The Politics of Envy...
............................. are back with us , belts are being tightened and lips pursed .All over the country women spit out the name “Posh Spice” with new venom and men , even Conservatives, find themselves wondering if they would not enjoy gently placing a pillow over Jonathan Ross` mouth and applying downward pressure.
As the New Labour project fragments faster than a globally warmed glacier (does not ), just when they should be soothing ,the lefties are starting to mutter the old dreams again. The Unions are squeezing , and even men of the cloth ,more properly engaged in being mystifyingly nasty to the gays ,are getting in a lather.
The Archbishop of Canterbury recently said of the rich list ” ..disproportion ( of reward) results in a degree of envy and cynicism that leads to people feeling alienated from the rest of society…” .Yes the Bish is obviously unhappy with his grace and favour palace and who can blame him , imagine finding your car keys
Many , like the dotty Bish, believe that under New Labour the rich have got richer and the poor poorer. Not so . According to the institute for fiscal studies since 1997 the people ranked in the top 10 % have seen their income grow by 17% in real terms. The bottom 5% have improved their lot by 13.5%. So the poor have not been getting poorer.
True the gap has grown a bit , perhaps then some question of morality arises. Nope , the activities of this class have assisted in the enrichment of the lowest 5 % but if Robin Hood should appear amongst us he would do no good anyway .There here are not enough rich people to go round , sorry. The IFS ,about three weeks ago ,calculated that the government would maximise revenues from those earning over £100,000 by imposing a marginal rate of 55.6% . This is perilously close to the current marginal rate of 53%including Income tax NI and indirect tax. It concluded that there was “No powerful case for increasing income tax on the very highest earners even on redistribute grounds” . the closeness of the result is not a coincidence .Gordon has taken all he can….well of course he has .
............................. are back with us , belts are being tightened and lips pursed .All over the country women spit out the name “Posh Spice” with new venom and men , even Conservatives, find themselves wondering if they would not enjoy gently placing a pillow over Jonathan Ross` mouth and applying downward pressure.
As the New Labour project fragments faster than a globally warmed glacier (does not ), just when they should be soothing ,the lefties are starting to mutter the old dreams again. The Unions are squeezing , and even men of the cloth ,more properly engaged in being mystifyingly nasty to the gays ,are getting in a lather.
The Archbishop of Canterbury recently said of the rich list ” ..disproportion ( of reward) results in a degree of envy and cynicism that leads to people feeling alienated from the rest of society…” .Yes the Bish is obviously unhappy with his grace and favour palace and who can blame him , imagine finding your car keys
Many , like the dotty Bish, believe that under New Labour the rich have got richer and the poor poorer. Not so . According to the institute for fiscal studies since 1997 the people ranked in the top 10 % have seen their income grow by 17% in real terms. The bottom 5% have improved their lot by 13.5%. So the poor have not been getting poorer.
True the gap has grown a bit , perhaps then some question of morality arises. Nope , the activities of this class have assisted in the enrichment of the lowest 5 % but if Robin Hood should appear amongst us he would do no good anyway .There here are not enough rich people to go round , sorry. The IFS ,about three weeks ago ,calculated that the government would maximise revenues from those earning over £100,000 by imposing a marginal rate of 55.6% . This is perilously close to the current marginal rate of 53%including Income tax NI and indirect tax. It concluded that there was “No powerful case for increasing income tax on the very highest earners even on redistribute grounds” . the closeness of the result is not a coincidence .Gordon has taken all he can….well of course he has .
In fact the system is already redistributive . The government's own survey of personal incomes , the top 1% of earners pay 11.6% of pre tax income and 22% of tax.. The bottom 25% recive 8.2% of the national pre tax income and pay 2% of income tax.
This means that if there is to be any further redistribution of income it would have to come not from Madonna and Ashcroft but from the entire top half .That means ordinary families whose bread winner is temporarily hitting the heights at the time ‘he’ is supporting a family . ‘He’ will be below both before and after this period and is already strapped and exhausted . He will feel the money he strives to earn is his; any would be merry outlaw demurring will soon acquire a misshapen nose .
This class are already hugely envious of those below who appear to get a free ride and those above who have energetically supported their increased taxation under Blair /Brown.It might be kinda fun to drag down the economy achieving nothing sufficient schaudenfreude to sweeten our Cocoa . The middling are not tempted .Partly this is because they accept that market spikes are part of a broadly meritocratic process of which they are the beneficiaries . They know that the rich being richer does not make them poorer .Most importantly they intuitively grasp that they have the revenue because they have the numbers . Any higher taxaation in reality asmd however sold , must therefore , come for their boring cars and reasonable holidays .This will be tax on work a tax on families a tax on self reliance and a recipe for disaster
Conservatives must of course ,reject the new politics’ of envy .It is wrong headed and harms those it pretends to care for .There have been too may personal attacks in Brownand I going to admit something here .I really don’t seriously object to him as a man whereas I hated Blair . ( There I `ve said it ).Sadly he is ‘wrong’, just wrong , and I am afraid the sincere buffoon does a lot more harm than a self serving charlatan who has a better grasp of reality. I mean Blair not Cameron of course……
Honest
This class are already hugely envious of those below who appear to get a free ride and those above who have energetically supported their increased taxation under Blair /Brown.It might be kinda fun to drag down the economy achieving nothing sufficient schaudenfreude to sweeten our Cocoa . The middling are not tempted .Partly this is because they accept that market spikes are part of a broadly meritocratic process of which they are the beneficiaries . They know that the rich being richer does not make them poorer .Most importantly they intuitively grasp that they have the revenue because they have the numbers . Any higher taxaation in reality asmd however sold , must therefore , come for their boring cars and reasonable holidays .This will be tax on work a tax on families a tax on self reliance and a recipe for disaster
Conservatives must of course ,reject the new politics’ of envy .It is wrong headed and harms those it pretends to care for .There have been too may personal attacks in Brownand I going to admit something here .I really don’t seriously object to him as a man whereas I hated Blair . ( There I `ve said it ).Sadly he is ‘wrong’, just wrong , and I am afraid the sincere buffoon does a lot more harm than a self serving charlatan who has a better grasp of reality. I mean Blair not Cameron of course……
Honest
13 comments:
Good post, newmania, except for the last bit about Brown. How can you not object to the money grabbing thug?
I'm convinced he's the prime mover behind turning UK into a surveillance society and getting us blacklisted (along with China and Russia) by Privacy International.
He's lined his own pockets at the taxpayer's expense, destroyed our economy and country, filched billions from England and used it to buy votes in Scotland and, the most heinous crime of all, sold us out to the EU.
I detest the man.
Glad to see you are blogging a bit again
Blair.. well I never hated him. He had that whole cheese smile thing down pat.
I resented the way that in 2001+2002 I never had a pay rise. By 2003 I had gone from well off to .. no holidays this year darling.
And that was Brown.
Stealth and straightforward taxes. Taxes on taxed income, like the council tax. Oh, I know weak man Blair let him do it. Let him spend like a perverted sailor on a trip to Bangkok. And about as wisely.
But Brown...
something about the total uselessness of the man. The complete lack of anything to say? The infuriating cowardice.
Blair would at least sometimes face his critics. Brown has to be dragged by the spin doctors into the lights of the cameras, where he looks like a captive forced to testify in a show trial, blinking into the glare and stumbling out lies about competence and how the regime is right.
Brown will surely be taking the Michael Foot award for the worst Labour leader of all time.
Its the only vote he will get from me.
Thanks , for that and thanks B Qunago. I think |I only meant I donot find his face as punchable as Blair`s and I cannot really hate him.
I have always seen him as a sort of buffoon , more of a Bean than a Stalin you might say. Itw as his babay tax credits that started me thinking this way ...it was so comic well he did not merit hate some how
Just seen your message on Dale that newmania's open for biz as normal again. Excellent!
"It might be kinda fun to drag down the economy achieving nothing sufficient schaudenfreude to sweeten our Cocoa"
Dragging down the economy? But the economy only exists for the benefit of the people within it!
Suffice it to say that most of those people happen not to be part of the super-rich elite.
As for envy... don't you think it's a good thing that people want more achievements to their name, doors opened to them, and material good for them and their families?
Most people are far below the monied elite. I think that these 'most people' should want more out of their lives. I also think that how they get it is of little relevence so long as it is democratic, but this is of little concern anyway, given that 1 per cent of the population own a quarter of the wealth, whil the entire bottom half owns only 6%.
If that market outcome is an accurate reflection of aspiration fulfilled, or real human worth, then I'm a banana.
I honestly preferred Blair really. Brown is not actually human at all is he? Also all that let them eat cake shit he did at that stupid summit thing when he ate 14 courses in a day////
The economy is not a social resource . It did not pop magically into being just as a start up company does not pop into being ~(not that anyone of the left would know anything about that). It is connected with ownership legally enforceable ownership and does not occur without it . IE you sitting around whining does not an economy make capiche?"
If as a whole it produces wealth then social good may follow .If it does not then none can. Redistribution stops growth as does state theft but far far quicker .Most people are actually part of a middling group for whom progressive taxation and welfare hand outs are a bitter cost and a devaluation of their efforts . These have done badly despite doing all the work for the last ten years . The rich parading the social conscience is loathsome to behold when they sacrifice nothing
I agree with you that envy in the sense of aspiration is good thing and it is a pity that the Labour Party are intent on squashing aspiration with high taxes and especially progressive taxes. Why would anyone who actually succeeds in their aspiration vote Labour ? In practice they do not.
“1 per cent of the population own a quarter of the wealth, while the entire bottom half owns only 6%“
That is an arresting statistic but a misleading one ‘It is estimated that the richest 1 per cent held around 70 per cent of the UK's wealth in 1911, compared with 23 per cent in 2001.’So you see this ‘unreal’ gap has closed a lot but actually much more than appears .It latterly reflects a global class somewhat aside form the main relevant stats and pretty much immeasurable as well. ie a lot of this is new wealth attracted here and moveable away. It is meaningless , if Madonna moves home then class distribution is more equal ? …Well I suppose so .So what. As to the bottom half owning 6% well this is wildly misleading isn1t it as people acquire property over their lives and that acquisition goes from nothing to whatever it is . I for example own not much but 1000 % more than I did ten years ago.
Lower down ownership has also tended to ossify relative to income shifts because assets have increased in value .
Income distribution is nothing like as dramatic ands what has happened is that the top percentiles have increased at a faster rate than the bottom but the bottom percentiles are still getting richer/. The one causes the other .As I have shown there is no further redistribution from tax available otherwise Brown would have taken it. What you want is to attack success even if you hurt everyone by doing so .
at a slight tangent (being that I agree wholeheartedly with your post)..I have really got wound up recently by said acts of charidee by city grandees.
Now the chips are down they make out what wonderful humans they are. All this is bollocks of the first order. When they were stuck for cash they gave nothing to charity - when they had everything they ever wanted then suddenly they became charitable.
At last glance I was not a lefty, but the spin and arrogance of wealth does wind me up. I am much more comfortable with good old fashioned greed.
. I am much more comfortable with good old fashioned greed.
My overriding theory is that people striking poses about people they do not know is usually fake. People can be very kind to their friends and family though
Newmania said...
people striking poses about people they do not know is usually fake. People can be very kind to their friends and family though
That may be a logical position for a man to take, but women, aside from the Rose West types, are usually different. When we see children suffering, like the children that Blair and Brown cluster bombed in Iraq, for example, I think our immediate response is that this could so easily be our children. That suffering therefore seems unbearable.
And that's a logical response too, because it could so easily be our children being bombed.
I have this picture on a leaflet from Amnesty International which has been making me miserable all week. It's of a beautiful young Chinese woman in the process of being garrotted during her public execution.
It's impossible not to identify such people, surely...like Atticus in To Kill A Mocking Bird...to find yourself walking around in their skin?
My reaction is more thank god it isn't us and in what way does this position make it more or less likely that it might be.
I don't mind being poorer so long as the people to whom my taxes go pull their weight and act a bit more gratefully for it.
Instead they are rude, arrogant and drop litter everywhere and have taken to owning bulldogs and wearing tattoos up their necks so as to assure that absolutely noone but gangsters will employ them.
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