91Èȱ¬

Getting millions in training and back to work in a time of rising unemployment will be quite a trick. If Mr Cameron can do that we should give him some loaves and fishes.

Wouldn't it be easier to just scrap Trident? We'll be saving billions on something that we will never use.

I wonder what disincentives the Germans and French will place on the UK to help avoid a Conservative government and a Cameron referendum on the Lisbon treaty. While President Klaus delays, the EU pressure might focus on an obvious Brown win, than a Klaus loss.

In the sixth paragraph above you say "But DEL accounts for only .....% of public spending"

What percentage is the blank please?

Stephanie, why so coy? We now know that the Conservatives are going to take an axe to Invalidity Benefit.

Radio 5 held a listerners panel today in Manchester as they have done at the start of each party's conference. But when asked today to applaud if the panel wanted a Conservative government at the next election, the clapping was drowned-out by the boos! When the same question wa put to listerners panels at both the Labour and Lib-Dem conferences no boos were heared! Not scientific I accept but perhaps a truer indication of the popularity of the Conservative party.

This election has a long way to go yet!

FrankSz (#3) "I wonder what disincentives the Germans and French will place on the UK to help avoid a Conservative government and a Cameron referendum on the Lisbon treaty. While President Klaus delays, the EU pressure might focus on an obvious Brown win, than a Klaus loss."

Or is Cameron just using this to try to capture the votes of the EU sceptics in the UK knowing full well that it's going to go ahead regardless? What does the anarchistic Conservative party have to lose by Lisbon being ratified - it enshrined free-market liberal-democracy does it not? Thatcher and the Conservatives with Keith Joseph as chief ideologue have been peddling that for years, even under the New Labour banner. The EU state legislates for business does it not, it is anti-regulative...It's all there in the 53 FCHR Articles is it not?

So, this is brave new britain, hit the sick and poor. By all means audit all claimants thoroughly. But dont expect the savings to generate significant revenue for the country. Audit costs will see to that.
There are thousands of untapped revenue streams available – but politcans and civil servants are too narrow in thought and vison to come up wth good ideas.
My latest favourite. Rfid tags for car tax. (radio frequency identificaton)
These can be read by hand held devce from the side of the road. Any car wthout one gets impounded and the driver prosecuted for no tax, insurance, MOT etc.

The body to run this scheme? That organisation that has offices in every city town and village in the country – the post offce.

Gaps between insurance and MOT dates could be bridged by independant insurance sales over the PO counter. Just one of MANY new roles the PO could perform – wth a lttle clear thought.

Of course we need Trident to keep our spot at the top table of international organisations. Luckily some sort of giant subterfuge is in order, best plan is to undertake a 'refit & refresh programme' to maintain operational capability for another 30 years. Then refit the subs but don't bother with the missiles and just park them onshore. Hey presto, no one need know except the captains of the vessels (4 men), the chief of defence and the PM. Renewed nuclear capability, continously & silently prowling the seas for less than £500m.

BTW, I will be most disappointed but not surprised if Friendly Dave drops the referendum on the Lisbon treaty, after all, when was the last Tory referendum? I don't remember one, don't want to start a dangerous precedent for democracy eh!

Getting rid of the ridiculous poverty trap would be the best way to go. ie able people should not be better off on the dole than they would be working; end of story.

I was suprised watching the Daily Politics Show on the 91Èȱ¬ how much the rehtoric reminded me of the Conservative Party speeches from the days of Margate Thatcher. They even had Norman Lamont as a commentator.
Is this what we are being offered now? A return to Thatcherite politics!

Just cut! We are spending more than we are earning.

It makes sense to cut incapacity benefits to people who are not incapacitated, so I don't know what the fuss is about.

By the way, if you cut Trident, as some suggest above, find some other large project to keep our engineers busy. Prison ships, anybody? But don't kill yet another part of our heavy industry. Whiners about Trident on blogs like this have probably never had a proper job. If they worked in a ship yard all their adult lives they would eventually become truly incapacitated - through wear-and-tear.

Real workers, like those that make Trident, or those that work for "evil" BAe pay the tax that pays for incapacity benefit, unemployment benefit, child support and civil servants. Real workers like that keep going practically until they drop.

A strictly for profit company called Atos Medical Services has been awarded a multi-million pound contract by the Government to 'assess' people in receipt of Incapacity Benefit. They do this on behalf of the Dept. of Work and Pensions and during the interview with the claimant ask seemingly innocent but craftily worded computer generated questions which are specifically designed to encourage the unwary claimant into talking themselves out of benefit entitlement. There are plenty of internet websites which will confirm this. After completing their misleading report Atos send the results to the DWP where someone with no medical knowledge will be only too happy to use it
to stop payments of a benefit the claimant will have already gone through a gruelling application process to be awarded.
Atos are only in it for the money, to meet their targets, so they can continue to receive their millions and so justify their own existence. How typical of our politicians to pick on the most vulnerable members of society to pay for their mistakes. How shameful that those least able to stand up for themselves [literally in some cases] should be targetted by these vultures, feeding as they do off the misery of others.

It appears to be the case that some people receiving incapacity benefit are actually not incapacitated to the extent that they can do no work at all.

So, what are they doing getting the benefit in the first place? Did they award it to themselves? Or could it be that the "system" conspired to shift people onto incapacity benefit so as to massage the unemployment figures. I wonder, tricky question. How difficult to ascertain whether in the UK it is possible for people to award themselves incapacity benefit.

Whilst answering that question is likely to prove too challenging for the media you can bet that they will discover a few "crippled" people who regularly use their disability benefit to fund their hobby of triathalons. Come on people - time to boo and hiss all of the fraudulent disabled. Don´t spend too much time seeking to discriminate here - lets just assume that all disabled people are led swingers.

Meanwhile operating under the radar screen of spontaneous public emotion will be the biggest welfare scroungers of all - yes step forward investment bankers, or rather don´t step forward. You don´t want to risk getting the blood of the poor on your $1,000 hand made loafers.

Serangoon (#12) Do you think there are any (if so, how many?) people who are illegitimately claiming benefits? If not, why do so many people say that they know people who illegitimately claim?

#12

Are you sure it's not just the governement not giving Atos?

#11 bertrambird I do not know how you can deduce that opponents of Trident have never had a proper job.

However you can deduce with 100% accuracy that supporters of trident have never been subject to its operational use, or indeed the operational use of any of the other mass destructive weaponry that sits so elegantly alongside it.

When the government is spending four pounds for every three that it gets in taxes, then obviously something has to give. The gap between spending and income is so huge that piddling cuts like scrapping Trident won't do. The only way to make the books balance is to cut back the big spenders: social security, health, education --- in that order. So much, so obvious (although you wouldn't guess so from listening to the politicians).

It won't even be enough just to target the usual scapegoats of workshy incapacity benefit claimants and single mothers. Universal, middle-class benefits will have to be cut, and that means yours and my child benefit and tax credits.

My problem with David Cameron (one of many problems) is that if he thinks that he can reduce the number of incapacity benefit claimants by waving a magic private sector wand then he is in for five years of disappointment.

Every government since Mrs Thatcher has tried to reduce the IB claimant count by introducing more stringent medical tests. For whatever reason, it never works. And just for once, I'd like the British government to take some responsibility for themselves and actually do something, rather than shrugging off responsibility to yet another unelected quango/charity/public-private partnership/consultant/private company/EU institution.

Whoever wins the coming election is going to have to cut government expenditure. There is no argument about it and it is a little disappointing that the first target are to be the poor and inadequate.

My concern about all these very laudable arguments about getting people into work is where are all these jobs for them to be got into? It has been known for years that we have a dysfunctional labour market where jobs are available there are not the people to do them and unsurprisingly there are no jobs where there are the unemployed. This is how we ended up with high immigration at the same time as high unemployment.

The great dilemma is going to be how we address the fiscal debt without experiencing an economic downturn as a direct consequence. There are arguments for increasing capital expenditure on infrastructure projects as this will sustain employment. Yet can this same standard be applied to the high number of external consultants employed by government on fancy salaries? Also what about quango-land: how much value does it actually add and where? Should there be a cap on public sector salaries and pensions and what would the consequences be of such a policy?

Whoever is returned to power, and it will not be any party led by a certain Gordon Brown who is already an ex-leader, is going to have to square a quite ghastly circle. Do we actually have a political leadership anywhere capable of addressing the huge structural deficit without plunging the country into one form of crisis or another? I don't think so.

This is beyond the political parties and possibly beyond democracy to resolve. It suggests to me that a National Government has to be our expectation as without a sense of unity and common purpose there will be no solution to the economic conundrum.

Tell you what, if we have less MP's in parliament then we would have less staff to pay for out of our taxes.
There's a cost cutting measure that not many would face up to.

My understanding of the Tory plan is that it will not actually target the 'sick and needy', as some of the people here have suggested. It will merely ensure that those who are able to work are moved onto the benefit that is most suitable to them. There seems to be a consensus between the parties that there's a problem with incapacity benefit. This move is long overdue.

#9 "Getting rid of the ridiculous poverty trap would be the best way to go."

#18 "My concern about all these very laudable arguments about getting people into work is where are all these jobs for them to be got into?"

It is quite possible to greatly reduce unemployment through a redesign of the Tax and Benefit System. But it would require a major upheaval. We should start by clearly defining what the requirements are. Put simply they should be :

1. No-one (in or out of work) should live beneath a well-defined poverty level.
2. The labour market should be as efficient as possible given the restrictions imposed by (1) - in other words incremental net income should be maximised for each increment in gross income.

What would this look like? Well, if you drew a graph of net income (ie after tax and benefits) versus gross income, it would start with a net income at or above the poverty level for gross income of zero (ie the level of unemployment benefit) and then increase in as straight a line as possible.

If you draw such a graph for the current Tax and Benefit System, then it's a complete mess, with portions of the slope flat or even negative due to poverty traps inherant in the system.

The optimal system would in fact be equivalent to scrapping all tax exemptions and benefits, and replacing them with a fixed "Citizen's Income" paid to all whether in work or not, combined with a flat income tax without personal allowances.

The benefits of such a system would be huge. There would be no poverty traps. An unemployed person would gain significantly from taking on part-time and/or low-paid work (whereas now it often not worth their while).

On the other side of the coin, an employer deciding whether to take on or lay off staff would be making a decision where the financial interests of the firm exactly match the interests of the nation as a whole (whereas now when a firm lays off staff it can take no account of the fact that a large part of the cost will be transferred to the taxpayer in the form of ongoing unemployment benefits).

It could be done.

#18 Stanilic

"Where are the jobs going to come from?" is not the whole question.

At other times on these blogs people are happy to harp on about the number of non-productive jobs that have built up in administration etc. and argue that they should all be cleaned out (thereby reducing the cost to the taxpayer).

With government spending set to contract then the Government will cease to be the employer of last resort and the full question is "Where are all the productive, for which read "wealth-generating", jobs that will rebuild our economy going to come from?

More to the point, "who is going to make the investment in Britain needed to create such jobs?" I fear that, having lost/given up much of our industrial base in favour of consumerism, we will have one hell of a job rebuilding it in a stagnant market and in the face of cut-throat competition from the third World.

'As I'll discuss in a later post, I think the Child Trust Fund is an odd target for a party that wants to promote equality of opportunity - and a national culture of saving. But they could save £500m a year by getting rid of it.'

Quite how money locked away in government sponsored savings accounts promotes equality of opportunity or 'a national culture of saving' I don't know. 13, 15, 18 years down the track the miniscule amounts plonked in accounts for kids will make not a jot of difference, especially for the 'poor' who won't be able to save extra anyway. And for those that can save extra, why not do it anyway. Kids don't pay taxes on these sorts of amounts.

Most of the providers of these accounts are small scale credit unions or equivalent. Guess who the others are - Halifax, RBS, Natwest and HSBC. Where do you think most of the government sponsored 9 billion over 18 years will be held, let alone any contributions that might conceivably be made by family? Are the rates provided market rates?

If 500,000,000 CAN be sprayed about, I could think of some more productive uses. Train a plumber or two, for example. Now.

"After completing their misleading report Atos send the results to the DWP where someone with no medical knowledge will be only too happy to use it
to stop payments of a benefit the claimant will have already gone through a gruelling application process to be awarded." Serangoon.

And, just to complete the picture, to get the decision reviewed you have to Appeal to the Independant Tribunal Service. In my area the waiting time for that Appeal is anything from 4 to 6 months, during which time you have to survive on basic Income Support -20%. Around here roughly 60% of Appeals (if the appellant gets benefits advice) are successful - Atos get it wrong more than half the time!

What this shows is that Cameron and the Tories are perhaps even more stupid than Brown and the Labour Party, if that were possible. Can the Tories please explain where exactly all these new jobs are supposed to come from, especially when we are currently seeing the mirage of a world economy falling apart at the seams, and most of the businesses generated in the private sector were sustained simply on a credit binge, without which they are collapsing and with them the jobs. Furthermore, it was the public sector that kept the illusion ticking over with the creation of government and quasi-government jobs.

Basically, none of our politicians have a clue what they are talking about, because the whole economic system is on the verge of disintegration, propped up by temporary government intervention, and all they are doing is simply tinkering around the edges.

As Albert Einstein is attributed to have said 'The significant problems we have cannot be solved at the same level of thinking with which we created them.'

Apparently any new business will gets its first 10 employees stamp free.

So what is to stop every new business doing this. Indeed every small business closing and starting up again as a new business. And why not every large business dividing itself up in new micro-businesses (with a complex overseas holding company structure so that its business can take advantage of this new rule. I think George O. hasn't thought through this idea!

Also what if I run an existing business and get a new competitor that has a lower cost base because of this new concession am I not going to be rather miffed?

Back to the drawing board!

Overall, every new policy statement from the Tories seems to be going off at half-cock, or worse. All because Dave dare not mention the EU! Are these nice Etonians really a potential party of government?

Ok , so now I am confused. I am on Incapacity Benefit. The reason I am on this Benefit is because my highly qualified, well trained and immensely experienced doctor has come to the conclusion that based on my symptoms and medical history, I am not well enough to work. My psychiatrist, who for the record, is even more qualified than my doctor has concurred with this conclusion.
Now I am told that if the Conservatives win the election that a ‘private company’ will override the conclusion made by my doctor and decide for themselves if I am ‘fit for work’.
So what experience and qualifications will these assessors have in comparison to the detailed knowledge of the state of my health as known by my doctor? Will they even be medically qualified? Clearly they will require access to my medical records as they couldn’t possibly come to any accurate conclusion without them.
To draw a medical conclusion from such an arbitrary assessment would be shockingly disgusting. To do so without discussing the status of my health with my doctor would be woefully negligent and any attempt to override the professional verdict of my chosen medical doctor would surely be an infringement of my Human Rights.
If the conservatives want to know if I am fit enough to work then they can take the issue up with my doctor, who I am quite sure would conclude that such an assessment would be detrimental to my mental health and would be a contributory factor if my symptoms became worse due to the stress of such an ordeal.
I strongly believe that as soon as one of these ‘private companies’ slashes a genuinely ill persons income, against the wishes of that persons GP and forces them to seek employment that they will find the decision challenged in the European Courts and this ludicrous policy will be overturned.
It is for my doctor to decide on the state of my health. Politicians (who could easily find more income by slashing Trident) should get their highly paid and extravagant noses out of the comparatively meagre pennies that I get for being sick and turn their attention to victims who are better equipped to fight back than the sick and mentally ill.

No 17 "The only way to make the books balance is to cut back the big spenders: social security, health, education --- in that order."

Actually, you'd be surprise that such blanket terms like "social security, health, education" cover a multitude of sins. The real frontline service are, as ever, starved of funds whilst the ever growing numbers of quangos, study groups, consultancies and junkets eat up much of the funding that the government proudly announced that it had "spent on.....service" !! It is these and not the frontline service that desperately need cutting !!

Also why do we have so many layers of national, county and local bureaucracy ?? Surely the same job can be done by less than half that many ?? Does paper have to be shuffled from pillar to post in order for it to be "effective" ??

If you truly think the World Great Big Wurlitsery Econo-Thingy Machine can be fixed then go ahead! Don't just cut, slash to the bone. If the estimate is debt reduction in 5 years then do it in 2. Like the surgeons of yore, do it tooo extreeme and do it quick. If the patient is still breathing in 2years time then your surgery can be called a success - irrespective of his/her ability to get up and walk!

If you truly don't think the World Great Big Wurlitsery Econo-Thingy Machine can be fixed then why bother?

#22 chriss-w

Thank you for expanding my point in the way I would have intended if I wasn't feeling quite so gloomy at the moment. Perhaps it is the change of the season or having to sit on the M40 yesterday for two and half hours for no apparent reason.

We lost a million manufacturing jobs after 1997 but only gained about half a million public sector jobs as a consequence so the economically inactive must have increased as well during that period. I suppose all these property tycoons must have come from somewhere.

It is our failure as a society to encourage value-added manufacturing activity over the last thrity years and particularly so in the last ten which is the most evident feature of our current predicament. In other words we asked for it and now we have it.

#21 random_thought

A nicely argued point with which one can have some sympathy. It looks like a good place to start.

However, we still have the problem as to what value-added tasks we want all these people to do. This is the real Keynsian bit we are rather lacking: all we hear from the political class is cutting projects which could add value albeit indirectly.

#11:

"Real workers, like those that make Trident, or those that work for "evil" BAe pay the tax that pays for incapacity benefit, unemployment benefit, child support and civil servants. Real workers like that keep going practically until they drop."

Actually, since the workers who (re)build Trident are ultimately employed by the tax payer, they're just as much a burden on the public purse as those "fake" workers, such as Civil Servants, Doctors and Police Officers.

No 21 "whereas now when a firm lays off staff it can take no account of the fact that a large part of the cost will be transferred to the taxpayer in the form of ongoing unemployment benefits)"

And who is going to take into account that the firm is no longer able to afford those staff and compensate the firm for keeping them on ?? The Germans seems to have something along those lines but not "top-table" Britain !!

chriss-w (#22) "More to the point, "who is going to make the investment in Britain needed to create such jobs?" I fear that, having lost/given up much of our industrial base in favour of consumerism, we will have one hell of a job rebuilding it in a stagnant market and in the face of cut-throat competition from the third World."

These questions have been asked many times in recent blogs. Have Peston, Flanders and friends been asking all the parties for answers?

No.

I don't wonder why not? ;-(

#18 Stanilic

Again I support your arguments - to start with hitting IB ineligible claimants is a start but the amount concerned trivial in context of the size of the problem - the devil is in the quality of the jobs/amount of investment that needs to be created to pay off the debt.
Consultants and quangocrats may in their way increase social capital of the country - what we need are sustainable (we are in this for 15-20 years n'estce pas?) jobs that create cash net worth to the economy that is either available to invest further and doesn't leak from the economy or that could immediately pay off net debt (personal or government). I have elsewhere suggested that the government tax companies (banks, insurance companies etc) for having offshore call centres. The developing countries labour costs may be cheaper, but their graduates should be developing their domestic economies and not dealing with our complaints. I fear that much higher VAT is the only way of discouraging consumption (of largely imported consumer goods) and favouring saving/debt repayment. The absence of leadership in our political establishment is frightening. The Tories don't recognise that the Europe debate is pointless and that we have moved on from any choice we may have once had over Europe - like it or not Euro referendum is a red herring. Also support further comments from #22 chriss-w and #25 XCAnderson

John_from_Hendon (#26) "So what is to stop every new business doing this. Indeed every small business closing and starting up again as a new business. And why not every large business dividing itself up in new micro-businesses (with a complex overseas holding company structure so that its business can take advantage of this new rule. I think George O. hasn't thought through this idea!"

My thoughts prety much exactly - exept, I suspect he has thought it through, as, like New Labour, the Conservatives are anarchists, and the more Permanent Revolution, the greater the opportunity to make money.

#30 stanilic

"However, we still have the problem as to what value-added tasks we want all these people to do. This is the real Keynsian bit we are rather lacking: all we hear from the political class is cutting projects which could add value albeit indirectly."

I guess there are two responses I could make to this

The first is that if we organised things correctly we could all have a perfectly comfortable living working much shorter hours than we do today. A Tax and Benefit system that treats part-time workers fairly would be a big move in the right direction. Instead over the last 15 years we have had a situation where we all work longer and longer hours (and yet many of the jobs - both in the public sector and *particularly* in the private "finance" sector" - are a complete waste of time and effort).

The second point is that the current mess of a system penalises labour-intensive processes and subsidises capital-intensive processes (where there are fewer better paid employees). A system which allows workers to gain full benefit from low-paid jobs would help to redress that balance.

#21 iskandar

"And who is going to take into account that the firm is no longer able to afford those staff and compensate the firm for keeping them on ??"

The point is that a "Citizen's income" system would mean that low-paid workers could take home a higher net income from a lower gross income. You don't need compensation, or complex subsidies as the Conservatives are proposing today. Companies could take on extra low-paid staff (perhaps part time or on a temporary basis) at lower gross salaries than is possible today and yet they would have higher take-home salaries once tax and the Citizen's income were taken into account. And if they laid off those staff the costs to the Government (the Citizen's Income again) would be exactly the same. It would be a properly designed functional system, where the private interests of each party matched the overall public interest.

We are being boiled to death by 'initiative'

For example... If some of our citizens have insecure economic circumstances then we could say here you are 10,000 or 15,000 a year - pay your rent and bills and bus fares. In effect get rid of the endless round of initiatives that gets to this same end result, increasingly oursourced or off-shored and yes I do understand the consequences.

Or if 'stimulating' the housing market is your aim then why increase the red tape associated with buying and selling with a requirement for HIPS packs

We got where we are today with one layer of initiative being piled on another. The temperature was just increased slowly, surely, point by point.

We are being boiled to death by contradictory initiatives

If growth in GDP is the aim then lets forget green initiatives. How can the two really be complementary?

If green is your game then why require the mountain of printed paper that comes with a HIP pack.

We are being boiled to death by contradictary initiative that serves no obvious purpose.

If we want to protect out nation then we should ask what it is we want to protect and whether Trident or anything else is fit for that purpose. Is it fit to protect our way of life if it is threatened by suicide bombers? Do we have extensive oil and gas supplies that need defending to the teeth?

Its disordered and dysfunctional.

Sqeeze a ballon and it pops out somewhere else. We need a new balloon.

Alternatively, we could have a bit of honesty - Some pol could stand up and say look folks about half of you owe your ecomonic security to the efforts of the other half. We're not very fond of what they do but we'll take the money and run, OK?

#34 tonyparksrun

I whole-heartedly agree with your statement about off-shore customer service centres. In my view, having gone through all the customer-focussed ideologies of the Sixties, Eighties & Nineties this is a no-brainer. If a company considers that its after-sale service should be cheap and not so cheerful then the directors of that company need to be abused every hour on the hour by their customers. What a bunch a idiots! Sadly though, there is a lot of that about.

One of the ways to reduce imports is the route that the EU is currently pursuing. I work in international logistics and customs compliance (its a job but I would rather bash metal) and just about every other day I get a notice through saying the EU is going to put Anti-Dumping Duty on this or that industrial product so that it does not undermine EU suppliers in the domestic market. I can relate to that but this refers to industrial product and not consumer product. So a policy is in place it is just that it is not used as often as maybe it could.

#36 random_thought

We are into the `socially useful' territory now aren't we?

In the past I have organised teams in low value production processes in this country to maximise product value on imported goods. These teams have always been subverted by cheaper labour in the exporting country. I find this quite unsatisfactory because if people in this country who would otherwise be unemployed and receiving benefit can find themselves making a better living from actually working than sitting on their backside watching afternoon telly then we are all the winners. I can't see business doing this of their own accord as profit margin is everything to most, but perhaps the government can structure matters to support it. This will get people going to work in the morning, a good thing all of its own, and allow them to feel good when they go home after a good day's hard graft. Once youngsters get the fix of working they will keep it up and get motivated towards self-improvement.

However, I do insist that the tax and benefit system be amended so that the little people on small money are not paying tax equal to a rate of 70% whilst bums in the City only pay 10% for wrecking the world's economy.

The trouble with politicians is they like the sound of their own voice.
More "NEW" initives, more spending, more plans.

Keep it simple and we wouldnt need to keep reinventing the wheel.

Slash costs and make every department come and beg for the cash AND justify where it is going and why. Quango,s trash the LOT and all the consultants with the Quango,s. Not 10% 20% The LOT.

As for benefits, everyone wants the workshy sorted out but what jobs are they going to do ??? Perhaps we need to craete some proper jobs first, (and not Osbornes "New Starts" who pay nothing and kill off their struggling competitors. That produces a nil gain.
Gordons "Training" fat cat private training companies getting fatter and producing certificate waving numpties who still have no jobs to go to.

Create the jobs and people will work (if its worth working and not loosing 50% in tax to keep the layabouts in fags and lager)

The whole party system is thrashing about with NO idea what to do and Gordies debt legacy is growing by the hour.
Bankrupt Britain, Morally, politically and financially !

#40 stanilic

I think you're pretty much agreeing with me.

"However, I do insist that the tax and benefit system be amended so that the little people on small money are not paying tax equal to a rate of 70% whilst bums in the City only pay 10% for wrecking the world's economy."

In the model I propose, the overall tax rate grows in line with income. So I think that fits your requirement. If desired it could be ammended to allow higher tax rates on high incomes. It still works - so long as the graph of gross income versus net income grows steadily.

Well the universal child benefit, etc is clearly a start, it should be targetted to those that need it. What else, well Labour promises £2b from schools, now pay freeze on public employees, what has been wasted £4m by Bob Ainsworth on useless report, £400m wasted on car scrappage, ID cards for Uk citizens, couple of Billion Gordon Brown lost selling UK gold at lowest price for years. Recent focus has been on excesses in Banking, but for years we have been wasting money on agriculture excesses with subsides they should be cut.

#40 stanilic

On a slightly different topic

"We are into the `socially useful' territory now aren't we?"

Well I do tend to think that the "socially useful" concept highlights the way in which our western market economies are broken. For whatever reason (corruption, monopolistic behaviour, incompetance, etc) there are large sectors of our economy that are paying themselves huge amounts of money for doing nothing very useful. A lot of people on these blogs complain about waste in the public sector. And that may be true, but the finance sector is a much bigger culprit.

Having said that, my proposals for a Citizen's Income are simply a matter of making the system work, and quite independant of "socially useful" issues.

mrsbloggs13c2 (#38) "We are being boiled to death by 'initiative'"

Yep. Permanenet Revolution - anarchism. In thr markets traders call it churning. Firts the state (public owned) was asset stripped in the name of efficiency and the benefits of private ownership. Then people were encouraged to save and take our private pensions to secure their future. But, like share nominee accounts - who managed the funds, and to what ends? See how the Dow changed from teh mid 80s on, and watch out fo the log scale.

Postscript (#45) But that's the 'freedom' which most people voting for New Labour, Conservative and the Liberal-Democrats have been saying they wanted for decades...and now many are complaining that 'the state' isn't there to stop it. In this blog too. Most of them don't see this. What does that reflect? Pointing it out repeatedly doesn't seem to go down very well. In fact, some try to censor it as they find it 'offensive.' !

#46 jadedjean. What you are witnessing is not anarchism it is Fascism. It is however possible that the iron heeled assault planned to be launched against the poor will be prevented by an outbreak of genuine anarchism (as that term is popularly understood).

No less authorities that than the US Treasury, the Congressional Budget Office, the Federal Reserve, and the Bank of International Settlements all confirm that meltdown is unavoidable. Stange how that is not being widely reported - much better to concentrate on vast armies of drink sodden and drug raddled benefit "scroungers" limping from pub to pub.

It does after all appear that allowing banks to develop balance sheets measured in the $10´s of trillions is not conducive to stability. Still if only we can a few coppers out of the pockets of the poor...

#47

Here we go....

No 37 "The point is that a "Citizen's income" system would mean that low-paid workers could take home a higher net income from a lower gross income. You don't need compensation, or complex subsidies as the Conservatives are proposing today."

And where is this "Citizen's income" to come from ?? If you impose confiscatory taxes on manufacturing, you will destroy their competitiveness. If you apply confiscatory taxes on the suppliers of capital, they'll simply move their capital elsewhere, as had been happening and will happen even more.

Besides all that, if the goods manufactured are not competitive on the open/world markets, then they are just an exercise in futility to simply manufacture them just for the sake of manufacturing them !! Just look at how Vauxhall cars are so *NOT* selling on the open markets !!

Re Torycall question

Will the Tories also be cutting the invalid benefits secured by the political and banking Labourink classes for filling the nations AAA's hole with their priceless works ofAAArt over the last decade before turning the taxpayer into a bottomless [thurd way]colostomy bag to be drip fed into the gilts repackaging market for sale to well educated discerning international sovreign wealth fund mAAAwons .

This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the house rules. Explain.

#40 "And where is this "Citizen's income" to come from ??"

Well most of it comes from getting rid of existing benefits and tax allowances. As I tried to explain the current system is broken, with poverty traps at several points. The Tax Credit scheme is a particularly good example - fine in theory, but the way it is implemented (nothing at all until you are working 30 hours) is a massive disincentive to part time work; and then it tapers off far too quickly.

OK - even then to provide a Citizen's Income for all would probably require a small increase in the basic rate of income tax. It's hard to say how much though, as if it succeeded and got the majority of the unemployed back into low-paid work (and paying income tax) it would largely pay for itself.

Addendum to No 49 "And if they laid off those staff the costs to the Government (the Citizen's Income again) would be exactly the same."

No, it's not !! A "Citizen's Income" is presumed to be on-going unto death !! The dole should be of a limited time span !!

"What you are witnessing is not anarchism it is Fascism."

Fascism was a brand of left-wing statism, as was National Socialism. Both got bad names after the outcome of WWII, as I understand the history. In the 1930s, both Germany, Italy (and even the USSR) were seen as answers to the economic anarchism of the 20s and 30s. 1930s USSR was itself an answer to 1917-1920s Russian anarchism - especially as peddled by the Comintern (hence the Axis Powers allinace). All one has to focus on is anti-statism. Anti-statism is explicitly what the Austrian and Chicago Schools have peddled as Neocon libertarianism and freedom. What they didn't tell everyone was that it was in aid of removal of the protection which the state provided to the little person, i.e protection from the unregulated corporations. See The Austrian School on this, Von Mises for example. It isn't how we conventionally thiunk about this, but we live in liberal-democracies which have had this all turned on its head since the end of WWII.

Just have a look at the Von Mises site.

No 38 mrsbloggs13c2 - The rationale here is quite simple !! "Initiatives" are made by governments when they haven't a clue what to do and are threshing around trying to make the appearance of "doing something" !! Logic, consistency and reality have nothing to do with any of that !!

Take the "initiative" to get more "deprived" students into university whilst the government severely cuts the budgets to universities and, thereby, reducing the number of places available and raises the tuition fees !! A spectacular case of trying to hammer a square peg into an ever-decreasing round hole !!

Take the "initiative" of the government to "protect children" after the disastrous Victoria Chimby and Baby Peter cases !! Now they are forcing *parents* to register as child-minders if they have reciprocal arrangements with other parents for looking after their children if the job-share or else be fined and/or reported as potential child abusers !!

If the government has any true *INITIATIVE*, they would spend more time looking into the real cause of the problems and stop making knee-jerk, quick-fix, mob-pleasing "initiatives" that solve nothing and created more problems !!

Simply banning such "initiatives" would result in massive cuts in government spendings !!

No 40 "However, I do insist that the tax and benefit system be amended so that the little people on small money are not paying tax equal to a rate of 70% whilst bums in the City only pay 10% for wrecking the world's economy."

Well, some one, who shall remain nameless to protect the guilty, EXTERMINATED the 10% tax band !!

No 41 "Slash costs and make every department come and beg for the cash AND justify where it is going and why. Quango,s trash the LOT and all the consultants with the Quango,s. Not 10% 20% The LOT."

Hooray, sense at last !!

- Grumpy Ishkandar

No 50 SpartacusmartyrAAAs - AMFM, your signature style cannot be mistaken !! :-)

No 52 "It's hard to say how much though, as if it succeeded and got the majority of the unemployed back into low-paid work (and paying income tax) it would largely pay for itself."

Surely an exercise in "robbing Peter to pay Paul" !! Great for quantitative easing and currency devaluation; not much good for importing much need food and raw materials !!

I thought the idea of getting people back to work was to earn more foreign money/credits/bits of paper to pay for the necessary imports and not just shuffling Monopoly money around ??

#55

Indeed

#54 "Fascism was a brand of left-wing statism, as was National Socialism. Both got bad names after the outcome of WWII, as I understand the history"

You obviously don't understand the history. Fascism and National Socialism were both (despite the latter's name) ideaologies of the extreme-RIGHT. Firstly, National Socialism wasn't the slightest bit socialist. The name was purely a hangover from before Hitler took over the party, actual socialists were some of the first people killed by the Nazis. Secondly, Fascism (in it's proper useage, not just as a synonym for "authoritarian") wasn't anti-statist at all. Rather, it emphasised violently extreme nationalism, as expressed through the state i.e. the state above all and all citizens dogmatically obediant to it. I have read the site you mentioned extensively. It's ahistorical claptrap at best and, at worst, part of a deliberate attempt to blame the left for all mankind's failures (very popular among the American Right).

The actual extreme-left equivelent would be Communism. Communism, as Marx envisioned it, preached anti-statism by all persons holding goods in common. The theory was, as time went on, the mechanism of the state to administer this would wither away and die, leaving a form of collectivist anarchy. No country which has attempted it has ever made it that far, probably because it's unworkable wishful thinking, impossible to enact on any scale. The versions which was used in the USSR is academically titled "Soviet Communism" for exactly that reason.

Both Fascism and Soviet Communism are authoritarian, which is why they look much alike, but the two terms properly describe two very different sets of reasons for being authoritarian. Soviet Communism, Communism/Marxism, Socialism and Liberalism are all on the left to varying degrees and Conservatism, Capitalism (as we understand it) and Fascism are all, to various degrees, on the right. Hopefully that's clear now. Oh, and a lot of academics and historians would like to have a word with the scoundrels preaching that revisionist nonsense.

Cameron finally shows the true face of the Tories: The compassionless party of sticking the boot into the poor and sick. I'm especially concerned about his changes to ESA.

Let's make this clear: The ESA system is already heavily weighted AGAINST the claimant. To start with, the opinion of your doctor, who declared you unfit for work (which is why you're getting ESA in the first place) and any specialist (such as a psychiatrist) is utterly disregarded. The ATOS doctors who conduct the assessments are supposed to pay attention to those records but I have yet to meet a single one who does. Those opinions from the professionals who know you and your health best are completely ignored, in favour of having a doctor from a private company fill in a heavily biased form with no room for flexibility. The doctor already comes from ATOS, a company which has every incentive to minimise figures by any means. Then add the fact that it is far from unknown for the ATOS doctors to outright lie on the assessment forms (just Google it, it won't be difficult to find) and routinely find people entirely fit for work who a reasonable observer would insist shouldn't even be out in public, let alone the workplace. If, in the event of a rare miracle, the doctor assessing you can find no way of avoiding declaring you unfit for work (and the one assessing my younger brother seems to have discovered a miraculous cure for severe autism and retardation), you receive a pittance of benefit (contrary to the Daily Mail, benefits are far from luxurious).

So, to add to a system already designed not to assess your health but to look for some way, any way, of avoiding paying benefits, Cameron proposes making the tests even tougher. An action which will NEVER affect the scroungers (who know the ins-and-outs of the system better than lawyers) but will, as these moves always do, make the (already complex, confusing and biased) process even more confusing, disheartening and biased. Effectively, Cameron is proposing an overhaul from "almost impossible to claim" to "utterly impossible to claim". Naturally, this means that everyone on ESA will have their ESA stopped. Whereupon they'll be unable to claim JSA as their doctor has (rightly) declared them unable to work. So they might well starve at this point since the Tories, ever uncaring of the unfortunate, will fail to put any net in place to catch them.

If they don't starve, they then have to go through the extremely lengthy and draining appeals process (where ATOS's decisions are reversed better than half the time). Quite a few of those claiming for mental illness will commit suicide at this point and who can blame them? Having waited the three to six months for an appeals hearing, you might, maybe, get your ESA reinstated (if teh appeals panel are able to acknowledge and understand your illness which they often are not with mental illness). Of course, you've now been at this for better than six months, which means your next medical (and a guaranteed repeat of this process) is less than a year away. How are the sick, the mentally ill especially, supposed to recover when they have to spend every ounce of energy and concentration getting this this minefield every year or so?

More to the point, Cameron, like every PM since Thatcher, is approaching the system with a false assumption and a faulty model: the assumption that scroungers would go out and get a job if denied benefit. Rather than the logical deduction that anyone who's put that much effort into avoiding work will turn to crime instead. And the model that his proposals are designed to get numbers down, not to assess whether claimants are actually capable of work.

Of course, that's the assumption of the benefits system from the beginning: That you are a thief and scrounger and should be treated as such. The benefits system we currently operate is not designed to work out what help people need, it is designed to find ways to avoid paying for it. And now Cameron seeks to make it worse. I predict suicide rates among the sick will soar once he gets into power.