Instead of arguing about who pays for what, everyone should be asking “where does the money go”?
I am old enough to remember free dental services, free education, bins emptied each week, free parking and so on. As time goes on we seem to get less and less in the way of services for higher and higher costs.
Years ago we didn't have all the multitude of taxes and scams we have now; airport taxes, green taxes, congestion taxes, speeding and parking scams, higher vat, insurance tax and so on. Fuel tax is higher, road tax is higher, thresholds have stood still or moved very little.
On top of that we don't have nationalised industries to support now, which were very expensive (according to some), no infrastructure to update in many areas (now private) and many formally free services have to be paid for or now have some sort of charge.
There are more people paying more of the new and increased taxes and yet we can't fund education, local services, effective road maintenance, an army/navy/air force and any number of other things now.
Why?
Demographics - fewer tax payers, ageing population consuming rather than contributing?
Instead of arguing about who pays for what, everyone should be asking “where does the money go”?
I am old enough to remember free dental services, free education, bins emptied each week, free parking and so on. As time goes on we seem to get less and less in the way of services for higher and higher costs.
Years ago we didn't have all the multitude of taxes and scams we have now; airport taxes, green taxes, congestion taxes, speeding and parking scams, higher vat, insurance tax and so on. Fuel tax is higher, road tax is higher, thresholds have stood still or moved very little.
On top of that we don't have nationalised industries to support now, which were very expensive (according to some), no infrastructure to update in many areas (now private) and many formally free services have to be paid for or now have some sort of charge.
There are more people paying more of the new and increased taxes and yet we can't fund education, local services, effective road maintenance, an army/navy/air force and any number of other things now.
Why?
I put it down to disproportionate wage inflation across the salary ranges. A 1% pay rise doesn't mean much to a company if it's the office boy on £15k a year, but it starts to mean something when it's the consultant on £150k a year.
Then people argue that he's only getting what the market values him at, but then the reason the market values him as such is because they see similar remuneration structures and want to make it self-justifying for themselves.
A good example is the manager who claims to be overworked and underpaid. They give him five extra staff to stop this from being overworked. However, he then asks for more money because he's got more staff. So to prevent him from being overworked, they've removed the work from his remit and also financially rewarded him at the same time.
Too much economy based on abstract output would be the best way I can put it - I can picture it in my head but I can't quite explain it.
I have heard all this before. It mainly comes from those who pay no tax and/or live on benefits.
A chap live in our village always giving his views where the council should be spending the money, he is unemployed lives in a rent free house and pays no council tax.
So I would suggest as I do not live in Australia, the Australian Government should foot the bill for our students to go to university so they can the afford to go clubbing and drinking every weekend.
I'm a higher rate tax payer - I think University education should be funded from higher taxation and I'd happily pay more to see today's generation of young people get the same opportunity I got. It's a sign of a civilised society to ensure it's citizens are well educated, well cared for and healthy as a bare minimum.
I'm a higher rate tax payer - I think University education should be funded from higher taxation and I'd happily pay more to see today's generation of young people get the same opportunity I got. It's a sign of a civilised society to ensure it's citizens are well educated, well cared for and healthy as a bare minimum.
I'd call that a 100% amenable suggestion. What a pity that no governments ever seem to entertain any such notion of looking to specific tax band funding! The 'all or nothing' at all approach is quite depressing.
I put it down to disproportionate wage inflation across the salary ranges. A 1% pay rise doesn't mean much to a company if it's the office boy on £15k a year, but it starts to mean something when it's the consultant on £150k a year.
Then people argue that he's only getting what the market values him at, but then the reason the market values him as such is because they see similar remuneration structures and want to make it self-justifying for themselves.
A good example is the manager who claims to be overworked and underpaid. They give him five extra staff to stop this from being overworked. However, he then asks for more money because he's got more staff. So to prevent him from being overworked, they've removed the work from his remit and also financially rewarded him at the same time.
Too much economy based on abstract output would be the best way I can put it - I can picture it in my head but I can't quite explain it.
I can see what you're saying but do you mean in the public sector? That would certainly cause costs to rise and explain the number of public sector workers increasing but surely that would be cancelled out by previous nationalised industries?
We must have had more public sector (in effect) workers then and as a lot of the companies lost money or cost money then profit didn't supply income to use for public services.
We were still able to fund education though and a good deal more.
I can see what you're saying but do you mean in the public sector? That would certainly cause costs to rise and explain the number of public sector workers increasing but surely that would be cancelled out by previous nationalised industries?
We must have had more public sector (in effect) workers then and as a lot of the companies lost money or cost money then profit didn't supply income to use for public services.
We were still able to fund education though and a good deal more.
No, across all sectors. But then there would be knock-on effects for everyone too - because people are demanding higher wages, the cost of their output rises, which means people need higher wages, and up and away it goes!
I have heard all this before. It mainly comes from those who pay no tax and/or live on benefits.
A chap live in our village always giving his views where the council should be spending the money, he is unemployed lives in a rent free house and pays no council tax.
So I would suggest as I do not live in Australia, the Australian Government should foot the bill for our students to go to university so they can the afford to go clubbing and drinking every weekend.
There are many more taxes other than income tax.
Not earning enough to qualify for council tax is not avoiding paying it.
Glad to see social housing doing what it was designed for though, helping those in need
Also, I would be interested to see what capital spending in the UK (in general) has been like over the last twenty years, especially where it doesn't create revenue streams that restore the capital spend over time.
No, across all sectors. But then there would be knock-on effects for everyone too - because people are demanding higher wages, the cost of their output rises, which means people need higher wages, and up and away it goes!
I guess that is part of it but still doesn't explain why we cannot fund services we previously did even though the tax take has broadened and increased over time.
As said, with the selling off of industries the burden on spending has decreased over the years.
Also, I would be interested to see what capital spending in the UK (in general) has been like over the last twenty years, especially where it doesn't create revenue streams that restore the capital spend over time.
To be honest I would be interested in seeing the monthly figures for Government spending. Producing figures for a year by department can hide all sorts of costs and waste. It would be interesting to see when we have to borrow 6 billion for the month where exactly the spending occurred in that month.
To be honest I would be interested in seeing the monthly figures for Government spending. Producing figures for a year by department can hide all sorts of costs and waste. It would be interesting to see when we have to borrow 6 billion for the month where exactly the spending occurred in that month.
Well one of the big annoyances with Government in general is the presence of EU procurement laws, where local/national government has to tender for services, and you inevitably get informal 'cartels' vying with each for set prices, and the public organisation happy to whatever's demanded.
A - massive - amount of money could be saved at a local level if councils were simply allowed to seek competitive quotes. However, it all has to be closed tender, with the decision made when they're opened, and then being locked into the contract. Anything that then occurs outside of the contractual framework costs an absolute bomb! Someone I know at our local authority says that it costs about £70 every time someone loses their password and requests a new one, despite the renewal process taking about 20 seconds.
Take computer systems for example - most authorities could quite easily implement open-source solutions and save themselves hideous amounts in licensing fees, especially if they had in-house development teams. However, 'best practice' is to go down the corporate route of sticking with safe brands, which inevitably leads to much higher costs, despite the product being essentially the same as one which could be implemented and managed for far less.
Instead of arguing about who pays for what, everyone should be asking “where does the money go”?
I am old enough to remember free dental services, free education, bins emptied each week, free parking and so on. As time goes on we seem to get less and less in the way of services for higher and higher costs.
Years ago we didn't have all the multitude of taxes and scams we have now; airport taxes, green taxes, congestion taxes, speeding and parking scams, higher vat, insurance tax and so on. Fuel tax is higher, road tax is higher, thresholds have stood still or moved very little.
On top of that we don't have nationalised industries to support now, which were very expensive (according to some), no infrastructure to update in many areas (now private) and many formally free services have to be paid for or now have some sort of charge.
There are more people paying more of the new and increased taxes and yet we can't fund education, local services, effective road maintenance, an army/navy/air force and any number of other things now.
Why?
We used to happily pay 10p more in the pound in the most equitable tax of all - income tax.
Purchase tax was only paid on luxury goods, not basic services and goods like VAT and more importantly, it was ticketed separately. You could see how much extra you'd have to pay, rather than trying to do calculations in your head on the spot.
We may have paid more up front but it was simple and transparent.
Now all political parties run scared of tax rises and try to slip them in under the radar.
Frankly the money goes on all these seemingly endless enquiries that drag on forever, come up with few answers and a few recommendations which are then ignored beause the funding has been blown on the administration of the enquiry- madness!
And why do modern politicans at all levels require so many advisers and consultants paid by the public purse? Are they more stupid than the previous generation of politicians ?
We were still able to fund education though and a good deal more.
In the old days only about 2% went to University, now it is 50% and degrees aren't worth what they once were.
Most MP's that went to University and don't want to deny that right to the young, went to public schools or grammar schools, not some crap comprehensive.
A university education used to be elitist, now it's common. So degrees have just become A'levels.
It might be better to have pass employers exams and let them fund the eduction, while the student works for them.
Of course they could not go to a University a long way away and party, but maybe those days are over.
Well one of the big annoyances with Government in general is the presence of EU procurement laws, where local/national government has to tender for services, and you inevitably get informal 'cartels' vying with each for set prices, and the public organisation happy to whatever's demanded.
A - massive - amount of money could be saved at a local level if councils were simply allowed to seek competitive quotes. However, it all has to be closed tender, with the decision made when they're opened, and then being locked into the contract. Anything that then occurs outside of the contractual framework costs an absolute bomb! Someone I know at our local authority says that it costs about £70 every time someone loses their password and requests a new one, despite the renewal process taking about 20 seconds.
Take computer systems for example - most authorities could quite easily implement open-source solutions and save themselves hideous amounts in licensing fees, especially if they had in-house development teams. However, 'best practice' is to go down the corporate route of sticking with safe brands, which inevitably leads to much higher costs, despite the product being essentially the same as one which could be implemented and managed for far less.
That sounds exactly the sort of waste and nonsense that absorbs so much money. We do seem to have a large number of private cartels who seem to always feature in Government spending/contracts.
Replicate this across the various departments and it is probably a large sum of money.
These are the sort of questions that need to be asked; not just abusing various different groups, at times determined by the media, for their needs. It's in the Governments (any Government) interest to set the public against each other, arguing about who should go without rather than having to answer where the money ends up.
So students don't need to learn about fiscal responsibility (even though they're not being asked to pay upfront fees anyway) and they will all be socially prepared to finally enter the workplace having spent several self indulgent years surrounded by people from their exact same peer group.
Yeah right.!!
I'd rather they were becoming fully rounded individuals.
I don't break the laws perhaps I shouldn't help fund the police. I've got no plans to invade France so why fund an army. I'm anti nuclear weapons so I shouldn't pay towards Trident. I'm anti the monarchy, I don't use public transport, I haven't got any kids blah blah blah blah.
If you want to debate what a civilised society should provide to ensure each and every member of said society is entitled to x,y, and z then fine, but don't use dumb questions or you're get dumb answers.
Eh? I think you have completely missed what I was getting at in my response to a previous post.
I'm a higher rate tax payer - I think University education should be funded from higher taxation and I'd happily pay more to see today's generation of young people get the same opportunity I got. It's a sign of a civilised society to ensure it's citizens are well educated, well cared for and healthy as a bare minimum.
I'm a student - and I think the taxpayer shouldn't have to fully fund my education.
That sounds exactly the sort of waste and nonsense that absorbs so much money. We do seem to have a large number of private cartels who seem to always feature in Government spending/contracts.
Replicate this across the various departments and it is probably a large sum of money.
These are the sort of questions that need to be asked; not just abusing various different groups, at times determined by the media, for their needs. It's in the Governments (any Government) interest to set the public against each other, arguing about who should go without rather than having to answer where the money ends up.
They are - but the problem is that procurement laws benefit the larger organisations who will always have the most powerful lobby and access to policy makers.
The sins of the private sector have become the sins of the public sector, and vice versa. I would actually suggest that it's almost an irrepairable situation.
But what I like to do in computer management games is create a really shit top heavy situation, let it run out of control, and then slowly rebuild it from the ground up. It takes time, but it works.
Unfortunately, what's happening in national and local government now is maintaining the top heavy structure, and cutting away the struts that support it - all the wrong way round.
[QUOTE=Caxton;46209832]I have heard all this before. It mainly comes from those who pay no tax and/or live on benefits.A chap live in our village always giving his views where the council should be spending the money, he is unemployed lives in a rent free house and pays no council tax.
So I would suggest as I do not live in Australia, the Australian Government should foot the bill for our students to go to university so they can the afford to go clubbing and drinking every weekend.[/QUOTE]
I pay tax and do not live on benefits.
Are you a leader writer for the Daily Mail by any chance, or do you always think in cliches?
In the old days only about 2% went to University, now it is 50% and degrees aren't worth what they once were.
Most MP's that went to University and don't want to deny that right to the young, went to public schools or grammar schools, not some crap comprehensive.
A university education used to be elitist, now it's common. So degrees have just become A'levels.
It might be better to have pass employers exams and let them fund the eduction, while the student works for them.
Of course they could not go to a University a long way away and party, but maybe those days are over.
I don't disagree that there needs to be some rethinking on the number of courses and worth of a degree these days but that should have been done long ago. Letting it get to the stage it is then tripling everyones bill is not a sign of clear thinking at all.
I will also say that having trained apprentices in the past, when the company was finding it tough they cut down on apprenticeships. Instant saving and no noticeable loss in income.
Fast forward a year or two and they have to contract out work as they don't have the people trained to do the job and in the meantime take on twice as many apprentices in some daft hope of 'catching up again'. Result, higher costs, inconvenience and lost business
Cutting training and education is always short sighted.
No - it sounds like something that one of those intellectually constipated spokespeople for the Taxpayers Alliance would say.
I believe in life knowing how to manage finances is a key part of having control over your life in the long and short term. I don't see what is wrong with spending what you have and to an extent learning frugality, and only playing the game of ''hey big spender's'' when you can afford it. I also don't see what's wrong with saving for a rainy day is either. Better to safe, than sorry as they say.
Comments
Demographics - fewer tax payers, ageing population consuming rather than contributing?
I put it down to disproportionate wage inflation across the salary ranges. A 1% pay rise doesn't mean much to a company if it's the office boy on £15k a year, but it starts to mean something when it's the consultant on £150k a year.
Then people argue that he's only getting what the market values him at, but then the reason the market values him as such is because they see similar remuneration structures and want to make it self-justifying for themselves.
A good example is the manager who claims to be overworked and underpaid. They give him five extra staff to stop this from being overworked. However, he then asks for more money because he's got more staff. So to prevent him from being overworked, they've removed the work from his remit and also financially rewarded him at the same time.
Too much economy based on abstract output would be the best way I can put it - I can picture it in my head but I can't quite explain it.
I'm a higher rate tax payer - I think University education should be funded from higher taxation and I'd happily pay more to see today's generation of young people get the same opportunity I got. It's a sign of a civilised society to ensure it's citizens are well educated, well cared for and healthy as a bare minimum.
I'd call that a 100% amenable suggestion. What a pity that no governments ever seem to entertain any such notion of looking to specific tax band funding! The 'all or nothing' at all approach is quite depressing.
But a larger population paying ever more taxes?
Income tax is just one part of the overall tax take.
I can't see the tax take going down over the years but the services certainly have with some services being paid for altogether by individuals.
I can see what you're saying but do you mean in the public sector? That would certainly cause costs to rise and explain the number of public sector workers increasing but surely that would be cancelled out by previous nationalised industries?
We must have had more public sector (in effect) workers then and as a lot of the companies lost money or cost money then profit didn't supply income to use for public services.
We were still able to fund education though and a good deal more.
No, across all sectors. But then there would be knock-on effects for everyone too - because people are demanding higher wages, the cost of their output rises, which means people need higher wages, and up and away it goes!
There are many more taxes other than income tax.
Not earning enough to qualify for council tax is not avoiding paying it.
Glad to see social housing doing what it was designed for though, helping those in need
I guess that is part of it but still doesn't explain why we cannot fund services we previously did even though the tax take has broadened and increased over time.
As said, with the selling off of industries the burden on spending has decreased over the years.
To be honest I would be interested in seeing the monthly figures for Government spending. Producing figures for a year by department can hide all sorts of costs and waste. It would be interesting to see when we have to borrow 6 billion for the month where exactly the spending occurred in that month.
Well one of the big annoyances with Government in general is the presence of EU procurement laws, where local/national government has to tender for services, and you inevitably get informal 'cartels' vying with each for set prices, and the public organisation happy to whatever's demanded.
A - massive - amount of money could be saved at a local level if councils were simply allowed to seek competitive quotes. However, it all has to be closed tender, with the decision made when they're opened, and then being locked into the contract. Anything that then occurs outside of the contractual framework costs an absolute bomb! Someone I know at our local authority says that it costs about £70 every time someone loses their password and requests a new one, despite the renewal process taking about 20 seconds.
Take computer systems for example - most authorities could quite easily implement open-source solutions and save themselves hideous amounts in licensing fees, especially if they had in-house development teams. However, 'best practice' is to go down the corporate route of sticking with safe brands, which inevitably leads to much higher costs, despite the product being essentially the same as one which could be implemented and managed for far less.
We used to happily pay 10p more in the pound in the most equitable tax of all - income tax.
Purchase tax was only paid on luxury goods, not basic services and goods like VAT and more importantly, it was ticketed separately. You could see how much extra you'd have to pay, rather than trying to do calculations in your head on the spot.
We may have paid more up front but it was simple and transparent.
Now all political parties run scared of tax rises and try to slip them in under the radar.
Frankly the money goes on all these seemingly endless enquiries that drag on forever, come up with few answers and a few recommendations which are then ignored beause the funding has been blown on the administration of the enquiry- madness!
And why do modern politicans at all levels require so many advisers and consultants paid by the public purse? Are they more stupid than the previous generation of politicians ?
In the old days only about 2% went to University, now it is 50% and degrees aren't worth what they once were.
Most MP's that went to University and don't want to deny that right to the young, went to public schools or grammar schools, not some crap comprehensive.
A university education used to be elitist, now it's common. So degrees have just become A'levels.
It might be better to have pass employers exams and let them fund the eduction, while the student works for them.
Of course they could not go to a University a long way away and party, but maybe those days are over.
That sounds exactly the sort of waste and nonsense that absorbs so much money. We do seem to have a large number of private cartels who seem to always feature in Government spending/contracts.
Replicate this across the various departments and it is probably a large sum of money.
These are the sort of questions that need to be asked; not just abusing various different groups, at times determined by the media, for their needs. It's in the Governments (any Government) interest to set the public against each other, arguing about who should go without rather than having to answer where the money ends up.
I'd rather they were becoming fully rounded individuals.
Eh? I think you have completely missed what I was getting at in my response to a previous post.
Fiscal responsibility is a good part of that.
I'm a student - and I think the taxpayer shouldn't have to fully fund my education.
They are - but the problem is that procurement laws benefit the larger organisations who will always have the most powerful lobby and access to policy makers.
The sins of the private sector have become the sins of the public sector, and vice versa. I would actually suggest that it's almost an irrepairable situation.
But what I like to do in computer management games is create a really shit top heavy situation, let it run out of control, and then slowly rebuild it from the ground up. It takes time, but it works.
Unfortunately, what's happening in national and local government now is maintaining the top heavy structure, and cutting away the struts that support it - all the wrong way round.
So I would suggest as I do not live in Australia, the Australian Government should foot the bill for our students to go to university so they can the afford to go clubbing and drinking every weekend.[/QUOTE]
I pay tax and do not live on benefits.
Are you a leader writer for the Daily Mail by any chance, or do you always think in cliches?
No - it sounds like something that one of those intellectually constipated spokespeople for the Taxpayers Alliance would say.
I don't disagree that there needs to be some rethinking on the number of courses and worth of a degree these days but that should have been done long ago. Letting it get to the stage it is then tripling everyones bill is not a sign of clear thinking at all.
I will also say that having trained apprentices in the past, when the company was finding it tough they cut down on apprenticeships. Instant saving and no noticeable loss in income.
Fast forward a year or two and they have to contract out work as they don't have the people trained to do the job and in the meantime take on twice as many apprentices in some daft hope of 'catching up again'. Result, higher costs, inconvenience and lost business
Cutting training and education is always short sighted.
When you were, say, in the sixth form at school did you think that?
I believe in life knowing how to manage finances is a key part of having control over your life in the long and short term. I don't see what is wrong with spending what you have and to an extent learning frugality, and only playing the game of ''hey big spender's'' when you can afford it. I also don't see what's wrong with saving for a rainy day is either. Better to safe, than sorry as they say.