Of course its the politics of jealousy, otherwise why mention it. Why shouldn't enterprising people, who employ others therefore creating jobs, therefore creating wealth, have the trappings of success ? You’d rather tax them to death so that the feckless can carry on infesting the town centre ?? So where’s the incentive to do well, to achieve, to employ ?? None if you’ve to see what you’ve earned taken to provide for those who’d rather lie in bed all morning. Politics of jealousy well and truly alive and well and thriving.
I wasn't suggesting that most business owners are working for nothing. That's ridiculous. I was suggesting that most businesses are small to mid size businesses owned by people who have at stages risked everything and or not paid themselves at times when circumstances dictated to keep their business afloat and keep employing and paying their staff. I really don't think you believed that I said people who have now achieved the success their sacrifices deserve still don't pay themselves, even though they have a flash car. And why shouldn't they have a flash car. They have earned it.
Can you give the source to back up your assertions or do you just make things up as you go along? (most of your messages on first reading them see to be quite erudite but on closer study are essentially fatuous.) For a start can I suggest you access the Office for National Statistics or the Resolution Foundation for their conclusions on this issue. It may also be an idea for you to address the issue of why at this present time the rich are getting richer and the poor getting poorer and put in in context of the statement I made in my OP.
Your whole political outlook seems to come from your views on people in the town centre. Well that's what 9 years of a Tory government will get you.
That’s a lot of words without saying anything other than ‘suggesting’ I’m wrong. If you’ve got a point you should try to make it.
I never suggested they shouldn’t! but I do think (as do you) that their employees should be paid fairly. So for that to happen in my realist world, they’d have to take less themselves in order to pay their staff more. Whereas you’ve fallen into the trap of just complaining that people aren’t getting paid enough and blaming immigrants. When the people who actually have the spreadsheet in front of them choose to take more for themselves leaving me and you to top up the income of their employees from our taxes. but y’know ... immigrants eh?
The ONS measures poverty in relative terms (poverty is measured as a % of average earnings), anyone with GCSE maths will tell you that removing the highest numbers from a mean, lowers the mean. Ergo just removing the very rich without even redistributing that wealth would ‘officially’ lift people out of poverty. which was my point 3 above. If you’ve got a different way of calculating averages I’d be interested to hear it. I’d also love to read your theory on the reasons for the income gap, why it’s higher in the UK than in our European competitors, and anything else useful you could add to the debate.
Well LT I have to agree and disagree on what you said.When I bought my first house early 70s I paid £1300 pounds for a 2up2down terrace.At that time I could have bought a 3 bedroom detached stone house up Kexbrough for£3500.I had 2 kids and the wife didn’t work.I was truck driving and earned about £20 odd pounds a week. I had all the usual bills electric,gas,rates,mortgage,food and just managed.No mobile phones,No computers,a week away in Skipsea a year but what I am getting at is that I could not claim anything because I was working,what I earned that was it and you managed.Nowdays you can both work and earn many thousands a year and there are a raft of benefits they can claim. That to me is disgusting,what the hell is that all about.Live within your means and if they can’t afford it ,Don’t buy it. People these days want a 4bedroom detached house,3 cars in the drive,Apple phones,computers,and 3foreign holidays a year in their first year of marriage,they make me laugh.Dont anybody get on to me and say it was different in them days,yes it was it was bloody harder.
The richest 1000 UK families have more money than the poorest 40% combined. If only they weren't so lazy they could be as rich. /sarcasm.
Maths not a strong point? I really don’t know where to start. it seems many of the older generation haven’t grasped that there’s no correlation between the ever reducing costs of consumer goods and technology with ‘standard of living’. It’s also telling that apparently tax credits which actually subsidise business are seen as a failure of the poor to ‘live within their means’. back to the maths. how does a family of 4 with one earner on minimum wage afford a 4 bed detached and 3 holidays a year? We earn about 5x minimum wage and can’t afford that! Of course tax credits would increase their income to a max of £25k (benefit cap) still a million miles off that shortfall. for fun, look at an inflation calculator, see what those earnings equal in today’s terms and then see how the house prices have fared over the same period. Im afraid our generation really did take a bit more than our share thanks to Thatchers govt creating an economy bubble based on property investment.
OK, so your £1300 2 bedroom house was paid for using your '£20 odd pounds a week' wage. For the sake of argument, let's say '20 odd pounds' was £25. That means you bought a house for 1x your annual salary. The average house price in the UK is now £234,853 and average salary £29,009. So to buy an average priced house on average salary these days you need 8x your salary. "Dont anybody get on to me and say it was different in them days,yes it was it was bloody harder." You had it 8x easier.
I've just done a mortgage finder on money supermarket. And to buy a 4 bed detached house in blacker hill with a 10,000 deposit over 35 years (buying at 20 retiring at 65) I can get a mortgage for £530 a month. I'll say the same as I've said many times. I have a £100k house on minimum wage. If I can afford it others can. It's about making the right choices.
You’re accepting the premise that people aren’t living within their means by showing that you do. That’s an odd way to prove a point. that house on Blacker Hill requires an income well above ‘average’ let alone the benefit cap, so rather proves my point.
Yes it does require one above average but then having 3 kids was a choice right? What I was getting at was that if somebody wants to they can afford a more than decent property if they work full time and that unless they have children they don't need to claim any benefits. Especially not in this area. Minimum wage round here is enough for a nice house, season ticket, sky, takeaway and holidays. It wasn't really a point regarding living within your means more as that wages are enoigh to have a good life on