The now-enacted will of (some of) the people

[limpid]

1 minute ago, Rugeley Villa said:

Wouldn’t the business man know that  putting less fortunate people in debt is morally wrong? 

How is someone lending money morally wrong?

If he was lending money that he knew the couldn't afford to pay back, then that would be morally wrong. And that's why there are laws to stop that behaviour.

Many businesses start by someone borrowing money.

[Mic09]

[Mic09]

2 hours ago, limpid said:

Trickle down economics? Probably the most discredited economic model ever proposed. It simply does not work.

I didn't say trickle down economics.

I suggested that business owners want to make as much profit as possible (Adam Smith and Karl Marx will both agree with this), and should the government put higher taxes on them they are likely to increase the price of their services accordingly to offset the losses they made in tax.

Funnily enough I know a guy who, probably a year ago, got a call from his accountant saying that because some tax/premium/tariff has gone up, they will have to charge him more. Some businesses are a bit smarter and don't advertise it as such, but it always tends to happen. 

I think that it's a rather left leaning idea - businessmen live for profit, are greedy and want to make as much money as possible. And they will be happy to do so at their customers expense.

Edited September 7, 2019 by Mic09

[limpid]

10 minutes ago, Mic09 said:

I didn't say trickle down economics.

suggested that business owners want to make as much profit as possible (Adam Smith and Karl Marx will both agree with this), and should the government put higher taxes on them they are likely to increase the price of their services accordingly to offset the losses they made in tax.

Do you have a different name for it?

3 minutes ago, Mic09 said:

Funnily enough I know a guy who, probably a year ago, got a call from his accountant saying that because some tax/premium/tariff has gone up, they will have to charge him more. Some businesses are a bit smarter and don't advertise it as such, but it always tends to happen. 

I think that it's a rather left leaning idea - businessmen live for profit, are greedy and want to make as much money as possible. And they will be happy to do so at their customers expense.

My cleaners put their prices up when workplace pensions became mandatory (essentially a new tax). I had the choice of paying the new price, changing to a reduced service or cancelling. This is normal. I'd rather people had pension provision than not, so I paid the extra - and if I changed supplier they'd be quoting based on the new "tax"..

If any business keeps putting prices up, demand will drop. We have regulators for goods/services which aren't fungible. Regardless, the additional tax that they are paying can be used to build infrastructure and supply services that everyone (including their business) can use, which means everyone finds it easier to live, work or run their business (and pay their taxes in turn).

 

[Mic09]

7 minutes ago, limpid said:

Do you have a different name for it?

My cleaners put their prices up when workplace pensions became mandatory (essentially a new tax). I had the choice of paying the new price, changing to a reduced service or cancelling. This is normal. I'd rather people had pension provision than not, so I paid the extra - and if I changed supplier they'd be quoting based on the new "tax"..

If any business keeps putting prices up, demand will drop. We have regulators for goods/services which aren't fungible. Regardless, the additional tax that they are paying can be used to build infrastructure and supply services that everyone (including their business) can use, which means everyone finds it easier to live, work or run their business (and pay their taxes in turn).

 

Absolutely, you can change suppliers, negotiate rates, etc. That's capitalism 101. It's a bit more difficult to do in monopolised industries.

As for the second part, that's where the argument lies. If more tax is better, how much should we tax? And is taking money away from pockets of people always the best way forward?

I won't answer those question (I really CBA to get into another VT debate haha ) but it's never as straight forward as more tax = poor people better off.

[limpid]

4 minutes ago, Mic09 said:

Absolutely, you can change suppliers, negotiate rates, etc. That's capitalism 101. It's a bit more difficult to do in monopolised industries.

As I said, you need regulators for non-fungibles.

3 minutes ago, Mic09 said:

I won't answer those question (I really CBA to get into another VT debate haha ) but it's never as straight forward as more tax = poor people better off.

I quite specifically did not mention poor people. Quite the opposite. I said "everyone".

[Mic09]

55 minutes ago, limpid said:

As I said, you need regulators for non-fungibles.

I quite specifically did not mention poor people. Quite the opposite. I said "everyone".

My apologies, I was still in the mindset of the previous poor/wealthy conversation.

It's never as straightforward as more tax = people better off.

[peterms]

3 hours ago, Mic09 said:

I think that it's a rather left leaning idea - businessmen live for profit, are greedy and want to make as much money as possible. And they will be happy to do so at their customers expense.

Straight out of Adam Smith.  Except that he also mentioned them conspiring with each other against the interest of the rest of us.

[Mic09]

3 minutes ago, peterms said:

Straight out of Adam Smith.  Except that he also mentioned them conspiring with each other against the interest of the rest of us.

"Them" against "us".

Straight out of Karl Marx

[blandy]

6 minutes ago, peterms said:

Straight out of Adam Smith.  Except that he also mentioned them conspiring with each other against the interest of the rest of us.

Business people are humans. Humans have various characteristics. Some are altruistic, some devout, some faithless, some mean spirited, some selfish, some are needy, or prone to bullying, or timid, or competitive or collaborative or manipulative and all the rest.

Any notion, or standpoint that starts from "all [X] are whatever" is ludicrous. The whole Brexit, or rich v poor, or that type of discussion tends towards polarisation around extreme viewpoints quite often.

We have laws and regulators and so on which should restrain and prevent "bad" behaviours. With businesses, they are very imperfect and have become more and more so. Restraints have been allowed to wither - both by national and international conscious and unconscious action or inaction.

The balance is way too far in favour of damaging behaviours, of Big Corp. over populations. Polluters, tax dodgers, rights abusers, profiteers and the like are running riot and responsibility is becoming a rarer stance.

It's not a right wing or left wing thing that's led to that situation. Whether you look at the USA, Europe, Russia, China, South America, Australia - everywhere there are Governments and Dictators which have enabled, encouraged, tuned a blind eye, enriched themselves or despoiled the environment.

And it's not a right wing, or a left wing thing that is the solution, either. It is perfectly possible to have a left, or right wing government that discourages and prevents and punishes "bad" or "damaging" behaviour, whether of individual or businesses.

Across the world, leaders and leadership from all parts of the political spectrum have morphed over time into almost "robbers" of the land, seas and resources of nations, supported and egged on by businesses and others, by "money".

The notion of "the greater good" has almost gone, a thing to be laughed at. There are exceptions, but they seen ever scarcer.

[mjmooney]

37 minutes ago, Mic09 said:

"Them" against "us".

Straight out of Karl Marx

He was right. 

[peterms]

22 minutes ago, blandy said:

Across the world, leaders and leadership from all parts of the political spectrum have morphed over time into almost "robbers" of the land, seas and resources of nations, supported and egged on by businesses and others, by "money".

The notion of "the greater good" has almost gone, a thing to be laughed at. There are exceptions, but they seen ever scarcer.

You are describing, in part, the ethos of neoliberalism, which has eclipsed the previous post-war consensus about a balance of rights and obligations, and has instead elevated a winner-takes-all approach, bereft of much notion of mutual obligation; the use of the state to protect and privilege capital,  enabling vast profits from doing harmful things.

The drama that we see being played out in the tory party over brexit is one expression of the tension between these two world views.  The previous view of the tory party was much more favourable to mutual obligation, the view of the post-Thatcherite spivs far less so. The fight in the Labour Party between the Blairites and the Corbynistas is another manifestation of this shift.

[mjmooney]

BBC 

[ml1dch]

Those patriots also decided to trample all the wreaths laid at the cenotaph.

Pretty solid Brexit metaphor in itself.

Edited September 7, 2019 by ml1dch

[peterms]

1 minute ago, ml1dch said:

Those patriots also decided to trample all the wreaths laid at the cenotaph.

Pretty solid Brexit metaphor in itself.

Everything is subordinated to brexit.

We hear numbnuts on phone-ins, railing against MPs who "defy the will of the people".

We see history rewritten, being told that we voted for any kind of exit.

We see people with enraged expressions throwing things, not quite out of control.

It will get worse, quickly.  It will get violent.

[meregreen]

They feel enabled by the right wing nut job in No 10.

[blandy]

3 hours ago, peterms said:

The fight in the Labour Party between the Blairites and the Corbynistas is another manifestation of this shift.

I don’t agree on that narrow point.  I’m no Blair fan, by a very long way, but to me the fight in the Labour Party over B v C is a manifestation of something completely different.

[peterms]

9 hours ago, blandy said:

I don’t agree on that narrow point.  I’m no Blair fan, by a very long way, but to me the fight in the Labour Party over B v C is a manifestation of something completely different.

Really?  I see the embrace of neoliberalism and globalisation as the heart of what Blair and his coterie were all about.

From symbolic things like Clause IV, deference to Thatcher and travelling across the globe to kowtow to Murdoch, to the childish infatuation with rich people and business people, to the policies on things like PFI, deregulation, and being the US's poodle, they actively engaged in furthering the neoliberal agenda in a way that the old Labour right wing, people like Smith and Healey for example, simply wouldn't have done.  If "Blairism" was about anything at all, it was about this.  The alignment of the Labour Party with international capital rather than ordinary people has been a very significant factor in its decline.

[mjmooney]

12 hours ago, mjmooney said:

BBC 

This item has now completely disappeared from the BBC News page. I wonder why?

[blandy]

50 minutes ago, mjmooney said:

This item has now completely disappeared from the BBC News page. I wonder why?

You posted an image and a link to this thread. Neither of those have ever been on the BBC. I surmise therefore that it’s either fake news, a posting error, or both, or something else entirely. That’s cleared that up then.