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[Orange Wizard]

Huh. Saw some interesting figures somewhere else... wondering if someone better acquainted with the UK could confirm. Apparently they have a debt of ~1.5 trillion, with a 3% deficit (I.e. it'll go up by about 45 billion within the next year)... and an estimated impact of tax evasion pegged around 70b. Is this accurate? Could the UK actually completely erase their current deficit (and then some) if they thoroughly enforced their tax laws?

Sounds roughly on par with what I've heard, yeah. Tax evasion's not terribly easy to crack down on though, especially when people are keeping their money overseas.

E: Ninjerd

[mainiac]

Now we're (on the way) out of the EU, reduce/remove VAT across a wide swathe of the board and 'match' the funding gap with a revised Income Tax system that also shifts the contribution system further up the bell-curve, perhaps.

That's 13% of government revenues you are talking about replacing.  You would need a 43% increase in income tax collections.  And you want to make the income tax more progressive while you are at it?

[Max™]

Chuck Tingle is the man.

"Not only was he penetrating deep inside my throat... he was also penetrating deep inside... my heart."

[Neonivek]

The words used were not "genocide" but "repressing cultural identities". The difference between the two is huge.

Yes, they are both fictitious... at least in the way they are being used. (I mean there ARE "forced integration" programs where you aren't allowed to practice your culture and you need to change your name to something representative of the culture you joined. THAT would be repressing culture)

Because a "culture" isn't a static stagnant thing but rather it grows and evolves continuously over time.

Britain wasn't the same place 50 years ago, yet alone 100 years ago.

This idea that Britain with a China town being any less British then a Britain without is ridiculous.

---

But then again as I said I live in a place where the minority are the majority and we still believe we have a unique cultural identity...

While our neighbors believe there is a war on their culture and need to take legal and governmental measures to preserve it. (I'll leave who they are up to the imagination)

[Starver]

Now we're (on the way) out of the EU, reduce/remove VAT across a wide swathe of the board and 'match' the funding gap with a revised Income Tax system that also shifts the contribution system further up the bell-curve, perhaps.

That's 13% of government revenues you are talking about replacing.  You would need a 43% increase in income tax collections.  And you want to make the income tax more progressive while you are at it?

Of all the people who shouldn't be running our country, I guarantee you that I'm not even top of the list.  As I don't (honest), and have neither will or opportunity to do so (I promise you, or my name's not Jeremy whatever it is), allow me to dream up the start of a solution that needs a little more fine-tuning...

[Orange Wizard]

I find it ironic that conservative governments concerned with reducing deficits are also the first to cut income taxes.

[Starver]

I find it ironic that conservative governments concerned with reducing deficits are also the first to cut income taxes.

An argument is that with lower income taxes, people earn more (after tax), and/or businesses can pay more people what they are worth (a fixed wage-bill can be spread thinner, but less top-sliced to no net disadvantage),.  This money then gets spent, fuelling the economy, driving up business, skimming more off in purchase-side taxation and probably business rates as well, increasing wealth all round.

The problem is that lower earners are in thrall to the people who pay their wages (higher earners) who may not pass on the advantage and may just cleverly arrange things so that they are creaming off the bit not longer asked for in tax (by fair means or foul) to pay themselves and benefitting from their own lesser tax cream-off, and beggers can't be as much choosers.  There are rules (and unionised pressures) against such sharp practices, but there are rules against loads of things which the rich find ways to circumvent.

So, perhaps a form of 'wage multiple' restriction.  By some metric (dimensions of the hierarchy concerned) company bosses can't earn more than X times the lowest earner in their company, to encourage more pay down the line to 'allow' more pay at the top.  With regulations to prevent tricks of accounting (bonus shares in leiu, enhanced company pension contributions, or somesuch)... And then there's offshore tricks (already employed) to disavow earnings under a jurisdiction's tax laws and take the hit somewhere else where its less punitive (or nog punitive at all), and the argument is that this happens more.  But perhaps if proper (international) are not only made (as they are) but also enforced...  Well, what a wonderful world it could be.

Pipe dreams, naturally. It's a problem that better and more educated people than me have failed to solve. Even socialist systems still inevitably produce their Napoleons to counter their Snowballs, so that's probably idealist bunk too.

[Sonlirain]

So, perhaps a form of 'wage multiple' restriction.  By some metric (dimensions of the hierarchy concerned) company bosses can't earn more than X times the lowest earner in their company, to encourage more pay down the line to 'allow' more pay at the top.

That's actually something that was a thing in commie Poland. Not sure how well it was regulated tho.

[Orange Wizard]

Didn't Israel kick in a pay cap? In any case, the Nordic model seems to address wealth inequality pretty neatly.

[nenjin]

Just wanted to chip in about American nationalism from a couple pages ago. Because we have no true (as in we'd fight and die specifically for) connection to our state of birth, when you see American nationalism fracture its people don't have recourse to what Europeans have. When you lose your love for the EU, a European can at least say "Well at least I'm German" or "At least I'm French" in their own ethnocentric way. When US nationalism fractures I think it's a bigger problem for Americans because we don't go "Well at least I'm from California" or "Well at least I'm from Idaho." American nationalism is all or nothing. Without it, it's kind of the apocalypse because our identities are so tied to it. End result being, to me, Americans suffer a greater sense of disenfranchisement than others and all that comes with it when lose their connection to the better half of American nationalism. Even if you're not the "RA RA RA AMERICA" type, deep down you still consider yourself one, this is still your country for better or worse. If you've given up on that, you have no real recourse, no heritage or identity to fall back on. Which is why I think Americans viciously defend what it means to be American from each other.

About the only Americans that I think truly retain their connection to their state of birth is Southerners, who are probably the only group in America that might put their state above their country if it came down to it.

[mainiac]

America is just a club for other states to hang out with Maryland.  If you guys get tired we'll just take Delaware and go chill on our own.  Remember, you guys wouldn't even have a country if Maryland hadn't been there every time push came to shove.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

fuck maryland

[Frumple]

It's way out of your league MSH. You couldn't even survive being spread out over a small geographical location, never mind a whole state.

[mainiac]

I am unfamiliar with this definition of fuck.

[Cthulhu]

I think he's suggesting MSH wants to stick the geography of Maryland up his ass.