He is taking a bigger proportion than should be taken.Originally Posted by mcmiller
Surely you read the papers or watch the news.
I realise that many rises had nothing to do with DC, but if he is effective as people think, then he should help with this one...in a MEANINGFUL way, and not some pathetic token gesture.
You've got to remember that labour never once touched the fuel dutey price, not once, ever. Except for all the times they did.
All those stupid BULL**** ideas that even the germans openly took the piss out of, the 15% VAT for instance, was offset on fuel with a tax that was never removed.
throw new ArgumentException (String, String, Exception)
I believe I heard that haulers can claim back the VAT off fuel? That's why when they reduced the VAT, haulers actually ended up paying more. I may have that completely wrong, but if it's right, maybe we should just increase the VAT on fuel and not the duty (assuming you can have different VAT rates for different stuff?). Would increase income a bit, but not affect the price of goods as much.
Proabably a flawed and stupid idea, or someone would have tried it by now.
I take your point, but that's kinda why I said it was progressive in some ways. There are few examples of major taxes that are truly regressive. Even the one probably most often quoted, which would be regressive in a pure form, is made much less so by it's implementation in bands and with many basic essentials excluded from charges at all, that being VAT. In theory, at a flat rate, it's regressive but that's not how it's implemented.
But fuel duty has progressive aspects, because, well look at who it bites most heavily on ..... people doing high mileage for social purposes, people with gas guzzling cars, people with multiple cars, etc.
That's not to say it doesn't hit people that aren't in those categories, because it does, and some people obviously have a much larger required mileage than others, probably most notable being rural residents. But, the very poorest don't have cars because they can't afford to tax or insure them, and probably not to buy them in the first place. They, as you say (and as I pointed out) still bear some indirect costs because of the transport element of food prices, but it's a comparatively small cost compared to those paying directly in running costs of the car. If you put £50 a week of petrol into your car, that's one heck of a tax contribution, compared to the proportion of fuel taxes paid in food prices.
The point was, much (though by no means all) of many people's car usage is discretionary, and that means that in the presence of high fuel taxes, you can elect not to pay it by electing not to use the car when it isn't necessary.
For instance, I regularly travel about 230 miles to visit relatives. I go by car, because it's convenient. I could by by train, but (for two of us) it'd cost a lot more. Indeed, I have done it by train, probably several dozen times, by it did cost a lot more. These days, for various reasons, we go by car. By, the fact that we do indicates that we can afford to and that we elect to, because we could simply not go at all. If we couldn't afford to go, we wouldn't go.
Those that can afford to use their car more, because the prices while high aren't enough to dissuade them, therefore pay a considerably higher contribution to tax revenue than those that can't afford a car.
It's not perfectly progressive (by a heck of a long way), and it's not heavily progressive, but there are progressive elements to it.
But boom and bust has been abolished. We know that because our economic guru, the one that saved the world / country / banks / something or other, our recently despised deposed Glorious leader and PM, Mr. G Brown, told us so.
This is a far too TORY thread.
Give the coalition a chance, though. They've only been around for a few months. Once they've had a chance to screw up as thoroughly as Blair/Brown did, i.e. have had time to make as many messes, I'm sure they will have made as many messes. At which point, I'll no doubt be lambasting them.
This underlines something the LDs have recently learned - while in opposition, you can say and do pretty much what you want, especially if nobody believes you have even half a chance of getting your backside on a Ministerial chair. But if you do get in government, suddenly not only are your less-than-smart words biting you in that backside (making the chair rather uncomfortable) but you actually get to make decisions people will hold you accountable for, instead of just spouting off with drivel that'll usually be forgotten by breakfast the day after next.
It's hard to really criticise the Tories and LDs because, for 13 years, Labour had all the power. We simply don't know what would have happened had the Tories (or LDs, or coalition) been in power. Would they have foreseen the banking crash coming? Doubtful. Very doubtful. Would they have coped better? Who knows. It's entirely possible they'd have done things differently, and we can argue until the cows come home what impact those differences might have made, but the simple truth is that it's all theory because we don't, never will and indeed (unless someone invents a time machine and goes back and changes it) can't know.
It is, however, indisputable that the country is in a mess, ad it is indisputable that Labour were in power when we got into it, and at least to that extent, it is indisputable that the buck stops with them. And it's high time many of them, not least Ed Balls, owned up to that instead of trying to pretend the whole problem is about an imported banking crisis.
It's also about time the coalition stopped trying to blame all our current national woes on Labour, because while it's true that they inherited the situation from Labour, that's not quite the same as saying it is all Labour's fault, or indeed, that all of it is anything they could have done anything about, even if they had seen it coming.
My view? Labour has plenty to be culpable for, not least the economic policies of Gordon Brown over a very long period. But a good part of our current mess is also due to factors entirely outside the ability of anyone in this country, whatever party and whether in power or not, to have done anything about. It may be that, armed with hindsight, there are things Brown could have and should have done, not least of which would have been a very different approach to banking regulation. But would the Tories have handled banking regulation any better? I doubt it, since deregulation started under the Tories before 1997, though it did continue apace under Blair/Brown. And, in opposition, the Tories certainly weren't calling for tightening up banking regulation.
So at least my stance, in this thread and elsewhere, is not so much Tory, or even anti-Labour, as anti-politician, and given 13 years in power, Labour are going to get the brunt of my distaste because they were the only ones actually making decisions.
For instance, I detest Blair for what I can only categorise as utter deceit over how he presented the case for the Iraq war. Did the Tories back him? Yup. But did they have access to the raw intel and the advice Blair had? No. Would they have done what Blair did, either in going to war, on conning us about it? Who knows, on both counts. If a Tory PM had done what Blair did, I'd be calling that Tory PM rude names instead. But Labour were in power, so they get the blame for the poop that happens on their watch. And in times to come, Cameron/Clegg etc will get the blame for what goes wrong on theirs. If, for instance, the Libya intervention somehow goes badly wrong, we can't exactly blame it on Ed Milliband.
So, the economy is in a mess, the debt and deficit is huge, there is a pensions time-bomb crisis looming, the survival rates for cancer, heart problems etc are not what they should be given the expenditure on the NHS. We do have a massively increased public sector, so it's entirely fair to ask where that increase is good and justified (nurses, etc), and where it's well-paid and unnecessary paper-pushing bureaucrats, and where it's the latter, it IS Labour's fault.
We are entitled to question, criticise and support the coalition if they roll-back some (or many) of Labour's inroads into civil rights, and even most Labour politicians now acknowledge, even publicly, that they made many mistakes in that area. And goodness knows, regulation and red tape on small business has grown hugely over recent years. Anyone that formed a limited company 25 years ago, and did it again recently, will know of the differences, partly simply in formation, but more relevantly in all the cobblers you have to be oh so very careful to comply with. If we want to encourage growth, one easy and relatively cheap step is to taker a long hard look at that regulation and dump everything that we don't really need. Another example is to take a look at the complexity of tax law. The tax "bible" has basically tripled in size under Brown's watch, so fond was he of tinkering and tweaking with "clever" tax measures. Mind you, it's led to something of a bonanza for tax lawyers and accountants. But that "growth" is just an overhead for small business to pay al the advisers, to keep yourself out of trouble and fill in all the relevant forms. The same can be said of the paperwork the average PC has to complete, even for something as simple as a search. Many basic searches, that should take 5 minutes, rake several times that long by the time you've filled in the forms. Again, Labour's fault, because they did it. Maybe those forms filled a purpose, and maybe there was a need. But it's again indisputable that a PC sitting in a station filling in statistical returns is a PC not out on the beat of solving crime. Instead, he's preparing paperwork to assess whether he met targets or not.
Who are we supposed to blame for all this if not the people in government that did it all?
But in five, or ten, years, we'll be blaming the Tories and/or LDs, and/or coalition, because by then, they'll have been the ones in power screwing things up..
Maybe, maybe not. Maybe your calibrated with a little bit or irrational hatred.
I would say that anyone who is proposing to cut down on a taxable product or service because money is going to the government in power who are trying to reduce a defecist is an interesting idea. Interesting been the polite word. I could understand someone protesting about the war in Iraq or something like that, the NHS computer system which I just can't begin to imagine how it cost so much, but what exactly is it your against?
As Saracen was saying, the problem is that Labour have been in power for such a long time, much of this mess is un-equivicably their fault. We have a massive debt, which is crippling because we borrowed and spent, signed long term contracts with underlying debt obligations etc.
Now politics asside, this was VERY stupid, we have such incredible debt and nothing to show for it. The last boom of our economy politicaly we've turned against, I'm refering to the City. We didn't really do much to get so many firms wanting to be based in London, the US over-reacted in a post enron world.
All the money which was spent by the previous government has failed to generate a good return, and now, we face the consiquences.
Regretably there are also outside factors, its possibly one of the worst times to be left with such a legacy as Browns, but what can we do about fuel prices? We need to raise taxes in a way which won't stop growth. Now there are two ways of doing that, reducing the burden on businesses, so they can expand/consume more services, or reduce the burden on private indeviduals.
Now sadly the latter is often considered less effective than the former, so if your not some emotive retard who can't read a spreadsheet, you come quickly to the conclusion that the middle must be squeezed, it will be a faster recovery if you are kind to smaller businesses.
throw new ArgumentException (String, String, Exception)
Much of it is......much of it isn't though.As Saracen was saying, the problem is that Labour have been in power for such a long time, much of this mess is un-equivicably their fault
Your 'Tory-ness' blinds you to this on many occassion.
At the end of the day, the government have to get their money from somewhere. like some people have said, if they dont put fuel prices up, theyll just do it elsewhere, and it will be just as noticeable. As for how the public will react, i think we will sit back and take it but quietly complain under our breaths. We still need to buy the fuel no matter what, and the government know it
Tories are evil, rabble rabble rabble, no useful suggestions, and a complete desire to ignore the fact that we're in one of the worst states of any G20 nation, compared to 10 years ago.
throw new ArgumentException (String, String, Exception)
Government should just be smarter with their money! Instead of p*.issing away!
As i said before.........
For a long time, all we have heard is either how much cash you earn, and how much you hate labour.............and its always the same tripe (besides the ocassional thought provoking comment0.
All you can normally muster is a useless statistic such as the one above.
For a supposedly intelligent man, i am suprised at your lack of input besides the above drivel.
Maybe 'supposedly' is all it is.
Riiiiight, i've spent so much time saying that, none at all talking about specific examples which were representative of how the previous government made decisions, I also offered no problem definition of the state we're currently in.
Somebodies got a chip on their shoulder!
throw new ArgumentException (String, String, Exception)
Right, this seems fitting to add here.
What are folks thoughts on how fast we'll get to £2/litre? I mean obviously given sufficient time it would arrive regardless, I more thinking shorter term than what may traditionally be considered "normal".
Is it a fools errand to think that prices may stabilise anytime soon or at least have almost peaked for this little hiccup? Looking back of charts, the historic spikes have topped off at 15-25p over the "average" before it. I'm wondering if we've seen the worst of this, or if this is the tip of the 'berg
I don't think prices will be allowed to hit £2/l in the short term, so we'll hit it when either a) inflation makes £2 not that much higher than today in real terms or b) average consumption is lowered to 66% of current levels thus the spend would remain the same on average. Or some combination of the above.Right, this seems fitting to add here.
What are folks thoughts on how fast we'll get to £2/litre? I mean obviously given sufficient time it would arrive regardless, I more thinking shorter term than what may traditionally be considered "normal".
Is it a fools errand to think that prices may stabilise anytime soon or at least have almost peaked for this little hiccup? Looking back of charts, the historic spikes have topped off at 15-25p over the "average" before it. I'm wondering if we've seen the worst of this, or if this is the tip of the 'berg
There are currently 1 users browsing this thread. (0 members and 1 guests)
Posting Permissions
LinkBack URL
About LinkBacks
Reply With Quote