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The inequality issue (Read 117604 times)

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#300 Re: The inequality issue
October 22, 2014, 10:40:24 pm
Parental influence on education is what the Freakanomics people looked at in the US and they found it a very significant factor in their research. Still the macro statistics show a serious problem at the national level in the US and more so the UK. Sloper's links on ethnicity of course fully support my arguments if you read them.... the fact that secondary factor correlations exist doesnt negate the correlations with the primary factor (social background); secondary factors that also in themselves often correlate with poorer areas (like english language problems and specific cultural community factors). Correlation is not the same as causality but given the growing size of the problem and its implications for social cohesion in a democracy it needs looking at urgently.

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#301 Re: The inequality issue
October 22, 2014, 11:03:36 pm
Our son, will g-d willing do well because he has two caring parents who value education, who have invested heavily in his education by reading to him from when he was a day old, taking him to museums, talking to him and instilling good manners and a strong moral code.  If we are able to give him on our death a significant amount of money that will not change his upbringing, his moral code (fuck the proles 'natch :blink:) and so on.

Yes, but it will change his life chances. How much money? A hundred grand? Two hundred. That will significantly improve your son's chances of having a successful, healthy and happy life. Is that natural - course it bloody is. You want the best for him as any sane parent would do. But it isn't equal if you want to be serious about this. No child living did anything special or better than then any other child to 'earn' any inherited wealth they may be lucky enough to be born with. And it's indisputable - despite your claims - that inherited wealth is a major factor contributing to persisting inequality in the world.

And if your strong moral code, good manners, visits to museums and good education from reading and talking to him from an early age are all it takes for a successful life then it stands to reason, according to you, that he won't need your money to help him.

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#302 Re: The inequality issue
October 22, 2014, 11:30:53 pm
I cant help but picture a mini sloper in a pram with very early words being "ucking ole" to a passing 'disadvantaged youf' in a hoodie.

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#303 Re: The inequality issue
October 23, 2014, 05:29:30 am
We lived in Matlock Bath for the first year of his life precisely so that he could become accustomed to looking down at the proles far below.

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#304 Re: The inequality issue
October 23, 2014, 05:34:32 am
That you can come out with such drivel indicates the sort of spite and fuckwittery which often sits behind the 'equality agenda', you should be ashamed of yourself.

I'd say what it shows more than anything is your tunnel vision and a certain rabid hysteria on your part. You've assumed half of what you just wrote, try coming up with a different version which is less apocalyptic. I'll leave it up to your imagination to see if you're capable of more than one worldview.

But before you pigeonhole another leftie in your birdbrain, given the inheritance tax on one hand it makes sense to tax the rich extremely lightly while they were alive, so as to encourage entrepreneurship and innovation.

Deluded.

So you think it's right to tax the rich lightly when they're alive (presumably less than the middle income worker)?
Hmm doesn't sound very equal t me, and where are the taxes going to come from to help the people at the bottom and fund services that society needs? Note you might also want to try and understand the notion that property is not fixed, it can be moved around between jurisdictions and donated inter vivos. 

In fact your scheme is so bonkers not even Sam could come up with it.

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#305 Re: The inequality issue
October 23, 2014, 06:50:35 am
Pete is does look like you've got a rather strange chip on your shoulder over this. Clean slate, level playing field, everyone starts from scratch, have you lost your mind?

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#306 Re: The inequality issue
October 23, 2014, 07:27:04 am
Deluded

So you think it's right to tax the rich lightly when they're alive (presumably less than the middle income worker)?

Hmm doesn't sound very equal t me, and where are the taxes going to come from to help the people at the bottom and fund services that society needs? Note you might also want to try and understand the notion that property is not fixed, it can be moved around between jurisdictions and donated inter vivos. 

In fact your scheme is so bonkers not even Sam could come up with it.

Apologies - I thought this thread was about ideas to reduce inequality, I hadn't realised you just wanted to share links to reports ytou've googled with each other and call each other lefties and righties.
This is a radical idea that would help reduce inequality. It's just an idea, one that you can play with, change it around to make it better if you want. Set the bar wherever you like, 50K, 100K, 1 million. make whatever loopholes, rules and exceptions you like. After all that's what happens presently, the tax system is moulded to fit, perhaps to fit the most powerful.

It tackles the problem from both sides, which is how problems involving two entrenched positions are best dealt with - the conservative can't argue with low taxation for innovators and business leaders. The left can't argue with redistribution of wealth. It's what both sides argue endlessly for in their own way. Or Sloper are you suddenly turning into the thread's biggest socialist by saying 'you can't have light taxation who's going to pay for the people at the bottom'. Bit ironic you using that as an argument isn't it?


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#307 Re: The inequality issue
October 23, 2014, 08:07:35 am
Actually, Slopers use of the term 'Prole' is generally ironic and he has yet to advance a truly right wing agenda.
His abusive mudslinging at what he perceives to be "lefties" tends to obscure a rather centrist world view.

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#308 Re: The inequality issue
October 23, 2014, 01:05:41 pm
Deluded

So you think it's right to tax the rich lightly when they're alive (presumably less than the middle income worker)?

Hmm doesn't sound very equal t me, and where are the taxes going to come from to help the people at the bottom and fund services that society needs? Note you might also want to try and understand the notion that property is not fixed, it can be moved around between jurisdictions and donated inter vivos. 

In fact your scheme is so bonkers not even Sam could come up with it.

Apologies - I thought this thread was about ideas to reduce inequality, I hadn't realised you just wanted to share links to reports ytou've googled with each other and call each other lefties and righties.
This is a radical idea that would help reduce inequality. It's just an idea, one that you can play with, change it around to make it better if you want. Set the bar wherever you like, 50K, 100K, 1 million. make whatever loopholes, rules and exceptions you like. After all that's what happens presently, the tax system is moulded to fit, perhaps to fit the most powerful.

It tackles the problem from both sides, which is how problems involving two entrenched positions are best dealt with - the conservative can't argue with low taxation for innovators and business leaders. The left can't argue with redistribution of wealth. It's what both sides argue endlessly for in their own way. Or Sloper are you suddenly turning into the thread's biggest socialist by saying 'you can't have light taxation who's going to pay for the people at the bottom'. Bit ironic you using that as an argument isn't it?

It wouldn't reduce inequality.

People would simply make inter vivos gifts, transfer assets to trusts, offshore other assets.  In reality it would make no difference to inequality, in fact it would make it worse as the middle classes would avoid the IHT that at present isn't worth avoiding resulting in fewer resources to pay for services.

At present people don't generally avoid IHT until their estate is very significant, but that would change when you put the tax to 100%, regardless of the ceiling, if you make the limit £1m, people above will avoid it and so will people with assets of say £850k as there is a risk they could get drawn in.

It would also have the effect of not encouraging people to save for their retirement, purchase a property, as what's the point if the state is just going to confiscate your assets, the consequence is more people would be reliant on the state in their old age.

In respect of me arguing for taxes to pay for services & etc, not ironic at all, I'm a small state libertarian Tory not an anarchist: there are plenty of powers etc that should be solely reserved for the state and these need funding through taxiation of one form or another, and that tax should as Adam Smith identified all those years ago be 'easy and fair'.

I'd rather we were a low tax jurisdiction, but also recognise that tax is properly graduated to a certain threshold (x%when >y£) with proper incentives for investment, entrepenuers relief and so on.

If you really wanted to decrease inequality then the thing to do would be to introduce benefits policies to dissaude people from having >2 children.

Matt, how dare you, I have never been so outraged and offended  :P

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#309 Re: The inequality issue
October 23, 2014, 01:50:02 pm

 

Matt, how dare you, I have never been so outraged and offended  :P

I should hope so! I thought it a rather finely crafted (minor) insult...

😉

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#310 Re: The inequality issue
October 23, 2014, 03:42:34 pm
Sloper is right. We already have inheritance tax it's just it's easily avoidable in many cases with proper tax planning.

Any system will have it's loopholes and lowering the threshold would just mean more people having to do such planning and create more work for accountants.

Hang on.....

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#311 Re: The inequality issue
October 23, 2014, 04:31:13 pm
And lawyers, it could be a :goodidea: particularly if I can reduce my tax burden.

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#312 Re: The inequality issue
October 23, 2014, 04:55:42 pm
Apologies - I thought this thread was about ideas to reduce inequality, I hadn't realised you just wanted to share links to reports ytou've googled with each other and call each other lefties and righties.
This is a radical idea that would help reduce inequality. It's just an idea, one that you can play with, change it around to make it better if you want. Set the bar wherever you like, 50K, 100K, 1 million. make whatever loopholes, rules and exceptions you like. After all that's what happens presently, the tax system is moulded to fit, perhaps to fit the most powerful.

I love that we've moved on from whether inequality is or is not an issue :)

Pete- I give you Kudo's for stepping outside the box and looking at possibilities.  Many folks get focused on what can be done within the current system, when the current system is what is broken (how badly broken is debatable :) ).  I'm not certain it would reduce inequality as much as you think.  Assuming you fixed the other issues that have been pointed out, I still think it wouldn't really work.  Say for example you have a couple who get lucky and win the lottery (and by some miracle don't waste it).  They are better able to provide for their children and such, thereby giving their kids an advantage, the also will likely live to 85-90yo, so they will also be able to provide for this grandkids and potentially their great-grandkids.  You're now talking about a cycle that MAY self fix over the course of 100+ years. The problem with this is that the timeframe is too long to maintain any certainties.   

And that's not even bringing up the sticky nastyness of genetics  :ohmy:

If you really wanted to decrease inequality then the thing to do would be to introduce benefits policies to dissaude people from having >2 children.

Social engineering from a libertarian?   :-\

I would've thought you meant that cost causer = cost payer, so therefor if you have more kids your tax rate goes up to pay for the services being used by your troupe of kids :)  Rather than "benefits", you simply have real allocation of costs. 

I wish I had a good solution, but sadly, I've no idea.  I think its a complex issue and one without an easy or clearcut answer.

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#313 Re: The inequality issue
October 23, 2014, 05:11:44 pm
People are free to have as many kids as they like, I just don't think the state should offer incentives / rewards to couples with >2 kids; particularly as there is such a strong correlation between large family sizes, poverty and other untoward outcomes.

I do like the idea of taxes going up with the number of sprogs, provided there's credit for public school feels, BUPA and so on.

I've never argued equality isn't an issue, rather that it is inequality in the lower part of the distribution curve that is relevant rather than the inequality between the '1%' and the lowest quartile & etc

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#314 Re: The inequality issue
October 23, 2014, 05:29:05 pm
People are free to have as many kids as they like, I just don't think the state should offer incentives / rewards to couples with >2 kids; particularly as there is such a strong correlation between large family sizes, poverty and other untoward outcomes.
Yeah, I've always had a bit of an issue here in the US with the "child tax credit" on top of the dependant deductions.  Seems like we shouldn't be encouraging people to have kids, although I don't think this actually impacts peoples decisions.  At least not for the lower income groups. 

I've never argued equality isn't an issue, rather that it is inequality in the lower part of the distribution curve that is relevant rather than the inequality between the '1%' and the lowest quartile & etc
I'm not sure on this.  Are you saying that the mobility between the bottom 25% and the 25-50% group isn't there?  I'd disagree, at least in the US.


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#315 Re: The inequality issue
October 23, 2014, 07:19:42 pm
Absolutely that's what I'm saying, there's real social ossification between the range that you suggest, a lot of people are rapped on incomes at around 75% of the median and have very few ways to move into jobs >10% of the median, whereas say once you get to x2 of the median the opportunities are there to progress to >x3 the median.

Here's a very non scientific sample of the spread of jobs & salary

http://www.reed.co.uk/jobs/manchester

The situation is I expect very different in the USA

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#316 Re: The inequality issue
October 24, 2014, 12:42:49 am
Haven't had a chance to watch the debate, but I generally like these debates. It's about US income inequality.

http://intelligencesquaredus.org/debates/upcoming-debates/item/1159-income-inequality-impairs-the-american-dream

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#317 Re: The inequality issue
January 19, 2015, 02:12:18 pm
Touching on inequality (or as percieved by Chris Bryant) writes James Blunt

http://www.theguardian.com/music/2015/jan/19/james-blunts-letter-chris-bryant-in-full

Quote
Dear Chris Bryant MP,

You classist gimp. I happened to go to a boarding school. No one helped me at boarding school to get into the music business. I bought my first guitar with money I saved from holiday jobs (sandwich packing!). I was taught the only four chords I know by a friend. No one at school had ANY knowledge or contacts in the music business, and I was expected to become a soldier or a lawyer or perhaps a stockbroker. So alien was it, that people laughed at the idea of me going into the music business, and certainly no one was of any use.

In the army, again, people thought it was a mad idea. None of them knew anyone in the business either.

And when I left the army, going against everyone’s advice, EVERYONE I met in the British music industry told me there was no way it would work for me because I was too posh. One record company even asked if I could speak in a different accent. (I told them I could try Russian).

Every step of the way, my background has been AGAINST me succeeding in the music business. And when I have managed to break through, I was STILL scoffed at for being too posh for the industry.

And then you come along, looking for votes, telling working class people that posh people like me don’t deserve it, and that we must redress the balance. But it is your populist, envy-based, vote-hunting ideas which make our country crap, far more than me and my shit songs, and my plummy accent.

I got signed in America, where they don’t give a stuff about, or even understand what you mean by me and “my ilk”, you prejudiced wazzock, and I worked my arse off. What you teach is the politics of jealousy. Rather than celebrating success and figuring out how we can all exploit it further as the Americans do, you instead talk about how we can hobble that success and “level the playing field”. Perhaps what you’ve failed to realise is that the only head-start my school gave me in the music business, where the VAST majority of people are NOT from boarding school, is to tell me that I should aim high. Perhaps it protected me from your kind of narrow-minded, self-defeating, lead-us-to-a-dead-end, remove-the-‘G’-from-‘GB’ thinking, which is to look at others’ success and say, “it’s not fair.”

Up yours,

James Cucking Funt

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#318 Re: The inequality issue
January 19, 2015, 02:17:15 pm
"Up yours" is still a great insult.  :lol:

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#319 Re: The inequality issue
January 19, 2015, 02:21:13 pm
What a top quality rant, good chap.

His music's still shit, but nice to see he's got a self defecating sense of humour.

(I once heard someone say that about themselves, perhaps they were that funny?)

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#320 Re: The inequality issue
January 19, 2015, 02:37:59 pm
His music's still shit, but nice to see he's got a self defecating sense of humour.

His twitter replies are quite famous;
http://www.buzzfeed.com/kimberleydadds/james-blunts-most-epic-twitter-comebacks#.kjzNK552k

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#321 Re: The inequality issue
January 19, 2015, 06:09:34 pm

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#322 Re: The inequality issue
January 19, 2015, 07:42:00 pm
Some slightly more global inequality news also from today, http://www.theguardian.com/business/2014/jan/20/oxfam-85-richest-people-half-of-the-world

And so what?

If we took the few $Tn and distributed it amongst the poorest 50% it would make virtually no difference.

The people living in mud huts with no clean water aren't concerned about whether Ambramovich is now worth a or y $bn nor does it make any difference to their lives.

All pieces like this do is give middle class lefties something to be concerned about, well I suppose it makes a change from fracking, sexism in Hollywood etc


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#323 Re: The inequality issue
January 19, 2015, 08:02:02 pm
That one was especially for you Slopes, it was hard to decide between than and an article about the Greens  :kiss2:

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#324 Re: The inequality issue
January 19, 2015, 08:06:20 pm
Thanks but I already have a fluffer.  :o

The Green stuff about a citizen's minimum income is hilarious though.

 

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