The shame of Austerity Britain

Monica
I am on your side, and no, 'you cannot have your cake and eat it'.

Austerity Britain. Check out the ‘I’m stumped. Can anybody help?’ where assistance is required for items to put in a present box for a not very well off DD. I have never seen such a list of luxury items. If Gransnetters can afford Jo Malone doodads and spa days it is more than I can.

I actually do not see many signs of austerity and I don’t think the rest of the world would call us poor.

Apologies Beau. I think you’re right. It’s child tax credits and universal credit that has now got a two child limit, not child benefit itself.

I thought George Osborne chickened out of cutting child benefit to the first 2 children only? A shame because that was a very good idea and very popular with non-lefties. I think only child tax credit / universal credit is affected and it was implemented years later then was originally proposed. I could be wrong, I don't follow these things closely - I have friends who depend on child benefit but more that have had to give it up because they earn more than £50k - I actually think that's really unfair too.

ilovecheese isn’t child benefit only paid for the first two children now?

And benefits have been capped forcing families to move to cheaper areas of the country.

Almost 30,000 single parent families were made homeless last year, up 8% on five years ago, according to official figures.

What financial rewards are given to people to have more children?

Jallimall08 - I suspect most of it is paid on the 'never never'. People don't like to go without even if it means getting in debt. There are still an awful lot more who aren't managing any of this and struggling to pay rent or buy food.

I thought there was a move afoot to look into how the aid we gave was used, but it all came to nothing as so much aid giving is linked to trade deals. It isn’t really aid, more of a backhander.

We should pay more in taxes. We should also be proud to help and support other countries in need. I'm happy to do both.

Minxie totally agree but feel it is probably to do with all rich countries beholden to helping poor countries, even if those same poor countries can afford space programmes and huge defence/ nuclear budgets. Mad I know but isn't the whole world bl***y bonkers?

Welshwife. I think you answered your own question. You stated most are paid thousands less than years ago but personal allowance has gone up, therefore roughly the same income. But everything has gone up over those years, so in real terms low and middle earners are still worse off. However, I do agree with you when you appear to say we should pay more tax to get the services we rely on that are free. If we all had to pay for education from age 5, all medical costs via insurance and all the other perks we take for granted, it would cost far more than a few pence extra tax.
I got into trouble for suggesting we contribute to nhs on here the other day with people saying why should we pay for meals in hospital etc. Well ok, let's pay a bit more tax on the assurance that it is spent solely on the services we all need.

I swear many of these problems would be less severe if we stopped paying foreign aid. I don’t understand why there isn’t a huge argument over it. The public seems to forget how much we give away to countries that don’t need it or use it for the correct purpose

Every country has a finite pot of money to spend which it raises from taxes or borrowing. The UK has around 10-20 million too many inhabitants to function comfortably but still people are given financial rewards to produce more children and Remainers want to stay in the single market which involves continuing to accept unlimited free movement.

If you are worried about the homeless then take one into your home as your guest or give them a tenner every time you see someone living on the streets if you don't object to your money being spent on fags, booze or drugs.

Labour will bankrupt this country if they ever get in again.

If we pay more tax towards, for example, the NHS or the police, would we get a better service, or might we just end up paying for even more department managers than are already employed. It's difficult to demand higher taxes without the taxed seeing some improvement in services offered.

Mostlyharmlees. First off let me agree that it is wrong that rich countries like ours have such problems and services should be 1st class in 1st world countries. However, while people themselves insist on being drink and drug addicts, there will always be hunger and homelessness. In an ideal world we should be able to help these people but some do not want or accept help and there is often no cure for the majority of mental issues that so many have these days. Of course there should be help available for all those who wish to help themselves, victims of bad luck, job loss etc. But how do we stop the vicious cycle of child neglect, addiction, alcoholism, domestic violence. There are bad, weak, aggressive and lazy people in the world and it is not something we can immunise against. I work with kids in care and my heart is often bruised by the stories I hear but how can we stop feckless parents having kids? There isn't a country in the world without problems and not enough altruistic, genuine politicians to deal with them. Most are in it for the lifestyle and kudos it brings. What more can I say? The most any of us can do is contribute to food banks, volunteer and just do what we can, knowing it will never be enough. Sad but true.

PADDYANN and OP nailed it. Absolutely. they say they care but whenever have they cared , especially regarding north-south divide ! And after Brexshit it will only be worse. !

The greedy, self serving ( though aren't all politicians of the same ilk ) Tories have no opposition.
Looking at the labour leadership reminds me of the likes of Scargill, Red Robbo and those clowns who took over Liverpool Council.
Austerity may have affected most of us, but certainly not the politicians, unless you can class reduced fiddling of their allowances as an example.
Out of any of them I would tend to give Rees-Mogg a chance.
A very privileged background and the over the top posh accent but he seems to be his own man who talks sense.

maizie most of that is discretionary debt, people spending on things today that are not essential for them rather than wait until they can afford them because interest rates are low.

The next financial crisis is going to be when interest rates go up and all those who overstretched themselves suddenly find they cannot afford the repayments. My sympathies will then be with all those who struggled to get on housing ladders or took on debt at periods of crisis. But no sympathy for those who bought new cars, expensive holidays or maxed their mortgage to get an even bigger better house.

Yes, but, if you borrow to finance the spending you still have to pay it back and with interest. It doesn't mean it should never be done, but only done with caution.

The other thing is that the economy cannot grow for ever. Sooner or later countries world wide are going to have to decide how to have prosperity without growth.

Many of the problems we now face in this country: overpopulation, housing shortage, public services under strain, are the result of blinkered politicians thinking that the best way to ensure prosperity was the relentless pursuit of growth in the economy regardless of its cost.

As for 33% tax, I referred to that as that is what the standard rate was back in the 1960s when I first started work. And, yes, I was paying it out of the poor salary of a trainee Chartered Accountant, who were paid a fraction of what those in that role get now, even in real terms. I got bored after 6 months and left for pastures new.

Those of you who cite huge spending by those who lie between the rich and the poor have either forgotten, or don't know, that there is a massive amount of personal debt in the economy. Over £1trillion. Granted that some of that will be mortgages but a lot of it isn't. We could be living on a time bomb.

Go back to my link about Sweden and Norway, both of which have the quality of public services we can only dream and you will see that they pay considerably more tax than we do.

Yes, we do need to pay more tax, but I think most people would balk at the thought of 33% as the basic rate.

We now pay more in indirect taxes than previously.

Between 2007–08 and 2015–16, the share of the adult population who pay income tax dropped from 65.7% to 56.2%.9 Within the group of income tax payers, the proportion of total income tax paid by the top 1% of taxpayers (i.e. 0.66% of the adult population in 2007–08 and 0.56% of the population in 2015-2016) increased from 24.4% to 27.5%.
www.ifs.org.uk/uploads/publications/bns/BN_182.pdf
See page 10

That does not mean that those who avoid tax should not be pursued to pay their fair share.

The economy could be boosted by investing more money into housing building, the NHS, police, fire services. This money creates jobs then those workers spend more which creates more jobs in turn.
A little goes a long way because of the “multiplier effect” in economic jargon.
The initial stimulus would be funded from borrowing (very cheap at the moment) but would soon be more or less paying for itself in bigger tax receipts as the economy grows.
Running the economy is not like running a household budget.

Richard Murphy the economist says:
spending creates the capacity to pay more tax. The reasons should be obvious and yet apparently they are not. New government spending is, of course, someone's income. It is not poured into a black hole to be lost forever more. That means that some comes straight back in tax. And yet more comes back because the recipient of the extra income also spends, and so tax is paid, and so on. It is quite likely that over time new spending pays for itself.
www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/

Greed and me first mentality has taken over completely in the higher echelons of power while the rest of us struggle, and worse, accept it's right and proper!
I don't agree that this statement is absolutely true though, knickas.

It is true that the rich avoid tax and should be made to pay their fair share to benefit the whole of society.
It is true that there are people who are struggling and using foodbanks and this is wrong in a so-called 'rich' country.

However, there is a vast swathe of the population who are not struggling - if they were all struggling then who are those who are shopping, visiting restaurants with families, going to theme parks , going on holidays abroad? They are not all so-called 'baby boomers', these are families with children out and about and spending on goods and entertainment.
We are constantly amazed at the numbers of families doing all that - and very pleased to see that they are.

knickas63, I find Rees-Mogg refreshingly blunt and honest, amazingly eloquent and intelligent, mostly a breath of fresh air after the mealy mouthed apologists coming at us from every direction. A lot of his beliefs are his Catholic beliefs and he accepts that they will never be the law in this country. Also I know Labour say they are not anti Semitic and presumably the ghastly Millibands would leave if they thought that was the case but with so many of their members now being of an anti-Jewish religion, as my SIL previously of that faith says 'they know who their supporters are'.