Who DO (Trump and Vance) think they are?

“I think we’re actually singing from the same songbook here, David, though yiur posts don’t always make sense to me🤔”

Likewise, the main difference is that while I accept it’s OK to increase money supply (borrow) to grow the economy, all businesses borrow to expand the business. You seem to suggest that it’s OK to borrow to increase social spending, even giving money to those that can well afford to maintain themselves.

We have to help those that cannot support themselves, but we don’t have to give services and tax breaks to those that don’t need them.

You seem to suggest that it’s OK to borrow to increase social spending, even giving money to those that can well afford to maintain themselves.

I don’t think I’ve ever said that, David. I would certainly defend the principle of ‘universal’ benefits, such as the WFA, on the grounds that it is cheaper and less complex than means testing, and that it ensures that the money reaches those who really need it. The fact that means testing is inefficient in that respect is clear from the fact that the government has a huge some of unclaimed benefit money in hand.

My preferred solution would be to tax the money back from those who don’t need it, ideally by way of progressive taxation.

oh dear😠. ‘..a huge sum of unclaimed benefit…’

Those that don’t claim benefit obviously don’t need it or there would be widespread destitution, means testing is easy to, income and wealth is already known in most cases.

Why do you want to enrich those that are already rich.

David49

Those that don’t claim benefit obviously don’t need it or there would be widespread destitution, means testing is easy to, income and wealth is already known in most cases.

Why do you want to enrich those that are already rich.

You would be surprised how many people there are who do not know what benefits they may be entitled to and do live in quiet desperate poverty because they are not claiming them.
Others think they do not qualify for a wide variety of reasons.

It is only when you work with elderly people and meet so many who did not know that they could claim, or, often, quite simply cannot cope with the forms required and do not know where to seek help that you realise how many people live in this quiet desperate poverty.

David49

Those that don’t claim benefit obviously don’t need it or there would be widespread destitution, means testing is easy to, income and wealth is already known in most cases.

Why do you want to enrich those that are already rich.

Good Lord, David, don’t I make it clear that the last thing I want to do is enrich the already rich?

There’s more than one way to kill a cat, so the saying goes. Means testing is not cost effective, what you ‘save’ in restricting benefits has to be set against the cost of administering the schemes. By the time you’ve done that, progressive taxation to recoup the money from those who don’t need it starts to look like a good option.

There is widespread destitution. More than 14 million people living in poverty in the UK. probably in the region of 20% of the population. 1 person in 5. If that isn’t widespread destitution I don’t know what is…

www.snopes.com/fact-check/trump-musk-feet-video/
sometimes you need to make a stiff drink and go to bed and
sometimes AI is good

President Trump will regret this, especially when President Putin demands Alaska be returned to Russia. Alaska was purchased from Russia in 1867, all properly paid, signed for and documented. President Putin won't let a little trifle like legality bother him though. President Trump is being played like a bad symphony. Making the Kremlin great again. He is either very naive, or does not know as much as he thinks he does about President Putin.

There is a widespread belief that Putin knows a great deal more about Trump than Trump knows about Putin, which gives Putin the uppr hand.

MaizieD

There is widespread destitution. More than 14 million people living in poverty in the UK. probably in the region of 20% of the population. 1 person in 5. If that isn’t widespread destitution I don’t know what is…

Don’t be ridiculous Maisie, nobody is starving, or without clothes or shelter in the UK, they have an income below an arbitrary line that even fooled the UNHCR until they realized what it really meant. There is support for everyone who needs help, Destitution is what it happening in Gaza or Sudan or can you think of a more severe definition

The other point is, that in this country, unlike many economically less developed country poverty is not necessarily a lifetime problem. People move in and out of poverty, exacerbated by the very high level of relationship breakdown in this country that can plunge a woman with children from relative comfort to poverty overnight.

M0nica is so right. There is an often quoted phrase about how close any of us are to a financial crisis. I hear many such stories at the foodbank.
In the UK there is, hopefully, enough of a safety net, both official and charitable, to make this a temporary situation only for most people.