Sep 2024
12:49pm, 10 Sep 2024
22,968 posts
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DeeGee
12.5 million pensioners in the UK £420bn made in profits in 2023 by the firms and business units involved in electricity production, distribution and retail in the UK. I've found a magic money tree to shake... endfuelpoverty.org.uk |
Sep 2024
1:09pm, 10 Sep 2024
11,610 posts
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Fields
The attacks on older people by fozzy just shows how successfully capital turns the workers class on each other
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Sep 2024
1:10pm, 10 Sep 2024
11,611 posts
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Fields
I just hope the pensioners who are freezing cold this winter will feel glad the government has used their money to kill working class conscripted Russian soldiers
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Sep 2024
1:15pm, 10 Sep 2024
4,478 posts
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Cheg
Just putting down a few thoughts. Pension is one bucket. Then there is the unemployment bucket. The final more complicated one is around additional benefits for say disabilities. I will put that third one to one side, and just concentrate on the first two. Most kind hearted people really don't want to see old or young, families or singles, go hungry, homeless and cold. To make that happen you need to find an unemployment benefit/ state pension that is sufficient to meet those minimum needs. The problems with that are many, but from a pure £'s viewpoint you have the following: The minimum needed for rent, rates, electric and food varies across the country. You find a number that hits the points in Newcastle, it won't cover the costs in Newbury Park. What goes into the bucket? Is a vehicle vital? I think you are trying to find a number for a subsistence living, and so lose the car from the calculation. Once we agree on the size required, be that £10k, £15k, £20k. You are left with two significant problems. For those of working age, why am I working for £16k when staying at home gets me £15k. I am busting a gut for £1k. There are a whole range of earnings and calculations for people to make. Instruments are in place to try and smooth these out, but there are lots of examples of these tipping points. On the retirement side, if the state pension is say £11k, is that sufficient? If say £15k was seen as the required floor. You can't means test the state pension because then you have a real disincentive to provide for your own pension. If someone creates private pension for say £4k per year and then gets £11k from the state, that £4k maybe cost them £60k and was a total waste of time. They might as well have gone partying and then relied on the state for the full £15k. |
Sep 2024
1:24pm, 10 Sep 2024
25,541 posts
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larkim
As a Starmerite, I have to admit, too, that the reason why they have gone for the WFA is because in the manifesto they took other things off the table so they have fewer tools to play with at this point. Some said at the time that that was foolish given the size of the funding challenge was always going to be worse than both Con and Lab admitted to recognising at the time. Hard to argue that there some of that commentary wasn't accurate.
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Sep 2024
1:32pm, 10 Sep 2024
11,612 posts
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Fields
Just classic divide and rule. It’s like Cheg and his wife’s pension all over again. Once a benefit like WFA stops being universal then the neoliberal establishment has successfully divided those into 2 - those who receive benefit and those who don’t, and then demonise the first group. May as well make the state pension means tested too. See those who carp on about “benefit scroungers” while being fine with Amazon and Starbucks paying very little tax. Who is the villain here? Benefit fraud which is really very minor compared to corporate tax avoidance. Clue it’s not who the right wing media rant at |
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Sep 2024
1:37pm, 10 Sep 2024
25,542 posts
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larkim
The neoliberal establishment (i.e. Blair and Brown) actually implemented the WFA, so you can't have it both ways! They giveth and they taketh away!! Very few benefits are universal and non-means tested. I don't think the demonisation of those on benefits really matters whether the benefit was universal or not; there is a good chunk of the "haves" who will demonise anyway. (As well as a good chunk of us who don't). |
Sep 2024
2:00pm, 10 Sep 2024
6,395 posts
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paulcook
larkim wrote: Some said at the time that that was foolish given the size of the funding challenge was always going to be worse than both Con and Lab admitted to recognising at the time. That's what I don't get. Many places were talking about this £20b blackhole. It's now suddenly not unexpected. Or is that part of the "pulling the wool over our eyes" that most people are buying that it is unexpected. |
Sep 2024
2:04pm, 10 Sep 2024
194 posts
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Joe1970
I think there's reasonable arguments either way on the pensions / winter fuel allowance thing - sure, there are many well-off pensioners, so why not mean test the WFA & pensions will go up anyway vs the additional bureaucracy & the principle of universal benefits. I can't get too excited either way on this specific thing. I've yet to see any reasonable arguments as to why we shouldn't tax the rich more, though. There are many ways this could happen, but there isn't the will to do so within Labour, and that's extremely disappointing, while not in the least bit surprising. |
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Sep 2024
2:15pm, 10 Sep 2024
22,969 posts
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DeeGee
Joe1970 wrote: I've yet to see any reasonable arguments as to why we shouldn't tax the rich more, though. As I see it, the wealthy are avoiding paying their full due of taxes anyway. If they are making money on other people's labour, they aren't suddenly going to close their business, as that way they'll kill the golden goose, so they'll continue to provide jobs and/or exploit the proletariat. If they bugger off overseas, well, bingo, that's more land released to deal with this housing crisis (that we're currently as a nation resolving by building half million pound homes or selling up to private landlords.) |
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