Rogstanley Posted 6 November 2017 Posted 6 November 2017 24 minutes ago, Innovindil said: My pension pot does the same thing tbh. Admittedly, a few thousand isn't quite the same as a few mill, but the principle is the same. Tax relief on pensions is designed to encourage people to save for their own futures and consequently reduce the burden on the state. Same goes for all other such tax avoidance schemes like ISA's. They're morally justified because the long term effect is to cost the state less. It's nothing like taking your billions off to the Cayman's which does nothing but potentially deprive the state of tax which would otherwise be payable.
Guest MattP Posted 6 November 2017 Posted 6 November 2017 7 minutes ago, Rogstanley said: "Why would we do something as blitheringly stupid as making ourselves poorer?" Good point. Over to you brexiters. Because a lot of people value principle, self-determination and sovereignty above money?
Webbo Posted 6 November 2017 Posted 6 November 2017 7 minutes ago, Rogstanley said: "Why would we do something as blitheringly stupid as making ourselves poorer?" Good point. Over to you brexiters. Apparently our wages have been declining for years, while we're still in the EU, . Maybe staying is making us poorer?
Innovindil Posted 6 November 2017 Posted 6 November 2017 12 minutes ago, Rogstanley said: Tax relief on pensions is designed to encourage people to save for their own futures and consequently reduce the burden on the state. Same goes for all other such tax avoidance schemes like ISA's. They're morally justified because the long term effect is to cost the state less. It's nothing like taking your billions off to the Cayman's which does nothing but potentially deprive the state of tax which would otherwise be payable. My pension pot goes some way beyond tax relief, but cheers for that.
Rogstanley Posted 6 November 2017 Posted 6 November 2017 (edited) 13 minutes ago, MattP said: Because a lot of people value principle, self-determination and sovereignty above money? Do they? If they do then I find it hard to imagine them being pleased with the current UK political landscape in which election promises are routinely u-turned upon, targets routinely missed and dismissed, questions routinely answered in a dishonest manner and so on. I don't really get any sense from the electorate that these things are seen as much of a problem though. If people were all about self-deternination then it would be reasonable to expect them to be angry about these things, would it not? If the sanctity of democracy is such a motivator when it comes to the EU, why is its abuse routinely ignored in domestic elections? Edited 6 November 2017 by Rogstanley 2 1
Rogstanley Posted 6 November 2017 Posted 6 November 2017 14 minutes ago, Webbo said: Apparently our wages have been declining for years, while we're still in the EU, . Maybe staying is making us poorer? UK has lowest wage growth in the EU over the last ten years. We're running some 20% behind comparable countries like France. It's obvious then that the problem is the UK, not the EU. 1
Rogstanley Posted 6 November 2017 Posted 6 November 2017 9 minutes ago, Innovindil said: My pension pot goes some way beyond tax relief, but cheers for that. Most people benefit from tax relief on pensions and funds are obviously invested. If you've got another scam going on then good for you. Not really sure what you want me to say?
Webbo Posted 6 November 2017 Posted 6 November 2017 Just now, Rogstanley said: UK has lowest wage growth in the EU over the last ten years. We're running some 20% behind comparable countries like France. It's obvious then that the problem is the UK, not the EU. France also has massively higher unemployment. Not much point Eastern Europeans going there when there is no work for them. The UK has lower wage growth because there is unlimited cheap labour from the EU undercutting local wages. 1
Innovindil Posted 6 November 2017 Posted 6 November 2017 Just now, Rogstanley said: Most people benefit from tax relief on pensions and funds are obviously invested. If you've got another scam going on then good for you. Not really sure what you want me to say? Don't want you to say anything tbf, that's why I didn't ask any questions.
Rogstanley Posted 6 November 2017 Posted 6 November 2017 (edited) 13 minutes ago, Webbo said: France also has massively higher unemployment. Not much point Eastern Europeans going there when there is no work for them. The UK has lower wage growth because there is unlimited cheap labour from the EU undercutting local wages. It's a couple of percent higher, and the usual caveats about the UK unemployment rate vis-a-vis self-employment and zero hour contracts do apply. Cheap immigrant labour is a logical but not completely convincing argument for explaining whyvwages for unskilled and semi-skilled wages have stagnated but doesn't explain why we've seen stagnation and falls across all but (predictably) the very highest paid. Edited 6 November 2017 by Rogstanley
Webbo Posted 6 November 2017 Posted 6 November 2017 6 minutes ago, Rogstanley said: It's a couple of percent higher, and the usual caveats about the UK unemployment rate vis-a-vis self-employment and zero hour contracts do apply. Cheap immigrant labour is a logical argument for explaining whyvwages for unskilled and semi-skilled wages have stagnated but doesn't explain why we've seen stagnation and falls across all but (predictably) the very highest paid. You see, I always thought the definition of a couple was 2 and yet https://www.ft.com/content/f372cbb8-4a96-11e7-a3f4-c742b9791d43 according to this our unemployment rate is 4.3% and their's is 9.5% which is more than 2 and a half times a couple of percent higher.
Rogstanley Posted 6 November 2017 Posted 6 November 2017 (edited) 3 minutes ago, Webbo said: You see, I always thought the definition of a couple was 2 and yet https://www.ft.com/content/f372cbb8-4a96-11e7-a3f4-c742b9791d43 according to this our unemployment rate is 4.3% and their's is 9.5% which is more than 2 and a half times a couple of percent higher. Germany then - lower unemployment then the UK, much higher wage growth. Edited 6 November 2017 by Rogstanley
Webbo Posted 6 November 2017 Posted 6 November 2017 Just now, Rogstanley said: Germany - lower unemployment, much higher wage growth. That's because the Euro is undervalued for their economy, they're booming while Southern Europe suffers.
Bellend Sebastian Posted 6 November 2017 Posted 6 November 2017 48 minutes ago, Innovindil said: My pension pot does the same thing tbh. Admittedly, a few thousand isn't quite the same as a few mill, but the principle is the same. I'd venture that the Queen is in a better position than most to accept the increased costs and risks associated with ethical investing. I wasn't really thinking about that anyway, just the elaborate lengths you can go to to make money out of poor people
Rogstanley Posted 6 November 2017 Posted 6 November 2017 (edited) 17 minutes ago, Webbo said: That's because the Euro is undervalued for their economy, they're booming while Southern Europe suffers. Is southern Europe suffering? Greece maybe. Portugal, Spain and Italy are all looking very strong. Portugal is particularly relevant, since they ended austerity about 18 months ago they've seen booming wages, falling unemployment and have reduced their deficit. Edited 6 November 2017 by Rogstanley
Guest MattP Posted 6 November 2017 Posted 6 November 2017 38 minutes ago, Rogstanley said: Do they? If they do then I find it hard to imagine them being pleased with the current UK political landscape in which election promises are routinely u-turned upon, targets routinely missed and dismissed, questions routinely answered in a dishonest manner and so on. I don't really get any sense from the electorate that these things are seen as much of a problem though. If people were all about self-deternination then it would be reasonable to expect them to be angry about these things, would it not? If the sanctity of democracy is such a motivator when it comes to the EU, why is its abuse routinely ignored in domestic elections? You are conflating political competence with political truculence in the first part of this post, if you do that you won't understand why people voted to leave, they can be as pissed off as they want with their own government but they realise that they can change that government as a nation, we can't do that as a nation with the European parliament or commission, just look how far we got when we tried to oppose the appointment of JC Drunker. As for the second part, if you really didn't see anger over things like uncontrolled immigration and the ECJ then you either didn't read any polling or speak to any voters in the run up to both the 15' GE and the 16' ER - both of those things were regular in coming in the top of lists on voters concerns along with things like the economy and the NHS. I'd imagine you get lower turnouts in local elections as in reality it has little basis over their lives,. One of things that most concerned me about the laws being implemented from a central authority was how other countries would use them, take a look at the European Arrest Warrant for a start, we were told this was only going to used liberally, it's now being used to a state to try and throw an elected poltiician into prison. These are the things people don't like about the way it has sought to rule over a continent and people were and still are rightly concerned about it.
Webbo Posted 6 November 2017 Posted 6 November 2017 1 minute ago, Rogstanley said: Is southern Europe suffering? Greece maybe. Portugal, Spain and Italy are all looking very strong. Portugal is particularly relevant, since they ended austerity about 18 months ago they've seen booming wages, falling and have reduced their deficit. Yeah, we had that Owen Jones article posted on here a month or 2 ago, it was debunked then. I can't remember the argument exactly but if you go back 20 or 30 pages you should find it.
Guest MattP Posted 6 November 2017 Posted 6 November 2017 1 minute ago, Rogstanley said: Is southern Europe suffering? Greece maybe. Portugal, Spain and Italy are all looking very strong. Portugal is particularly relevant, since they ended austerity about 18 months ago they've seen booming wages, falling unemployment and have reduced their deficit. Spain has 17% unemployment and it's biggest domestic political crisis currently since the end of the Franco era and Italy has 12% unemployment combined with a banking crisis so bad some financial bodies are predicting it could bring down the Euro - http://uk.businessinsider.com/italy-financial-crisis-deutsche-bank-2017-9
Rogstanley Posted 6 November 2017 Posted 6 November 2017 1 minute ago, Webbo said: Yeah, we had that Owen Jones article posted on here a month or 2 ago, it was debunked then. I can't remember the argument exactly but if you go back 20 or 30 pages you should find it. No idea what Owen Jones said about it, but Portugal's success has been commented on by the FT, the economist and so on as part of a growing body of evidence that austerity might not be the best way of reducing a deficit. Either way, Portugal clearly aren't victims of Germany's wage growth.
Rogstanley Posted 6 November 2017 Posted 6 November 2017 7 minutes ago, MattP said: Spain has 17% unemployment and it's biggest domestic political crisis currently since the end of the Franco era and Italy has 12% unemployment combined with a banking crisis so bad some financial bodies are predicting it could bring down the Euro - http://uk.businessinsider.com/italy-financial-crisis-deutsche-bank-2017-9 Unemployment has been reducing steadily since the crisis and the usual caveats about the prevelance of 'off-the-books' work in those countries applies. Webbo said Germany's superior wage growth over 10 years has been derived from weakness in southern europe but on any measure i can find southern europe is strenghtening significantly.
Alf Bentley Posted 6 November 2017 Posted 6 November 2017 27 minutes ago, Webbo said: Apparently our wages have been declining for years, while we're still in the EU, . Maybe staying is making us poorer? LCFC have only ever won the title while we were in the EU, so maybe we should Remain? A coincidence of events doesn't equate to cause and effect. Real wages rose throughout most of the time we were in the EU, but stagnated after the global crash. Here's a good link from the LSE (slightly outdated but still relevant): http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/politicsandpolicy/real-wages-and-living-standards/ Their graph for real incomes in the UK between 1980 and 2014 gives some support for your immigration argument (downward blip around 2004-05, although it then turns upward again). But it also confirms that real incomes rose massively from 1980 until the crash. It's the crash and the response to it that has damaged living standards. 29 minutes ago, MattP said: Because a lot of people value principle, self-determination and sovereignty above money? I think of this as the "turnips on the bonfire" argument: It doesn't matter if we all end up shivering in rags, sat around a bonfire in a muddy field roasting turnips to survive. Because we'll have control of the turnips and we'll be able to put on union jack bowlers and sing a rousing chorus of Rule Britannia. Tbf, I know you've often made this argument that national autonomy and self-determination matters more than living standards. But many other Brexiteers have claimed that we'd have more money for British public services, great global trade deals etc.....I've seen that argument less recently. If/when times get tough, I reckon living standards will be a higher priority to most people than they are to you. If people end up losing their jobs, struggling to survive and see less money available for their kids' schools or for the hospitals their parents rely on, will they really think: "it was worth it as we have self-determination and sovereignty"? Only the minority of ultra-committed, politically interested Brexiteers will think that, surely - or those who are still doing OK themselves. Maybe that scenario won't happen. Maybe Brexit will herald a bright new dawn or at least won't damage living standards significantly. Or maybe any backlash over falling living standards will be directed at the government, the EU, immigrants or the rich - and not at Brexit? We'll probably start to find out over the next 1-2 years, though the rollercoaster ride could get ever wilder as time goes by.
Webbo Posted 6 November 2017 Posted 6 November 2017 Just now, Rogstanley said: Unemployment has been reducing steadily since the crisis and the usual caveats about the prevelance of 'off-the-books' work in those countries applies. Webbo said Germany's superior wage growth over 10 years has been derived from weakness in southern europe but on any measure i can find southern europe is strenghtening significantly. After 10 years of decline.
Guest MattP Posted 6 November 2017 Posted 6 November 2017 1 minute ago, Rogstanley said: Unemployment has been reducing steadily since the crisis and the usual caveats about the prevelance of 'off-the-books' work in those countries applies. Webbo said Germany's superior wage growth over 10 years has been derived from weakness in southern europe but on any measure i can find southern europe is strenghtening significantly. He didn't, he said Germany was doing well because of the undervaluing of the Euro, which is totally correct given the amount of productivity and output the country has. Southern Europe has certainly suffered because of it. If you are against austerity the EU should be at the top of your list to complain about after what they did to Greece.
Webbo Posted 6 November 2017 Posted 6 November 2017 1 minute ago, Alf Bentley said: But it also confirms that real incomes rose massively from 1980 until the crash. Good old Mrs Thatcher.
Webbo Posted 6 November 2017 Posted 6 November 2017 3 minutes ago, Rogstanley said: Unemployment has been reducing steadily since the crisis and the usual caveats about the prevelance of 'off-the-books' work in those countries applies. Webbo said Germany's superior wage growth over 10 years has been derived from weakness in southern europe but on any measure i can find southern europe is strenghtening significantly. The point was that a single currency amongst such wildly different economies is a mad idea. Europe would have been out of recession much sooner if the Southern European economies could have devalued their currency. Germany on the other hand benefits massively from an undervalued currency. See how our exports have increased since the £ fell.
Recommended Posts