Surely we must pay more taxes!?

Making big businesses pay loads more tax will only make them pull out of our country. Let’s stop paying for second and third wives, and benefits to people who marry their cousins and then claim pip as there children are disabled, stop harebrained schemes, stop borrowing money to give to other countries like Pupae New Guinea which gets over 33 million from us, we are still giving aid to China. What a debacle.

Hear hear MaizieD.

BevSec you do realise that being able to buy any pharmaceutical you want without a prescription is highly dangerous, don’t you.

It’s nothing to be celebrated!

I share Lizzie's and Maizie's concerns about the ability to buy medicines without a prescription.
With Dr Google at hand , many people might be putting themselves in danger and, as others have said, increasing the risk of the development of antibiotic resistant diseases.

Well, DH nearly died when he picked up an antibiotic resistant infection after heart surgery.

It meant 3 extra operations because pus and muck was being scraped out of him(sorry), 6 extra weeks in hospital and him coming close to dying

As you may imagine I believe that antibiotics should only be available on prescription.

To revert to the question of taxation.

MOnica is constantly asking for a definition of wealthy. So I went back to Thomas Pikety.

Firstly, it is difficult to put a monetary value on 'wealth' and Pikety doesn't attempt to do that apart from using monetary values to illustrate some of his points. What he does do is to look at wealth in the context of shares of 'national income'.

He defines national income as being similar to GDP, the monetary value of all national outputs, but he modifies it slightly by allowing for depreciation of the capital goods involved in production, e.g plant, machinery,and infrastructure. He then estimates that national income in developed countries equals about 90% of GDP.

It is possible to break the share of national income into labour share and capital share but it's complex because the two overlap in many individuals so, apart from noting that it frequently works out at about a 70/30 labour/capital split it isn't a particularly useful tool for analysis.

He therefore looks at the ratio of capital (wealth) to income in terms of the number of years worth of national income a figure will represent.

e.g. If the per capita net income (i.e share of national income) is £30 - 35,000 and private capital wealth is £150 - 200,000 then private wealth equals 5 or 6 years worth of national income.

This is just an average. Naturally there is a huge variation between individuals. Some will have little or no capital wealth and some will have far in excess of the 'per capita' amount.

Pikety finds that the distribution of wealth between holders of capital wealth is concentrated in the upper percentiles of wealth holders. He found that in the countries whose data he used for analysis the top 10% of capital holders always owned more than 50% of all wealth.

Conversely, distribution isa bit more equal between holders of labour income, where the upper 10% receives 25 -30% of the total labour income and the bottom 50% gets 25 -33%. Whereas the bottom 50% of holders of capital income get only 5%.

Without putting any figures on it this tells us that there is a huge amount of wealth being held in the UK by very few people, wealth which it could be perfectly proper and equitable to tax without having to tax those who hold far, far less.

When we start discussing wealth on this forum it always seems to descend to recitations of personal situations and personal desire to protect what wealth people have. If looked at in terms of wealth distribution in the UK we can see that most of us are paddling in the shallows of the pool of wealth, fighting over amounts that would be considered paltry by extreme wealth holders who are way out into the deep end. But many are not happy with the concept of taxing wealth and defend those who some of us find to be indefensible because, it seems, they themselves fear for those relatively amounts that they hold.

There is, of course, an ethical and ideological dimension to all this in that approval or disapproval of wealth taxation depends very much on individual's view of the function of government and their economic ideology.

P.S Pikety used a wide range of 'developed' countries in his research, including the US, the UK, France, Japan, Canada, Spain, Germany and more..... His findings are not UK centric.

'.... relatively small amounts

LizzieDrip

Hear hear MaizieD.

BevSec you do realise that being able to buy any pharmaceutical you want without a prescription is highly dangerous, don’t you.

It’s nothing to be celebrated!

Its everything to be celebrated. They say its on their own heads. I got some badly needed sleeping tablets yesterday after a sleepless night. Feel like a different person today. I would have be3n desperate otherwise. How is that so wrong?

Barleyfields

Has anyone suggested that they opt for private medical treatment out of altruism Doodledog? People have said that it takes pressure off the NHS and that’s one person fewer on a waiting list but I haven’t noticed anyone claiming that that was the reason they did it.

Spot on, BevSec.

It doesn’t, though. Much private medical treatment happens in NHS hospitals and is carried out by doctors trained on the NHS. Someone in a queue has to wait longer because if not for the second and faster-moving queue their doctor would be free far sooner to treat them. Why do you think people opt to pay, if not to queue-jump?

In response to the earlier question about envy (I can’t quote directly for some reason) I object to people claiming altruistic reasons for queue-jumping out of a desire for fairness. And possibly Britishness, too - most of us have a strongly-held belief in queuing fairly 😀.

As I have reiterated to the point of tedium I understand and empathise with why someone in pain might go private - I just object to the claim that they are doing so to shorten the wait for others.

Casdon

BevSec

Casdon

Many people are public spirited BevSec, and care about others who are in less fortunate circumstances. Many also have ideological objections to private medicine for that reason, because they don’t believe in queue jumping.

The NHS still picks up the complex cases, and those who are treated privately initially when things go wrong too, so it’s a fallacy to suggest that private medicine saves pressures on the NHS. If consultants who work in both the NHS and privately could not work privately they would automatically have full time NHS contracts, thus increasing NHs capacity.

We are all public spirited as taxpayers, giving to foodbanks and charity shops, all of which I do, as well as the Lifeboats and Salvation Army. We all have social consciences. That is not the same issue as some on here wishing to “redistribute’ wealth, usually someone elses!

I have no ideological objections whatsoever to private medicine, just grateful for that choice . I used to work in the NHS.

It still comes across as the politics of envy imo.

People who earn above the threshold have no choice but to be taxpayers BevSec, it has absolutely nothing to do with them being public spirited. Not everybody has a social conscience, and small donations to organisations you support, whilst worthwhile, doesn’t amount to a social conscience either - that is about wanting a more equal society and being prepared to access services in the same way as everybody else so queueing to wait your turn.
It’s nothing to do with money in my case, I could afford private healthcare - I just don’t agree with the principle of it. As an ex NHS employee it would be selling my soul to use it, knowing it detracts from core services. The only exceptions I would make are for services that aren’t available on the NHS, like dental implants, because dentistry is now almost all private and paying for ‘frills’ is the only way of getting working teeth.

I would say it depends on how much in pain and desperate you become. I know many people who have had to pay privately in that situation. Principles tend to go out of the window imo in those circumstances. There is nothing wrong with being able to afford private healthcare. We cannot live in an equal world, its a lovely thought but unrealistic.

BevSec

LizzieDrip

Hear hear MaizieD.

BevSec you do realise that being able to buy any pharmaceutical you want without a prescription is highly dangerous, don’t you.

It’s nothing to be celebrated!

Its everything to be celebrated. They say its on their own heads. I got some badly needed sleeping tablets yesterday after a sleepless night. Feel like a different person today. I would have be3n desperate otherwise. How is that so wrong?

You said you were an ex NHS employee BevSec, so I find it very surprising that you would call for ungoverned access to prescription drugs. You must have seen the impact of people who have had serious adverse reactions being admitted to hospital to be ‘rescued’, surely, it happens often.

Altruism, LOL, in 2021 after being painful for some time my hip suddenly got much worse I was on the NHS list but waiting list was very long, so I cashed some of my pension and paid £15k private the following week.
Money well spent

David49

Altruism, LOL, in 2021 after being painful for some time my hip suddenly got much worse I was on the NHS list but waiting list was very long, so I cashed some of my pension and paid £15k private the following week.
Money well spent

Precisely why we've paid for four TKR, both knees for each of us - waits list considerably too long whilst in pain for us to wait.

Plus my husband's spinal stenosis, discectomy, and 40 yr re-do of first discectomy. These types of problems are debilitating.

Doodledog where have you seen or heard anyone claim that they are [opting for private medical treatment] for the benefit of others ?

BevSec, I can’t believe you ‘celebrate’ being able to buy whatever drugs you want otc. You surely understand the huge problem of antibiotic-resistant diseases. I find what you say frightening. Is this how the next pandemic will start?

If looked at in terms of wealth distribution in the UK we can see that most of us are paddling in the shallows of the pool of wealth.
That's probably true MaizieD even for those who enjoy high earnings or fat pensions, or who receive the odd inheritance or two.

I guess it's a case of such people wanting to hold onto as much as possible, whatever the amounts, which is quite normal. I have a list of things I want to hang onto my money for - mainly GC's education, home improvements, nice clothes and holidays, private health care where needed - but beyond that, I don't want very expensive cars or a yacht.
Neither am I bleating or screeching about paying the added 20% tax on my GC's school fees, I've had a little moan, but beyond that it's just a case of get on with life.
Do I really need those things mentioned above? Probably not, and this will now sound selfish - but having always had them, I might see it as reducing my standard of living, which, as it stands, is part of who I am, and what made me. (And by hook or by crook, I'd try to find a way of acquiring them somehow. 😃)

I entirely agree escaped.

escaped

^If looked at in terms of wealth distribution in the UK we can see that most of us are paddling in the shallows of the pool of wealth.^
That's probably true MaizieD even for those who enjoy high earnings or fat pensions, or who receive the odd inheritance or two.

I guess it's a case of such people wanting to hold onto as much as possible, whatever the amounts, which is quite normal. I have a list of things I want to hang onto my money for - mainly GC's education, home improvements, nice clothes and holidays, private health care where needed - but beyond that, I don't want very expensive cars or a yacht.
Neither am I bleating or screeching about paying the added 20% tax on my GC's school fees, I've had a little moan, but beyond that it's just a case of get on with life.
Do I really need those things mentioned above? Probably not, and this will now sound selfish - but having always had them, I might see it as reducing my standard of living, which, as it stands, is part of who I am, and what made me. (And by hook or by crook, I'd try to find a way of acquiring them somehow. 😃)

This.

I was trying to get away from the 'personal', Norah.

Barleyfields

Doodledog where have you seen or heard anyone claim that they are [opting for private medical treatment] for the benefit of others ?

I have often heard and read people saying that their going private has shortened the queue for people on the NHS. It's a common misconception (or justification, depending on your POV).

That doesn’t mean it’s the reason they did it.

“I guess it's a case of such people wanting to hold onto as much as possible, whatever the amounts, which is quite normal.”

We all want to hold on to all of the money but we have
responsibilities, so we get taxes and the more we have, the more tax we pay. We all resent having to pay more tax.

Barleyfields

*BevSec*, I can’t believe you ‘celebrate’ being able to buy whatever drugs you want otc. You surely understand the huge problem of antibiotic-resistant diseases. I find what you say frightening. Is this how the next pandemic will start?

I am not quite sure of the connection between antibiotic resistant diseases and otc meds. Our Tui rep said antibiotics and other meds can be brought here and it is up to the individual to assess their own benefit/risk. At home to buy sleeping pills I have to go online to buy abroad with all the risks that carries. I was so very glad to get hold of some yesterday when I was desperate.

Casdon

BevSec

LizzieDrip

Hear hear MaizieD.

BevSec you do realise that being able to buy any pharmaceutical you want without a prescription is highly dangerous, don’t you.

It’s nothing to be celebrated!

Its everything to be celebrated. They say its on their own heads. I got some badly needed sleeping tablets yesterday after a sleepless night. Feel like a different person today. I would have be3n desperate otherwise. How is that so wrong?

You said you were an ex NHS employee BevSec, so I find it very surprising that you would call for ungoverned access to prescription drugs. You must have seen the impact of people who have had serious adverse reactions being admitted to hospital to be ‘rescued’, surely, it happens often.

Not one to my knowledge in all the years I worked for the NHS. We are all more than capable of knowing how to look after ourselves.

Barleyfields

That doesn’t mean it’s the reason they did it.

I know . It's how they justify it, which is not the same thing at all. That's exactly my point.

Doodledog

Barleyfields

That doesn’t mean it’s the reason they did it.

I know . It's how they justify it, which is not the same thing at all. That's exactly my point.

Why would anyone need to justify it anyway? What a strange world you live in!