Brexit - Part 3? British elections 2017

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#1799027 13-Jun-2017 06:14

DaveB:

I used to hear that pitiful argument on the council estate I was brought up on. So much so that I pulled my finger out of my arse and decided enough is enough, it was time to get on with my life and not see myself as one of the "under privileged", i.e. the forerunners of today's "the world owes me" generation.

... and now you've grown up, got five kids to six different mothers, smoke meth, been jailed twice for crimes you say you never committed and now working for $10/hr under the table at a Chinese owned construction site?

Just having a stab at finishing your 'pulled myself up by my bootstraps' tale of success. How'd I do?

frankv

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#1799029 13-Jun-2017 07:18

shk292:

Call me a right wing idealogue, but massive wealth distribution doesn't have a great track record in fixing problems.

You're a right wing idealogue. ;) (Sorry, can't resist a straight line like that)

OTOH, massive wealth centralisation has an even worse track record.

frankv

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#1799031 13-Jun-2017 07:29

Geektastic:

Yes, they benefit from roads and general infrastructure etc the same as anyone else

It appears you've missed my point... they benefit from roads and general infrastructure etc *more than* anyone else. They have more cars, and drive more.

People who earn more money are not a form of cow to be milked. We do not extend the principle of "you have more so we can take more" to other things like, say, cars, farms or houses. Why extend it to money?

Again, we have a fundamental difference... to me, money is not a thing. It's a way of measuring the cost of things, and of acquiring things.

On principle I have not the slightest objection to people who use their intelligence to pay the minimum lawful tax: anyone who pays more tax than they have to is either an idiot or well off to the point that they do not need the money they are earning.

Personally, I separate ethics from legality; sometimes the law is stupid in prohibiting me from doing ethical things, and sometimes it is stupid in allowing me to do unethical things.

Linuxluver

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#1799041 13-Jun-2017 08:08

rb99:

Might be a revolt against austerity, cuts, closures, cuts, closures, mores closures. Doubt if its a revolt (if its actually true) against Brexit as LibDems seem to be the only ones left actively against it. If Jeremy gets in (unlikely but I can hope) divorce would be a lot more amicable I should imagine. Already talking about May being finished - are they going to get another 'unelected' PM ?

Early days (or nights I suppose).

Brexit was a revolt against those things, too.......though under the misunderstanding that the EU was imposing them. Nope. That's home-grown.

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frankv

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#1799078 13-Jun-2017 08:49

Geektastic:

It's not actually fair that you should pay more just because you happen to have more. That does not fit with any definition of fairness I would accept.

Sorry for going back to this, but I've been cogitating on it, and want to explore further...

Do you feel that your personal circumstances (and wealth particularly) are something that you have created personally? That you've earned the wealth that you have entirely through your own efforts?

Because, it seems to me that my own fortunate circumstances are as much due to luck as anything else. I think there are many people who are equally talented and intelligent and perhaps even better-looking than me who, simply through lack of opportunity, have not achieved what they could. If I'd been born 10 years earlier or later, or to a different family, or had to pay the price of something stupid I did in my youth.... there, but for the grace of God, go I. So wealth is as much a lottery as an earned thing. And sharing a little of my good fortune with the less fortunate won't make much difference to me, and a great deal of difference to others. I think of it as an insurance scheme shared amongst all the people I could have become.

I also think that society, as much as anything else, created the opportunities that I got. If I hadn't grown up in NZ, things could have been much worse for me. A job for my Dad, health care, cheap food, good housing, education and eventually a job for me. All of these things contributed to my position today, and were paid for by someone else. It seems fair to me to pay my share to keep it this way (for my own benefit), and also to pay it forward; acknowledge the contributions of all those good Kiwis now departed, and be a little like them to keep it this way for the future.

SJB

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#1799124 13-Jun-2017 09:44

Hard work can make you comfortably off. Luck can make you very wealthy.

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MikeB4

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#1799131 13-Jun-2017 09:59

SJB:

Hard work can make you comfortably off. Luck can make you very wealthy.

Hard work can make you very wealthy. Reference Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, on locally John Key, Graeme Hart, Peter Jackson, The Todd family and so on

Here is a crazy notion, lets give peace a chance.

SJB

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#1799175 13-Jun-2017 10:38

I'd say both Bill Gates and Steve Jobs were right place, right time so luck involved.

I'm not saying they didn't work hard, just that they could have worked hard and not ended up wealthy without the element of luck.

MikeB4

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#1799177 13-Jun-2017 10:41

SJB:

I'd say both Bill Gates and Steve Jobs were right place, right time so luck involved.

I'm not saying they didn't work hard, just that they could have worked hard and not ended up wealthy without the element of luck.

Luck is finding a dollar on the ground, starting an enterprise to earn that dollar is work. Pre and Post Brexit the UK has to do a lot of the latter.

Here is a crazy notion, lets give peace a chance.

Fred99

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#1799212 13-Jun-2017 11:23

Luck is being born in NZ. You're many times more likely to have been born somewhere else, and died before you knew what a coin was.

frankv

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#1799229 13-Jun-2017 11:55

MikeB4:

SJB:

I'd say both Bill Gates and Steve Jobs were right place, right time so luck involved.

I'm not saying they didn't work hard, just that they could have worked hard and not ended up wealthy without the element of luck.

Luck is finding a dollar on the ground, starting an enterprise to earn that dollar is work. Pre and Post Brexit the UK has to do a lot of the latter.

Lots of people start enterprises, work hard, then go broke. So hard work isn't the only thing needed.

Maybe Gates and Jobs were particularly clever in starting the right enterprise at the right time. But, in another universe, IBM came to an arrangement with Digital Research and used CP/M, and we are talking about Gary Kildall instead. In yet another universe, IBM bought the MS-DOS IP and John R Opel became a multi-billionaire genius. Maybe Gates foresaw that neither of those things would happen in our universe, but I really don't think so. So it was blind luck.

Similarly Jobs/Wosniak.

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tdgeek

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#1799275 13-Jun-2017 12:51

MikeB4:

Rikkitic:

Geektastic:

It's not actually fair that you should pay more just because you happen to have more. That does not fit with any definition of fairness I would accept.

That would depend on how you got more. If you happened to be born into a family that lives in the right neighbourhood where you grow up with the right accent and they can afford the right university for you where you make the right contacts that lubricate you through a privileged, highly-paid career, then I would say it is eminently fair.

Tax rates should be fair, the fairest tax rate is a flat rate say 30% for all or consumption taxation as opposed to earnings/asset based.

I'm agreeing. Can't comment on the 30%, numbers would need to be worked out as to a %. Personal tax returns would end. Employers send all that to Stats Dept instead. Company returns would stay, to satisfy shareholders and Stats Dept, and audit trail for sales invoices. All taxes can be levied as a GST type, or on all sales invoices. The more you spend, the more you pay. Individuals and companies, a tax on sales, which is a consumption tax. Get rid of the need to have all the rules and exemptions and tax dodging. All sales or end user sales? In any case its a good idea

Fred99

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#1799327 13-Jun-2017 13:39

Gates, Ortega, Buffett, Carlos Slim Helú, Bezos, Zuckerberg, Ellison, Bloomberg.

They have more combined personal wealth than the combined wealth of the poorest 50% (3.6 billion) of the world's population.

If you took all of that wealth and divided it up amongst the 3.6 billion poorest, then despite doubling their wealth, you've achieved nothing very useful, they're now worth on average only about US $240 each.

While that's argument against direct wealth redistribution, I don't think the present situation is tenable, and tax reform alone won't solve it.

If you were an explorer and discovered an unknown civilisation with the degree of inequality as exists in the world, you'd probably write it off as a primitive culture and might do something to free the slaves.

MikeB4

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#1799330 13-Jun-2017 13:46

frankv:

MikeB4:

SJB:

I'd say both Bill Gates and Steve Jobs were right place, right time so luck involved.

I'm not saying they didn't work hard, just that they could have worked hard and not ended up wealthy without the element of luck.

Luck is finding a dollar on the ground, starting an enterprise to earn that dollar is work. Pre and Post Brexit the UK has to do a lot of the latter.

Lots of people start enterprises, work hard, then go broke. So hard work isn't the only thing needed.

Maybe Gates and Jobs were particularly clever in starting the right enterprise at the right time. But, in another universe, IBM came to an arrangement with Digital Research and used CP/M, and we are talking about Gary Kildall instead. In yet another universe, IBM bought the MS-DOS IP and John R Opel became a multi-billionaire genius. Maybe Gates foresaw that neither of those things would happen in our universe, but I really don't think so. So it was blind luck.

Similarly Jobs/Wosniak.

it is still not luck. Hard work does not however eliminate mistakes or bad decisions etc

Here is a crazy notion, lets give peace a chance.

networkn

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#1799419 13-Jun-2017 14:39

One thing I don't really get.. If "we" illegally obtained the land and then did lots of things that cost "us" money, to significantly improve it's value, then what happens to the improvements and their value if they are "returned" to their "rightful" owners?

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