In the news

And a guillotine.

I'm listening...

Property often has to be mortgaged to pay for care in later life.

We pay for social care for people without assets, the requirement to contribute is only if you have a lot of wealth. If you have an outstanding tax bill that can be taken off and if that means you are broke then you don't pay like now.

Right now if you own a million pound home you are left alone unless you get sick. I want all owners of million pound homes to contribute equally, regardless of their health good or bad fortune.

That requirement exists already in Northern Ireland. Edit to pay for care and starts at a lot less than a million pound house.

I like to see a private care home insurance I can build up, but according to gocompare that no longer exists.

That way I can leave some inheritance but also pay my fair share.

The million pound bit was arbitrary. In England at present if you live alone and have if your capital is above £23,250 you pay, so basically all home owners. You can of course have a deferred payment agreement so yo don't pay until later but we are back to paying if you are unfortunate and need care rather than based on wealth. An OAP with a £100,000 home may 'spend' all of that on care while one with a £750,000 home contributes nothing.

https://twitter.com/sfinn80/status/1450815550637101066

"The Pope runs all the businesses and stripped the liability of Colchester hospital in 2013."

I'm a little disappointed there wasn't the sound of a shredder as they walked out

If you have a £750,000 do you not also have to contribute?

But of course you may still have inheritance left...with a carehome easily costing 20K a year the person with a 100K house may end up using it all up.

If you have a £750,000 do you not also have to contribute?

Not if you don't need care.

The current situation requires people that need care to pay for it if they have a small amount of money (or more). I would like a system where everyone pays towards care even if they are fortunate enough not to need it.

Kind of like the NHS model.

An argument for a general wealth tax makes sense.

I quite like the idea of a progressive VAT too. Zero for cheap stuff, triple digits for the pricey stuff.

Would be interesting - I imagine it would potentially push things such as cars from a finance/lease to a subscription, depending of course on what the VAT for the monthly payment would be.

That's ok by me, I'd be fine with that.

But like the NHS it will have two issues:

1: becoming a political football with little end user decision input
2: dishonesty about how much more taxes (where is a wealth tax...) read need to rise for an ageing population

So therefore I think the structure and control need to be done differently, but I'm happy with shared pots.

On inflation; won't very employable people have earnings that are likely to keep up with inflation? Those with large mortgages will inflate their way out of the debt. They will likely already be high earners.

Where do I know that has a concentration of those people? I'm sure there's somewhere. Gee wizz, I hope that place doesn't have a disfunctional housing market that could do without a subset of people already at the top of it getting even more cash to pump in.

Maybe more VAT bands? 0% on essential food, as now. 20% on chocolate. 50% on golf clubs.

It would be interesting to tax cars on value above a basic one with broadly similar function. A Kia Picanto is apparently 11.5k while an Audi A1 is 18.5k for basically the same features (4 doors, not much boot space, has an engine and some wheels) so that extra 7k is pure luxury and should be taxed at 40%? Probably impossible to codify.

Probably impossible to codify.

Do it on weight.

Maybe more VAT bands? 0% on essential food, as now. 20% on chocolate. 50% on golf clubs.

Some use could finally come out of Brexit.

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/oct/20/sunak-cut-corporation-tax-surcharge-banks-keep-city-competitive?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other

Now this nonsense. Article doesn't call out how much tax revenue will be lost by this though.

Caterhams for all!

They do far less damage than heavier cars, so I support your Caterhams for COP26 initiative

I'm startled that anyone thinks there is a positive case for inflation.

Drillium Caterhams for all!

Ftfy

There's a reason why monetarists (those who believe fighting inflation should always be the government's top priority) are found on the right wing and amongst the wealthy.
Margaret Thatcher was a big monetarist. For them it was never about about keeping your nan's cost of cat food down, it's about creating a stable investment climate for the top 1%.

For arguments sake, at 0% inflation, or even negative inflation (deflation) your employer can fire you and feel fairly confident that they can always hire you back at the same wage – or even at a discount.

Bosses feel fairly unduly confident about most things and probably don't give too many shits about firing you if you're a nameless wage slave whatever the situation.

Straight in the bin. Fucking fruitloops

Businesses can quite successfully pass on inflationary costs with higher pricing, and investors are likely to see returns and share prices rise in line with inflation.

Meanwhile, there is no benefit to employees, as inflationary wage growth is eaten up by inflation in their expenses.