The idea that the rest of us suffer because the super rich are subject to a nominal tax rate of 50p – and that’s the claim that 20 leading economists advance in the Financial Times this morning – is special pleading at its worst. What’s more, it is entirely intellectually spurious, too. For a start, in […]
Posts Tagged ‘Equality’
Cutting 50p tax rate is unfair and unnecessary
Sep 7th, 2011 by Michael Meacher.One has to rub one’s eyes. Britain is smack on course for a double-dip recession, the collapse of consumer and business confidence is ubiquitous, the manufacturing PMI barometer is turning down more sharply even than after the Lehman Brothers collapse, the US housing and labour markets remain extremely fragile, the Eurozone sovereign debt crisis is […]
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Keep kicking the “undeserving rich” – the message is getting through
Sep 1st, 2011 by Jon Lansman.According to the Spectator, politicians on all sides are increasingly concerned about the “undeserving rich”. It seems they are posing “a particular problem for David Cameron”, which makes it “imperative that Cameron takes on this group” or “public revulsion” will drive the country to the Left. The Tories have a pretty hazy idea exactly who […]
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Make super-rich Brits pay their fair (very large) share
Aug 30th, 2011 by Michael Meacher.It’s remarkable that the hyper-rich in France (Bettencourt and others) and in the US (Warren Buffett and others) are now calling at a time of austerity that they should be taxed more. Not a peep however out of the hyper-rich in Britain. Yet they, more than any of such wealth anywhere else in the world […]
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Cameron and Blair both muddle-headed on cause of riots
Aug 23rd, 2011 by Michael Meacher.Well, well, well. Who said “there are deep problems in our society that have been growing for a long time: a decline in responsibility, a rise in selfishness, a growing sense that individual rights come before anything else”? Cameron. And where does he think the selfishness and fixation on individualism came from, if not from […]
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Fairness & Prosperity: equality makes sense
Jul 20th, 2011 by Jon Lansman.The TUC yesterday published a really good new pamphlet Fairness & Prosperity by Howard Reed. If you don’t have time to read The Spirit Level, this will take less than an hour to read. It explains, clearly and succinctly, why growing inequality, contrary to the conventional economist’s claim, is bad for the economy, and bad […]
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A boost for the hard right of the party
Jun 19th, 2011 by Owen Jones.“Men make their own history,” wrote Karl Marx back in 1852, “but they do not make it as they please; they do not make it under self-selected circumstances, but under circumstances existing already, given and transmitted from the past.” Marx was a wise bloke, and was in this case talking about the admittedly pretty turbulent […]
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Wrong, wrong and wrong again Mr Miliband
Jun 14th, 2011 by Darrell Goodliffe.Yesterday, Ed Miliband disgraced himself and the office he holds. So, lets look at the detail. It didnt really start well with his tale of a disabled man who he thinks should be able to work. Sorry Ed but what precisely are your medical qualifications again? Why does your opinion of somebodies work capability count for, well […]
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The real face of Tory inequality
May 18th, 2011 by Michael Meacher.We all know that the Tories stand for class, wealth and power – particularly for themselves. But the extent of the transformation of British society currently being carried through and drastic stretching of inequality has hardly been recognised. Juxtapose these facts. On the one hand nearly 100,000 millionaires have been created in Britain since the […]
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Another financial tsunami: the massive shift from wages to profits
Apr 4th, 2011 by Michael Meacher.Unnoticed in the austerity-driven travails following the financial crash lies another tectonic shift. According to research by the US bank Morgan Stanley, since the start of the ‘recovery’ in 2009-10 total real wages have risen by £105bn, but profits have soared by £330bn. This is the first time that profits have outperformed wages in absolute […]
