The Economy of Trickle Down

Whenever you hear that there is going to be a tax-cut, what your government is actually doing is giving you a massive middle-finger. They're telling you in no uncertain terms that they don't give a damn about you, that they exist purely to line the pockets of the powerful.

Here in the UK, and recently in the USA, we have a corporation tax so low even Mini-me would struggle to limbo beneath without risk of decapitation. Additionally, both the Tories and the Trump administration, under different guises, have put more money into the pockets of the average Joe, through personal income tax threshold raises and higher allowances. A ruse, to make it seem as though we have more money when in fact we don't. It says, we're giving these corporations a break, and you too! Everyone wins!

The UK is already socialist - duh!

There's some legitimate trolls out there that know full well we're a democratic socialist country, but there are also quite a lot of people who seem to run from the word, as though it's poison. Copy-pasted below a solid explanation for reference.

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It seems in general people do not understand that they have Democratic Socialist principles.

1.) Sending your child to a non-private school is Socialist.
2.) Paying for healthcare via National Insurance and using the NHS is Socialist.
3.) Having free access to the legal system is Socialist.
4.) Being paid a wage that covers your costs, a fair wage is Socialist.
5.) Expecting a state pension, paying into one, and being paid one is Socialist.
6.) Having access to Social Security, the welfare state is Socialist.
7.) Having an affordable transport system is Socialist.
8.) Having protected areas like National Parks and Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty is Socialist.
9.) Going for your Sunday walk.....being able to have the right to freely roam across broad swathes of this land via footpaths and bridle ways is Socialist.
10.) Believing that there should be affordable housing built by the State is Socialist.

Now talking to people, it seems that most people expect these things, and take them for granted. But they say that they are not Socialist, as if it's a dirty word. I say, but if you believe in these things, if you want them, then you are Socialist! It certainly makes them think. When I explain that Labour now at last has a true Democratic Socialist leader again, and tell them that Clement Attlee, officially Britain's greatest Prime Minister, created most of the above, and is much like Jeremy Corbyn, it certainly makes them think.

95 percent of people under Labours manifesto will see NO TAX RISES!!
Atos, G4S paid no corporation tax last year despite carrying out £2 billion of taxpayer-funded work

If anyone wants to pay me £150,000 a year, I'll happily give up £5425 a year extra for a better society. If you disagree with that idea, you may know the price of everything but you know the value of nothing.

Let's Talk Tax

This is how taxable income for someone earning over £80k pa is broken down in real terms. Is an extra £62.50 per month too much to ask to help the NHS and education of our children? (Example figures based on 95K a year salary).

Feel free to copy and paste to your status if you agree.

[ Anne Callaghan ]

Rise, like lions after slumber
In unvanquishable number!
Shake your chains to earth like dew
Which in sleep had fallen on you:
Ye are many—they are few!

[ Percy Bysshe Shelley ]

It's not me they fear... it's you...

There's a turning point on the horizon, it's hard to deny. The election has awoken people, young and old, or those in the middle like me. It was the first election in my lifetime that felt like I was voting for something different, and I'm sure it felt that way for many, not the few.

But it's not over yet. The Tories could miraculously pass their Queen's Speech next week, meaning the words debated this week and the pomp and ceremony were not just the hollow sentiments of people clinging to power. I don't know. It's such a desperate moment for May, and the Tories, and their Queen's speech is a gamble. They gambled before and lost. Hopefully we'll get the same result again.

Even if they win, good luck getting anything through Parliament. Unfortunately, one of the biggest concerns, the asset-stripping of the NHS, seems to be going on behind the scenes. The Queen's Speech needs to fail for the good of it.

Join the Labour Party.

Countering Tory logic

Just noting some counterlogic I've attempted in debate(s) with pro-Tories, (for myself more than anyone else's benefit). It's difficult for either side when there is such a basic ideological divide, and when, both left and right, you have been exposed to pro-left or pro-right media and pretty much nothing else.

“Say goodbye to Gilbraltar, the Falklands, Northern Ireland and Scotland.”

 - Couldn’t find this in the manifesto. At this point the Scots could go whether Labour or the Tories are in, and considering that many of SNP’s core beliefs mirror the Labour manifesto, I would say the chance of retaining the UK as it is, is higher with Labour being in. The Scots are pissed off about austerity measures being imposed on them from Westminster – THIS will be the main reason they choose to leave, given the chance again, should they do so.

“The top wealthy moving their money out of the U.K. Small Buisnesses collapsing when their tax rises. Corporations moving their head offices away from London to Poland due to being hit with huge tax rises, which Germany would love as they want to end Londons supremasy on this”

- The idea that corporations or the mega-rich will just leave the country if taxes are raised is a constant fearmongering tactic in the hard-right propaganda rags against progressive taxation. The rate of corporation tax is not the sole determining factor in where a corporation locates itself, or they’d all be in the Bahamas at 0%. Oh wait, that’s where the tax dodgers are.

- Anyone who thinks it would be easy and costless for a major corporation like Rolls Royce or Unilever to just shut down production in the UK and shift it overseas isn’t seeing the bigger picture.

- Constantly cutting corporation tax rates will only result in a "race to the bottom" scenario.

- Corporations have a responsibility to contribute towards stuff like the infrastructure that they and their customers use, the existence of the legal system and the emergency services, the in-work benefits that are paid to their employees, and the education of their workforce.

- Corporations aren’t going to abandon Britain just because Labour puts the Corporation Tax rate up to 26% (still the lowest in the G7).

- Anyone who thinks a billionaire who is so self-serving that they would just up sticks and leave the country over a slight change in tax rate is not already stashing their cash in tax havens (and therefore unaffected by such a change) is narrow minded

“Russia, North Korea seeing us as a great target due to our nuclear arms not being renewed. Such a stupid thing to be doing in such an unstable world. Security under this idiot will change Regardless of what he says.”

The Labour party is a democracy – the Trident deterrent will be renewed. North Korea are not the aggressors now  – they were decimated in the 50s and are now more concerned about protecting themselves rather than being aggressive. Nuclear war is not the threat that we face, it’s guerrilla tactics on the street. We need more police officers. We need to look at why it’s unstable and perhaps not be the ones destabilising it.

“People will end up having to sell their family homes due to the garden tax that this idiot thinks he is going to bring in.”

Labour have explicitly stated that there is not going to be a garden tax. There’ll be a CT review to make it fairer (I’d like more details too). But they have said they’ll not be introducing a separate Land Value Tax on residential property. Maybe if you have a commercial business there’ll be some impact.

“Borrow billions from the world bank To fund his wild array of manifesto promises which will yet again cause us to go back into the red for yet another Tory government in four years time to come along and cut services in order to repair the damage.”

The manifesto is costed – it would be funded by a raise in the top 5%. “Borrow billions from the world bank” is empty rhetoric in real-world terms. 97% of the economy is electronic cash, most of which is created out of nothing at the moment a private bank makes a loan. The electronic money is then destroyed when the loan is repaid. Lastly, Tory cuts haven’t repaired jack, it’s worse than ever.

“Also even under Labour the richer get richer and the poorer get poorer. As sad as it is this is the way of the world and very country is the same. It's just we have been more generous in giving tax payers money to people. It is also fact that giving benedits to,people does not help the children out of poverty as in many of our large inner cities where these problems are rife the many single parent families take the money for themselves and spend it on drink and drugs. The answer is to lower benefits and make people get a part time job to make up the short fall. By doing this people start to have a sense of pride in themselves and attitudes would change.”

True: the rich tend to hold on to their riches no matter the government – does that show that under Labour they can therefore afford to pay a bit more tax? Or that they are unaffected by tax rate changes as they hold their money in offshore accounts? Sure with lower tax under Tory they’d get a bit more money for investment, but you then have to trust that they invest and not simply take a larger slice of the pie for their CEOs. I think I’d rather bank it with the current Labour to invest in public services. I agree in some regards with the benefits and children in poverty, but we differ ideologically. I don’t let those who take advantage of the system cloud my vision for a greater overall society where the public services are all funded as much as they need to be. And I would do whatever I could to ensure the children don’t suffer, be it free school meals, no rich/poor divide with universities, greater investment in youth projects, and so on.