Am I missing the point about tuition fees?

[HovaGirl]

Genius. Your talents are wasted on here. Sod the Laffer curve, sod the fact that the very people you intend to hit are the most mobile in arranging their tax affairs, sod the fact that you intend to wipe out the luxury goods market in this country overnight.

So how do you plan to implement this tax so that it is equitable, doesn't drive wealth creators from this shore and there are no loopholes for creative accountants to exploit? Hopefully you've got something a little more concrete than "it just works" which was, I recall, your less than robust defence of Keynesian economics (which clearly didn't work, doesn't work and will never work and whose fundamental precept doesn't involve pissing away tax receipts on non-capital public expenditure and then having record borrowing during boom times).

In answer to your question:

So ... have I got this right? The country got into this mess, thanks to unprecedented levels of public debt. And we are solving the problem by borrowing more money?

The simple is no. Once again on macroeconomics, you don't appear to know your arse from elbow but I'm glad that you've finally come round to seeing that Keynesian economics is a fraud.

Where to begin?

We're that much in debt because of a global financial crisis caused by rampant, irrresponsible, unchecked financial chicanery. Labour are partly culpable because of their cowardice in regulating the City but it would have happened anyway.

Do you honestly think the Govt has no agenda except shrinking the deficit? Right-wingers believe in a small state and low taxes. So wherever they can shift the financial burden on to individuals and away from central coffers, they will do. In a way there's nothing wrong with that - if that's what you believe. But at least have the courage to admit that it's what you believe.

I will say for the third time in this thread, that the state spent more on benefits last year, than it raised in taxes. If the state was to afford everything else, it would have to raise taxes so high, no one would have any spending money left. And anyone with any sense would move abroad to a lower-taxed state.

A smaller state and low taxes is exactly what would benefit the nation (in normal times). Think of the low-tax states and how generally wealthy they are, in leaving their people more able to choose what to spend their money on (and by default, their indirect taxes), such as Monaco, Hong Kong, Switzerland. Before the NHS and NI, the Great British Public had to rely on the private benevolence of their employers or local parishes to see them through the rough times. Grandma's remedies for illness was their only medicine. Since the NHS and NI, the Great British Public thinks it is entitled to have everything on a plate. Someone, somewhere, has to pay for all of it. We've been living off the national credit card for too long.

 

[HovaGirl]

Not at all. I disagree but respect people who are honest about it. I just don't think this Govt is.

It's part of Conservative ideology. Unfortunately, the Tories are in bed with a political party who are almost more Left Wing than Labour, so they have conflicting ideals. They've also got an impossible mess to deal with and you really can't please all of the people all of the time.

 

[crasher]

I will say for the third time in this thread, that the state spent more on benefits last year, than it raised in taxes. If the state was to afford everything else, it would have to raise taxes so high, no one would have any spending money left. And anyone with any sense would move abroad to a lower-taxed state.

A smaller state and low taxes is exactly what would benefit the nation (in normal times). Think of the low-tax states and how generally wealthy they are, in leaving their people more able to choose what to spend their money on (and by default, their indirect taxes), such as Monaco, Hong Kong, Switzerland. Before the NHS and NI, the Great British Public had to rely on the private benevolence of their employers or local parishes to see them through the rough times. Grandma's remedies for illness was their only medicine. Since the NHS and NI, the Great British Public thinks it is entitled to have everything on a plate. Someone, somewhere, has to pay for all of it. We've been living off the national credit card for too long.

You seem to be suggesting shutting down the NHS and abandoning benefits. Let Grandma treat you if you are ill or let your employer help you out.

Assuming you're being serious - that is fatuous beyond belief. As is comparing UK to a tiny privileged tax haven like Monaco.

I don't know if Tory Central Office sent you here or whether you're a self-elected headbanger but this is fifth-form bullshit.

 

[HovaGirl]

HovaGirl, you should be a lecturer so that these cretins that gain admission to Universties these days can see what is ahead of them,which is very little,so many are now gaining access at a time that vacancies for top positions are declining which will result in them applying for jobs they could have had three years earlier.Blair is unlikely to apologise for this situation or Iraq.

We need all sorts of people in our society. We need bus drivers and hairdressers, waiters and cleaners, surveyors and lawyers. Not everyone has the same gifts and talents so these jobs are better suited to people who have more aptitude for them than for other jobs. It takes a particular kind of mind to be a lawyer, doctor or accountant. Not everyone can do it. It takes a particular kind of talent to be a ballet dancer or entertainer. Not all of us have the capabailities, talents or gifts to do every job. But we need people to do every job.

The old days of apprenticeships worked very well. Seven years training in-house and day-release from college to be a plumber, electrician or hairdresser ensured those would probably manage a life-long career, and might even be able to be self-employed and run their own business. Today's NVQs are a waste of time, and I speak as an NVQ student and as an NVQ assessor. It is of not use to know whether a trainee hairdresser can draw a picture of a hairbrush or can tidily arrange a huge lever-arch file. Are they getting enough practice at cutting or colouring hair, or fitting pipes or wires?

Nowadays, everyone thinks they have a right to go to university, but university was designed for academic thinkers not for vocational careers and very few people have the kind of analytical minds needed for such rigorous thinking. So less rigorous degrees have been designed to placate those of less rigorous thinking which won't actually get them a job, nor will it help them achieve a post-graduate qualification as an accountant, lawyer or building surveyor. It would appear that the modern recipients of the Post-Graduate Ceritificate in Education are actually entering schools as teachers, barely able to read and write. Dumbing down degrees, and dumbing down the qualifications to allow so many people into university, has resulted in too many people having expectations which they will never be able to fulfill.

A degree does not prepare you for a job. It trains your mind to think. Then you have to go on to further training which may secure you a career. Unfortunately, many of today's young graduates have been led up the garden path of false hope. A career will not be there for them after completing their degree. They will end up in the same poorly-paid jobs they would have got three years earlier if they had not bothered with a degree at all. Except they would not have incurred their student debt. For those who remain low-paid, they will never repay their student debt. For those who are fortunate enough to climb up the career ladder and receive better pay, they will contribute to their student debt, the debt they might not have had, if they had never been to university.

 

[HovaGirl]

That is a fair point but I think this is one of those things where we will look back and never trust the Lib Dems again. I might be being radical but i really cannot see the Lib Dems being ever seen by my generation as the way forward.

The LibDems have been quite radical for the past few generations, when they thought they had no chance of ever forming a government. Now they are in government, they are gaining the kind of experience they never thought they would have, and are learning real lessons in how to run a country. They know Labour is a spent force, they know UKIP and the BNP is waiting in the wings, and they know the nation is still wary of the Tories after the horror of Margaret Thatcher. If they seriously want to consider themselves in the running for major political gain at the next election, they will have to rethink their entire political ideology. In a few years, this particular debacle will be a distant memory, because there are far worse times ahead of us and any party with its finger on the national pulse may well be the next single party of government.

 

[HovaGirl]

Has anyone ever inthe last 100 years seen the Lib Dems as the way forward?

Along with the Conservatives, they are the two oldest parties in England. The Liberal Party, known as the Whigs, was the old aristocratic party. The Conservative Party, known as the Tories, was the old party for middle-class property-owning workers. As the franchise widened, more and more of the landless working class began to have a say in the running of the country, through the hustings, that is, by voting. After the match-girls strike of the 1880s, the newly-formed Labour party took its chance with the working people, and vice versa. Once Labour got into power in 1924, the Liberals were never seen in government again, until now. The NHS and NI, however, were the brainchild of William Beveridge of the Liberal Party, but it was Labour which brought in the NHS after WWII.

 

[HovaGirl]

Dunno. I'm just of the opinion that we need a taxation policy that has slightly more substance than saying 'tax the rich'.

The eternal cry of "tax the rich" always strikes me as the cry of the envious, perhaps even shrieked by people who do the Lottery every week, and would be the first to complain about taxation if they won their millions.

Let's face it. We would all like to be rich. But not all of us can be. Very sad for those of us who aren't, but there it is.

 

[Lord Bracknell]

I find the parallel with the NHS interesting.

If the right answer for higher education is to provide it free of charge when it is being used and subsequently recover the full costs from the users by charging them 9 per cent of their earnings once they have reached the threshold of an annual income of £21,000, why not use the same principle to recover the costs of NHS treatment?

You will remain entitled to surgery that is free at the point of need, but if you are in employment and earning more than £21,000 a year, you would have £36 a week deducted from your pay until you have paid off your hospital bills. And the same for visits to your GP.

After all, the ONLY people to benefit from medical treatment are the individual patients. Why should the rest of us pay for your life-saving treatment?

Assuming I "have my finger on the nation's pulse", once this new system has bedded in, to universal jubilation, we might even extend the principle to primary and secondary school education, which is just as much a "privilege" as a place at university.

 

[HovaGirl]

As Buzzer says, a good accountant is worth his/her weight in gold to the rich, and will always be a step ahead of HMRC when it comes to arranging the affairs of their clients to maximise avoidance.

As for the rest of us, it's going to be tough, and there are few alternatives to touching our toes and taking the painful medicine.

What sticks in my neck is the hypocrisy of 'we're all in in together'. At least with Mrs Thatch she admitted to looking after her boys first and last and always, and if you were poor, sick or old you could go f*** yourselves.

You seem to be suggesting shutting down the NHS and abandoning benefits. Let Grandma treat you if you are ill or let your employer help you out.

Assuming you're being serious - that is fatuous beyond belief. As is comparing UK to a tiny privileged tax haven like Monaco.

I don't know if Tory Central Office sent you here or whether you're a self-elected headbanger but this is fifth-form bullshit.

No, I wasn't comparing the UK to Monaco, but suggesting that reduced taxation on income actually gives people more money to spend and that more tax can be raised on what people spend their money on. Rich people spend more, so they would pay more tax.

As to the NHS, it is an excellent national institution, but we are at the stage of taking it for granted and expecting everything from it. The NHS costs a fortune, paid for by our taxes and NI. It costs far more to run than we can pay in, and people just don't seem to understand this. Labour have thrown billions at it but there are still long waiting lists, hospital super-bugs and not enough doctors and nurses. Why? Because it is top-heavy with management. The more managers you have, the more you need managers to manage the managers. If we pruned away several managerial levels, and concentrated more on the medical service provided by the NHS, there would be more money for a better service. Managers do not cure your gout. The same top-heavy management has happened in schools and the police. It costs a fortune and we just can't afford to finance so many people who do not actually contribute to the front-line service. Unfortunately, all these managers are not going to manage themselves out of jobs to save money, are they? Instead, they are cutting the wages and jobs of the front-line people to save their own skins.

 

[Lord Bracknell]

As to the NHS, it is an excellent national institution, but we are at the stage of taking it for granted and expecting everything from it. The NHS costs a fortune, paid for by our taxes and NI. It costs far more to run than we can pay in, and people just don't seem to understand this. Labour have thrown billions at it but there are still long waiting lists, hospital super-bugs and not enough doctors and nurses. Why? Because it is top-heavy with management. The more managers you have, the more you need managers to manage the managers. If we pruned away several managerial levels, and concentrated more on the medical service provided by the NHS, there would be more money for a better service. Managers do not cure your gout. The same top-heavy management has happened in schools and the police. It costs a fortune and we just can't afford to finance so many people who do not actually contribute to the front-line service. Unfortunately, all these managers are not going to manage themselves out of jobs to save money, are they? Instead, they are cutting the wages and jobs of the front-line people to save their own skins.

Ah, I get you. Don't tax the rich. Sack the rich.

 

[HovaGirl]

I find the parallel with the NHS interesting.

If the right answer for higher education is to provide it free of charge when it is being used and subsequently recover the full costs from the users by charging them 9 per cent of their earnings once they have reached the threshold of an annual income of £21,000, why not use the same principle to recover the costs of NHS treatment?

You remain entitled to surgery that is free at the point of need, but if you are in employment and earning more than £21,000 a year, you would have £36 a week deducted from your pay until you have paid off your hospital bills. And the same for visits to your GP.

After all, the ONLY people to benefit from medical treatment are the individual patients. Why should the rest of us pay for your life-saving treatment?

Assuming I "have my finger on the nation's pulse", once this new system has bedded in, to universal jubilation, we might even extend the principle to primary and secondary school education, which is just as much a "privilege" as a place at university.

An education at school is a universal British right paid for out of the people's taxes. (Including the taxes of those who pay £30k a year to put their own kids through private school. They get no discount if their kids don't attend state school.)

A university education is not a right, just as a job at £100k is not a right. These are things which must be earned, through hard work and ambition.

Before the NHS was established, most people couldn't afford a doctor and went only when they were desperate. Since the NHS was established, the system has been open to abuse by people who go to the doctor for the slightest problems, or for a chat because they are lonely. All of this costs money, and gives less time for patients who are in real need. But it is a very human thing to do. Every mother with a crying child who has a headache worries in case her child has something awful, like meningitis, or whatever.

But, as you say, the NHS is not actually free, because we pay for it through our taxes and NI, but it is free at the point of use. What is unfair, is that people who have not contributed via their taxes or NI are still entitled to this services, such as the so-called Health Tourists and other foreigners who have never worked in the UK.

The NHS is a complicated issue. It does need to be overhauled so that everyone gets best value for the money available, but I doubt any British person would wish to see it abolished or turned into a two-tier system. I just don't think anyone knows quite what can be done about it.

 

[HovaGirl]

Ah, I get you. Don't tax the rich. Sack the rich.

Better than sacking the poor.

 

[HovaGirl]

I said this on an interview on CNN on Thursday (the little media whore i'm becoming).

Is it really worth being the whipping boys for the tories? Because the tories were always going to get this reaction and therefore havn't taken as much of a personal brunt of the anger. I'm not outraged at the Tories because its a Tory agenda to do this sort of thing. Its expected. Therefore i'm angry but not shocked and betrayed by them. Not quite the case for the Liberal Hypocrites though. My source is the beeb here but some MP's are angry at how they are taking more of the abuse and blame for this policy than the Conservatives are.

I ended the interview with this statement: The tories have LOST a generation of voters. I can't see a recovery. During the first debate, i actually considered changing my allience to the Lib Dems and putting aside the issue of Falmer. I'm glad I didn't.

Advanced warning: Students have no one now they'll trust to help them anymore. Obviously the Conservatives. Unless Labour go back to being a propper socialist party then New Labour just seeks to appeal to the Middle England and has ditched its roots of helping the workers. The Lib Dems were the only real party that'll try to help us and they've abused that trust. Turn out could decreace unless a party steps forward and earns our trust during the next Parliament.

Never mind. By the time of the next election, you won't be a student any more and will have other things on your mind, such as your career, or perhaps, even a husband and children. Your political views will change as your life changes and as different things become more meaningful and important to you.

 

[KneeOn]

Never mind. By the time of the next election, you won't be a student any more and will have other things on your mind, such as your career, or perhaps, even a husband and children. Your political views will change as your life changes and as different things become more meaningful and important to you.

I don't swing that way buddy, sorry to disappoint!

I fully expect my political views to change as I grow older but I cannot trust the Lib Dems on a principle...

Maybe you're right and i will trust them but I can't see it.

 

[HovaGirl]

I don't swing that way buddy, sorry to disappoint!

I fully expect my political views to change as I grow older but I cannot trust the Lib Dems on a principle...

Maybe you're right and i will trust them but I can't see it.

Sorry. I assumed you were female, from the picture you put up. To be honest, there are many principles on which one can't trust any political party. We just have to vote for the party which is nearest to our own beliefs.

 

[Acetripper]

The major question behind all this is! - Why are the population of this country being asked to pump money into banks to prop them up? And when times then improve, the way they repay the British workforce is to sack them and employ people from the sub-continent at or such like at a far cheaper rate to do those jobs. Bizare! Basically, they've lent too much money at high interest rates and people can't afford to pay it back, leaving the banks in finanicial crisis and bankrupt. The truth is the money they lent was profit gained by other investment and speculation, that never materialised. Confused - well I am!

 

[ROSM]

Sorry. I assumed you were female, from the picture you put up. To be honest, there are many principles on which one can't trust any political party. We just have to vote for the party which is nearest to our own beliefs.

An interesting theory - especially using the term beliefs.

Welcome to the political debate on NSC. I like your approach even though I disagree with you on much of what you've written. Anybody who honestly believes the NHS is worse off after the 13 years of labour government is in cloud cuckoo land. It may be that the improvement may not seem to have been worth the many billions by some - that is their belief. But waiting lists are down, survival rates are up and the number of patients successfully treated has increased.

Who also did most to scrap apprenticeships and encourage university attendance? Not the last government that's for sure - although it will be to my eternal chagrin that they didn't do more to move back to that approach. This current government wont that's for sure!

 

[HovaGirl]

The major question behind all this is! - Why are the population of this country being asked to pump money into banks to prop them up? And when times then improve, the way they repay the British workforce is to sack them and employ people from the sub-continent at or such like at a far cheaper rate to do those jobs. Bizare! Basically, they've lent too much money at high interest rates and people can't afford to pay it back, leaving the banks in finanicial crisis and bankrupt. The truth is the money they lent was profit gained by other investment and speculation, that never materialised. Confused - well I am!

The bank bonuses fiasco was and is an obscenity. Some reason that if the banks don't give the bonuses, then the greedy staff will go elsewhere to get such remuneration, but I'm not sure that holds water. Mr Brown made a grave error when he loosened the banks from the shackles of the Bank of England which allowed individual banks to do their own thing, rather than be constrained by the Bank of England. Although the banks got themselves (and us) into hot water, they had to be rescued, because too many ordinary people had savings, mortgages, loans and other business with the banks and that business has to carry on. If the banks hadn't been rescued, then we would have found ourselves in the same situation as that which precipitated the crash of the 1920s-30s, when people rushed to the banks to remove their money. For those who get there quick enough, that's fine, but it would mean millions more would loose their savings and assets, and never see them again.

 

[ROSM]

The major question behind all this is! - Why are the population of this country being asked to pump money into banks to prop them up? And when times then improve, the way they repay the British workforce is to sack them and employ people from the sub-continent at or such like at a far cheaper rate to do those jobs. Bizare! Basically, they've lent too much money at high interest rates and people can't afford to pay it back, leaving the banks in finanicial crisis and bankrupt. The truth is the money they lent was profit gained by other investment and speculation, that never materialised. Confused - well I am!

Not all banks are the same - it is unfair to cast Barclays in the same light as say RBS.

 

[Brighton TID]

Grandma's remedies for illness was their only medicine. Since the NHS and NI, the Great British Public thinks it is entitled to have everything on a plate. Someone, somewhere, has to pay for all of it. We've been living off the national credit card for too long.

This.

Bottom line is that Welfare should be there to stop people from starving or freezing to death in their hour of vulnerability and need.

My highly paid accountant mate was gutted the other day because his child benefit was being cut. His argument was that he was saving the child benefit for his five year old's education in the future.
Is there a vicious circle here?