CJ’s clearly spoiling for a ‘swedge’ on this one, the Ayn Rand ‘wide cunt’ of the JC messageboard.
NHS pay rises
Ayn Rand claimed social security in her later years, the hypocritical old boot.
Who’s Ayn Rand?
C_J Sure, but offering some of these companies tax breaks, when they have paid so little for so long, is a bit like asking your rapist for a reach around. I think you need the leverage / threat in there in some way. It makes little odds, Boris and chums are more interested in being liked by the rest of the psychopaths than helping the country.
CJ can froth at the mouth and call people on here ‘ignorant’ all he likes.
What I think he doesn’t quite understand is that when many people are seeing wage stagnation and the cost of living increase year-on-year in real terms, and are also getting pissed off by only having precarious employment with the likes of Uber, Deliveroo, Amazon et al available to them, and THEN see these tech companies (and others) getting away with paying fuck all, sooner or later there will be enough pissed-off people to upend the whole system (which never seems likely until it actually happens and then… oh shit!)
And I say this as someone who is definitely a capitalist. It has to be seen to be working for the majority of participants if a system is to sustain itself.
I agree the tech companies need to pay more tax but no-one so far has managed to figure out a way of doing it unfortunately.
C_J but no-one so far has managed to figure out a way of doing it
It’s not a numerical or ethical question that needs to be ‘figured out’, it can be done quite easily, but no Tory has even the slightest interest in rectifying the situation. They would much rather toady up to these companies and get a nice job on the board when they retire from politics.
I think the problem is that unless you can get every single country to sign up to the same tax regime (nigh impossible), they will just transfer their operations to wherever is cheapest. This means in practice that anyone signing up is effectively just agreeing to kill off all the well-paid tech jobs in their own country, which would be madness.
Most of the world leaders are too weak and corrupt to stand up to the tech companies. A maverick strong-man like Trump might have stood a chance imo.
C_J Then, you have to ask, what is the point in democracy or self-governance anymore?
We might as well just all throw in the towel and be bonded serfs to the technocracy/tech oligarchy.
Until, perhaps, they realise that extreme supply-side economics and thoroughly gutting the middle class is short-termist as it provides less consumer demand for their products.
- Edited
C_J I think the problem is that unless you can get every single country to sign up to the same tax regime (nigh impossible), they will just transfer their operations to wherever is cheapest. This means in practice that anyone signing up is effectively just agreeing to kill off all the well-paid tech jobs in their own country, which would be madness.
I agree and disagree, it depends on how much hardship you are willing to endure for tax equality, and how much belief you put in other countries following your lead. Dave’s example of the recent Australian publication laws regards tech companies has some comparable elements. They struck out on their own, ahead of any other country, and have made it work (early days I know).
Consider how Thatcher was happy to fuck the miners, admittedly a very different industry, which in many ways is hardly comparable, but there was political will, and as such, change was foisted upon us. If there was any political will to have true tax equality they would make the changes, and it wouldn’t be seen as ‘madness’. My point is not a comparison of those industries, just that change happens when the people in power want it. We have the leverage against foreign companies, as we can refuse them our market, or in Googles case we can ‘turn them off at the plug’. Something which as a now Brexiteering Britain First country we should do anyway, think how many British companies could fill that gap??? No?
Amazingly, the ‘maverick like Trump’ in this country was Jezza. He was actually up for some genuinely lefty polices, but unfortunately we all thought he looked like a creepy geography teacher, so we decided to laugh at every suggestion he made and then believed Murdoch’s lies about him being anti Semitic.
Liking the cut of Amps’ jib here.
Also, if you think that the government have allocated £22 billion for test and trace (over £4 billion spent so far), and spent £5.5 billion on bullshit PPE contracts and procurement, then I don’t think anyone should be putting their hand in their pocket to shore up NHS pay. The government have the money, they just don’t have the will. They are actively choosing to not pay them. They see nothing but the cash value in anything.
Seeing the NHS as a charity is very slippery slope, essentially a Tories dream, if the general public came to see it as such, then privatising it would be so much easier.
The NHS is one of the few things I’ve come to see as ‘Great’ about Britain, we really should collectively see the value in it, even if it is less than perfect.
As a system the NHS needs massive reform. I think things may have tightened up recently but it was an absolute free for all for so many years without correctly recharging other countries for treating their citizens.
When I was in Spain a few years ago and my son, who was a baby at the time came out in a rash all over his body and needed medical attention the first thing we were asked for was our E111 cards before they would treat him (rightly so imo)
This is how the other countries in the EU have operated for years - recharging the costs back to the home country of the citizen but we have never really implemented this properly in the UK (or at least we hadn’t for a very long time). Whether this was down to incompetence/ lazyness I have no idea