bonkers. Suggest you look at a few stats.
Also not only do you want to impose what funding a pensioner gets you seem to want to impose what they do with it which is limited to spending in shops and cafes. We are not all doddering old gits you know. Life doesn't stop at 65.
So you effectively want taxpayers who have rents or mortgages to pay to subsidise earnings linked state pensions for the 3/4 of pensioners who own their own home outright.
Plus pensioners get concessionary tickets to museums, cinemas etc too
Oh and thanks for increasing what I can do from shopping and cafes to include museums and cinemas as well.
I don't know what sort of life you lead currently but god it is going to be dull by the time you retire.
The dramatisation of the Wannsee meeting makes the uncomfortable point that a majority of the worthies who decided the final solution policy were qualified lawyers.
How many more times. Professional qualifications do not confer morality.
The danger of being a lawyer is that you can become completely detached from the morality of your actions.
The other problem is what I call the Lawyer's Syllogism.
1) I can *just* squeeze this action inside the law 2) Therefore it is lawful 3) Since it is lawful, it is moral. 4) Since it is moral, I need to do this.
I first encountered this, when, early in the Blair government, The Chinese president visited. The UK government used some really ancient laws to arrest protestors who were doing things like holding up signs about Tibet.
When I asked a lawyer involved in making the case for doing this, he gave me 1-4 above. Almost exactly.
See why Dolores Umbridge is seen as such an awful villain in Harry Potter - it's the moral justification she uses to allow herself to do things that makes her so bad.
At least with Bellatrix Lestrange she isn't trying to justify her actions..
Agreed. Of all the baddies in HP Dolores is by far the most chilling because she is so recognisable. We have all come across people like her. People like Bellatrix rather less so.
Mr. Contrarian, it was a while ago that I saw it, but I think it's rather more useful than most war dramatisations because it lays bare the bureaucratic, almost everyday nature of the mechanics that can lie beneath genocide and totalitarianism.
Less fun than machineguns and Spitfires, but rather more menacing.
Indeed v. good point Mr Dancer. As you say, at times the participants get bored, frustrated, restless, crack jokes etc as at any normal business meeting.
And Branagh is utterly chilling as the charismatic and clubbable organizer of it all.
Branagh found the role very disturbing. He played Heydrich as a man who could have just browbeaten them all into implementing the extermination programme, but preferred instead to win them over through a mix of charm and menace.
It's a great play, although my understanding is that there was far less dissent then the play portrays, save for arguments over the fate of those of mixed blood. In reality, the key decisions had already been taken by Hitler, Goering, Himmler, and Heydrich, and the conference was held to discuss the details, not the principles.
Some reports that Johnson may declare 19th July a national holiday.
Just for England? What about Scotland, Wales & Northern Ireland?
We get one if Italy win
*banter*
Apparently this European football competition is a recent creation in its present form. Until 1980 only 4 teams were involved in the final stages. Post 1980 it became 8 teams - and has now increased to 24! A lot of fuss and hysteria over an event with little real history behind it.
Almost like lots of new countries came under the aegis of UEFA after the break up of the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia and they had to expand the tournament from 8 to 16 then 24.
The dramatisation of the Wannsee meeting makes the uncomfortable point that a majority of the worthies who decided the final solution policy were qualified lawyers.
How many more times. Professional qualifications do not confer morality.
The danger of being a lawyer is that you can become completely detached from the morality of your actions.
The other problem is what I call the Lawyer's Syllogism.
1) I can *just* squeeze this action inside the law 2) Therefore it is lawful 3) Since it is lawful, it is moral. 4) Since it is moral, I need to do this.
I first encountered this, when, early in the Blair government, The Chinese president visited. The UK government used some really ancient laws to arrest protestors who were doing things like holding up signs about Tibet.
When I asked a lawyer involved in making the case for doing this, he gave me 1-4 above. Almost exactly.
See why Dolores Umbridge is seen as such an awful villain in Harry Potter - it's the moral justification she uses to allow herself to do things that makes her so bad.
At least with Bellatrix Lestrange she isn't trying to justify her actions..
Some reports that Johnson may declare 19th July a national holiday.
Just for England? What about Scotland, Wales & Northern Ireland?
We get one if Italy win
*banter*
Apparently this European football competition is a recent creation in its present form. Until 1980 only 4 teams were involved in the final stages. Post 1980 it became 8 teams - and has now increased to 24! A lot of fuss and hysteria over an event with little real history behind it.
Almost like lots of new countries came under the aegis of UEFA after the break up of the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia and they had to expand the tournament from 8 to 16 then 24.
Pity it did not remain at 4 teams. Moreover, GB has yet to be broken up - yet had 3 teams involved this year. Why were the component parts of Yugoslavia , the USSR - and indeed Germany, Italy, Spain , France et al not allowed to do likewise?
In this light, Sturgeon looks more like a transitional figure between the old guard and the new movement than the conquering hero. In the end, independence may or may not come, but the SNP must begin to move on to the next generation and give them the opportunity to succeed where their elders have, in the end, failed.
The dramatisation of the Wannsee meeting makes the uncomfortable point that a majority of the worthies who decided the final solution policy were qualified lawyers.
How many more times. Professional qualifications do not confer morality.
The danger of being a lawyer is that you can become completely detached from the morality of your actions.
The other problem is what I call the Lawyer's Syllogism.
1) I can *just* squeeze this action inside the law 2) Therefore it is lawful 3) Since it is lawful, it is moral. 4) Since it is moral, I need to do this.
I first encountered this, when, early in the Blair government, The Chinese president visited. The UK government used some really ancient laws to arrest protestors who were doing things like holding up signs about Tibet.
When I asked a lawyer involved in making the case for doing this, he gave me 1-4 above. Almost exactly.
See why Dolores Umbridge is seen as such an awful villain in Harry Potter - it's the moral justification she uses to allow herself to do things that makes her so bad.
At least with Bellatrix Lestrange she isn't trying to justify her actions..
Umbridge is the kind of lickspittle who would draw up railway timetables for transporting people to the camps, and regulations dealing with the fate of those of mixed blood, while complaining she was only obeying orders.
Bellatrix is the kind of villain who proudly owns her actions, hence her popularity with the fandom.
If our sole income were our two state pensions, triple locked or not, we would find life much more difficult.
Given the paltry amount I would say impossible.
2x basic state pension is around £1,000 per month. Assuming you have no mortgage to pay, that is a good amount of money.
"paltry amount" suggests "out of touch"
I get 720 a month for mine , that would not keep me. 300 for council tax for starters, if you count gas , electricity , insurances , car etc it is already long gone. You are in fantasy land.
Pensions should rise in line with inflation not earnings but the Tories are bound by their manifesto commitment until the next general election
Why? Do you want people who rely on the state pension only to keep getting poorer compared to the rest of the population.
Only if they are also prepared to face a cut in the state pension too as there was a large fall in average earnings over the last year and a half state pensioners were protected from.
Inflation reflects rises in prices in the shops so is what pensions should be based on
So you would be happy if your current pay was equally to the pay for the same job in 1910 plus inflation would you?
Inflation by definition means it would not be the same as pay for a job in 1910
Sorry I have no idea what you are saying. I was giving you an analogy. You seem happy that one group in society should only have their pay increased by inflation only forever, so I was asking you if you would be happy with that for yourself by accepting the pay for your job based upon the 1910 pay for it plus inflation.
You do appreciate don't you that, that would almost certainly be a much lower figure than you get now? Yet you are happy to impose that on others in society.
That's right. The earnings link is key. Without that, in a society growing more prosperous, a pension linked only to inflation would condemn those relying on it to abject relative poverty - and relative is the only meaningful metric here - over the long run. Time would work its magic and in this case it would be of the black variety.
No it wouldn't, as most pensioners do not have to pay rent or a mortgage unlike those working and earning as they own their own properties outright.
The only non tax payments most pensioners have to pay on a monthly basis are for shopping and the odd meal or trip out, which can be linked to inflation and they get free bus passes and Freedom Passes for London travel anyway
It would over time. That's certain given growth. We're talking relativities. It's why the earnings link was introduced.
It wouldn't, provided the state pension increased with inflation there would be no impact on spending in the shops and cafes which is what most pensioners spend most of their money on, inflation also rises with energy costs anyway too
Bonkers, absolutely bonkers. Suggest you look at a few stats.
Also not only do you want to impose what funding a pensioner gets you seem to want to impose what they do with it which is limited to spending in shops and cafes. We are not all doddering old gits you know. Life doesn't stop at 65.
So you effectively want taxpayers who have rents or mortgages to pay to subsidise earnings linked state pensions for the 3/4 of pensioners who own their own home outright.
Plus pensioners get concessionary tickets to museums, cinemas etc too
Oh for goodness sake read my bloody posts.
A pension is not equivalent to a salary. It is always significantly less. This caters for your difference re mortgages.
Taxpayers are not being asked to subsidies pensions any more at all by linking pensions to earnings, because doh they are linked to earnings.
Status Quo is maintained, although many would argue the state pension should be a bigger percentage of average earning.
You on the other hand want to link the state pension to inflation which will reduce the percentage link to earnings every year making pensioners poorer and reducing the burden on the taxpayer year after year.
So thanks for confirming you want state pensions to continue to be linked to rises in earnings not inflation for the 3/4 of pensioners who own their own homes outright and for taxpayers who still have mortgages and rents to pay to fund it.
Not to mention most of those 3/4 will also have private pensions to call on too, indeed some will still have final salary pensions so no different to when they were earning.
Mr. Contrarian, it was a while ago that I saw it, but I think it's rather more useful than most war dramatisations because it lays bare the bureaucratic, almost everyday nature of the mechanics that can lie beneath genocide and totalitarianism.
Less fun than machineguns and Spitfires, but rather more menacing.
Indeed v. good point Mr Dancer. As you say, at times the participants get bored, frustrated, restless, crack jokes etc as at any normal business meeting.
And Branagh is utterly chilling as the charismatic and clubbable organizer of it all.
Branagh found the role very disturbing. He played Heydrich as a man who could have just browbeaten them all into implementing the extermination programme, but preferred instead to win them over through a mix of charm and menace.
It's a great play, although my understanding is that there was far less dissent then the play portrays, save for arguments over the fate of those of mixed blood. In reality, the key decisions had already been taken by Hitler, Goering, Himmler, and Heydrich, and the conference was held to discuss the details, not the principles.
I saw an interview with Tucci and I think he had a similar experience.
The dramatisation of the Wannsee meeting makes the uncomfortable point that a majority of the worthies who decided the final solution policy were qualified lawyers.
How many more times. Professional qualifications do not confer morality.
The danger of being a lawyer is that you can become completely detached from the morality of your actions.
The other problem is what I call the Lawyer's Syllogism.
1) I can *just* squeeze this action inside the law 2) Therefore it is lawful 3) Since it is lawful, it is moral. 4) Since it is moral, I need to do this.
I first encountered this, when, early in the Blair government, The Chinese president visited. The UK government used some really ancient laws to arrest protestors who were doing things like holding up signs about Tibet.
When I asked a lawyer involved in making the case for doing this, he gave me 1-4 above. Almost exactly.
See why Dolores Umbridge is seen as such an awful villain in Harry Potter - it's the moral justification she uses to allow herself to do things that makes her so bad.
At least with Bellatrix Lestrange she isn't trying to justify her actions..
Agreed. Of all the baddies in HP Dolores is by far the most chilling because she is so recognisable. We have all come across people like her. People like Bellatrix rather less so.
Bellatrix is one of those people of whom CS Lewis wrote "To be truly and effectively wicked a man needs some virtues". It applies to women, too. It was true of Heydrich.
Pension tax relief. For those (like me) who think it should be limited to 20%, it is worse than the 40% relief you think it is.
0% personal allowance is lost at rate of £1 for every £2 earned over £100k, so If someone earns a little over £100k then their marginal rate of tax is 60% and so they will get 60% tax relief on contributions which bring their income down towards 100k.
The fact that we can have a marginal rate of tax of 60% under a Conservative Government is what is shocking - who on earth wouldn’t try to mitigate that obscenity?
It's really 66.6%.
On a pay rise of £1,000 for a £100K earner:
Income tax £600 Employee's NI @2% £20 Employer's NI at 13.8% £138
Total tax: £758 Received by the employee: £380 True marginal rate = 758 / (758+380) = 66.6%
Which is an absurdity, as are the true marginal rates for various other situations (withdrawal of benefits etc).
Just getting rid of these absurd perverse incentives would help the economy and boost total tax receipts.
If a pay rise of £1,000 leaves the taxpayer with £380, that's a marginal rate of 62%. Either way, it's obscene.
By that logic if we called all tax 'employer's contribution' the marginal rate would be zero. That of course is why employer's NI exists - it's a handy and very effective sleight of hand by which Chancellors can disguise the true rate of tax on your income. It's astonishing how many people are taken in by it.
The thing is that the employers contribution isn't in the £1000 it's on top of it. And it's probably not 13.8%, it's likely to be 14.3% because of the apprenticeship levy.
So £1000 increase in salary from £100,000 to £101,000 will cost the company £1143
And result in the worker receiving £380 extra... which is why at that point you start seeing pensions being maxed out....
Yes, which is the 62% marginal rate I noted - I'm agreeing with you.
It's actually 66.8% going in tax from the employers point of view - it would be way better all round to suggest an increased pension contribution from the employer or an electric company car...
But marginal tax rates refer to what the EMPLOYEE pays. Sorry, I totally understand how the total tax take is higher, but I am referring to what the EMPLOYEE ends up with, which is the standard definition. "The pound in your pocket" to misuse a phrase.
But that's ridiculous. If the employer has a budget to pay you a wage then tax is tax from that budget whether you call it Employers NI, Employees NI or Income Tax. If they're all being applied then they're all the same thing and interchangeable at the end of the day.
An 8% rise for the OAPs and a 1% rise for the NHS staff will look odd. Especially if the NHS have been keeping the old gits alive.
It won't happen.
The only saving grace is that the low-hanging fruit have become the excess deaths of 2020. A lower pension bill than it would have been otherwise.
PS I'm 71 and I've still got my own teeth.
In an ideal world pensioners would all be guaranteed a comfortable retirement at public expense. But when so many working age people, and especially, children, face poverty it does seem odd to be hosing one group with money while cutting spending elsewhere. Personally I would like to see the government switch its focus to children - they are the future of this country and ultimately will be paying everyone's pensions in the long run. Let's do everything we can for them to lead long, happy and productive lives.
Why can other countries , supposedly inferior to Greta Britain , even small ones pay significantly higher pensions. This country has the smallest pension in the developed world.
But marginal tax rates refer to what the EMPLOYEE pays. Sorry, I totally understand how the total tax take is higher, but I am referring to what the EMPLOYEE ends up with, which is the standard definition. "The pound in your pocket" to misuse a phrase.
The standard definition is nonsense, which is why any small company director deciding whether to pay herself by salary or by dividends (or pension contributions or whatever) will do the sums on the reality, not the notional figure. And the reality is what leaves the company's bank account.
What matters here isn't what you call it, it's the perverse incentives of unreasonably high true marginal rates.
Some reports that Johnson may declare 19th July a national holiday.
Just for England? What about Scotland, Wales & Northern Ireland?
We get one if Italy win
*banter*
Apparently this European football competition is a recent creation in its present form. Until 1980 only 4 teams were involved in the final stages. Post 1980 it became 8 teams - and has now increased to 24! A lot of fuss and hysteria over an event with little real history behind it.
Almost like lots of new countries came under the aegis of UEFA after the break up of the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia and they had to expand the tournament from 8 to 16 then 24.
Pity it did not remain at 4 teams.
Well you don't understand football, what can I say.
Some reports that Johnson may declare 19th July a national holiday.
Just for England? What about Scotland, Wales & Northern Ireland?
We get one if Italy win
*banter*
Apparently this European football competition is a recent creation in its present form. Until 1980 only 4 teams were involved in the final stages. Post 1980 it became 8 teams - and has now increased to 24! A lot of fuss and hysteria over an event with little real history behind it.
Almost like lots of new countries came under the aegis of UEFA after the break up of the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia and they had to expand the tournament from 8 to 16 then 24.
Pity it did not remain at 4 teams.
Wouldn't exactly be fair if the UEFA membership was many times that number.
Mr. Rook, HS2 is more popular the further north you go.
If the part connecting London to Birmingham is completed and the northern half cancelled that will not go down well.
MD , depends on where you stop, fact that Scotland is paying part of it and it will never ever reach here means it is far from popular here for certain.
If our sole income were our two state pensions, triple locked or not, we would find life much more difficult.
Given the paltry amount I would say impossible.
2x basic state pension is around £1,000 per month. Assuming you have no mortgage to pay, that is a good amount of money.
"paltry amount" suggests "out of touch"
I get 720 a month for mine , that would not keep me. 300 for council tax for starters, if you count gas , electricity , insurances , car etc it is already long gone. You are in fantasy land.
Pensioners of course get free bus passes and a council tax reduction if they get Pension Credit too
Some reports that Johnson may declare 19th July a national holiday.
Just for England? What about Scotland, Wales & Northern Ireland?
We get one if Italy win
*banter*
Apparently this European football competition is a recent creation in its present form. Until 1980 only 4 teams were involved in the final stages. Post 1980 it became 8 teams - and has now increased to 24! A lot of fuss and hysteria over an event with little real history behind it.
Almost like lots of new countries came under the aegis of UEFA after the break up of the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia and they had to expand the tournament from 8 to 16 then 24.
Pity it did not remain at 4 teams.
Well you don't understand football, what can I say.
Pension tax relief. For those (like me) who think it should be limited to 20%, it is worse than the 40% relief you think it is.
0% personal allowance is lost at rate of £1 for every £2 earned over £100k, so If someone earns a little over £100k then their marginal rate of tax is 60% and so they will get 60% tax relief on contributions which bring their income down towards 100k.
That's just two wrongs making a - not exactly a right, but maybe about 20% of a right. The 60%+ marginal rate that kicks in above 100k is just plain evil. Being able to manipulate it away somewhat is absolutely necessary.
It's wrong absolutely but I wouldn't go as far as saying evil.
For those on UC, paying NI and IC it is a minimum of 75% real tax rate.
All these anomalies should be abolished. Merge NI, IC and UC together and get rid of all tapering of anything. Just have flat rates that work consistently.
Not possible - sadly - it's tapering of a benefit that is the issue and without a universal income it just isn't possible.
Which is why we should have a universal income.
Since we have universal benefits we already do have a universal income, the reality is that we just don't call it that. So merge the lot together and call it what it already is.
Some reports that Johnson may declare 19th July a national holiday.
Just for England? What about Scotland, Wales & Northern Ireland?
We get one if Italy win
*banter*
Apparently this European football competition is a recent creation in its present form. Until 1980 only 4 teams were involved in the final stages. Post 1980 it became 8 teams - and has now increased to 24! A lot of fuss and hysteria over an event with little real history behind it.
Almost like lots of new countries came under the aegis of UEFA after the break up of the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia and they had to expand the tournament from 8 to 16 then 24.
Pity it did not remain at 4 teams.
Well you don't understand football, what can I say.
Mr. Eagles, wonderful that BBC bigwigs found the money for a sporting event within convenient reach but which failed to exceed targets to the same extent as F1 which they decided to throw away, not merely from their own coverage but free-to-air altogether (excepting the British Grand Prix).
Mr. Rook, HS2 is more popular the further north you go.
If the part connecting London to Birmingham is completed and the northern half cancelled that will not go down well.
MD , depends on where you stop, fact that Scotland is paying part of it and it will never ever reach here means it is far from popular here for certain.
The full state pension is £10,192.56 a year: well below the minimum and living wages. Thanks to the triple lock over the past decade, it is about £10 higher than it would otherwise be. Not a lot. The idea that pensioners' mouths have been stuffed with gold, or that the triple lock is ruinously expensive, is absurd. And remember many women will be getting less than even that (the so-called WASPI women case).
In any case, maintaining the triple lock was in the manifesto. So was the .7% aid budget of course.
Where the state pension might seem generous is in topping up high personal pensions. Means testing might be an option here, phasing out the state pension at high income levels but it would need to be very high else people will game the system. There are already problems with doctors at the top end of contribution limits.
Not sure where you get your figures from but state pension I get is only £9.3K, am I being robbed after contributing for 50 years.
Pension tax relief. For those (like me) who think it should be limited to 20%, it is worse than the 40% relief you think it is.
0% personal allowance is lost at rate of £1 for every £2 earned over £100k, so If someone earns a little over £100k then their marginal rate of tax is 60% and so they will get 60% tax relief on contributions which bring their income down towards 100k.
That's just two wrongs making a - not exactly a right, but maybe about 20% of a right. The 60%+ marginal rate that kicks in above 100k is just plain evil. Being able to manipulate it away somewhat is absolutely necessary.
It's wrong absolutely but I wouldn't go as far as saying evil.
For those on UC, paying NI and IC it is a minimum of 75% real tax rate.
All these anomalies should be abolished. Merge NI, IC and UC together and get rid of all tapering of anything. Just have flat rates that work consistently.
Not possible - sadly - it's tapering of a benefit that is the issue and without a universal income it just isn't possible.
Which is why we should have a universal income.
Since we have universal benefits we already do have a universal income, the reality is that we just don't call it that. So merge the lot together and call it what it already is.
But if you do that, someone without the skills to achieve a professorial chair in mathematics could work out what their benefits should be, if they get a job.
Pension tax relief. For those (like me) who think it should be limited to 20%, it is worse than the 40% relief you think it is.
0% personal allowance is lost at rate of £1 for every £2 earned over £100k, so If someone earns a little over £100k then their marginal rate of tax is 60% and so they will get 60% tax relief on contributions which bring their income down towards 100k.
The fact that we can have a marginal rate of tax of 60% under a Conservative Government is what is shocking - who on earth wouldn’t try to mitigate that obscenity?
It's really 66.6%.
On a pay rise of £1,000 for a £100K earner:
Income tax £600 Employee's NI @2% £20 Employer's NI at 13.8% £138
Total tax: £758 Received by the employee: £380 True marginal rate = 758 / (758+380) = 66.6%
Which is an absurdity, as are the true marginal rates for various other situations (withdrawal of benefits etc).
Just getting rid of these absurd perverse incentives would help the economy and boost total tax receipts.
If a pay rise of £1,000 leaves the taxpayer with £380, that's a marginal rate of 62%. Either way, it's obscene.
By that logic if we called all tax 'employer's contribution' the marginal rate would be zero. That of course is why employer's NI exists - it's a handy and very effective sleight of hand by which Chancellors can disguise the true rate of tax on your income. It's astonishing how many people are taken in by it.
The thing is that the employers contribution isn't in the £1000 it's on top of it. And it's probably not 13.8%, it's likely to be 14.3% because of the apprenticeship levy.
So £1000 increase in salary from £100,000 to £101,000 will cost the company £1143
And result in the worker receiving £380 extra... which is why at that point you start seeing pensions being maxed out....
Yes, which is the 62% marginal rate I noted - I'm agreeing with you.
It's actually 66.8% going in tax from the employers point of view - it would be way better all round to suggest an increased pension contribution from the employer or an electric company car...
But marginal tax rates refer to what the EMPLOYEE pays. Sorry, I totally understand how the total tax take is higher, but I am referring to what the EMPLOYEE ends up with, which is the standard definition. "The pound in your pocket" to misuse a phrase.
But that's ridiculous. If the employer has a budget to pay you a wage then tax is tax from that budget whether you call it Employers NI, Employees NI or Income Tax. If they're all being applied then they're all the same thing and interchangeable at the end of the day.
Indeed. If you take the argument to extremes, the Government could abolish all income tax and NI, and charge the employer on a sliding scale, based on the current setup. All marginal rates of tax on employees would instantly drop to zero, but the tax take would remain the same, and employees would suddenly find that pay rises mysteriously become bigger at some points on the income scale, and smaller at others.
As Mr Nabavi says, it's just sleight of hand to pretend that Employer's NI is anything other than a tax on earnings.
If our sole income were our two state pensions, triple locked or not, we would find life much more difficult.
Given the paltry amount I would say impossible.
2x basic state pension is around £1,000 per month. Assuming you have no mortgage to pay, that is a good amount of money.
"paltry amount" suggests "out of touch"
I get 720 a month for mine , that would not keep me. 300 for council tax for starters, if you count gas , electricity , insurances , car etc it is already long gone. You are in fantasy land.
Pensioners of course get free bus passes and a council tax reduction if they get Pension Credit too
Some reports that Johnson may declare 19th July a national holiday.
Just for England? What about Scotland, Wales & Northern Ireland?
We get one if Italy win
*banter*
Apparently this European football competition is a recent creation in its present form. Until 1980 only 4 teams were involved in the final stages. Post 1980 it became 8 teams - and has now increased to 24! A lot of fuss and hysteria over an event with little real history behind it.
Almost like lots of new countries came under the aegis of UEFA after the break up of the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia and they had to expand the tournament from 8 to 16 then 24.
Pity it did not remain at 4 teams.
Wouldn't exactly be fair if the UEFA membership was many times that number.
The other aspect to remember is that many international associations couldn't afford the cost of participating in a tournament.
As football grew richer, it became less of an issue.
IIRC only 4 European countries participated in the first world cup because of the cost of travelling to Uruguay.
Some reports that Johnson may declare 19th July a national holiday.
Just for England? What about Scotland, Wales & Northern Ireland?
We get one if Italy win
*banter*
Apparently this European football competition is a recent creation in its present form. Until 1980 only 4 teams were involved in the final stages. Post 1980 it became 8 teams - and has now increased to 24! A lot of fuss and hysteria over an event with little real history behind it.
Almost like lots of new countries came under the aegis of UEFA after the break up of the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia and they had to expand the tournament from 8 to 16 then 24.
Pity it did not remain at 4 teams. Moreover, GB has yet to be broken up - yet had 3 teams involved this year. Why were the component parts of Yugoslavia , the USSR - and indeed Germany, Italy, Spain , France et al not allowed to do likewise?
We have separate football associations which are registered with UEFA as FIFA individually. If a separate Bavarian FA, or Catalan FA, had been formed and registered with FIFA from the beginning then they would compete as separate teams.
An 8% rise for the OAPs and a 1% rise for the NHS staff will look odd. Especially if the NHS have been keeping the old gits alive.
It won't happen.
The only saving grace is that the low-hanging fruit have become the excess deaths of 2020. A lower pension bill than it would have been otherwise.
PS I'm 71 and I've still got my own teeth.
In an ideal world pensioners would all be guaranteed a comfortable retirement at public expense. But when so many working age people, and especially, children, face poverty it does seem odd to be hosing one group with money while cutting spending elsewhere. Personally I would like to see the government switch its focus to children - they are the future of this country and ultimately will be paying everyone's pensions in the long run. Let's do everything we can for them to lead long, happy and productive lives.
Why can other countries , supposedly inferior to Greta Britain , even small ones pay significantly higher pensions. This country has the smallest pension in the developed world.
Because this country has a history of private pensions. If you're not taking those into account, you're not being honest with your figures.
Pensions should rise in line with inflation not earnings but the Tories are bound by their manifesto commitment until the next general election
Why? Do you want people who rely on the state pension only to keep getting poorer compared to the rest of the population.
Only if they are also prepared to face a cut in the state pension too as there was a large fall in average earnings over the last year and a half state pensioners were protected from.
Inflation reflects rises in prices in the shops so is what pensions should be based on
So you would be happy if your current pay was equally to the pay for the same job in 1910 plus inflation would you?
Inflation by definition means it would not be the same as pay for a job in 1910
Sorry I have no idea what you are saying. I was giving you an analogy. You seem happy that one group in society should only have their pay increased by inflation only forever, so I was asking you if you would be happy with that for yourself by accepting the pay for your job based upon the 1910 pay for it plus inflation.
You do appreciate don't you that, that would almost certainly be a much lower figure than you get now? Yet you are happy to impose that on others in society.
That's right. The earnings link is key. Without that, in a society growing more prosperous, a pension linked only to inflation would condemn those relying on it to abject relative poverty - and relative is the only meaningful metric here - over the long run. Time would work its magic and in this case it would be of the black variety.
No it wouldn't, as most pensioners do not have to pay rent or a mortgage unlike those working and earning as they own their own properties outright.
The only non tax payments most pensioners have to pay on a monthly basis are for shopping and the odd meal or trip out, which can be linked to inflation and they get free bus passes and Freedom Passes for London travel anyway
It would over time. That's certain given growth. We're talking relativities. It's why the earnings link was introduced.
It wouldn't, provided the state pension increased with inflation there would be no impact on spending in the shops and cafes which is what most pensioners spend most of their money on, inflation also rises with energy costs anyway too
Bonkers, absolutely bonkers. Suggest you look at a few stats.
Also not only do you want to impose what funding a pensioner gets you seem to want to impose what they do with it which is limited to spending in shops and cafes. We are not all doddering old gits you know. Life doesn't stop at 65.
So you effectively want taxpayers who have rents or mortgages to pay to subsidise earnings linked state pensions for the 3/4 of pensioners who own their own home outright.
Plus pensioners get concessionary tickets to museums, cinemas etc too
Oh for goodness sake read my bloody posts.
A pension is not equivalent to a salary. It is always significantly less. This caters for your difference re mortgages.
Taxpayers are not being asked to subsidies pensions any more at all by linking pensions to earnings, because doh they are linked to earnings.
Status Quo is maintained, although many would argue the state pension should be a bigger percentage of average earning.
You on the other hand want to link the state pension to inflation which will reduce the percentage link to earnings every year making pensioners poorer and reducing the burden on the taxpayer year after year.
So thanks for confirming you want state pensions to continue to be linked to rises in earnings not inflation for the 3/4 of pensioners who own their own homes outright and for taxpayers who still have mortgages and rents to pay to fund it.
Not to mention most of those 3/4 will also have private pensions to call on too, indeed some will still have final salary pensions so no different to when they were earning.
Well that was clear from the beginning. Do you mean we didn't have to have this discussion?
Unlike you I have no desire to slowly put pensioners who rely on a state pension into poverty. The rest of us who have significant income have contributed generously to our state pension and will continue to do so through our taxes.
I have no desire to make those less fortunate than me worse off.
Re your comment about private and final salary schemes at the end of your post - You do realise don't you that when you retire you don't get the same amount as when you are working. This last post in particular and your other posts seem to imply you think you get the same money when retired as when working if you are in one of these schemes. You don't really believe that do you?
If our sole income were our two state pensions, triple locked or not, we would find life much more difficult.
Given the paltry amount I would say impossible.
2x basic state pension is around £1,000 per month. Assuming you have no mortgage to pay, that is a good amount of money.
"paltry amount" suggests "out of touch"
I get 720 a month for mine , that would not keep me. 300 for council tax for starters, if you count gas , electricity , insurances , car etc it is already long gone. You are in fantasy land.
Pensioners of course get free bus passes and a council tax reduction if they get Pension Credit too
£300 a month in Council tax?????
Scottish rates are often higher and have a lower set of bands than the rest of the UK.
For instance band A is worth less than £27,000 in 1991 not £40000. And Band G is £106,000 rather than £160,000.
It's very easy for a house in Scotland to be in band G (£3479.55 in Glasgow including water rates).
The full state pension is £10,192.56 a year: well below the minimum and living wages. Thanks to the triple lock over the past decade, it is about £10 higher than it would otherwise be. Not a lot. The idea that pensioners' mouths have been stuffed with gold, or that the triple lock is ruinously expensive, is absurd. And remember many women will be getting less than even that (the so-called WASPI women case).
In any case, maintaining the triple lock was in the manifesto. So was the .7% aid budget of course.
Where the state pension might seem generous is in topping up high personal pensions. Means testing might be an option here, phasing out the state pension at high income levels but it would need to be very high else people will game the system. There are already problems with doctors at the top end of contribution limits.
WASPI women aren't getting less than that, they're just not getting their pension five years before their male counterparts anymore.
AIUI the WASPI women case has been to the High Court, and found not to have sufficient merit.
That's that.
Except that continued performative outrage helps bed in narratives for the future.
I think the full state pension is £9.3k and the average annuity on a private pension about £3k, so that gets you to about £12.5k - or over £1,000 per month.
When you bear in mind that pensioners won't pay NI or income tax on that, get OAP discounts in most places, get free buses, a winter fuel allowance, and get a free TV licence, then it allows for a decent basic retirement. Particularly if you've paid off the mortgage.
You might want to have a much more luxurious retirement than that, but should it be the duty of the State to pay for it?
IMHO, there are far greater calls on the public purse - particularly for those of working age.
Does the average person really only manage to save 60k or so into a pension over their lifetime? I'm wondering if maybe these figures are averaged across pension pots... and people who have more than one job might have multiple pension pots?
It is only recently that employers were required to provide pension schemes at all. Many people in low-wage jobs have no savings. I've not seen the figures but it would not surprise me if £60k is correct but it might be misleading if there is a large tail with almost nothing and not a smooth curve.
Figure seems high , sure that not that long ago it was £30K average pot, as you say huge amount of people had no pension up until very recently and if on minimum it will amount to little.
Mr. Eagles, wonderful that BBC bigwigs found the money for a sporting event within convenient reach but which failed to exceed targets to the same extent as F1 which they decided to throw away, not merely from their own coverage but free-to-air altogether (excepting the British Grand Prix).
Simple truth, Wimbledon is more popular than F1.
You can tell that by the fact no one else bid for F1 live FTA and ITV walked away from their contract 2 years early.
I think the full state pension is £9.3k and the average annuity on a private pension about £3k, so that gets you to about £12.5k - or over £1,000 per month.
When you bear in mind that pensioners won't pay NI or income tax on that, get OAP discounts in most places, get free buses, a winter fuel allowance, and get a free TV licence, then it allows for a decent basic retirement. Particularly if you've paid off the mortgage.
You might want to have a much more luxurious retirement than that, but should it be the duty of the State to pay for it?
IMHO, there are far greater calls on the public purse - particularly for those of working age.
Does the average person really only manage to save 60k or so into a pension over their lifetime? I'm wondering if maybe these figures are averaged across pension pots... and people who have more than one job might have multiple pension pots?
Yes, or less. But it should get better in future.
Minimum wage is £8.91. 8 hours per day. 225 days per year. About £16k full time.
Employer pays 5% and employee puts in 3% (where legal minimums are heading) so you should squirrel away over £1k a year. Over a 40 year working life that should compound up to £80-£120k, I think, depending on fund growth, but what annuity you could buy with it at the end I don't know.
Mr. Rook, HS2 is more popular the further north you go.
If the part connecting London to Birmingham is completed and the northern half cancelled that will not go down well.
MD , depends on where you stop, fact that Scotland is paying part of it and it will never ever reach here means it is far from popular here for certain.
The full state pension is £10,192.56 a year: well below the minimum and living wages. Thanks to the triple lock over the past decade, it is about £10 higher than it would otherwise be. Not a lot. The idea that pensioners' mouths have been stuffed with gold, or that the triple lock is ruinously expensive, is absurd. And remember many women will be getting less than even that (the so-called WASPI women case).
In any case, maintaining the triple lock was in the manifesto. So was the .7% aid budget of course.
Where the state pension might seem generous is in topping up high personal pensions. Means testing might be an option here, phasing out the state pension at high income levels but it would need to be very high else people will game the system. There are already problems with doctors at the top end of contribution limits.
Not sure where you get your figures from but state pension I get is only £9.3K, am I being robbed after contributing for 50 years.
My figure of £10,192.56 for the state pension is read directly from the pension forecast HMRC sent me only this week. However, this government page does indeed say £179.60 per week or £9.3k pa is the correct figure. https://www.gov.uk/new-state-pension/what-youll-get
Mr. Contrarian, it was a while ago that I saw it, but I think it's rather more useful than most war dramatisations because it lays bare the bureaucratic, almost everyday nature of the mechanics that can lie beneath genocide and totalitarianism.
Less fun than machineguns and Spitfires, but rather more menacing.
May I recommend a viewing of Claude Lanzmann's epic Holocaust documentary Shoah? I re-watched it recently (though be warned it is 9 hours long) for free by signing up to the BFI website for a months trial. It is a fantastic piece of film making. And it has become social history as well. The footage of 70s and 80s Communist Poland shows how backward the Eastern bloc countries were, and how proud we should be off ourselves by helping to revitalise them.
Anyway, amongst the many most excellent interviews in the film is one with a chap who was in the Deutsche Reichsbahn. He was responsible for keeping the trains running, including the very many employed to transport victims to the death camps in the East. Of course, he felt no personal blame for the crimes committed. He never personally killed anyone. The bureaucracy allowed many to facilitate the crimes yet see themselves as blameless. Probably the same in Stalin's Russia.
I think the full state pension is £9.3k and the average annuity on a private pension about £3k, so that gets you to about £12.5k - or over £1,000 per month.
When you bear in mind that pensioners won't pay NI or income tax on that, get OAP discounts in most places, get free buses, a winter fuel allowance, and get a free TV licence, then it allows for a decent basic retirement. Particularly if you've paid off the mortgage.
You might want to have a much more luxurious retirement than that, but should it be the duty of the State to pay for it?
IMHO, there are far greater calls on the public purse - particularly for those of working age.
Does the average person really only manage to save 60k or so into a pension over their lifetime? I'm wondering if maybe these figures are averaged across pension pots... and people who have more than one job might have multiple pension pots?
Yes, or less. But it should get better in future.
Minimum wage is £8.91. 8 hours per day. 225 days per year. About £16k full time.
Employer pays 5% and employee puts in 3% (where legal minimums are heading) so you should squirrel away over £1k a year. Over a 40 year working life that should compound up to £80-£120k, I think, depending on fund growth, but what annuity you could buy with it at the end I don't know.
Be very lucky to get 3-4K with that pot
And that would only be the case if you developed a 40 a day habit.
Pension tax relief. For those (like me) who think it should be limited to 20%, it is worse than the 40% relief you think it is.
0% personal allowance is lost at rate of £1 for every £2 earned over £100k, so If someone earns a little over £100k then their marginal rate of tax is 60% and so they will get 60% tax relief on contributions which bring their income down towards 100k.
Back when I was working and at the same time flush with cash I opened a SIPP with a lump sum equal to my annual salary. I could do this only because my financial situtation was fortunate enough not to need my salary to live on. I was then astonished to get from HMRC a payment equal to all the tax I'd paid inc higher rate. A quite amazingly regressive regime, I thought. Seek out people who don't need money and damn well give them a wodge of it.
I think pension relief should be uncoupled from tax. Government should match fund contributions up to a modest limit. It could be linked to a Citizens Bond. You then get that - depending on performance - plus your state pension. Anything higher should come from personal resources. I've sent this one in to Starmer for the policy review Waiting for him to get in touch to explore further. Maybe a Zoom.
It's totally mean and anti-aspirational - he will love it.
It's neither of those things. The essence of it is, the government is saying to each & every adult, "If you lock away anything up to £x this year for your old age, we will match it." There's incentive and aspiration there. Generosity too.
People are always complaining about unfairness, complexity, loopholes in Fiscal Corner - ok so this removes a ton of it. Stop trying to meld tax into pensions. It clutters up both. And stop subsidizing people who don't need subsidizing, focus on those who really do, lower the roof, raise the floor. #levelup.
Mr. Eagles, Channel 4 wanted it but the BBC did a deal with Sky.
Only two sporting items (Wimbledon and F1) met BBC targets and F1 did so more successfully. Instead of retaining it or allowing Channel 4 to get it, the BBC collaborated with Sky to deprive the licence fee payer of half the calendar, then the whole lot (excepting the British Grand Prix).
The value of the BBC contract was £30m. They blew that much on the concept of The Voice alone.
And then they wibble about people watching less TV.
Owen Jones 🌹 @OwenJones84 · 1h The government is planning to reject an 8% increase in the state pension. But our state pension is one of the lowest in the Western world - an 8% increase is too low, not too much.
If the government was going to go through with it, he would be complaining the Tories just pork barrelling their own voters, what about those on benefits..
Owen Jones 🌹 @OwenJones84 · 1h The government is planning to reject an 8% increase in the state pension. But our state pension is one of the lowest in the Western world - an 8% increase is too low, not too much.
Mental. If labour take this line then they're fucked.
Comments
Yes people who are retired often don't have mortgages to pay, but equally the pension is rightly significantly lower than their old pay. You want to make it even lower? You also seem to want to keep those that rent in poverty by forcing them to claim housing benefits by pushing them further into poverty.
Pensions should be related to earnings not inflation to keep in line with living standards. You want to degrade it year on year? I'm sure you don't mean that.
Re your job. Are you really saying your job was paid better in real terms in 1910 than now? Did you really check that? That is incredibly difficult to believe. Although as has been pointed out the PMs job was worth a lot more then. You aren't Boris are you?
Though that does make me think of a darkly comic premise to a Cadfael book I read - One Corpse Too Many, the premise of which was the King took a castle and put something like a hundred people to the sword, and then someone noticed that one more person than was supposed to be killed was among the bodies and the mystery needed solving. What an outrage!
The small minority who still rent even as pensioners will likely already have been claiming housing benefit during their working lives anyway.
& No I didn't ask for it early, simply responded to the appointments my surgery pinged to me.
Also not only do you want to impose what funding a pensioner gets you seem to want to impose what they do with it which is limited to spending in shops and cafes. We are not all doddering old gits you know. Life doesn't stop at 65.
So £1000 increase in salary from £100,000 to £101,000 will cost the company £1143
And result in the worker receiving £380 extra... which is why at that point you start seeing pensions being maxed out....
Plus pensioners get concessionary tickets to museums, cinemas etc too
Sometimes a bit of make believe is necessary to square the low taxes/high-quality public services circle.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-the-papers-57772488
I actually said pensioners don't need as high a pension as earners. I ACTUALLY SAID THAT! And they don't have as high a pension. And I am not arguing for that. But if you link their pension to inflation and not earnings their pension compared to earning will be dropping.
You do understand the maths don't you?
Nobody is arguing their pensions should equal earnings, but that the ratio to earnings should be maintained otherwise over time you will drive them into poverty.
Sigh, this is hard.
And Branagh is utterly chilling as the charismatic and clubbable organizer of it all.
*banter*
Southgate is now more popular among Brits than Churchill.
*Southgate*
Favourable 72%
Unfavourable 11%
NET: +61
*Churchill*
Favourable 65%
Unfavourable 22%
NET: +43
Despite how it might seem on Twitter dot com, Southgate is about as popular with Conservative voters as he is with Labour voters.
https://twitter.com/chriscurtis94/status/1413454326593331204?s=21
Churchill was a fascist (keeping people under dominion of the UK against their will is fascism.)
@OwenJones84
·
1h
The government is planning to reject an 8% increase in the state pension. But our state pension is one of the lowest in the Western world - an 8% increase is too low, not too much.
Funny old world!
And of course if longer-term protection requires a booster, that's not a big deal.
A pension is not equivalent to a salary. It is always significantly less. This caters for your difference re mortgages.
Taxpayers are not being asked to subsidies pensions any more at all by linking pensions to earnings, because doh they are linked to earnings.
Status Quo is maintained, although many would argue the state pension should be a bigger percentage of average earning.
You on the other hand want to link the state pension to inflation which will reduce the percentage link to earnings every year making pensioners poorer and reducing the burden on the taxpayer year after year.
At least with Bellatrix Lestrange she isn't trying to justify her actions..
I don't know what sort of life you lead currently but god it is going to be dull by the time you retire.
It's a great play, although my understanding is that there was far less dissent then the play portrays, save for arguments over the fate of those of mixed blood. In reality, the key decisions had already been taken by Hitler, Goering, Himmler, and Heydrich, and the conference was held to discuss the details, not the principles.
https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/scotland/2021/07/nicola-sturgeon-nurturing-new-generation-snp-talent-win-independence
Bellatrix is the kind of villain who proudly owns her actions, hence her popularity with the fandom.
Not to mention most of those 3/4 will also have private pensions to call on too, indeed some will still have final salary pensions so no different to when they were earning.
What matters here isn't what you call it, it's the perverse incentives of unreasonably high true marginal rates.
"The longest partnership in sports broadcasting history celebrates 85 years of TV in 2022 and this extension will see 100 years of radio in 2027."
https://twitter.com/sportingintel/status/1413465697020104708
Since we have universal benefits we already do have a universal income, the reality is that we just don't call it that. So merge the lot together and call it what it already is.
The fact that you can't detect the difference suggests that your terrible taste in clothes has caused structural damage - Long Fashion?
How is that justifiable?
As Mr Nabavi says, it's just sleight of hand to pretend that Employer's NI is anything other than a tax on earnings.
As football grew richer, it became less of an issue.
IIRC only 4 European countries participated in the first world cup because of the cost of travelling to Uruguay.
Do you have a private pension?
Unlike you I have no desire to slowly put pensioners who rely on a state pension into poverty. The rest of us who have significant income have contributed generously to our state pension and will continue to do so through our taxes.
I have no desire to make those less fortunate than me worse off.
Re your comment about private and final salary schemes at the end of your post - You do realise don't you that when you retire you don't get the same amount as when you are working. This last post in particular and your other posts seem to imply you think you get the same money when retired as when working if you are in one of these schemes. You don't really believe that do you?
Forcible suppression of opponents is a key characteristic of fascism, look at all the arrests of Indian independence figures.
For instance band A is worth less than £27,000 in 1991 not £40000.
And Band G is £106,000 rather than £160,000.
It's very easy for a house in Scotland to be in band G (£3479.55 in Glasgow including water rates).
That's that.
Except that continued performative outrage helps bed in narratives for the future.
https://twitter.com/OpiniumResearch/status/1413456537570332672?s=20
You can tell that by the fact no one else bid for F1 live FTA and ITV walked away from their contract 2 years early.
https://www.gov.uk/new-state-pension/what-youll-get
Anyway, amongst the many most excellent interviews in the film is one with a chap who was in the Deutsche Reichsbahn. He was responsible for keeping the trains running, including the very many employed to transport victims to the death camps in the East. Of course, he felt no personal blame for the crimes committed. He never personally killed anyone. The bureaucracy allowed many to facilitate the crimes yet see themselves as blameless. Probably the same in Stalin's Russia.
Come to think of it, was Indira Ghandi a fascist?
Forcible suppression of opponents was standard operating procedure for all types of regime until about an eye blink ago, in terms of human history.
Attenborough not so sure.
To advance the cause of Fascism, Winston Churchill could have simply decided to say nothing about the rise of nazi Germany in the 1930s.
As it was, he was the loudest and most important voice warning about that rise.
People are always complaining about unfairness, complexity, loopholes in Fiscal Corner - ok so this removes a ton of it. Stop trying to meld tax into pensions. It clutters up both. And stop subsidizing people who don't need subsidizing, focus on those who really do, lower the roof, raise the floor. #levelup.
Only two sporting items (Wimbledon and F1) met BBC targets and F1 did so more successfully. Instead of retaining it or allowing Channel 4 to get it, the BBC collaborated with Sky to deprive the licence fee payer of half the calendar, then the whole lot (excepting the British Grand Prix).
The value of the BBC contract was £30m. They blew that much on the concept of The Voice alone.
And then they wibble about people watching less TV.