money meltdown !!!!

[MrB]

Just been to lunch with a mate of mine from AIG. Seemed remarkably perky under the circumstances, though the insurance arm is very well ringfenced from the finance arm.

Large Japanese Life Insurer went bust today. Plenty of stories to follow I reckon.

 

[seany t]

You mean Belgian. I think.

Channel 4 disagrees with you my friend.

BTW, great red repping earlier. Laughed for ages at my desk when I saw that. Had to then pretend I was working VERY hard to make up for it...

 

[MK Shrimper]

Built it wasnt designed to do that. Take the current council tax system. A family with two grown up kids, all earning and all living in the same house, pay the same as the family next door who's kids have left leaving just the two of them.

Under Maggies poll tax, each household would have paid in proportion to how many people lived there. Surely that was fairer.

Chr........ist.... do you not remember the riots? It's the poll tax that brought the end of that hideous woman.

 

[please delete my account]

Chr........ist.... do you not remember the riots? It's the poll tax that brought the end of that hideous woman.

I believe there's some archive footage of Trafalgar Square during the poll tax riots. If you look closely, you can just about make me out. I'm curling a fat one out onto one of the Lions heads.

 

[osymandus]

Years ago i was told the best investment anyone can make is in bricks and mortar... i guess this was the case when people bought up these mortgages knowing it was a good investment.

I was laways told it was munitions and bio-tech and phramsutical drugs ???

Anyways ITs roots could well be traced back to teh late 70's with the early Regan era and economic model then being adapted across europe (UK being prime movers) and generally collecting ****e from there on .
We're all neglagent really

 

[osymandus]

But how would you change it? If you tax the higher earners too much so they are equal with the lower earners, there would be no incentive to be a higher earner. Roll on communism.

Well actually it dosnt really work like that .

The higher earners don't get taxed as mauch in reality , due to legal tax dodges , assited by well paid accountants . A Good exmaple is theres say an animal farm in rual England run deliberatly at a loss so the tax cahrged on the earnings is considerable less then what the person is actually worth .

the rest of the money is off shore , or routed in overseas banks to avoid where the person lives.

Ive had a few of teh tax "breaks" explained and they really do become more lucrative the more you earn . How odd ;)

 

[graysblue]

the "establishment" make damn sure they have every angle covered.

years ago helsitine the tory buffoon was against the minmum wage spouting all sorts of crap to explain his thoughts.

turns out

the old fart paid his large number of workers £3 per hour even though he had an estimated 100 million stashed.

born with a silver spoon and spoonfed throughout their lives with no idea on the real world.

 

[BrettieAngell]

The FTSE has had its biggest one week drop since 1987!

 

[steveo]

Well actually it dosnt really work like that .

The higher earners don't get taxed as mauch in reality , due to legal tax dodges , assited by well paid accountants . A Good exmaple is theres say an animal farm in rual England run deliberatly at a loss so the tax cahrged on the earnings is considerable less then what the person is actually worth .

the rest of the money is off shore , or routed in overseas banks to avoid where the person lives.

Ive had a few of teh tax "breaks" explained and they really do become more lucrative the more you earn . How odd ;)

Depends how you define a high earner. A bloke who earns 50 grand is a high earner to some people but I doubt if he has offshore investments and deliberate tax right offs

 

[graysblue]

i know a brickie who was earning 50k per year,his accountant managed to get the brickies tax bill down to around 3k per year or £60 per week from nearly a grand is not sad.

 

[steveo]

Chr........ist.... do you not remember the riots? It's the poll tax that brought the end of that hideous woman.

yes I do but does that mean it was a bad thing? Surely 4adults living in one house should contribute more than 2 adults living in an identical house next door.

 

[Napster]

I was laways told it was munitions and bio-tech and phramsutical drugs ???

Anyways ITs roots could well be traced back to teh late 70's with the early Regan era and economic model then being adapted across europe (UK being prime movers) and generally collecting ****e from there on .
We're all neglagent really

Munitions maybe. Drugs- no. If a drug doesnt get its license, the whole company loses value. It's riskier investing in pharma than most sectors, thanks to the generic companies and so on.

 

[MK Shrimper]

yes I do but does that mean it was a bad thing? Surely 4adults living in one house should contribute more than 2 adults living in an identical house next door.

And a family living in a 6 bedroom mansion should pay the same as an elderly person living in a high rise flat who can barely pay to keep their lights on?

Any taxation has to be on ability to pay surely. I think even the most hardened of Tories saw that the Poll tax was a calamitous mistake.

 

[graysblue]

i think the pink floyd song summed up thatcher.

galtireri took the union jack
over lunch one day maggie sunk a cruiser with all hands
apparrently to make him give it back

 

[steveo]

And a family living in a 6 bedroom mansion should pay the same as an elderly person living in a high rise flat who can barely pay to keep their lights on?

Any taxation has to be on ability to pay surely. I think even the most hardened of Tories saw that the Poll tax was a calamitous mistake.

no, if there are 4 adults in the 6 bedroom house they will pay 4 times more. My previous post outlines this. Surely it's fairer to tax the individual rather than the house. In most cases a bigger house means more people so they pay more in total. I've got 2 over 18 boys living in my house but I pay the same council tax as the people next door who have no kids. That can't be fair on them.

 

[Hotman]

I believe help for lower paid people should only be in the form of incentives, not handouts.

take away the help and they will become higher paid people (by going to work).

 

[MK Shrimper]

no, if there are 4 adults in the 6 bedroom house they will pay 4 times more.

Steveo, even the Tories hated this policy and it saw the end of Thatcher. It's a completely unfair, biased tax that favours the few rich and no Government would be foolish enough to try it again.

 

[steveo]

I'm not getting my point over very well MK. Ignore the ridiculously rich and go back to my post about me and my neighbours. Isn't it fairer that my household should pay twice as much as theirs?

 

[Hotman]

Steveo, even the Tories hated this policy and it saw the end of Thatcher. It's a completely unfair, biased tax that favours the few rich and no Government would be foolish enough to try it again.

Totally biased?

I'll tell you what is totally biased - the fact that higher earners pay a higher percentage on a higher income - doubling the effect.

And the higher stamp duty percentage - on a higher amount.

And receiving **** all benefits.

Whereas a **** who can;t be arsed to work hard gets rent, dole, and rates paid, and can still afford their 10 tins and 20 tabs a day.

That's totally biased.

 

[Reg Martin]

Gordon Brown may benefit politically from this crisis in a similar way that Margaret Thatcher did from the Falklands, though his statement when Chancellor about abolishing boom and bust is looking pretty daft now.