or imigration (o yes of course he did say they got it wrong ----------mind you all the Guardianistas on here said they had it right !!)
or the tube strike ( cant slag off Comrade Crow after all the Unions pay his wages)
yes pleaseeeeeeeeeeee lets hear him twaddle on about how this time Labour and the Guardianistas will get it righ i mean 13 years wasnt enoug was it ?
Just what would be cut under Labour ? i dont remember them saying to much pre the election ------i wonder why ? not one policy on how to reduce the huge mess we are in . Who was in power then ?
Still could be worse they could have elected Dianne Abbott (although that would have made them truly unelectable outside of 'ackney so i suppose its a shame they didnt)
Well off people should not recieve Child Benifit. However one income of circa £44k in a family of 4 is NOT well off.
Why not say if your joint income exceedes £75k then you lose it.
Agreed RedZed, I don't think universal benefits are right, though I will also lose out, but I also don't think it right that those in a particular pay bracket should take the hit for everyone. I would stop child benefit completely, think of the savings on staff, though a few thousand jobs in Washington Tyne and Wear would be lost, I think that is why they have not canned it yet. Surely these people could have been redeployed to tackle benefit fraud and tax evasion and would have paid their way.
If as we are told we will soon have a universal benefit in the future anyway then it makes no sense keeping this for anyone in the future. I think this will happen, just wish they had balanced this announcement out with an actual cut in benefits now, rather than some vague idea of a future upper benefits limit. Child benefit is deducted from income support anyway, so chavs don't benefit from it. Think they could have been braver rather than singling out a middle income group to show people nothing is sacred.
You know that bit in my original thread where I said I dont want to turn this into a political argument :)
I didnt have two kids because I wanted the benefit money but there are definite faults with this move by the coalition.
Would be interested in knowing what cutting child benefit for just 50% tax people would have saved, may have been an awful lot and I'm not sure Wayne and Colleen would have noticed but as people have said - middle income people like myself have been stung.
And to think my missus went back to work 3 days a week just because she wanted to work - her salary roughly £1000 after tax - our childcare costs £800!!!
Tories can't win this argument, but, as pointed out earlier in the thread, they don't need to. As someone who's never had kids and never intends to, I've always seen child benefit, personally speaking, as a bit of a f***ing cheek. Its not as if we NEED more people in this country anyway - why encourage people to breed?
However, I understand and accept the need to protect the neediest members of society, so accept that any form of benefits system needs to balance the overall needs of those requiring benefit with those that require it more than others (e.g. People with extra mouths to feed).
All that implementing the policy change in this way will do is muller the 'traditional' family (if such a thing exists any more) - hammering the stay at home mums who will now be FORCED into part time work just to cover the costs of the childminder. Whatever Osborne says about it not being feasible to means-test people and base it on total household income is utter bollocks. It makes zero sense and, instead of changing a benefit for good, makes it even less fair than it currently is.
If anyone wants a non-political look at government borrowing and debt, this article is quite enlightening. Not much point in engaging in the cartoon politics some on here prefer but as a matter of fact the country was £350bn in debt when the Tories left office in 1997 and the figure was lower between 1998 to 2004.
I can appreciate the principle of trying to reduce the benefit spend on the higher earners but this way of implementing it seems to me simply a shortcut. I suspect that they costs a means tested way of reducing child benefit and realised it would cost more to implement than it would save. Doing it this way is a lot simpler to set up and therefore the savings can be realised.
This takes no account of the considerable differences in cost of living in the UK. Someone on 45k up north can live like a king, round here you'd struggle to get a mortgage!
[cite]Posted By: Chirpy Red[/cite]Well off people should not recieve Child Benifit. However one income of circa £44k in a family of 4 is NOT well off.
Why not say if your joint income exceedes £75k then you lose it.
This is what I cant get my head around. So a couple can be earning 83k a year between them and still receive it but with one parent working earning 44k they lose it?
This to me seems really unfair and as Saga points out someone earning 44k and living in London would not be well off.
Having said the above this is just what we are used to and really should anyone rely on payments from the government to help raise your children? But if the government is going to do it - then at least make it fairer.
[cite]Posted By: Airman Brown[/cite]If anyone wants a non-political look at government borrowing and debt, this article is quite enlightening. Not much point in engaging in the cartoon politics some on here prefer but as a matter of fact the country was £350bn in debt when the Tories left office in 1997 and the figure was lower between 1998 to 2004.
I'd rather pay to help the poor than prop up the banks.
Leroy - of course we need more people in this country. Who do you think will be paying taxes in 50 years time? Our children. Mothers get child benefit because thay are doing the most important job in the world. Even more important than trading derivatives.
Speaking of which, my girlfriend is expecting another little Charlton supporter this month. It feels almost cruel to dump a lifetime of disappointment on the little thing but what can you do..?
[cite]Posted By: Vincenzo[/cite]I'd rather pay to help the poor than prop up the banks.
It's amazing how the banking industry has pulled this off. With the collusion of both Labour and Conservative/Liberal and much of the press, they have been exonerated of causing the deficit. It was all apparently caused by the public sector and those receiving benefits . I'm not against reform, but it's a bit rich (no pun intended) that the slate has been wiped clean for the banks - if we hadn't bailed them out, we would not need to make such savage cuts.
This government and the previous one were/are happy to subsidise rich bankers with OUR tax money. And what do we get in return?
All that implementing the policy change in this way will do is muller the 'traditional' family (if such a thing exists any more) - hammering the stay at home mums who will now be FORCED into part time work just to cover the costs of the childminder.
Why would stay at home Mums need to pay a child minder?
what would seem sensible to me is doing it by total household income ie household income above 70k and you don't get it, below and you do. Irrespective of whether that is one income or two incomes. Also, should someone over 18 and earning be brought into the income equation? If earning they should be contributing to household expenditure and so their income taken into account also. Plus Child Bnefit should be restricted to TWO children. You want more then YOU pay for them.
[cite]Posted By: Vincenzo[/cite]I'd rather pay to help the poor than prop up the banks.
This government and the previous one were/are happy to subsidise rich bankers withOURtax money. And what do we get in return?
yes, all us Bankers are stinking rich and live in a big pile in Surrey with a moat, a Roller and an indoor pool. Jeez. Rich bankers, I wish. Like saying all footballers earn 200k pw week becuase Toure does. Try telling that to say Grant Basey.
[cite]Posted By: Vincenzo[/cite]I'd rather pay to help the poor than prop up the banks.
This government and the previous one were/are happy to subsidise rich bankers withOURtax money. And what do we get in return?
yes, all us Bankers are stinking rich and live in a big pile in Surrey with a moat, a Roller and an indoor pool. Jeez. Rich bankers, I wish. Like saying all footballers earn 200k pw week becuase Toure does. Try telling that to say Grant Basey.
Not suggesting that all bankers are rich. I know people that got laid off because of the banking crisis. But those at the top were already rich and have managed to stay rich, in spite of dragging the economy down by gambling with everyone else's money. The world has been turned upside down - the rest of us are subsidising their way of life and they haven't been asked to pay back the bail-out subsidy we gave them.
Yeah lets ignore the billions of pounds the banks and other financial instituions have paid directly in tax and and indirectly income tax from the millions they employ to keep the country aflaot for the last twenty years.
Without the banks and financial services what would keep the dole mongers in fags and pot noodles....certainly not a few call centres up north and a few soho juice bars.
[cite]Posted By: Friend Or Defoe[/cite]The recession was caused by people spending money they didn't have on things they didn't need.
A combination of this and greedy, incompetent bankers. But to say that it was just the bankers is blinkered.
99% of people in this country will have somehow benefitted from Overdrafts, credit cards, mortgages and other such borrowings on credit so to then piously blame the institutions that allowed them this luxury (albeit it dubiously as we have since found out) is a tad hypocritical.
However I think they are scum in the way they treat the man in the street (on the retail side) and some of the bonuses the top bods are paid in their investment arms after borrowing public money is disgusting.
Piss off to Switzerland if you must... you aint that good.
All that implementing the policy change in this way will do is muller the 'traditional' family (if such a thing exists any more) - hammering the stay at home mums who will now be FORCED into part time work just to cover the costs of the childminder.
Why would stay at home Mums need to pay a child minder?
They don't. What I'm saying is they won't BE stay-at-home Mums if removing child benefit tips them over the edge of not being able to afford mortgage repayments. A family of four, where the father works and earns just over 44k whilst his wife stays at home in their three-bedroom terraced house which costs them an absolutely outrageous amount in mortgage repayments because of the housing (ahem) 'boom' of the last decade will no longer be able to survive. The woman will HAVE to go back to work simply to make ends meet - working three days a week in essence for 'free' (paying off the childminder) before they are in 'credit' and start earning whatever they need to make up the shortfall. Doesn't take a genius to figure this out.
The problem is the tax system is not refined enough to add up 2 incomes so you will get the unfair system where peole on joint annual incomes of @£70-80k can still get it. You can't argue with the statement that it is unfair apart from making the obvious comment - 'Life is unfair'!
It was definitely the bankers to blame. Not all of them but too many of them. Before the crisis, the debt under Labour was 3/4s of what it was under the Conservatives. Of course Labour increased public spending which compounded the problems when the bankers got us into the mess. People we see and are seeing that cuts to public spending will cause pain - to be fair the conservatives are not claiming otherwise. You can't ignore the massive amounts of public spending used to bail out the banks and it is galling that they have done so little to help us get out of it by not supporting business now with the lending they should be making. They are a disgrace and have proven that anybody who thainks that capitalism can be unchecked is wrong.
As you ask shag... My idea quite a few years ago was that the government should have announced that they would stop paying child benefit to anyone whose sprog was born later than nine months and one week hence. Would never happen because that would be a long term strategy, and no politician is interested in what is for the long term good of the country, just what will keep them in power for the relatively few years where they can have their snout in the trough. That way no-one could complain because they would have been aware as they were making the beast with two backs that they would never be entitled to this benefit for their offspring.
As a short term fix, which is needed, their proposed policy seems to be the only way to do it without adding a whole load more beaurocracy - and therefore expense - on to the system. If they also introduce my idea alongside it, it will show they have both long and short term goals, and the saving made will start to have an impact long before the end of the present term of office, both in benefit paid out, and reduction in staff needed to administer it. The gradual winding down of the CB system should enable natural wastage to eliminate the likelyhood of forced redundancies.
[cite]Posted By: MuttleyCAFC[/cite]It was definitely the bankers to blame. Not all of them but too many of them.
An element of truth in that ... risk assessment became too haphazard and long-term risk did not match short-term reward ... what was missing to a large extent was accountability. However, just to balance things, a contrary view from the Independent:
Case for the prosecution
Greed, symbolised by vast bonuses for taking unacceptable risks with other people's money and futures, destroyed the livelihoods of many far removed from Wall Street and the City of London. Even as the suffering continues and they have had to be rescued by the taxpayer, they carry on with lavish lifestyles and business as usual. Now they won't even lend to small businesses.
Case for the defence
Bankers are no more genetically greedy than, say, politicians, journalists or vets. The world was content when they were generating wealth and paying huge amounts in tax. They are not being bloody-minded now, all they're doing is trying to build up their capital, just as the public demand, but to do that they have to lend less. Besides, lots of householders and firms want to save, not borrow.
Verdict: Not guilty
A shock verdict, but the duty of government is to prevent people misbehaving. Like speeding drivers, we needed to stop bankers doing themselves and others harm when they followed their natural instructs.
Comments
pissing millions up the wall for 13 years
or imigration (o yes of course he did say they got it wrong ----------mind you all the Guardianistas on here said they had it right !!)
or the tube strike ( cant slag off Comrade Crow after all the Unions pay his wages)
yes pleaseeeeeeeeeeee lets hear him twaddle on about how this time Labour and the Guardianistas will get it righ i mean 13 years wasnt enoug was it ?
Just what would be cut under Labour ? i dont remember them saying to much pre the election ------i wonder why ? not one policy on how to reduce the huge mess we are in . Who was in power then ?
Red flag ???????? should be f**kin red flames.
Still could be worse they could have elected Dianne Abbott (although that would have made them truly unelectable outside of 'ackney so i suppose its a shame they didnt)
yes sorry RCT and AFKA to be honest there are some good Labour MPs--- the dead ones.
Diane Abbott is a true socialist.
She has lived the socialist mantra of don't do what I do, do what I say. The education of her child being a good example.
Why not say if your joint income exceedes £75k then you lose it.
You're right. They inheritd the best economy this country had ever seen.
And what a complete mess they made of it!
Rich people get walloped and the rich people moan...
What a miserable bunch of bastards we English are...
Perhaps we should do what they do in China and have cows instead of kids, think of all the free milk...
If as we are told we will soon have a universal benefit in the future anyway then it makes no sense keeping this for anyone in the future. I think this will happen, just wish they had balanced this announcement out with an actual cut in benefits now, rather than some vague idea of a future upper benefits limit. Child benefit is deducted from income support anyway, so chavs don't benefit from it. Think they could have been braver rather than singling out a middle income group to show people nothing is sacred.
You know that bit in my original thread where I said I dont want to turn this into a political argument :)
I didnt have two kids because I wanted the benefit money but there are definite faults with this move by the coalition.
Would be interested in knowing what cutting child benefit for just 50% tax people would have saved, may have been an awful lot and I'm not sure Wayne and Colleen would have noticed but as people have said - middle income people like myself have been stung.
And to think my missus went back to work 3 days a week just because she wanted to work - her salary roughly £1000 after tax - our childcare costs £800!!!
However, I understand and accept the need to protect the neediest members of society, so accept that any form of benefits system needs to balance the overall needs of those requiring benefit with those that require it more than others (e.g. People with extra mouths to feed).
All that implementing the policy change in this way will do is muller the 'traditional' family (if such a thing exists any more) - hammering the stay at home mums who will now be FORCED into part time work just to cover the costs of the childminder. Whatever Osborne says about it not being feasible to means-test people and base it on total household income is utter bollocks. It makes zero sense and, instead of changing a benefit for good, makes it even less fair than it currently is.
The myth of record debt
This is what I cant get my head around. So a couple can be earning 83k a year between them and still receive it but with one parent working earning 44k they lose it?
This to me seems really unfair and as Saga points out someone earning 44k and living in London would not be well off.
Having said the above this is just what we are used to and really should anyone rely on payments from the government to help raise your children? But if the government is going to do it - then at least make it fairer.
Interesting Airman.
Will be revealing to review this again in 18 months with some updated figures.
Leroy - of course we need more people in this country. Who do you think will be paying taxes in 50 years time? Our children. Mothers get child benefit because thay are doing the most important job in the world. Even more important than trading derivatives.
Speaking of which, my girlfriend is expecting another little Charlton supporter this month. It feels almost cruel to dump a lifetime of disappointment on the little thing but what can you do..?
It's amazing how the banking industry has pulled this off. With the collusion of both Labour and Conservative/Liberal and much of the press, they have been exonerated of causing the deficit. It was all apparently caused by the public sector and those receiving benefits . I'm not against reform, but it's a bit rich (no pun intended) that the slate has been wiped clean for the banks - if we hadn't bailed them out, we would not need to make such savage cuts.
This government and the previous one were/are happy to subsidise rich bankers with OUR tax money. And what do we get in return?
Why would stay at home Mums need to pay a child minder?
yes, all us Bankers are stinking rich and live in a big pile in Surrey with a moat, a Roller and an indoor pool. Jeez. Rich bankers, I wish. Like saying all footballers earn 200k pw week becuase Toure does. Try telling that to say Grant Basey.
Not suggesting that all bankers are rich. I know people that got laid off because of the banking crisis. But those at the top were already rich and have managed to stay rich, in spite of dragging the economy down by gambling with everyone else's money. The world has been turned upside down - the rest of us are subsidising their way of life and they haven't been asked to pay back the bail-out subsidy we gave them.
Without the banks and financial services what would keep the dole mongers in fags and pot noodles....certainly not a few call centres up north and a few soho juice bars.
A combination of this and greedy, incompetent bankers. But to say that it was just the bankers is blinkered.
99% of people in this country will have somehow benefitted from Overdrafts, credit cards, mortgages and other such borrowings on credit so to then piously blame the institutions that allowed them this luxury (albeit it dubiously as we have since found out) is a tad hypocritical.
However I think they are scum in the way they treat the man in the street (on the retail side) and some of the bonuses the top bods are paid in their investment arms after borrowing public money is disgusting.
Piss off to Switzerland if you must... you aint that good.
It was definitely the bankers to blame. Not all of them but too many of them. Before the crisis, the debt under Labour was 3/4s of what it was under the Conservatives. Of course Labour increased public spending which compounded the problems when the bankers got us into the mess. People we see and are seeing that cuts to public spending will cause pain - to be fair the conservatives are not claiming otherwise. You can't ignore the massive amounts of public spending used to bail out the banks and it is galling that they have done so little to help us get out of it by not supporting business now with the lending they should be making. They are a disgrace and have proven that anybody who thainks that capitalism can be unchecked is wrong.
As a short term fix, which is needed, their proposed policy seems to be the only way to do it without adding a whole load more beaurocracy - and therefore expense - on to the system. If they also introduce my idea alongside it, it will show they have both long and short term goals, and the saving made will start to have an impact long before the end of the present term of office, both in benefit paid out, and reduction in staff needed to administer it. The gradual winding down of the CB system should enable natural wastage to eliminate the likelyhood of forced redundancies.
Ithangyew...
An element of truth in that ... risk assessment became too haphazard and long-term risk did not match short-term reward ... what was missing to a large extent was accountability. However, just to balance things, a contrary view from the Independent:
Case for the prosecution
Greed, symbolised by vast bonuses for taking unacceptable risks with other people's money and futures, destroyed the livelihoods of many far removed from Wall Street and the City of London. Even as the suffering continues and they have had to be rescued by the taxpayer, they carry on with lavish lifestyles and business as usual. Now they won't even lend to small businesses.
Case for the defence
Bankers are no more genetically greedy than, say, politicians, journalists or vets. The world was content when they were generating wealth and paying huge amounts in tax. They are not being bloody-minded now, all they're doing is trying to build up their capital, just as the public demand, but to do that they have to lend less. Besides, lots of householders and firms want to save, not borrow.
Verdict: Not guilty
A shock verdict, but the duty of government is to prevent people misbehaving. Like speeding drivers, we needed to stop bankers doing themselves and others harm when they followed their natural instructs.
that summary ignores the fact that they got where they are by being the greediest people in society