"Return Of Class War"

[taffboy gwyrdd]

"return of class war" is vacuous bollocks, generating the idea that Labour is "left wing" among 2 self-serving audiences:
1) The torygraph contigent.
2) The Labour phoney left, who might love to think that a slight increase on a small amount of people after 12 years can cover up for all the reactionary right wing crap we have seen. It doesnt.

 

[butchersapron]

I'm gald to see any general rise in talk of class war myself.

 

[Das Uberdog]

Even when it's a totally bogus red herring, designed to cloud the real issues at play?

 

[Divisive Cotton]

I feel sorry for the wealthy they are just not being appreciated the way they used to be

 

[butchersapron]

Even when it's a totally bogus red herring, designed to cloud the real issues at play?

Yes, certainly. It doesn't debarr you from pulling it apart. It gives you an opportunity if anything. The sooner we get back to a polarised culture in which large groups of people see themselves as being on one side or the other a real life material class war the better. This can only be helped by this idiocy in the telegraph.

 

[taffboy gwyrdd]

Yes, certainly. It doesn't debarr you from pulling it apart. It gives you an opportunity if anything. The sooner we get back to a polarised culture in which large groups of people see themselves as being on one side or the other a real life material class war the better. This can only be helped by this idiocy in the telegraph.

Even if people might go around thinking the Labour Party is on their side?

 

[dennisr]

Even if people might go around thinking the Labour Party is on their side?

Apart from the average 170 year old blue rinse torygraph reader, most folk read between the lines...

 

[butchersapron]

People already do - or at least did do for many decades taffboy. I'm talking about a general culture.

You don't think there's a class war anyway. You'll believe barmy old shit but the real stuff in front of your face you dismiss.

 

[FridgeMagnet]

Yes, certainly. It doesn't debarr you from pulling it apart. It gives you an opportunity if anything. The sooner we get back to a polarised culture in which large groups of people see themselves as being on one side or the other a real life material class war the better. This can only be helped by this idiocy in the telegraph.

I imagine there were a fair few Telegraph readers saying "well if this is class war, I'm all for it" this morning.

 

[glenquagmire]

2) The Labour phoney left, who might love to think that a slight increase on a small amount of people after 12 years can cover up for all the reactionary right wing crap we have seen. It doesnt.

Name names. I'm yet to hear that analysis from anyone on the Labour left.

 

[taffboy gwyrdd]

Butchers "You don't think there's a class war anyway. You'll believe barmy old shit but the real stuff in front of your face you dismiss."

I've cautioned you before about your ropey psychic capabilities Butchers.

I do indeed believe there is a small elite class, and that the vast global majority are exploited to a greater or lesser degree.

 

[butchersapron]

You've cautioned me?

That's what you think the class war is it? How does it work, this exploitation?

 

[PeterTCA]

That's just it - the vast bulk of the Telegraph's readers are now retirees, (after the Express it has the highest over-60s readership of any newspaper in the UK) so they aren't even aspirant anymore!

Oi! Oi! Less of the "over-60s not being aspirant anymore"

And the Telegraph has the best footbal writer (Henry Winter), the best Obituaries and their crossword on a Saturday is addictive. Apart for that it's full of crap. If I want news then I look at sites like this.

 

[danny la rouge]

If I want news then I look at sites like this.

Oh dear god.

 

[taffboy gwyrdd]

You've cautioned me?

That's what you think the class war is it? How does it work, this exploitation?

Yes, I have cautioned you. I'm concerned that you weak capabilities could lead to losing money in bets, trying to bend spoons in front of people and not really being up to it...a whole host of things. It's a friendly concerned kind of caution, not a threatening one.

Im suprised you need to be told how exploitation works, what you are really asking is how I think it works so that you might catch me out or something.

The latest incarnation of the exploitation is the massive transfer of assets, predicated on future debt, to the banking elites. This is essentially a take-over or coup, their reward for screwing up. It now includes a trillion for the IMF to go around persuading regeimes to be highly corrupt and undemocratic.

I dont know how this view fits in with Orthodox Marxism, but I dont see why it shouldnt. I cant think of a big criticism I would have of Marx from the top of my head. Hang on, I dont much like the idea of a "dicatorship of the proletariat" though (was that him or Lenin?) cos a dictatorship of anybody sounds ropey.

The "withering away of the state" for me represents a move towards genuine anarchy that I am very sympathetic toward.

 

[Blagsta]

Yes, I have cautioned you. I'm concerned that you weak capabilities could lead to losing money in bets, trying to bend spoons in front of people and not really being up to it...a whole host of things. It's a friendly concerned kind of caution, not a threatening one.

Im suprised you need to be told how exploitation works, what you are really asking is how I think it works so that you might catch me out or something.

The latest incarnation of the exploitation is the massive transfer of assets, predicated on future debt, to the banking elites. This is essentially a take-over or coup, their reward for screwing up. It now includes a trillion for the IMF to go around persuading regeimes to be highly corrupt and undemocratic.

I dont know how this view fits in with Orthodox Marxism, but I dont see why it shouldnt. I cant think of a big criticism I would have of Marx from the top of my head. Hang on, I dont much like the idea of a "dicatorship of the proletariat" though (was that him or Lenin?) cos a dictatorship of anybody sounds ropey.

The "withering away of the state" for me represents a move towards genuine anarchy that I am very sympathetic toward.

Did you read that David Harvey book yet?

 

[elbows]

On a slightly related note, Ive just got upset by the following wank from someone at the BBC:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/8014223.stm

At at time when the UK's battered public finances have never more needed the help of City institutions, the chancellor's Budget will not have won him any prizes for good psychology.
Alistair Darling may not have reused Dennis Healey's famous quote of "tax the rich until the pips squeak", but the increase in the top rate of income tax to 50% is hardly going to please the square mile's power brokers.
Especially when he also wants them to buy some of the £220bn worth of new government bonds, or gilts, that Mr Darling also announced would be released this financial year to help fund the burgeoning public sector budget deficit.
The problem for the chancellor is that while increasing the tax burden of the richest members of society will no doubt raise a cheer among traditional Labour voters, the party's core support base is not in a habit of buying gilts when they do their weekly shop.

Err arent some of these City institutions the ones that needed government to save their sorry hides?

Government stepped in to save a system which allows these institutions & individuals to profit on a rather large scale. If the rich are going to moan and piss about having to help repay the bill over the medium term via higher taxes, when everyone else is going to have similar sacrifices or much worse, then I think things are going to get ugly.

If they are dumb and their greed causes them to push it too far, they might get to see how bad things can really get - they have a lot more to lose from the loss of the current status quo than they do from having to pay a bit more tax in future.

 

[Wolveryeti]

I think this is great news. Tax harmonisation should be very high on the agenda of OECD nations to stop a competition to the bottom. The UK has effectively been playing begger thy neighbour for years, and it is wrong.

 

[taffboy gwyrdd]

Did you read that David Harvey book yet?

I've started on it since Butchers posted a link and Ive saved it on my desktop. Hope it's the right one. I've also watched some of his lectures and asked around about him. In context of neoliberalism I was told his analysis includes that neoliberal finance capitalism kind of superceded industrial capitalism circa the late 70s. I aint sure how much that was deliberately done or how much it just evolved. To be honest, I've found it so far interesting for its own sake. I was challenged to study him originally (I think) because people thought it might calm down / challenge my NWO wibblings, so far it hasnt really done that.

 

[elbows]

Meanwhile in the Times:

http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/economics/budget/article6150903.ece

Alistair Darling has saved the economy. Unfortunately the economy he has saved is the wrong one. In true Mr Bean fashion, yesterday’s Budget saved the economies of Switzerland, Luxembourg, Jersey, Hong Kong and other low-tax jurisdictions (polite society no longer describes them as tax havens), which only three weeks ago his boss Gordon Brown had boasted of closing down. As for the British economy, one can only sigh in disbelief. To cram so much bad news and so many policy blunders into an hour-long speech was quite an achievement, matched only by David Cameron, who managed in just 15 minutes to prove that Britain under the Tories would fare even worse.

Goes on to argue that maybe its fair to kick them, but not now when they are down, should of taxed them more during the boom times, ha.

 

[TomPaine]

challenge my NWO wibblings,

Taff out of interest though what sources do you use to build up your case for there being a "NWO"? The people I have seen espousing it seem to either be incredibly poor researches, using it to push a political/religious agenda or nut jobs.

 

[camouflage]

...according to the Telegraph print version. (Online version here).


Putting to one side the fact that the class war has never been away, because the wealthy have never stopped waging it on the working class, the facts haven't been allowed to get in the way of the headline: whatever we might be being told about "squeezing the rich", the heaviest tax burden still falls on the poorest, and always has done.

UK direct and indirect taxation taken together adds up to a regressive tax regime. Because we are taxed on what they spend, eg via VAT, the lower your income, the higher proportion goes on taxation. Once you get higher up the income scale, a lower and lower proportion goes on taxation, and more goes into savings, and some of the big items of expenditure, like private school fees, are not VATable.

So don't give us the "poor us" bleating.

Klassenkreig!

 

[sleaterkinney]

To be honest as has been pointed out on other threads. It is only going to be those on salaries or salaries + taxable bonuses that get hit by this. Most folks who run their own business, whether it be a law firm or similar will be able to re-structure their payment methods to void paying the extra tax. Inf act I would go as far as to say they probably don't even need to restructure this, as they are probably already claiming minimum wage and taking the rest in Capital gains, dividends and what have you.

Yeah, it's just a bit of redwash imo.

 

[rikwakefield]

Are the higher tax brackets payable on the entire salary or only on that earned over the threshold?

 

[danny la rouge]

Are the higher tax brackets payable on the entire salary or only on that earned over the threshold?

Only that over the threshold. £0-34,800 is 20%, £34,800-150 is 40%, >£150k is 50%.

 

[DotCommunist]

Only that over the threshold. £0-34,800 is 20%, £34,800-150 is 40%, >£150k is 50%.

If you are on 150k a year and you can't hide four grand you need to sack your accountant.

 

[rikwakefield]

Only that over the threshold. £0-34,800 is 20%, £34,800-150 is 40%, >£150k is 50%.

Thanks.

 

[danny la rouge]

If you are on 150k a year and you can't hide four grand you need to sack your accountant.

If you are self employed, you make your wife a partner. Then you're both on £75, paying 40% on the £38 - £75 section and 20% on the portion below that, and even if she's got a wee job paying her £65k, you're still both below the threshold.

 

[DotCommunist]

If you are self employed, you make your wife a partner. Then you're both on £75, paying 40% on the £38 - £75 section and 20% on the portion below that, and even if she's got a wee job paying her £65k, you're still both below the threshold.

Thats just one of many legal manipulations high earners can use to appear to be earning less isn't it?

Which is why I can't see this budget as much more than the same old political gamesmanship.

 

[danny la rouge]

Thats just one of many legal manipulations high earners can use to appear to be earning less isn't it?

Yup. As you say, that's what you pay an accountant for.