Food Banks

[otter]

I'm sorry but I think you are missing the point it is the little people you are talking about still missing out and the big fat W----- Bankers on a good old hand shake and million bonuses that are ok. Have any of you heard of PFI re our lovely NHS and again a lot of our hospitals are suffering because of this while many in government who invested are still sitting happy!!! I am already for the revolution................

[sillywoman]

I'm coming too. :D I just can't understand how it hasn't happened already. I suspect the Olympics has played a large part in damping down voices of dissent and discontent - Bread & Circuses people. The whole 'royal baby' (don't get me started) feeds into that too. Im watching to see what they'll come up with next to distract us while they raid our metaphorical pockets to line their own. Vive la revolution indeed!

[Sue]

otter Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> I'm sorry but I think you are missing the point

xxxxxxx

It isn't clear who you are saying is missing the point?

Not me I hope as your post follows mine?

[buddug]

I think otter meant Penguin68 - that apologist for this coalition and their friends the bankers - was missing the point with his 'little people' comment. Penguin68 said that the little people, i.e. us, would have been hurt even more if the bust banks had been allowed to fail.

But as I said earlier, if those banks had been allowed to fail, as happened in Iceland, and the depositors reimbursed, it would still have been much cheaper than bailing out those banks, as we as taxpayers ended up doing to the detriment of the country and its services in general, resulting in the bastard crooks carrying on business as usual i.e. giving each other ?1million plus bonuses while refusing to give loans to small businesses as they promised.

(I wonder what The Guardian et al would think of that supposed bastion of the middle class East Dulwich being a hotbed of revolutionary subversiveness! I wonder too what the coalition would think - a wake-up call perhaps that even so-called Middle England is not prepared to watch passively by without conscience while the poor and disabled and the rest of us are being shafted?)

[dbboy]

thanks for the update Peckhamnearbe

[baggie]

[StraferJack]

@ LondonMix

This govt reduced the top rate of tax from 50p to 45p last year

There have been other reductions - personal threshold increased for example

[LondonMix]

This current gov't increased the top rate from 40% to 50% temporarily and have left it at 45%. I wouldn't call that cutting taxes. Those making over 100k have lost their personal allowance all together, which represents a significant increase in total taxes payable.

I'm not a fan of the current government for lots of reasons but the idea that they have cut taxes is absurd.

[Sue]

You've reminded me to look for the historical data I mentioned before.

The first Tory cut in income tax was earlier than I thought, but I distinctly remember the cuts in the eighties.

Wikipedia isn't always correct, but I think this is. This is an edited (by me) extract:

"Margaret Thatcher, who favoured indirect taxation, reduced personal income tax rates during the 1980s.

In the first budget after her election victory in 1979, the top rate was reduced from 83% to 60% and the basic rate from 33% to 30%.

The basic rate was also cut for three successive budgets - to 29% in the 1986 budget, 27% in 1987 and to 25% in 1988. The top rate of income tax was cut to 40% in the 1988 budget.

Subsequent governments reduced the basic rate further, down to its present level of 20% in 2007.

Since 1976 (when it stood at 35%) the basic rate has been reduced by 15 percentage points."

Voters were so keen to see more in their pay packets (or whatever the modern equivalent is) that they voted Tory in their droves. What they failed to realise in their personal greed was that their tax had been going to pay for education, the NHS etc..

When these systems started to collapse, no government could put income tax up again if they wanted to be re-elected, so the country was f****d, quite apart from other issues.

That may be somewhat simplistic, but that's my take on it.

Thin end of the wedge. And now we've got Food Banks.

[L15ecr]

There are good and bad points at both end of the scale...big companies aren't paying the taxes that they should at the top end...at the bottom end you have every punter in his right mind that can't be ar$ed to work claiming benefits mixed in with a few people that have a genuine need. I am 31, have gone to Uni and paid taxes since I was 16 but I cannot afford to buy a house. I used to work in a bank and my sister in law got more in benefits than I earned in that bank! She was better off not working...which is a sad state of affairs. I have have brothers and sisters, that work, looking to add to their family that can't because they cannot afford to...yet you have people that keep having children when they have never worked or have no intention of working and expect the masses to pay for it. I am all about giving those in genuine need welfare, where they have tried to get a job and can't or have a genuine disability and can't work but I fear a big part of our problem is that we have developed a culture of people that think it is their given right to sit at home with their feet up!

[LondonMix]

Sue, I get why you think that would be the case but the reality of it is that tax revenue as a percentage of GDP has scarcely changed since the 60s regardless of what the income tax rate has been. Look at the data from the Guardian: http://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2010/apr/25/tax-receipts-1963

Part of the reason for this is when you increase one form of tax, it reduces the another (higher income taxes mean people have less money to buy things and then corporate tax and VAT revenue go down).

The fact is the government- regardless of which party has been in power- has consistently spent more than the tax revenue it was collecting. In the last 50 years, there was only 1 year that wasn't the case.

There are real social problems that need tackling and I am not linking to the data above to suggest that we shouldn't discuss increasing taxes but its easy to oversimplify the problems the country is facing. It's not a question of we once could afford it and then all the taxes got cut and now the country is skint. Amongst other things, the demand on services has increased-- the NHS is struggling under both a babyboom and an increase in longevity that?s straining resources.

Sue Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> You've reminded me to look for the historical data

> I mentioned before.

>

> The first Tory cut in income tax was earlier than

> I thought, but I distinctly remember the cuts in

> the eighties.

>

> Wikipedia isn't always correct, but I think this

> is. This is an edited (by me) extract:

>

> "Margaret Thatcher, who favoured indirect

> taxation, reduced personal income tax rates during

> the 1980s.

>

> In the first budget after her election victory in

> 1979, the top rate was reduced from 83% to 60% and

> the basic rate from 33% to 30%.

>

> The basic rate was also cut for three successive

> budgets - to 29% in the 1986 budget, 27% in 1987

> and to 25% in 1988. The top rate of income tax was

> cut to 40% in the 1988 budget.

>

> Subsequent governments reduced the basic rate

> further, down to its present level of 20% in

> 2007.

>

> Since 1976 (when it stood at 35%) the basic rate

> has been reduced by 15 percentage points."

>

>

> Voters were so keen to see more in their pay

> packets (or whatever the modern equivalent is)

> that they voted Tory in their droves. What they

> failed to realise in their personal greed was that

> their tax had been going to pay for education, the

> NHS etc..

>

> When these systems started to collapse, no

> government could put income tax up again if they

> wanted to be re-elected, so the country was

> f****d, quite apart from other issues.

>

> That may be somewhat simplistic, but that's my

> take on it.

>

> Thin end of the wedge. And now we've got Food

> Banks.

[buddug]

Sue is so right. And also, the only reason this country is struggling is because we were forced to give all our taxpayers money to bail out the banks. Focus on that. Normally we would have had more than enough for the NHS and the Welfare State - especially for our disabled. Yes, there had to be constraints on abusers of the benefits system, but not at the expense of most of us workers who have paid years of tax into the system who simply lost and continue to lose our jobs. It is shocking.

And frankly, the MPs' expenses scandal saw more money siphoned off from taxpayers' money than benefit fraudsters! For their second homes, fancy belfast sinks, Oka furniture and duck islands and moats. Who exactly have their noses in the trough!

[BrandNewGuy]

buddug Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> ... the only reason this

> country is struggling is because we were forced to

> give all our taxpayers money to bail out the

> banks. Focus on that.

I will - it's not true. Huge debt, relentlessly increasing oil prices, a burst bubble and an international financial crisis are the main factors. Yes, the bankers wsere greedy and reckless. Yes, the banks shouldn't have been bailed out quite so straightforwardly, but the reasons for financial and fiscal disaster were already in place.

> And frankly, the MPs' expenses scandal saw more money

> siphoned off from taxpayers' money than benefit

> fraudsters!

?1.2 million of MPs' expenses was ordered to be paid back. Benefit fraud is about ?1.1 billion a year. Yes, many MPs are self-serving greedheads, but you claim doesn't hold up.

[LondonMix]

Neither benefit fraud nor MP expenses are major economic problems. Though the ?1b in estimated benefit fraud per year sounds hight, it is less than 1% of total benefits paid out. The GDP of the UK is over 1.5 trillion so while benefit fraud and MP expenses are serious moral concerns, the economic impact of both of these is close to nothing.

[L15ecr]

Benefit fraud only includes those that are fraudulently claiming benefits such as disability allowance or claiming whilst holding a job...it does not include those that simply choose not to work! That I imagine is another statistic that the government chooses not to advertise!

[LondonMix]

That's true...

[buddug]

Brand New Guy said: "Huge debt, relentlessly increasing oil prices, a burst bubble and an international financial crisis are the main factors. Yes, the bankers wsere greedy and reckless. Yes, the banks shouldn't have been bailed out quite so straightforwardly, but the reasons for financial and fiscal disaster were already in place."

What you are describing initially was the start of the banking crisis. It's only when we bailed out the bankrupt banks that it became a sovereign debt crisis, resulting in austerity measures for the rest of us.

We should have done what Iceland did: stick two fingers up at the bust banks that caused their own crisis with the sub-prime fiasco and jailed complicit politicians and bankers.

Iceland did "everything the International Monetary Fund (IMF) or the global economic establishment thinks you should never do", according to Allister Heath, editor of business daily City A.M., when "it allowed banks to go bust, it defaulted on its debt, it reneged on international deals and so on, putting taxpayers first".

And now Iceland's economy "looks set to outgrow both the euro area and the developed world on average," according to estimates by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).

And by the way, benefit fraud - just 0.75 per cent of total benefit expenditure - is a drop in the ocean compared to tax avoidance by multinationals and individual friends of and donors to this vile coalition.

[LondonMix]

That there weren?t more consequences for those that took their financial institutions and the global economy to the brink of a global depression is shameful. And despite the raft of new regulations increasing how well capitalized the banks have to be, capping bonuses as a % of salary across all of Europe including the UK and a raft of new regulations I remain deeply skeptical that this is the last major financial crisis we?ll have.

However, that analysis on Iceland is flawed. Sure, in future they will grow faster than EU but that?s only to make up for how much they shrank. After the collapse, Iceland?s GDP contracted a total of 10.7% over the following 2 years. Just to get back to where they were in 2008 will take them until 2016 based on current growth forecasts before adjusting for inflation. Once you account for inflation, Iceland won?t be where it was before the crisis until well into the next decade. The UK on the other hand, in the same period shrunk 5%, and by the end of next year is projected to be where it was in 2008 in nominal terms.

Moreover, Iceland?s unemployment rate skyrocketed from a very low 1.6% to over 8% and is still well above where it was pre-crisis and isn?t projected to go back to its pre-crisis level anytime in the next 5 years. The UK already had a higher unemployment rate so only God knows what would be happening here.

Iceland?s currency has also suffered a major devaluation which means the cost of living has gone up (hence why I mentioned inflation). In the two years after the crisis, inflation totaled just under 25% and is still above 5% this year. Therefore, people are much poorer than they were in 2008 despite apparent growth in the economy.

When judging what the government (and remember it was Labour who bailed out the banks) you also need to consider that the UK economy is 100 times larger than Iceland?s and the collapse of the UK banking system would have had a much larger negative impact on the global economy making the UK recession even deeper.

http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/weo/2013/01/weodata/weorept.aspx?sy=2007&ey=2018&scsm=1&ssd=1&sort=country&ds=.&br=1&c=176%2C112&s=NGDP_R%2CNGDP_RPCH%2CPCPIPCH%2CLUR%2CGGR&grp=0&a=&pr1.x=55&pr1.y=6

Regardless of whether you think that letting the banks fail would have been better, blaming the need to reduce the fiscal deficit on the bank bailouts simply isn?t the case. The country was already running a deficit well before the bailouts were necessary. The reasons why it is now necessary to address the longstanding deficit is complicated but largely to do with the realization that the credit markets (who lend us money to close the gap between what we spend and what we collect in taxes) can cut us off if they become concerned the debt level is out of control / not-sustainable.

I actually think austerity has gone too far now and is pro-cyclical and therefore despite concerns about the deficit, slowing the rate of cuts would be the best course of action. However, I can?t pretend like the budget deficit doesn?t ever need to be addressed.

Also, the idea that the NHS doesn?t have new demands on it relative to a generation ago is simply not true. The NHS went from circa 3% of GDP in the 50s and early 60s to 8.4% of GDP today. The Department of Health?s Budget is 106b (90% of which is for the NHS) and uses over 19% of all tax revenue collected. Even after adjusting for inflation, the NHS budget has increased 10 fold since 1948.

http://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2010/oct/18/historic-government-spending-area#data

http://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2010/oct/18/historic-government-spending-area#data

I actually am NOT in favour of major changes to the NHS but I do recognize that our demands on services like the NHS and the cost of providing pensions has increased and that we have to figure out how to deal with the new reality without going bankrupt. Things can?t be as they were before and that means universal benefits can?t be the norm anymore and more means testing will have to take place amongst other things.

[JohnL]

In the 80s the left argument was that the Tories will take into account

charity and reduce benefits accordingly.

(this was why the NHS was never allowed to be funded from charity in the past I recall)

Surely they wouldn't dare !!!

Penguin68 Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> Just out of interest Food Banks are:-

>

> (a) staffed by volunteers

> (b) resourced (i.e materials handed out) through

> donations

>

> Which are both quite positive things to say about

> our society and

>

> © substantially exist to help out those who have

> been caught-out by unforseen circumstances -

> either through a sudden large non-discretionary

> expenditure or because they are in a transition

> status waiting for benefits to be paid. That is to

> say that they exist as a safetly net to catch

> those who are not being helped 'in the normal

> manner'. However good the welfare and benefits

> system is, there will always be anomalies and

> sudden emergencies.

>

> Efficient food banks are a valuable addition to

> the welfare and benefits system - and those who

> staff them (and who fund them through donations in

> cash and in kind) deserve thanks and praise. They

> are, in many ways, a symptom of a healthy, not a

> sick society.

>

> By all means rant on from the comfort of your

> internet mediated lives, but for those of us who

> have lived through 4 major down-turns - one of

> which, in the 1970s - was substantially worse than

> anything we have now, your fears of revolution are

> misplaced.

>

> What funds the welfare state is effective

> capitalism, of course there are examples where

> this has gone off the rails (and the market

> economy works on a long-run basis, with many

> short-term hiccups) and of course the 'too big to

> fail' banks need re-structuring - but remember

> that where a bank does really fail - there are a

> lot of little people (both those whose pension

> funds have invested, those who themselves have

> deposits and those who work in the banks) who

> would have been terminally burned by such a

> failure. It is the mark of a 'welfare state'

> economy that the hardships of the many can be

> shared (through taxation) across an even greater

> number to lessen their impact.

>

> Or would you have been happy to be paying less tax

> so that those whose pension funds had invested in

> RBS and BoS and those who had deposits with BoS

> and RBS should be beggarised and now be looking

> forward to a life of penury, and those who work in

> those banks would be unemployed and ditto? Bit of

> a run on food banks then, I would guess.

[JohnL]

>

> > And frankly, the MPs' expenses scandal saw more

> money

> > siphoned off from taxpayers' money than benefit

>

> > fraudsters!

>

> ?1.2 million of MPs' expenses was ordered to be

> paid back. Benefit fraud is about ?1.1 billion a

> year. Yes, many MPs are self-serving greedheads,

> but you claim doesn't hold up.

How many benefits are unclaimed - thought it was more than the fraud.

[buddug]

Londonmix said: "The UK on the other hand, in the same period shrunk 5%, and by the end of next year is projected to be where it was in 2008 in nominal terms."

mwa-ha ha ha ha ha ha....

[LondonMix]

Hey if you are going to use projections for growth in Iceland its fair play to do the same for the UK! I agree though that no one knows what the future holds.

Forgetting the future, relative to where both Iceland and the UK were in 2008, we in the UK are much better off today then they are. They are massively poorer that they were due to severe levels of inflation and have suffered a much more singificant recession. I wouldn't trade places with them.

[buddug]

Meanwhile, back at the ranch...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-23518732

[Sue]

Excellent!

[JohnL]

Unless you're on a zero hours contract - and I can see them increasing through the ranks of

the average employees.

LondonMix Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> Hey if you are going to use projections for growth

> in Iceland its fair play to do the same for the

> UK! I agree though that no one knows what the

> future holds.

>

> Forgetting the future, relative to where both

> Iceland and the UK were in 2008, we in the UK are

> much better off today then they are. They are

> massively poorer that they were due to severe

> levels of inflation and have suffered a much more

> singificant recession. I wouldn't trade places

> with them.