[psychomansam]

So you are conceding then that the "1%" isn't really important and the 'battleground' over which inequality should be fought is 'in the real world'.

The asset wealth of the rich is determined by a significant degree of factors i.e. currency and stock / gilt variations, property inflation and so on, none of which have a significant impact on whether person A gets job B as xyz and the relative value of their salary or alternatively whether person A is precluded from getting job B or can only get job C @ .3 of xyz salary due to structural failures in say the education system.

As for the jealousy of the rich I presume you've read Oliver James' book Afluenza?

Sam your contributions while amusing as absolutely incoherent; you're anti interventionist but want to impose a extractive / redistributive system to ensure 'equality' and remove the causes of inequality?  Do you really teach ethics?

One major driver of inequality, of wealth for the 1% and of the financial crash has been increasing property prices. These have been driven up intentionally by the City, and by government, with the recent 5% mortgage scheme being the icing on the cake. I mention it because this is as 'real world' as it gets, effecting absolutely everyone, but particularly those who want their own home.

Well you convincingly beat up a straw man here!
I'm largely anti-interventionist, but think the best reason we currently have for intervening internationally is to make reparations for past and current harms.  I don't see this as incoherent. Full equality is impossible, so I'm not trying to ensure equality. Again, I'm non-interventionist, so wouldn't even suggest we should ensure limited equality. I'm not suggesting we remove the causes of inequality either, just the ones we have wrongfully inflicted on others. This needn't necessarily be by governments either. Shell for instance should repair damages from their operations in the niger delta, no matter how complicit local government was.
Had you considered a career in designing scarecrows?

And yes, I both teach and study ethics.

[Sloper]

So, providing assistance for FTB on properties <£600k (the vast majority of which are outside London) is stoking the asset values of the >1% rather than allowing a degree of self determination for those FTB? I can't decide whether your deluded, ignorant or a bit of both.

So you're suggesting we remove the causes of inequality we've inflicted on others? Do you any understanding of the notion of causality?

Take slavery, one of the largest drivers of slavery was the supply side of a couple of tribes / clans in west afrika (I can't remember the names), yes we* (i.e. UK, France, Spain & etc) were willing buyers but where there was no active supply side there was no mass slavery.

Then take the 'wrongful' aspect of your propositon; are we to judge 'wrongfulness' in the light of the current mores and ethics or of those of the relevant time?  If the contend for the former then there's little hope of any meaningful discussion. 

[ghisino]

supply side=slavery

[psychomansam]

So, providing assistance for FTB on properties <£600k (the vast majority of which are outside London) is stoking the asset values of the >1% rather than allowing a degree of self determination for those FTB? I can't decide whether your deluded, ignorant or a bit of both.

Everyone said help to buy would just push up house prices. Government said noooo of course not. Look what it's done. And the biggest winners are those at the top. That increase in prices will convert to increased profits for large landlords and mortgage proverders. The biggest losers are those at the bottom. (Yes I'm aware people in the upper-middle, like yourself, may also stand to gain).

So you're suggesting we remove the causes of inequality we've inflicted on others? Do you any understanding of the notion of causality?

causa-what-now? (Don't be a dick.)

Take slavery, one of the largest drivers of slavery was the supply side of a couple of tribes / clans in west afrika (I can't remember the names), yes we* (i.e. UK, France, Spain & etc) were willing buyers but where there was no active supply side there was no mass slavery.

So if someone is willing to sell me their child, and I buy it, I've not wronged them? Well it's an interesting position. However both my intuition and the moral theories to which I hold would highlight it as a repulsive wrong.

Then take the 'wrongful' aspect of your propositon; are we to judge 'wrongfulness' in the light of the current mores and ethics or of those of the relevant time?  If the contend for the former then there's little hope of any meaningful discussion.

By the current ones. Plenty of room for meaningful discussion and compromise. Admittedly, you might not like the results.

[Sloper]

supply side=slavery

It has been a few years since I read about the history of the western african slave trade; but from memory the trade was well established before the arrivial of the 'colonial' westerners and the tribes/ clans who were the enslavers simply scaled up the trade to accommodate the demans of the new marekt (in return for guns & etc which made their activities more efficient).

The vast majority of slaves originated from inland areas that were never under 'colonial' control.

[Sloper]

So, providing assistance for FTB on properties <£600k (the vast majority of which are outside London) is stoking the asset values of the >1% rather than allowing a degree of self determination for those FTB? I can't decide whether your deluded, ignorant or a bit of both.

Everyone said help to buy would just push up house prices. Government said noooo of course not. Look what it's done. And the biggest winners are those at the top. That increase in prices will convert to increased profits for large landlords and mortgage proverders. The biggest losers are those at the bottom. (Yes I'm aware people in the upper-middle, like yourself, may also stand to gain).

So you're suggesting we remove the causes of inequality we've inflicted on others? Do you any understanding of the notion of causality?

causa-what-now? (Don't be a dick.)

Take slavery, one of the largest drivers of slavery was the supply side of a couple of tribes / clans in west afrika (I can't remember the names), yes we* (i.e. UK, France, Spain & etc) were willing buyers but where there was no active supply side there was no mass slavery.

So if someone is willing to sell me their child, and I buy it, I've not wronged them? Well it's an interesting position. However both my intuition and the moral theories to which I hold would highlight it as a repulsive wrong.

Then take the 'wrongful' aspect of your propositon; are we to judge 'wrongfulness' in the light of the current mores and ethics or of those of the relevant time?  If the contend for the former then there's little hope of any meaningful discussion.

By the current ones. Plenty of room for meaningful discussion and compromise. Admittedly, you might not like the results.

1. I don't think that there's any credible evidence of HTB inflating the market as 1. the market is only inflating above tend in London where HTB transactions form a v small %,2. It's a bit early to tell what if any impact it has had on prices, 3. the numbers of HTB purchases is a small % of activity.

2. You seem to miss the point about slavery, it wasn't the number of people that were enslaved that was the cause of the poverty / inequality rather that it was happening at all and the consequences that flow from it; i.e. no rule of law = no investment in improving agriculture, engaging in trade eetc as the products could be immediately expropriated without compensation.

3. If we are to impose current mores on the consideration of the ills of the past I think the Italian government is going to be facing a large bill as a consequence of the Roman activities, Tunisia for the Carthaginians, the Germans for the vandals and so on and so on.

4. What is wrong: absent laws which are analogus to the 10 commandments i.e. prohibitono f murder, are always a product of the morals of the time; for example there was no 'age of consent' in England & Wales until 1956 and the idea that sex with a 13 year old was a criminal offence just wouldn't have been credible to someone in 1850 given that many girls were married <16 (check out the ages in Romeo & Juliet).

5. I call 'bullshit' on you teaching ethics.

[Oldmanmatt]

supply side=slavery

It may be unpalatable, but the trade has been largely uninterrupted in all recorded history.
Pretty lively during the Roman Empire, for instance, with substantially more peoples " relocated" during the 1000 years +, of that era, than the 200 or so of the colonial era.
It continues today, primarily in North and Central Africa.
And across the world in shadows.

It is unfair to cast the colonial powers as instigators of the trade. In fact they had a greater hand in bringing the trade as close to zero as it has ever been.

It reminds me of the whole "National Costume" m'larky.

It's only a National costume if you pick a single point in history.



At one point, Britain was a great source of slaves.

Later, it was a terrible exploiter of slave labour.

Later still, it was one of the prime movers in the crushing of the trade. 

And, once again, the discussion turns global.

Perhaps it's just the result of living overseas for most of my adult life, but I find it impossible to think in a purely Nationalist context.

Where do you draw the line, anyway?

If Scotland gains independence, then all those lovely stats will be wrong anyway.

If you looked at the country, excluding Greater London, it would present a very different picture.

Having a Global financial hub in our midst skews the whole thing out of context and necessitates  a global view.

[psychomansam]

1. I've read and believe otherwise. % of sales isn't the most relevant factor.
2. I'm only suggesting reparation for harms done, as I said, not for other causes of poverty.
3. When you've had a total change in (system of) government, it seems less plausible to expect reparation. One might also see such expectations diminishing with time - with scales being very subjective of course, or perhaps diminishing subject to the presence of current problems more or less clearly traceable to said harms. So I'm agreed with you about those specific cases and your reductio ad absurdum fails.
4. Sure. Ethics is subjective. I take a consequentialist view, and when we can see present consequences which are multilaterally agreed on as being harmful consequences of past (multilaterally agreed) harms, that's when I'd suggest reparation.
5. Well I'm trying to teach you, but you're a poor student. Hardly my fault.

[Sloper]

1. re RTB, you could always try looking at some data.
https://www.gov.uk/government/statistical-data-sets/help-to-buy-equity-loan-scheme-monthly-statistics

2. So you're only suggesting reparation for harm done; I don't think you understand what 'harms done' means and how as a matter of law the extent to which damages are recoverable is limited. I presume that you accept that basic legal tenets have to be applied to determine what's recoverable?

3. So if there was no system of government prior to colonial power than there ought be no reparation, what about the idea that the 'colonial imposition' was of beneficial effect; should we as a concomitant demand payment from the donee state for the benefit they have derived?

4.  Yes I'd gathered that you believed that the ends justified the means (although you don't have a good idea of what the ends are or the means by which to achieve them).

5. If your contribution is evidence of you 'trying to teach' then I despair. 

You will note that others, myself included have made reference to historical fact, a range of broadly held theories and counter points and sought to explain why we hold the views that we do; you however merely string together ill formed and poorly expressed gibberish in the hope that somehow you sound as if you have a basic knowledge of the subject.

I'd say you're reliant on The Great Soviet Encyclopedia and a bastardised understanding of Russell and Kant, I had to write my jurisprudence paper on The Application of the Hegelian Dialectic to American and Scandinavian Legal Realism (although I did pull wider legal positivism into the paper as a counterpoint) and recognise some of your drivel. (PS I rather enjoyed writing 10k words on the subject, but it probably did long term mental damage)

Any lecturer / teacher worth their salt would have the intellectual capacity to adopt a wide range of approaches and ethical constructs / models: why is it that you are unable so to do?

[ghisino]

supply side=slavery

seems that nobody understood my joke.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supply-side_economics

(especially in relation to the fact that in continental Europe, supply side policies mean less labour regulation and less welfare)

[Sloper]

Yes, I did miss the subtle humour.

http://online.wsj.com/public/resources/documents/r42729_0917.pdf

An intersting read; particularly in the light of some of Pickertty's assertions (and yes I noted his name appearing)

[ghisino]

on topic

http://www.asimmetrie.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/AsimmetrieWP0214.pdf

[psychomansam]

1. re RTB, you could always try looking at some data.
https://www.gov.uk/government/statistical-data-sets/help-to-buy-equity-loan-scheme-monthly-statistics

2. So you're only suggesting reparation for harm done; I don't think you understand what 'harms done' means and how as a matter of law the extent to which damages are recoverable is limited. I presume that you accept that basic legal tenets have to be applied to determine what's recoverable?

3. So if there was no system of government prior to colonial power than there ought be no reparation, what about the idea that the 'colonial imposition' was of beneficial effect; should we as a concomitant demand payment from the donee state for the benefit they have derived?

4.  Yes I'd gathered that you believed that the ends justified the means (although you don't have a good idea of what the ends are or the means by which to achieve them).

5. If your contribution is evidence of you 'trying to teach' then I despair. 

You will note that others, myself included have made reference to historical fact, a range of broadly held theories and counter points and sought to explain why we hold the views that we do; you however merely string together ill formed and poorly expressed gibberish in the hope that somehow you sound as if you have a basic knowledge of the subject.

I'd say you're reliant on The Great Soviet Encyclopedia and a bastardised understanding of Russell and Kant, I had to write my jurisprudence paper on The Application of the Hegelian Dialectic to American and Scandinavian Legal Realism (although I did pull wider legal positivism into the paper as a counterpoint) and recognise some of your drivel. (PS I rather enjoyed writing 10k words on the subject, but it probably did long term mental damage)

Any lecturer / teacher worth their salt would have the intellectual capacity to adopt a wide range of approaches and ethical constructs / models: why is it that you are unable so to do?

1. My comment above applies.
2. I'm suggesting we should willingly offer reparations. Attempting to force us is probably defensible, if difficult.
3. Again, you're thinking about demands/duties. Which is tangential. If you can show we saved the world then go ahead.
4. I have lots of ideas of what ends should be, but see above.
5. Ad hominem drivel.

[mrjonathanr]

Sure. Poor people spend money on essentials, middle income on luxuries and the top income on displaying their wealth and status to other peacocks.

[andy popp]

So you are conceding then that the "1%" isn't really important and the 'battleground' over which inequality should be fought is 'in the real world'.

I concede no such thing 

[Sloper]

1. re RTB, you could always try looking at some data.
https://www.gov.uk/government/statistical-data-sets/help-to-buy-equity-loan-scheme-monthly-statistics

2. So you're only suggesting reparation for harm done; I don't think you understand what 'harms done' means and how as a matter of law the extent to which damages are recoverable is limited. I presume that you accept that basic legal tenets have to be applied to determine what's recoverable?

3. So if there was no system of government prior to colonial power than there ought be no reparation, what about the idea that the 'colonial imposition' was of beneficial effect; should we as a concomitant demand payment from the donee state for the benefit they have derived?

4.  Yes I'd gathered that you believed that the ends justified the means (although you don't have a good idea of what the ends are or the means by which to achieve them).

5. If your contribution is evidence of you 'trying to teach' then I despair. 

You will note that others, myself included have made reference to historical fact, a range of broadly held theories and counter points and sought to explain why we hold the views that we do; you however merely string together ill formed and poorly expressed gibberish in the hope that somehow you sound as if you have a basic knowledge of the subject.

I'd say you're reliant on The Great Soviet Encyclopedia and a bastardised understanding of Russell and Kant, I had to write my jurisprudence paper on The Application of the Hegelian Dialectic to American and Scandinavian Legal Realism (although I did pull wider legal positivism into the paper as a counterpoint) and recognise some of your drivel. (PS I rather enjoyed writing 10k words on the subject, but it probably did long term mental damage)

Any lecturer / teacher worth their salt would have the intellectual capacity to adopt a wide range of approaches and ethical constructs / models: why is it that you are unable so to do?

1. My comment above applies.
2. I'm suggesting we should willingly offer reparations. Attempting to force us is probably defensible, if difficult.
3. Again, you're thinking about demands/duties. Which is tangential. If you can show we saved the world then go ahead.
4. I have lots of ideas of what ends should be, but see above.
5. Ad hominem drivel.

1. It doesn't, you might think it does but you're wrong / don't understand the subject.
2. You don't either understand what reparations means / have nbo concept of the politics.
3. No I'm talking ethics and logic, do you not understand these concepts?
4. zzzzz
5. Not ad ad hom drivel, I can debate from a numer of perspectives, including a classical Marxist p.o.v., utilitarian, positivist, all the way through to anarchist and can support those arguments with reference to well known writers in the firls and the models they rely upon; you? You seem to rely on the fact that you know that Hornby made model trains. (now that dear boy is an ad hominem).

[psychomansam]

1. re RTB, you could always try looking at some data.
https://www.gov.uk/government/statistical-data-sets/help-to-buy-equity-loan-scheme-monthly-statistics

2. So you're only suggesting reparation for harm done; I don't think you understand what 'harms done' means and how as a matter of law the extent to which damages are recoverable is limited. I presume that you accept that basic legal tenets have to be applied to determine what's recoverable?

3. So if there was no system of government prior to colonial power than there ought be no reparation, what about the idea that the 'colonial imposition' was of beneficial effect; should we as a concomitant demand payment from the donee state for the benefit they have derived?

4.  Yes I'd gathered that you believed that the ends justified the means (although you don't have a good idea of what the ends are or the means by which to achieve them).

5. If your contribution is evidence of you 'trying to teach' then I despair. 

You will note that others, myself included have made reference to historical fact, a range of broadly held theories and counter points and sought to explain why we hold the views that we do; you however merely string together ill formed and poorly expressed gibberish in the hope that somehow you sound as if you have a basic knowledge of the subject.

I'd say you're reliant on The Great Soviet Encyclopedia and a bastardised understanding of Russell and Kant, I had to write my jurisprudence paper on The Application of the Hegelian Dialectic to American and Scandinavian Legal Realism (although I did pull wider legal positivism into the paper as a counterpoint) and recognise some of your drivel. (PS I rather enjoyed writing 10k words on the subject, but it probably did long term mental damage)

Any lecturer / teacher worth their salt would have the intellectual capacity to adopt a wide range of approaches and ethical constructs / models: why is it that you are unable so to do?

1. My comment above applies.
2. I'm suggesting we should willingly offer reparations. Attempting to force us is probably defensible, if difficult.
3. Again, you're thinking about demands/duties. Which is tangential. If you can show we saved the world then go ahead.
4. I have lots of ideas of what ends should be, but see above.
5. Ad hominem drivel.

1. It doesn't, you might think it does but you're wrong / don't understand the subject.
2. You don't either understand what reparations means / have nbo concept of the politics.
3. No I'm talking ethics and logic, do you not understand these concepts?
4. zzzzz
5. Not ad ad hom drivel, I can debate from a numer of perspectives, including a classical Marxist p.o.v., utilitarian, positivist, all the way through to anarchist and can support those arguments with reference to well known writers in the firls and the models they rely upon; you? You seem to rely on the fact that you know that Hornby made model trains. (now that dear boy is an ad hominem).

1. Does
2. Do
3. You're being narrow & I do
4. How about cloud morality?
5. Gosh. Can I sign your penis? It's just so long.

[Oldmanmatt]

Will you two get a room...

[a dense loner]

Far away with no internet access

[slackline]

British Public wrongly believe rich pay most in tax, new research shows




6/8 

[Sloper]

I couldn't see their data or reasoning, but by and large I'd expect their conclusions to be a steaming pile of 

let's just look at one aspect "While income tax and national insurance are broadly progressive, the bottom 10% of households pay roughly 23% of their gross household income in indirect taxes on consumption"

Let's assume that the <10% have on wage earner on 40 hours per week NMW (£6.31) so £11800 per year.

If we take 23% of that, that's £2700.  Now since the majority of indirect tax that they're likely to be paying is VAT (o.k. there'll be some IPT and the VAT rate is lower for heating fuel etc) the value of the vatable goods that they'd need to purchase in order to pay £2700 in VAT is >£14,000.

I'd also suggest that the authors don't have a good grasp of numbers re the relativity of CT vs Income

I imagine the rest of the report is similarly bollocks; can anyone actually point me to their figures?

[slackline]

Let's ass|u|me that the <10% have on wage earner on 40 hours per week NMW (£6.31) so £11800 per year.

I doubt that the bottom 10% have one wage earner who is in a job with 40 hours/week at the National Minimum Wage.

What is that saying about "To assume makes..."

I imagine the rest of the report is similarly bollocks; can anyone actually point me to their figures?

The source isn't linked in the Guardians article, but it clearly states who commissioned it.  If you go their web-site then the News and Press Releases its the current top item titled 96% of the Public Favour More Progressive Tax System and the opening paragraph has a link to a PDF of the report.

However, you'll likely want to go and look up the source of their data, which is given underneath Figure 3 on page 14 as the "ONS Effects of Tax and Benefits on Household Income, 2013" who might have a fairly good idea of how to conduct surveys and calculate portions of tax etc. etc..

I'll leave you to dig that out.

[Ian W]

I couldn't see their data or reasoning, but by and large I'd expect their conclusions to be a steaming pile of 

let's just look at one aspect "While income tax and national insurance are broadly progressive, the bottom 10% of households pay roughly 23% of their gross household income in indirect taxes on consumption"

Let's assume that the <10% have on wage earner on 40 hours per week NMW (£6.31) so £11800 per year.

If we take 23% of that, that's £2700.  Now since the majority of indirect tax that they're likely to be paying is VAT (o.k. there'll be some IPT and the VAT rate is lower for heating fuel etc) the value of the vatable goods that they'd need to purchase in order to pay £2700 in VAT is >£14,000.

I'd also suggest that the authors don't have a good grasp of numbers re the relativity of CT vs Income

I imagine the rest of the report is similarly bollocks; can anyone actually point me to their figures?

You've forgotten about National Insurance and income Tax.
And fuel duty is about 70%.
And also high rates on booze and gaspers.

The figures stack up if you work them out even slightly properly.

[Sloper]

Cheers, dealing with twats @ the momemnt, so feeling quite bolshie at present, but thanks for that.

Their figures are just bollocks or the <10% have extrodinary spending habits.

The ONS says that the weekly gross income of the lowest declie is £124.50 if someone is paying 11% of their gross income (£6474  is gross) in VAT, then they're paying £712 in VAT.  To spend £712 on VAT you would need to spend over £3500 per year on VAT rated goods at the standard rate  That's £70 per week or >50% of your disposlable income on VAT rated goods.

[Sloper]

I couldn't see their data or reasoning, but by and large I'd expect their conclusions to be a steaming pile of 

let's just look at one aspect "While income tax and national insurance are broadly progressive, the bottom 10% of households pay roughly 23% of their gross household income in indirect taxes on consumption"

Let's assume that the <10% have on wage earner on 40 hours per week NMW (£6.31) so £11800 per year.

If we take 23% of that, that's £2700.  Now since the majority of indirect tax that they're likely to be paying is VAT (o.k. there'll be some IPT and the VAT rate is lower for heating fuel etc) the value of the vatable goods that they'd need to purchase in order to pay £2700 in VAT is >£14,000.

I'd also suggest that the authors don't have a good grasp of numbers re the relativity of CT vs Income

I imagine the rest of the report is similarly bollocks; can anyone actually point me to their figures?

You've forgotten about National Insurance and income Tax.
And fuel duty is about 70%.
And also high rates on booze and gaspers.

The figures stack up if you work them out even slightly properly.

The figuers don't stack up at all.

The ONS say that the average spend on fuel & power for the <10% is £14.80 per week.  Assuming that this is all at the higher rate of VAT i.e. 20% then they're spending c. £2 per week on VAT on fuel i.e. about 1.5% of their disposable income. 

That then leaves another £13.50 per week of VAT.   Unless the stereotype of the doley scum spending all their money on fags booze and take away food is true then these figures are a load of bollocks.