Keir Starmer at it again..

[Tredman]

Debunked myth. The rich don't move if you tax them, at least not in significant numbers. Definitely not enough leave to justify not even attempting to tax them more. It's something perniciousy spread by the wealthy to convince enough people to say "Well there's no point trying to tax them". And people buy it, peddle it and so the wealthy continue to avoid paying a fair tax burden and that burden falls on the poor, the disabled and the vulnerable.

‘Wealth taxes will cause the rich to flee’: 12 wealth tax myths debunked - Tax Justice UK

Wealth taxes have huge popular support: 78% of people in the UK support higher taxes on those who own assets worth over £10 million. When it comes to convincing politicians, however, the issue of wealth taxes can become more contentious. We asked our readers to send a message to their MP...

taxjustice.uk

We need to tax businesses better as well as people, and they definitely do move away their money.

 

[The Saturday Boy]

Isn't there room for Democratic Socialists within Labour?

Apparently not. However, if there was those democratic socialists would be able to elect from within their number leaders who espoused such views to take those policies to the electorate to be tested. Arguably, more of the electorate voted for democratic socialism in 2017 than whatever the current Labour Party is/was in 2024. The caveat to that is that it was a significantly different political landscape in 2017 in so much as it was a Brexit election where many viewed it as a second referendum. I don't actually think the 12.8 million who voted Labour in 2017 were ardent supporters of democratic socialism.

 

[Tredman]

Democratically.

But then what actually should be done?

 

[The Saturday Boy]

But then what actually should be done?

Policies that are consistent with Democratic Socialism.

 

[Tredman]

Policies that are consistent with Democratic Socialism.

Which are? And back to my original point, how would you implement them within the current economic constraints.

 

[prawnking]

There used to be, they've kicked them all out now...

Surely they can't all have been anti-Semites

 

[Dire Wolf]

We need to tax businesses better as well as people, and they definitely do move away their money.

Really? You think if we started taxing Amazon, Google, Starbucks etc etc, who haven't been paying their fair share of taxes for eons, you really think they'd just up and move out of the UK?

Not sure I buy that, but you seem to do a very good job of talking out of both sides of your mouth: on the one hand position yourself as progressive and fairly 'right on', but on the other hand completely happy not to support policies that would actually make significant change. Worst kind of hypocrite in my view.

 

[Tredman]

Really? You think if we started taxing Amazon, Google, Starbucks etc etc, who haven't been paying their fair share of taxes for eons, you really think they'd just up and move out of the UK?

Not sure I buy that, but you seem to do a very good job of talking out of both sides of your mouth: on the one hand position yourself as progressive and fairly 'right on', but on the other hand completely happy not to support policies that would actually make significant change. Worst kind of hypocrite in my view.

No, but it is very easy for parent entities in Ireland, for example, to load 'costs' on to the UK entities to ensure their reported profits are zero. In fact they all do that right now.

 

[prawnking]

you seem to do a very good job of talking out of both sides of your mouth: on the one hand position yourself as progressive and fairly 'right on', but on the other hand completely happy not to support policies that would actually make significant change. Worst kind of hypocrite in my view.

Hard left winning hearts and minds as usual

 

[Tredman]

Hard left winning hearts and minds as usual

Ha, I automatically filtered that out

 

[Dire Wolf]

Hard left winning hearts and minds as usual

Hard to do with you, you don't have much of either.

 

[prawnking]

Utopian statements!? Is NOT reducing benefits to the weakest and poorest Utopian? You're pretty much saying it's all we can do.

I'm not necessarily an advocate of the target and I think the optics are never going to be good, but they're not reducing benefits for the 'weakest and poorest' if you look at what they're doing. How does narrowing the criteria affect the worst off? They should be protected from this.

Do you think the ballooning welfare bill (up £20bn since COVID apparently) is fine and sustainable?

 

[AndyWolves]

If wages are largely stagnant but inflation is driving costs up at a higher rate than the status quo won't work.

Growth would be a natural answer to all of this, if it included real wage growth

 

[Elephant Pyjamas]

Do you think the ballooning welfare bill (up £20bn since COVID apparently) is fine and sustainable?

Yeah there is a reason for that though isn't there?

How about we do something about this to help pay for it instead?

Equality Trust Finds a 1000% Increase in Billionaire Wealth - Equality Trust

Today, The Equality Trust releases Billionaire Britain 2022: Inequality from the top down. This briefing demonstrates how, over the last four decades, changes to the UK economy have consistently funnelled wealth upwards to the very wealthy, to the detriment of the rest of us – starkly...

equalitytrust.org.uk

• Between 2020 and 2022 alone, billionaire wealth increased by almost £150bn.
• Much of this increase came from central bank and government efforts to soften the impact of the international Covid-19 crisis. However, the infrastructure that allowed billionaires to profit in this way was decades in the making.

This shrugging of shoulders about how the rich are getting richer and richer and the gap widens is what we should be focusing on.

Are Starbucks and Amazon going to stop selling their stuff here if we start taxing them fairly? Is that really the reason why we aren't?

But we're going after Mable with her dodgy hip instead? Because she can't run off?

 

[prawnking]

So you are happy with a ballooning welfare bill and all the social issues that creates as long as billionaires pay for it (they won't)?

I don't believe Labour are 'going after Mable', they're obviously tightening the criteria because they believe that although there are more people now living with a disability, "the increase in those seeking disability benefits is disproportionate"(Kendall quote). The figures are pretty startling if you look at them.

I don't think the current UK climate is going to pivot into 'tax the billionaires' mode anytime soon, so what other realistic alternatives do you have?

 

[Elephant Pyjamas]

So you are happy with a ballooning welfare bill and all the social issues that creates as long as billionaires pay for it (they won't)?

I don't believe Labour are 'going after Mable', they're obviously tightening the criteria because they believe that although there are more people now living with a disability, "the increase in those seeking disability benefits is disproportionate"(Kendall quote). The figures are pretty startling if you look at them.

I don't think the current UK climate is going to pivot into 'tax the billionaires' mode anytime soon, so what other realistic alternatives do you have?

If the Tories were saying the same thing this board would be up in arms!

I don't think it will either, but it should - and just dismissing that as an option is the problem. The tax the huge companies pay (or lack of) is a monumental problem for society, not just here.

The argument about tax seems to be that those companies will up and leave, well a) no they won't b) even if they did they'd just get replaced by other companies offering the same service.

The establishment won't do this of course because the sponsors of these parties and the freebies come from powerful people who won't let that happen.

So instead we are being convinced that going after benefits is where we can save money, and most people just lap it up.

It's sickening, each generation complains about what is happening, but does absolutely fuck all to change it.

 

[pavlosmacwolf]

Surely the problem is not that the billiionaires will fuck off and take their money with them, but rather they stay put and just lump the extra costs on the price of their goods and services thus onto the consumers. Poor or not.

 

[Sniffer]

If the Tories were saying the same thing this board would be up in arms!

I don't think it will either, but it should - and just dismissing that as an option is the problem. The tax the huge companies pay (or lack of) is a monumental problem for society, not just here.

The argument about tax seems to be that those companies will up and leave, well a) no they won't b) even if they did they'd just get replaced by other companies offering the same service.

The establishment won't do this of course because the sponsors of these parties and the freebies come from powerful people who won't let that happen.

So instead we are being convinced that going after benefits is where we can save money, and most people just lap it up.

It's sickening, each generation complains about what is happening, but does absolutely fuck all to change it.

They changed the employers NI rules to get the big companies to be paying more. As explained by others there’s ways to avoid corporation tax.

 

[The Saturday Boy]

Which are? And back to my original point, how would you implement them within the current economic constraints.

As a start, you wouldn't just "implement them", it would be a progress towards a different model. It may take a generation or more but our relatively recent history has shown that different political economic models can rise and then establish themselves as the orthodoxy. Pre and post WW2 politics and economics were very different, in a period of great financial challenges the UK established universal healthcare and developed a welfare state. Things changed again in the 60s and 70s as issues of equality came to the fore and then as the 70s closed and the 80s appeared we saw the growth of neo-liberal capitalism as a very opposite form of the politics/economics of the authoritarian communist countries.

The political/economic model of Reagan and Thatcher has prevailed ever since and it developed and took hold within their economic constraints. They won the argument then and are winning the argument now. So portraying it as "implementing within the current economic constraints" is not how you go about it. There would need to be a force, likely political, that can make the case for change...look across the Atlantic Ocean for a more recent example of a political force ripping up the neo-liberal consensus (within current economic constraints).

A universal health and welfare system that reduces inequality. A greater involvement of the state of providing essential services like transport, utilities, education. Greater power to communities to have say in their own lives. It isn't the current economic constraints that prevent these ideas from becoming realities, it is political leaders who run their countries like technocrats managing capitalism. 2008, capitalism bailed out the financial system and the workers paid the bill...2020 capitalism bailed out businesses and it is the workers who are paying the bill. It is not the current economic climate that prevents the implementation of a different economic and political paradigm it is those who manage the status quo and their self imposed rules.

Simply sitting back and saying we can't have something different because our leaders tell us we can't ignore centuries of political, economic and cultural change that has all come about when the leaders of the time resisted to some extent or another.

 

[AndyWolves]

Surely the problem is not that the billiionaires will fuck off and take their money with them, but rather they stay put and just lump the extra costs on the price of their goods and services thus onto the consumers. Poor or not.

Maybe a start is reversing privatisation? It's probably a naïve view but anything that serves the public interest or works best as a monopoly shouldn't be privately owned :-

I.e. Energy, water, transportation

At least profits here could be re-invested back into society.

A decent amount of social housing stock to protect people from rising rents / housing costs