It could be usefully enforced around Oxford St, where everyone just hops blithely under your wheels. They especially like doing this in the wet, normally as they listen to their mobiles. There is never any apology - they just look blankly at you as if you shouldn't be there.
In UK there is already VAT at (currently) 20% on fizzy drinks, sweets, chocolate biscuits, and various sweetened foods (not sugar or honey - they are sweet, not sweetened). It would be possible to have VAT on all goods, including those which are zero-rated at present like most foods, childrens' clothes, and safety equipment. Would that be good or bad?
Cos if you don't, they won't pay for you. An inverted age pyramid is one of the problems of western Europe, and one of the reasons that the politicians are so keen on immigration. Seeing as pensions and benefits are a Ponzi scheme, it is essential that there are enough earning young to pay for the old and retired and infirm. You are forking out now in terms of family allowance and education so that you'll reap the benefit later. Who exactly do you think is going to pay for your pension?
I do pay more tax for my kids because I have to buy more things to run the household. Presents at Christmas and birthdays carry vat, I don't buy food based on whether they are are excluded from taxation. On the other side of that coin my children, when they are adults may resent paying for your housing and medical care etc. they'd rather look after their own father than some one who never bothered to have any kids to look after him in his old age. I'm positive nobody pays in more than they take out below a certain income level and I think that 'why should I pay...' Rubbish is based on nothing very much.
You are of course joking. As you well know, a Ponzi scheme is quite different: supposedly invested capital is paid out on the fraudulent pretence that it is derived from profits, until the capital has all gone and the fraud collapses. The process by which the current workforce supports the pensions of their elderly predecessors is a well-known cycle which is open and can continue indefinitely.
thats a weak argument! Your life style choice, you pay out………next they will be giving you a load of money a month per kid………oh hang on they do i certainly Do pay in more than i take out…...
Andy I pay in a lot more than I take out too. The only thing my family receives is child benefit and it isn't very much. I've worked non-stop since I left school at 16 and never received any payment from the state meant myself. The child benefit business isn't really something I am involved with, my missus deals with it, although I think everyone gets it? I have a £26k income tax bill heading my way next year, and what I am left with will be taxed to buggery when I buy stuff with it. So it's not like I'm not contributing. Anyway, less personally, I think it isn't a weak argument. If there is a 20% contribution from everyone in the country through VAT on the things they buy then I pay 20% on behalf of my kids too. They contribute less because they consume less. Unless you mean because they go to school which is funded by the tax payer? My kids take nothing out of the system at this point, they add a bit less through clothing and baby milk for the youngest one, but they don't actually cost anything. So my children, through me, are putting money in to the pot from which they are yet to draw from.
child allowance………what is that all about and why? i pay income tax too and a fair bit and it ant be far off that amount come as you say next year…….plus all the other taxs…. anyway we digress
Bloody marvellous, £1400 a year that we don't really need! The Fandango family are very grateful for your generosity.
Ah and now the martyrs…………...its 1400 quid that i don't get!………that would be two foreign track days covered i wouldn't sniff at that...
No, not joking. There was an idea that your pension is paid out of what you have saved together with the interest it has earned. In government schemes, this isn't the case. The pension amounts are not ring-fenced. You get paid out of the big pot. There is only money for it so long as the pot receives a continuous stream of fresh cash. This is achieved by maintaining a constant stream of new revenue thanks to a healthy supply of people in work. In the case of an inverted age pyramid, there aren't enough people in work for this to function, so they have to be supplemented with immigration. Without immigration, or a healthy birthrate, the process does not continue indefinitely. So the population needs to be encouraged to have children, or young workers need importing from elsewhere. In fact it is exactly like a Ponzi scheme. Your pension does not accrue from your personal investment in tax, NI etc. That was already spent financing the pensions of your elders. Turn off the fresh cash supply and the whole thing collapses.
No, it really is completely different from a Ponzi scheme. The essence of a Ponzi scheme is NOT that one set of people pay in money which is paid out to other people. The essential characteristics of a Ponzi scheme are the fact that an accumulated capital sum which allegedly exists does not really exist at all, because it has been secretly paid out on a fraudulent basis. A Ponzi scheme is a type of fraud - no fraud, no Ponzi. You seem to be saying that if there suddenly were no people of working age to pay taxes, there could be no pensions for old people; that is true, as a hypothetical situation, but has nothing to do with inaccurate and misleading comparisons to Ponzi schemes.
Wikipedia: As I have always understood it: "A Ponzi scheme is a fraudulent investment operation that pays returns to its investors from existing capital or new capital paid by new investors, rather than from profit earned by the individual or organization running the operation. Operators of Ponzi schemes usually entice new investors by offering higher returns than other investments, in the form of short-term returns that are either abnormally high or unusually consistent. The perpetuation of the high returns requires an ever-increasing flow of money from new investors to sustain the scheme"
Precisely. A Ponzi scheme is fraudulent, which means its true nature has to be concealed from its participants by deceit throughout. The alleged profits do not exist, and are lies. The alleged capital accumulation does not exist, and is a lie. That is one of the many things which distinguish a Ponzi scheme from public finances.
Well, if you want to look at it like that, fair enough. You could argue, though, that NI is already fraudulent as once again, the use for which the money is taken is not ring-fenced and it is just added into another big pot. Things are not as they are labelled. The government is able to do all sorts of things which would be fraudulent if carried out by private individuals. One that springs to mind is printing money. Try doing that and see where it gets you. We can argue about semantics, but the essence of a Ponzi scheme is that without fresh money, the payout to those who have been in the scheme longest, cease. Those who enter the scheme can only be paid out if more people enter the scheme from the bottom. As people live longer and payouts for them increase, there must be an increasing flow of new participants. I see no difference between this and the state pension scheme. I also notice that politicians don't focus very much on the realities of the workings and hence they are involved in "mis-selling" to the electorate. When was the last time you heard someone come out and say that with a stagnant or falling birthrate, immigration is essential to maintain pensions?
