Beer and Politics 3

Dave the Puma’s contribution ran like this:-

There was a brief period when the greatest disparities in income and ownership of wealth were reduced.   It ran from the end of the 40’s to the 70’s.. Remember that?   For most of us, that was your childhood , youth and early adulthood, that was.  It was based on hard lessons learned in the 20’s, 30’s and 40’s, and in two world wars.  Basically, these were: we are all in this together, certain goods should be provided collectively, e.g. health and education, and progressive taxation is good. Oh yeah, and that did not stop people having material progress, and quite a few getting fairly rich in the 50’s and 60’s: Lord Rayne (Max Rayne) made stupid amounts of money re-developing central London, for example; so you can’t complain that it was all Stalinist and there was only one kind of knickers available, see? Of course, the improvement in household economic equality wasn’t quite enough; I (we?) wanted personal liberation and other kinds of equality as well, so it wasn’t the desired end state, either..

During that magic time, in the words of one commentator, the bottom three quarters of society ganged up on the top quarter and made them behave themselves, for once. More equal societies are, on the whole, happier (see “The Spirit Level”, by Richard Wilkinson and Kate Picket, pub. Allen Lane, 2009, if you want an argument). Of course, the Tories hated it, and will do anything to get rid of the vestiges.  Blair/Brown didn’t do enough (much?) to reverse what That Woman started. However, Cameron will try to finish the job.  Currently, the distribution of wealth is back to what it was in 1937, I believe. 

(That was addressed to members of Slim’s List, most of whom met each other at the end of the 60’s/early 70’s, and now look on the current situation in mild horror.  A fair number lived in, or knew of University College London’s Max Rayne House, funded all or in part by Rayne; hence the reference to him)

Beer, Taxation and Politics: more

Another friend, Dick Scarborough, added the following healthy little rant about the state of the world, and our American Professor’s ideas on taxation:-

The problem of course is that this only refers to direct taxes. Most tax in Britain is charged through things like VAT. Assume rich man number 10 has an income of ... ooh, say £50,000 a week (far less than many premiership footballers earn) and eats and drinks much better than numbers 1-4 on an income of £100 a week (and that is being generous to those on unemployment). Numbers 1-4 spend maybe £20 a week in Tesco on crap food full of sugar and salt, because that's what is cheapest. They don't own a car because they can't afford it, or they drive around with no tax and insurance or MOT, waiting to have a lethal accident that will put them in jail and someone else (probably also poor) also ends up on Benefits as there is no insurance money. The rich guy spends maybe £5,000 a week on food of the highest quality and lives in a comfortable house rather than the over-priced and draughty slum the bottom 4 live in. He is rich because his forebears did something to please the king and were given loads of (untaxed) free land and stuff (including control over the poor). He will live years longer, and the taxes on his bought goods, although far more than what the poor pay, come out at a fraction in terms of the percentage of his income, even though he drives round in a Rolls Royce that does about 10 miles to the gallon, thus trashing the world for the next generation. That's when he isn't doing even worse by travelling in his own jet. If he were to leave the country a left wing government (has there ever been one here?) might nationalise his land or whack enormous taxes on it that he can't avoid, thus leaving him abroad - but poor. The way round this is what has been happening for ages. The rich transfer a lot of their assets to other countries to cover against such an event - but they can't take the land out, or the property. First move the Tories did when they came in? Tried to take the woods away from us (and I don't mean Graham and Heather). They were defeated by lots of people, including some of us, raising a stink, but they have already nicked most of the country, at least since 1066, and the most the majority of us will ever have is a house and maybe an acre or two, and for many that isn't going to happen.