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wallace_and_gromit

Stevo 666 wrote:

Could well be. Trouble is, a lot of people on here find it very uncomfortable with the idea that raising tax rates can actually reduce tax revenues and vice versa.

I usually try and explain it as follows:

1 - If tax rates are zero then no taxes are raised.

2 - If tax rates are 100% then no taxes are raised as there is no incentive to work for cash and we revert to a subsistence/barter economy.

3 - Between 0% and 100%, taxes are raised, so there must be a tax rate at which tax is maximised.

Tricky thing is determining the rate! I read something recently that the rate beyond which tax revenues may fall is circa 60%, so if income tax is 40% and VAT is 20%, then higher rate tax payers are probably at that point.

Jez mon

mamba80 wrote:

Stevo 666 wrote:

mamba80 wrote:

Like it or not the trickle down of income from the very wealthy, isnt working.

So it's the poor who create most jobs is it?

Evidence for your claim please...

you are taking that quote out of context.....

of course the wealthy are paying and in many cases creating the jobs BUT you cannot have millions of people on very low wages, feeling ignored and being ignored.

People on very low incomes are doing very worth while and essential jobs but they get paid F all, eg the 10s of 1000's of health care assistants cleaning up double incontinent elderly patients numerous times daily, feeding and administrating meds get paid a pittance, NHS cooks or porters all claim working benefits to enable them to have a wage they can actually live on and many would have to claim HB, where is their voice?
yet someone in IT or an Accountant get a relative fortune.... and the politicians listen to the middle classes, they vote because they ve the time and education to sit down and try to understand the issues.

so what is your solution? it certainly doesnt seem to lie in the hands of the likes of Green.

Well, all those health care assistants etc should retrain as accountants. Obviously :roll: Otherwise they're just life's losers...

florerider

All my savings came from the time I was salaried. Please explain the concept of why the returns on my savings are considered "unearned" income?

This is just class war all over again.

kingstongraham

florerider wrote:

All my savings came from the time I was salaried. Please explain the concept of why the returns on my savings are considered "unearned" income?

This is just class war all over again.

Really? You need this explaining when in your question you make the distinction between your savings and the returns on them? One you earned through work, the other... erm... you didn't.

mamba80

Jez mon wrote:

mamba80 wrote:

Stevo 666 wrote:

mamba80 wrote:

Like it or not the trickle down of income from the very wealthy, isnt working.

So it's the poor who create most jobs is it?

Evidence for your claim please...

People on very low incomes are doing very worth while and essential jobs but they get paid F all, eg the 10s of 1000's of health care assistants cleaning up double incontinent elderly patients numerous times daily, feeding and administrating meds get paid a pittance, NHS cooks or porters all claim working benefits to enable them to have a wage they can actually live on and many would have to claim HB, where is their voice?
yet someone in IT or an Accountant get a relative fortune.... and the politicians listen to the middle classes, they vote because they ve the time and education to sit down and try to understand the issues.

so what is your solution? it certainly doesnt seem to lie in the hands of the likes of Green.

Well, all those health care assistants etc should retrain as accountants. Obviously :roll: Otherwise they're just life's losers...

Actually, after reading through what i wrote, i can see you are correct, yep no doubt about it, wasters the lot of them.

Bit like the Consultant earning all that extra OT doing something useful, like saving peoples lives, how dare he in a year, have the temerity to earn what a footballer can earn in week, he should be ashamed of himself, hand it all back scrounger!

Stevo_666

mamba80 wrote:

Stevo 666 wrote:

mamba80 wrote:

Like it or not the trickle down of income from the very wealthy, isnt working.

So it's the poor who create most jobs is it?

Evidence for your claim please...

you are taking that quote out of context.....

of course the wealthy are paying and in many cases creating the jobs BUT you cannot have millions of people on very low wages, feeling ignored and being ignored.

People on very low incomes are doing very worth while and essential jobs but they get paid F all, eg the 10s of 1000's of health care assistants cleaning up double incontinent elderly patients numerous times daily, feeding and administrating meds get paid a pittance, NHS cooks or porters all claim working benefits to enable them to have a wage they can actually live on and many would have to claim HB, where is their voice?
yet someone in IT or an Accountant get a relative fortune.... and the politicians listen to the middle classes, they vote because they ve the time and education to sit down and try to understand the issues.

so what is your solution? it certainly doesnt seem to lie in the hands of the likes of Green.

That's changing the subject. I'm talking about job creation. Without those jobs, many would be considerably worse off than they are now.

Not sure how it is fair on businesses if you force them to pay way over the market rate for a particular type of job. I'm sure I don't need to explain supply and demand to you again...its how things work in any market economy.

Although of course the minimum wage here provides a decent and enforceable minimum hourly rate.

mamba80

Stevo 666 wrote:

mamba80 wrote:

so what is your solution? it certainly doesnt seem to lie in the hands of the likes of Green.

That's changing the subject. I'm talking about job creation. Without those jobs, many would be considerably worse off than they are now.

Not sure how it is fair on businesses if you force them to pay way over the market rate for a particular type of job. I'm sure I don't need to explain supply and demand to you again...its how things work in any market economy.

Although of course the minimum wage here provides a decent and enforceable minimum hourly rate.

Nonsense, min wage makes it super hard to work your way up the chain, it also reduces differentials for those above it, they dont get the new living wage increases and see those on lower grades catch them up, min wage is too blunt an instrument, wealthy companies can easily afford me and start-ups and small businesses struggle to pay it.

Market economy? you mean where directors pay themselves far more than their worth? even May has recognised this and yet these same directors will keep the rate down for their low paid staff, whilst posting big profits and big dividends for themselves.

whats your opinion on Health care assistants getting that same min wage as say someone working in a warehouse or Tesco's ?

tangled_metal

There's also an issue over the value of the work people do. There's some on here, I'm guessing, who see the value to a society of a particular role not just the current market rate.

Some see HCA workers have a high value because they are looking after vulnerable people, often in their homes thus out of hospitals. They probably see less value in people working on complex hedge funds or other self created/self perpetuating financial instruments that the world could do without.

My partner sees this more than I do, the idea that a house wife/husband working full time plus overtime to bring up the kids and keep house has a lot of value to society. Creating the next generation and potential wealth creators or scientists or medics. The person in this role has no value in modern market rates but the tax consultant/accountant has a high value.

It's interesting if you try to understand real value of roles not just the capitalists' view of value which is purely about wealth creation.

Stevo_666

mamba80 wrote:

Stevo 666 wrote:

mamba80 wrote:

so what is your solution? it certainly doesnt seem to lie in the hands of the likes of Green.

That's changing the subject. I'm talking about job creation. Without those jobs, many would be considerably worse off than they are now.

Not sure how it is fair on businesses if you force them to pay way over the market rate for a particular type of job. I'm sure I don't need to explain supply and demand to you again...its how things work in any market economy.

Although of course the minimum wage here provides a decent and enforceable minimum hourly rate.

Nonsense, min wage makes it super hard to work your way up the chain, it also reduces differentials for those above it, they dont get the new living wage increases and see those on lower grades catch them up, min wage is too blunt an instrument, wealthy companies can easily afford me and start-ups and small businesses struggle to pay it.

Market economy? you mean where directors pay themselves far more than their worth? even May has recognised this and yet these same directors will keep the rate down for their low paid staff, whilst posting big profits and big dividends for themselves.

whats your opinion on Health care assistants getting that same min wage as say someone working in a warehouse or Tesco's ?

Min wage is just that - a minimum. People are free to do better than that if they want and are able. Otherwise thats what the min wage and the benefits system is there for. You can't set these too high because if you pay people a lot of money for doing nothing or not a lot, that's what a lot of people will do...that's just human nature.

In case you hadn't noticed life isn't fair and never will be. We're all dealt a different hand in life and we have to make the most of it.

What's your solution anyway? Just dish out more money from those who work hard to everyone else? Think of the impact on the incentive to work hard on those that create the necessary wealth...as has been said before, your type of redistributive solution just makes most people more equally poor.

Stevo_666

Tangled Metal wrote:

There's also an issue over the value of the work people do. There's some on here, I'm guessing, who see the value to a society of a particular role not just the current market rate.

Some see HCA workers have a high value because they are looking after vulnerable people, often in their homes thus out of hospitals. They probably see less value in people working on complex hedge funds or other self created/self perpetuating financial instruments that the world could do without.

My partner sees this more than I do, the idea that a house wife/husband working full time plus overtime to bring up the kids and keep house has a lot of value to society. Creating the next generation and potential wealth creators or scientists or medics. The person in this role has no value in modern market rates but the tax consultant/accountant has a high value.

It's interesting if you try to understand real value of roles not just the capitalists' view of value which is purely about wealth creation.

As someone who helps look after my elderly parents (same for my OH and her mother), I am aware of that. But its not the point I am making here - which is about the economics and value creation.

tangled_metal

One definition of value based on capitalist view of what's important. What I'm saying is if money and wealth creation isn't the most important thing but people are then what happens to the relative importance of care givers over wealth creators? Shake up your ideas on people's worth. Put the person at the centre. Pay according to that.

wallace_and_gromit

Tangled Metal wrote:

Put the person at the centre. Pay according to that.

The practical problem with this is that the act of giving care to an elderly/sick person doesn't generate any revenue directly. So to reward the caregiver more generously, someone (relatives or the state) has to pay.

We'll assume - maybe generously - that all relatives with sufficient means to do so reward those giving care to their family members appropriately, so this leaves the state to pay for those with less well off relatives. And the state can only sensibly pay caregivers more by raising taxes or cutting spending elsewhere, neither of which are politically very popular. Particularly the raising taxes bit - folk in the UK do not like paying more tax, even though they like the idea of other people paying more tax to fund services that they approve of.

And despite what the likes of the Guardian might want us to believe, there simply aren't enough "rich" to tax more heavily to raise serious amounts of extra tax and legally avoiding corporation tax isn't particularly hard for multi-nationals.

So basically, the UK as a whole would need to accept large income tax, NI and/or VAT rises to pay other folks' caregivers more generously.

At the other end of the scale, hedge fund managers don't need the state or relatives of clients to pay them more. They simply need to make a profit on their trades. And hedge funds and the like to generate a lot of tax from their activities.

I'm not saying that these two extremes are morally right. It's just how they are, particularly in the UK, where for several decades, the promise/threat of higher taxes for the masses has been an electoral death knell.

pblakeney

What I get from this thread and others like it is that your existence is only worthwhile if you generate money.
What a sad World. With that, I am going back on holiday.

wallace_and_gromit

PBlakeney wrote:

What I get from this thread and others like it is that your existence is only worthwhile if you generate money.

More a case of you'll only get paid to reflect your value to society if you generate money as if you don't generate money you're reliant on the taxpayer who is generous in principle but not in person. (e.g. plenty of folk rant about tax dodgers on forums, using computers etc. bought cheaply off Amazon, benefiting from all manner of "tax management" schemes/set ups.)

Stevo_666

PBlakeney wrote:

What I get from this thread and others like it is that your existence is only worthwhile if you generate money.
What a sad World. With that, I am going back on holiday.

Nobody has said that.

Its more a case of this is the reality of way the world works rather than any moral judgment about peoples existence being worthwhile or not.

mamba80

Stevo 666 wrote:

mamba80 wrote:

whats your opinion on Health care assistants getting that same min wage as say someone working in a warehouse or Tesco's ?

What's your solution anyway? Just dish out more money from those who work hard to everyone else? Think of the impact on the incentive to work hard on those that create the necessary wealth...as has been said before, your type of redistributive solution just makes most people more equally poor.

Well, how about rewarding HCAs for the work they do?? What incentive for them eh? ah, their incentive is if you dont work, you ll not be able to feed your family or you ll get a benefits sanction!!! they work fcuking hard and get sod all, infact have to go cap in hand to the state just so they can afford to live.

so, the CEO of southern Health gets 200k plus, runs an organisation that is giving over payments to suppliers she has links too, one over payment for a tendered contract of 330k was for £5million, another of several 100k for a contract that was never delivered, and these were for contracts re training for management, nowt to do with patient care.
......forget all the deaths that she has resided over with no investigation, yet she stays in post and no one can get this woman out and ensure she doesnt work in NHS again.

there is money in the system WITHOUT rising taxes but we ve also got a tax system that allows people to become fabulously rich, evade their responsibilities and when things go very wrong, they walk away, leaving the tax payer to foot the bill.

Something is clearly v wrong, the tax system needs revision so genuine wealth creators get the breaks they need to create jobs and revenue but the rooney's of this world pay more than 45% and people like the HCA's get the breaks that Green or Ashley do not need.

there is a balance to be struck here and at the mo, that balance is skewed toward the wealthy.

bobmcstuff

Stevo 666 wrote:

Min wage is just that - a minimum. People are free to do better than that if they want and are able. Otherwise thats what the min wage and the benefits system is there for. You can't set these too high because if you pay people a lot of money for doing nothing or not a lot, that's what a lot of people will do...that's just human nature.

In case you hadn't noticed life isn't fair and never will be. We're all dealt a different hand in life and we have to make the most of it.

Of course life isn't fair, and it will always be unfair based on certain factors, but at the moment a lot of unfairness is driven by who your parents are and where you come from rather than how intelligent and driven you are (of course there are always exceptions, as I think you have been alluding to, but that's definitely not the rule). Is that right?

I wouldn't propose trying to artificially warp the labour market to change this but I think we should be making sure that people are suitably equipped to actually meet their potential, because at the moment if you happen to be born in a white working class family in certain regions you are likely to have the lowest academic achievement of any demographic group, the lowest life expectancy and the lowest potential for social mobility.

https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/s ... _Index.pdf - London and the home counties is doing quite well but a lot of other areas are not.

Re health workers specifically as they were mentioned above, since the wages are set by government it's hard to determine exactly what the supply/demand level is for that. One of my neighbours is a health visitor so I know how much she works and some of the cr@p she has to put up with and I was shocked to learn how little they get paid.

wallace_and_gromit

mamba80 wrote:

so, the CEO of southern Health gets 200k plus, runs an organisation that is giving over payments to suppliers she has links too, one over payment for a tendered contract of 330k was for £5million, another of several 100k for a contract that was never delivered, and these were for contracts re training for management, nowt to do with patient care.
......forget all the deaths that she has resided over with no investigation, yet she stays in post and no one can get this woman out and ensure she doesnt work in NHS again.

Link for further details: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-36922039

Whilst this sounds decidely dodgy, this is an example of folk in the right place at the right time "gaming" the system (to be polite) rather than it being the result of what people collectively vote for, so it's no reflection of society's view of the relative worth of CEOs vs health care workers.

The real issue here is that the dog's breakfast of a system we've devised in the UK for providing healthcare involves so many layers and so many intermediate companies that such opportunities for gaming the system are virtually guaranteed.

surrey_commuter

Since the 1960s the % total tax take has fluctuated in a very narrow band. This tells you that upping tax rates does not bring in any more money. On that basis if you want to pay carers more money you have to take it from somewhere else. Realistically the only depts left with fat on the bone are education, health and other welfare benefits. Cutting any of those does not sound half as appealing as hammering fat cats. And just roll your eyes when somebody promises to pay for it all by finding efficiencies.

Stevo_666

mamba80 wrote:

there is money in the system WITHOUT rising taxes but we ve also got a tax system that allows people to become fabulously rich, evade their responsibilities and when things go very wrong, they walk away, leaving the tax payer to foot the bill.

Something is clearly v wrong, the tax system needs revision so genuine wealth creators get the breaks they need to create jobs and revenue but the rooney's of this world pay more than 45% and people like the HCA's get the breaks that Green or Ashley do not need.

there is a balance to be struck here and at the mo, that balance is skewed toward the wealthy.

Not according to the facts and figures...
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/04/26/nearly-half-of-britons-pay-no-income-tax-as-burden-on-rich-incre/

mamba80

Surrey Commuter wrote:

Since the 1960s the % total tax take has fluctuated in a very narrow band. This tells you that upping tax rates does not bring in any more money. On that basis if you want to pay carers more money you have to take it from somewhere else. Realistically the only depts left with fat on the bone are education, health and other welfare benefits. Cutting any of those does not sound half as appealing as hammering fat cats. And just roll your eyes when somebody promises to pay for it all by finding efficiencies.

this tells me that no one has bothered reforming the tax system and that enforcement is lax, (i was once engaged to an Accountant) and that was her view too.

we can devise ways to cut back (and give tiny or no pay rises) on HCAs and other hard working but low paid workers, yet we cannot stop Green or Ashley from exploiting their workers, avoiding their taxes and dumping their responsibilities on the rest of us?

steve0, your link proves too many people are not paid enough thats all.

Stevo_666

bobmcstuff wrote:

Of course life isn't fair, and it will always be unfair based on certain factors, but at the moment a lot of unfairness is driven by who your parents are and where you come from rather than how intelligent and driven you are (of course there are always exceptions, as I think you have been alluding to, but that's definitely not the rule). Is that right?

I wouldn't propose trying to artificially warp the labour market to change this but I think we should be making sure that people are suitably equipped to actually meet their potential, because at the moment if you happen to be born in a white working class family in certain regions you are likely to have the lowest academic achievement of any demographic group, the lowest life expectancy and the lowest potential for social mobility.

Maybe I'm not representative but I'd probably use myself as a decent example of why that isn't the case, coming from a very ordinary family in a bit of an armpit of a seaside town in the North East. No bleating about 'not having a voice' (we've all got a vote) or 'feeling ignored' (do something about it and get yourself noticed), just got on with making the best I could of my own situation. I'm nothing special so don't see why more people can't do this - more about attitude than anything else.

As for the point about who your parents are, any parent will tell you it's the most natural thing in the world to give your kids the best start in life you can. In my view if you work hard and do well, you've earned that right. After all, our kids are in effect extensions of us - our shot at immortality if I'm getting as bit philosophical about it. The same people who object to people helping their kids will gladly apply the same principle to us doing the best for ourselves if given half a chance - I'm not going to let them if I can help it. Even if a lot of Labour MP's send their own kids private Which kind of shows how hard it would be to stop parents trying to do what they can for their kids.

Stevo_666

mamba80 wrote:

steve0, your link proves too many people are not paid enough thats all.

Try reading it all then. Or at least stop ignoring the bits that tell you what you don't want to hear.

For starters, your attempted point about 'the rich' paying too little tax is just BS. And look at the trend...

bobmcstuff

Stevo 666 wrote:

bobmcstuff wrote:

Of course life isn't fair, and it will always be unfair based on certain factors, but at the moment a lot of unfairness is driven by who your parents are and where you come from rather than how intelligent and driven you are (of course there are always exceptions, as I think you have been alluding to, but that's definitely not the rule). Is that right?

I wouldn't propose trying to artificially warp the labour market to change this but I think we should be making sure that people are suitably equipped to actually meet their potential, because at the moment if you happen to be born in a white working class family in certain regions you are likely to have the lowest academic achievement of any demographic group, the lowest life expectancy and the lowest potential for social mobility.

Maybe I'm not representative but I'd probably use myself as a decent example of why that isn't the case, coming from a very ordinary family in a bit of an armpit of a seaside town in the North East. No bleating about 'not having a voice' (we've all got a vote) or 'feeling ignored' (do something about it and get yourself noticed), just got on with making the best I could have my own situation. I'm nothing special so don't see why more people can't do this - more about attitude than anything else.

As for the point about who your parents are, any parent will tell you it's the most natural thing in the world to give your kids the best start in life you can. In my view if you work hard and do well, you've earned that right. After all, our kids are in effect extensions of us - our shot at immortality if I'm getting as bit philosophical about it. The same people who object to people helping their kids will gladly apply the same principle to us doing the best for ourselves if given half a chance - I'm not going to let them if I can help it. Even if a lot of Labour MP's send their own kids private Which kind of shows how hard it would be to stop parents trying to do what they can for their kids.

My girlfriend is also an exception as she's the daughter of a Liverpool boiler fitter and has a clean sweep of As in school and a first in Law from a top ten university (I'm just a normal middle class boy).

But the statistics clearly show that this is the exception and not the rule. It is fact. If you have less access to good schooling and support you are less likely to be socially mobile and less likely to earn lots, live for a long time, etc etc etc.

It's the same as the sporting argument that the best cyclist (by potential) has probably never sat on a bike, and what we're doing in that case is trying to develop cycling (e.g., in Africa) with a view to bringing people through.

You're basically blaming poor people for being poor by casting them as feckless incompetents, which is a stereotypical Conservative attitude. I'm not suggesting that isn't the case in some instances but the situation really isn't that straightforwards and there are numerous external factors involved. At the moment there are whole local authorities where you literally can't do an A-Level (Knowsley, coincidentally, or not, one of the most deprived areas in the UK) without paying to travel elsewhere.

IMO we should be trying to minimise those factors because surely it is better for the country and for tax revenues in the long run if more people are able to meet their potential rather than be curtailed by poor schooling, lack of role models, or just lack of awareness of what can be achieved (and then if people want to be lazy then it really is their own fault). Clearly you had this awareness, as did my girlfriend - she ended up getting sent to a good school 25 miles away in a suburb of Liverpool rather than her local poor performing comp because someone decided she was clever - not everyone does.

Whether there has to be new money or just a rethink of existing funding or whatever I don't know enough to comment. I am not necessarily advocating massive tax rises nor massive immediate changes but surely this is the goal we should be aspiring to.

mamba80

Stevo 666 wrote:

mamba80 wrote:

steve0, your link proves too many people are not paid enough thats all.

Try reading it all then. Or at least stop ignoring the bits that tell you what you don't want to hear.

For starters, your attempted point about 'the rich' paying too little tax is just BS. And look at the trend...

So a multi million cannot pay more? why? because he might end up in a food bank????

the UK has some of the highest numbers of millionaires anywhere in the western world, why is that? and if we ve such a terrible tax system, how come they all want to come here? how come we ve a shitte NHS and lag behind other OECD countries in education spending and out comes?

you ve avoided every point i ve raised, but no surprise there

what do you think a HCA should earn? more or less than an Accountant? and why?

Stevo_666

mamba80 wrote:

Stevo 666 wrote:

mamba80 wrote:

steve0, your link proves too many people are not paid enough thats all.

Try reading it all then. Or at least stop ignoring the bits that tell you what you don't want to hear.

For starters, your attempted point about 'the rich' paying too little tax is just BS. And look at the trend...

So a multi million cannot pay more? why? because he might end up in a food bank????

the UK has some of the highest numbers of millionaires anywhere in the western world, why is that? and if we ve such a terrible tax system, how come they all want to come here? how come we ve a shitte NHS and lag behind other OECD countries in education spending and out comes?

you ve avoided every point i ve raised, but no surprise there

what do you think a HCA should earn? more or less than an Accountant? and why?

I've told you the point Im making but yet again you keep trying to widen this out into a general moan about how unfair it all is. If you stick to the point I'll answer...

They are paying more look at the total amount and the trend :roll: Although the uncomfortable truth is when you ask for too much, the tax take goes down - see Wallaces poi.t about the Laffer curve which backs up my 25 years experience in tax.

wallace_and_gromit

bobmcstuff wrote:

You're basically blaming poor people for being poor by casting them as feckless incompetents, which is a stereotypical Conservative attitude. I'm not suggesting that isn't the case in some instances but the situation really isn't that straightforwards and there are numerous external factors involved. At the moment there are whole local authorities where you literally can't do an A-Level (Knowsley, coincidentally, or not, one of the most deprived areas in the UK) without paying to travel elsewhere.

IMO we should be trying to minimise those factors because surely it is better for the country and for tax revenues in the long run if more people are able to meet their potential rather than be curtailed by poor schooling, lack of role models, or just lack of awareness of what can be achieved (and then if people want to be lazy then it really is their own fault).

I doubt anyone will disagree with your sentiments, but how would you suggest getting from where we are now to a Brave New World where the luck (or lack thereof) around your choice of parents doesn't affect your chances in life?

How, for example, do you deal with some parents not reading to and then with their kids when most middle class parents manage to find the time to read to / with their kids every day for several years?

mamba80

Stevo 666 wrote:

mamba80 wrote:

what do you think a HCA should earn? more or less than an Accountant? and why?

I've told you the point Im making but yet again you keep trying to widen this out into a general moan about how unfair it all is. If you stick to the point I'll answer...

They are paying more look at the total amount and the trend :roll: Although the uncomfortable truth is when you ask for too much, the tax take goes down - see Wallaces poi.t about the Laffer curve which backs up my 25 years experience in tax.

i do not doubt that the rich pay more, that is obvious, 20% of £1m is alot more than 20% of £18k and if the rich are getting richer, then it stands to reason they pay more tax, unless they evade it.

why do i have to stick to your point all the time? i disagree with you, so why dont you answer my point about HCA's pay?

maybe one day you or me will have a stroke and need well motivated and hardworking HCA's to clean us up and i d like to think that society would value their input into making peoples lives bearable slightly more than an IT bod or an Accountant.

bobmcstuff

Wallace and Gromit wrote:

bobmcstuff wrote:

You're basically blaming poor people for being poor by casting them as feckless incompetents, which is a stereotypical Conservative attitude. I'm not suggesting that isn't the case in some instances but the situation really isn't that straightforwards and there are numerous external factors involved. At the moment there are whole local authorities where you literally can't do an A-Level (Knowsley, coincidentally, or not, one of the most deprived areas in the UK) without paying to travel elsewhere.

IMO we should be trying to minimise those factors because surely it is better for the country and for tax revenues in the long run if more people are able to meet their potential rather than be curtailed by poor schooling, lack of role models, or just lack of awareness of what can be achieved (and then if people want to be lazy then it really is their own fault).

I doubt anyone will disagree with your sentiments, but how would you suggest getting from where we are now to a Brave New World where the luck (or lack thereof) around your choice of parents doesn't affect your chances in life?

How, for example, do you deal with some parents not reading to and then with their kids when most middle class parents manage to find the time to read to / with their kids every day for several years?

Well like I said it's clearly a difficult problem and there's not an obvious (cheap) solution.

My girlfriend actually works for Teach First (whose mission statement is "How much you achieve in life should not be determined by how much your parents earn") who are a charity who try to place excellent teachers into schools in disadvantaged areas.

I think there is a tendency to look at problems like this, realise how big, difficult and expensive they would be to solve in their entirety and dismiss them on that basis. When in reality there are lots of causal factors and even small changes to one or other of those factors (like Teach First are trying to achieve) can make a positive difference.

Stevo_666

bobmcstuff wrote:

You're basically blaming poor people for being poor by casting them as feckless incompetents, which is a stereotypical Conservative attitude.

Absolutely not. I'll blame people for not trying or being lazy but not for being poor in itself.