Feeling poor? WHO took all your money? NOT capitalist bastards? Lies, damned lies and statistics: we all know the saying, but you'd be surprised just how many of these “facts” manage to enter the national consciousness, emerging as Guardian headlines and stories on Radio 4's Today. Allow me to tiptoe through the process as to how this happens. Let's start with this lovely little chart: A …
1 - the poor have always been poor, always will be poor and presently are the poor
2 - all statistics need some base assumptions. Good stats providers make these explicit , poor stats providers tend to omit mentioning the base premise
3 - any analysis has to simplify reality otherwise reality becomes far too real
4 - the models should not outweigh reality but really predictable stuff MIGHT be important no?
5 - the human element tends to prevent stats as a means to support what is being posited and despair alternatives (but these are just model based on premise with varying degrees of oversight, varying degrees of overestimations, all subject to humanistic whim of the moment, subject to subjective influence(s), ...
You no it makes sense koz it all makes on-sense no?
1 - the poor have always been poor, always will be poor and presently are the poor
2 - all statistics need some base assumptions. Good stats providers make these explicit , poor stats providers tend to omit mentioning the base premise
3 - any analysis has to simplify reality otherwise reality becomes far too real
4 - the models should not outweigh reality but really predictable stuff MIGHT be important no?
5 - the human element tends to prevent stats as a means to support what is being posited and despair alternatives (but these are just model based on premise with varying degrees of oversight, varying degrees of overestimations, all subject to humanistic whim of the moment, subject to subjective influence(s), ...
You no it makes sense koz it all makes on-sense no?
should be
5 - the human element tends to PRESENT stats as a means to support what is being posited and despair alternatives (but these are just models based on ALTERNATIVING premises with varying degrees of oversight, varying degrees of overestimations, all subject to humanistic whim of the moment, subject to subjective influence(s), ...
You no it makes sense koz it all makes NO-SENSE no?
And what I was trying to show is that stats are really secondary or tertiary stuff derived from base premise subject to analysis subject to human whim so sort of make for irreverent irrelevancy.
Is this important?
You betcha!
Whereas normal numbers are really, really absolutely important statistical numbers are derivatives derivations subject to premise, subject to human whim.
And while ordinary numbers and stats numbers look exactly the same they are not and are totally different (well, ordinary numbers may be subject to human whim at least once but stats numbers are subject to human whim at least multiple times yes?
One organisation you can look at to see what is wrong with the "public" sector is the BBC.
Their redundancy pay offs 2010-2011 doubled to £58M with over 200 people getting more than £100,000 pay off. Quite staggering waste of money given how the BBC is funded by a TV tax.
Nobody in the public sector should be earning more than the PM either.
If the great majority of people are now earning one chicken a week instead of two 20 years ago, and the great majority of directors and CEOs are earning 1000 chickens a week instead of 100 20 years ago, just because the government still receives more-or-less the same amount of wings every week when it charges chicken tax as it did 20 years ago it doesn't mean that it's the nurses, fireman, and teachers that are to blame that the great majority of people now earn one chicken a week instead of two.
Government at bottom protects us from other people at the cost of some of our living standard. To the extent we can cooperate and compete without endless injuries motivating government interventions, we can get along with less government. Particularly is the lessened part is the part where our wages are taxed to increase someone else's wages.
Anything based on the GDP is problematic. The GDP will go up in a disaster. Why? Things need to be repaired and this helps the GDP. Do a search on problems with using the GDP. I have even seen a government website some time ago that had a full document on these problems.
I would prefer to see a chart showing the take home wages of the executives in comparison to the workers over the same time period. Remember that those multimillion dollar wages are also included in this data.
I do agree that inflation has stripped much of the spending power of individuals but most have this to blame on themselves. Don't spend beyond your means and the wages will either go up or prices will freeze. Don't use debt and you won't have the latest greatest things but you also won't be surviving from one pay cheque to the next. To put blame on anyone, look into the mirror.
If you don't like government debts, don't go into debt yourself. If you don't like struggling from pay cheque to pay cheque, get out of debt. Get rid of credit cards and only use them in an emergency. Keep zero balances. As I have once heard, don't give the rich bankers all your money in interest payments.
Once upon a time. A single income could easily afford to support a family of four or more and purchase a house. Try that today.
When I read headlines like " CEO Pay Grew 127 Times Faster Than Worker Pay Over Last 30 Years: Study" on the Huffington Post or "Firms Cringe" at revealing executive to employee wage ratios on the Wall Street Journal.
No, compare wage increases over the same time for those that work at or above minimum wage and then those that are allowed to vote themselves massive bonuses each year. In 2008, I remember reading an article about executives at a business getting massive bonuses for laying people off.
Also remember that governments will change the way statistics are calculated to make them look better. Unemployment in the USA is now counted differently than in the 1930's so this recessiion isn't as bad as it was back then. Compare apples to apples.
As I said before, look into the mirror to see how to fix the problem.
...when they don't understand economics themselves.
You can only laugh at a fellow of the Adam Smith Institute who doesn't understand Smith's Four Principles of Taxation (you know, the first thing that was taught in 'O' Level Economics).
Why the f**k does The Register employ this clown? Is it purely for the hit rate?
The "Adam Smith Institute" (slogan "putting forward bonkers ideas to screw up the real world even further" ) exists solely for the purpose of ensuring that Adam Smith continues to spin in his grave at 7200 rpm.
The Economist also thinks it follows the principles of someone who lived in an age when the largest corporation was the Royal Navy and never had an opportunity to comment on the presents state of capitalism. But his comment about business people getting together only to defraud the public really does seem a prescient description of the banks.
"Taxes should be simple, predictable, support work, and they should be fair"
I gather that Tim does understand the 4. In what way does this article go against the four?
Simple means fewer exceptions. Predictable means set out in law and not controlled by the mob such as UKUncut. Support work means that companies (who don't actually pay tax themselves but take it from their employees, shareholders and customer) should pay less tax so that more goes to the employees. And fair again means set out in law so that everyone knows the rules.
"I gather that Tim does understand the 4 (principles of taxation)"
How do you gather that? Tim has been supporting the likes of Starbucks taking advantage of mechanisms to reduce their corporation tax payments to virtually zero when direct competitors like Costa with a comparable amount of pre-tax profit are unable to.
How exactly is that fair? And if Tim does understand the Four Principles, then why is he unable to tell us how the practice he defends to the hilt is fair?
"Tim has been supporting the likes of Starbucks taking advantage of mechanisms to reduce their corporation tax payments to virtually zero when direct competitors like Costa with a comparable amount of pre-tax profit are unable to."
Not quite. I've been pointing out that the tax arrangements (royalties etc) have been specifically put into the law by the EU so that companies will indeed use them. For example, it is actually illegal (yes, specifically defined as illegal) for the UK to try to tax royalty payments going to another company incorporated in the EU.
I've thus been saying that this isn't tax avoidance (which is usually defined as using the law in ways that those who wrote it didn't want you to do). And then I've been pointing out the same thing about each of UK Uncut's targets. Vodafone was obeying EU law: the Greens are obeying UK law (dividends to foreigners who don't live here simply aren't taxable in the UK) and so on and so on.
Tim
It's still interesting to note that you still plugging the line that 'it's legal, so there's nothing wrong with it'.
What's even more interesting that you still can't bring yourself to comment on Adam Smith's Four Principles of Taxation in this instance. Instead, we get a soft-shoe shuffle - from someone who belongs to the Adam Smith Institute, no less!
The irony of the whole situation is that you whine and sneer about groups like UK Uncut, but they seem to have a clearer idea on taxes being equitable between persons than you do!
An outsider would think that you should therefore have nothing to do with the ASI, but of course anyone possessing a reasonable smattering of economic history can recognise that the Adam Smith Institute doesn't in fact promote all of Smith's work but instead cherry-picks the parts that support its own biased and morally corrupt agenda.
So crack on, fella. It's always entertaining to see the moral and intellectual somersaults that a fat cheque can encourage.
"Not quite. I've been pointing out that the tax arrangements (royalties etc) have been specifically put into the law by the EU so that companies will indeed use them. For example, it is actually illegal (yes, specifically defined as illegal) for the UK to try to tax royalty payments going to another company incorporated in the EU."
@Sebring: You have uncovered Mr Worstall's clandestine membership of UKIP!! If we were not subject to EU law we could make our own tax arrangements unencumbered by the rapacious jackboot of the capitalist pig-dog EU. If UKUncut wants to change things it will have to get the Dutch and Irish to agree, which is unlikely given how much revenue their governments get from this system.
Anyway, Mr Worstall's view on the morality of the system is irrelevant, he is merely pointing out that the system is working as designed and we shouldn't be surprised when a tax system designed for one purpose (not allowing punitive taxation of a company based in another member state) is used for another, more morally ambiguous purpose (channelling profits made in a high-tax jurisdiction to a lower-tax jurisdiction). We either have to amend the law or suck it up. Government should not be run like a charity with tax payments being made based on perceived PR advantages.
Whoah! Hold on dood!
Please allow me to indulge in a moment of your time - it probably is important no?
The recipient-beneficiary of housing benefit is not the tenant Uh-huh baby.
The ultimate recipient-beneficiary of housing benefit is (wait for it) Another government department!
The ultimate destination of housing benefit is the landlord transient via a tenant following due process subject to due diligence.
The biggest landlords in the UK are the council houses or new found mostly state owned new-council house landlords.
Why?
I am glad you asked - because her majesty's civil servants do not want competition
Oh - and there same landlords are now officially and formally slum landlords (see RIBA Case for Space should you believe otherwise.
UK civil servants philanthropic? Pah - you josh yes?
If anyone in this country genuinely believes that the 'problem' with it is that nurses and teachers are taking too much money (both massively SH!T jobs with SH!T salaries), they are smoking crack.
Personally, I'd rather carry on with my job at nurse's pay than I would do a nurse's job at my salary.
It's pretty fecked up when the people who wipe people's ar$es for them at 3am in the morning earn less than half of what we earn sitting around sipping coffee at keyboards all day.
Hi, lots of stuff on here is clearly biased or deliberately trolling. Quite disappointing.
Things I believe to be true:
Most of us don't really understand how things would pan out with lower tax or higher tax or no tax, with goverment capital expenditure, with lower benefits, without free trade agreements or with more.
Spouting nonsense on here only gives temporary uplift in feeling
You could look at GINI indexes to see which countries have the biggest "oligarch" problems.... (this probably matches up with your gut instincts BTW) and you might find this correlates in some advanced cases with Failed State indexes. Some of them are our bestest pals and in no way are economic models to emulate. Just sayin' ;)
In fact most of the problems with the public sector at the moment stem from the way in which the private sector is being allowed to access it as a cash cow. The fact that the private sector is then allowed to set up fake companies in Luxembourg to avoid paying tax on the money they're stealing from us via the NHS, the police, and so on just adds insult to injury.
Generally speaking, problems in large organizations most often are rooted in someone somewhere being unaccountable. It doesn't matter whether this is a public or private sector organization, and by and large, the worst excesses and wastes of money in recent years have been private sector companies rather than public. Go back to the 70's and it was public and mostly for the same reasons - people in charge making risky or plain stupid decisions which they knew they would never have to pay for if it went wrong. Look at HP for a nice example of this happening in your wonderful private sector.
The thing is, we want an NHS. We want a decent Post Office, and we want a train network that isn't a joke. And we, mostly, don't want those things to only be available to the rich. So we are all supposed to chip in.
Now, if you don't like that then vote for someone that will openly say that they are against these things and if they lose then shut up and deal with it or, alternatively, you know where the ports are. What we have had for decades now is a series of governments who say they are for these things but in fact hate them with a passion because they're not pulling in big bucks for the people who own the politicians. So they they are trying to "fix" these things but instead take actions specifically intended to undermine them, and then throw their hands up and go "well, we did our best, but the problems were too deep, so we'll have to hand the whole thing over to BigBloatedInefficientCorp to run. In completely unconnected news, I'm leaving to become a non-exec of BBIC next month by an amazing and entirely predictable coincidence".
Random executions of MPs is the obvious solution.
Maybe - just maybe the private sector is not stealing money merely by following the laws proposed by (harshly self serving) civil servants manifested by (dull-witted?) elected representatives?
The biggest threats to democracy are not those of free enterprise, they are those of increased state control.
Fact 1: the more you send to UK Treasury the less you get
Fact 2: the more UK Treasury gets the more it spends on its own empire building
The private sector is only taking advantage of the market by naturally finding the weak links. When interacting with the public sector who usually employ dull witted then naturally they will take advantage of the stupid. It is not just the stupid, it also includes those who are willing to spend other peoples money.
As for NHS, PO and Rail. Well I want working ones, not the basket cases that we currently have. A privately run health system who cares about profit as in people not dying and wanting to come back for more not just monetary, a mail system that is as quick as other private couriers and not controlled by a trade union that cares more about employing more than about delivering post , and a rail system that doesn't need to pay billions to the government thereby loading that cost on to ticket prices. Those are what "we" want. The point is efficient systems, not nationalised ones.
Though I agree about the executions of MPs. That will solve everything.
The Economist has some relevent articles for thoes interested.
http://www.economist.com/node/17849199
http://www.economist.com/node/17851305
There was even and article in the Daily Mail.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-2175843/Public-sector-workers-better-paid-private-sector-equivalents-Public-sector-unions-note.html
I guess the public sector workers in receipt of this 'good deal' find the story hard to accept because they have experienced a reduction in pay, pension, etc. and increased workload. What they don't seem to realise is that, on average, the rest of us have suffered a greater reduction in pay, etc. and greater increase in workload.... with a few exceptions in the city of course!
Given the current situation maybe we should swap the term "Public Servant" for a more appropriate one.... any suggestions?
Some comments here:
When the evil bankers extract money from us, they do it in the form of bonuses, which for tax and reporting purposes is additional salary. Bankers bonuses are a lot lower than they used to be, which probably makes up the bulk of the explanation of why wages have gone down as a proportion of GDP.
When the government takes money off us in tax to spend on nurses and doctors, the bulk of it is spent on their salaries.
If you are looking to see where GDP is going if it isn't going on salaries, you need to look at three things. The first is imports. That is the money that leaves the country to pay Chinese Foxconn workers to make all our shiny iDevices. It isn't wages in this country. The second is benefits payments. Benefits go to people in this country, but they are not wages. The third is rent payments for our houses and commercial properties. That is money that goes to the evil capitalists that isn't wages.
This is complete rubbish.
It is a zero sum game, the point this rube misses is that corporations and the richest individuals convert resources (i.e. your productivity) into assets (real estate, stocks, bonds, derivatives) which are hardly taxed at all, yet consume the most resources (all that military and police to prevent the theft of said private property.)
Fantastic deal if your the 1% holding 80% of the assets.
Why the fuck is this shit being published on el reg? What part of this partisan fuckwittery has anything to do with IT?
I know! Absolutely fuck all. Not only that but it is blatant bollocks to boot, as has been shown by quite a few commentards so far. Both for and against.
Hopefully this is the last piece of "economic" reporting from Mr Worstall.
Pint for the remembering to close the door on yer way out.
I used to be able to turn up at a train station, and take a ride, but today it is unaffordable. Economy of scale should mean that a train ride should be the cheapest form of transport, but often costs more than taking a taxi.
You used to get pay rises that slowly followed rising basic prices. Today fuel and electricity jumps by so much, that salaries are held in order to keep inflation down, so I pay proportionately more for fuel, electricity and other basics. That leaves less disposable income to do with as I please.
You are so lucky to have a train! Try living over fifty miles from a main-line railway station. As to the bus that gets you to the train station and the super-slab, they are badly sprung and badly driven as a rule with "digital drivers" as I call them. To avoid vomiting it is better to ignore ones bus pass and travel by car.
Tim starts his article with “lies, damned lies and statistics” and, although he did not lie, he didn’t tell the “whole truth and nothing but the truth”.
The undisputed fact is that since the mid 80s, depending where you live, the income of about 75% of the population in industrialized countries has barely kept pace with inflation. By contrast, the top 25% has seen its wealth increase well above inflation. To make things worse, the top 2% has tripled its wealth over the past 30 years. Any number of reports, official documents, scholarly research etc. will confirm this. I suggest Hacker & Pierson “Winner-take-all politics” as essential reading for anyone interested knowing the reasons for the widening wealth gap between the top 2% versus the other 98%. Suffice to say that Reaganism, the disastrous ‘trickle down economy’ concepts and greater reliance on non-progressive consumption taxes have sawn the seed of this cycle that, unless reversed, will see the collapse of current western capitalism. This form of capitalism has seen Senior Management pay explosion, even when firms they manage go to the wall (US Treasury figures reports that in 1978 the average pay of CEO was 26.5 times that of average wages, in 2011 the ratio was 209.4 times! http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/02/ceo-pay-worker-pay_n_1471685.html).
Governments have caught up on the idea that the average person is gullible and hence have promised tax cut for all and increased services in order to be re-elected. This has resulted in ever-growing national debts which will see economies fail when the lenders, both internal and external, will demand their capital back. In the end it will always be the gullible public that will pay through unemployment, lack of services and lower standard of living.
It never ceases to surprise me how easy it is to fool people. Lowering income taxes benefits ONLY the wealthy because the flip side is an increase in consumption taxes which applies equally to all irrespective of income. Progressive countries have understood this and they apply progressive taxation even to traffic fines (http://www.poliisi.fi/poliisi/lp/home.nsf/pages/F3BCD1C2A09C374FC225759900338B68?opendocument).
Tim appears to advocate, but not in so many words, the typical Right Wing response to government debts, i.e. cut government spending! A more equitable approach is to return to pre-Reaganism tax rates where marginal tax rates of 70%+ was the norm. This would achieve 3 good outcomes: 1. it would put an end to ever growing CEO pays, 2. it would reduce government debts worldwide, and 3. re-establish some form of equity within the community.
I would like Tim to tackle these issues and tell us why they wouldn’t work.
"......I would like Tim to tackle these issues and tell us why they wouldn’t work." Simple - the whole CEO pay issue has become subject to supply and demand. As long as the companies think they need the best CEOs they will pay more for them. Increasing taxes on the top-earners will just mean they will be paid more and in more tax-avoiding methods, it will not reduce their pay one dollar. Companies will move their offices to tax havens and individuals will move to avoid high taxation - the Gerard Depardieu response. Just look at how many companies are already registered in the Isle of Man, Monaco, Lichtenstein, the Bahamas. High taxation is only a threat to those who are not mobile, and CEOs can be very mobile. The only ones trapped by higher taxes are the middle-income and lower-income earners that cannot pick up sticks and go play the tax avoidance game. To think otherwise is to be blinded by political desire. It would be a better idea to legalize the idea that a fixed portion of the CEO's pay is in company shares that have to be retained for x years after being issued, meaning the CEO then has a long term interest in securing the future of the company.
B0ll0cks!
The people who have drained off my money are Cornwall Council and Colombian drug cartels! How? Simple - the council get money for rehousing "problem people". Many of these "problem people" are drug addicts, allegedly Heroin, not just "Wacky Baccy". Now Dole money doesn't run to Heroin does it? As a consequence these "problem people" that the council has imported are persistent burglars. I have been burgled repeatedly and some people that I know slightly have been assaulted and stabbed. One was in Intensive Care for a fortnight after his abdomen was slashed open; another suffered a broken jawbone as a result of being punched. Exactly what these disagreements were over one can only speculate but one case I know of was very naughty. One bedsit dweller allegedly bummed a lift to the Co-op on another bedsit dwellers motorbike. Allegedly he said "Wait here while I get my shopping". Minutes later the bloke came running out of the shop with the shop staff chasing him. He jumped on the pillion and shouted "GO GO GO!" Phew that was a close call as later the motorcyclist had the Police doing a door-to-door looking for a shoplifter on a motorbike! The bike had been parked elsewhere "just in case" but he was lucky to get away with that even though in reality he was an innocent party who had been duped. Thanks to Cornwall Council this town has become a Gulag. Don't you just LURV councils? After all apart from importing burglars and drug addicts they put speed humps everywhere to ruin your cars suspension, they also paint wall-to-wall double yellow lines and employ traffic wardens.
Would I get all this horse-sh1t in Florida I wonder? Nooooooooo! Over there when scumbags get locked-up they are Senior Citizens when they get released and that's if they are lucky!
Oh, talk about the grass being greener in the other guy's yard! You'd be surprised wha they are tolerating in Florida as I sit here and write this. We put up with a lot of it here in Texas. I shudder to think of what it must be liike in Chicago where only the criminals and the cops are allowed to have guns.
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