EU referendum are you in or out

[KlaxonCow]

He should have a platform based on taxing the rich and become the Bernie Sanders of the UK. Make all the fuckers who earn 100k or more pay very high taxes. Of course MPs excluded or they won't vote for it.

He does have that platform. Although, it's over 80K, not 100K.

This bloke on BBC's "Question Time" weirdly got all angry about it:

https://twitter.com/bbcquestiontime/sta ... 6940608514

It's funny because he gets angry, calling Labour "liars", and some of the audience seems to be with him, until they realise that what he's claiming is that, earning over 80K a year, Labour are "liars" that they're only taxing the top 5%. As he's utterly convinced that he's not well off on £80K a year and loads of other professions earn more than him, which they don't. In fact, he's convinced that he's not in the top 50% - a claim he makes at one point - which means he thinks he's earning less than average on 80K a year.


(Now this I find particularly interesting. Because I've covered before - posting a TED talk about it - how it's scientifically demonstrable that resource windfall - being rich - triggers a decrease in pro-social behaviour. A lessening of compassion and empathy for others.

Even though this is, superficially, illogically backwards - as you're now resource rich, so you can afford greater compassion for others, at little to no true cost to yourself.

And it might prove pragmatically sensible to do so. E.g. you've stumbled upon a massive crop of berries. So many berries that, frankly, filling up a single bag and giving it away will cause no detriment to you whatsoever, as it is as nothing compared to the whole you've just acquired. But why do so? Well, you're berry-rich. But you're not fish-rich, you're not pottery-rich, you're not skilled in carpentry and so forth. Fill a bag with berries - no skin off your nose, in the grand scheme of your berry abundance - and trade it with the fisherman, the trader, the carpenter for something else you ain't so rich in.

Quid pro quo. Everybody wins. The basic underlying formula of civilisation itself.

Anyway, my little hypothesis to attempt to explain this quirky backwards instinct in human beings is to wonder whether it's a form of "superstimulation".

Here's Stephen Fry on QI to explain the concept of "superstimulation" in a more entertaining way than I could:



The gist of it is that geese will give greater attention to the biggest eggs, as they're growing well. As they're most likely to be big and strong children.

But there's no upper limit to this instinct because, well, in nature, a goose egg the size of a volleyball could never possibly happen. They've evolved no "counter-instinct" because an egg that size could never actually occur in nature (and the capacity of humans to paint volleyballs like goose eggs is totally outside evolution's experience to have any natural answer to that either).

As Stephen mentions, we humans have an instinct towards sugar and fats. Because, you know, it's energy. So our evolutionary instinct drives us towards the sugar - a sweet tooth - but it has no natural counter instinct of "woah! That's way too much sugar now. Stop or you'll get fat and die of diabetes or something". Because, back in caveman times, you're never going to come across that much sugar.

It would never happen, so natural selection has never met it before, in order to breed in that "Woah! Stop! That's too much!" counter instinct.

So the gist of my hypothesis is that, back in caveman times, where human instincts were evolving, you'd never have resource bounties approaching the equivalent scale of being a multi-millionaire or billionaire today. And this is "superstimulation" on a mind-breaking scale.

Human psychology has absolutely no counter instinct to this whatsoever. None.

And here's what I consider to be the root cause. Back in those caveman times, a resource bounty was a rare event. Most often, you'd be eating today, perhaps, but you're starving tomorrow and the day after, as the hunting and gathering didn't go so well. There'd be regular periods of starvation.

So upon encountering a resource bounty - fields and fields of ripe berries - the instinct is to immediately take advantage of it. Grab it all. Fuck anyone and everyone else. Just grab the fucking resources.

Basically, this:



I'd gotten that far with my hypothesis, but this guy on Question Time represents something even more extreme that'll need more thought. As it's not just that we've got that backwards instinct of "superstimulation" - that the richer someone gets, the more obsessed they get with guarding every last penny and the more their "pro social" behaviour degrades.

But this is a new level of psychology, as he's convinced that he's the victim. He's convinced that everyone else is doing vastly better than him - he's within the top 5% of earners in the UK, yet thinks he's actually "below average" when he claims that he's not even in the top 50%.

So there's another level of "superstimulation" going on here. Likely going on with all the billionaire tax dodgers too.

The "pro social" behaviour is declining with increased resource abundance, because "siege mode" is being triggered.

It's worth noting, alongside this, how rich folks, living in their mansions, will have gates, CCTV, security guards, bodyguards, etc.. The increase in money seems to increase their paranoia. Their "pro social" behaviour's declining, because their paranoid delusions that "everyone's out to get me" are increasing. Of course your compassion and empathy for others declines, when you start viewing everyone as an enemy. When you're convinced that everyone else is out to steal your resource bounty.

This might even begin to explain "kill the poor" policies, from the perspective of - if you're a multi-millionaire - then why would you give the slightest fuck, one way or the other, for the poor?

Just leave them to rot away in some dark corner, while you sun yourself aboard your yacht.

But, no, it's not just negligence, there is actual malice. But if, as I hypothesise, they've entered a superstimulated "paranoid siege mode" that makes everyone seem to be the potential enemy who wants to raid your resource horde, then there's that malicious aspect of "bump them off, before they get the chance". A pre-emptive strike.

Basically, being rich is a potential mental health issue. Because we all, quite rightly and understandably, also have the instinct to improve our chances of survival by increasing our access to resources, it's not questioned at all if there's actually a serious psychological problem in the other direction. A superstimulus - just like eating too much sugar can make you fat, ruin your health, give you diabetes and increase your chances of heart attacks and stroke.

That, in essence, Biggie might well have been onto something, far more than he realised:



(Because the interesting accident of how the song phrases it might actually capture it: "the more money we come across, the more problems we see". And the operative word is "see". It's not that there's actually "mo' problems" in any objective sense, but that the increase in wealth triggers paranoia, "siege mode", less sincerity as folks increasingly treat you as a walking ATM machine, etc.. That being overly "superstimulated" by resource abundance might actually erode someone's mental health. But, hey, they're the "top 5%" or "the 1%" - they're supposed to be "peak human", right? So who, besides me, is even considering that there could be a serious problem here, let alone actually diagnosing it and treating it?)

[KlaxonCow]

Making the rich pay very high taxes isn't what's needed. They won't pay them, because they will find a way around it.

What's needed is to ensure that everyone pays the tax they owe. That means closing down tax avoidance loopholes, and above all, tax evasion needs to stop being treated as a victimless crime. And while I don't think we need to up tax brackets for the rich, the damages in case of evading tax need to become truly punitive, on an individual and corporate level.

I'm in total agreement.

There's no point raising a tax rate on those who're avoiding and evading paying any tax at all.

More over, it perhaps should be stressed that, in a progressive tax system, those who're getting most hit by tax avoidance / evasion is the rich themselves. That is, the honest rich who ain't dodging their taxes (but, as they get disproportionately hit, then that, in itself, is motivation to join everyone else and also avoid and evade tax - making the problem even worse for those who are actually rightfully paying their share, as they're supposed to).

Here's the obligatory crap analogy.

All of society is going out for a meal. Everyone's sat around the table and it's been agreed that we'll all throw in to pay for the meals. And this is a progressive form of "going Dutch", in that the richer folk will pay proportionally more into the kitty to subsidise the poorer folk who could never afford to eat here in the first place otherwise.

Everyone gets their meals and eats up. Then society calls for the bill.

But, at this point, some folks ask to be excused from the table. The call of nature. They need the toilet.

Thing is, once these folks get to the toilets, they actually jump out the window and run away. They've avoiding / evading paying their share of the bill.

This hits everyone at the table. All of them now have to pay more to cover the costs of the arseholes who jumped out the window to avoid paying anything at all. But as this is a progressive form of "going Dutch", the richest people at the table - who remain honest enough to stay and pay their fair share, and not jump out of the window to avoid the bill altogether - are getting the most clobbered by their rich colleagues hopping out of the bog window.

Because, one, this is "progressive", so the richest pay proportionally more. But also, two, because every rich git who just jumped out the window was also supposed to be paying proportionally more too. So, like, they're not only covering their own "proportionally more" but are covering the "proportionally more" that all those others should have been paying too.

Like, let's say there's 10 rich people at the meal who're expected to pay 2% more to help pay for the poorest people to afford a meal at all. But then, when the bill comes, 9 of the 10 jump out the window and leave this lone honest rich guy to not just be paying his own extra 2%, but also the extra 2% that those 9 others should have been paying as well. So his honesty now means he's obliged to cover an extra 20%. Ten times as much!

Hopefully, you get the gist of what I'm arithmetically getting at here.

Those most clobbered by tax avoidance / evasion - at least in financial terms - are the honest rich who actually do pay their taxes. Because society has to pay for those meals and if there's less folks honestly remaining at the table to pay, then they've all got to be tapped to pay a little more to make up for the "free loaders" who just hopped it out of the toilet window.

(And, to be honest, in such a climate - where we allow this tax avoiding / evasion and folks jumping out of the window to no actual punitive consequences - then, if you're rich, there's every motivation to join in and also dodge your taxes too. Because if you're the one guy who's not doing this, then you're going to be clobbered right up the arse to pay essentially everything all on your lonesome. This is not a justification to do so, of course, but it does exactly explain the underlying motivations for why they're all at it. Because anyone who isn't also dodging ends up getting whacked to make up the difference on all this non-payment by everyone else!)

And the mathematical point I'm driving at is that if you closed tax avoidance / evasion loopholes and so forth, then everyone's ratio can be lower - EVERYONE, including the rich, can get a tax cut across the board - and we still get all the money, no problem. As people are not being asked to cover the non-payment of others. And the honest rich guy who's never been doing this shit in the first place doesn't get implicitly punished for being the only one to have the integrity to remain at the table to actually help pay the bill.

Indeed, progressive taxation without adequate measures against tax avoidance and evasion ends up implicitly punishing any rich person who has the integrity to be honest and pay. This makes the "strange attractor" of the system the motivation for the rich to avoid and evade as much as possible. Which just makes it worse for those who don't do that. So they're now motivated to say "fuck this" and also join in with not paying anything either. Which makes it even worse yet again for those who're honest. You get the gist. Such a system - progressive taxation, but that is totally inadequate about countering tax avoidance and evasion - inevitably collapses into this mess.

And the mess is not fixed by raising taxation for the richest, because that's just all the more motivation to not pay a single bloody penny - or you're the one who's going to find pretty much the entire tax bill dropped onto your head.

I completely agree. Shutting down, as far as possible, tax avoidance and evasion is how you fix this mess. Because it actually means we could all have lower tax bills and yet we get all the money we need (or, alternatively, keep tax rates where they are, but we've suddenly got way more money, without having to raise anyone's tax rate).

But as one of the motivations for Brexit amongst the super rich has been the hope to get the UK the hell out of EU legislation before it introduces things like stricter "money laundering" laws (that require identities to be linked to accounts and safe deposits, which gives tax authorities a much easier job of tracking where money is flowing to also catch out intra-EU tax dodging schemes too) then, yes, my faith that this is what we'll actually get is so low, it's subterranean.

[Cloudane]

Hmm. Makes sense.

So where Labour say in their manifesto "We will launch the biggest ever crackdown on tax avoidance and evasion" (i.e. do both) is this:
- A lie?
- Not good enough?
- Not detailed enough?
- Too much taxation?
- A foundation that should be established and verified before considering any tax rises for the ultra rich?

They do have a "Funding Real Change" document which goes a lot more detail, I've not read that one yet as it's 244 pages and admittedly may be a little over my head. I tend to go with a bit more of a basic outlook that the Tories are the guys around the table who say to the poorer attendees "you should pay the shortfall because you didn't have the self-discipline to stay away from a restaurant that you cannot afford, and forced my friends to jump out of the window to avoid having to pay for you, so it's your fault they jumped"

(Another possible analogy being that the rich people at the table also happen to own the restaurant as well as the company that the poor people work for so they control the price of the food as well as how much the poor people get paid, but imply that the poor people shouldn't be there because they don't work hard enough)

E: More detail here on the various evasions and loopholes they're looking to tackle: https://labour.org.uk/wp-content/upload ... e-2019.pdf

Conscious that we've kind of morphed the Brexit thread into a GE thread, though I suppose in the current political climate it's pretty much one and the same anyway

[(o)(o)]

<snip a ton of theorising and clips of puff diddy>

I can distill your commentary down to one word :

"Greed".

It is not an 'intrinsic human trait'.

Many people stop eating when they are satisfied. Many people find giving more rewarding than taking. They tend to have had a good upbringing with quality parenting or have been guided by life experience and hardship.

Let's not runaway with the idea that everybody is a self-serving arsehole. They are in the minority.

This country is full of brilliant people who make personal sacrifices every day to make it a better place.

Many of whom will be voting Labour, on 12th December.

[gilesgoat]

<snip a ton of theorising and clips of puff diddy>

I can distill your commentary down to one word :

"Greed".

It is not an 'intrinsic human trait'.

Many people stop eating when they are satisfied. Many people find giving more rewarding than taking. They tend to have had a good upbringing with quality parenting or have been guided by life experience and hardship.

Let's not runaway with the idea that everybody is a self-serving arsehole. They are in the minority.

This country is full of brilliant people who make personal sacrifices every day to make it a better place.

Many of whom will be voting Labour, on 12th December.

Not to spoil the "good will and faith" but I really DON'T know "what is really natural/intrisinc in human race" the "we all are born nice and pure" I am not sure of that.

Human species are "incredibly opportunistics" some of us definitely seems to have traits of "not having never enough" because what drives them is not "what they have" but "the fact they can/should get even more".

Anyway .. the other question could be "ok the many", fine with that .. but what about "the other more many" that voted Tory ( and made them win ) ??

Who/what are they ???

[tufty]

So where Labour say in their manifesto "We will launch the biggest ever crackdown on tax avoidance and evasion" (i.e. do both) is this:
<snip>
- A foundation that should be established and verified before considering any tax rises for the ultra rich?

That thing.

Pushing up the theoretical tax level for those who don't actually pay any tax does nothing, it's mere electoral cock waving. The left say they will raise taxes on the rich, the rich say they will leave the country. Neither of these things actually happen - what happens is that the rich stay, and pay less tax than they were paying before. Happens everywhere. Look at France under Hollande - "bankers are my enemy", in one famous soundbite, but that's not what his actions said.

You want to be taken seriously on tax, shut down the fucking loopholes. If everyone paid their fucking tax, we could probably get by with a flat rate for everybody.

[zip accident]

So where Labour say in their manifesto "We will launch the biggest ever crackdown on tax avoidance and evasion" (i.e. do both) is this:
<snip>
- A foundation that should be established and verified before considering any tax rises for the ultra rich?

That thing.

Pushing up the theoretical tax level for those who don't actually pay any tax does nothing, it's mere electoral cock waving. The left say they will raise taxes on the rich, the rich say they will leave the country. Neither of these things actually happen - what happens is that the rich stay, and pay less tax than they were paying before. Happens everywhere. Look at France under Hollande - "bankers are my enemy", in one famous soundbite, but that's not what his actions said.

You want to be taken seriously on tax, shut down the fucking loopholes. If everyone paid their fucking tax, we could probably get by with a flat rate for everybody.

The problem with that is that there aren't many rich people, so even if you got everything they owed, even though it would be a lot case by case, there would be so few cases that it wouldn't amount to much, the same way catching benefit fraudsters doesn't pay the wages of the officers involved.

When the country needs billions, millions of people need to be taxed.

[gilesgoat]

So where Labour say in their manifesto "We will launch the biggest ever crackdown on tax avoidance and evasion" (i.e. do both) is this:
<snip>
- A foundation that should be established and verified before considering any tax rises for the ultra rich?

That thing.

Pushing up the theoretical tax level for those who don't actually pay any tax does nothing, it's mere electoral cock waving. The left say they will raise taxes on the rich, the rich say they will leave the country. Neither of these things actually happen - what happens is that the rich stay, and pay less tax than they were paying before. Happens everywhere. Look at France under Hollande - "bankers are my enemy", in one famous soundbite, but that's not what his actions said.

You want to be taken seriously on tax, shut down the fucking loopholes. If everyone paid their fucking tax, we could probably get by with a flat rate for everybody.

The problem with that is that there aren't many rich people, so even if you got everything they owed, even though it would be a lot case by case, there would be so few cases that it wouldn't amount to much, the same way catching benefit fraudsters doesn't pay the wages of the officers involved.

When the country needs billions, millions of people need to be taxed.

OK .. BUT even more important you need a very competent government with competent plans able to spend that money properly into stuff that works .. for years to come .. and not squandering it away or into projects doomed to fail ..

Do we have it ?

[edit] - having the personal experience of a country like Italy where every now and then turns out "there were GAZILLIONS in some place that government had collected and SOMEWAY vanished and/or been displaced into nobody knows where" you see ALSO why in Italy there's a tendecy "to avoid taxes"

It's someway "an easy target" to point at tax evasion, sure it happens, sure it's visible but "how well visible is all the money that already is collected and where/how it really goes ? Or how cleverly or not is been spent ? " .. that's usually lot LESS visible.

I think "tax evasion we need more money" is sometime a bit of a "scapegoat" as well , some questions could be "what happen to all that money you already had and how much really was it ?" ..

Can we really trust the government is telling all the truth ?

( in Italy you'd be the foolest on the planet if you do , with the Italian government I mean ).

[edit2] - do they REALLY NEED all those "gazillions" in the Trident program and/or to run Prysm, Echelon or dunno what where "all is so secret can cost whatever the fuck they want nobody can complain about it ?". Who knows how much money they spend in there and then "is never enough what they have ?".

[tufty]

When the country needs billions, millions of people need to be taxed.

Not arguing that they don't. What I'm arguing is that the tax needs to be paid before you can even think about putting it up.

Here's the HMRC tax gap estimates for financial year 2017-18

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.u ... dition.pdf

Headlines :

- The tax gap is estimated to be £35 billion, which is 5.6% of tax liabilities
- 12.9 billion of that is avoided income tax, national insurance contributions, and capital gains tax.

[merman]

Here it is.
https://labour.org.uk/wp-content/upload ... o-2019.pdf

I had a look at the section before the Brexit one. I do agree that I would like a way to be found to take the money out of politics, not just by the likes of "banning donations from … tax evaders" (however that is supposed to be achieved) but looking into party funding more generally, especially in regard to campaign and other PR funds. Other bits seem a little odd though, such as "A Labour government will repeal the
Fixed-term Parliaments Act 2011, which has stifled democracy and propped up weak governments." How has it done that? No Government has stuck to the fixed term since the end of the coalition under which it was passed, with five ministries and at least three Prime Ministers over three general elections in the subsequent five years that should have been a single term. Indeed, Corbyn himself used the FTPA to repeatedly frustrate the BJ's desire for an earlier general election.

That level of spending has left us with education in our schools getting worse as millions is wasting on Academy schools, the worst ever waiting times in NHS hospitals and over 100,000 clinical vacancies, a police service that cannot cope and a fire service stretched to the limit.

Local services have also been severely cut, especially in Labour-controlled areas. My own council, Camden, is apparently spending 32% less than before the coalition.

And why is that? Could it possibly be to do with the fact that year on year the Conservative Government has cut the central grants going to local Government, meaning councils have had to make cuts?
Even the business rates reform Osborne promised in 2010, with the aim of more money staying with local councils rather than being passed to central Government, hasn't been implemented.

Oh, and several Tory-controlled councils in the constituencies of Tory ministers repeatedly got more funding.

But tell me again how it's Labour's fault for spending less...

[(o)(o)]

The problem with that is that there aren't many rich people, so even if you got everything they owed, even though it would be a lot case by case, there would be so few cases that it wouldn't amount to much..

You cannot be serious!!

Top 10% own nearly half the wealth.

OK .. BUT even more important you need a very competent government with competent plans able to spend that money properly into stuff that works .. for years to come .. and not squandering it away or into projects doomed to fail ..

Do we have it ?

Possibly, but not with Tories.

"Former Bank of England policy maker Danny Blanchflower and more than 160 other economists and academics have backed the Labour party’s election promises as the best way to help the U.K. economy."

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles ... economists

[tufty]

But tell me again how it's Labour's fault for spending less...

Learn to read, man, and get your head out of your arse. Not everybody is "the enemy". Harlequin was not implying it was Labour's fault. Hell, the link he supplied, to that hotbed of ultra-right-wing-propaganda the Grauniad, was titled "Poor urban councils bear majority of Tory funding cuts, study shows"

[Cloudane]

Hmm.

So I see the possible problems with the Labour approach if they don't get properly behind the objective of closing the loopholes. BUT again coming to the options - fairly ineffective tax on those who mostly aren't paying it anyway and at least having a crack at the loopholes, vs. Tories who would take us immediately out of the EU without binding confirmation from the electorate, out of upcoming collaborative projects to address the issue, and who mostly have their fingers and friends in the various pies themselves and would definitely be happy to serve the ultra rich at the expense of the poor.

Suppose it's largely down to trust. As a left-ish person I don't trust the right not to be greedy and self serving and leave the most vulnerable to rot. Meanwhile the right don't trust the left not to be full-on Marxist communists and steal all their hard-earned cash.

Dunno, maybe I'm not arsed who gets in after all. All as bad as each otheeeerrrrr
Might just vote Green to make the point about the climate emergency and let human nature take its course

[Rubisco]

As a left-ish person I don't trust the right not to be greedy and self serving and leave the most vulnerable to rot.

The left are also greedy and self serving and leave the most vulnerable to rot.

The most vulnerable are on the other side of national borders. Borders that many on the left seem increasingly ideologically uncomfortable with, yet continue to base their economic moral argument around. We'd all like a bit more wealth redistribution but cracking down on tax avoidance is doubling down on borders.

There's just as much cognitive dissonance and mental gymnastics going on on the left to justify the feeling of entitlement to a share of a rich person's privilege just because you live on the same side of a border as them, whilst those on the other side can just die in a fucking ditch. But hey let's salve our conscience by making the borders a bit more porous so that the richest and most able-bodied of citizens in those poor nations can cross into the land of milk and honey, that makes us not racist and therefore ethically pure.

[Cloudane]

The most vulnerable are on the other side of national borders. Borders that many on the left seem increasingly ideologically uncomfortable with, yet continue to base their economic moral argument around. We'd all like a bit more wealth redistribution but cracking down on tax avoidance is doubling down on borders.

There's just as much cognitive dissonance and mental gymnastics going on on the left to justify the feeling of entitlement to a share of a rich person's privilege just because you live on the same side of a border as them, whilst those on the other side can just die in a fucking ditch. But hey let's salve our conscience by making the borders a bit more porous so that the richest and most able-bodied of citizens in those poor nations can cross into the land of milk and honey, that makes us not racist and therefore ethically pure.

I see part of what you're saying, but surely tax avoidance is precisely because of borders. Be outside of them for some "tax purposes" like Amazon and there you have it.

I also don't think it's that pervasive of a feeling among the left that people in third world countries and such "can just die in a fucking ditch" and that we shouldn't have 'foreign' aid.