[Politics] Are baby boomers taxed enough?

[Thunder Bolt]

It's nobodys fault... it's just the way things have panned out.

Boomers were lucky to be born when they were - but that ship has sailed. Low or average earning young people will never experience such wealth, or anything close... or anything at all - unless they are 'lucky' enough to receive a huge inheritance, as macabre as that reality is.

It's a big problem. Possibly the biggest problem, up there with climate change. It's a ticking timb bomb.

Obviously we should take these things incredibly seriously. "Don't spend your days bemoaning" - what do you suggest to do instead? You boomers are so deluded and selfish. Just because you're doing alright...

You'll never enjoy life if you resent other people.

 

[dsr-burnley]

Haven’t bothered to answer the poll. My POV remains that we have to get over our obsession with taxing income, and start to get serious about taxing wealth. Targeting an age demographic is simply discriminatory.

I feel that in the same way that there is a minimum income a person needs to live reasonably, and not be considered in poverty, there is a maximum level of wealth that should be amassable by any one person or even organisation.

My personal belief is that once that limit is reached, the tax rate should become 100%

The actual limits can be moved as seems reasonable based on any nation state’s circumstances at the time, but it should be there.

We must prevent too much power and influence pooling in one place.

Where an organisation reaches its limit, it has to split into separate organisations, with separate ownership, board, separate market listings etc.

We need a mechanism by which we prevent a handful of ultra-wealthy individuals distorting the world we live in.

The problem is that if you ban entrepreneurs from creating large businesses, you are also banning them from employing more people. Obviously with the likes of Elton John and Andy Murray and JK Rowling, hugely rich individuals, you can just tell them to give us all their money or leave the country (Labour tried that in the seventies with a 98% tax rate, and it was quite successful at driving rich individuals abroad) but doing it with major employers doesn't help the economy one bit.

 

[Mustafa II]

I’m not a boomer. My parents were.

What to do instead of bemoaning? Go out and earn more money?

I took certain steps to ensure I would be financially okay from getting up at 4am every day to do a cleaning job as well as my full time job to working lots of overtime and other stuff.
I work Christmas, New Year. I have two jobs. I work 60 hour weeks.
Like many others do.

I still have a social life. Still see family. You make it work.

And yes, lucky enough to have some money from inheritance. Which is put aside for my retirement and social care should I need it. I have no children so ain’t nobody gonna be putting me in the annex and looking after me.

If you’re not happy with your lot and you’re able-bodied, get to work. Work. Work. Work some more.

That’s what normal people have done since time immemorial.

How much, in your view, should a young person need to earn to live a decent enough life?

£30k? £40k? £100k?

What are their options if they are in a £40k job working a 45 hour week and all their money is going on rent? Get a 2nd job? Even then, how long would it take them to save £50k for a deposit on a shitty basement flat? How old will they be, 30, 40? How can they ever expect to move on to a house and make a family.

Eat less avocados and cancel their Netflix subscription?

You lot really need to accept the young generation have hopeless lives. There's nothing they can do - they're powerless. The only solution is a radical redistribution of wealth.

 

[KZNSeagull]

How much, in your view, should a young person need to earn to live a decent enough life?

£30k? £40k? £100k?

What are their options if they are in a £40k job working a 45 hour week and all their money is going on rent? Get a 2nd job? Even then, how long would it take them to save £50k for a deposit on a shitty basement flat? How old will they be, 30, 40? How can they ever expect to move on to a house and make a family.

Eat less avocados and cancel their Netflix subscription?

You lot really need to accept the young generation have hopeless lives. There's nothing they can do - they're powerless. The only solution is a radical redistribution of wealth.

One possible option for young people, or indeed anyone struggling to make ends meet, is to move. I am sure that many people in the past have realised that they cannot realistically afford to live in one of the most expensive areas in the country and would perhaps look for alternatives before calling the situation hopeless. No, it is not ideal, but it is a plausible option for many.

 

[dsr-burnley]

Why shouldn’t people be able to live like “boomers”?
Apart from the environmental impact, which every generation contributes to.

Why can’t we all have decent pensions, jobs for life, superb free healthcare, social mobility. affordable housing?

I mean, I know why. Successive governments have drawn money and resources away from working people and put into the accounts of the super wealthy.

Things get better under labour but they haven’t made a huge effort to stop the transfer of money into the hands of the wealthy and powerful.

It was a golden era and I don’t blame anyone for making the most of it. Who the heck wouldn’t?

The reason 25 years olds can't live like 75 year olds is because they haven't spent a lifetime working for their income. That's the biggest single reason why young people have less capital than old people, and it always has been.

As for "jobs for life", that's risible. Do you genuinely believe that anyone who took a job in manufacturing in the 1960's was able to retire in that same job? Do you genuinely believe that the seventies and eighties were a golden age for employment and no-one lost their jobs?

 

[chickens]

The problem is that if you ban entrepreneurs from creating large businesses, you are also banning them from employing more people. Obviously with the likes of Elton John and Andy Murray and JK Rowling, hugely rich individuals, you can just tell them to give us all their money or leave the country (Labour tried that in the seventies with a 98% tax rate, and it was quite successful at driving rich individuals abroad) but doing it with major employers doesn't help the economy one bit.

I’m not suggesting driving them out, I want to force them to split their one monolithic business into multiple smaller businesses, creating new opportunities at board and senior management levels, and having the wealth distributed around a greater number of people, rather than distributed with a laser focus to one individual with the wealth of nations.

We will continue to have a few incredibly wealthy, unelected individuals effectively calling all the shots all the while we allow too much wealth and power to pool in one place.

And as Todd Boehly and Donald Trump both prove beyond reasonable doubt, just because you have great wealth, doesn’t mean you have great acumen or good intentions.

 

[The Clamp]

How much, in your view, should a young person need to earn to live a decent enough life?

£30k? £40k? £100k?

What are their options if they are in a £40k job working a 45 hour week and all their money is going on rent? Get a 2nd job? Even then, how long would it take them to save £50k for a deposit on a shitty basement flat? How old will they be, 30, 40? How can they ever expect to move on to a house and make a family.

Eat less avocados and cancel their Netflix subscription?

You lot really need to accept the young generation have hopeless lives. There's nothing they can do - they're powerless. The only solution is a radical redistribution of wealth.

I earn less than 40k. I was on less than 20k well into my thirties.
I rented for years and years and years. Inheritance didn’t get me a property. I saved and paid for it. I knuckled down and worked 10,12,14 night shifts on the bounce. With no partner for a second income. I moved to a cheaper area.

Hopeless lives? Certainly difficult lives. Yes. Life is not easy for young people. The housing market is a shambles. It’s hard. It’s not impossible.

And I don’t know about “my lot” but I work my nuts off for the relatively little I have. If you haven’t got where you want to be, pull your finger out of your backside and work for it. There’s plenty of money out there, go and get some of it.

 

[dsr-burnley]

I’m not suggesting driving them out, I want to force them to split their one monolithic business into multiple smaller businesses, creating new opportunities at board and senior management levels, and having the wealth distributed around a greater number of people, rather than distributed with a laser focus to one individual with the wealth of nations.

We will continue to have a few incredibly wealthy, unelected individuals effectively calling all the shots all the while we allow too much wealth and power to pool in one place.

And as Todd Boehly and Donald Trump both prove beyond reasonable doubt, just because you have great wealth, doesn’t mean you have great acumen or good intentions.

How small? For example, the Morrison family used to own Morrison's supermarkets - would that be too big a company for one family? And if so, would you have to break up all the other supermarkets as well?

What about Guinness? Should the Guinness brand have been hived off into loads of smaller brands? Should it still, now that Diageo own much of it?

Do you have a vague guess at what level of wealth we might say is the maximum?

 

[dsr-burnley]

I imagine statistically walkers and those who partake in sport save the NHS more than they cost it.


Edit


But yes, I see your point.

I suspect you might be wrong there. What is often forgotten is that thin, healthy-living people suffer disproportionately from cancer and other illnesses, and especially all forms of dementia, than the fatties. Take a look round in a nursing homes next time you have the sad experience of visiting one. The people in there, especially the ones with dementia, are disproportionately the thin ones who looked after themselves. The fatties tend to die before they get to that stage.

 

[The Clamp]

I suspect you might be wrong there. What is often forgotten is that thin, healthy-living people suffer disproportionately from cancer and other illnesses, and especially all forms of dementia, than the fatties. Take a look round in a nursing homes next time you have the sad experience of visiting one. The people in there, especially the ones with dementia, are disproportionately the thin ones who looked after themselves. The fatties tend to die before they get to that stage.

I have no doubt I’m probably wrong! I often am

 

[The Clamp]

Our marriage was in somewhere you are familiar with, Reigate, and then down the road from the Register Office and round the corner to the Prince of Wales, Holmesdale Road

Lovely job

 

[Kuipers Supporters Club]

The vast majority of us are taxed too much. The 1% need to pay more, so we can keep more of our own money.

 

[The Clamp]

The cast majority of us are taxed too much. The 1% need to pay more, so we can keep more of our own money.

In a nutshell.

 

[Thunder Bolt]

How much, in your view, should a young person need to earn to live a decent enough life?

£30k? £40k? £100k?

What are their options if they are in a £40k job working a 45 hour week and all their money is going on rent? Get a 2nd job? Even then, how long would it take them to save £50k for a deposit on a shitty basement flat? How old will they be, 30, 40? How can they ever expect to move on to a house and make a family.

Eat less avocados and cancel their Netflix subscription?

You lot really need to accept the young generation have hopeless lives. There's nothing they can do - they're powerless. The only solution is a radical redistribution of wealth.

I remember you being a great admirer of North Korea. I have read a story about someone who was born in North Korea, in prison. His mother was put in prison because his father objected to the political regime. The whole family were interned.
As his mother was already pregnant, he was born in prison. He grew up in prison because if you are a child of a prisoner, that's where you stay.
He was working in the fields around the compound growing vegetables, and thought about what it would be like outside. Eventually he did escape the guards and made it to South Korea.
He was totally disorientated by the change in culture and couldn't cope with it at first, but gradually with a lot of help, he did start living a 'normal' life Equal distribution of wealth in communist countries is a myth.
In China, the ordinary people are not even allowed to vote.

 

[Mr Bridger]

I know someone who recently paid £600 for a wedding cake.
Fruit cake, marzipan, some icing.
Total rip off and anyone happy to pay that can’t complain about costs!

£600 ffs!
How much did Fruit cake & Marzipan spend on the rest of the wedding then

 

[chickens]

How small? For example, the Morrison family used to own Morrison's supermarkets - would that be too big a company for one family? And if so, would you have to break up all the other supermarkets as well?

What about Guinness? Should the Guinness brand have been hived off into loads of smaller brands? Should it still, now that Diageo own much of it?

Do you have a vague guess at what level of wealth we might say is the maximum?

Personally, I would say that once an organisation’s wealth allows them to lobby governments utilising a mixture of lobbyists, lawyers, PR firms and manipulation of online content they’re too large.

Diageo is a great example of an organisation that has too much power in its chosen sector. I would far rather see Guinness cut loose and run under its own control, than have one giant organisation controlling countless drinks brands under one umbrella.

I don’t have any knowledge regarding Morrisons history, but to my mind they’re a business that have a specific purpose and function in a market with plenty of competition, I personally don’t see an immediate need for that business to be broken up.

However, I would like to think that such decisions would be being made by well-briefed civil servants with an eye on sectors where competition is not working as it should.

At present the trend is for businesses to be sucked up into a megacorp’s portfolio of brands and companies that the public recognise. This in turn means that much of the wealth created by those businesses is being distributed among an ever smaller group of beneficiaries.

My preference would be to see that trend being reversed.

 

[fly high]

I imagine statistically walkers and those who partake in sport save the NHS more than they cost it.


Edit


But yes, I see your point.

When my Dad needed a hip replacement in his 70s his consultant told him it was probably as a result of all the running he did as a young man, also he did a lot of walking for work in his 50s, he was stiil the same wieght as he'd been in his mid-twenties, 12½ stone. Lots of blokes I know who have needed knee replacments because they played rugby or football so maybe just stick to walking.

 

[portlock seagull]

Indeed. I have since edited my original post. I was being rather silly.

And yes, the food industry has a lot to answer for.

This was a great documentary. Can’t find the full episode but..

The Men Who Made Us Fat

Ooow, that looks good. Not seen, thank you. Will watch later.

 

[chip]

Article in the FT today:

The transfer of wealth from boomers to ‘zennials’ will reshape the global economy Financier Ken Costa argues the millennials and Gen-Z generations are unsuited to managing capital because of their left-wing views

The transfer of wealth from boomers to ‘zennials’ will reshape the global economy

Financier Ken Costa argues the millennials and Gen-Z generations are unsuited to managing capital because of their left-wing views

on.ft.com

 

[Thunder Bolt]

I earn less than 40k. I was on less than 20k well into my thirties.
I rented for years and years and years. Inheritance didn’t get me a property. I saved and paid for it. I knuckled down and worked 10,12,14 night shifts on the bounce. With no partner for a second income. I moved to a cheaper area.

Hopeless lives? Certainly difficult lives. Yes. Life is not easy for young people. The housing market is a shambles. It’s hard. It’s not impossible.

And I don’t know about “my lot” but I work my nuts off for the relatively little I have. If you haven’t got where you want to be, pull your finger out of your backside and work for it. There’s plenty of money out there, go and get some of it.

Moving up north with my first marriage enabled me to get our first home after living in a council house for six years. We couldn't afford to live in Sussex. This was in the 'golden years' of the 70s.

It's all very teenager 'It's not fair', isn't it?