Quote Originally Posted by Geoff Parkstone View Post
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Except it doesn't, as 50% of what are classed as benefits are pensions, which is down to an aging population and that population living longer, thought the living longer seems to be tailing off a wee bit.

Drill down even further and one will find over 65's account for over 40% of the NHS budget and then of course there is the social care budget.

Its also worth adding context, in that the expenditure on benefits (inc pensions) is greater than income tax, there are of course other significant taxes collected by the government.

Of course project fear, did point out that with a faling birth rate and aging population, the number of employed people paying income tax/NI required to pay future pensions would fall and thats exactly whats happening as well.

Meanwhile a large proportion of those very people who are in receipt of both a pension and NHS treatment seem happy to vote for a party whose leader has more than once said he'd look at private provison for both and proposes even more draconian immigration controls, whilst being funded by dodgy billionaires based overseas who pay little or no UK tax. Truly Trkeys vote for Christmas sometimes!
Mea Culpa. Hadn't appreciated pensions included in the benefits total. But still more money spent on non working people than generated by those in work. Of course there are also VAT, corporation taxes, inheritance taxes SDLT etc but that has to fund (but doesn't) all other government costs.

The fascinating dynamic here is in the supply/demand for labour (and hence income taxes) is very volatile in both supply and demand. Supply - we have a lot of graduate unemployment yet a growing demand for imported labour (legit immigration). At the same time we face massive long term falls in demand for labour due to AI. So personal income tax contributions are inevitably falling whilst redundancy in the workforce rises further.

How to tax AI??

How can an economy in the conventional sense survive the changes driven by essentially technology making people irrelevant. The dystopian future may not be that far away and it.would maybe enforce equitable distribution of wealth created by machines??

God knows, glad it's not my problem to resolve[/QUOTE]

Which brings us back neatly to my post a fair while ago about a Universal basic income, I mean with some of the benefit system we almost have that now for the uemployable.

There are any number of practical ways the economy COULD chnage to take account of technology and changing circumstances, the question is will those (less than 2% of thepopulation) who are growing ever richer from the current system be willing to make that change?

If one looks back at how the world of work and the economy has changed over the deacades, its clear that the benefits of technology economically have been to increase profits - viz, automation, reducing labour costs.

Back in the mid to late 70's the talk was how technology would reduce the working week and change working patterns, with increased leisure time. Yet here we are 40 years plus later, stuck with a 5 day working week, arguing about working from home and flexible working. While the mega rich have got even richer.

If one looks at how technology has changed everything from banking, buying transport tickets, shopping etc. etc. How much of this (with perhaps the exception of budget airlines) has benefitted either the employee with higher wages or the consumer with lower prices? The answer largely is it han't, one pays full price for your grocery shop and check it out yourself or at the moment go to a staffed checkout (assuming one is manned).

I do ask myself time and again, if one has many millions, how much more does one need? Why this compulsive obsession with obtaining more money than one needs and then being obsessed with not paying any more tax than one has to.

I say this as one who has just had his P60 for last year and added up how much tax I as a retired person paid last year. Its a fair wack, but not one that I begrudge.

Maybe the super rich think they can withdraw to thier gated communities and fend off the ravening hordes in future years. Or maybe they will find that they depend an awful lot on us proles they despise?