Rachel Reeves Funding Review

Social care costs are horrendous. It's no wonder a lot of Asian families look after their own by having the in laws move in with them to look after them themselves.

 

My mum helped a friend now and then with her mum and mum in law before the pandemic. One has now died, but the other still needs lots of care. They made the choice to look after them at home, spent lots converting space and also spent a decent amount on professional in house care etc. But the toll on her and her family is huge. They've been looking after their parents for over a decade so have certainly saved money, but the costs aren't only financial.

 

Take the scenario,
John and Joe, twins, both leave school at 16 and while Joe spends a working lifetime in local industry and doing cash in hand jobs which enables him to go on foreign holidays every year and generally piss his wages up against the wall or regular donations to the bookies.
Spends his working life living in a council house and is regularly in arrears with his rent. Reaches retirement age with rock all savings, no house of his own and becomes ill and needs to go into a care home.
Costs him nothing.
Meanwhile, his twin John, working in the same industry spends money and time gaining qualifications to improve himself. Saves and scrimps to buy his own house. When his grown up kids return from serving in the forces and leaving Uni with a degree and no student loan, he buys a property for them to live in whilst they save for their own.
Reaches retirement age and becomes ill and needs to go into a care home.
Costs him his life savings and property.
Fair?

 

https://people.com/couple-spends-nearly-two-years-living-on-back-to-back-cruise-vacations-8304111

 

No need to apologise it wasn't a dig.

 

Lots of those will either be unaware, or too proud to ask for handouts so to speak.

 

Of course it's not fair and anyone who says different is imo a liar. The problem is, lots/most of people who claim benefits through no fault of their own (crap wages etc, unable to pour money into a pension pot) get tarred with the same brush.

It's not easy to sort out. And their will allus be shirkers. Nothing unusual about that. I remember a bloke on my street. In his 40's/50s during the early 70's blatatantly saying one day. "This is my last shift. I'll get as much ont dole with benefits" 6/7kids Scandalous. It'd be harder today given he would have had to seek work not just rock up at the dole office and lie through his teeth.

 

Yep. Why should everyone else pay for John when he has the means to do so himself?

 

He was gutted that he registered himself in Donny North rather than his other home in Pershore or that way on. Donny North didn’t have a Reform UK candidate…

 

I did see a cruise advertised the other day - LA to New York over ~6 months taking in 34 countries on the way - although it was £60k each (but you did get a free business class return flight to join it).

 

I'm sure you don't mean it to be, but that is exactly the argument used by Maga Americans against Universal health care.

 

I've already briefed my wife and kids that If I need to go in a home but happen to get a moment of clarity, I will be killing myself. All arrangements, video messages etc will be sorted while I'm still able and I won't be doing it in a way to frighten, scar or traumatise anyone else.
I'll be ****** if I'm going to put all this effort into work for my family not to benefit.

 

I told my kids years ago that theyre never to put me in a care home. I said as soon as I start drooling and talking ballcocks, shove a pillow in my face and finish me off.
The young un ran upstairs and came back wi a pillow.
Git.

 

There's a £20bn hole in public finances that has to be filled in order not to add further austerity to that of the past 16 years. Labour should tax the extremely wealthy. For the record that's nobody on here.

It's worth reading that paragraph a few times to let the disparity in this country sink in.

Labour should tax them hard and if necessary give them a statue or name a dog park after them. How much they do so will tell us what we need to know about their willingness to rebalance the economy and restore public services to good, functioning levels.

 

I think this is the issue. The fastest way to shore up the economy is to look at taxing big companies like Amazon correctly. And ensuring they pay correct rents for their supermassive warehouses. Not some granny who has a house and a rainy day saving fund.

 

Why do people keep trotting out this line.

We cannot tax the wealthy. They are a commodity which every country is vying for. If we tax them more, they will move their assets and/or themselves to somewhere which doesn't. We're competing with the likes of Dubai, The Caymans and Monaco with a 0% tax rate and countries throughout the world who offer the mega-rich 'golden visas'. Portugal is a great example of this.

We make money from the super rich living here, paying huge taxes on houses, cars and other luxury items. If we tax them more, lovely as that sounds, most will leave and we as a nation will lose out financially.

 

So by your logic why are they not already living in these countries?

 

I think this is a very simplistic view of the situation. Do you really think the mega rich are living in Hull rather than the Cayman islands because of the tax incentives?

Most of the super rich pay their accountants to dodge most of this tax anyway. And I guess therein lies the real issue. It takes a lot longer to try and squeeze some of the billions in tax out of them than the £50 from Doris.

 

I work with the super-rich. It's not my logic, it's reality.

The super-rich live here due to the non-dom tax status, which meant they weren't taxed on income earned abroad, the removal of which has already seen many leave, or reduce time spent in the UK.

They indeed don't live in Hull, they live in Kensington and Belgravia amongst other international locations. If taxing the rich was easy, or profitable - everyone would be doing it.

 

So you’re saying they live here because side they don’t need to pay as much tax. Which bit of this is wrong are we not getting?