O/T General Election called for on 4th July

[animallittle3]

I never said it was a crime to be rich, it's not, but the fact remains that unless inequality is properly addressed, things will get worse. End of story.

Tax avoidance? That's difficult to defend when millionaire/billionaire politicians legislate to make tax avoidance easier for the uber rich i.e. themselves!

Here's the deal... Sunak (for example) is worth ~£800m. He can generate £24m per year minimum by not doing much with his wealth (It will be more than that - I read somewhere recently that his wealth increased ~£122m over the last year). What does he do with that £24m?...buys more assets. Result, snowball effect with more assets being gobbled up. Demand for assets increase = price for assets increase.

This is happening on a grand scale. Imagine how many "new assets" a multi billionaire can grab hold of each year. We're seeing the effects with increased property prices, runaway leasehold charges, increased rents, increased food prices, runaway energy prices, runaway profits for global corps, inflation, government unable to properly fund public services (so they print more money which effectively goes straight to the rich and devalues the quid in our pocket) etc. etc.

The idea of a wealth tax is gaining traction despite our politicians ignoring it.

https://millionairesforhumanity.org/

Are you uber rich animal? You seem keen to defend them despite all this.

No I'm not super rich and unlikely to be , just to give you a bit of my background , I was a member of the NUM and was at Ogreave in 1984 , I was arrested at the 1990 anti poll tax demonstration in London although never charged .

I think where we are is that we wish to see inequality vastly reduced but have different opinions on how that's achieved as I'll explain .

Simply taxing the super rich just isn't worth the bother for what you are likely to receive back , these people operate in a totally different world to the rest of us and avoiding taxation is something many of them do pretty easily because they have access to sophisticated systems and if they can avoid taxes as they stand today it makes sense they'll avoid any future wealth tax just as easily .

The second point is which government is going to introduce a wealth tax ? , I'd hazard a guess that neither of the two major party's will and since only the Conservatives and Labour are ever likely to form a government I think we can forget that .

It's possible that a Jeremy Corbyn government would have done but that particular type of the Labour movement has now come and gone and won't be making a come back so that's another option unlikely to come to fruition .

So politically it's not going to happen given the left of politics is now more or less extinguished and what remains of it would rather march through central London every Saturday afternoon waving Palestinian flags and call everyone who disagrees with them a racist or a Nazi .

What will happen is that an incoming Labour government may reduce NHS waiting lists a little or you'll get a doctor's appointment in a week's time rather than two weeks .

The minimum wage will continue to follow inflation rates which the Tories have followed even if rather surprisingly .

Any major investment will depend on growth and productivity because Reeves signed up to the very same fiscal targets as Hunt did , make of that what you will .

It's of a bit long winded post I admit just to say " there's nobody left to do the fighting anymore "

But that's the reality .

[mellowmiller]

How much longer are we going to keep switching between the same two hopeless moribund parties?

Probably forever because there never has been and seemingly never will be a credible third alternative.