ItsColdUpHere

Imagine two people: Person A on £12000 a year with 3 kids. With tax credits his take home will be £1830 a month. Person B on £28150 a year with no kids His take home will be the same £1830 a month, no tax credits. Note they get the same take home pay. Now give them both a 4% pay rise on their pay. Person A would get an extra £10.80 a month (a 0.67% increase in total renumeration), as he has a marginal tax rate of 73% on a smaller monetary increase. Person B would get an extra £63.80 a month (a 3.5% increase in total renumeration). Two obvious consequences of this: 1). Person A will not strive to get person B's income even if he/she could - it would take a monumental and totally unrealistic increase in pay to make ANY impact. 2). In this environment, low pay rises (as is the current situation in the UK) simply don't matter to people on tax credits, as they lose most of any rise in tax and tax credit withdrawal anyway. The freezing of tax credits will have a MUCH bigger impact on their take home pay than the current small pay rises. The increase of the child tax credit from £2235 in 2009 to £2690 now has given Person A a 6.6% take home pay increase, the equivalent of 9 years of compounded 4% pay increases on his wage What a mess. Discuss.

Sometimes its down to luck, a lot of time it isnt. ALL of the long term sick/unemployed I know have chosen the lifestyle. And i dont blame them at all. In todays UK you either earn silly money or you may as well be on benefits - because most people are "poor" , so you might as well do f##k all and be poor. This is where the "you try living on benefits" people are missing the point. The point is that being on benefits pays as well as a lot of jobs, i.e. not very well, so you might as well be on benefits.

Again, I never said that. I didnt say that rent shouldnt be paid, just that it was. You are "random man" and i claim my prize. A simple "yeah, I see your point" will suffice by the way...

Ironically, given the thread context, you're not. The system doesnt care what you have given, only what you are deemed to "deserve". Ive paid 600k in tax and NI over the years, but if i was unemployed tomorrow id get MUCH less money than an 18 yearold girls who's done nothing but get pregnant. Its a funny old world.

Again, whats that got to do with it? Are we just asking random questions? My original statement was about rent free existence, which is the one thing benefit claimants DO have.

Ah, the daily wail argument - the HPC equivalent of "thats racist"...

No they havent. The amount a person gets in rent and benefits is totally unrelated to any tax or NI that they may or may not have paid. Its one of the reasons the system is so unfair. 0 weeks work = 40 years work as far as the system is concerned.

Whats that idiotic question got to do with anything? I was simply stating a fact that people on benefits DO live rent free. And the amount of free rent and benefits a person receives is totally unrelated to the amount of tax and NI he may or may not have paid.

People on benefits DO live rent free.

In the slightly rougher (but by no means dangerous) bits of my town that would go for 50-55k. So nine times more expensive!!! Its not Sustainable, and yet its being sustained. This Situation wont change until interest rates go up...

You're right. Ive got myself into a "but someone is wrong on the internet" loop. I'll stop now :-)

One of isnt confused - he just believes what he is told by the awfully clever scientists and politicians. One of us IS a tad confused, but mainly by peoples inability to question stupid and useless and economically suicidal policies imposed on us with ZERO chance of doing any good. And it wasnt me confused yesterday, it was the awfully clever scientist on the radio stating that even if global temperaturesHAVE stopped going up, climate change "could" mean greater variation in "weather patterns". So he was basically saying "climate change = a bit more weather". I actually laughed out loud. I actually think he didnt mean to say what he said, but he did say it. The policy's we are pursuing are the embodiment of bad politics: "this is bad, we must do something. This is something, we must do it" I repeat - we are burning all of the carbon based energy we can get out of the ground, therefore all of the renewables isnt "in replacement" of CO2 pruducing energy but "in addition to". Ironically I totally believe that we SHOULD be building loads of mukes and renewable sources, because we're going to need them when the carbon runs out. and you need energy to make the renewable sources, so do it now while we can. And before you say it im not contradicting myself for this would be investment in the true sense "spend now receive more back later" and not just spending to give the chinese cheaper oil, which the current policies basically amount to. If climate change turns out to be real (and ive repeately stated that it might - not that any of our opinions matter) then all the better. But i think it would be an easier sell to the public to make the massive investment to keep the lights on in 10 years than some vague danger in 50 years

I forgot that one. Sorry...

PS. I have levels of climate change scepticism: 1. Global warming is not happening. 2. Global warming is happening but its a natural cycle. 3. Global warming is happening, the rising CO2 is down to that Global Warming. 4. Global warming is happening, its down to CO2, but we cant stop it. 5. Global warming is happening, its down to CO2, we can stop it but we need to do it as a world. 1 country doing it is useless and stupid. None sceptic: 6. Global warming is happening, its down to CO2, and cutting 20% off our 2% of global CO2 emissions is going to somehow make a difference, when China is buidling our entire generating capacity every two years. .... I find myself swinging between 2 and 5. 6, which best represents goverment policy, I find unbelievably childish and indefensible.

Its not "global warming" now, its "climate change" doncha know, since the world stopped warming. (a climate scientist on the radio taught me this today) This means "climate change" is what we used to call "weather".

I can go to switzerland and see the large hadron collider. I can pick up materials made of graphene. I may or may not see the results of global warming. Its not as obvious as people make out. Scientific method works most of the time, when the results are measureable. We only have one environment, so its impossible to prove that the (very questionable) temperature rises are due to man made activity (temperatures vary long term naturallt, vikings growing grapes, skating on the thames etc.) Nobody is arguing that CO2 is rising, but correlation does not mean causation as you well know. This is NOT as clear cut as you make out. And I do believe in science in general, but that doesnt mean I have to believe everything that scientists tell me. Scientists have got LOADS of thing wrong over the years, but eventually they normaly get things right - THAT is what scientific method is - clawing in the dark for the truth. And eventually scientists find the truth. But they often get it wrong a lot of times first. I don't know where we are in the "cycle of truth"with global warming. Global warming? I'm still not sure, I just dont know. Comparing apples and pears is dumb, no matter how big your post is.

And i'll then try to murder you and steal any meagre food supplies you may have. Nobody said the world was fair. This is why the Chinese and Indians are happy for us to destroy ourselves economically by our standalone CO2 policies for their sakes.

The reasons arent important. The reality is that the CO2 production has been exported and not eliminated. I repeat - the world is still burning all the carbon based energy it can produce. If nothing had been done the cost of energy would be higher but the CO2 production would be little different.

The only cooperation is wIthin europe and to a certain extent america, and all we have really done is outsource our CO2 production to the far east. Whilst commiting economic suicide in the process. I repeat - the world is burning all the carbon based fuel it can get its hands on. The great CO2 debate has achieved nothing but moving where it is burned, and the jobs that go with it, to the other side of the world The Chinese and Indians (population 2.5 billion) refused to cut CO2 emmisions until theyve "caught up". By which time (if you believe your own rhetoric) we'll all be dead. And your second sentence (unless you are joking) just proves my point. AGREE WITH ME OR YOU'RE EVIL!!

My argument isnt that they make their first results up, but that they will stand by them far longer than logic dictates when they are challenged. The results might have been "right" given the data and tools available at the time, but it takes a brave man to turn around and say "yeah, good point, I may have wasted 30 years of my and lots of other peoples lives". I'm personally not convinced either way around global warming, but I AM convinced that belief in it has become quasi-religous, in that none-believers are pilloried and ridiculed even though their arguments may be valid and reasonable. "BURN THE WITCH!!" PS. My persnal position on global warming is WHAT WE THINK DOESNT MATTER. Every joule of carbon based energy dug out of the ground WILL be burned, and crippling our economies so that the Indians and the Chinese and the Americans can burn our share is childish and stupid. You either cut emmisions at a world level or dont bother.

I have no idea whether the effect is being ignored or not. But anyone who thinks that scientists are somehow above the emotional, reputational and financial drivers that affects everyone else is being naive at best, and ironically proving my point at worst. The climate change debate seems to be skewed by the "eat shit, a million flies cant be wrong" principle.

There is no conspiracy, merely different interpretations of the same data. This is why intelligent people can take opposing views on most subjects.

Yes. Because its in their interest to overlook it. Scientists are people and people have egos and lives to pay for. It normaly takes a new generation of scientists, i.e. those with no life and reputational baggage, to overturn acceptepted scientific wisdom.

Now I think about it, I could sell my fully paid for detached house 100 yards from the country side, and use the 140k as a deposit on a 400k two bedroom flat in London. Alls I would need is to ruin my families pleasant life and a 275k, 1400 a month mortgage once i'd paid 12k in stamp duty. Im sure my 3 teenage daughters wont mind sharing one room, and I can have the dogs killed. I would then take part in the money making machine that is London house prices. I was stupid not to have thought of this before!

I've often said you have to live amongst it to understand it. Many times on here the veracity of my numbers has been questioned when i've posted about tax credits - and that was legitimate tax credits when a family has a few kids. Wifes best friends other half used to be a taxi driver, so cash in hand, kept his declared income below the tax credit taper start. And he was "disabled" so he got anothr kids worth of tax credits. With his pay, child benefit and tax credits he was clearing 2.4k back in 2005. The irony is they were such morons that they managed to get their house repossessed even though their mortgage was only 400 quid a month!!! There is no amount of money an idiot cant waste.... Now the kids are grown up, so no tax credits. But on the bright side the two daughters have had kids at 17 years old (there's 1 year between them) and been given a free house each. And tax credits of course. And the son is shagging s girl with 3 kids who has a free house and gets loads of tax credits. The cycle continues... If you do a simple calculation how much this one family has cost the tax payer you may weep...