tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4486641877026778105.post6694743516709988127..comments2024-03-27T09:14:27.496+00:00Comments on All That Is Solid ...: The Lobotomised TaxpayerPhilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06298147857234479278noreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4486641877026778105.post-71324649737440717502021-04-19T13:15:50.468+01:002021-04-19T13:15:50.468+01:00You're right; everyone does have experience of...You're right; everyone does have experience of Traveller incursions, even people who don’t care about politics have a visceral awareness of their council spending thousands literally cleaning up human shit from local parks and commons, when the people who leave the mess aren’t seen to be paying their way in the first place. It’s very hard to generate genuine popular opposition to even the most draconian measures tackling such behaviour. It’s also easier to ‘other’ those who choose to ‘other’ themselves; which is a particular issue with non-travelling Travellers, who don’t follow a transient lifestyle but still may prefer to live on permanent sites (the very concept of such formalised segregation of living space would be explosive in the case of other ethnic groups). Kamonoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4486641877026778105.post-77844983811380194492021-04-16T14:37:17.932+01:002021-04-16T14:37:17.932+01:00'The hard-suffering tax payer'
This lot l...'The hard-suffering tax payer'<br /><br />This lot like together with the hard-suffering mortgage payer, the struggling small business man/shop keeper and the frustrated commuter are the original snowflake/woke generation. <br /><br />Victimology, gorn mad, I say!PurplePetenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4486641877026778105.post-69422965186992788722021-04-16T12:44:11.312+01:002021-04-16T12:44:11.312+01:00Is it not the case that our NI contributions, whic...Is it not the case that our NI contributions, which used to be put into the NHS, are now used by this regime to pay off its never-ending deficit? So we are being cheated of our natural wish to support the NHS with our earnings. Playwrighthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05044548717321226602noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4486641877026778105.post-70390705616709979162021-04-16T10:20:45.940+01:002021-04-16T10:20:45.940+01:00I agree with your argument. There is a further ma...I agree with your argument. There is a further macroeconomic argument that tax is not about paying for anything, but a)about controlling the amount of money available for spending, and hence control inflation, and b) about giving the currency value. You have to pay tax in £s, so you need £s. The government doesn't tax to pay - it can simply instruct the BoE to create the money (as we have seen throughout this crisis). It doesn't have to borrow either, that is a convention that allows it to act as a safe repository for excess money. The issue is not about whose money it is, but how is that money best used. But, the key is that money is a proxy for resources - including technology, labour, materials, expertise. If we use Y amount of resource on one aim, there is X-Y resource left for other things. Ultimately, it's the finite limit of real resources, not the essentially unlimited amount of a virtual proxy (money) that makes us have to choose between how we "spend". So the focus should always be on what sort of society do we want, and then how best to direct resources (using money) to achieve that. The reason that those who control the information flow and manipulate opinion do not talk about this, is because the type of society they want (and have) is starkly different from what most people, if they were allowed to think seriously about it, would wish for.Dr Zoltan Jorovicnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4486641877026778105.post-32712718949002625912021-04-16T10:07:04.924+01:002021-04-16T10:07:04.924+01:00I find your argument persuasive. To go a little fu...I find your argument persuasive. To go a little further, though, how would we then describe the waste of money, e.g. on nuclear warheads. Would it be just a waste of money? <br />A waste of state money, a waste of society's money? A waste of societal resource (which could encompass time). <br />I suppose it could be a bit more patriotic in that we could say this is UK assets? If we used that kind of language, "shared assets" perhaps we then could describe how thatcher and successive governments have given those shared assets, like water, energy and transport to their mates. <br />TowerBridgenoreply@blogger.com