Hey man, if people would stop buying their mocha lattes, internet, phones, computers, and netflix, they could save so much money that they could upgrade their carboard box in the park to a carboard box mansion! /s
You've not gone far enough, they need to give up the Avocado on toast for any chance of that happing. /s
In all seriousness though, I think the current generation of 20-30 yo are increasingly giving up on any plan to buy a house, ever. They are making the decision that even with sacrifices it's unattainable, and so they just want to enjoy themselves. And eat the avocado on toast.
Consider yourself lucky you're not across the sea in the Netherlands. Inflation is 14%+ and household purchasing power is below the level it was 20 years ago.
I'm not so sure, there are more "shy" conservatives than people realise. Moving towards the centre will stabilise the party, and if they do loose the next election there is an inherent culling of the current crop of right wind MPs.
The likely hood is that, if Labour win, they will be faced with such a mess that they will struggle to make the necessary improvements. The conservatives, will move towards the centre, and with the right leader could regain power after a single term out.
The left is fragmented (party wise), the right is not. Labour will always have an uphill battle unless we have electoral reform.
This is such a simplified viewpoint. The UK has never been able to collect more than 39%-40% of GDP in taxes. And that's what the level is at now. Already everyone is paying as much tax as in history. (and the "rich" pay a lot of that, remember you pay £0 tax under £15,000 income per year).
You can try and tax more, but it's highly unlikely to work based on past experience. And in these cases, like with corporation tax, usually the government actually collects more tax revenue at 20% than at 30%. So again, I'd prefer factual taxation, not virtue signalling.
If only there was some form of large market close by that the UK could be a member of so that the UK could trade with them in a frictionless manner and expand the economies of both areas through trade. That would increase the GDP and hence the amount of money the government could have available to it through taxation.
But I don't think there is anything like that around. I mean, if there was, why the hell wouldn't they be lining up to become a member of it? There's only upside there.
But the UK has run a trade deficit of $60bn with the EU for the last 10 years or so. Leaving hasn't helped that, but staying wouldn't have either.
Something has to change in the relationship - something deep and real. The fundamental is the competitive advantage that the Euro confers on the German economy. Brexit is a way it can change overtime, there won't be an advantage for the UK, just an emergent state that is sustainable. The UK will be poorer in the present - but may avoid a Greece style implosion.
I fail to see which advantage is conferred by the Euro to the German economy, at least in the relationship with UK.
Unlike Germany, UK has always been free to establish any exchange rate they desired, between GBP and EUR. So only UK could have any advantages from the manipulation of the currencies.
Within the countries that use EUR, it can be claimed that Germany has the advantage that the other countries cannot cheat and compensate other economic problems by playing with the exchange rate. In my opinion that is a good thing, because stealing money from the people by devaluating their assets through artificial exchange rates is not the right solution for solving international commerce imbalances.
If the Euro was a currency backed by the economies of Germany, Holland and Denmark it would be valued much more highly than it is now. Because of this these economies have a relative competitive advantage compared to other similar economies.
If the Euro was part of a federal system with federal transfers - like the US$ then this advantage would be mitigated because the budget positions of the rich parts of the EU would be relatively weaker (due to transfers) and the periphery of the EU would have stronger fiscal positions.
>In my opinion that is a good thing, because stealing money from the people by devaluating their assets through artificial exchange rates is not the right solution for solving international commerce imbalances.
Fair opinion - but what is the solution? Do you agree that federalisation with fiscal transfer would be correct?
The only reason Germany become such an export powerhouse is because their currency was lower than what it would have been naturally as a country. Because countries like Greece and Italy pulled the euro down.
This was very convenient for Germany as they could build exports cheaply.
If you don’t understand this, which is a very basic part of how the eu ended up as what it is, I would just question the rest of your commenting.
I don't blame Germans and Germany for taking advantage, but the political maturity to use this to create security and prosperity for everyone in Europe is completely lacking. I suppose unification and the problems afterwards are somewhat to blame.
Very nice, but the EU is probably going to decline in GDP more than the UK, and the euro could potentially collapse due to the Italy situation in the next few years.
Thinking the UKs issues are because of brexit are about as simplistic as saying “tax the rich will solve all the worlds issues”
It doesn't follow, but history post 2016 wasn't written in gold if the UK had stayed in. The north of England, the central belt of Scotland and the south of Wales were in a terrible state. Brexit has failed to help, but remaining almost certainly wouldn't have either. The biggest issue the UK has experienced since leaving is Covid-19. Remaining wouldn't have helped us in that contingency.
The UK has blamed Europe for it's ills for 40 years. Remainers/rejoiners are still centered on this - we have to start to look to ourselves. Being in or out of Europe is not at issue; working to build a sustainable national economy and polity is.
South of Wales benefitted greatly from EU funds. From renovating coal tips to employment schemes. I don't understand your point here, it was the EUs fault that the UK had run down regions... even though the EU gave them money????
>The UK has blamed Europe for it's ills for 40 years. Remainers/rejoiners are still centered on this
This makes no sense at all
>we have to start to look to ourselves.
Are you suggesting that we shouldn't have international trade?
Very important for people to understand this. For high earners (100-200k), marginal tax rates can already pass 60%. That is an income which is locally considered very high but compared to our Atlantic cousins is somewhat more normal.
I will be thousands of pounds worse off per year under the new tax plans, but I'm OK with that because I understand that it is necessary. However, we are rapidly approaching most people's tolerance limit in this regard; unless the next government does a very good job of tackling economic injustice it feels like people will just give up - at which point the only way is down.
Now, what "give up" really looks like is key - I feel like widespread civil unrest is far closer than most people realize, but before that there will be a further decline in social cohesion. Right now it feels like this story is being masked by the Ukraine situation.
Becaus of the “high income child tax” and student loan repayments marginal tax rates at just 50k hit 70%. They drop again at 60k, but it’s tricky to justify working extra hard for a £5k pay rise when you only keep £2k of it.
Doesn’t help that you can’t file jointly in the U.K. either.
The thing with that is corporations can defer profits until the rate falls again, while in the mean time you encourage people to open new premises elsewhere. So the take is not remotely linear in the percentage.
> This is such a simplified viewpoint. The UK has never been able to collect more than 39%-40% of GDP in taxes. And that's what the level is at now. Already everyone is paying as much tax as in history.
This has a double meaning: (1) “everybody” meaning the whole body, and (2) “everybody” meaning each tax-paying individual.
The two are not the same: it can be true that the whole body of taxpayers is paying the same amount (proportionately) into the GDP as always, while more of that proportion comes from the lower and middle classes than it historically has.
The same as usually: increase the taxable base, not the tax percentage. Tax a larger base moderately than trying to out-tax the last dribbles of a dwindling, current economy.
To do this, work politically to make it easy and lucrative to do business and increase overall wealth, and make it productive and worthwhile for individuals to get more by working more.
I was aware of the biscuit thing, but think it should just be rolled out more widely. We sort of have that with luxury cars, but an across the board increase of VAT to 30% on high-end goods is really what going for - defining luxury goods is left as an exercise for the reader.
Because they effectively pay 85% tax on the income already. Look up the Crown Estate. The UK government taking it over would result in it being sold off at bargain basement prices to fund a voter winning 5 min fix and there'd be nothing to show for it in 50 years.
There was a tax measure on the ballot here in California and the argument against was "taxes are theft from people who probably have better use for that money"
If that’s true, why isn’t that the party line? Every tax-reductionist I’ve heard from talks to the moral crime of high taxation, and the necessity to cut reliance on the government. I have not heard (as a regular person outside of academic circles) any politician argue that reducing taxes will increase revenue. Given how trivial this concept is to validate (cut taxes and see revenue go up) why hasn’t it been implemented?
Honestly, because since Blair the conservatives have been playing politics in labour's court, and labour's language and labour's politics. There hasn't been a clear and good communicator in the conservative party since... I want to say Thatcher?
The facts of this are true. When corp tax decreased from 28% to 20% tax take actually increased. But the conservatives seem unable to communicate this properly. It's sad to be honest. The "science" is there. But blaming the "Tories who want to reduce taxes on the rich and screw you" seems to be the talking point, not facts.