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Like a bad smell Trump isn’t going anywhere – politicalbetting.com

SystemSystem Posts: 11,002
edited September 2021 in General
Like a bad smell Trump isn’t going anywhere – politicalbetting.com

Jordan spokesperson claiming the congressman didn’t say this: “Not true. Mr. Jordan did not say this.” https://t.co/sKS8lwknli

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Comments

  • Deep thought: If Trump is running the value bet is Biden. Assuming he's still standing he'll feel a sense of responsibility to run again, and also he'll think he can win. He'll be very old, but his opponent will also be very old.
  • TomsToms Posts: 2,478
    edited September 2021
    Let lying dogs sleep.
  • Dura_AceDura_Ace Posts: 12,880
    The other issue Trump needs address to reconcile with the oxycontin addicted hyper patriot section of his base is total abandonment of the 6th Jan insurrectionists who are in the hoosegow. So he may have to make some placatory noises on that subject.
  • CharlesCharles Posts: 35,758
    FPT @kle4

    My views are aligned with @DecrepitJohnL

    The honours system is a bit of flim-flam. Not worth very much. If people need a pat on the head to give money to charity that’s a bit sad but whatever. It’s much more serious when it’s things like a seat in the Lords.

    @Benpointer i fully accept it looks bad, although that’s partly the way the media chooses to present it. Perhaps you create a new class on honour specific for people who give a lot of money to good causes?

    More disturbing is the use of fixers who get fees. That’s bullshit. The Prince’s Foundation doesn’t need to pay introduction fees

    @kle4 re the Sacklers the issue is the Library and Gallery were funded by the family of the younger brother who sold his shares *before* OxyContin was launched. Yes he sold Valium but I don’t think that was as bad(?). So the campaigners were punishing people who weren’t responsible and damaging the cultural sector because their cousins did bad stuff
  • CharlesCharles Posts: 35,758
    Social care funding is and interesting challenge. Basically we don’t pay enough for social care (although in the main the homes that I know - which are the national chains - do a decent enough job at a cost to local authorities of c £900 per week

    It’s not as simple as saying “let old people pay” - they paid for their parent generation. @MaxPB has got caught up in his crusade about BTL again and decided that all old people are evil and tax should be hypothecated to hit them.

    The reality is that society as a whole needs to fund social care. There are positive externalities from not having old people blocking hospital beds or dying in the streets. Tax should be simple, broad based, low rates, and hard to avoid. Income tax meets all of those criteria.

  • Good morning, everyone.

    F1: working on a pre-race ramble. Quite shocking how much bad luck I've had this year, but given I had numerous flukes in 2020 it does, at least, seem balanced.
  • FishingFishing Posts: 4,555
    edited September 2021

    Deep thought: If Trump is running the value bet is Biden. Assuming he's still standing he'll feel a sense of responsibility to run again, and also he'll think he can win. He'll be very old, but his opponent will also be very old.

    America is the world's superpower with 330 million people, many highly intelligent. If Biden vs Trump Round II is the best choice it can give itself for its leader, maybe critics of democracy have a point?

    (Though as ever, Churchill's remark about democracy applies)
  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 47,080
    Charles said:

    Social care funding is and interesting challenge. Basically we don’t pay enough for social care (although in the main the homes that I know - which are the national chains - do a decent enough job at a cost to local authorities of c £900 per week

    It’s not as simple as saying “let old people pay” - they paid for their parent generation. @MaxPB has got caught up in his crusade about BTL again and decided that all old people are evil and tax should be hypothecated to hit them.

    The reality is that society as a whole needs to fund social care. There are positive externalities from not having old people blocking hospital beds or dying in the streets. Tax should be simple, broad based, low rates, and hard to avoid. Income tax meets all of those criteria.

    A property tax of some sort meets those criteria, as well as helping to address wider economic imbalances and is harder to avoid than income tax.
  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 47,080
    Fishing said:

    Deep thought: If Trump is running the value bet is Biden. Assuming he's still standing he'll feel a sense of responsibility to run again, and also he'll think he can win. He'll be very old, but his opponent will also be very old.

    America is the world's superpower with 330 million people, many highly intelligent. If Biden vs Trump Round II is the best choice it can give itself for its leader, maybe critics of democracy have a point?

    (Though as ever, Churchill's remark about democracy applies)
    It’s the political system that throws up the candidates, not a talent contest with 330 million contestants.

    So long as people are willing to defend political inadequacy simply to avoid a worse alternative, things won’t improve.
  • Betting Post

    F1: given the tight track and many red flags, I've backed under 16.5 classified finishers with two-thirds of a stake, the other third going on under 15.5.

    https://enormo-haddock.blogspot.com/2021/09/netherlands-pre-race-2021.html
  • tlg86tlg86 Posts: 25,164
    Barty our of the US Open - Raducanu has a real chance of making at least the SFs.
  • Fishing said:

    Deep thought: If Trump is running the value bet is Biden. Assuming he's still standing he'll feel a sense of responsibility to run again, and also he'll think he can win. He'll be very old, but his opponent will also be very old.

    America is the world's superpower with 330 million people, many highly intelligent. If Biden vs Trump Round II is the best choice it can give itself for its leader, maybe critics of democracy have a point?

    (Though as ever, Churchill's remark about democracy applies)
    Let’s not get sucked into this equally bad nonsense. Biden is merely a poor candidate. He’s not an affront to democracy.
  • ThomasNasheThomasNashe Posts: 4,920
    edited September 2021
    tlg86 said:

    Barty our of the US Open - Raducanu has a real chance of making at least the SFs.

    In a way it’s a pity. A match-up with Barty would tell us whether she genuinely does have what it takes.
  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 47,080
    edited September 2021

    Fishing said:

    Deep thought: If Trump is running the value bet is Biden. Assuming he's still standing he'll feel a sense of responsibility to run again, and also he'll think he can win. He'll be very old, but his opponent will also be very old.

    America is the world's superpower with 330 million people, many highly intelligent. If Biden vs Trump Round II is the best choice it can give itself for its leader, maybe critics of democracy have a point?

    (Though as ever, Churchill's remark about democracy applies)
    Let’s not get sucked into this equally bad nonsense. Biden is merely a poor candidate. He’s not an affront to democracy.
    He was actually a good candidate - because he avoided the glaring negatives of his various rivals, which could easily have handed a second term to Trump - and was uniquely able both to reassure because of his long track record yet still be a blank canvas onto which voters could project their own aspirations.

    That he may turn out to be a poor president doesn’t make him a poor candidate. And there is still a decent chance that, as with Reagan, choosing and listening to good advisors can make up for personal and mental frailty.
  • tlg86tlg86 Posts: 25,164

    tlg86 said:

    Barty our of the US Open - Raducanu has a real chance of making at least the SFs.

    In a way it’s a pity. A match-up with Barty would tell us whether she genuinely does have what it takes.
    Presumably the American who beat her is no mug, but then it was pointed out that the girl Emma beat yesterday defeated Barty at the Olympics.
  • OldKingColeOldKingCole Posts: 31,715
    Good morning all. At last the cloud seems to have broken over N Essex and we can finally see some Autumn sunshine.
    And 14degC
    Paralympics over, but some splendid examples of triumph over adversity.
  • IanB2 said:

    Fishing said:

    Deep thought: If Trump is running the value bet is Biden. Assuming he's still standing he'll feel a sense of responsibility to run again, and also he'll think he can win. He'll be very old, but his opponent will also be very old.

    America is the world's superpower with 330 million people, many highly intelligent. If Biden vs Trump Round II is the best choice it can give itself for its leader, maybe critics of democracy have a point?

    (Though as ever, Churchill's remark about democracy applies)
    Let’s not get sucked into this equally bad nonsense. Biden is merely a poor candidate. He’s not an affront to democracy.
    He was actually a good candidate - because he avoided the glaring negatives of his various rivals, which could easily have handed a second term to Trump - and was uniquely able both to reassure because of his long track record yet still be a blank canvas onto which voters could project their own aspirations.

    That he may turn out to be a poor president doesn’t make him a poor candidate. And there is still a decent chance that, as with Reagan, choosing and listening to good advisors can make up for personal and mental frailty.
    Yes, that’s a fair distinction to make.
  • CharlesCharles Posts: 35,758
    edited September 2021
    IanB2 said:

    Charles said:

    Social care funding is and interesting challenge. Basically we don’t pay enough for social care (although in the main the homes that I know - which are the national chains - do a decent enough job at a cost to local authorities of c £900 per week

    It’s not as simple as saying “let old people pay” - they paid for their parent generation. @MaxPB has got caught up in his crusade about BTL again and decided that all old people are evil and tax should be hypothecated to hit them.

    The reality is that society as a whole needs to fund social care. There are positive externalities from not having old people blocking hospital beds or dying in the streets. Tax should be simple, broad based, low rates, and hard to avoid. Income tax meets all of those criteria.

    A property tax of some sort meets those criteria, as well as helping to address wider economic imbalances and is harder to avoid than income tax.
    Yes. I’ve posted at length before so won’t repeat myself but a flat rate property tax makes a lot of sense. There are issues that need to be structured around and it should be phased in over 10 years but it makes more sense than a wealth tax.

    Edit: however in this situation I don’t think it works. It’s a big and controversial topic. We need to fix social care, including spending more on it, and spending years arguing about the details of property tax will be a disaster. Just stick a penny on income tax.
  • tlg86tlg86 Posts: 25,164
    edited September 2021
    Just watching Farage interviewing ex-Tory MP Jerry Hayes. Never heard Farage say it before, but he thinks Johnson and Gove didn’t want to win the referendum. Not sure about Gove, but I think it’s true of Johnson.

    Interestingly, monetary policy came up and Hayes is worried about inflation. “Why isn’t any MP talking about this?” Simple, lots of Gen Xs with massive mortgages.

    Farage thinks the central banks simply want to inflate their way out of their debt.
  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 47,080
    edited September 2021
    Charles said:

    IanB2 said:

    Charles said:

    Social care funding is and interesting challenge. Basically we don’t pay enough for social care (although in the main the homes that I know - which are the national chains - do a decent enough job at a cost to local authorities of c £900 per week

    It’s not as simple as saying “let old people pay” - they paid for their parent generation. @MaxPB has got caught up in his crusade about BTL again and decided that all old people are evil and tax should be hypothecated to hit them.

    The reality is that society as a whole needs to fund social care. There are positive externalities from not having old people blocking hospital beds or dying in the streets. Tax should be simple, broad based, low rates, and hard to avoid. Income tax meets all of those criteria.

    A property tax of some sort meets those criteria, as well as helping to address wider economic imbalances and is harder to avoid than income tax.
    Yes. I’ve posted at length before so won’t repeat myself but a flat rate property tax makes a lot of sense. There are issues that need to be structured around and it should be phased in over 10 years but it makes more sense than a wealth tax.

    It would also help if some way could be found to penalise property that is sitting empty, since one of the most unattractive and damaging consequences of British property being seen as an investment rather than merely places to live, are properties bought up and sat on unoccupied by ‘investors’, both domestic and foreign, not to mention our own developers land banking and hoarding unimplemented permissions.
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 53,766
    IanB2 said:

    Fishing said:

    Deep thought: If Trump is running the value bet is Biden. Assuming he's still standing he'll feel a sense of responsibility to run again, and also he'll think he can win. He'll be very old, but his opponent will also be very old.

    America is the world's superpower with 330 million people, many highly intelligent. If Biden vs Trump Round II is the best choice it can give itself for its leader, maybe critics of democracy have a point?

    (Though as ever, Churchill's remark about democracy applies)
    Let’s not get sucked into this equally bad nonsense. Biden is merely a poor candidate. He’s not an affront to democracy.
    He was actually a good candidate - because he avoided the glaring negatives of his various rivals, which could easily have handed a second term to Trump - and was uniquely able both to reassure because of his long track record yet still be a blank canvas onto which voters could project their own aspirations.

    That he may turn out to be a poor president doesn’t make him a poor candidate. And there is still a decent chance that, as with Reagan, choosing and listening to good advisors can make up for personal and mental frailty.
    Sorry. He was rubbish.

    And he became the Democratic Presidential nominee for two reasons:

    1. Iowa fucked up.
    2. Bloomberg wasted gazillions on... what exactly?
  • Charles said:

    Social care funding is and interesting challenge. Basically we don’t pay enough for social care (although in the main the homes that I know - which are the national chains - do a decent enough job at a cost to local authorities of c £900 per week

    It’s not as simple as saying “let old people pay” - they paid for their parent generation. @MaxPB has got caught up in his crusade about BTL again and decided that all old people are evil and tax should be hypothecated to hit them.

    The reality is that society as a whole needs to fund social care. There are positive externalities from not having old people blocking hospital beds or dying in the streets. Tax should be simple, broad based, low rates, and hard to avoid. Income tax meets all of those criteria.

    We were paying £50 an hour for home care for the mother-in-law when she lived with us. The one residential place we looked at that was under £1,000 a week was akin to a Victorian asylum. The costs are immense and with salaries for staff having to rise substantially to attract UK citizens to do the work previously done by minimum wage immigrants, the costs are only going to get higher. The big issue is that unlike in previous generations a lot of old people are surviving to an age where dementia becomes an issue. And, of course, it's not just the old that require care. We need a fundamental rethink. Sadly, it's not going to happen.

  • OldKingColeOldKingCole Posts: 31,715
    tlg86 said:

    Just watching Farage interviewing ex-Tory MP Jerry Hayes. Never heard Farage say it before, but he thinks Johnson and Gove didn’t want to win the referendum. Not sure about Gove, but I think it’s true of Johnson.

    Interestingly, monetary policy came up and Hayes is worried about inflation. “Why isn’t any MP talking about this?” Simple, lots of Gen Xs with massive mortgages.

    Farage thinks the central banks simply want to inflate their way out of their debt.

    Does that mean that when, after his 'premiership' has ended with a shudder he won't mind when we rejoin?
  • Dura_AceDura_Ace Posts: 12,880

    tlg86 said:

    Just watching Farage interviewing ex-Tory MP Jerry Hayes. Never heard Farage say it before, but he thinks Johnson and Gove didn’t want to win the referendum. Not sure about Gove, but I think it’s true of Johnson.

    Interestingly, monetary policy came up and Hayes is worried about inflation. “Why isn’t any MP talking about this?” Simple, lots of Gen Xs with massive mortgages.

    Farage thinks the central banks simply want to inflate their way out of their debt.

    Does that mean that when, after his 'premiership' has ended with a shudder he won't mind when we rejoin?
    Johnson would rejoin in a heartbeat if it suited him personally. To think otherwise is to deny his essential nature.
  • CharlesCharles Posts: 35,758
    IanB2 said:

    Charles said:

    IanB2 said:

    Charles said:

    Social care funding is and interesting challenge. Basically we don’t pay enough for social care (although in the main the homes that I know - which are the national chains - do a decent enough job at a cost to local authorities of c £900 per week

    It’s not as simple as saying “let old people pay” - they paid for their parent generation. @MaxPB has got caught up in his crusade about BTL again and decided that all old people are evil and tax should be hypothecated to hit them.

    The reality is that society as a whole needs to fund social care. There are positive externalities from not having old people blocking hospital beds or dying in the streets. Tax should be simple, broad based, low rates, and hard to avoid. Income tax meets all of those criteria.

    A property tax of some sort meets those criteria, as well as helping to address wider economic imbalances and is harder to avoid than income tax.
    Yes. I’ve posted at length before so won’t repeat myself but a flat rate property tax makes a lot of sense. There are issues that need to be structured around and it should be phased in over 10 years but it makes more sense than a wealth tax.

    It would also help if some way could be found to penalise property that is sitting empty, since one of the most unattractive and damaging consequences of British property being seen as an investment rather than merely places to live, are properties bought up and sat on unoccupied by ‘investors’, both domestic and foreign, not to mention our own developers land banking and hoarding unimplemented permissions.
    Much less comfortable with that approach. If someone buys a property they can do what they want with it.

    I would just make it harder and more expensive to sell to them…
  • TazTaz Posts: 10,701
    tlg86 said:

    Just watching Farage interviewing ex-Tory MP Jerry Hayes. Never heard Farage say it before, but he thinks Johnson and Gove didn’t want to win the referendum. Not sure about Gove, but I think it’s true of Johnson.

    Interestingly, monetary policy came up and Hayes is worried about inflation. “Why isn’t any MP talking about this?” Simple, lots of Gen Xs with massive mortgages.

    Farage thinks the central banks simply want to inflate their way out of their debt.

    He may well be right.
  • OldKingColeOldKingCole Posts: 31,715

    Charles said:

    Social care funding is and interesting challenge. Basically we don’t pay enough for social care (although in the main the homes that I know - which are the national chains - do a decent enough job at a cost to local authorities of c £900 per week

    It’s not as simple as saying “let old people pay” - they paid for their parent generation. @MaxPB has got caught up in his crusade about BTL again and decided that all old people are evil and tax should be hypothecated to hit them.

    The reality is that society as a whole needs to fund social care. There are positive externalities from not having old people blocking hospital beds or dying in the streets. Tax should be simple, broad based, low rates, and hard to avoid. Income tax meets all of those criteria.

    We were paying £50 an hour for home care for the mother-in-law when she lived with us. The one residential place we looked at that was under £1,000 a week was akin to a Victorian asylum. The costs are immense and with salaries for staff having to rise substantially to attract UK citizens to do the work previously done by minimum wage immigrants, the costs are only going to get higher. The big issue is that unlike in previous generations a lot of old people are surviving to an age where dementia becomes an issue. And, of course, it's not just the old that require care. We need a fundamental rethink. Sadly, it's not going to happen.

    A thought. In a couple in my extended family he, at 75+ has early Alzheimers, and she, a year or so younger has another degenerative 'disease'. Both are otherwise in reasonable health. The potential care costs, as it stands, for their family could become if not astronomical, close to it.
  • rcs1000 said:

    IanB2 said:

    Fishing said:

    Deep thought: If Trump is running the value bet is Biden. Assuming he's still standing he'll feel a sense of responsibility to run again, and also he'll think he can win. He'll be very old, but his opponent will also be very old.

    America is the world's superpower with 330 million people, many highly intelligent. If Biden vs Trump Round II is the best choice it can give itself for its leader, maybe critics of democracy have a point?

    (Though as ever, Churchill's remark about democracy applies)
    Let’s not get sucked into this equally bad nonsense. Biden is merely a poor candidate. He’s not an affront to democracy.
    He was actually a good candidate - because he avoided the glaring negatives of his various rivals, which could easily have handed a second term to Trump - and was uniquely able both to reassure because of his long track record yet still be a blank canvas onto which voters could project their own aspirations.

    That he may turn out to be a poor president doesn’t make him a poor candidate. And there is still a decent chance that, as with Reagan, choosing and listening to good advisors can make up for personal and mental frailty.
    Sorry. He was rubbish.

    And he became the Democratic Presidential nominee for two reasons:

    1. Iowa fucked up.
    2. Bloomberg wasted gazillions on... what exactly?

    Nonsense. he won. Therefore, he was a good candidate.

  • TazTaz Posts: 10,701

    Good morning all. At last the cloud seems to have broken over N Essex and we can finally see some Autumn sunshine.
    And 14degC
    Paralympics over, but some splendid examples of triumph over adversity.

    The Chinese swimmer without arms and the one legged Chinese table tennis player with a crutch both excelling leap to mind, admirable,
  • CharlesCharles Posts: 35,758

    Charles said:

    Social care funding is and interesting challenge. Basically we don’t pay enough for social care (although in the main the homes that I know - which are the national chains - do a decent enough job at a cost to local authorities of c £900 per week

    It’s not as simple as saying “let old people pay” - they paid for their parent generation. @MaxPB has got caught up in his crusade about BTL again and decided that all old people are evil and tax should be hypothecated to hit them.

    The reality is that society as a whole needs to fund social care. There are positive externalities from not having old people blocking hospital beds or dying in the streets. Tax should be simple, broad based, low rates, and hard to avoid. Income tax meets all of those criteria.

    We were paying £50 an hour for home care for the mother-in-law when she lived with us. The one residential place we looked at that was under £1,000 a week was akin to a Victorian asylum. The costs are immense and with salaries for staff having to rise substantially to attract UK citizens to do the work previously done by minimum wage immigrants, the costs are only going to get higher. The big issue is that unlike in previous generations a lot of old people are surviving to an age where dementia becomes an issue. And, of course, it's not just the old that require care. We need a fundamental rethink. Sadly, it's not going to happen.

    LA rates are significantly discounted vs private care. It’s one of the reasons I like the Irish system - I struggle with the concept that residents should pay different rates for the same care (and the other approach of having ancillary services like hairdressing is a bit ick as well)
  • CharlesCharles Posts: 35,758

    Charles said:

    Social care funding is and interesting challenge. Basically we don’t pay enough for social care (although in the main the homes that I know - which are the national chains - do a decent enough job at a cost to local authorities of c £900 per week

    It’s not as simple as saying “let old people pay” - they paid for their parent generation. @MaxPB has got caught up in his crusade about BTL again and decided that all old people are evil and tax should be hypothecated to hit them.

    The reality is that society as a whole needs to fund social care. There are positive externalities from not having old people blocking hospital beds or dying in the streets. Tax should be simple, broad based, low rates, and hard to avoid. Income tax meets all of those criteria.

    We were paying £50 an hour for home care for the mother-in-law when she lived with us. The one residential place we looked at that was under £1,000 a week was akin to a Victorian asylum. The costs are immense and with salaries for staff having to rise substantially to attract UK citizens to do the work previously done by minimum wage immigrants, the costs are only going to get higher. The big issue is that unlike in previous generations a lot of old people are surviving to an age where dementia becomes an issue. And, of course, it's not just the old that require care. We need a fundamental rethink. Sadly, it's not going to happen.

    A thought. In a couple in my extended family he, at 75+ has early Alzheimers, and she, a year or so younger has another degenerative 'disease'. Both are otherwise in reasonable health. The potential care costs, as it stands, for their family could become if not astronomical, close to it.
    Which is why you need the cap. Otherwise you can have a family wiped out by sheer bad luck. The government can - through tax - effectively provide catastrophe insurance
  • OldKingColeOldKingCole Posts: 31,715
    edited September 2021
    Charles said:

    Charles said:

    Social care funding is and interesting challenge. Basically we don’t pay enough for social care (although in the main the homes that I know - which are the national chains - do a decent enough job at a cost to local authorities of c £900 per week

    It’s not as simple as saying “let old people pay” - they paid for their parent generation. @MaxPB has got caught up in his crusade about BTL again and decided that all old people are evil and tax should be hypothecated to hit them.

    The reality is that society as a whole needs to fund social care. There are positive externalities from not having old people blocking hospital beds or dying in the streets. Tax should be simple, broad based, low rates, and hard to avoid. Income tax meets all of those criteria.

    We were paying £50 an hour for home care for the mother-in-law when she lived with us. The one residential place we looked at that was under £1,000 a week was akin to a Victorian asylum. The costs are immense and with salaries for staff having to rise substantially to attract UK citizens to do the work previously done by minimum wage immigrants, the costs are only going to get higher. The big issue is that unlike in previous generations a lot of old people are surviving to an age where dementia becomes an issue. And, of course, it's not just the old that require care. We need a fundamental rethink. Sadly, it's not going to happen.

    LA rates are significantly discounted vs private care. It’s one of the reasons I like the Irish system - I struggle with the concept that residents should pay different rates for the same care (and the other approach of having ancillary services like hairdressing is a bit ick as well)
    I struggle with the concept of managing different levels of care, unless there's a significant physical distinction between where the resident live.
    However, forgive my ignorance, but how does the Irish system work?
  • Charles said:

    Social care funding is and interesting challenge. Basically we don’t pay enough for social care (although in the main the homes that I know - which are the national chains - do a decent enough job at a cost to local authorities of c £900 per week

    It’s not as simple as saying “let old people pay” - they paid for their parent generation. @MaxPB has got caught up in his crusade about BTL again and decided that all old people are evil and tax should be hypothecated to hit them.

    The reality is that society as a whole needs to fund social care. There are positive externalities from not having old people blocking hospital beds or dying in the streets. Tax should be simple, broad based, low rates, and hard to avoid. Income tax meets all of those criteria.

    We were paying £50 an hour for home care for the mother-in-law when she lived with us. The one residential place we looked at that was under £1,000 a week was akin to a Victorian asylum. The costs are immense and with salaries for staff having to rise substantially to attract UK citizens to do the work previously done by minimum wage immigrants, the costs are only going to get higher. The big issue is that unlike in previous generations a lot of old people are surviving to an age where dementia becomes an issue. And, of course, it's not just the old that require care. We need a fundamental rethink. Sadly, it's not going to happen.

    A thought. In a couple in my extended family he, at 75+ has early Alzheimers, and she, a year or so younger has another degenerative 'disease'. Both are otherwise in reasonable health. The potential care costs, as it stands, for their family could become if not astronomical, close to it.

    Unquestionably. But a penny on NI is not going to solve that. The sums required overall are vast. Here's a stat for you: "About 9% of Americans over the age of 65 suffer from dementia, but if you make it to your 85th birthday your chances jump to nearly 33%." The same stats will apply here. As people live longer this is a problem that can only escalate unless, by some miracle, a way to cure or control dementia is found.

  • CharlesCharles Posts: 35,758

    rcs1000 said:

    IanB2 said:

    Fishing said:

    Deep thought: If Trump is running the value bet is Biden. Assuming he's still standing he'll feel a sense of responsibility to run again, and also he'll think he can win. He'll be very old, but his opponent will also be very old.

    America is the world's superpower with 330 million people, many highly intelligent. If Biden vs Trump Round II is the best choice it can give itself for its leader, maybe critics of democracy have a point?

    (Though as ever, Churchill's remark about democracy applies)
    Let’s not get sucked into this equally bad nonsense. Biden is merely a poor candidate. He’s not an affront to democracy.
    He was actually a good candidate - because he avoided the glaring negatives of his various rivals, which could easily have handed a second term to Trump - and was uniquely able both to reassure because of his long track record yet still be a blank canvas onto which voters could project their own aspirations.

    That he may turn out to be a poor president doesn’t make him a poor candidate. And there is still a decent chance that, as with Reagan, choosing and listening to good advisors can make up for personal and mental frailty.
    Sorry. He was rubbish.

    And he became the Democratic Presidential nominee for two reasons:

    1. Iowa fucked up.
    2. Bloomberg wasted gazillions on... what exactly?

    Nonsense. he won. Therefore, he was a good candidate.

    Surely that just makes him the “better” candidate rather than a “good” one… Corbyn vs Johnson anyone…
  • CharlesCharles Posts: 35,758

    Charles said:

    Charles said:

    Social care funding is and interesting challenge. Basically we don’t pay enough for social care (although in the main the homes that I know - which are the national chains - do a decent enough job at a cost to local authorities of c £900 per week

    It’s not as simple as saying “let old people pay” - they paid for their parent generation. @MaxPB has got caught up in his crusade about BTL again and decided that all old people are evil and tax should be hypothecated to hit them.

    The reality is that society as a whole needs to fund social care. There are positive externalities from not having old people blocking hospital beds or dying in the streets. Tax should be simple, broad based, low rates, and hard to avoid. Income tax meets all of those criteria.

    We were paying £50 an hour for home care for the mother-in-law when she lived with us. The one residential place we looked at that was under £1,000 a week was akin to a Victorian asylum. The costs are immense and with salaries for staff having to rise substantially to attract UK citizens to do the work previously done by minimum wage immigrants, the costs are only going to get higher. The big issue is that unlike in previous generations a lot of old people are surviving to an age where dementia becomes an issue. And, of course, it's not just the old that require care. We need a fundamental rethink. Sadly, it's not going to happen.

    LA rates are significantly discounted vs private care. It’s one of the reasons I like the Irish system - I struggle with the concept that residents should pay different rates for the same care (and the other approach of having ancillary services like hairdressing is a bit ick as well)
    I struggle with the concept of managing different levels of care, unless there's a significant physical distinction between where the resident live.
    However, forgive my ignorance, but how does the Irish system work?
    Basically the government pays for everyone (and they pay the same rate) and then once they are in care there is a detailed financial assessment and those who can afford it make a contribution based on their assets. But it’s done centrally so the burden isn’t on the LA’s either.

    (Obviously more complicated but that’s the quick summary)
  • moonshinemoonshine Posts: 5,226
    Raducanu at 20-1 for sports personality, 14-1 for the tourny.

    More than half of British households have an Amazon Prime sub, if she makes it to the quarters and beyond the hype train will start full throttle. Though depends on time zones for her matches I suppose.
  • nico679nico679 Posts: 4,530
    The best news for the Dems is if Trump runs again .

    This will also effect the mid terms where Dems will tie all the GOP candidates to him.
  • Scott_xPScott_xP Posts: 32,728
    Cabinet minister to the Telegraph on social care plan. Tuesday’s Cabinet meeting could be… spicy 😬 An oven-baked Labour attack line. https://twitter.com/NewsAnnabelle/status/1434406129140961283/photo/1



  • Charles said:

    Charles said:

    Social care funding is and interesting challenge. Basically we don’t pay enough for social care (although in the main the homes that I know - which are the national chains - do a decent enough job at a cost to local authorities of c £900 per week

    It’s not as simple as saying “let old people pay” - they paid for their parent generation. @MaxPB has got caught up in his crusade about BTL again and decided that all old people are evil and tax should be hypothecated to hit them.

    The reality is that society as a whole needs to fund social care. There are positive externalities from not having old people blocking hospital beds or dying in the streets. Tax should be simple, broad based, low rates, and hard to avoid. Income tax meets all of those criteria.

    We were paying £50 an hour for home care for the mother-in-law when she lived with us. The one residential place we looked at that was under £1,000 a week was akin to a Victorian asylum. The costs are immense and with salaries for staff having to rise substantially to attract UK citizens to do the work previously done by minimum wage immigrants, the costs are only going to get higher. The big issue is that unlike in previous generations a lot of old people are surviving to an age where dementia becomes an issue. And, of course, it's not just the old that require care. We need a fundamental rethink. Sadly, it's not going to happen.

    LA rates are significantly discounted vs private care. It’s one of the reasons I like the Irish system - I struggle with the concept that residents should pay different rates for the same care (and the other approach of having ancillary services like hairdressing is a bit ick as well)

    I agree. But the problem is that we have outsourced care to the private sector and allowed it to get away with very poor conditions both for residents and staff - and it it is still incredibly expensive. What we need is a National Care Service that is fully integrated with the NHS. That, though, is a huge, complicated and expensive operation: one that is way beyond the capabilities and interests of this government, or any other probably. Basically, we can't do this on the cheap. But we will keep trying to.

  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 66,731
    Charles said:

    rcs1000 said:

    IanB2 said:

    Fishing said:

    Deep thought: If Trump is running the value bet is Biden. Assuming he's still standing he'll feel a sense of responsibility to run again, and also he'll think he can win. He'll be very old, but his opponent will also be very old.

    America is the world's superpower with 330 million people, many highly intelligent. If Biden vs Trump Round II is the best choice it can give itself for its leader, maybe critics of democracy have a point?

    (Though as ever, Churchill's remark about democracy applies)
    Let’s not get sucked into this equally bad nonsense. Biden is merely a poor candidate. He’s not an affront to democracy.
    He was actually a good candidate - because he avoided the glaring negatives of his various rivals, which could easily have handed a second term to Trump - and was uniquely able both to reassure because of his long track record yet still be a blank canvas onto which voters could project their own aspirations.

    That he may turn out to be a poor president doesn’t make him a poor candidate. And there is still a decent chance that, as with Reagan, choosing and listening to good advisors can make up for personal and mental frailty.
    Sorry. He was rubbish.

    And he became the Democratic Presidential nominee for two reasons:

    1. Iowa fucked up.
    2. Bloomberg wasted gazillions on... what exactly?

    Nonsense. he won. Therefore, he was a good candidate.

    Surely that just makes him the “better” candidate rather than a “good” one… Corbyn vs Johnson anyone…
    No, I agree with Ian here. A good candidate is one that wins you the election. Biden was a good candidate, Hilary was a bad one from that point of view.

    That’s separate from the issue of whether they’re any good having won the election. Think of Blair. Brilliant candidate, one of the most brilliant election winners ever. Best record in elections of any candidate in the age of universal suffrage.

    Bit meh as PM though.
  • Mr. (Ms?) Moonshine, more than half of households have an Amazon Prime subscription? If true, that's an astonishing stat.
  • OldKingColeOldKingCole Posts: 31,715
    Charles said:

    Charles said:

    Charles said:

    Social care funding is and interesting challenge. Basically we don’t pay enough for social care (although in the main the homes that I know - which are the national chains - do a decent enough job at a cost to local authorities of c £900 per week

    It’s not as simple as saying “let old people pay” - they paid for their parent generation. @MaxPB has got caught up in his crusade about BTL again and decided that all old people are evil and tax should be hypothecated to hit them.

    The reality is that society as a whole needs to fund social care. There are positive externalities from not having old people blocking hospital beds or dying in the streets. Tax should be simple, broad based, low rates, and hard to avoid. Income tax meets all of those criteria.

    We were paying £50 an hour for home care for the mother-in-law when she lived with us. The one residential place we looked at that was under £1,000 a week was akin to a Victorian asylum. The costs are immense and with salaries for staff having to rise substantially to attract UK citizens to do the work previously done by minimum wage immigrants, the costs are only going to get higher. The big issue is that unlike in previous generations a lot of old people are surviving to an age where dementia becomes an issue. And, of course, it's not just the old that require care. We need a fundamental rethink. Sadly, it's not going to happen.

    LA rates are significantly discounted vs private care. It’s one of the reasons I like the Irish system - I struggle with the concept that residents should pay different rates for the same care (and the other approach of having ancillary services like hairdressing is a bit ick as well)
    I struggle with the concept of managing different levels of care, unless there's a significant physical distinction between where the resident live.
    However, forgive my ignorance, but how does the Irish system work?
    Basically the government pays for everyone (and they pay the same rate) and then once they are in care there is a detailed financial assessment and those who can afford it make a contribution based on their assets. But it’s done centrally so the burden isn’t on the LA’s either.

    (Obviously more complicated but that’s the quick summary)
    Dealing with LA's and local Health people for my in-laws was a nightmare. So nationally would be better, although probably so long as the Home Office wasn't involved. At least there'd be one set of rules.
  • CharlesCharles Posts: 35,758

    Charles said:

    Charles said:

    Social care funding is and interesting challenge. Basically we don’t pay enough for social care (although in the main the homes that I know - which are the national chains - do a decent enough job at a cost to local authorities of c £900 per week

    It’s not as simple as saying “let old people pay” - they paid for their parent generation. @MaxPB has got caught up in his crusade about BTL again and decided that all old people are evil and tax should be hypothecated to hit them.

    The reality is that society as a whole needs to fund social care. There are positive externalities from not having old people blocking hospital beds or dying in the streets. Tax should be simple, broad based, low rates, and hard to avoid. Income tax meets all of those criteria.

    We were paying £50 an hour for home care for the mother-in-law when she lived with us. The one residential place we looked at that was under £1,000 a week was akin to a Victorian asylum. The costs are immense and with salaries for staff having to rise substantially to attract UK citizens to do the work previously done by minimum wage immigrants, the costs are only going to get higher. The big issue is that unlike in previous generations a lot of old people are surviving to an age where dementia becomes an issue. And, of course, it's not just the old that require care. We need a fundamental rethink. Sadly, it's not going to happen.

    LA rates are significantly discounted vs private care. It’s one of the reasons I like the Irish system - I struggle with the concept that residents should pay different rates for the same care (and the other approach of having ancillary services like hairdressing is a bit ick as well)

    I agree. But the problem is that we have outsourced care to the private sector and allowed it to get away with very poor conditions both for residents and staff - and it it is still incredibly expensive. What we need is a National Care Service that is fully integrated with the NHS. That, though, is a huge, complicated and expensive operation: one that is way beyond the capabilities and interests of this government, or any other probably. Basically, we can't do this on the cheap. But we will keep trying to.

    I have spent a lot of time looking at the care sector over the last 18 months. Conditions are decent and the firms are not that profitable. Fundamentally the biggest single cost is staff, and if LAs don’t want (or can’t) pay more then that is where the pressure will be felt
  • CyclefreeCyclefree Posts: 25,074
    IanB2 said:

    Charles said:

    Social care funding is and interesting challenge. Basically we don’t pay enough for social care (although in the main the homes that I know - which are the national chains - do a decent enough job at a cost to local authorities of c £900 per week

    It’s not as simple as saying “let old people pay” - they paid for their parent generation. @MaxPB has got caught up in his crusade about BTL again and decided that all old people are evil and tax should be hypothecated to hit them.

    The reality is that society as a whole needs to fund social care. There are positive externalities from not having old people blocking hospital beds or dying in the streets. Tax should be simple, broad based, low rates, and hard to avoid. Income tax meets all of those criteria.

    A property tax of some sort meets those criteria, as well as helping to address wider economic imbalances and is harder to avoid than income tax.
    Capital gains tax on houses - including main homes. A tax on property and doesn't run into the asset rich, cash poor problem.
  • CyclefreeCyclefree Posts: 25,074

    Charles said:

    Charles said:

    Social care funding is and interesting challenge. Basically we don’t pay enough for social care (although in the main the homes that I know - which are the national chains - do a decent enough job at a cost to local authorities of c £900 per week

    It’s not as simple as saying “let old people pay” - they paid for their parent generation. @MaxPB has got caught up in his crusade about BTL again and decided that all old people are evil and tax should be hypothecated to hit them.

    The reality is that society as a whole needs to fund social care. There are positive externalities from not having old people blocking hospital beds or dying in the streets. Tax should be simple, broad based, low rates, and hard to avoid. Income tax meets all of those criteria.

    We were paying £50 an hour for home care for the mother-in-law when she lived with us. The one residential place we looked at that was under £1,000 a week was akin to a Victorian asylum. The costs are immense and with salaries for staff having to rise substantially to attract UK citizens to do the work previously done by minimum wage immigrants, the costs are only going to get higher. The big issue is that unlike in previous generations a lot of old people are surviving to an age where dementia becomes an issue. And, of course, it's not just the old that require care. We need a fundamental rethink. Sadly, it's not going to happen.

    LA rates are significantly discounted vs private care. It’s one of the reasons I like the Irish system - I struggle with the concept that residents should pay different rates for the same care (and the other approach of having ancillary services like hairdressing is a bit ick as well)

    I agree. But the problem is that we have outsourced care to the private sector and allowed it to get away with very poor conditions both for residents and staff - and it it is still incredibly expensive. What we need is a National Care Service that is fully integrated with the NHS. That, though, is a huge, complicated and expensive operation: one that is way beyond the capabilities and interests of this government, or any other probably. Basically, we can't do this on the cheap. But we will keep trying to.

    What do other countries in Europe do?
  • eekeek Posts: 24,797
    moonshine said:

    Raducanu at 20-1 for sports personality, 14-1 for the tourny.

    More than half of British households have an Amazon Prime sub, if she makes it to the quarters and beyond the hype train will start full throttle. Though depends on time zones for her matches I suppose.

    Watching her match yesterday she was rather impressive
  • CharlesCharles Posts: 35,758
    ydoethur said:

    Charles said:

    rcs1000 said:

    IanB2 said:

    Fishing said:

    Deep thought: If Trump is running the value bet is Biden. Assuming he's still standing he'll feel a sense of responsibility to run again, and also he'll think he can win. He'll be very old, but his opponent will also be very old.

    America is the world's superpower with 330 million people, many highly intelligent. If Biden vs Trump Round II is the best choice it can give itself for its leader, maybe critics of democracy have a point?

    (Though as ever, Churchill's remark about democracy applies)
    Let’s not get sucked into this equally bad nonsense. Biden is merely a poor candidate. He’s not an affront to democracy.
    He was actually a good candidate - because he avoided the glaring negatives of his various rivals, which could easily have handed a second term to Trump - and was uniquely able both to reassure because of his long track record yet still be a blank canvas onto which voters could project their own aspirations.

    That he may turn out to be a poor president doesn’t make him a poor candidate. And there is still a decent chance that, as with Reagan, choosing and listening to good advisors can make up for personal and mental frailty.
    Sorry. He was rubbish.

    And he became the Democratic Presidential nominee for two reasons:

    1. Iowa fucked up.
    2. Bloomberg wasted gazillions on... what exactly?

    Nonsense. he won. Therefore, he was a good candidate.

    Surely that just makes him the “better” candidate rather than a “good” one… Corbyn vs Johnson anyone…
    No, I agree with Ian here. A good candidate is one that wins you the election. Biden was a good candidate, Hilary was a bad one from that point of view.

    That’s separate from the issue of whether they’re any good having won the election. Think of Blair. Brilliant candidate, one of the most brilliant election winners ever. Best record in elections of any candidate in the age of universal suffrage.

    Bit meh as PM though.
    I disagree. I think Biden would have lost against any half decent Republican. He was a better candidate than Trump, but “good” is an absolute statement not a relative one.

    The most you can claim is he was “good enough”
  • Charles said:

    Charles said:

    Charles said:

    Social care funding is and interesting challenge. Basically we don’t pay enough for social care (although in the main the homes that I know - which are the national chains - do a decent enough job at a cost to local authorities of c £900 per week

    It’s not as simple as saying “let old people pay” - they paid for their parent generation. @MaxPB has got caught up in his crusade about BTL again and decided that all old people are evil and tax should be hypothecated to hit them.

    The reality is that society as a whole needs to fund social care. There are positive externalities from not having old people blocking hospital beds or dying in the streets. Tax should be simple, broad based, low rates, and hard to avoid. Income tax meets all of those criteria.

    We were paying £50 an hour for home care for the mother-in-law when she lived with us. The one residential place we looked at that was under £1,000 a week was akin to a Victorian asylum. The costs are immense and with salaries for staff having to rise substantially to attract UK citizens to do the work previously done by minimum wage immigrants, the costs are only going to get higher. The big issue is that unlike in previous generations a lot of old people are surviving to an age where dementia becomes an issue. And, of course, it's not just the old that require care. We need a fundamental rethink. Sadly, it's not going to happen.

    LA rates are significantly discounted vs private care. It’s one of the reasons I like the Irish system - I struggle with the concept that residents should pay different rates for the same care (and the other approach of having ancillary services like hairdressing is a bit ick as well)

    I agree. But the problem is that we have outsourced care to the private sector and allowed it to get away with very poor conditions both for residents and staff - and it it is still incredibly expensive. What we need is a National Care Service that is fully integrated with the NHS. That, though, is a huge, complicated and expensive operation: one that is way beyond the capabilities and interests of this government, or any other probably. Basically, we can't do this on the cheap. But we will keep trying to.

    I have spent a lot of time looking at the care sector over the last 18 months. Conditions are decent and the firms are not that profitable. Fundamentally the biggest single cost is staff, and if LAs don’t want (or can’t) pay more then that is where the pressure will be felt

    There is already a huge shortfall in staff and making that up is now tougher. I suspect we probably have different definitions of decent!
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 66,731
    edited September 2021
    Charles said:

    ydoethur said:

    Charles said:

    rcs1000 said:

    IanB2 said:

    Fishing said:

    Deep thought: If Trump is running the value bet is Biden. Assuming he's still standing he'll feel a sense of responsibility to run again, and also he'll think he can win. He'll be very old, but his opponent will also be very old.

    America is the world's superpower with 330 million people, many highly intelligent. If Biden vs Trump Round II is the best choice it can give itself for its leader, maybe critics of democracy have a point?

    (Though as ever, Churchill's remark about democracy applies)
    Let’s not get sucked into this equally bad nonsense. Biden is merely a poor candidate. He’s not an affront to democracy.
    He was actually a good candidate - because he avoided the glaring negatives of his various rivals, which could easily have handed a second term to Trump - and was uniquely able both to reassure because of his long track record yet still be a blank canvas onto which voters could project their own aspirations.

    That he may turn out to be a poor president doesn’t make him a poor candidate. And there is still a decent chance that, as with Reagan, choosing and listening to good advisors can make up for personal and mental frailty.
    Sorry. He was rubbish.

    And he became the Democratic Presidential nominee for two reasons:

    1. Iowa fucked up.
    2. Bloomberg wasted gazillions on... what exactly?

    Nonsense. he won. Therefore, he was a good candidate.

    Surely that just makes him the “better” candidate rather than a “good” one… Corbyn vs Johnson anyone…
    No, I agree with Ian here. A good candidate is one that wins you the election. Biden was a good candidate, Hilary was a bad one from that point of view.

    That’s separate from the issue of whether they’re any good having won the election. Think of Blair. Brilliant candidate, one of the most brilliant election winners ever. Best record in elections of any candidate in the age of universal suffrage.

    Bit meh as PM though.
    I disagree. I think Biden would have lost against any half decent Republican. He was a better candidate than Trump, but “good” is an absolute statement not a relative one.

    The most you can claim is he was “good enough”
    Well, you could make the same statement about Trump, or for that matter Johnson.

    Edit: incidentally there is sadly something of a false premise in your first sentence.
  • Cyclefree said:

    Charles said:

    Charles said:

    Social care funding is and interesting challenge. Basically we don’t pay enough for social care (although in the main the homes that I know - which are the national chains - do a decent enough job at a cost to local authorities of c £900 per week

    It’s not as simple as saying “let old people pay” - they paid for their parent generation. @MaxPB has got caught up in his crusade about BTL again and decided that all old people are evil and tax should be hypothecated to hit them.

    The reality is that society as a whole needs to fund social care. There are positive externalities from not having old people blocking hospital beds or dying in the streets. Tax should be simple, broad based, low rates, and hard to avoid. Income tax meets all of those criteria.

    We were paying £50 an hour for home care for the mother-in-law when she lived with us. The one residential place we looked at that was under £1,000 a week was akin to a Victorian asylum. The costs are immense and with salaries for staff having to rise substantially to attract UK citizens to do the work previously done by minimum wage immigrants, the costs are only going to get higher. The big issue is that unlike in previous generations a lot of old people are surviving to an age where dementia becomes an issue. And, of course, it's not just the old that require care. We need a fundamental rethink. Sadly, it's not going to happen.

    LA rates are significantly discounted vs private care. It’s one of the reasons I like the Irish system - I struggle with the concept that residents should pay different rates for the same care (and the other approach of having ancillary services like hairdressing is a bit ick as well)

    I agree. But the problem is that we have outsourced care to the private sector and allowed it to get away with very poor conditions both for residents and staff - and it it is still incredibly expensive. What we need is a National Care Service that is fully integrated with the NHS. That, though, is a huge, complicated and expensive operation: one that is way beyond the capabilities and interests of this government, or any other probably. Basically, we can't do this on the cheap. But we will keep trying to.

    What do other countries in Europe do?

    The ones with best practices spend a lot more.

  • CharlesCharles Posts: 35,758
    Cyclefree said:

    IanB2 said:

    Charles said:

    Social care funding is and interesting challenge. Basically we don’t pay enough for social care (although in the main the homes that I know - which are the national chains - do a decent enough job at a cost to local authorities of c £900 per week

    It’s not as simple as saying “let old people pay” - they paid for their parent generation. @MaxPB has got caught up in his crusade about BTL again and decided that all old people are evil and tax should be hypothecated to hit them.

    The reality is that society as a whole needs to fund social care. There are positive externalities from not having old people blocking hospital beds or dying in the streets. Tax should be simple, broad based, low rates, and hard to avoid. Income tax meets all of those criteria.

    A property tax of some sort meets those criteria, as well as helping to address wider economic imbalances and is harder to avoid than income tax.
    Capital gains tax on houses - including main homes. A tax on property and doesn't run into the asset rich, cash poor problem.
    Makes it difficult to move if you have to buy something worse because of tax. Which kills liquidity and labour mobility.

    So you need to include rollover relief on the principal residence - which massively cuts the tax generated
  • CharlesCharles Posts: 35,758

    Charles said:

    Charles said:

    Charles said:

    Social care funding is and interesting challenge. Basically we don’t pay enough for social care (although in the main the homes that I know - which are the national chains - do a decent enough job at a cost to local authorities of c £900 per week

    It’s not as simple as saying “let old people pay” - they paid for their parent generation. @MaxPB has got caught up in his crusade about BTL again and decided that all old people are evil and tax should be hypothecated to hit them.

    The reality is that society as a whole needs to fund social care. There are positive externalities from not having old people blocking hospital beds or dying in the streets. Tax should be simple, broad based, low rates, and hard to avoid. Income tax meets all of those criteria.

    We were paying £50 an hour for home care for the mother-in-law when she lived with us. The one residential place we looked at that was under £1,000 a week was akin to a Victorian asylum. The costs are immense and with salaries for staff having to rise substantially to attract UK citizens to do the work previously done by minimum wage immigrants, the costs are only going to get higher. The big issue is that unlike in previous generations a lot of old people are surviving to an age where dementia becomes an issue. And, of course, it's not just the old that require care. We need a fundamental rethink. Sadly, it's not going to happen.

    LA rates are significantly discounted vs private care. It’s one of the reasons I like the Irish system - I struggle with the concept that residents should pay different rates for the same care (and the other approach of having ancillary services like hairdressing is a bit ick as well)

    I agree. But the problem is that we have outsourced care to the private sector and allowed it to get away with very poor conditions both for residents and staff - and it it is still incredibly expensive. What we need is a National Care Service that is fully integrated with the NHS. That, though, is a huge, complicated and expensive operation: one that is way beyond the capabilities and interests of this government, or any other probably. Basically, we can't do this on the cheap. But we will keep trying to.

    I have spent a lot of time looking at the care sector over the last 18 months. Conditions are decent and the firms are not that profitable. Fundamentally the biggest single cost is staff, and if LAs don’t want (or can’t) pay more then that is where the pressure will be felt

    There is already a huge shortfall in staff and making that up is now tougher. I suspect we probably have different definitions of decent!
    It depends on which firm you are looking at. Some are better than others.
  • StockyStocky Posts: 9,653

    Charles said:

    Social care funding is and interesting challenge. Basically we don’t pay enough for social care (although in the main the homes that I know - which are the national chains - do a decent enough job at a cost to local authorities of c £900 per week

    It’s not as simple as saying “let old people pay” - they paid for their parent generation. @MaxPB has got caught up in his crusade about BTL again and decided that all old people are evil and tax should be hypothecated to hit them.

    The reality is that society as a whole needs to fund social care. There are positive externalities from not having old people blocking hospital beds or dying in the streets. Tax should be simple, broad based, low rates, and hard to avoid. Income tax meets all of those criteria.

    We were paying £50 an hour for home care for the mother-in-law when she lived with us. The one residential place we looked at that was under £1,000 a week was akin to a Victorian asylum. The costs are immense and with salaries for staff having to rise substantially to attract UK citizens to do the work previously done by minimum wage immigrants, the costs are only going to get higher. The big issue is that unlike in previous generations a lot of old people are surviving to an age where dementia becomes an issue. And, of course, it's not just the old that require care. We need a fundamental rethink. Sadly, it's not going to happen.

    With a deep breath I ask: what are posters views about Dignitas? Is this the elephant in the room?

    For me, if I get to the point that I have dementia to the extent that I need round-the-clock care, I'm checking out thank you very much. The idea that I would want to linger with not much or no quality of life whilst bringing expense, heartbreak and worry to others is abhorrent to me.
  • Scott_xPScott_xP Posts: 32,728
    turns out leaving the EU has created a £7.5bn industry overnight: paying people to fill in millions of forms
    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/annual-7-5bn-cost-of-eu-trade-as-bad-for-business-as-no-deal-brexit-jd7llrtb6
  • kjhkjh Posts: 10,456
    Cyclefree said:

    IanB2 said:

    Charles said:

    Social care funding is and interesting challenge. Basically we don’t pay enough for social care (although in the main the homes that I know - which are the national chains - do a decent enough job at a cost to local authorities of c £900 per week

    It’s not as simple as saying “let old people pay” - they paid for their parent generation. @MaxPB has got caught up in his crusade about BTL again and decided that all old people are evil and tax should be hypothecated to hit them.

    The reality is that society as a whole needs to fund social care. There are positive externalities from not having old people blocking hospital beds or dying in the streets. Tax should be simple, broad based, low rates, and hard to avoid. Income tax meets all of those criteria.

    A property tax of some sort meets those criteria, as well as helping to address wider economic imbalances and is harder to avoid than income tax.
    Capital gains tax on houses - including main homes. A tax on property and doesn't run into the asset rich, cash poor problem.
    I went there sometime ago. I'm lucky still to be able to post.
  • TazTaz Posts: 10,701
    Labour pushing for wealth tax/increase in CGT to,fund ‘care crisis’

    A wealth tax is unlikely they are reported to be hard to collect and don’t yield the numbers needed. Would CGT increase do,any better ?

    https://www.theguardian.com/society/2021/sep/04/pressure-grows-on-starmer-to-back-tax-on-rich-to-pay-for-social-care
  • CharlesCharles Posts: 35,758
    ydoethur said:

    Charles said:

    ydoethur said:

    Charles said:

    rcs1000 said:

    IanB2 said:

    Fishing said:

    Deep thought: If Trump is running the value bet is Biden. Assuming he's still standing he'll feel a sense of responsibility to run again, and also he'll think he can win. He'll be very old, but his opponent will also be very old.

    America is the world's superpower with 330 million people, many highly intelligent. If Biden vs Trump Round II is the best choice it can give itself for its leader, maybe critics of democracy have a point?

    (Though as ever, Churchill's remark about democracy applies)
    Let’s not get sucked into this equally bad nonsense. Biden is merely a poor candidate. He’s not an affront to democracy.
    He was actually a good candidate - because he avoided the glaring negatives of his various rivals, which could easily have handed a second term to Trump - and was uniquely able both to reassure because of his long track record yet still be a blank canvas onto which voters could project their own aspirations.

    That he may turn out to be a poor president doesn’t make him a poor candidate. And there is still a decent chance that, as with Reagan, choosing and listening to good advisors can make up for personal and mental frailty.
    Sorry. He was rubbish.

    And he became the Democratic Presidential nominee for two reasons:

    1. Iowa fucked up.
    2. Bloomberg wasted gazillions on... what exactly?

    Nonsense. he won. Therefore, he was a good candidate.

    Surely that just makes him the “better” candidate rather than a “good” one… Corbyn vs Johnson anyone…
    No, I agree with Ian here. A good candidate is one that wins you the election. Biden was a good candidate, Hilary was a bad one from that point of view.

    That’s separate from the issue of whether they’re any good having won the election. Think of Blair. Brilliant candidate, one of the most brilliant election winners ever. Best record in elections of any candidate in the age of universal suffrage.

    Bit meh as PM though.
    I disagree. I think Biden would have lost against any half decent Republican. He was a better candidate than Trump, but “good” is an absolute statement not a relative one.

    The most you can claim is he was “good enough”
    Well, you could make the same statement about Trump, or for that matter Johnson.

    Edit: incidentally there is sadly something of a false premise in your first sentence.
    To be fair I think Johnson is a good candidate (although a crap PM). Trump was in the right place at the right time.

    Assuming you mean my second sentence… there are still half decent republicans… you just need to know where to look. I rather like Nikki Haley (and she has an accent to die for)
  • Stocky said:

    Charles said:

    Social care funding is and interesting challenge. Basically we don’t pay enough for social care (although in the main the homes that I know - which are the national chains - do a decent enough job at a cost to local authorities of c £900 per week

    It’s not as simple as saying “let old people pay” - they paid for their parent generation. @MaxPB has got caught up in his crusade about BTL again and decided that all old people are evil and tax should be hypothecated to hit them.

    The reality is that society as a whole needs to fund social care. There are positive externalities from not having old people blocking hospital beds or dying in the streets. Tax should be simple, broad based, low rates, and hard to avoid. Income tax meets all of those criteria.

    We were paying £50 an hour for home care for the mother-in-law when she lived with us. The one residential place we looked at that was under £1,000 a week was akin to a Victorian asylum. The costs are immense and with salaries for staff having to rise substantially to attract UK citizens to do the work previously done by minimum wage immigrants, the costs are only going to get higher. The big issue is that unlike in previous generations a lot of old people are surviving to an age where dementia becomes an issue. And, of course, it's not just the old that require care. We need a fundamental rethink. Sadly, it's not going to happen.

    With a deep breath I ask: what are posters views about Dignitas? Is this the elephant in the room?

    For me, if I get to the point that I have dementia to the extent that I need round-the-clock care, I'm checking out thank you very much. The idea that I would want to linger with not much or no quality of life whilst bringing expense, heartbreak and worry to others is abhorrent to me.
    Who decides though.. how do you know your family are not going to do you in to save money... you think you know people.. you don't as much as you think you do. Money wills etc brings out the worst in people...
  • Mr. Taz, a wealth tax seems unwise. If it doesn't apply to houses then people will just shovel their money into property, pushing up prices even more. If it does apply to houses then tons of people who spent their lives paying off a mortgage and have retired will have a new significant cost they can't afford.
  • kjhkjh Posts: 10,456

    Charles said:

    Charles said:

    Charles said:

    Social care funding is and interesting challenge. Basically we don’t pay enough for social care (although in the main the homes that I know - which are the national chains - do a decent enough job at a cost to local authorities of c £900 per week

    It’s not as simple as saying “let old people pay” - they paid for their parent generation. @MaxPB has got caught up in his crusade about BTL again and decided that all old people are evil and tax should be hypothecated to hit them.

    The reality is that society as a whole needs to fund social care. There are positive externalities from not having old people blocking hospital beds or dying in the streets. Tax should be simple, broad based, low rates, and hard to avoid. Income tax meets all of those criteria.

    We were paying £50 an hour for home care for the mother-in-law when she lived with us. The one residential place we looked at that was under £1,000 a week was akin to a Victorian asylum. The costs are immense and with salaries for staff having to rise substantially to attract UK citizens to do the work previously done by minimum wage immigrants, the costs are only going to get higher. The big issue is that unlike in previous generations a lot of old people are surviving to an age where dementia becomes an issue. And, of course, it's not just the old that require care. We need a fundamental rethink. Sadly, it's not going to happen.

    LA rates are significantly discounted vs private care. It’s one of the reasons I like the Irish system - I struggle with the concept that residents should pay different rates for the same care (and the other approach of having ancillary services like hairdressing is a bit ick as well)
    I struggle with the concept of managing different levels of care, unless there's a significant physical distinction between where the resident live.
    However, forgive my ignorance, but how does the Irish system work?
    Basically the government pays for everyone (and they pay the same rate) and then once they are in care there is a detailed financial assessment and those who can afford it make a contribution based on their assets. But it’s done centrally so the burden isn’t on the LA’s either.

    (Obviously more complicated but that’s the quick summary)
    Dealing with LA's and local Health people for my in-laws was a nightmare. So nationally would be better, although probably so long as the Home Office wasn't involved. At least there'd be one set of rules.
    As a complete cynic I was very pleasantly surprised by the help I received when my mother went into care from both the local authority and charities.
  • Taz said:

    tlg86 said:

    Just watching Farage interviewing ex-Tory MP Jerry Hayes. Never heard Farage say it before, but he thinks Johnson and Gove didn’t want to win the referendum. Not sure about Gove, but I think it’s true of Johnson.

    Interestingly, monetary policy came up and Hayes is worried about inflation. “Why isn’t any MP talking about this?” Simple, lots of Gen Xs with massive mortgages.

    Farage thinks the central banks simply want to inflate their way out of their debt.

    He may well be right.
    On the debt bit, are there any other choices? Our deficit hit 15% and with zero appetite for the crushing austerity needed to restore finances what other option is there?
  • CyclefreeCyclefree Posts: 25,074
    One other point worth noting is this (especially by all those claiming that only pensioners should pay because only they need social care) is that social care encompasses not simply care of the old but care of the disabled, many of whom are young. They are forgotten in this debate. The treatment and care they get is often poor (as assorted scandals have shown us).

    That is why we will all need to pay to have a decent care system and more than the sums being discussed now. We simply cannot afford to exempt any group - no matter how hard done they be they may feel - from paying for a decent care system.

    That is if we really want it. Sometimes it feels as if this debate is less about how to get a decent care system and more about seeing which group should be punished most.

    And a decent care system will also involve people making different decisions about how they live their lives. It is not enough simply to put someone in a good home. It also means keeping an eye on how someone is cared for and being their advocate. Paying someone else and adopting an out of sight, out of mind approach is not good enough. Abuse and neglect will flourish in such circumstances.
  • StockyStocky Posts: 9,653
    edited September 2021

    Stocky said:

    Charles said:

    Social care funding is and interesting challenge. Basically we don’t pay enough for social care (although in the main the homes that I know - which are the national chains - do a decent enough job at a cost to local authorities of c £900 per week

    It’s not as simple as saying “let old people pay” - they paid for their parent generation. @MaxPB has got caught up in his crusade about BTL again and decided that all old people are evil and tax should be hypothecated to hit them.

    The reality is that society as a whole needs to fund social care. There are positive externalities from not having old people blocking hospital beds or dying in the streets. Tax should be simple, broad based, low rates, and hard to avoid. Income tax meets all of those criteria.

    We were paying £50 an hour for home care for the mother-in-law when she lived with us. The one residential place we looked at that was under £1,000 a week was akin to a Victorian asylum. The costs are immense and with salaries for staff having to rise substantially to attract UK citizens to do the work previously done by minimum wage immigrants, the costs are only going to get higher. The big issue is that unlike in previous generations a lot of old people are surviving to an age where dementia becomes an issue. And, of course, it's not just the old that require care. We need a fundamental rethink. Sadly, it's not going to happen.

    With a deep breath I ask: what are posters views about Dignitas? Is this the elephant in the room?

    For me, if I get to the point that I have dementia to the extent that I need round-the-clock care, I'm checking out thank you very much. The idea that I would want to linger with not much or no quality of life whilst bringing expense, heartbreak and worry to others is abhorrent to me.
    Who decides though.. how do you know your family are not going to do you in to save money... you think you know people.. you don't as much as you think you do. Money wills etc brings out the worst in people...
    There would be medical professional input of course, as there is with Dignitas. In the unlikely event that my family were able to pull the wool over the medics eyes somewhat I must be close enough to being fucked to go along with it anyway.

    We focus far too much on quantity of life over quality. A hangover from religious doctrine of course. (We also need to recalibrate out attitude to suicide.)
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 116,709
    edited September 2021
    Trump by pushing the vaccine has cleverly targeted swing voters but by saying he may not have the booster and pushing freedoms kept his primary base intact too (I suspect in private he will get the booster).

    If he runs I suspect he would win the primary and he could win the general election too. Emerson last week has Trump on 67% in the GOP primary and beating Biden 47% to 46% in the general election
    https://twitter.com/EmersonPolling/status/1433550803697115141?s=20
    https://twitter.com/EmersonPolling/status/1433550303865958435?s=20
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 116,709
    Stocky said:

    Charles said:

    Social care funding is and interesting challenge. Basically we don’t pay enough for social care (although in the main the homes that I know - which are the national chains - do a decent enough job at a cost to local authorities of c £900 per week

    It’s not as simple as saying “let old people pay” - they paid for their parent generation. @MaxPB has got caught up in his crusade about BTL again and decided that all old people are evil and tax should be hypothecated to hit them.

    The reality is that society as a whole needs to fund social care. There are positive externalities from not having old people blocking hospital beds or dying in the streets. Tax should be simple, broad based, low rates, and hard to avoid. Income tax meets all of those criteria.

    We were paying £50 an hour for home care for the mother-in-law when she lived with us. The one residential place we looked at that was under £1,000 a week was akin to a Victorian asylum. The costs are immense and with salaries for staff having to rise substantially to attract UK citizens to do the work previously done by minimum wage immigrants, the costs are only going to get higher. The big issue is that unlike in previous generations a lot of old people are surviving to an age where dementia becomes an issue. And, of course, it's not just the old that require care. We need a fundamental rethink. Sadly, it's not going to happen.

    With a deep breath I ask: what are posters views about Dignitas? Is this the elephant in the room?

    For me, if I get to the point that I have dementia to the extent that I need round-the-clock care, I'm checking out thank you very much. The idea that I would want to linger with not much or no quality of life whilst bringing expense, heartbreak and worry to others is abhorrent to me.
    I have reservations as I believe in the sanctity of life. I would only allow it if you had a terminal illness and less than 6 months to live and 2 doctors had confirmed that and you were of sound mind to agree to it
  • TazTaz Posts: 10,701

    Mr. Taz, a wealth tax seems unwise. If it doesn't apply to houses then people will just shovel their money into property, pushing up prices even more. If it does apply to houses then tons of people who spent their lives paying off a mortgage and have retired will have a new significant cost they can't afford.

    The proposals aired around the end of last year by some outfit called ‘The Wealth Tax Comission’ would,have included pensions and pension pots too as well as property.

    It was quickly dismissed by the treasury but seems to have a degree of support in parts of labour.
  • eek said:

    moonshine said:

    Raducanu at 20-1 for sports personality, 14-1 for the tourny.

    More than half of British households have an Amazon Prime sub, if she makes it to the quarters and beyond the hype train will start full throttle. Though depends on time zones for her matches I suppose.

    Watching her match yesterday she was rather impressive
    Emma Raducanu for SPotY, perhaps, but probably after she wins or comes close to winning Wimbledon.
  • Mr. Taz, unsurprising, if worrying.
  • kjhkjh Posts: 10,456
    If not mentioned already I see there is a scandal over honours and favours to a donor to Princes Charles's charities. I am truly shocked after all no political party would ever do such a thing would they?
  • StockyStocky Posts: 9,653
    HYUFD said:

    Stocky said:

    Charles said:

    Social care funding is and interesting challenge. Basically we don’t pay enough for social care (although in the main the homes that I know - which are the national chains - do a decent enough job at a cost to local authorities of c £900 per week

    It’s not as simple as saying “let old people pay” - they paid for their parent generation. @MaxPB has got caught up in his crusade about BTL again and decided that all old people are evil and tax should be hypothecated to hit them.

    The reality is that society as a whole needs to fund social care. There are positive externalities from not having old people blocking hospital beds or dying in the streets. Tax should be simple, broad based, low rates, and hard to avoid. Income tax meets all of those criteria.

    We were paying £50 an hour for home care for the mother-in-law when she lived with us. The one residential place we looked at that was under £1,000 a week was akin to a Victorian asylum. The costs are immense and with salaries for staff having to rise substantially to attract UK citizens to do the work previously done by minimum wage immigrants, the costs are only going to get higher. The big issue is that unlike in previous generations a lot of old people are surviving to an age where dementia becomes an issue. And, of course, it's not just the old that require care. We need a fundamental rethink. Sadly, it's not going to happen.

    With a deep breath I ask: what are posters views about Dignitas? Is this the elephant in the room?

    For me, if I get to the point that I have dementia to the extent that I need round-the-clock care, I'm checking out thank you very much. The idea that I would want to linger with not much or no quality of life whilst bringing expense, heartbreak and worry to others is abhorrent to me.
    I have reservations as I believe in the sanctity of life. I would only allow it if you had a terminal illness and less than 6 months to live and 2 doctors had confirmed that and you were of sound mind to agree to it
    Yes - the religious argument - puts quantity of life over quality because humans are special. What damage this nonsense has caused!

    Good to see you back.
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 49,614

    Good morning, everyone.

    F1: working on a pre-race ramble. Quite shocking how much bad luck I've had this year, but given I had numerous flukes in 2020 it does, at least, seem balanced.

    I think one of the Mercedes will win it, they are both in the mix and will double-team MV with the pit stops.

    Safety car is almost a dead cert, there hasn’t been a clean session in any of the support series or practice sessions.
  • Scott_xP said:

    turns out leaving the EU has created a £7.5bn industry overnight: paying people to fill in millions of forms
    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/annual-7-5bn-cost-of-eu-trade-as-bad-for-business-as-no-deal-brexit-jd7llrtb6

    Scott mate - people don't care. Yes you and I both can see the humour that the "lets cut red tape" brigade have both entangled us is more red tape than they could even conceive and yet are trying to pretend it isn't there. But normals don't care - and didn't care before.

    The challenge now is to make things work. As I've consistently pointed out none of these issues are a result of leaving the EU - we could have left and taken a different tack to not blow up things like free trade. They are explicitly a result of the Boris deal and that should be the attack - not on brexit.

    Not unless your aim is to reinforce to half the population that they were right to vote leave.
  • pigeonpigeon Posts: 4,087
    Taz said:

    Labour pushing for wealth tax/increase in CGT to,fund ‘care crisis’

    A wealth tax is unlikely they are reported to be hard to collect and don’t yield the numbers needed. Would CGT increase do,any better ?

    https://www.theguardian.com/society/2021/sep/04/pressure-grows-on-starmer-to-back-tax-on-rich-to-pay-for-social-care

    Quite possibly, yes. The Tories are unlikely to propose such a thing because it will offend key supporter groups like wealthy pensioners and buy-to-let landlords, but Labour may feel that they're in a better position to risk it.
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 53,766
    Cyclefree said:

    IanB2 said:

    Charles said:

    Social care funding is and interesting challenge. Basically we don’t pay enough for social care (although in the main the homes that I know - which are the national chains - do a decent enough job at a cost to local authorities of c £900 per week

    It’s not as simple as saying “let old people pay” - they paid for their parent generation. @MaxPB has got caught up in his crusade about BTL again and decided that all old people are evil and tax should be hypothecated to hit them.

    The reality is that society as a whole needs to fund social care. There are positive externalities from not having old people blocking hospital beds or dying in the streets. Tax should be simple, broad based, low rates, and hard to avoid. Income tax meets all of those criteria.

    A property tax of some sort meets those criteria, as well as helping to address wider economic imbalances and is harder to avoid than income tax.
    Capital gains tax on houses - including main homes. A tax on property and doesn't run into the asset rich, cash poor problem.
    We want to encourage people to trade down, which makes the property market more efficient. Capital gains on main residences does the opposite.
  • DecrepiterJohnLDecrepiterJohnL Posts: 23,926
    edited September 2021
    Paralympics. It's the last day, with the closing ceremony midday-ish our time.

    Britain remains second in the medals table, a long way behind China, on both number of golds and total number of medals.
    https://olympics.com/tokyo-2020/paralympic-games/en/results/all-sports/medal-standings.htm
  • HYUFD said:

    Trump by pushing the vaccine has cleverly targeted swing voters but by saying he may not have the booster and pushing freedoms kept his primary base intact too (I suspect in private he will get the booster).

    If he runs I suspect he would win the primary and he could win the general election too. Emerson last week has Trump on 67% in the GOP primary and beating Biden 47% to 46% in the general election
    https://twitter.com/EmersonPolling/status/1433550803697115141?s=20
    https://twitter.com/EmersonPolling/status/1433550303865958435?s=20

    Yep - as things stand, I think Trump would win the presidency, but would again lose the popular vote.

  • TazTaz Posts: 10,701

    Taz said:

    tlg86 said:

    Just watching Farage interviewing ex-Tory MP Jerry Hayes. Never heard Farage say it before, but he thinks Johnson and Gove didn’t want to win the referendum. Not sure about Gove, but I think it’s true of Johnson.

    Interestingly, monetary policy came up and Hayes is worried about inflation. “Why isn’t any MP talking about this?” Simple, lots of Gen Xs with massive mortgages.

    Farage thinks the central banks simply want to inflate their way out of their debt.

    He may well be right.
    On the debt bit, are there any other choices? Our deficit hit 15% and with zero appetite for the crushing austerity needed to restore finances what other option is there?
    I don’t know what other choices there are. A wealth tax wouldn’t really work. They could simply dip into everyone’s pension pot and take a cut but that would be counterproductive. Austerity is the last thing you want coming out of Covid.

    The risk is the inflation becomes more than transitory and stays for a while.
  • Big_G_NorthWalesBig_G_NorthWales Posts: 60,001
    edited September 2021
    Stocky said:

    Charles said:

    Social care funding is and interesting challenge. Basically we don’t pay enough for social care (although in the main the homes that I know - which are the national chains - do a decent enough job at a cost to local authorities of c £900 per week

    It’s not as simple as saying “let old people pay” - they paid for their parent generation. @MaxPB has got caught up in his crusade about BTL again and decided that all old people are evil and tax should be hypothecated to hit them.

    The reality is that society as a whole needs to fund social care. There are positive externalities from not having old people blocking hospital beds or dying in the streets. Tax should be simple, broad based, low rates, and hard to avoid. Income tax meets all of those criteria.

    We were paying £50 an hour for home care for the mother-in-law when she lived with us. The one residential place we looked at that was under £1,000 a week was akin to a Victorian asylum. The costs are immense and with salaries for staff having to rise substantially to attract UK citizens to do the work previously done by minimum wage immigrants, the costs are only going to get higher. The big issue is that unlike in previous generations a lot of old people are surviving to an age where dementia becomes an issue. And, of course, it's not just the old that require care. We need a fundamental rethink. Sadly, it's not going to happen.

    With a deep breath I ask: what are posters views about Dignitas? Is this the elephant in the room?

    For me, if I get to the point that I have dementia to the extent that I need round-the-clock care, I'm checking out thank you very much. The idea that I would want to linger with not much or no quality of life whilst bringing expense, heartbreak and worry to others is abhorrent to me.
    Sadly once you have dementia you lose the ability to reason and rationale disappears

    My son in laws mother has been suffering severe dementia for a few years now and is in specialist care.

    She was a matron and has told the staff she does not want any medication but day to day she lives in a surreal world not knowing her family or loved ones and taking her medication

    It is the dispirited moral the family suffer as well, and I have been very surprised at just how aggressively @MaxPB has attacked pensioners
  • Mr. Sandpit, yeah, I think Ferrari will do likewise with Gasly.

    The counterargument, at the front, is that Verstappen actually had a poor final lap with a purple but two yellow sectors, so he could've been significantly faster. If he can retain the lead then he might yet claim the win.

    If there were a red flag market I would've looked at it with a very interested eye.
  • nico679nico679 Posts: 4,530
    Scott_xP said:

    turns out leaving the EU has created a £7.5bn industry overnight: paying people to fill in millions of forms
    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/annual-7-5bn-cost-of-eu-trade-as-bad-for-business-as-no-deal-brexit-jd7llrtb6

    All this money wasted to trash trade links with your biggest export market! Brexit really is a turd that only the most deluded can cling to and continue to justify .
  • Mr. Taz, a wealth tax seems unwise. If it doesn't apply to houses then people will just shovel their money into property, pushing up prices even more. If it does apply to houses then tons of people who spent their lives paying off a mortgage and have retired will have a new significant cost they can't afford.

    If they're sitting on a large debt-free asset worth enough for the wealth tax to kick in then by definition they can afford the new cost.
  • CharlesCharles Posts: 35,758

    Paralympics. It's the last day, with the closing ceremony midday-ish our time.

    Britain remains second in the medals table, a long way behind China, on both number of golds and total number of medals.
    https://olympics.com/tokyo-2020/paralympic-games/en/results/all-sports/medal-standings.htm

    Medals as a % of population?
  • StockyStocky Posts: 9,653

    Stocky said:

    Charles said:

    Social care funding is and interesting challenge. Basically we don’t pay enough for social care (although in the main the homes that I know - which are the national chains - do a decent enough job at a cost to local authorities of c £900 per week

    It’s not as simple as saying “let old people pay” - they paid for their parent generation. @MaxPB has got caught up in his crusade about BTL again and decided that all old people are evil and tax should be hypothecated to hit them.

    The reality is that society as a whole needs to fund social care. There are positive externalities from not having old people blocking hospital beds or dying in the streets. Tax should be simple, broad based, low rates, and hard to avoid. Income tax meets all of those criteria.

    We were paying £50 an hour for home care for the mother-in-law when she lived with us. The one residential place we looked at that was under £1,000 a week was akin to a Victorian asylum. The costs are immense and with salaries for staff having to rise substantially to attract UK citizens to do the work previously done by minimum wage immigrants, the costs are only going to get higher. The big issue is that unlike in previous generations a lot of old people are surviving to an age where dementia becomes an issue. And, of course, it's not just the old that require care. We need a fundamental rethink. Sadly, it's not going to happen.

    With a deep breath I ask: what are posters views about Dignitas? Is this the elephant in the room?

    For me, if I get to the point that I have dementia to the extent that I need round-the-clock care, I'm checking out thank you very much. The idea that I would want to linger with not much or no quality of life whilst bringing expense, heartbreak and worry to others is abhorrent to me.
    Sadly once you have dementia you lose the ability to reason and rationale disappears


    My son in laws mother has been suffering severe dementia for a few years now and is in specialist care.

    She was a matron and has told the staff she does not want any medication but day to day she lives in a surreal world not knowing her family or loved ones and taking her medication

    It is the dispirited moral the family suffer as well, and I have been very surprised at just how aggressively @MaxPB has attacked pensioners
    So - given your first three paragraphs - you are agreeing with me BigG?
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 44,052
    IanB2 said:

    Charles said:

    Social care funding is and interesting challenge. Basically we don’t pay enough for social care (although in the main the homes that I know - which are the national chains - do a decent enough job at a cost to local authorities of c £900 per week

    It’s not as simple as saying “let old people pay” - they paid for their parent generation. @MaxPB has got caught up in his crusade about BTL again and decided that all old people are evil and tax should be hypothecated to hit them.

    The reality is that society as a whole needs to fund social care. There are positive externalities from not having old people blocking hospital beds or dying in the streets. Tax should be simple, broad based, low rates, and hard to avoid. Income tax meets all of those criteria.

    A property tax of some sort meets those criteria, as well as helping to address wider economic imbalances and is harder to avoid than income tax.
    Indeed, taxes should be on wealth (capital) not just on income.
  • nico679 said:

    Scott_xP said:

    turns out leaving the EU has created a £7.5bn industry overnight: paying people to fill in millions of forms
    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/annual-7-5bn-cost-of-eu-trade-as-bad-for-business-as-no-deal-brexit-jd7llrtb6

    All this money wasted to trash trade links with your biggest export market! Brexit really is a turd that only the most deluded can cling to and continue to justify .
    As has just been said @RochdalePioneers no amount of attacks on Brexit is going to change it and the need now is for it to be made to work with compromise on all sides
  • Scott_xPScott_xP Posts: 32,728
    nico679 said:

    All this money wasted to trash trade links with your biggest export market! Brexit really is a turd that only the most deluded can cling to and continue to justify .

    https://twitter.com/ottocrat/status/1434405159237468165
  • TazTaz Posts: 10,701

    Scott_xP said:

    turns out leaving the EU has created a £7.5bn industry overnight: paying people to fill in millions of forms
    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/annual-7-5bn-cost-of-eu-trade-as-bad-for-business-as-no-deal-brexit-jd7llrtb6

    Scott mate - people don't care. Yes you and I both can see the humour that the "lets cut red tape" brigade have both entangled us is more red tape than they could even conceive and yet are trying to pretend it isn't there. But normals don't care - and didn't care before.

    The challenge now is to make things work. As I've consistently pointed out none of these issues are a result of leaving the EU - we could have left and taken a different tack to not blow up things like free trade. They are explicitly a result of the Boris deal and that should be the attack - not on brexit.

    Not unless your aim is to reinforce to half the population that they were right to vote leave.
    The next issue on the horizon.

    https://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/markets/article-9957527/Retail-giant-Marks-Spencer-warns-suppliers-EU-border-chaos.html
  • TazTaz Posts: 10,701

    Mr. Taz, a wealth tax seems unwise. If it doesn't apply to houses then people will just shovel their money into property, pushing up prices even more. If it does apply to houses then tons of people who spent their lives paying off a mortgage and have retired will have a new significant cost they can't afford.

    If they're sitting on a large debt-free asset worth enough for the wealth tax to kick in then by definition they can afford the new cost.
    Plenty of people are asset rich but cash poor. Effectively they In that situation will be forced to take secured loans or even sell to pay the debt.
  • Mr. Tokyo, that's a wonderful message.

    Work hard, save, get your own home, then slowly lose it by having to either sell and downsize or have some sort of equity release nonsense.

    Dr. Foxy, there's a reason medieval types loathed taxes. They were levied against property value (property as in general goods not just a home). Also, as a country, we need to save more. This is going to damage that as well.

    Income tax should rise. It affects both the elderly and younger people and is fairer than raising NI.
  • TazTaz Posts: 10,701

    nico679 said:

    Scott_xP said:

    turns out leaving the EU has created a £7.5bn industry overnight: paying people to fill in millions of forms
    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/annual-7-5bn-cost-of-eu-trade-as-bad-for-business-as-no-deal-brexit-jd7llrtb6

    All this money wasted to trash trade links with your biggest export market! Brexit really is a turd that only the most deluded can cling to and continue to justify .
    As has just been said @RochdalePioneers no amount of attacks on Brexit is going to change it and the need now is for it to be made to work with compromise on all sides
    Which is what Tony Blair has been saying for a while. A sane voice, for a change.
  • HYUFD said:

    Stocky said:

    Charles said:

    Social care funding is and interesting challenge. Basically we don’t pay enough for social care (although in the main the homes that I know - which are the national chains - do a decent enough job at a cost to local authorities of c £900 per week

    It’s not as simple as saying “let old people pay” - they paid for their parent generation. @MaxPB has got caught up in his crusade about BTL again and decided that all old people are evil and tax should be hypothecated to hit them.

    The reality is that society as a whole needs to fund social care. There are positive externalities from not having old people blocking hospital beds or dying in the streets. Tax should be simple, broad based, low rates, and hard to avoid. Income tax meets all of those criteria.

    We were paying £50 an hour for home care for the mother-in-law when she lived with us. The one residential place we looked at that was under £1,000 a week was akin to a Victorian asylum. The costs are immense and with salaries for staff having to rise substantially to attract UK citizens to do the work previously done by minimum wage immigrants, the costs are only going to get higher. The big issue is that unlike in previous generations a lot of old people are surviving to an age where dementia becomes an issue. And, of course, it's not just the old that require care. We need a fundamental rethink. Sadly, it's not going to happen.

    With a deep breath I ask: what are posters views about Dignitas? Is this the elephant in the room?

    For me, if I get to the point that I have dementia to the extent that I need round-the-clock care, I'm checking out thank you very much. The idea that I would want to linger with not much or no quality of life whilst bringing expense, heartbreak and worry to others is abhorrent to me.
    I have reservations as I believe in the sanctity of life. I would only allow it if you had a terminal illness and less than 6 months to live and 2 doctors had confirmed that and you were of sound mind to agree to it
    You mentioned a Delta poll lead of 8% last night for the conservatives but I cannot find any reference to it

    Could you publish the tables

    Thanks
  • edmundintokyoedmundintokyo Posts: 17,136
    edited September 2021
    Fixed Asset Tax here is an annual 1.4% of the assessed value of the property (assessed based on some formula I don't understand, not what you paid for it.)

    I think it's a good system - it's enough to dissuade you from getting somewhere needlessly palatial and sitting on it as a way to park money but it's not a huge deal that's throwing all the poor old dears out on the street.
  • pigeonpigeon Posts: 4,087
    edited September 2021
    Stocky said:

    Charles said:

    Social care funding is and interesting challenge. Basically we don’t pay enough for social care (although in the main the homes that I know - which are the national chains - do a decent enough job at a cost to local authorities of c £900 per week

    It’s not as simple as saying “let old people pay” - they paid for their parent generation. @MaxPB has got caught up in his crusade about BTL again and decided that all old people are evil and tax should be hypothecated to hit them.

    The reality is that society as a whole needs to fund social care. There are positive externalities from not having old people blocking hospital beds or dying in the streets. Tax should be simple, broad based, low rates, and hard to avoid. Income tax meets all of those criteria.

    We were paying £50 an hour for home care for the mother-in-law when she lived with us. The one residential place we looked at that was under £1,000 a week was akin to a Victorian asylum. The costs are immense and with salaries for staff having to rise substantially to attract UK citizens to do the work previously done by minimum wage immigrants, the costs are only going to get higher. The big issue is that unlike in previous generations a lot of old people are surviving to an age where dementia becomes an issue. And, of course, it's not just the old that require care. We need a fundamental rethink. Sadly, it's not going to happen.

    With a deep breath I ask: what are posters views about Dignitas? Is this the elephant in the room?

    For me, if I get to the point that I have dementia to the extent that I need round-the-clock care, I'm checking out thank you very much. The idea that I would want to linger with not much or no quality of life whilst bringing expense, heartbreak and worry to others is abhorrent to me.
    A lot of people say that kind of thing, but the problem is that it, presumably, requires the sufferer to commit suicide soon after diagnosis, when they are still pretty much compos mentis and derive enjoyment from life. By the time your mind has started to properly disintegrate and what's left of it has descended into a nightmare of fear and confusion - the point at which fully competent people imagine that they would like to be helped gently into that good night - you're unable to give informed consent, and the system is basically required to keep you on life support.

    Basically, if Parliament legalized euthanasia and then provided for people to create living wills that said "please smother me with a pillow when I no longer recognize my own child," or some such similar thing, then the demand would likely be enormous and the amount of terrible suffering as well as money saved would be huge. But these mechanisms do not exist.

    In truth, I would imagine that nearly everyone who goes to Dignitas is in the advanced stages of some other terminal illness, rather than being an early stage dementia patient.
  • Dura_AceDura_Ace Posts: 12,880



    As has just been said @RochdalePioneers no amount of attacks on Brexit is going to change it and the need now is for it to be made to work with compromise on all sides

    Imagine if leavers had adopted that attitude after Maastricht.
  • eekeek Posts: 24,797
    rcs1000 said:

    Cyclefree said:

    IanB2 said:

    Charles said:

    Social care funding is and interesting challenge. Basically we don’t pay enough for social care (although in the main the homes that I know - which are the national chains - do a decent enough job at a cost to local authorities of c £900 per week

    It’s not as simple as saying “let old people pay” - they paid for their parent generation. @MaxPB has got caught up in his crusade about BTL again and decided that all old people are evil and tax should be hypothecated to hit them.

    The reality is that society as a whole needs to fund social care. There are positive externalities from not having old people blocking hospital beds or dying in the streets. Tax should be simple, broad based, low rates, and hard to avoid. Income tax meets all of those criteria.

    A property tax of some sort meets those criteria, as well as helping to address wider economic imbalances and is harder to avoid than income tax.
    Capital gains tax on houses - including main homes. A tax on property and doesn't run into the asset rich, cash poor problem.
    We want to encourage people to trade down, which makes the property market more efficient. Capital gains on main residences does the opposite.
    +1 a bill of 25%+ on the sale price is not really going to encourage people to downsize and given that capital gains tax on residential property sale's is based on the initial (not inflation adjusted) it would be about that level.

    As I've said before and it's the only sane approach (even before my daughter became an apprentice chartered Valuation Surveyer) is to introduce a land value tax and then use that to replace Council tax.

    Yes it may result in prices dropping slightly but it really is the only possible option as everything else is rapidly ruled out.

    As for the argument that some people are cash poor, I suspect a lot of the equity release firms will be happy to pay the money upfront or central government can find a way of doing it.
  • Taz said:

    Mr. Taz, a wealth tax seems unwise. If it doesn't apply to houses then people will just shovel their money into property, pushing up prices even more. If it does apply to houses then tons of people who spent their lives paying off a mortgage and have retired will have a new significant cost they can't afford.

    If they're sitting on a large debt-free asset worth enough for the wealth tax to kick in then by definition they can afford the new cost.
    Plenty of people are asset rich but cash poor. Effectively they In that situation will be forced to take secured loans or even sell to pay the debt.
    Sure, do that then.
  • Mr. Tokyo, that's a wonderful message.

    Work hard, save, get your own home, then slowly lose it by having to either sell and downsize or have some sort of equity release nonsense.

    Dr. Foxy, there's a reason medieval types loathed taxes. They were levied against property value (property as in general goods not just a home). Also, as a country, we need to save more. This is going to damage that as well.

    Income tax should rise. It affects both the elderly and younger people and is fairer than raising NI.

    Good to see a reasoned discussion on here today about funding social care and how to do it, without any nasty aggression or swearing

    Absolutely right that we need a little Income Tax rise to fund this. It's fairer to all. I spent many efforts in trying to explain this very gently to @MaxPB but it didn't seem to sink in ... 😊
  • eekeek Posts: 24,797
    Taz said:

    Mr. Taz, a wealth tax seems unwise. If it doesn't apply to houses then people will just shovel their money into property, pushing up prices even more. If it does apply to houses then tons of people who spent their lives paying off a mortgage and have retired will have a new significant cost they can't afford.

    If they're sitting on a large debt-free asset worth enough for the wealth tax to kick in then by definition they can afford the new cost.
    Plenty of people are asset rich but cash poor. Effectively they In that situation will be forced to take secured loans or even sell to pay the debt.
    If the figures are small (as they would be with a land value tax) it's possible for the money to be paid upfront against a first charge on the property.

    That doesn't work for care homes as at £60,000 a year everything adds up quickly.
  • Scott_xPScott_xP Posts: 32,728
    Dura_Ace said:

    Imagine if leavers had adopted that attitude after Maastricht.

    Exactly this.

    Brexiteers launched a culture war that napalmed our children's future for a fantasy past, and now that it has turned out as well as Afghanistan they want us all to be friends and forget about it.

    They won.

    They will have to suck it up.
This discussion has been closed.