Politics Thread!

[gravy]

That place being to open the fucking gates for the chief whip?

I was a bit "Why didn't they just open the gates, it's just gates innit?" at first until I saw clip of them opening the main gates for some car leaving number 10. It's looks like a right todo involving three people while there's a little side gate next to it that's easily operated.

Best you learn your fucking place. You don't run this fucking government ... You're fucking plebs. I'll have your fucking job for this.

What a stupid toff.

[Darkflame]

Crazy idea: Anyone in a job paying, say, over a million a year has to take every other year off - effectively doubling the number of million-paying jobs.
The millionaires in their "year off" will be, of course, spending a lot more money on entertainment, holidays etc.

Essentially, rather then taxing the rich more, your limiting the amount of work they can do.

I am sure theres admin problems with this idea, but I am also sure theres plenty more people skilled enough then there is "top slots".

[pogo]

But millionaires, or other highly paid people, are there for a reason. You can't ask professional footballers to take a year off and have some ordinary joe take over for a season. Or you could, but which team and set of fans would agree it's the best move. The same goes for pop stars, film stars and their fans.

Well paid people are there because they have talents and skills that can't be replaced. If they could be replaced with cheaper people it would happen very quickly: no-one pays anyone £1,000,000 a year unless they absolutely have to.

If you think bankers and financiers are paid too much I agree with that. But the solution is to shrink the size of the banks and financial sector as a whole, as the government is doing. The high pay is a symptom of the problem which is too many too-big-to-fail institutions. Eventually there will be far fewer high paying jobs in that industry and rewards for those at the top will be much less. We will lose some tax revenue but the welfare of the country will improve as those who now go into the city will instead use their talents in a more worthwhile way.

[Dio]

But millionaires, or other highly paid people, are there for a reason.

The correlation between financial reward and talent is there, but much looser than you claim in my experience.

It's arguable that Michael Lewis' writing career is about exposing this from one angle or another, from one angle in Liar's Poker about the investment banking game or indeed the reverse in Moneyball which shows how talented people who don't look the part won't make the money.

It's true well away from the banking field as well - in the medical field, your worth is determined by how much private practice you do. An A&E consultant can't make as much as a surgeon.

[(o)(o)]

The top rate tax rate raised revenue. How can you say it "didn't work" ??

One way of raising revenue would be a proper GAAR, and to go after the aforementioned tax gap which is £FUCKLOADS. Wealthy people are always threatening to leave if we don't capitulate 100% to their demands, but historically there's little evidence that they ever do that in significant numbers.

The top rate raised no money; the amount collected after it was introduced was no different from the amount collected before. We discussed this at the time the results came in.

You made an absolute statement - even HMRC didn't go that far.

It was not a surprising result; tax revenue follows the Laffer curve, where above a certain rate you collect less. We learned that our Laffer curve peaks around 40-50%.

What we learned are that there are so many tax loopholes, cash we should be able to collect is pissing out of the bucket into rich peoples bank accounts.

Laffer curve have been analyzed to maximize revenue at 75% and higher, including by His Lordship Paul Krugman.

And why did we collect less? One reason will be rich people leaving, as many are rich enough to chose where they live. They mostly don't threaten to leave. They know their voices count for little, and will be seen as rich people whining. They just do it.

This is some sort of inverse reality! As I said, there is little evidence of the rich flocking off as they say they will do. They make threats - idle threats - and rather than counting for little, those threats appear to affect policy. Remember this little letter?

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/lett ... neurs.html

Again, see e.g. how the tax rise simply didn't work: without announcing it rich people made themselves non-domicile and did other perfectly legal things to reduce their tax bill.

Again, you're making a very strong case for a GAAR. Isn't it about time we stopped making excuses for the uberwealthy?

[(o)(o)]

We're redistributing more than ever though.

Yep.. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... gland.html

[pogo]

You made an absolute statement - even HMRC didn't go that far.

What we learned are that there are so many tax loopholes, cash we should be able to collect is pissing out of the bucket into rich peoples bank accounts.

Laffer curve have been analyzed to maximize revenue at 75% and higher, including by His Lordship Paul Krugman.

Here's the HMRC report
http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/budget2012/exche ... x-2042.pdf
You are right, I over simplified it; the HMRC are less clear whether it had a positive or negative impact:

The conclusion that can be drawn from the Self Assessment data is therefore that the underlying yield from the additional rate is much lower than originally forecast (yielding around £1 billion or less), and that it is quite possible that it could be negative.

It's worth pointing out that that even that £1bn is a small fraction of the potential revenue. If the increase from 40% to 50% had just been paid with no changes in behaviour it would have collected £6.5bn, which suggests at least 80% of the tax was avoided and the rise had far more of a distorting effect than it claimed in revenues.

The longer term impact is likely to be even worse:

The longer the additional rate remains in place the more people are likely to consider it a permanent feature of the UK tax system and the more damaging it would be for competitiveness. This suggests the negative impact on GDP may increase over time, and therefore the direct yield (and revenues from other tax bases) might fall over time toward or beyond zero.

The point about the Laffer curve is it's it's not something that can be read off from the economy under normal circumstances as it involves too many hypotheticals of the "what would people do if...?" variety, hypotheticals that people are reluctant to provide answers to until they are required. Questions like "what if anything would you do to avoid tax were the rate to hit 50%?"

So a real-world experiments such as the one done here provides very valuable data for such models. And the result of it was pretty clear: the Laffer curve for the UK economy peaks around 50%. This is shown on page 31 of that report

A.23. The Laffer curve for the 0.45 TIE shows that the estimated revenue-maximising rate of tax for those with incomes over £150,000 is between 45 per cent and 50 per cent, and that the Exchequer impact of varying the rate close to this level is relatively low.

I.e. it's not 75% here. Of course that's clearly what they think in France, as they plan to raise the top rate to that to presumably collect more tax (I assume there are economic reasons for it and they wouldn't be stupid enough to do it out of spite). We will find out soon whether they are right.

[Darkflame]

But millionaires, or other highly paid people, are there for a reason. You can't ask professional footballers to take a year off and have some ordinary joe take over for a season. Or you could, but which team and set of fans would agree it's the best move. The same goes for pop stars, film stars and their fans.

Well paid people are there because they have talents and skills that can't be replaced. If they could be replaced with cheaper people.

Seems very unlikely to me they are irreplaceable,
I am not even saying cheaper people - merely theres almost certainly double (or more) people that can do those jobs then there is those jobs for them.

So, I am not saying "ordinary joe" replacing them, I am saying "theres probably enough others just as good"....that could still be 0.001% of the population or less.

The examples you list are awkward for other reasons though - film stars cant stop halfway into a film. Best selling authors dont work to schedules at all etc. So theres exceptions - or at least, things that would need to be worked out.
But in principle "make more people employed doing the same amount of jobs" is more workable longterm then trying to constantly make new jobs.

Finally football fans : sod 'um. Having more high-end "stars" could actually help.

[pogo]

If such people existed don't you think they would already be employed? I mean a top football club needs 22 (or however many) highly paid individuals to form a squad. If there were also 22 people who could do the same job but weren't employed as footballers then someone would find them, hire them and conquer the leagues with their cut-price talent.

As for football the same for all other industries that employ a few rich people. If they could do the same with cheaper staff they would, or someone else would and would out-compete them. They can't though as there aren't enough people with the required skills. And because there aren't enough of them the few that there are get paid very well.

[Harlequin]

If such people existed don't you think they would already be employed? I mean a top football club needs 22 (or however many) highly paid individuals to form a squad. If there were also 22 people who could do the same job but weren't employed as footballers then someone would find them, hire them and conquer the leagues with their cut-price talent.

If the only people capable of playing top-class football are already employed in that capacity, does that mean that they must never be allowed to retire because nobody can replace them? What will happen when they die? Will the sport die with them?

[merman]

So, the failed bidding process for the West Coast Main Line has cost the taxpayer £40 million and meant a new bidding system will have to be decided on.

But over on the East Coast, under Government control, the line made an extra £13 million last year, carried 2% more passengers, increased customer satisfaction and the best punctuality rate since 1999.

What makes more sense - running the West Coast in the same way, or passing away more money and letting a private company make more cuts to maintain profitability?

[pogo]

Well we're out of recession. Not a surprise as the 0.5% drop due to the extra bank holiday came out of the figures this quarter, accounting for half the rise. Another 0.2% was the expected boost due to the olympics.

So only 0.3% once one-off factors are removed. Still better though than many predictions. And if you remove the 0.5% it should also be removed from the previous quarter, changing that from 0.4% fall to a 0.1% rise. So disregarding one-off factors we came out of recession three months ago, making it a very short and shallow recession, compared to the one in 2008-2009:

[Absolute_Zero]

The 'Ireland' thread seems to have suffocated due to a [temporary, I'm sure] lack of bad news to fap/cry over.

One thing I'd like to point up for lack of mention: not so much George (though he's eating it,) much more Vince, but over the term, the coalition is implementing the most progressive taxation measure in my entire recall of such... which reaches back to Chancellor Roy Jenkins. The dramatic increases in personal allowance.

[merman]

Pogo, just to correct what you posted. 0.2% of the growth is down to the Olympic and Paralympic ticket sales. Much of the rest comes from the increase in tourism due to the Olympics and part-time work created by the games.

The underlying truth is that factory output has not recovered to 2009 levels, retail sales are still weak and job losses in manufacturing are continuing (witness Ford and Kimberley Clark this week cutting more than 3000 between them). The next quarter's figures will be more telling, and this quarter will be revised downwards.

[pogo]

Pogo, just to correct what you posted. 0.2% of the growth is down to the Olympic and Paralympic ticket sales. Much of the rest comes from the increase in tourism due to the Olympics and part-time work created by the games.

The underlying truth is that factory output has not recovered to 2009 levels, retail sales are still weak and job losses in manufacturing are continuing (witness Ford and Kimberley Clark this week cutting more than 3000 between them). The next quarter's figures will be more telling, and this quarter will be revised downwards.

Yes, they 0.2% only measures those direct contributions. There's a lot more doubt over other Olympic contributions though, as many saw a drop in business when they were on and other tourists stayed away, particularly in London, almost all the workers during the games were volunteers, while games-related construction was almost all done by the quarter. You can argue that the Olympics was a drag on the economy this year as the large construction projects ended and laid off many workers.

And there's no knowing now which way the figures will be revised: they are a first estimate but assuming the statisticians are doing their job the uncertainty should be the same on the upside and downside. It's very unlikely they'll change so much that the recession hasn't ended.