Goverment 1 - 0 Students

[aidanjt]

No, they don't.

If I was to kill you, slowly and painfully, you will not be able to stop my evil henchmen. The only right you have is given to you by the society your claiming doesn't give you quite enough.

I hope it isn't long before you look at this argument and cringe. I'd say maybe 3 hours in the peace core might do the trick. Digging a water ditch whilst watching people die from incredibly curable ailments, looking at all those who can't even begin to eat, cultures whom regular rape, practice female circumcision etc.

Personally I think it is this sense of entitlement that is the downfall of our society and why the BRICs where this feeling is much less prevalent are going to be dominating the next century.

I mean what do you do for the previous generation right now? Use resources and be educated for 18 years completely free.

When my mother went to uni it was LESS than 5% of the population, its over 50% now. Think about that. We are funding ten times as many people, that is going to be more money spent on higher ed than the baby boomers did.

So this blatant failure to grasp how lucky you are, be so incredibly ungrateful for everything you have and DEMAND more.

It has an even worse effect, Its making me think feel less bad that I've done nothing particularly charitable for over 6 months now, because if you are representative of all those protesting students, we're doomed anyway.

Just because human rights are regularly violated, it doesn't mean they don't exist. That's like saying because people regularly violate copyright law, there is no copyright law. We both know that wont fly in court.

Only 5% of boomers availed themselves of higher education, because their parents didn't create large walls to decent employment. If they wanted it, they could get it, for free. Back then, only actual sciences and medicine really required university degrees. Boomers raised the barriers to employment and education against my generation.

The 'sense of entitlement' comes from the fact that GenYers aren't getting the same deal Boomers and GenXers did, and they're being left with the debt and gutted infrastructure from the Boomers plunder, that they have to repay and rebuild for an entire generation of greed. The fact is, entitlement mentality was firmly embedded into Boomers. They think they can have it all from every angle without investing in the future for after they're gone. And they barely looked after the War generation, what little of them there were. And now they'll expect us to carry their huge numbers through retirement comfortably. They screwed us. Period.

So yes, I'm ungrateful that they screwed us over. I should really be happy about my parents turning me upside down by the ankles and shaked all the pennies out of my pockets. I should really be happy that they left us with crippling debt, left us with a decrepit infrastructure, a housing market in shambles, left us with dwindling work, and no means to service it.

Yes, I have everything, and I should be overjoyed and grateful.

[TheAnimus]

Yes, I have everything, and I should be overjoyed and grateful.

What don't you have?!

You've made it to your current age, you can go to uni and not pay a single penny for it, just so long as you don't end up earning over £21k per annum (which given april ONS figures, show median wage is 22,932 in NI., so if you were a Londoner you might be able to complain about your extra tax.).

Ah but you want more, now don't forget to say how capitalism is a mechanism to transfer money away from the poor (and ignore ANY country that has tried communism and come out of it, it can be very hard to say it doesn't work when a place like Vietnam was starving, a low worth net importer of rice, to far fewer starving and a net exporter... Remember to always ignore these things, its important.)

Whilst it is always a faux pas, I would really ask you to ask yourself what you actually do for others and charities. Despite having a mod-set usertitle, a few people here know what I do with my non-spare time!

[petercook7]

Thanks for putting words in my mouth. If you read my posts through from the beginning you will see my worry is not fewer people going to uni, but an economic gap between the rich and the poor been created via education. If you go to a better uni, you are odds on to earn more. But if you have to pay more for the education it is possible for some people that will be just out of reach. I much prefer a meritocracy.

The childish idea that we can have 50% of the population go to uni, and tax the other 50% too is frankly unfair and would really improve the gap between the poor and the rich.

So that leaves a graduate tax. Well why should someone who studied something hard, and therefore will earn more, pay for someone to do an easier degree that the economy didn't really value by their lower earnings.

We also have to be brutally honest and admit we have a large excess of certain kinds of graduates.

Now the national debt issue. First off, you can kinda negate inflation if you look at ratio of GDP. Ultimately that is how 'bad' the debt is. Look at these graphs they show that its better, not worse.

I'm in debt, by almost twice my annual net earnings, on a mortgage. Servicing such a debt as a ratio of my GDP is what is inportant, or looking at interest payments vs my 'product'.

So in summary, its less as a percentage of GDP, there is less public spending than when I was at uni as a ratio of GDP.

How can you possibly conclude that we have more debt?

We have WAAAAY more debt than before Labour came to power, true, 100% agree. It also cost less to go through uni.

Then why should people pay tax towards state schools when they are send to pubilc schools, should nt universites be funded for core subjects and remain free for all and all the light subjects be paid for by those that what to do them?
but this isnt the case, the student loans will be funded by a govenrment and private partnership, student loans will be sold off.

[TheAnimus]

Ok so we've moved on from the debt nonsense yes? We're happy that no matter how you feel about the things we've rubbishrubbishrubbishrubbishrubbished money on, the debt is less than it was 50 years ago.

Public schools again are not meritocratic, so not something which is my favourite, and as the state school is something we offer to 100% off the population, as such funding it via general taxation is fair as everyone had the option, even if they chose not to exercise it.

The financing of the lonas I fail to see to be a problem my only concern is that its not regulated by the FSA such is the case with the current student loans.

[aidanjt]

What don't you have?!

A stable economy, a stable job market, a stable housing market, a stable anything. The boomers had it all, took it all, and left us with a complete mess.

You've made it to your current age, you can go to uni and not pay a single penny for it, just so long as you don't end up earning over £21k per annum (which given april ONS figures, show median wage is 22,932 in NI., so if you were a Londoner you might be able to complain about your extra tax.).

Why don't you just say feign disability, I'd be as well off and I wouldn't have to bother myself with the rat race.

Ah but you want more

No, I want equality. I repeat myself:

In what part of your thought process, did 'I should have the same opportunity they got', become 'I want more than they got! I'm entitled damnit!'?

now don't forget to say how capitalism is a mechanism to transfer money away from the poor

Already did.

(and ignore ANY country that has tried communism and come out of it, it can be very hard to say it doesn't work when a place like Vietnam was starving, a low worth net importer of rice, to far fewer starving and a net exporter... Remember to always ignore these things, its important.)

A false dichotomy, and no country has tried communism anyway. Well, partially speaking, some European countries are communistic, they redistribute wealth, and hold general elections. That ticks more communist boxes than the USSR, China, and Vietnam did.

Whilst it is always a faux pas, I would really ask you to ask yourself what you actually do for others and charities.

I help others quite frequently, actually.

[petercook7]

Ok so we've moved on from the debt nonsense yes? We're happy that no matter how you feel about the things we've rubbishrubbishrubbishrubbishrubbished money on, the debt is less than it was 50 years ago.

Public schools again are not meritocratic, so not something which is my favourite, and as the state school is something we offer to 100% off the population, as such funding it via general taxation is fair as everyone had the option, even if they chose not to exercise it.

The financing of the lonas I fail to see to be a problem my only concern is that its not regulated by the FSA such is the case with the current student loans.

No the debt was different than what it was 60 years ago, the debt then was based on state survival, the debt accumulated over the past 40 years has been based on greed, very big difference. And no the debt isn’t as big, its biger this time, hidden in account jargon and much harder to service.
how much was the cost of paying it back based on GDP? then add in national debt and we are looking at 4-5 tillion 300% of our gdp.

[Saracen]

Well seems you don’t really understand, ..... they also didn’t have the high number of taxes, they didn’t have vat till 1970s and when it was introduced it was a much lower level and not across the board,....

You do understand that when this "new" tax of VAT was introduced, it replaced the "old" tax of Purchase Tax, don't you?

You do also understand that it still "isn't across the board"? Some (most) items are standard rate, some are reduced rate, some are zero rate and some are exempt (and I'll explain the difference between those last two if anyone cares enough to want to know).

We cab argue about the impact of VAT compared to purchase tax, but it'll get complex. For a start, you need to look at the exact type of purchase tax (often known as sales tax), because it can hit multiple times. If I, as a business, buy goods in a store under a sales tax, then either I have to establish (if the system allows it) that I'm not an end buyer, or when I sell goods on, I have to charge that sales tax again. So .... I buy £100 of goods and pay 10% sales tax, meaning they cost me £110. I add £10 profit (base for tax is now £120) and then add sales tax when I sell them to you, so £120 +10% = £132.

Break that down ....

- goods £100
- my profit £10
- sales tax £10 (first lot) + £12 (second lot) = £22.

If it was VAT, at current rates, it'd be £110 + VAT = £110 + £19.25 meaning a total of £129.25.

And if you add in two or three more stages to that, then purchase tax results in prices being a LOT higher. It makes again direct comparison at least without detailed knowledge and a lot of data, absolutely meaningless.

So .... unless you understand the exact structure of the mechanics a sales tax, and some are retail sales tax and some aren't, you can end up with the situation where a 10% sales tax costs the consumer more, and possibly a LOT more, than a 17.5% VAT rate.

And the complexities don't stop there. What about the potential for either fraud or tax evasion? VAT is far less susceptible to fraud that purchase/sales tax but does open itself to some sophisticated (and large scale) frauds, like the carousel trick. Again, I'll explain if anyone wants, but it's fairly complex, and if done right, results in huge suns being involved.

And there's numerous other factors, not least of which is the complexity and impact on business. VAT law is hugely complex, and consumers are paying for the staff firms have to employ to deal with that. But the motivation of such complexity is correct. A simple, unstructured VAT is very regressive. Much of the complexity comes directly from trying to make it less regressive by exempting "essentials", like foodstuffs, clothing, etc. But when is clothing a necessity and when is it a luxury. We might argue that a shirt is a necessity, but a £200 Jermyn Street custom-tailored 180 thread-per-inch double-cuff monogrammed item is a luxury (and, it is ) .... but they're both shirts. And to quote a very famous VAT case, is a Jaffa cake a cake (VAT zero-rated "essential" foodstuff) or a chocolate covered biscuit (a standard-rated luxury).

So you're right, we didn't have VAT until 1973 (and we can thank the EEC for having it now, the 6th Directive having made it a requirement of joining the EEC/EU that it was introduced), but we did have Purchase Tax before that, and don't any more. Introducing VAT didn't increase the number of taxes we had, and to calculate the effect, you've got to look at a whole lot more than just rates. Also, while VAT rates have gone up and down (mainly up) over the years, we still (currently) have one of the lowest rates in the EU, at 17.5%, though that is about to change in January when it goes to 20%, but even that is not a direct comparison, as many of the things we have zero-rated or exempt in the UK, like books and magazines, aren't in many other countries, like France.

Comparing the impact of VAT between similar countries, in the present time, is nowhere near as simple as just comparing rates, because you also have to look at the rules and how they bite, and current tax bible rules on VAT exceeds 3000 pages. You certainly can't do simplistic comparisons between two completely different tax systems, with a 40-year time gap between them.

[mcmiller]

The 'sense of entitlement' comes from the fact that GenYers aren't getting the same deal Boomers and GenXers did, and they're being left with the debt and gutted infrastructure from the Boomers plunder, that they have to repay and rebuild for an entire generation of greed. The fact is, entitlement mentality was firmly embedded into Boomers. They think they can have it all from every angle without investing in the future for after they're gone. And they barely looked after the War generation, what little of them there were. And now they'll expect us to carry their huge numbers through retirement comfortably. They screwed us. Period.

This 'sense of entitlement' that everyone keeps going on about is just all the crap from the media telling us what we should look like, what is cool etc...

[TheAnimus]

A stable economy, a stable job market, a stable housing market, a stable anything. The boomers had it all, took it all, and left us with a complete mess.

You know there is one thing they messed up. They stopped building houses, they've not built enough power stations for our growth.

These are not the things your talking about, employment was worse in the 70s and the 80s, the job for life ended quite a abruptly leaving many people (like my farther) with little understanding of how to go about their new life.

This is not so for us, we have job mobility, which is a good thing, the job for life is very bad at adapting to changes in demand.

Why don't you just say feign disability, I'd be as well off and I wouldn't have to bother myself with the rat race.

errr, ok.

No, I want equality. I repeat myself:

Well John Lennon is dead, so tough ****.

We have for some moved forward, some moved backwards. Thanks largely to the blairite drive to 50% of uni its easier to get a job that requires a degree, 45% of people are now more 'mobile'.

If your on the non-academic side of the divide thou well things are much much worse! Your not. Your going to have it far easier than your parents, unless you are one of the ones who would easily make it into the 5%. I've an IQ that comfortably would put me there fyi, so I'm not arguing the new system is better because it is better for me, in fact the old one probably would have allowed me to have more relative wealth (if your in 5% of top earning, its better than 50%). I think 5% is too low.

A false dichotomy, and no country has tried communism anyway. Well, partially speaking, some European countries are communistic, they redistribute wealth, and hold general elections. That ticks more communist boxes than the USSR, China, and Vietnam did.

No its perfectly valid, your parents have nurtured their country well, some of the same underwriting principles have also helped reduce starvation and most importantly improved life quality.

You will live longer than your parents, you will have a much larger disposable income.

The only real complaint over the last centuries management would be housing:
http://www.parliament.uk/documents/c...9/rp99-111.pdf

So please tell me, how should the 50% of the population degrees be funded, because I can't see what your proposing.
A) Graddie Tax, Fair because its only graduates, unfair because some will work longer hours, whilst some will just not make good use of their degree.
B) Student Loan, The proposed system.
C) General Taxation. Charge those other 50% too, so those that never had the fun opertunity of further education have the added pain of paying for those who did.

Or am I missing an option?

[TheAnimus]

No the debt was different than what it was 60 years ago, the debt then was based on state survival, the debt accumulated over the past 40 years has been based on greed, very big difference. And no the debt isn’t as big, its biger this time, hidden in account jargon and much harder to service.
how much was the cost of paying it back based on GDP? then add in national debt and we are looking at 4-5 tillion 300% of our gdp.

Solve for X!

Its all because of the 'hidden' factors. These I'm assuming are man bear pig.

Unless you provide some evidence from a reputable institute of were these 300% of our GDP nonsense.

Because it looks like we are paying less in interest since well my parents (whilst working age) paying the issue of the 70s.

I mean really, numbers please, otherwise your just spouting your crap saying its right in the face of figures from reputable sources, and don't take my word for it, look at their references, feel free to compare them to see if there is concensess.

[Georgy291]

so let me get this straight,

the bankers are the ones caused this financial crisis. and to solve the crisis were cutting budget on educating future bankers not to do the same mistake?

is it me or....?

[Terbinator]

so let me get this straight,

the bankers are the ones caused this financial crisis. and to solve the crisis were cutting budget on educating future bankers not to do the same mistake?

is it me or....?

No one forced us to spend what we couldn't afford.

We had a deficit before late 2007 and always (have?) will do, probably.

[petercook7]

You do understand that when this "new" tax of VAT was introduced, it replaced the "old" tax of Purchase Tax, don't you?

You do also understand that it still "isn't across the board"? Some (most) items are standard rate, some are reduced rate, some are zero rate and some are exempt (and I'll explain the difference between those last two if anyone cares enough to want to know).

We cab argue about the impact of VAT compared to purchase tax, but it'll get complex. For a start, you need to look at the exact type of purchase tax (often known as sales tax), because it can hit multiple times. If I, as a business, buy goods in a store under a sales tax, then either I have to establish (if the system allows it) that I'm not an end buyer, or when I sell goods on, I have to charge that sales tax again. So .... I buy £100 of goods and pay 10% sales tax, meaning they cost me £110. I add £10 profit (base for tax is now £120) and then add sales tax when I sell them to you, so £120 +10% = £132.

Break that down ....

- goods £100
- my profit £10
- sales tax £10 (first lot) + £12 (second lot) = £22.

If it was VAT, at current rates, it'd be £110 + VAT = £110 + £19.25 meaning a total of £129.25.

And if you add in two or three more stages to that, then purchase tax results in prices being a LOT higher. It makes again direct comparison at least without detailed knowledge and a lot of data, absolutely meaningless.

So .... unless you understand the exact structure of the mechanics a sales tax, and some are retail sales tax and some aren't, you can end up with the situation where a 10% sales tax costs the consumer more, and possibly a LOT more, than a 17.5% VAT rate.

And the complexities don't stop there. What about the potential for either fraud or tax evasion? VAT is far less susceptible to fraud that purchase/sales tax but does open itself to some sophisticated (and large scale) frauds, like the carousel trick. Again, I'll explain if anyone wants, but it's fairly complex, and if done right, results in huge suns being involved.

And there's numerous other factors, not least of which is the complexity and impact on business. VAT law is hugely complex, and consumers are paying for the staff firms have to employ to deal with that. But the motivation of such complexity is correct. A simple, unstructured VAT is very regressive. Much of the complexity comes directly from trying to make it less regressive by exempting "essentials", like foodstuffs, clothing, etc. But when is clothing a necessity and when is it a luxury. We might argue that a shirt is a necessity, but a £200 Jermyn Street custom-tailored 180 thread-per-inch double-cuff monogrammed item is a luxury (and, it is ) .... but they're both shirts. And to quote a very famous VAT case, is a Jaffa cake a cake (VAT zero-rated "essential" foodstuff) or a chocolate covered biscuit (a standard-rated luxury).

So you're right, we didn't have VAT until 1973 (and we can thank the EEC for having it now, the 6th Directive having made it a requirement of joining the EEC/EU that it was introduced), but we did have Purchase Tax before that, and don't any more. Introducing VAT didn't increase the number of taxes we had, and to calculate the effect, you've got to look at a whole lot more than just rates. Also, while VAT rates have gone up and down (mainly up) over the years, we still (currently) have one of the lowest rates in the EU, at 17.5%, though that is about to change in January when it goes to 20%, but even that is not a direct comparison, as many of the things we have zero-rated or exempt in the UK, like books and magazines, aren't in many other countries, like France.

Comparing the impact of VAT between similar countries, in the present time, is nowhere near as simple as just comparing rates, because you also have to look at the rules and how they bite, and current tax bible rules on VAT exceeds 3000 pages. You certainly can't do simplistic comparisons between two completely different tax systems, with a 40-year time gap between them.

pre 1990 there was no vat or tax on domestic fuel, it was introduced to help up build green energy another lie, just like all the other etaxes impose like air tax etc..
one reason vat was introduced to create a competative playing field in europe, we pay a far higher of our income towards tax than the baby boomers.

[petercook7]

Solve for X!

Its all because of the 'hidden' factors. These I'm assuming are man bear pig.

Unless you provide some evidence from a reputable institute of were these 300% of our GDP nonsense.

Because it looks like we are paying less in interest since well my parents (whilst working age) paying the issue of the 70s.

I mean really, numbers please, otherwise your just spouting your crap saying its right in the face of figures from reputable sources, and don't take my word for it, look at their references, feel free to compare them to see if there is concensess.

and you take for truth everything that comes out of the ons? for example lets look at unemployment figures do they truely repost the total unemployed in this country? no they dont, just like the debt figures in this country clever acounting to mask the true level of debt in this county.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk...y-2025979.html

the boomer raped this country, and now they expect us to look after them in their old age, well we have news for you, dont fee lsafe in your hospital beds, as nurses etc.. are put under to much pressure to cope with them.

It

quantifies the burden that will be placed on future generations, and it is the ONS's first attempt to draw together the "off-balance-sheet" liabilities that have been accumulated by the state. The figures imply a huge "intergenerational transfer" – broadly in favour of today's "baby boomer" generation at the expense of younger people and future generations.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datab...th-debt-relief

[TheAnimus]

The first link is based on speculative figures.... by the ONS ffs.
My link was based on meta data.... Please check these things.

They are nothing more than guesses, they are also looking at total global debt rather than the cost of servicing it. One of the truely criminal acts by new labour was that some of these contracts, which were often awarded to friends of the party in true pork barrel style, its the interest rate paid via the service commitments.

But it is not only very important to not confuse theses with the cost of our national debt after all not all debts are created equal and they don't all cost the same.

The second link is again based on ONS statistics. Have you really read any of these, or just the headlines? You could also perhaps do with even skim reading the blue book.

Also we have to look at certain debts differently, some is money that has been rubbishrubbishrubbishrubbishrubbished away, some still have a value attached. So shares in RBS for instance are worth a lot more now, so despite the increase in the national debt because of money spent on on purchasing said shares, the government is effectively better off.

So lets not talk about projections, lets talk about the observable realised state.

[TheAnimus]

pre 1990 there was no vat or tax on domestic fuel, it was introduced to help up build green energy another lie, just like all the other etaxes impose like air tax etc..
one reason vat was introduced to create a competative playing field in europe, we pay a far higher of our income towards tax than the baby boomers.

Yet with the exception of housing, we have a massive increase in disposable income, once luxury items like cars are now common place.

Also whilst much of the money has beeen rubbishrubbishrubbishrubbishrubbished away, we also have more infrastructure.

So housing because we move out of home earlier, and because the older people don't want their green views ruined is a perfectly valid thing to be upset about.

Having to pay a small fraction for an education isn't.