Farmer Saint

This guy eh..? 😂😂😂

Fucking mental place this.

Yeah, as would just putting up taxes? Would it only be people who are happy to pay more taxes? I am happy to pay more taxes if everyone else pays those extra taxes. Is that clearer?

But it won't make a difference - the point is I'm happy to pay if the burden is shared and a difference is made.

He's all over the place all the time, don't worry.

Exactly, I voted Labour at the last election fully expecting to pay more tax (even after being told no tax rises - I thought they were lying). I expected top rate of tax back up to 50%, and other associated wealth taxes. Shame they've got no balls.

I know, he's not brown, so probably not seen as fair game.

I think the problem is that your people are made up. Gotta have pretty low self-esteem for your made-up friends to be cunts...

Can you imagine the British government bombing New York because Jerry Adams was having a meeting there?

Yeah, thought not 👍 You do have history for not being able to back yourself in your tenure on here.

Because it's a luxury to be able to send your kids to private school. Why shouldn't they be?

Wealth is fine as long as they pay their fair share, percentage wise. That doesn't tend to happen.

Again, just asking for an example. Really easy to do as you have a lot of examples apparently.

Exactly #wealthtax

And one last thing, personally, I think every person in the country that works full time should be able to ascertain the very basic level of Maslow's hierarchy, of food, water, and shelter. Unfortunately in this country that cannot be done a lot of the time without the welfare state. That, is a society and economy that DOES NOT WORK, and it is down to wealth inequality.

But if you just live off mummy and daddy, do they deserve to be taxed more as they haven't grafted? You said your opinions were informed based off of your experience working with the public sector. I am just asking for one example, just one. You can dress it up how you like. Otherwise, like your poorly advised Dubai mates, I calling bullshit, again.

Class has nothing to do with it, and it's odd that you've brought that up. Does that mean that from your experience the lower classes are harder working and more deserving than upper classes?

What are those obvious reasons? It's an anonymous forum? I expect there are inefficiencies, absolutely, what I want is for you to tell me some, because, and I quote: "We all also speak from our experience. Whilst I work in the private sector, I also work alongside the public sector in some instances and I see inefficiencies and unnecessary beau acracy which informs my views." Just asking for one for example.

I mean, any of us could have written that, there is nothing groundbreaking there, hence why we wanted actual examples. Which departments and roles have you seen that are not needed and increase bureaucracy. We're having a decent debate here, so I think it would be good if you could backup your assertions, unlike what happened previously.

Hmmm, not sure that's true. I am not employed by the state. I am worth a decent wedge. I vote left because I believe society is broken in this country and to change it I think we need to lessen inequality. It's why I have such an issue with the tax burden for higher earners and asset holders. It's too low, and it's not about hard work, a lot of it comes down to your thoughts on biology, and whether it is nature v nurture. From having young children, and seeing what some people go through from all walks of life, to say that if you just work hard you will be rewarded is, frankly, horseshit.

Yes, we'll have to agree to disagree. What I will say is that the issue with debt is once you have it you have to work doubly hard to get rid of it, due to the interest paid on that debt - £16bn for us this year (4 times that of "illegal" immigrants). As you have said previously, those inefficiencies need to be dealt with, absolutely, but that happens in behemoths of companies, and the NHS is one of the biggest in the world. It is very expensive to do and governments don't want that capital cost on their books, that's why it never properly happens. I also believe you were going to give us some examples of those inefficiencies in the public version of your industry?

But this is the point, there are too many anomalies, which proves one thing, and one thing only, and it's the thing myself and @whelk have been trying to drum home. Economics is fucking complicated. Therefore high tax, high public spending economies will not always have high public debts, because it's all about how it's covered. Our debt is rising because although our public spending isn't horrendous compared to other countries, we do not bring in enough through taxes. Reducing taxes isn't going to work, because our available spend is still the same, and in fact is still contributing to the economy through our more fixed spend, rather than the elastic spend we'd spend it on if tax rates were reduced. It's why taxation always contributes more to the economy than the delta. Maybe we need to increase corporation tax to cover that delta. Germany are at 30%, perhaps that's what we should look to. Whatever happens, if we're going to continue to run a publicly run NHS, we need to be a high tax economy, and we're not.

All that proves is that Finland and Austria manage their economies far better than France, Italy and Belgium doesn't it? It doesn't prove causation at all. In fact, it proves the opposite, and shows that EU high tax economies tend to have a lower debt threshold: "The countries with the highest income tax rates include Ivory Coast (60%), Finland (56.95%), Japan (55.97%), Denmark (55.9%) and Austria (55%)."

2023 United States 36.28 France 56.99 Japan 41.16 United Kingdom 44.17 Sweden 47.49 Spain 45.31 Italy 53.8 South Africa 32.62 India 29.12 Above is percentage of GDP spent on public services. France's debt ratio is less than the US's. Japan is double that of France. Sweden's is half that of India and South Africa. If you put it in a table there is no link between public spending as a percentage of GDP, and national debt as a percentage of GDP. Sorry.

I've heard he's got some rich friends who live in Port Grimaud (because Monaco and St Tropez are just so passe) that moved from the UK because of Labours huge income tax increases and IHT burdens on their assets and businesses in the UK.