I wasn't wrong, was I?

Perhaps my telepathic skills are nearly as good as yours.

Swerved points - that's rich coming from you!!

So I would expect you to be quite happy to earn less so that all these cleaners so bitch on about can have a little extra money, in fact I would expect you to insist that were the case. You and I both know you will never do that - as long as you have a certain standard of living which is significantly above the average you are happy to bitch about those who have significantly more than you.

Fairer society - yet more clap trap - socialism has been proved to be unworkable, you cannot restrain the human endeavour their will always be a significant % of the population who want more and are prepared to work for it. There will always be individuals who are more gifted in certain areas than others, there will always be certain skills that a society values more than others put the two together and you have an elite - no political system will ever change that. If it did said individuals will simple move to a society where their skills are adequately rewarded.

Society has to be seen to equitable - that doesn't mean fairer.

Congratulations of so comprehensively misunderstanding the term "fairer society". Did Mintball even mention Socialism? Why does any thought of making society (and by extension that includes the economic model) fairer mean a jump to an extreme, ised brand of Socialism or Communism?

A quick question for you, is the UK a Capitalist country?

<Scratches head>

There you go again, straight off to set up a straw man based purely on polarised thinking.

Again, I have to explain to you that disagreeing with neo-liberal laissez-faire capitalism does not necessarily mean dismatling the entire market economy or demanding absolute equality.

Sure, Communism has been cast aside in the Eastern bloc (as distinct from socialism, they are not the same thing) ... but social democracy lives on in European countries ... one of which is the most economically successful European economy, Germany.

There are shades of socialism as there are shades of capitalism ... your clumsy polarised arguments don't work.

Cut the bull. I don't dodge arguments as you perfectly well know. You, on the other hand, run away at the first sign of being asked a question that might demand you try more than simply throwing simplistic labels around.

So come on

Why?

Cough up the logic. Cough up the piece of 'theory' that supports your bulltery. There must be, say, some quote you can find whereby anyone who is even vaguely left of centre has to do something or other or else they're not remotely a proper 'leftie'.

Y'know – a bit like anyone who calls themselves a Christian actually having to believe in that Jesus bloke.



Why?

Logic? Theory? etc etc – you must have some, surely? Or don't you bother with backing up arguments in "the real world"?



Your attempt to pretend that I do 'the politics of envy' is bull and is simply another attempt to swerve from the question. What evidence do you have of what people on this forum have or have not 'sacrificed'?



Y'see – there you go: you immediately conclude that a "fairer society" would be a 'socialist' one.

Wowser. Really – are you actually incapable of seeing anything in life in a more nuanced way than that?

El Barbudo has, in succinct terms, illustrated your complete lack of any understanding of political theory. Although I'm not sure that you want to know – I think you're happier to keep everything simple enough and polarised enough for you to comprehend in your "real world".

But let's look at this from another angle.

I (and many millions of others) currently do make a "sacrifice". It's called tax. And part of what tax is spent on is in-work benefits.

In other words, ensuring that someone can live. It's worth noting (for the economically and politically illiterate) that someone living on the street or in a freezing home or unable to afford food is probably not the most productive worker.

In many cases, the people receiving such benefits are employed by very large and successful companies. So in other words, I am helping to subsidise the profits of big and successful companies, in order to ensure that someone doesn't (or shouldn't have to) choose between, say, fuel and food.

Now on the one hand, I'm entirely happy about that. I don't want a society where people who work – let's stick with people who go to work, for clarity – cannot afford to live. Not only would it be 'not fair', it would not be good for society as a whole or even the employer.

However, what pîsses me off is having to subsidise companies that are successful enough that they can afford to pay a living wage to all their employees, without saying it's none of their responsibility and leaving it to the taxpayer.

Of course, the better I do financially myself, the more I "sacrifice" – another point Sal doesn't seem to have bothered to let cross his mind. Indeed, I now pay far more than in all the years I worked for FA (frequently not paid in full anyway), had no holidays for years, was constantly either in debt simply to live or looking over my shoulder in fear of that being the case – and in part, because I did make a sacrifice to do what I rather hoped might better the lives of my countrymen and women. It might have done no good at all or next to no good, but that is hardly the point.

There is a program on sometime this week (I must look it up to see when and where it is on) which takes a handful of unemployed and introduces them to how the benefits system worked in the first year it was introduced (1948?).

Back then it was called "the dole" and from the bit I've seen it was worth around £35 at todays rate, about half of what job seekers allowance is now - and that, I think, is all you got apart from child allowance and the new novelty of not having to pay for a doctors visit when you got ill.

Some of us can think back to our childhoods in the 1960s when our fathers worked but our mothers didn't, and some of our fathers didn't have well paid jobs, or could afford a car (one), and they definitely did not qualify for any in-work benefits AND found themselves paying more tax to pay for the newly introduced health and pension provisions - but one wage per household is all it took, and we had a holiday every year too


So where did we go wrong - why can't a family of four (typically) now survive on one household wage after tax, why does that family of four now have two working parents and STILL qualify for government hand-outs in the form of in-work tax credits ?

The easy answer is all of the frippary in life, Sky subscriptions, mobile phone subscriptions, running two cars, having foreign holidays, etc etc, but that isn't the complete answer, you could stop all of those fripperies tomorrow and STILL not be able to support a family of four on one wage and no tax credits - its housing (rent or mortgage), household fuel costs, and food bills, more than anything its food bills.

No end of striving is ever going to square that particular circle.

You see there you again - it the fault of big business - and you say you don't politics of envy!!

How much of the benefit spend is actually consumed on supporting those in employment - do you know and how does that compare to the tax contribution of all companies?

Let's take a big employer like Barclays it would be interesting to see if all the benefits their employees get is greater than all the taxes they pay - 14% employers NI, business tax to all the councils where they operate and billions in corporation tax. Of course we will never know but you have assumed that the big bad company is being subsidised!!

The more you earn the greater your net income, the tax sacrifice is red herring - typical of your rhetoric. Sacrifice is a conscious decision to forgo something - tax does not fall into that category. The more you earn the greater you net income is - not a greater sacrifice.

Why is it that we should all have to pay child allowance - if you decide to have children you should be able to support them without the aid of benefits. Why is that people cannot live on low wages without the help of benefits, because we have lost the ability of thrift and independence, we have become a nanny state. Perhaps if more people were motivated to get out of the poverty trap rather than relying on the government to provide them with a certain standard of living then maybe as a nation we would be more productive and efficient. Whilst ever the benefits system remains as it is what is the motivation, the more you earn the less benefit you get in some cases you will actually be worse off for earning more - how ridiculous is that?

You really don't understand the difference?

Oh, FFS. It's "the politics of envy" to point out that, because many people are so poorly paid that the taxpayer needs to subsidise their pay, from (in many cases) wealthy companies?

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