Originally posted by Jane R:
You seem to be arguing that change is always good, which is an odd point of view for a traditional Tory
![[Biased]](wink.gif)
quote:But it would go so viral on Youtube.
Originally posted by Anglican't:
1. Killing rich people by driving them off a cliff wouldn't actually make everyone else richer would it, except in terms of some statistical exercise?
quote:Unless you spice it up a bit I can't see a straight-forward drive off a cliff being more exciting than a Russian car crash compilation.
Originally posted by Adeodatus:
quote:But it would go so viral on Youtube.
Originally posted by Anglican't:
1. Killing rich people by driving them off a cliff wouldn't actually make everyone else richer would it, except in terms of some statistical exercise?
quote:Well, technically, once you've killed all the rich people, you've also killed all the heirs of the rich people, and their property will pass to the state as bona vacantia. You could view that as making everyone else richer, at least temporarily
Originally posted by Anglican't:
1. Killing rich people by driving them off a cliff wouldn't actually make everyone else richer would it, except in terms of some statistical exercise?
![[Smile]](smile.gif)
quote:But many will already have bred and the wealth will go to the descendants, so the cycle will repeat. You'll only be able to pull off this double decker trick with a couple of generations before the message sinks in that they shouldn't take the bus.
Originally posted by Leorning Cniht:
Well, technically, once you've killed all the rich people, you've also killed all the heirs of the rich people, and their property will pass to the state as bona vacantia.
quote:I can picture a dismayed Adeodatus, AK-47 in hand, muttering to himself 'we're gonna need a bigger bus'.
Originally posted by Lord Jestocost:
quote:But many will already have bred and the wealth will go to the descendants
Originally posted by Leorning Cniht:
Well, technically, once you've killed all the rich people, you've also killed all the heirs of the rich people...
quote:Damn those entrepreneurs with their job-creating businesses!
Originally posted by Caissa:
The rich have been waging class warfare since the dawn of time.
quote:Yeah, cos those profiteers and asset-strippers in our banks create jobs for ... ooh ... tens of people. It makes up for the thousands they destroy.
Originally posted by Anglican't:
quote:Damn those entrepreneurs with their job-creating businesses!
Originally posted by Caissa:
The rich have been waging class warfare since the dawn of time.
quote:I'm sure the jobs are created out of the goodness of their hearts rather than for any additional wealth that might accrue. These jobs might be created but every effort is then made to keep wages as low as possible, sometimes through persuading governments to top them up to a subsistence level out of taxation which, as we have seen, is levied for the most part on the poor and middle classes.
Originally posted by Anglican't:
quote:Damn those entrepreneurs with their job-creating businesses!
Originally posted by Caissa:
The rich have been waging class warfare since the dawn of time.
quote:I smell a false dichotomy.
Damn those entrepreneurs with their job-creating businesses!
quote:Not all entrepeneurs are rich. Not all rich people are entrepeneurs. Not all entrepeneurs create jobs - as a matter of fact, some *cough* *Mitt Romney* *cough* specialize in destroying other people's jobs.
Originally posted by Anglican't:
quote:Damn those entrepreneurs with their job-creating businesses!
Originally posted by Caissa:
The rich have been waging class warfare since the dawn of time.
quote:I'm afraid I don't know what you mean by this. What does 'class war' mean in this context?
Originally posted by Albertus:
Anglo-American neoliberalism...does IMO wage class war
quote:Not when it comes to the federal income tax.
Originally posted by Tortuf:
The very rich pay less tax per dollar of income than the poor and the middle class. Part of this is due to some notion that enough tax is enough.
quote:Look at it another way. Take one of the top 85 somewhere in the middle of that number. Say their net worth is about $15bn. Well, naively at least, $14bn of that could pay 7000 people a salary of $40000 for 50 years, and the rich person would still have a billion dollars left.
Originally posted by Anglican't:
To give some context to the discussion, the Guardian has helpfully listed who these 85 people are.
I don't have time to look at the list closely at the moment but while it includes the Ship's favourite newspaper propietor Rupert Murdoch and a few Russian oligarchs, it also includes a number of people from Microsoft, from Apple and Mark Zuckerberg. Are these people we want to be shepherding onto the bus before its final journey?
quote:They might indeed.
Originally posted by Adeodatus:
Still, I'm sure they have another very good use for that other $14bn.
quote:There's more to tax than (federal) income tax. Indirect taxes are regressive, ie, the more you earn, the less you pay as a proportion of income.
Originally posted by Mere Nick:
quote:Not when it comes to the federal income tax.
Originally posted by Tortuf:
The very rich pay less tax per dollar of income than the poor and the middle class. Part of this is due to some notion that enough tax is enough.
quote:Raising taxes is not driving a bus off a cliff. I know for people who worship money, who find the acquiring and hoarding of money to be the center of their universe, it may feel like murder, but it's really not. It just isn't. The rich will not die if we raise their taxes. They won't cease to exist. They won't go out of business. They won't even cease to be extraordinarily wealthy.
Originally posted by Adeodatus:
Most prominently in yesterday's and today's headlines, Barack Obama's hope that he might raise taxes for the most wealthy has been met with spluttering outrage: "This is class war!"
But when the 85 richest people in the world have the same wealth as the poorest 3.5 billion - link - does the class war become a just war? And if, as Oxfam alleges, that the people who own half the world's wealth might squeeze into a double decker bus, might it not be an act of justice to drive that bus off a cliff?
quote:Oooh, that's so cuuute! "Trickle Down" turned out to be the wee of rich folk, not so much resource. And these days, with so much outsource, who are getting the jobs?
Originally posted by Anglican't:
quote:Damn those entrepreneurs with their job-creating businesses!
Originally posted by Caissa:
The rich have been waging class warfare since the dawn of time.
quote:Of course there are costs for a business to earn income, so what? If the business is a S, partnership, LLC, LLP, etc, with the income flowing through to the owners, then it is picked up in their AGI. Unless their businesses aren't doing well at all, then they will still be a higher tax bracket.
Originally posted by Sober Preacher's Kid:
Facts, please. The Rich generally have investment income and especially business income which has a wider array of deductions available than wage income. Hence lower tax per dollar.
quote:Of course there is more tax than just federal income tax. However, with what was tossed out at the SOTU, that's all that seems worth discussing, right now.
Originally posted by Sioni Sais:
quote:There's more to tax than (federal) income tax. Indirect taxes are regressive, ie, the more you earn, the less you pay as a proportion of income.
Originally posted by Mere Nick:
quote:Not when it comes to the federal income tax.
Originally posted by Tortuf:
The very rich pay less tax per dollar of income than the poor and the middle class. Part of this is due to some notion that enough tax is enough.
Also, wealth itself is only taxed on transfer and, armed with a competent accountant, a lot of tax liability can be avoided, thanks to a tax system made by and for the rich.
quote:That might be all you want to discuss, but it isn't all that is relevant. The class war is fought on many fronts.
Originally posted by Mere Nick:
quote:Of course there is more tax than just federal income tax. However, with what was tossed out at the SOTU, that's all that seems worth discussing, right now.
Originally posted by Sioni Sais:
quote:There's more to tax than (federal) income tax. Indirect taxes are regressive, ie, the more you earn, the less you pay as a proportion of income.
Originally posted by Mere Nick:
quote:Not when it comes to the federal income tax.
Originally posted by Tortuf:
The very rich pay less tax per dollar of income than the poor and the middle class. Part of this is due to some notion that enough tax is enough.
Also, wealth itself is only taxed on transfer and, armed with a competent accountant, a lot of tax liability can be avoided, thanks to a tax system made by and for the rich.
quote:How odd. I would have thought you would find capital gains taxes equally worth discussion.
Originally posted by Mere Nick:
Of course there is more tax than just federal income tax. However, with what was tossed out at the SOTU, that's all that seems worth discussing, right now.
quote:I mean that this kind of capitalism is based fairly explicitly on social division and is designed to ensure that those at the top of the pile get aand keep as much as possible, preferring where necessary to rely on force to maintain that division of wealth and income. It's a conqueror mentality which retreats into fortified strongholds and views those outside them as potentially hostile and alien.
Originally posted by Anglican't:
quote:I'm afraid I don't know what you mean by this. What does 'class war' mean in this context?
Originally posted by Albertus:
Anglo-American neoliberalism...does IMO wage class war
quote:Taken to its extreme, it could remind one of 1789 in Paris--and we all know how that ended.
Originally posted by Albertus:
I mean that this kind of capitalism is based fairly explicitly on social division and is designed to ensure that those at the top of the pile get aand keep as much as possible, preferring where necessary to rely on force to maintain that division of wealth and income.
quote:Do you think somebody with $15 billion has the entire sum laying around in hard currency and precious metals? Because they don't. No, the wealthy have the money invested in something. Somebody is using that money to do something to make more money. You assume that the government could pay the salary of 7000 people to do something more productive with that money. I agree that's a possibility.
Originally posted by Adeodatus:
quote:Look at it another way. Take one of the top 85 somewhere in the middle of that number. Say their net worth is about $15bn. Well, naively at least, $14bn of that could pay 7000 people a salary of $40000 for 50 years, and the rich person would still have a billion dollars left.
Originally posted by Anglican't:
To give some context to the discussion, the Guardian has helpfully listed who these 85 people are.
I don't have time to look at the list closely at the moment but while it includes the Ship's favourite newspaper propietor Rupert Murdoch and a few Russian oligarchs, it also includes a number of people from Microsoft, from Apple and Mark Zuckerberg. Are these people we want to be shepherding onto the bus before its final journey?
Still, I'm sure they have another very good use for that other $14bn.
quote:In the US, we have a shared-world fiction setting where we all agree that there is no such thing as social class. Everyone in the USA is equal.
Originally posted by stonespring:
Does it seem to anyone else that the very world "class" (as in socioeconomic class) has become politically incorrect in many situations in the US? Is this the case in other countries? In school for example, we would talk about the class issues in literature or in history but when it came to current events - or especially when it involved discussing our own community and the families in our own school - it was impolite to use the term class and it was instead referred to indirectly with terms like "socioeconomic diversity" and "income Inequality" - which point to class issues, but they don't emphasize that people in a given class - even in a country like America where even the poor believe they can become rich, where people often vote against their class's financial interests, and where both the poor and the rich often call themselves "middle class" when they are asked - even in America people in a given class tend to have common interests that they often find themselves defending whether they intend to or not - if not always at the ballot box. The different classes also have hostilities against other classes and often feel uncomfortable when they are not around people of the same class - although members of the classes often are not aware or do not want to talk publicly about the fact that it is class that causes these feelings.
quote:Most (but not all) measures of GDP rely on money moving, and GDP is often used to measure the economy. Measuring organic growth in the economy is more difficult, but money is like manure in that if you spread it around it does a lot of good, while if you pile it up, it stinks.
Originally posted by Arethosemyfeet:
Even if you dropped that money straight into the pockets of the 70000 poorest people each year (4k a pop) it would pay huge dividends in terms of economic growth. Money spent tends to go around the economy a lot faster than money tied up in savings or investments. You'd make those people better off and improve the economy at the same time.
quote:Really?
Originally posted by Arethosemyfeet:
Even if you dropped that money straight into the pockets of the 70000 poorest people each year (4k a pop) it would pay huge dividends in terms of economic growth. Money spent tends to go around the economy a lot faster than money tied up in savings or investments. You'd make those people better off and improve the economy at the same time.
quote:We don't need an experiment, because it's been shown to be true. All we need is the will to do it.
Originally posted by Beeswax Altar:
quote:Really?
Originally posted by Arethosemyfeet:
Even if you dropped that money straight into the pockets of the 70000 poorest people each year (4k a pop) it would pay huge dividends in terms of economic growth. Money spent tends to go around the economy a lot faster than money tied up in savings or investments. You'd make those people better off and improve the economy at the same time.
All we need is some super rich Obama supporter to pony up $3.5 billion for a 12 year experiment.
quote:Not all investments are equally useful to the rest of the economy or society.
Originally posted by Beeswax Altar:
No, the wealthy have the money invested in something. Somebody is using that money to do something to make more money.
quote:The working poor are not precisely the same as the homeless-- at least not yet (though the growing income inequality does seem to be pushing us that way). The point of the studies referenced above is that when you put more $$ in the pockets of the working poor it almost always is used to pay for consumer goods and services-- the things that drive the economy and produce jobs. Far more so than just giving a tax cut to the so-called "job creators". As was noted above, there may be be even more desirable ways to goose the economy through directed incentives to invest in long-range things like infrastructure, renewable energy or education, but if all else fails, putting cash in the hands of the working poor is a better investment for the country overall than putting it in the hands of the 1%ers.
Originally posted by no prophet's flag is set so...:
Forgive me, but dropping money into people's pockets, who may lack the skills and knowledge to know how to handle it, is exactly why dropping coins into the hats of beggars is not the right idea. The right idea is to have programs to help the homeless not to be homeless by dealing with their health, mental health and social issues, providing job skills, and helping them to have stable housing. Of course, in the absence of such programs, we are currently stuck with dropping money directly into the hats of the homeless. Often the small amounts of money are spent on the wrong things: alcohol or drugs. Which is why the liquor board stores report so much activity on welfare cheque days.
quote:Instead, in the UK, we responded to the recession with £375 billion of government spending, but all in the form of quantitative easing. It has mostly been swallowed by the banks and is not circulating.
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
quote:We don't need an experiment, because it's been shown to be true. All we need is the will to do it.
Originally posted by Beeswax Altar:
quote:Really?
Originally posted by Arethosemyfeet:
Even if you dropped that money straight into the pockets of the 70000 poorest people each year (4k a pop) it would pay huge dividends in terms of economic growth. Money spent tends to go around the economy a lot faster than money tied up in savings or investments. You'd make those people better off and improve the economy at the same time.
All we need is some super rich Obama supporter to pony up $3.5 billion for a 12 year experiment.
quote:Since the op is about Obama, then it is about the federal income tax.
Originally posted by Sioni Sais:
quote:That might be all you want to discuss, but it isn't all that is relevant. The class war is fought on many fronts.
Originally posted by Mere Nick:
quote:Of course there is more tax than just federal income tax. However, with what was tossed out at the SOTU, that's all that seems worth discussing, right now.
Originally posted by Sioni Sais:
quote:There's more to tax than (federal) income tax. Indirect taxes are regressive, ie, the more you earn, the less you pay as a proportion of income.
Originally posted by Mere Nick:
quote:Not when it comes to the federal income tax.
Originally posted by Tortuf:
The very rich pay less tax per dollar of income than the poor and the middle class. Part of this is due to some notion that enough tax is enough.
Also, wealth itself is only taxed on transfer and, armed with a competent accountant, a lot of tax liability can be avoided, thanks to a tax system made by and for the rich.
quote:And that's why no wealthy Obama supporter will pony up the money. Nothing is stopping a billionaire from sending money to tens of thousands of poor people. Buffett and Gates are both Obama supporters. They wouldn't miss the $14 billion much less $3.5 billion.
Originally posted by no prophet's flag is set so...:
Forgive me, but dropping money into people's pockets, who may lack the skills and knowledge to know how to handle it, is exactly why dropping coins into the hats of beggars is not the right idea. The right idea is to have programs to help the homeless not to be homeless by dealing with their health, mental health and social issues, providing job skills, and helping them to have stable housing. Of course, in the absence of such programs, we are currently stuck with dropping money directly into the hats of the homeless. Often the small amounts of money are spent on the wrong things: alcohol or drugs. Which is why the liquor board stores report so much activity on welfare cheque days.
I'll say it again: I'd pay more taxes if something legitimately helpful was being done with it on a programmatic basis. As if is, I identify causes I think are worthy and given money, for which I get, of course, an additional tax break. Which means that a donation of $50,000 costs me one-half or one-third of the amount.
quote:Indeed. If no prophet's rant conflating all working-class poor with a possibly drug or alcohol addicted beggar is about the clearest proof so far of the existence of class warfare.
Originally posted by Sioni Sais:
Isn't it such a help to so many consciences that the poor, working or not, are so feckless that so many can feel so little moral duty to help them.
quote:But we're conflating several kinds of desired outcomes here.
Originally posted by no prophet's flag is set so...:
A multi-site study, unpublished yet as far as I know (I know two of the contracted researchers), was looking at working low-income families*. What they found is that the consumer goods were not really what most of us might recommend: e.g., prepared food meals where the concerns are salt, fat sources and overall nutrition, and electronics. They also found that the income meant less visits to the food bank.
quote:Nothing here strikes me as particularly earth-shattering news...
Originally posted by no prophet's flag is set so...:
Further, they found that the worst nourished children were the latch-key kids whose lower income two or one parent had the adult(s) leave early for work, with the kids getting their own breakfasts (or not), with the same holding true for other meals. They also had issues with homework and classroom conduct. Interventions such as school milk programs and hot lunches were somewhat effective in improving things.
quote:Well then, thank goodness all those rich folks work so hard at protecting their money from falling into the hands of idiots.
Originally posted by no prophet's flag is set so...:
Forgive me, but dropping money into people's pockets, who may lack the skills and knowledge to know how to handle it, is exactly why dropping coins into the hats of beggars is not the right idea.
quote:
Originally posted by Adeodatus:
quote:Well then, thank goodness all those rich folks work so hard at protecting their money from falling into the hands of idiots.
Originally posted by no prophet's flag is set so...:
Forgive me, but dropping money into people's pockets, who may lack the skills and knowledge to know how to handle it, is exactly why dropping coins into the hats of beggars is not the right idea.
![[Overused]](graemlins/notworthy.gif)
quote:It so happens that a couple of days ago I was reading how the USA, "Great American Dream" notwithstanding, actually has greater wealth inequality than other Western countries and a lower opportunity for people born in low-income families to get themselves into higher income brackets.
Originally posted by Fr Weber:
quote:In the US, we have a shared-world fiction setting where we all agree that there is no such thing as social class. Everyone in the USA is equal.
Originally posted by stonespring:
Does it seem to anyone else that the very world "class" (as in socioeconomic class) has become politically incorrect in many situations in the US? Is this the case in other countries? In school for example, we would talk about the class issues in literature or in history but when it came to current events - or especially when it involved discussing our own community and the families in our own school - it was impolite to use the term class and it was instead referred to indirectly with terms like "socioeconomic diversity" and "income Inequality" - which point to class issues, but they don't emphasize that people in a given class - even in a country like America where even the poor believe they can become rich, where people often vote against their class's financial interests, and where both the poor and the rich often call themselves "middle class" when they are asked - even in America people in a given class tend to have common interests that they often find themselves defending whether they intend to or not - if not always at the ballot box. The different classes also have hostilities against other classes and often feel uncomfortable when they are not around people of the same class - although members of the classes often are not aware or do not want to talk publicly about the fact that it is class that causes these feelings.
It follows that therefore class has nothing to do with social inequality. Gender and race explain everything.
quote:It's not a rant, and I didn't conflate all together. I simply do not believe that social change occurs because you give money to one person or one at a time. I believe that social change occurs because we change things about how the social system is set up. In my community, we started a health clinic with services that normally have to be paid for, including psychological counselling, legal advice, and other things. It's in the neediest neighbourhood. A bicycle co-op where we fix used bicycles and give them away so people have something to transport themselves with. Used computers that we repair, put operating systems on and give them to (mostl) refugees and elderly. Free internet. So yes, I am a goddamned rich asshole who conflates everyone. I can only help with what I know about. You want money to fund something worthy, talk to me. I'll give you my time as well, been doing that since I was a teenager and had nothing.
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
quote:Indeed. If no prophet's rant conflating all working-class poor with a possibly drug or alcohol addicted beggar is about the clearest proof so far of the existence of class warfare.
Originally posted by Sioni Sais:
Isn't it such a help to so many consciences that the poor, working or not, are so feckless that so many can feel so little moral duty to help them.
quote:But AGAIN, that's not what the original post was about. No one claimed that giving away money solves all of society's problems. The claim-- as has been explained to you several times now-- was simply that giving money to the working poor would do more to reinvigorate the economy than giving "trickle down" tax cuts to the wealthy. No one ever claimed such a plan would solve all of society's problems. No one ever claimed it was even the best way to spend such a large amount of money. The claim was simple that it would have more benefit due to increased consumer spending than would giving tax cuts to the wealthy.
Originally posted by no prophet's flag is set so...:
quote:It's not a rant, and I didn't conflate all together. I simply do not believe that social change occurs because you give money to one person or one at a time.
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
quote:Indeed. If no prophet's rant conflating all working-class poor with a possibly drug or alcohol addicted beggar is about the clearest proof so far of the existence of class warfare.
Originally posted by Sioni Sais:
Isn't it such a help to so many consciences that the poor, working or not, are so feckless that so many can feel so little moral duty to help them.
quote:The rich have already won the class war. They aren't the least bit concerned the poor might fight back. What Edmund Burke called the little platoons have been severely weakened. Without them, resisting tyranny is impossible. Nothing unites the middle and lower class other than we all have less than the upper class. We aren't poor enough to be united by that fact.
Originally posted by Fr Weber:
It's class war all right, and the rich are scared shitless that the poor might actually start fighting back.
quote:This. All of it.
Originally posted by Sioni Sais:
Isn't it such a help to so many consciences that the poor, working or not, are so feckless that so many can feel so little moral duty to help them.
Not. I really miss ken when we have a thread like this.
quote:That flows through from schedule D to the 1040, the "US Individual Income Tax Return". It's an income tax.
Originally posted by Organ Builder:
quote:How odd. I would have thought you would find capital gains taxes equally worth discussion.
Originally posted by Mere Nick:
Of course there is more tax than just federal income tax. However, with what was tossed out at the SOTU, that's all that seems worth discussing, right now.
quote:This. Why else would there be any appetite for class war?
Originally posted by L'organist:
The OP assumes some correlation between social class and wealth: not something that is a given.
There is evidence of a desire for 'class war' in the UK - this mostly comes from the more assinine pronouncements of people on the left who open their mouths before engaging their brain: latest example of Chris Bryant being pretty typical.
What I worry about more than absolute wealth is that so few of the fabulously wealthy seem to feel any obligation to use their riches to better or enrich the lives of people less fortunate than themselves. Yes, there are people like the Gates, Warren Buffet, etc, but there are also people like the Walton family who give very little.
quote:To answer just a couple of your questions: What will they be doing? Well, the first thing that springs to mind is that 7000 people each earning $40k a year for 50 years are highly likely to pay income tax, and highly unlikely to have money in Swiss or Bermudan bank accounts. Which I think helps answer the last question of why it might not be a problem tax-wise if the world should run out of 'ultra-wealthy' people.
Originally posted by Beeswax Altar:
quote:Do you think somebody with $15 billion has the entire sum laying around in hard currency and precious metals? Because they don't. No, the wealthy have the money invested in something. Somebody is using that money to do something to make more money. You assume that the government could pay the salary of 7000 people to do something more productive with that money. I agree that's a possibility.
Originally posted by Adeodatus:
Look at it another way. Take one of the top 85 somewhere in the middle of that number. Say their net worth is about $15bn. Well, naively at least, $14bn of that could pay 7000 people a salary of $40000 for 50 years, and the rich person would still have a billion dollars left.
Still, I'm sure they have another very good use for that other $14bn.
A few questions...
Who are these people?
What will they be doing?
Why is what they will be doing worthwhile?
If it really needs to be done, why isn't it already being done?
For that matter, who gets to decide what those 7000 people do for their $40,000?
Do the 7000 people have any choice about what they do for their $40,000 a year?
What happens in 50 years when you no longer have any ultra wealthy to tax?
quote:If James Blunt had engaged his brain before opening his mouth he would have been flattered to be mentioned in the same breath as a potential Oscar winner.
Originally posted by L'organist:
There is evidence of a desire for 'class war' in the UK - this mostly comes from the more assinine pronouncements of people on the left who open their mouths before engaging their brain: latest example of Chris Bryant being pretty typical.
quote:To follow on that:
Originally posted by anoesis:
To answer just a couple of your questions: What will they be doing? Well, the first thing that springs to mind is that 7000 people each earning $40k a year for 50 years are highly likely to pay income tax, and highly unlikely to have money in Swiss or Bermudan bank accounts. Which I think helps answer the last question of why it might not be a problem tax-wise if the world should run out of 'ultra-wealthy' people. [/QB]
quote:Hang on, wouldn't running out of 'ultra-wealthy' people be a massive problem, if you're reliant on taking their money? It's a bit like killing a goose, eating the meat and then wondering why it hasn't laid an egg. Or do you tell the equivalent of these 7,000 people fifty years down the line that they're not going to get anything?
Originally posted by anoesis:
To answer just a couple of your questions: What will they be doing? Well, the first thing that springs to mind is that 7000 people each earning $40k a year for 50 years are highly likely to pay income tax, and highly unlikely to have money in Swiss or Bermudan bank accounts. Which I think helps answer the last question of why it might not be a problem tax-wise if the world should run out of 'ultra-wealthy' people.
quote:This has been hinted at in some previous posts, but it should be made explicit that what you've said here isn't exactly what class means in the British context. It's far more complicated, I would say.
Originally posted by stonespring:
I'm going slightly off topic to get back to the fact that people don't even seem to be talking much about "class" on this thread. At least the tradition definition of class: a division of human society based on how people earned their living.
quote:(of course the problem is that they aren't exactly laying now either).
Originally posted by Anglican't:
Hang on, wouldn't running out of 'ultra-wealthy' people be a massive problem, if you're reliant on taking their money? It's a bit like killing a goose, eating the meat and then wondering why it hasn't laid an egg. Or do you tell the equivalent of these 7,000 people fifty years down the line that they're not going to get anything? [/QB]
quote:And again, if anyone was really suggesting loading all the 1% on a bus and running it off a cliff, yes, that might happen. But it's not. We're talking tax increases, not homicide. So, once again, these tax increases won't kill them, they won't put them out of business, they won't even cause them to cease to be significantly wealthy-- just a small tad less so.
Originally posted by Anglican't:
quote:Hang on, wouldn't running out of 'ultra-wealthy' people be a massive problem, if you're reliant on taking their money? It's a bit like killing a goose, eating the meat and then wondering why it hasn't laid an egg. Or do you tell the equivalent of these 7,000 people fifty years down the line that they're not going to get anything?
Originally posted by anoesis:
To answer just a couple of your questions: What will they be doing? Well, the first thing that springs to mind is that 7000 people each earning $40k a year for 50 years are highly likely to pay income tax, and highly unlikely to have money in Swiss or Bermudan bank accounts. Which I think helps answer the last question of why it might not be a problem tax-wise if the world should run out of 'ultra-wealthy' people.
quote:I think the "many more protections" may be overstated, and certainly still diminishing. This is part of the class war which, in the UK, Thatcher won really, though subsequent governments are continuing to press the victory home. Other European countries seem to follow Britain's lead on this at various rates. I don't know the US too well but my impression is that there has never been much of a "problem" with unionised and public sector employees. At least not to the same level as in Europe.
Originally posted by stonespring:
-unionized and public sector employees, who deserve a category of their own because they enjoy so many more protections than other employees in the middle income levels and that this has a very strong effect on their political sensibilities - as well as on the way other classes view themselves in contrast with, rather than in solidarity with, these protected workers
quote:Probably, but I am not sure what compromises you mean. Have there been any meaningful ones recently?
So after all that bluster, I think the only people who really are politically engaged enough to fight in a "class war" (by which I mean a political battle to shape policy less in the interests of one class and more in the interests of their own) - are the unionized and public sector workers and the elite. The elite consistently win but make compromises that benefit the unionized/public sector workers (those whose jobs were not cut when the elite got the chance to do so during the recession) in order to appear to be compromising in favor of other classes, but the other classes largely remain ignored by politicians and also largely remain politically disengaged.
quote:Who are the real entrepeneurs in Target? The stockholders, and they've just been royally screwed by a no-talent asshat. This man is filthy stinking rich, but he is clearly neither an entrepreneur nor a job creator. The reason he was able to negotiate a sweet deal for failing so spectacularly is because he and the class of self-styled "entrepeneurs / job creators" have created a culture in which they give each other prezzies at the expense of stockholders and employees.
Target’s "employee trust" package for its Canadian workers, announced last week, amounts to $70 million ($56 million US). It’s designed to provide each worker with 16 weeks of pay.
Depending on who’s doing the calculation, the golden handshake handed to ex-CEO Gregg Steinhafel last May is in roughly in the same ballpark.
Fortune Magazine put the value of his total "walk-away" package, including stock options and other benefits, at $61 million US, including severance of $15.9 million.
quote:They could have paid their taxes with some of that severance money, but it was more important to throw money at an idiot.
... Alvarez & Marsal Canada, the court-appointed monitor handling Target Canada’s creditor protection and insolvency, has filed papers that show the retailer has total liabilities of $5.1 billion, including accounts payable of about $546 million. ... The amounts include $12,036,000 to the Canada Revenue Agency, $8,372,000 to the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board, $2,674,000 to the province of British Columbia ...
quote:The object is not to keep a stock of ultra-rich people so that you can periodically raid their assets to ameliorate temporarily the position of everybody else. The object is to get as close as you can to a society where nobody is ultra-rich and nobody is ultra-poor, but almost everybody is clsoe enough to the middle to feel, with reason, some sense of connection to everybody else. And as I have said earlier this can be aand has been achieved even within capitalist economies- but not within the model of capitalism that the UK and US follow.
Originally posted by Anglican't:
quote:Hang on, wouldn't running out of 'ultra-wealthy' people be a massive problem, if you're reliant on taking their money? It's a bit like killing a goose, eating the meat and then wondering why it hasn't laid an egg. Or do you tell the equivalent of these 7,000 people fifty years down the line that they're not going to get anything?
Originally posted by anoesis:
To answer just a couple of your questions: What will they be doing? Well, the first thing that springs to mind is that 7000 people each earning $40k a year for 50 years are highly likely to pay income tax, and highly unlikely to have money in Swiss or Bermudan bank accounts. Which I think helps answer the last question of why it might not be a problem tax-wise if the world should run out of 'ultra-wealthy' people.
quote:You forgot customers and suppliers. They get screwed too. For all the BS we hear about 'empowerment' only wealth actually empowers anyone, and those who have wealth aren't giving it up without a fight. That fight is called class war.
Originally posted by Soror Magna:
Who are the real entrepeneurs in Target? The stockholders, and they've just been royally screwed by a no-talent asshat. This man is filthy stinking rich, but he is clearly neither an entrepreneur nor a job creator. The reason he was able to negotiate a sweet deal for failing so spectacularly is because he and the class of self-styled "entrepeneurs / job creators" have created a culture in which they give each other prezzies at the expense of stockholders and employees.
quote:I don't know Target. Never been to one. But if it's a discount retailer don't customers benefit from its existence by being able to buy a range of goods at a low price?
You forgot customers...They get screwed too. For all the BS we hear about 'empowerment' only wealth actually empowers anyone, and those who have wealth aren't giving it up without a fight. That fight is called class war.
quote:Nope, and the CEO won't ever have to work again, unlike the erstwhile employees.
Originally posted by Anglican't:
I've read that Target is closing its Canadian shops, but the whole thing isn't closing, is it?
quote:This. In a service-based economy it's not the ultra-wealthy who create the biggest number of extra jobs; it's the people on middle-to-low incomes.
The object is not to keep a stock of ultra-rich people so that you can periodically raid their assets to ameliorate temporarily the position of everybody else. The object is to get as close as you can to a society where nobody is ultra-rich and nobody is ultra-poor, but almost everybody is clsoe enough to the middle to feel, with reason, some sense of connection to everybody else. And as I have said earlier this can be aand has been achieved even within capitalist economies- but not within the model of capitalism that the UK and US follow.
, but continues to go on about how their "working class culture" continues to be their ethical motivation, I'm not going to completely disagree with them, but I'm going to be realistic and say that economic incentives are much more influential in terms of a person's economic decisions.
quote:Well, Target doesn't really "benefit" from this, either - except in the sense that they'll stop losing massive amounts of money on a failed expansion attempt ( $2 billion in losses since 2011.)
Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
The customers don't benefit from a chain of stores that have gone out of business, winding down to pay the CEO who saw the company sink get a massive golden handshake.
quote:I wasn't really talking about culture, but about how much money the average person is likely to spend on maintaining their desired lifestyle and how many jobs it will support. For example, if all the people in my village who work full-time could afford to pay someone else to clean their houses for them, that would create quite a lot of extra jobs; not particularly well-paid ones, but locally based and (potentially) flexible enough to be fitted round other responsibilities like caring for children or elderly members of the family. If only the ultra-wealthy can afford a cleaner there won't be any jobs for cleaners in my village, because there aren't any billionaires living here that I'm aware of.
The different classes certainly have their own cultures...
quote:So the financial planner's advice to these privileged losers is to work a whopping three days a week and ask Mom and Dad to help them borrow more money to mismanage. The rich really are different. And not in a good way.
“If Eric is willing to work one more day a week in the clinic, they can live within their means and still afford to build the new home using a HELOC with the parents’ home as security,” Mr. MacKenzie says.
quote:Which is a good thing, isn't it? As it allows more people to buy the product. If Betamax's advantages had been so significant, it would have survived. (Betamax also had a shorter recording time, didn't it?)
Originally posted by Jane R:
Beta-max was a much better video format than VHS, but because VHS was cheaper they got the biggest market share.
quote:It is if you were a bank clerk and were unable to find another job. Just as closing down the steelworks was a bad thing for the men in The Full Monty, who were left high and dry with no alternative employment opportunities except performing in striptease acts.
Are you saying that's been a bad thing?!
quote:I hate both Betamax and VHS because it really put the final nail in the coffin of the music hall industry.
Originally posted by Jane R:
You seem to be arguing that change is always good, which is an odd point of view for a traditional Tory
quote:I think that those jobs might still have been created had Microsoft something less of a functional monopoly.
Originally posted by Anglican't:
On the other hand, Jane, Microsoft (whose founders appear in this list of 85) has nearly 130,000 employees and how many jobs have been created thanks to the advances in computer technology that Microsoft pioneered?
quote:And I think it's reasonably certain that more people would have been employed in more companies if Microsoft hadn't repeatedly succumbed to the lure of anticompetitive practices.
Originally posted by Dafyd:
quote:I think that those jobs might still have been created had Microsoft something less of a functional monopoly.
Originally posted by Anglican't:
On the other hand, Jane, Microsoft (whose founders appear in this list of 85) has nearly 130,000 employees and how many jobs have been created thanks to the advances in computer technology that Microsoft pioneered?
(Even free-market absolutists are supposed to disapprove of functional monopolies.)
quote:They do, unless they are an owner of such an enterprise. Who needs to be entrepreneur when you have cornered the market?
Originally posted by Dafyd:
(Even free-market absolutists are supposed to disapprove of functional monopolies.)
quote:That's in an interesting question. We have a government monopoly on the distribution of natural gas, electricity, water, sewer, auto insurance and, partial monopolies on internet and cable television specifically because entrepeneurs and private business have refused to get involved in the market or cannot do it affordably. If the monopoly is gov't run and responsible to the legislature (elected officials), then the monopoly in practice may run more efficiently that any private enterprise even if in competition. And it may provide a service otherwise not available.
Originally posted by Sioni Sais:
quote:They do, unless they are an owner of such an enterprise. Who needs to be entrepreneur when you have cornered the market?
Originally posted by Dafyd:
(Even free-market absolutists are supposed to disapprove of functional monopolies.)
quote:It has to be said that while in theory monopolies are just as much a threat to the proper workings of the market as government intervention, free market absolutists seem quite able to tolerate them in practice.
Originally posted by Sioni Sais:
quote:They do, unless they are an owner of such an enterprise. Who needs to be entrepreneur when you have cornered the market?
Originally posted by Dafyd:
(Even free-market absolutists are supposed to disapprove of functional monopolies.)
quote:Sadly, serious questions about whether a service is best handled centrally or in a competitive market are rarely answered these days by a proper look at the pros and cons to figure out which is the more economically efficient approach. The answer is usually driven by ideology. It seems obvious to me that there are services that are best supplied to everyone, by government and services that are best thrown open to the variation and customisation of the marketplace. But in a lot of cases it's not immediately obvious which is which, and we rarely ask qualified people to figure out the right mix.
Originally posted by no prophet's flag is set so...:
quote:That's in an interesting question. We have a government monopoly on the distribution of natural gas, electricity, water, sewer, auto insurance and, partial monopolies on internet and cable television specifically because entrepeneurs and private business have refused to get involved in the market or cannot do it affordably. If the monopoly is gov't run and responsible to the legislature (elected officials), then the monopoly in practice may run more efficiently that any private enterprise even if in competition. And it may provide a service otherwise not available.
Originally posted by Sioni Sais:
quote:They do, unless they are an owner of such an enterprise. Who needs to be entrepreneur when you have cornered the market?
Originally posted by Dafyd:
(Even free-market absolutists are supposed to disapprove of functional monopolies.)
quote:Yes, in Britain class is a sub-culture thing, to do with mores and taste and values and ways of speaking. People are pretty quick at picking up on the cues that indicate whether someone else is of the same social class as themselves.
Originally posted by SvitlanaV2:
This has been hinted at in some previous posts, but it should be made explicit that what you've said here isn't exactly what class means in the British context. It's far more complicated, I would say.
There's a vague if problematic sense here that class is something you inherit, even if you do a very different job from your parents. It's about attitudes, tastes and behaviour as well as income and employment.
quote:The comments section of that article suggests that Eric and Ilsa's situation is fictional.
Originally posted by Soror Magna:
I'll give you an example of rich people who can't manage their money:
Debt doubts cast shadow for professional couple with five kids
Dad works two days a week, although he claims that adds up to 80 hours per week. They have five kids they obviously can't afford. They live rent-free, but horrors!, will have to find another home in a few months. Although they are self-employed, they've decided they don't need to save for retirement, or get life and disability insurance, because “I have no pension whatsoever, but like my parents, colleagues and mentors, I love my work and plan to keep going well into my 80s, so retiring is not a big concern, just living."
Check out the financial planner's advice:
quote:So the financial planner's advice to these privileged losers is to work a whopping three days a week and ask Mom and Dad to help them borrow more money to mismanage. The rich really are different. And not in a good way.
“If Eric is willing to work one more day a week in the clinic, they can live within their means and still afford to build the new home using a HELOC with the parents’ home as security,” Mr. MacKenzie says.
![[Killing me]](graemlins/killingme.gif)
quote:I would categorize that as grandstanding on both sides. The class war between the richer and poorer parts of the Eurozone seems more real to me. Should Greek debt be forgiven and the bill passed on to the North in the interest of fairness?
The term "class war" has been getting a few outings recently. Most prominently in yesterday's and today's headlines, Barack Obama's hope that he might raise taxes for the most wealthy has been met with spluttering outrage: "This is class war!
quote:Thankee kind sir - I refer my honourable friend to the standard work on this subject; "Sybil, Or the Two Nations," by a Mr Disraeli of the Beaconsfield area. He said it all a very long time ago.
Originally posted by Albertus:
Nah, for a proper traditional Tory view on these boards you need to go to someone like betjemaniac.
quote:So nobody in the tabloids is whipping up hatred of benefit claimants?
Originally posted by Russ:
Real class war" - whipping up hatred of other people just because of their class - is a hard-left (extreme socialist) idea.
quote:Of course not. That's business, which is modern and to everybody's benefit.
Originally posted by Dafyd:
quote:So nobody in the tabloids is whipping up hatred of benefit claimants?
Originally posted by Russ:
Real class war" - whipping up hatred of other people just because of their class - is a hard-left (extreme socialist) idea.
The rich are getting richer; the poorer are struggling and their lives are becoming more precarious, and the process is accompanied by a great deal of finger wagging by spokespeople for the richer and scapegoating of a particular poorer economic group. But apparently that's not class war.
quote:Disproving that suggestion would require a level of scrutiny of the tabloid press for which I lack the endurance.
Originally posted by Dafyd:
So nobody in the tabloids is whipping up hatred of benefit claimants?
quote:They don't have to suggest it. It's being done. The policies that have been enacted at least in the US are already "driving them over a cliff".
Originally posted by Russ:
But it has not come to my attention that anyone worth reading is suggesting that the world would be a better place if we put benefit claimants in buses and drove them over the edge of a cliff.
quote:You missed housing. A lack of decent, secure housing for the anyone who does not own their home puts all too many at risk of being made homeless, even if they aren't already homeless. Tenancies are typically short-term and woe betide any uppity tenants who want repairs done - at the very best their lease won't be renewed, and those with mortgages must live in dread of interest rates returning to the levels of the early 1990's (up to 15% in the UK).
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
quote:They don't have to suggest it. It's being done. The policies that have been enacted at least in the US are already "driving them over a cliff".
Originally posted by Russ:
But it has not come to my attention that anyone worth reading is suggesting that the world would be a better place if we put benefit claimants in buses and drove them over the edge of a cliff.
As mentioned before, the worst thing anyone is suggesting re the wealthy is that their taxes be increased. Unpleasant, sure, but certainly not life-threatening. No one is making any serious threat to their health or well-being.
But the policies being enacted by certain members of the 1% (yes, Koch bros I'm looking at you) does provide a serious threat to the health and well-being of those below the poverty line. When food stamps are cut so that families struggle daily with food insecurity-- lives are threatened. When people lose access to preventative health care and are only seen by a doctor when it becomes an emergency-- lives are lost. When the legal system is manipulated so that some members of society are virtually guaranteed to do serious jail time for offenses other members never serve time for (e.g. drugs)-- lives are threatened.
quote:I don't either: I let the Guardian do it so I don't have to. There's also the Church report on myths about poverty further down my post, if you think Guardian commentators are inherently untrustworthy.
Originally posted by Russ:
quote:Disproving that suggestion would require a level of scrutiny of the tabloid press for which I lack the endurance.
Originally posted by Dafyd:
So nobody in the tabloids is whipping up hatred of benefit claimants?
quote:You saying that wishing to drive the world's wealthiest people of a cliff is a position compatible with being worth reading? It's not mad or sociopathic to do so?
But it has not come to my attention that anyone worth reading is suggesting that the world would be a better place if we put benefit claimants in buses and drove them over the edge of a cliff.
quote:If it looks like hating someone, and quacks like hating someone, then probably it is...
One can assert that the proportion of fraudulent benefit claims is greater than 0%. And that the proportion of undeserving-but-within-the-rules claims is greater than 0%. And that these are Bad Things about which Something Should Be Done. All without hating anyone.
quote:The line between small-minded and ungenerous, and hatemongering is something of a blurry one I would think. Where do the myths rebutted in this report fall on the line?
If you say you have personal experience of some right-wing commentator crossing the line from legitimate political points (however small-minded and ungenerous) to hatemongering, then I'll believe you.
quote:IIRC, despite initial fears, videos coincided with an increase in cinema revenue. DVD is merely an extension of that, though it did increase the quality of black market releases.
Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
Just because VHS/Betamax have been mentioned already. The invention of video tape, and later DVD etc, almost certainly cut the number of people who went to the cinema to see any given movie -
quote:I believe it happens.
Originally posted by Sioni Sais:
Tenancies are typically short-term and woe betide any uppity tenants who want repairs done - at the very best their lease won't be renewed
quote:Yes, of course you do.
Originally posted by Russ:
Do I detect the faint whiff of a double standard here ?
quote:There's another side to that coin. I was an evil landlord for a while (was working abroad, and let out my UK flat).
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
Maliciously terminating someone's tenancy for requesting repairs on the property isn't.
quote:Not in proportion to the amount spent complaining about it.
Originally posted by Russ:
But so does benefit fraud.
quote:By the nature of things a few bad apples among the poor are a lower proportion of the whole than a few bad apples among landlords, since there are generally more poor people than landlords.
And the message I'm getting is that bad behaviour by individual welfare claimants isn't any reflection on the poor as a whole. Oh no, that would be hatemongering. Heaven forbid that anyone should imply it.
But bad behaviour by individual landlords, that's evidence of a class war waged by the rich against the poor.
quote:Looking at the public reaction to the behaviour of, say, Jimmy Carr, Starbucks and Gary Barlow, I'm not sure one could say that people are ambivalent about aggressive tax avoidance, never mind evasion.
Originally posted by Sioni Sais:
Benefit fraud is illegal and tax evasion is illegal, but while efforts to reduce benefit fraud have increased the effort to reduce tax evasion has been scaled down. Contrast also the attitude to tax evaders and benefit fraudsters.
quote:It's a slightly different subject, but I think Joe Public's feeling is mostly one of powerlessness.
Originally posted by Anglican't:
quote:Looking at the public reaction to the behaviour of, say, Jimmy Carr, Starbucks and Gary Barlow, I'm not sure one could say that people are ambivalent about aggressive tax avoidance, never mind evasion.
Originally posted by Sioni Sais:
Benefit fraud is illegal and tax evasion is illegal, but while efforts to reduce benefit fraud have increased the effort to reduce tax evasion has been scaled down. Contrast also the attitude to tax evaders and benefit fraudsters.
quote:I think the coverage of the alleged scale of benefit fraud (and benefit claims in general) dwarf the fairly small amount of material on tax avoidance and evasion.
Originally posted by Anglican't:
Looking at the public reaction to the behaviour of, say, Jimmy Carr, Starbucks and Gary Barlow, I'm not sure one could say that people are ambivalent about aggressive tax avoidance, never mind evasion.
quote:You're right - people aren't ambivalent about aggressive tax avoidance.
Originally posted by Anglican't:
quote:Looking at the public reaction to the behaviour of, say, Jimmy Carr, Starbucks and Gary Barlow, I'm not sure one could say that people are ambivalent about aggressive tax avoidance, never mind evasion.
Originally posted by Sioni Sais:
Benefit fraud is illegal and tax evasion is illegal, but while efforts to reduce benefit fraud have increased the effort to reduce tax evasion has been scaled down. Contrast also the attitude to tax evaders and benefit fraudsters.
quote:I think "every single one" is probably going too far: a system which is known to be un-policed ends up with the expenses claims of MPs.
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
I would put every single benefit fraud investigator with the DWP on the much more cost-effective trail of offshorers, below minimum-wage payers, and VAT fraudsters.
quote:Indeed. Which is why it makes sense to transfer the effort from benefit fraud (where each case is usually in the hundreds or thousands) to tax evasion (where each case is in the tens of thousands to millions).
Originally posted by Leorning Cniht:
quote:I think "every single one" is probably going too far: a system which is known to be un-policed ends up with the expenses claims of MPs.
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
I would put every single benefit fraud investigator with the DWP on the much more cost-effective trail of offshorers, below minimum-wage payers, and VAT fraudsters.
But in general, lying to the government in order to claim more handouts is functionally equivalent to lying to the government in order to pay less tax. Both are fraud, and theft, and cost-effectiveness is a reasonable metric with which to decide which fruit to pick.
quote:Nope, the "Great Evils" it identified are still going strong. They were, and are, "Squalor, ignorance, want, idleness, and disease".
Originally posted by L'organist:
I think everyone should get themselves a copy of William Beveridge's original Report and read it: then having read it they should make a note of how they think it should be updated for the world of 2015 and compare that with the system as it is now.
You might be surprised.
quote:Let's start with that elderly couple in Buckingham Palace Gate who not only have a big house with lots of empty room, they have some very strange (unique to them and their extended family) tax arrangements.
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:Which is why it makes sense to transfer the effort from benefit fraud (where each case is usually in the hundreds or thousands) to tax evasion (where each case is in the tens of thousands to millions). [/QB]
quote:is how he put it. Indeed, towards the end of his life he became quite bitter about the gloss politicians (particularly of the left) and social commentators put on the ideas contained in his report, complaining bitterly to a former colleague
Benefit in return for contributions, rather than free allowances from the State, is what the people desire
quote:As for your
his original ideas had been mutilated, reversed and taken completely out of his hands although given his name; that he had come to loathe both the caption “Welfare State” and the title “Beveridge Plan” which had become like advertising slogans, which taken together had led many people hopelessly to misunderstand what he had truly worked for’.
quote:1. The NHS has NEVER been 'national', nor could it ever be since the facilities available in somewhere like London with a number of teaching hospitals are always going to be greater than those of a single hospital serving a far-flung rural community such as in the Scottish highlands or mid-Wales.
...National Health Service that isn't national and is being sold off slice-by-slice...
quote:Part of the problem is that the Daily Mail is accorded more respect than the red tops (The Sun, Daily Mirror) but it publishes more, bigger lies. It started with the Zinoviev letter, which ensured the defeat of the first Labour government, and it has never let up.
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
Russ upthread looked for evidence of Tabloids whipping up hatred of benefit claimants
How does Making up fake stories qualify?
quote:I'm going to hold judgement on that one for a while. The subject of the article, a Mr. Kamran Kam, aspires to a career as an actor. He is, however, an actor in the same sense that every other waiter in Hollywood is an actor. He lists his experience (on the "starnow" website linked from your article) as "Previous unpaid speaking roles". It looks as though he might have had some paid work as an extra, but based on the evidence presented there, there is no way that he makes a living from acting or modelling.
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
How does Making up fake stories qualify?
quote:We had a whole thread about it when that quiz first came out. The study identified seven clusterings of people in the set of variables they considered. Nothing they considered has very much to do with what we traditionally call "social class" per se, although there are some correlations. These seven "classes" are more akin to the NRS social grades.
Originally posted by stonespring:
My earlier post got no reply - did anyone read about this study back in 2013 that posited 7 social classes as currently existing in the UK as opposed to the traditional 3?
quote:What this does demonstrate is that it is always possible to find a case to back up any argument you wish to make, and if that argument is what your readers want to hear, what is the chance that they will look at it critically?
Originally posted by Leorning Cniht:
Taking quotes out of context is bread and butter for the tabloid press (of which the Mail is certainly a member), as is editorial selection (they could go out and interview 99 normal decent people who claim benefits and one flake, and you know who would appear in their article), but I'd be surprised if they actually went to the lengths of wholesale fabrication - there are enough people in the country that it's easy enough to find a few examples to promote any viewpoint you would care to take.
quote:As a general rule, if every time a newspaper prints the article about an individual person or family, arguing that the law should be changed because "just look at this situation - it's not fair" your first assumption is that the newspaper is trying to pull a fast one on you, you won't be far wrong.
Originally posted by Sioni Sais:
Wholesale fabrication - unlikely. Wholesale misrepresentation and dishonesty - undoubtedly.
quote:I agree that just because a new study comes along does not mean it has any validity to the way things are going on in society, and that studies like these are often shallow in their criteria.
Originally posted by Leorning Cniht:
quote:We had a whole thread about it when that quiz first came out. The study identified seven clusterings of people in the set of variables they considered. Nothing they considered has very much to do with what we traditionally call "social class" per se, although there are some correlations. These seven "classes" are more akin to the NRS social grades.
Originally posted by stonespring:
My earlier post got no reply - did anyone read about this study back in 2013 that posited 7 social classes as currently existing in the UK as opposed to the traditional 3?
