Also, however much you want to set the standard of living of someone not working, you need to make sure that working provides a significant QOL above that or no one will work.

Obviously if you set the level of NW at starvation then people get a massive QOL of life increasing by working and being wow I can eat.

However we are modern surplus rich economy and dont want to set the level of not working at starvation.

Which means we have to set the QOL of someone working full time high enough to want to a **** job 40 hours a week rather than just be unemployed.

This is why I had to ignore him. His posts are often way out of anywhere realistic. Unfortunately that means he gets answered, and I see the quote, and become so enraged it's difficult to see two feet in front.

His issue is that he has no idea about the world. He has no idea how debilitating poverty can be. He has no idea how childhood trauma can crush an individual - for life! He has no idea how some people have to constantly rob peter to pay paul, and how depressing this in itself can be. He has no idea about almost anything he comments on.

Aye, let's blame the impoverished for them being poor. Let's blame them for being born into poverty. Blame them for all of their problems because their problems are certainly not my doing.

What a selfish Tory attitude that is. Just having this attitude carries a certain amount of responsibility for an increase in food bank use.

I agree with what I perceive to be your sentiment, but just to point out, more money doesn't necessarily mean more happiness. I'm sure you know that though.

FYP

No it doesn't. You need to work 30+ hours to get wtc.


So why didn't you just not claim then? Why didn't you leave it for those who do need it? Don't you think that what you did contributes to the idea that the welfare bill is too high?

Clearly, the mind of a Tory is all about personal 'cream', with no regard to anyone else outside their little privileged world.

Exactly this. The Tories will have us point our fingers at those whose curtains are still drawn as we go to work in the morning (even although they might be on the night shift), but what about a real incentive to work for those who take the attitude "why should I work when I won't be any better off"?

If you remove that argument, you will reduce the number of people who choose to be unemployed, not that it is a huge burden on the tax payer in comparison to, say, transnational companies extracting huge amounts of wealth for very little tax receipts in return to the exchequer.

Well, then we fundamentally disagree on what our beliefs of welfare are. I believe it should be a safety net for those in need. So we're never going to agree in this area.

If you're such a great socialist why don't you donate all your disposable income back to the state? or a charity of your choice??

Such a weak argument.

Elrazor, engaging with a guy who thinks there should be a maximum income and wants to remove all choice for where you educate your children seems pointless to me. Only value is if the replies are aimed at someone else.

It's somewhat alarming that you present these as extreme positions.

All you're actually saying here is: "I would rather not answer your question."

In any case, your question doesn't make any sense in the context - actually in any context.

You just told us you took tax credits for some extra 'cream' in your life and then told us you think that welfare should be "a safety net for those in need".

So, what does that say about you?

I used to wonder if he was just an expert troll, but the consistency with which these outrageous views keep coming can surely only mean he really sees it like that.

Having a maximum income and removing all choice in where your kids get an education are both ****ing insane. They are beyond extreme.

These aren't the views of a progressive. They are views of a fascist. An extremely stupid fascist.

What about the other point that there has to be a large incremental improvement in quality of life between unemployment and employment?

If there is not why work a MW job?

Pure "Welfare" provides the safety net for unemployment, the social contract provides the incentives to work.

Generalizing all welfare under one condition is just to shallow and simplistic.

Job seekers allowance and tax credits should not conform to the same universal condition of justification.

I know ardent Tories who believe a maximum income would be a good measure. There's a difference between saying that everyone should earn the same (which I still don't think is that extreme), and saying that nobody should earn obscene amounts (say, in excess of £10m/annum) - the latter seems completely sensible to the extent of being borderline indisputable to me.

I believe parents should receive a choice in where children should be educated, but I don't think it's an extreme position to argue otherwise if the state is reasonable in allocating children (i.e. not allocating a child from Taunton to a school in Bradford). Certainly, a difference in the quality of education between any two individuals is morally indefensible IMO, and it's not a great leap from that to allocating all responsibility to the state.

Socialism isn't about a lack of disposable income, and one individual who I would guess is not a part of the 1% giving away their disposable income is likely contrary to the goals of socialism.

Arguing that education should be the same for all won't make it so. One country is experimenting with mandatory placing and it seems to be working, but several countries are experimenting with more choice and that also seems to be working. The argument of going through door number one (no choice) ignores a lot of variables whereas door two has worked in a range of different countries and is the clearly better option. Edit, as it has worked in more places with more variables, at worst it's sub optimal, but the worst result of no choice is hugely negative.

As for the first point I'm down with high taxation of high income but too high, well below 100% obv, is undeniably bad for an economy. No one who has thought about it for ten minutes could think it's a good idea to drive out best and brightest business people (and entertainers, actors, singers, sports stars and the like) abroad. People who create hugely valuable companies that employ many are good for a country.

It's better to shave a sheep many times than to slaughter it once.

I should smoke more. [Phill]'s replies are pretty funny, rather than infuriating, when baked.

So, I think you nail the point on an income cap. I've never been sure where I think it should be set, but I think earning 10 million in a year is a lot, maybe too much. Certainly, earning more is absurd. I'd probably argue for a lower ceiling, maybe nearer £1m.

Wrt (what [Phill] refers to as) 'removing all choice in where your kids get an education', I assume what he is referring to is me advocating the Finnish model (the best in the world), in which fee paying private schools are banned.

Finland needed to overhaul their education system a while ago in order to radically improve their poor economy. They now spend a higher proportion of their GDP than England and Scotland (in Scotland's case it's a lot higher) on education, ensuring their teachers are continuously educated, and very well paid, like the level of their responsibility would seem to warrant.

They put equality at the centre of their reforms and now their education system is light years ahead of ours. There are many lessons for us to learn from their approach, although this seems to be a problem, probably partly due to the elitist tendencies (delusional or otherwise) of far too many on this island, blinding them to the fact that somebody somewhere else might be doing something better than we are.

Anyway, I mean, if the Finnish education system is fascist, then we probably should invade them immediately, in case they take over the world.

But that's the problem with tax credits. They encourage people to work less by the way they are structured, with a 30 hour qualifying rule, and the tapered thresholds.

So there are the thresholds for a single person. If you work 30 hours at £6.50 an hour, you earn £10140, and land around £1300 in credits.

If you work £37.5 hours, you earn £12675, and lose most of your entitlement. Your extra days work effectively pays you less than £25.

Where is the incentive to work there?

How many people have jobs where they get to choose how many hours they work? Given the number of reduced hour or zero hour contracts it seems appropriate to scale. Also it may be better all round to have 5 people doing 30 hours than 4 doing 37.5.

It's in an off-shore bank account.

It is a mistake to think that because people from different walks for life have gone to college everyone can go to college. There's the matter of up to £17,000 a year in loans. People can get up to 8k a year in loans for maintenance in addition to up to 9k for tuition but many will baulk at investing £50k+ on an education many others will not be able to get by on the 8k.

I do care about people who don't have academic motivations but the point is that we have in the UK 56% of jobs below graduate level, we need people to do them, I don't care where the people that do them are from, just as I don't care where people that do professional jobs are from but I do want all of them to receive the living wage now. Whether this is done by increasing the minimum wage and placing the burden on the employer or by the government providing tax credits I don't care. Do you not think that the hardworking people who arrive in the UK should be able to better their position as well. Or are they coming just to pull pints and clean offices? We have jobs that need doing and I for one don't care who does them I just think they should be able to do them and live without it always being a struggle.

Given that you consider there are no obstacles to going back to college do you think that people who are unemployed and outside of education are to blame for their unemployment?

I should stop using we and here in the UK since I've left.

Yeah I do but as you know constantly struggling for basics will have an adverse affect on people's lives.

This is very similar to when I worked on zero-hours contract back at the call-centre.

Funnily enough, the average earnings of an employee on a ZHC was ~£186 p/w according to a recent report I saw on Channel 4.

Which is funnily enough, precisely the amount that I used to work up to with my 2.5 days per week.

Why? Well because that, pro-rata, was roughly the amount that you could earn tax-free prior to going into taxable/NI-takeable wages. Essentially your extra days each week went from being worth, in real terms £9 p/h...down to 7-ish...down to 5-ish, because if you worked for 6+ days per week the taxman thought that was your regular Monday-Friday 9-5 salary and that you were actually earning £25-26k.

Poor taxation systems do disincentivise people to work, and they do give rise to a situation where poor people genuinely work fewer hours each week.

I'd work 2.5 days at the call centre and then 2.5 days as a builder/roofer cash-in-hand.

I've received a temp-ban for 'personal attacks' because in the instance of a gay Muslim running an initiative to address issues of tolerance and acceptance in the Muslim community vs a hateful, homophobic bigot, you chose to side with the vile homophobe preaching that the Qu'ran demands gays be executed.

I say again; everyone knows that you'd take completely the opposite position if they were white-skinned Christians.

Of course, the people who suffer here are the liberals, homosexuals, feminists and reformers in Islam, not me or you. You'll certainly be fine.

So you're correct because you're older than me? Yes, there's a lower-IQ'd imbecile down the pub who uses the same argument.

More curious is why my arguments have been hastily censored when they should, supposedly, be effortlessly destroyed by these well-traveled intellectuals who despite outnumbering me and having far greater life-experience than me, resort to ad-hominem attacks and insults as you do.

Speaking of personal attacks, can you tell me which race I'm racist against? I've been waiting to see that one answered at some stage.

And (here's the tricky part) provide evidence/quotes etc.

you get tax rebates though