On 28 Jan 2012 at 1:20pm Clifford wrote:
'The 100-page Rich List compiled by Philip Beresford and published last May presented a very different picture. Its analysis found that the 1,000 richest persons in Britain were £60.2bn better off than they were in 2010, and that they were £77.3bn better off in 2010 than they were in 2009. What this means is the staggering fact that just 0.003 per cent of the population, the richest of the rich, could by themselves alone pay off the entire deficit of £127bn and still leave themselves £10bn in surplus.'
Interesting, eh? But, of course, it's far better to have cuts because that's fairer to the rich.
On 28 Jan 2012 at 4:03pm bastian wrote:
and now mr cameron is blaming the RBS boss' bonus on Labour?
doesn't compute.
On 28 Jan 2012 at 8:38pm bloke wrote:
Clifford your maths don't add up. You don't appear to understand the difference between the budget deficit the national debt.
On 29 Jan 2012 at 7:29am Annette Curtin-Twitcher wrote:
I came across something the other day that said that said that the richest 1,000 people in the UK had wealth totalling £99bn. On the following page, was something that referred to the deficit being £100bn.
It occurred to me that just appropriating the wealth of the 1,000 richest was a pretty cool idea. They're all probably Russian oligarchs, tax-evaders benefitting from the ludicrous domicile agreements or people who offshore their wives to avoid paying tax.
Meanwhile, a frail old lady is likely to have to go into a home because housing benefit will n o longer pay rent on her daughter's 5-bed house.
On 29 Jan 2012 at 9:08am Paul Newman wrote:
The richest 1000 in the UK belong to the global economy and that grew last year by 1.3%. Of course the Mugabe approach as recommended by Clifford will have its supported amongst the primitive minded, but for the sake of 10% of one years public spending (which would not turn up), we would forfeit our place as the recipient of huge revenues from global wealth which others will be happy to have, as well as our ability to trade and borrow which relies on the rule of law and contract.
The current top rate already costs money for the exchequer because it is over the Laffer curve ( google ). Not my conclusion, but the words of Robert Chote the then head of the IFS now running the OBR ( google ...sigh.. )
ANC the politics of envy were bound to make a return and the flames were bound to be fanned by with nothing better to do that cause trouble .
I am bound to point out that there is now no Party that thinks we have any other route than consolidation and I can speak with the combined authority of Ed Balls Alistair Darling George Osborne Nick Clegg , the right and left of the Conservative Party , and all major economies .
On your side you have Len McLusky the militant supporting Unite leader whose interests are confined to his public sector members who, already enjoy a 50% premium like for like and whose pay gap to their favour is growing every ear while the real economy struggle to carry the dead weight of sinecures
Just imagine for a second where we would be if anyone ever took anything the Clifford`s of the world, have to say seriously. Take the worst of Greece and old East Germany, take 40% off the average IQ and there you have it .
Thats your utopia .
On 29 Jan 2012 at 10:43am Alfie Stirling wrote:
@Newman
Forgive me for pointing out the obvious, but I don't think you get it.
In response to the argument in favour of taxing the largely untaxed super rich, you say, "we would forfeit our place as the recipient of huge revenues from global wealth".
Do you understand the paradox of what you just said?
Two questions: Who are you referring to as 'we'? What are 'we' 'forfeiting'?
By ??we?? do you mean society? Society at large currently harnesses a fraction of the UK's global earnings; between £60bn and £120bn is lost to tax evasion and avoidance every single year under even the current cripplingly unfair tax frameworks. The 'we' who currently holds a near monopoly of the Nation??s share of global wealth is the richest 300 or so individuals and corporations. It is they who stand to ??forfeit?? their grotesque accumulation of capital in favour of mitigating the surge in UK unemployment and poverty that is currently seen as the preferable cost of deficit reduction.
If you are arguing in defence of the vested interests of the super rich then at least come out and say it. Currently, your disingenuous attempts at a socio-economic analysis almost gave the impression that you thought society stood to lose out if it were allowed to earn a slightly fairer share of the UK economy.
UK society can hardly stand to forfeit a share in the economy that it doesn??t yet have.
On 29 Jan 2012 at 1:20pm Paul Nrewman wrote:
Rather adorable finding all that SWP stuff alive and well. Good for you Alf , you are like one of those wonderful people preserve ancient rustic skills called something like furtling or weevilcraft.I enjoy the idea of crippling corporations as a means of increasing employment but I fear we are to far apart to have any sort of conversation. Go on then, hike up corporation tax super charge the tax detectives , introduce retrospective punishment tax for the rich (best shut the border)ignore the history of revenues to the exchequer and with all the wealth you have "harvested" (oh its good stuff this ) throw the cash at the unemployed and the Public sector.
We have tried some of this you know. In the 70s wages were a larger part of GDP and we had fantastic marginal tax rates at the top end
Of course we also had 15-20% inflation a joke supply side a bankrupt exchequer obliged to hand our government to the IMF an existential threat to democracy courtesy of Scargill and a hideous reality to face in terms of unsustainable jobs in subsidised industries.
But you start your ultra left Party and you make your case. Good for you, go on a march,sit in tent ..have fun.You are f--k all use for anything else
On 29 Jan 2012 at 2:05pm Mr Forks wrote:
Eat the rich (or use them as fuel!)
On 29 Jan 2012 at 3:43pm bastian wrote:
what shall we do with them?
burn em!
On 29 Jan 2012 at 4:11pm Me wrote:
If we are to eat the rich, bagsy first dibs on that Soames Bloke. 
On 30 Jan 2012 at 11:01am Alfie Stirling wrote:
@Newman
I must have touched a nerve: ??SWP?? ??Furtling?? ??Weevilcraft?? 1970s wage control? I am of ??f--k all use?? Have you ever had a political discussion that you haven't tried to reduce to your juvenile rhetorical indulgence and abusive language? I suspect you will become more hysterical with each post so this will be my last.
But first, two points:
1. You have made it clear that you like to create a straw man with which to argue. Who said anything about 1970s wage control? Or 1970s Trade Union? Is your ability to comprehend the left limited to a narrow corridor of history? It was a completely redundant comparison to make anyway because the problem then was that wages went beyond the means of the economy to pay: hence inflation. Today, we have gone from monetarism to fiscalism and now control the money supply (M3 Base Rate as it was then). The UK is the 6th richest country in the world (nominal GDP). We can quite easily keep redistribution within our means.
2. I am not proposing some sort of communist ideal. Just one simple idea. At the moment the UK economy exists to service a plutonic elite and the rest of society exists to service the economy. Instead, our economy should exist to provide for the whole of society (radical I know). Yes to capitalism. Yes to innovation. But let??s have a market that is recalibrated in accordance with the vast contingency and chance that aids human agency in wealth creation; the family we are born into; the school your parents can pay for; the contacts your parents happen to have; the people you happen to meet. 2.5 million children didn??t ??earn?? the right to live in poverty, but your grotesque cavalier attitude is plunging more people into unemployment to pay off the deficit in a way that preserves the vast riches of the lucky.
On 30 Jan 2012 at 11:25am Southover Queen wrote:
Hear hear to all of that, Alfie.
Vast inequalities make for unhappy societies. Societies which redistribute more are happier societies. Ours is a horribly inequitable society which wastes vast potential because your life chances are so dependent on the circumstances of your birth. The expectation of a young person starting out is the accumulation of wealth not contributing in other ways: public service bad, private wealth creation good. That's a slightly grotesque simplification, but that's the norm on this forum.
On 30 Jan 2012 at 12:02pm bastian wrote:
one mans wealth is usually from another mans misery.
On 30 Jan 2012 at 6:43pm The Boy Bernie wrote:
Well done Alfie Stirling. Want to be our MP?
On 30 Jan 2012 at 9:25pm observer wrote:
Hi Paul, Chill out have an early night and you will feel better in the morning. If I was younger Australia would be where I was heading, at least if times were bad you could sit in the sun. Mind you every time I see films of the starving throughout the world I count my blessings.
On 31 Jan 2012 at 4:12pm bastian wrote:
yeah Alfie,start a new party called the socialist ecological party, SEP for short, it brings together true socialism (that's not communism to all you dogged capitalists) and the envirenment under one roof...the disallusioned labour and the beleagred green vote sewn together.
SEP for a better Britain.
On 31 Jan 2012 at 5:16pm Green party member wrote:
I don't like the sound of that. I don't want to be lumped in with the ' true socialists'. That's why I'm in the green party.
On 31 Jan 2012 at 8:56pm Alfie Stirling wrote:
The Green Party aren't a socialist party. It's a different type of analysis. Socialists see social justice as the resolution of a destructive dialectic of class interests. Greens see social justice as the creation of a society made sustainable through a reconciliation of equality and dynamism, within a democratic framework.
They do, however, overlap and now, more than ever, is a time to seek common ground rather than fixate on nuanced points of difference. It would be great if not just disillusioned Labour; but all disillusioned progressives could help a fresh attempt at holding the stagnant consensus of our political establishment to account.
On 31 Jan 2012 at 9:39pm Paul Newman wrote:
The Green Party are the SWP in drag and if there was ever any doubt now we know it is true on the plus side it looks like Dave Spart is back in a new assault on the English language. Oh Jesus it hurts .
What irritates me is that there are perfectly reasonable people who voted for you loons on the basis without knowing you were establishing a New World Order of gobbledygook.(..and New World Order has been promised by da leader)
No wonder Matt Kent left ,I guess the po faced little sermon should have given the game away.
On 1 Feb 2012 at 8:20am Annette Curtin-Twitcher wrote:
The SWP used to regard green issues as a bourgeois distraction from the improtant business of winning the class war. Any idea when they changed that Paul?
I think some green policies are excellent. Brighton council's proposal to have a registration scheme for landlords letting to multiple tenants in areas where the high density of student houses is a great way of getting landlords to take some responsibility for who they let to imo.
I also can't really see anyone quibbling with the calls for better, cheaper public transport, either.
On 1 Feb 2012 at 9:15am Paul Newman wrote:
I do recall; quibbles about opposition to Free Trade , Embryo research and if dumbos plan to herd the richest UK residents into football stadium and force them cough up the worldwide asstes at gun point ever happened , I think you might find there was alittle opposition to that as well.
I guess Alf would like to take Fred the Shred`s knighthood and give Mugabe his one back.( Mind you I hope to see much more of plutonic elites and dynamic equality... its delicious )
On 2 Feb 2012 at 11:51am Joel O'Donoghue wrote:
Paul, why all the aggression? I'm afraid I don't know a lot about the economy, other then what I hear on the news, so I'm not looking for a great debate based on how to rescue the British/World economy. What I am curious about however, is why you feel it's ok to confront somebody's ideas in such a grotesque manner, it hardly makes your side of the argument more appealing to support. Do you not feel perhaps that you are under-miming the integrity of the party that you seem to passionately support?
On 2 Feb 2012 at 3:15pm bastian wrote:
loel, there is a problem with defensive replies on here often when a very reasonable statement has been posed, it is often from people who are politically from the right of the political front and that is strange given that they are in power and frankly have been for 30 years(I do not count labour as it is as left, and if you have left feelings then people like paul get agressive)
On 2 Feb 2012 at 5:33pm Annette Curtin-Twitcher wrote:
Plus Paul gets wound up very easily. He swallows the Tory line, comes on here to regurgitate it, then finds that it's deeply flawed and doesn't stand up to close examination.
It must be very irritating for him, so we make allowances when he goes into one.
On 2 Feb 2012 at 9:34pm Paul Newman wrote:
Oh do play the ball chaps . Poor form.
On 3 Feb 2012 at 5:31pm Joel O'Donoghue wrote:
Paul, You seemed to of dodged/missed my question. I will repeat it for you (without the spelling mistake!)... Do you not feel perhaps that you are undermining the integrity of the party that you seem to passionately support?
On 4 Feb 2012 at 12:24pm Tracey Hill wrote:
"I think some green policies are excellent. Brighton council's proposal to have a registration scheme for landlords letting to multiple tenants in areas where the high density of student houses is a great way of getting landlords to take some responsibility for who they let to imo.
I also can't really see anyone quibbling with the calls for better, cheaper public transport, either."
Sorry but neither of these are Green ideas. Registration of HMOs was brought in by Labour, who also enabled local councils to set their own rules about which HMOs can be licensed. The current initiative was started under the previous adminstration (Conservative). Who wouldn't want better, cheaper public transport? But Greens in Brighton and Hove are making cuts to bus subsidies which will affect services. It was Labour that provided the city with one of the most successful bus services in the country.