Current Affairs The General Election

[Tubey]

School aide laundered brothel cash

A TEACHING assistant has been convicted of laundering thousands of pounds made by her husband's string of brothels. Michele Barnett, 55, a £7,000-a-year special needs teaching assistant at King David School in Prestwich, was sentenced to six months in jail, suspended for...

www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk

As the article says
"The couple, married for more than 25 years, had a Rolls-Royce and a Jaguar with personal plates, went on exotic holidays and lived a `wealthy lifestyle'."

How dare people have a go at billionaires. I can fully understand why Barnett is so touchy on this subject.

Haha that's genuinely amazing, especially this bit.

Police found emails between Mr Barnett and his daughter Emma, talking about his `whores'.

Incredible she's hired by the BBC to do anything really.

 

[larrygobfiend]

Imagine asking people with enough money to allow them to live comfortably for a 1,000 lifetimes to contribute a bit more.

Absolutely shocking

 

[neil999]

Haha that's genuinely amazing, especially this bit.



Incredible she's hired by the BBC to do anything really.

she has hosted womens hour

and wrote this https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/sep/04/to-my-period-emma-barnett

So very good at promoting womens(not THOSE women tho!) issues

crikey

 

[Tubey]

Imagine asking people with enough money to allow them to live comfortably for a 1,000 lifetimes to contribute a bit more.

Absolutely shocking

They already do.

Britain's top taxpayers are revealed in list

Sir James Dyson, Mike Ashley and the Beckham family were among those who paid the most tax in the UK last year.

news.sky.com

Again, the politics of envy. Because they've done well for themselves, they're the 'enemy' apparently.

 

[catcherintherye]

"I don't think anyone in this country should be a billionaire" - those are the exact words that came out of his mouth.

It's the politics of envy. If you have a system where ambition is encouraged and you can make the best of what you are, then naturally there will be a "top tier" - the fact we have billionaires is representative of the ceiling you can reach; it's why we're not a third world country.

Some more taxation, cutting red tape etc. is fine, but what he's saying isn't that - when presented with the economic and practical reality of the world we live in, it's actually insane what he's saying.

Also, I couldn't give a crap who the reporter or whoever she is is - it's the words coming out of that MP which are shocking.

I do think there's a difference being saying nobody should be and saying you don't personally want them.

I have no issues with ambition, but I also think there ought to be some limits (as with all things) and that actually purely naked unchecked ambition has drawbacks as well as benefits doesn't it? Likewise we have to balance ones right to ambition and money to the right of people to have a basic standard of living. Again there ought to be some limits, and I would say 1 pound under 1 billion is a pretty reasonable limit.

For me the politics of envy line is a bit over used and in most cases untrue. I am not envious towards anyone, but at an election we are discussing what the priorities ought to be for a country. I don't think the top 5% continuing to grow their incomes at 20%+ p/a while children are malnourished is the right priority. I'm not sure thats about envy, it's just about priorities. It is leading to us having a broken society and weak economic growth.

As for the presenter, in general I don't, but when it's a public broadcaster who's wages I pay I expect a degree of competency and honesty. She has shown neither. She has misrepresented what he has said, not pointed out the wealthiest pay about 1/3 of what they are due to pay and done so in her slavish defence of billionaires who are seemingly beyond question. She seems mortally offended at the idea that we may question the allocation of funds in building a fairer society.

To me it's not unreasonable to ask, where is the offence for the crimes of her own father and what he did (to become very wealthy) in funding her opportunities? I know which point I'd be more outraged by. She bullies people arguing for a fairer distribution and it's about time people put her under the spotlight she thinks she can put others under by distorting information.

 

[catcherintherye]

Imagine asking people with enough money to allow them to live comfortably for a 1,000 lifetimes to contribute a bit more.

Absolutely shocking

And imagine being so mortally offended by that when you're family got wealthy off the back of profiting of the rape and mutilation of women bodies.

 

[larrygobfiend]

They already do.

Britain's top taxpayers are revealed in list

Sir James Dyson, Mike Ashley and the Beckham family were among those who paid the most tax in the UK last year.

news.sky.com

Again, the politics of envy. Because they've done well for themselves, they're the 'enemy' apparently.

It's all relative though isn't it? They're at the stage now were they're hoarding money that they couldn't feasibly spend in several lifetimes whilst some people can't even afford to eat. They should want to pay more.

 

[Bruce Wayne]

They already do.

Britain's top taxpayers are revealed in list

Sir James Dyson, Mike Ashley and the Beckham family were among those who paid the most tax in the UK last year.

news.sky.com

Again, the politics of envy. Because they've done well for themselves, they're the 'enemy' apparently.

Not to mention a growing number have pledged to give away all (most) of their money. Of course, I'm sure a government would know how best to spend their money than they would, but still. It's also interesting that when I raised the topic of how people from a notoriously left-leaning city felt about spending enough money on a single (largely quite average) footballer to have built a hospital, whilst simultaneously paying that person several million a year, the topic largely attracted tumbleweed and little else.

 

[tsubaki]

They already do.

Britain's top taxpayers are revealed in list

Sir James Dyson, Mike Ashley and the Beckham family were among those who paid the most tax in the UK last year.

news.sky.com

Again, the politics of envy. Because they've done well for themselves, they're the 'enemy' apparently.

That is confusing "pay taxes" with "pay a bit more taxes", though - and it uses the very large amounts of tax they pay to conceal the much larger amounts they own or control.

Take Dyson for example, who paid £127 million in tax last year according to that report; that is just under 1% of his reported wealth (£13.9 million according to the Rich List). Someone who had a full time job, earning around £50k a year and with assets worth £500,000 (ie: someone in London who owns a one bedroom flat) is probably paying 4% of their reported wealth just in income tax alone (so its probably closer to 5-6% when all taxes are taken into account).

 

[Tubey]

That is confusing "pay taxes" with "pay a bit more taxes", though - and it uses the very large amounts of tax they pay to conceal the much larger amounts they own or control.

Take Dyson for example, who paid £127 million in tax last year according to that report; that is just under 1% of his reported wealth (£13.9 million according to the Rich List). Someone who had a full time job, earning around £50k a year and with assets worth £500,000 (ie: someone in London who owns a one bedroom flat) is probably paying 4% of their reported wealth just in income tax alone (so its probably closer to 5-6% when all taxes are taken into account).

I said that in a post earlier.

Some more taxation, cutting red tape etc. is fine, but what he's saying isn't that

Again it comes down to extremism - "there shouldn't be any billionaires" is ludicrous.

 

[roydo]

That is confusing "pay taxes" with "pay a bit more taxes", though - and it uses the very large amounts of tax they pay to conceal the much larger amounts they own or control.

Take Dyson for example, who paid £127 million in tax last year according to that report; that is just under 1% of his reported wealth (£13.9 million according to the Rich List). Someone who had a full time job, earning around £50k a year and with assets worth £500,000 (ie: someone in London who owns a one bedroom flat) is probably paying 4% of their reported wealth just in income tax alone (so its probably closer to 5-6% when all taxes are taken into account).

I guess if you add up the tax, and NI, that the employees of Dyson also pay, as a direct result of his inventions, the overall contribution he makes to the coffers is not too shabby. I have no idea about the corporation tax his actual company pays, but I would guess it aint small.

 

[tsubaki]

I guess if you add up the tax, and NI, that the employees of Dyson also pay, as a direct result of his inventions, the overall contribution he makes to the coffers is not too shabby. I have no idea about the corporation tax his actual company pays, but I would guess it aint small.

That is all assumptions we have been conditioned to make, though. He is a successful businessman, ergo his companies must pay loads of tax in some way even if it’s not immediately obvious.

 

[Connor]

Early strike for the Reds.

 

[roydo]

That is all assumptions we have been conditioned to make, though. He is a successful businessman, ergo his companies must pay loads of tax in some way even if it’s not immediately obvious.

The whole "Tax the rich more" line is such a blunt and frankly absurd statement. But is lapped up. And the minute you start applying a % of wealth as a measure of "fairness" you will just run into a pointless cul de sac.

For example, Joe Soap delivering parcels pays a larger % of his wealth in tax when he puts £30 of petrol in his van than David Beckham does. Its utterly ridiculous.

 

[tsubaki]

The whole "Tax the rich more" line is such a blunt and frankly absurd statement. But is lapped up. And the minute you start applying a % of wealth as a measure of "fairness" you will just run into a pointless cul de sac.

For example, Joe Soap delivering parcels pays a larger % of his wealth in tax when he puts £30 of petrol in his van than David Beckham does. Its utterly ridiculous.

I agree with you that it is ridiculous, though perhaps not in the way intended.

Though I would say that the "tax the rich" argument being raised now is perhaps not so much one in policy terms (as the Labour manifesto is probably going to be as tame as the 2017 was) as it is one looking to identify and define "the elite" in advance of Johnson's apparent "the people vs the elite" pitch. It is something that will need doing.