The Chairman Mao resembling, Monarchy hating, threat to Britain, Labour Party thread

[KentVillan]

1 minute ago, ROTTERDAM1982 said:

If you are wealthy you are more able to change society for how you see fit. If you claim to be a Socialist, and you tell everyone you "care", then you have a significantly better opportunity to effect society more than the average person. When a multimillionaire tells me he is a Socialist just for effect, then i am calling bullshit.

 

What point are you making, I’m so confused now

[Davkaus]

3 minutes ago, KentVillan said:

What point are you making, I’m so confused now

As far as I can tell, it's that Corbyn should channel his estimated £3m net worth and destroy the global capitalist machine.

[Chindie]

The last time we had a pretty left wing political leader of the Labour party get too close to power the entire system decided to bury them, including their party self sabotaging and eating itself, a sustained hit on the party over heinous accusations from various angles, and a coup de grace election to chop them down.

I suspect making actual socialist change in this country is pretty **** difficult.

[ROTTERDAM1982]

KentVillain, by introducing lower Corporate tax rates, did Ireland not receive more taxation income?

 

[Davkaus]

[chrisp65]

10 minutes ago, ROTTERDAM1982 said:

If you are wealthy you are more able to change society for how you see fit. If you claim to be a Socialist, and you tell everyone you "care", then you have a significantly better opportunity to effect society more than the average person. When a multimillionaire tells me he is a Socialist just for effect, then i am calling bullshit.

 

If I was a billionaire, and I used my wealth to seed the idea of starting a back up population on Mars, could that make me more or less of a socialist than if I just had a decent wage and made sure I bought a season ticket for my local community football club?

What if I was rich like pop star rich, and kept all my money but used my fame to support a left wing political party and make it look attractive to a large number of young voters?

I mean, by wealthy, do you mean anyone in the UK earning more than the average Bangladeshi? Or is it only relevant within a nations borders? So I could be socialist in Monaco far longer than I could be socialist in Sri Lanka?

I think that like me, you’ve used VT to float an idea and see if it was up to some crit..

[KentVillan]

30 minutes ago, ROTTERDAM1982 said:

KentVillain, by introducing lower Corporate tax rates, did Ireland not receive more taxation income?

 

It's not clear cut. For very small economies, dropping Corporation Tax can have a massive impact, because the number of new foreign businesses coming in dwarfs the impact of lower tax receipts from domestic businesses.

Ireland isn't a tiny country, but it's a relatively small economy:

• Cayman Islands GDP = 6bn USD
• Ireland GDP = 500bn USD
• UK GDP = 3,100bn USD

You can imagine that for somewhere like Bermuda, Cayman Islands, etc it's a no brainer (economically, if not ethically) to do this kind of stuff.

For Ireland, it has worked to some extent but according to Irish govt's own analysis: 

Quote

Ireland collects a similar share of corporation tax as a percentage of GDP to the EU average.

from https://assets.gov.ie/181236/fd484cc1-1f1e-49f8-b41d-46c4aef47135.pdf

So it's not like they're absolutely raking in corporation tax by lowering the rate. French govt (with 33% Corp Tax) collects 24.7% of GDP in corp tax, Irish govt (with 12.5% Corp Tax) collects 16.5% of GDP in corp tax.

Now the argument is that those foreign businesses you attract also create jobs, growth, etc. The problem is: if those businesses are just shell companies with a few employees used to avoid tax by multinationals that are actually operating in the UK, that probably isn't happening. The money just passes through, and you skim some tax off the top.

So for Ireland it's unclear. For the Cayman Islands it obviously works. For the UK, dropping the Corp Tax rate isn't unthinkable, but you saw what happened to the pound and interest rates when Truss and Kwarteng tried to U-turn on Sunak's Corp Tax policy without balancing it with spending cuts.

There's no simple answer. Govt economists pore over this stuff, and if there were an easy way of cutting tax and driving growth + tax receipts simultaneously, we'd probably have already done it. What works in Singapore, Luxembourg or Switzerland might not work here, because we're a much bigger economy.

FWIW, corp tax in the US (generally seen as a relatively free market, laissez faire economy) is 21%, and under Obama it was 35%.

[Xann]

The reality bombs are hitting now, and people are shell shocked.

Great Britain conned, and who wants to believe they've been had?

[magnkarl]

15 hours ago, ROTTERDAM1982 said:

I don't disagree with your point Bickster, but i'm old school, you can't be a rich Socialist

The richest nations in the world (when it comes to social mobility and actual GDP per capita outside of corrupt holes like Saudia Arabia, Qatar etc), as well as the most developed and most democratic, are all ingrained social-democracies. Norway, Denmark, Switzerland, Netherlands etc.

The actual richest populations in the world are exactly that, socialists.

 

Edited January 19, 2023 by magnkarl

[KentVillan]

4 hours ago, magnkarl said:

The richest nations in the world (when it comes to social mobility and actual GDP per capita outside of corrupt holes like Saudia Arabia, Qatar etc), as well as the most developed and most democratic, are all ingrained social-democracies. Norway, Denmark, Switzerland, Netherlands etc.

The actual richest populations in the world are exactly that, socialists.

 

Agree, although to me "socialism" is where markets are avoided as much as possible, and the state knows best in most areas of life... whereas "social democracy" is where you have a blend of state-funded, widely available public services across health/social care/education/transport, low levels of poverty, a thriving private sector & free trade, and a belief in individual freedoms & democracy.

[juanpabloangel18]

On 18/01/2023 at 21:20, KentVillan said:

What point are you making, I’m so confused now

Often tends to happen when debating & challenging right wingers, don't you find

Political conversations would be so much simpler if people just admitted their worldview is based around a feeling they deserve more than people who aren't like them

[juanpabloangel18]

On 18/01/2023 at 22:16, KentVillan said:

The problem is: if those businesses are just shell companies with a few employees used to avoid tax by multinationals that are actually operating in the UK, that probably isn't happening. The money just passes through, and you skim some tax off the top.

This. Google just spent $1bn expanding their London HQ, for example.

[Jareth]

Angela Raynor on The Last Leg was good value - been dismissive about her before but she was very authentic - weird for a politician. Surely going to take over from Keir at some point, maybe when the country has adjusted to this sort of leader. 

[bannedfromHandV]

You’d like to think that in preparation for an election campaign the Labour Party will be doing everything possible to ensure there are no prominent members with skeletons in the closet.

The bar has been set so low that if and when they do come into power, all they need to do is avoid any major scandals to qualify as a better govt than what we’re enduring currently.

[magnkarl]

On 18/01/2023 at 22:25, Chindie said:

The last time we had a pretty left wing political leader of the Labour party get too close to power the entire system decided to bury them, including their party self sabotaging and eating itself, a sustained hit on the party over heinous accusations from various angles, and a coup de grace election to chop them down.

I suspect making actual socialist change in this country is pretty **** difficult.

Knowing what you know now Chindie, do you think JC (with all his appearances on Press TV and dubious connections) was the right man for the job?

Just a quick summary on Press TV, Iran's state sponsored TV channel, the same state who have now executed a bunch of young teenagers for protesting. The same channel that alongside Jeremy and George's programmes ran programmes calling for all sort of extreme violence against their adversaries? 

Doesn't JC having a show together with George bleeding Galloway make you want to reconsider how great JC was for Labour? Press TV had been doing 'programmes' on opposition with fairly extreme views years before JC went on, in fact they had their official UK license revoked 6 months before JC took money from Iran for doing a programme on their propaganda-TV channel.

Edited February 6, 2023 by magnkarl

[Chindie]

7 hours ago, magnkarl said:

Knowing what you know now Chindie, do you think JC (with all his appearances on Press TV and dubious connections) was the right man for the job?

Just a quick summary on Press TV, Iran's state sponsored TV channel, the same state who have now executed a bunch of young teenagers for protesting. The same channel that alongside Jeremy and George's programmes ran programmes calling for all sort of extreme violence against their adversaries? 

Doesn't JC having a show together with George bleeding Galloway make you want to reconsider how great JC was for Labour? Press TV had been doing 'programmes' on opposition with fairly extreme views years before JC went on, in fact they had their official UK license revoked 6 months before JC took money from Iran for doing a programme on their propaganda-TV channel.

I was never a Corbyn fan. I thought he was too much the idealist, too focused on things that didn't win enough votes, too much the student politics man, too nice. I felt as a man he generally wanted to better things and he had the right intentions, I generally agreed with the positions he had. He is a good man.

I didn't think he would be a great PM. I wouldn't vote for him. But I think the country would be better served on the whole had he won instead of the dregs if Toryism we've suffered with.

My main issue with much of the fallout from Corbyn has been the sheer grimness of his execution. An extremely underhand, dirty, dishonest, immoral character assassination, with the nastiest, most heinous allegations and implications, the kind that don't wash off, against a nice bloke. That shit rubs me the wrong way.

[Demitri_C]

9 hours ago, Chindie said:

I was never a Corbyn fan. I thought he was too much the idealist, too focused on things that didn't win enough votes, too much the student politics man, too nice. I felt as a man he generally wanted to better things and he had the right intentions, I generally agreed with the positions he had. He is a good man.

I didn't think he would be a great PM. I wouldn't vote for him. But I think the country would be better served on the whole had he won instead of the dregs if Toryism we've suffered with.

My main issue with much of the fallout from Corbyn has been the sheer grimness of his execution. An extremely underhand, dirty, dishonest, immoral character assassination, with the nastiest, most heinous allegations and implications, the kind that don't wash off, against a nice bloke. That shit rubs me the wrong way.

I reckon our relationship with the US would have suffered with corbyn in  charge

[magnkarl]

10 hours ago, Chindie said:

I was never a Corbyn fan. I thought he was too much the idealist, too focused on things that didn't win enough votes, too much the student politics man, too nice. I felt as a man he generally wanted to better things and he had the right intentions, I generally agreed with the positions he had. He is a good man.

I didn't think he would be a great PM. I wouldn't vote for him. But I think the country would be better served on the whole had he won instead of the dregs if Toryism we've suffered with.

My main issue with much of the fallout from Corbyn has been the sheer grimness of his execution. An extremely underhand, dirty, dishonest, immoral character assassination, with the nastiest, most heinous allegations and implications, the kind that don't wash off, against a nice bloke. That shit rubs me the wrong way.

But isn't someone who takes money off Iran to talk nonsense on their propaganda shows everything but a nice bloke? Sure he may have been naive, but Iran had just executed about 30 anti-government protesters when he signed his deal to do his shows for them. Aren't people close to him giving JC an easy ride for this, when you consider the fact that he had been in politics for 30 years by the time he did said shows? Strip away all the party politics and the skulduggery and you've still got a party leader that's stood beside one of the worst conspiracy theorists and pro-totalitarian regime-men in the U.K (George Galloway) and spoken warmly about a regime that executes people for being gay, voicing concerns over the government or had an extramarital affair.

When looking at the people now condoning genocide in Ukraine (Galloway, Williamson, Blumenthal, Daley etc) an awful lot of them seem to have been very close to JC. In my estimations I don't quite get how one can be nice and so naive at the same time. To me it almost seems like being anti-US has led the JC crowd down a path that they can't seem to course-correct.

Edited February 7, 2023 by magnkarl

[Xann]

But.... But... But... He hated Jews Chinders.

The dismally thick said so.

[chrisp65]

There must be no deviation from managed decline of the state at a predictable level of on going profit for ‘the market’..

You can wave any flag you like, just conform to market lead cash skimming norms.