4 ms·

I'll get downvoted for this, but this isn't true if you're one of the two protected classes in the UK: pensioners or welfare recipients. Both will see their inc

by kypro 4y ago

I'll get downvoted for this, but this isn't true if you're one of the two protected classes in the UK: pensioners or welfare recipients. Both will see their income rise with inflation. If you're working then, sure, you're getting screwed as always because after just spending billions locking down the economy to saving boomers from Covid, this year we decided to spend billions bailing out boomers pensions, paying for boomers energy bills and ensuring that boomers can see their pensions rise inline with inflation. Everyone in my family is either a pensioner or on benefits and they are having a great time in their £500k government provided homes, driving their government provided cars, heating their homes with money the government gave them. And I'm all for pensions and welfare, but the wealth divide between those on benefits and those who work is insane in this country. If we were all doing fine then whatever, but the fact all my friends who work full-time can't afford anything and consider themselves lucky if they can afford to rent a 2 bed flat while those who don't work are living in £500k houses drives me up the wall. If we we were all doing well then whatever, but I'm sat here freezing and wondering how I'm going to pay for my mortgage that's going through the roof because of all the money we've borrowed for the boomers.

fasteo 4y ago
Upvoted. Same in Spain
- lzooz 4y ago
  I am disgusted every time I see a protest of pensioners or civil servants asking for even more money. It's practically buying votes. They truly are the privileged class.
  - Aeolun 4y ago
    Until you see what they are paid. I wouldn’t want to live on £500/month either.
    - fasteo 4y ago
      Not in Spain. Average is 1279€ as of 2021. Most of them won't have a rent/loan to pay or kids to feed and, hopefully, they will have some savings to complement this amount with.
mjhay 4y ago
It's truly all the fault of the powerful and influential welfare scroungers, just like the Telegraph says. Thank you for being so brave to speak your truth.
- kypro 4y ago
  I'm from a working class family, and when I say working class, I mean so working class that most my family doesn't even work. I'm not making this up, I'm simply telling you about something that's unfair that I've been experiencing for years, but because it's not aligning with your narrative you're assuming this is some talking point I've got from the Telegraph... But what's your point? Are you suggesting I'm lying, or are you suggesting that what I'm describing isn't a problem? Why is it okay that everyone on benefits in my family has more than those who work? How is that at all reasonable? Obviously I agree welfare scroungers aren't root cause of the problem. The issue is that we tax income and not wealth, and redistribute wealth from the have-nots (millennials, etc) to boomers (the wealthiest generation in the country). If your a boomer with 10 houses you don't pay any tax on that wealth. You just pay taxes on any income you might decide to take from renting them. This is a large part of the problem. The government tax you when you're trying to work your way up, but if you're already rich you don't have to worry about things like income tax. Then on top of the broken tax system if you're working class or lower-middle class trying to work your way up you're not even paying for decent things like health care and education you're paying for economic policies that only benefit boomers and a nice standard of living for those abusing the welfare system. I'm not your enemy here. I want fairer system. I want people in my family to stop seeing having kids and not working as the best path to independence. The suffering I see daily from this is heart-breaking. Drug abuse, prison, damaged kids. And I'm not blaming those on welfare because if you're working class welfare is literally the only way you can ever hope to have your own home. It just drives me insane when the job centre is recommending my family not to work because they'll never make as much as they're getting by being on benefits and not working. We need to incentivise work by lowering income tax and tightening up the welfare system so it can't be abused as a source of tax-free income. At the same time we should more aggressively tax wealth. Higher stamp duty on second home purchases, higher capital gains tax, higher inheritance taxes, higher taxes on luxury goods etc. We wouldn't need all this welfare in a economy that prioritises and rewards those who work.
mensetmanusman 4y ago
What do you mean by saying £500k government homes? Is this a policy or a consequence of a housing shortage?
- midasuni 4y ago
  Housing shortage. Driven mainly by a wealthy class of nimby home owners.
  - Aeolun 4y ago
    The houses were originally bought 30ish years ago for around £40.000. It’s not like the current owners can retrieve any of that value increase. All the other houses around have increased by the same amount, so moving isn’t really realistic.
    - midasuni 4y ago
      Workers have to pay rent. Retirees don’t. To have the same post housing income as a pensioner with a 20k pension a workers needs to be earning nearer 60k. This could be solved by large amounts of house building, but wealthy retirees don’t want that.
tannhaeuser 4y ago
German government just started UBI basically; in other words, they're buying their votes. Not getting your boomer hate, though.
- timeon 4y ago
  Yes hate is not appropriate but still there seems to be issue: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZuXzvjBYW8A https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZuXzvjBYW8A
- Spivak 4y ago
  If you’re part of party A and worried that party B is getting votes from people you previously counted among your supporters due to UBI the only rational thing to do is also support UBI. Because even if you’re a fiscal conservative surely having UBI and an otherwise tight fiscal policy is better than UBI and a loose one, right? It’s crazy that politics seems completely unable to adapt to the will of the people changing over time. It think about this a lot with the Republican party in the US. If the Republicans did a 180 on a few key social issues they would be able to win easily with a margin that Democrats couldn’t easily close the gap on.
- nwellnhof 4y ago
  No, they only made minor adjustments to unemployment benefits.
pydry 4y ago
>the two protected classes in the UK: pensioners or welfare recipients. Landowners and shareholders are the two protected classes. Pensioners are more protected but they are likely to lose triple lock at some point. Dividend taxes will NEVER be as high as income tax.
LatteLazy 4y ago
Agreed.
unity1001 4y ago
> boomers pensions Those boomers spend that money. The money enters the economy. It creates the economic activity needed for the ones who you call 'those who work' to be able to do business and make money. Pumping money to boomers, the poor, disabled and the underprivileged is the easiest way to stimulate an economy. Not giving more money to the rich. > all the money we've borrowed for the boomers Those boomers have worked for 40+ years and PAID that money that they are taking now into the treasury. Its THEIR money. For decades, your government used that money in its own affairs to fund many things. Those boomers literally facilitated those governments' policies and the economy. It needs to be said again - its THEIR money. You are not giving them something out of goodwill as a charity. You are paying back the money that they LOANED to the society. Its debt. They are your debtors. You have to pay back your debtors.
- midasuni 4y ago
  The boomers are the rich. They are the wealthiest generation ever in the U.K, the generation who typically retired with final salary pensions and a couple of BTLs, and they lay far less tax on their income than workers
- KptMarchewa 4y ago
  >Those boomers spend that money. The money enters the economy. It creates the economic activity needed for the ones who you call 'those who work' to be able to do business and make money. Let's break some windows to create more economic activity, amirite? >Its THEIR money. They paid fuck all and set up a system that disproportionally rewards them and robs a future generations.
  - unity1001 4y ago
    > They paid fuck all and set up a system that disproportionally rewards them and robs a future generations. Them voting to scuttle social democracy does not change the fact that the money they are getting back is their money.
    - KptMarchewa 4y ago
switch007 4y ago
Wow you really got triggered that benefits rose with inflation eh > one of the two protected classes in the UK: pensioners or welfare recipients. What an absurd and false statement which justifies disregarding the rest of your comment
- midasuni 4y ago
  Workers have been told we can’t have pay rises matching inflation because that would fuel inflation. But pensioners get a 10% pay rise.
  - kentrado 4y ago
    Two wrongs make it right? Shouldn't workers get a pay rise?
    - midasuni 4y ago
      But they instead get a tax rise to pay for the pensions.
    - lzooz 4y ago
      But since workers won't get a raise, pensioners shouldn't either, since the money that they get comes from the pocket of those who work.
midasuni 4y ago
While there an element of truth in that workers are subsidising pensioners - mainly though paying their entire economic output in rent, your rant about welfare is somewhat off. The lack of housing is the single biggest drain on U.K. economic output, as when demand outstrips supply rents rise to a point that all economic activity is captured by land owners. The only way around that is a land value tax, but that would really hit the wealthy.

by kypro 4y ago

fasteo 4y ago

Upvoted. Same in Spain

lzooz 4y ago
I am disgusted every time I see a protest of pensioners or civil servants asking for even more money. It's practically buying votes. They truly are the privileged class.
- Aeolun 4y ago
  Until you see what they are paid. I wouldn’t want to live on £500/month either.
  - fasteo 4y ago
    Not in Spain. Average is 1279€ as of 2021. Most of them won't have a rent/loan to pay or kids to feed and, hopefully, they will have some savings to complement this amount with.

mjhay 4y ago

It's truly all the fault of the powerful and influential welfare scroungers, just like the Telegraph says. Thank you for being so brave to speak your truth.

kypro 4y ago
I'm from a working class family, and when I say working class, I mean so working class that most my family doesn't even work. I'm not making this up, I'm simply telling you about something that's unfair that I've been experiencing for years, but because it's not aligning with your narrative you're assuming this is some talking point I've got from the Telegraph... But what's your point? Are you suggesting I'm lying, or are you suggesting that what I'm describing isn't a problem? Why is it okay that everyone on benefits in my family has more than those who work? How is that at all reasonable? Obviously I agree welfare scroungers aren't root cause of the problem. The issue is that we tax income and not wealth, and redistribute wealth from the have-nots (millennials, etc) to boomers (the wealthiest generation in the country). If your a boomer with 10 houses you don't pay any tax on that wealth. You just pay taxes on any income you might decide to take from renting them. This is a large part of the problem. The government tax you when you're trying to work your way up, but if you're already rich you don't have to worry about things like income tax. Then on top of the broken tax system if you're working class or lower-middle class trying to work your way up you're not even paying for decent things like health care and education you're paying for economic policies that only benefit boomers and a nice standard of living for those abusing the welfare system. I'm not your enemy here. I want fairer system. I want people in my family to stop seeing having kids and not working as the best path to independence. The suffering I see daily from this is heart-breaking. Drug abuse, prison, damaged kids. And I'm not blaming those on welfare because if you're working class welfare is literally the only way you can ever hope to have your own home. It just drives me insane when the job centre is recommending my family not to work because they'll never make as much as they're getting by being on benefits and not working. We need to incentivise work by lowering income tax and tightening up the welfare system so it can't be abused as a source of tax-free income. At the same time we should more aggressively tax wealth. Higher stamp duty on second home purchases, higher capital gains tax, higher inheritance taxes, higher taxes on luxury goods etc. We wouldn't need all this welfare in a economy that prioritises and rewards those who work.

mensetmanusman 4y ago

What do you mean by saying £500k government homes? Is this a policy or a consequence of a housing shortage?

midasuni 4y ago
Housing shortage. Driven mainly by a wealthy class of nimby home owners.
- Aeolun 4y ago
  The houses were originally bought 30ish years ago for around £40.000. It’s not like the current owners can retrieve any of that value increase. All the other houses around have increased by the same amount, so moving isn’t really realistic.
  - midasuni 4y ago
    Workers have to pay rent. Retirees don’t. To have the same post housing income as a pensioner with a 20k pension a workers needs to be earning nearer 60k. This could be solved by large amounts of house building, but wealthy retirees don’t want that.

tannhaeuser 4y ago

German government just started UBI basically; in other words, they're buying their votes. Not getting your boomer hate, though.

timeon 4y ago
Yes hate is not appropriate but still there seems to be issue: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZuXzvjBYW8A https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZuXzvjBYW8A
Spivak 4y ago
If you’re part of party A and worried that party B is getting votes from people you previously counted among your supporters due to UBI the only rational thing to do is also support UBI. Because even if you’re a fiscal conservative surely having UBI and an otherwise tight fiscal policy is better than UBI and a loose one, right? It’s crazy that politics seems completely unable to adapt to the will of the people changing over time. It think about this a lot with the Republican party in the US. If the Republicans did a 180 on a few key social issues they would be able to win easily with a margin that Democrats couldn’t easily close the gap on.
nwellnhof 4y ago
No, they only made minor adjustments to unemployment benefits.

pydry 4y ago

>the two protected classes in the UK: pensioners or welfare recipients. Landowners and shareholders are the two protected classes. Pensioners are more protected but they are likely to lose triple lock at some point. Dividend taxes will NEVER be as high as income tax.

LatteLazy 4y ago

Agreed.

unity1001 4y ago

> boomers pensions Those boomers spend that money. The money enters the economy. It creates the economic activity needed for the ones who you call 'those who work' to be able to do business and make money. Pumping money to boomers, the poor, disabled and the underprivileged is the easiest way to stimulate an economy. Not giving more money to the rich. > all the money we've borrowed for the boomers Those boomers have worked for 40+ years and PAID that money that they are taking now into the treasury. Its THEIR money. For decades, your government used that money in its own affairs to fund many things. Those boomers literally facilitated those governments' policies and the economy. It needs to be said again - its THEIR money. You are not giving them something out of goodwill as a charity. You are paying back the money that they LOANED to the society. Its debt. They are your debtors. You have to pay back your debtors.

midasuni 4y ago
The boomers are the rich. They are the wealthiest generation ever in the U.K, the generation who typically retired with final salary pensions and a couple of BTLs, and they lay far less tax on their income than workers
KptMarchewa 4y ago
>Those boomers spend that money. The money enters the economy. It creates the economic activity needed for the ones who you call 'those who work' to be able to do business and make money. Let's break some windows to create more economic activity, amirite? >Its THEIR money. They paid fuck all and set up a system that disproportionally rewards them and robs a future generations.
- unity1001 4y ago
  > They paid fuck all and set up a system that disproportionally rewards them and robs a future generations. Them voting to scuttle social democracy does not change the fact that the money they are getting back is their money.
  - KptMarchewa 4y ago

switch007 4y ago

Wow you really got triggered that benefits rose with inflation eh > one of the two protected classes in the UK: pensioners or welfare recipients. What an absurd and false statement which justifies disregarding the rest of your comment

midasuni 4y ago
Workers have been told we can’t have pay rises matching inflation because that would fuel inflation. But pensioners get a 10% pay rise.
- kentrado 4y ago
  Two wrongs make it right? Shouldn't workers get a pay rise?
  - midasuni 4y ago
    But they instead get a tax rise to pay for the pensions.
  - lzooz 4y ago
    But since workers won't get a raise, pensioners shouldn't either, since the money that they get comes from the pocket of those who work.

midasuni 4y ago

While there an element of truth in that workers are subsidising pensioners - mainly though paying their entire economic output in rent, your rant about welfare is somewhat off. The lack of housing is the single biggest drain on U.K. economic output, as when demand outstrips supply rents rise to a point that all economic activity is captured by land owners. The only way around that is a land value tax, but that would really hit the wealthy.