NHS recieve 3% payrise

Those who worked though Covid in the workplace putting themselves in danger - 6%
Those who worked from home and saw zero travel costs etc - 0%

Not sure how good of an idea that would be. Incentivise people to travel to their workplaces when they could be working from home, and probably increase the number of transmissions and the infection rate.
 
I understand that, but the principles (re debt) still apply. I do not want to leave a huge negative legacy for my kids and grandkids in this way, it is just plain unfair imho.
The principles regarding debts do not apply when it comes to Government borrowing.

Currently the US has surpassed the level of borrowing to GDP that economists would have thought would damage their economy... but it hasn't. And as it stands economists do not actually know what the real level of debt to GDP that would cause damage. It's safe to say that we are some way off that.

And it never needs to be paid back, it could be just swallowed up by inflation.

Balancing the books and cutting the deficit are terms we are all familiar with as the Tories drilled it into us that we needed austerity or our economy would collapse. And over the pond they did the exact opposite and their economy faired far better.
 
The scale of Governement debt is increasing much faster than inflation. My guess is the UK Government will just create more new money, rather than increase taxes by much.

The 3% NHS offer will be what inflation will be soon. Its probably all we really can afford. I appreciate some of the frontline staff have worked very hard and under extra risk during Covid.

There was an interesting debate on Newsnight a couple of nights ago about how we should fund social care. In England and Wales at present quite a bit is self funded say by selling an old persons property and taking all their savings bar £23,250. The quality of social care for the elderly is deemed by experts to be quite low with a lot of front line staff on living wage, home visits quite short etc. Proposals are to make everyone pay National Insurance on their income till they stop working and/or increase national insurance by 1% for everyone. For the last 30 years no Governement has really done anything even though they all promised to do so.
I don't see why those who pay NI, a tax for working people that all over 67 are exempt from, should pay for social care. Especially if it's just to guarantee the savings of the wealthy
 
I think we will all have to pay more, people are living longer, they have pensions and greater health costs.

I know someone who works in conveyancing and the amount of people who paid £500,000 cash for additional property (in this region) to avoid stamp duty tax was surprising/annoying.

There is a lot of tax that needs to be collected long before we need to think about increasing the national debt.
 
Ad Infinitum, who pays the repayments read my post again. The rich will not keep paying more and more the burden hits the poor harder if they walk away. You keep borrowing yourself and see where it gets you.
you can't compare government borrowing to personal borrowing, they don't work anywhere near the same.
 
you can't compare government borrowing to personal borrowing, they don't work anywhere near the same.
I accept they don’t operate the same way, but i believe the principles of debt need to be applied appropriately. The more the nation borrows, the bigger the repayments become, the more the government needs to raise from taxes. The burden is shared across the majority but always falls harder on the less well off in my experience. If you switch it more and more to the better off, they can and some will leave the country taking their wealth taxes and jobs with them. It is a fine balancing act any government treads.

I do think we could squeeze the very rich folk a bit more than we do and i accept our current misfits wont do that for personal reasons as much as anything. One thing that really boils my waterworks is the higher rate pension tax relief. Where else can you get a 40% savings rate? Scrap it now, it is just unfair imho and it is a starter for ten.

As an aside, anyone in work should pile as much as they can realistically afford into such a scheme while they can imho (I know that is a struggle for many) the lower 20% rate for the ordinary worker is still great but the 40% rate should be scrapped imho.
 
The more the nation borrows, the bigger the repayments become, the more the government needs to raise from taxes.
See the video highlighted earlier, you can believe that, but it isn't the way it works in a modern economy
 
See the video highlighted earlier, you can believe that, but it isn't the way it works in a modern economy
I have watched it and I accept what it says, but you can not keep borrowing and spending allowing debt to rise without the consequences of inflation. Increased spending by government feeds through to increase demand, usually driving prices northwards, which further feeds inflation. Economies have to be balanced as that video rightly states, taxation and interest rates dampen demand helping to create balance and get a hold of inflation. The wealth outside the system is clearly a problem, but you can’t risk too much as the wealthy can afford to exercise their right to swan off to Singapore like Dyson. They do put into the system via taxes, employment etc that feeds back into the economy to support the balance needed surely? The balance may not be right, well i know it isn’t, it works against the majority. Nonetheless, you have to have control and awareness of debt, to sustain a balanced economy, inflation hits the poorest the hardest too sadly.
 
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