Comments by "" (@lonevoice) on "Richard J Murphy" channel.

  1. America just voted stupid.
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  2. Our growing wealth inequality is clearly economically damaging and Labour should be addressing this fundamental problem but aren't so it will continue to get worse. As Richard indicates, the wealthy are incapable of spending enough of their income and are always left with a surplus. That surplus is then used to buy assets such as property, shares etc and with increasing numbers of wealthy chasing those assets, prices increase and so does the cost of using those assets in the active economy. Over time we see increasing amounts move out of the active economy into asset purchases and the economy suffers. Shouldn't that be obvious to our politicians?
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  3. I agree but what's really disappointing is that Starmer has already made it clear that he isn't going to change this. He wants growth but he has no intention of changing the flow of wealth to the rich that this creates. Wealth inequality will continue in rise.
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  4. Nice to get a detailed and balanced analysis of this, which mainstream media seem to be incapable of providing, all too often.
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  5. Isn't it about time that we started to properly tax the UK profits of businesses based in tax havens including a disallowance of intellectual property cost deductions unless they have been already charged to UK taxation. It would be a start but is long overdue.
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  6. Nothing would surprise me. We are already seeing UK business being flogged off on the cheap to American private equity and over the past 15 years, 40% of the UK stock exchange listing has gone.
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  7. I am a retired professional but can relate to much of this having had three university graduate boys struggle with this. Perhaps it relates to boys more than girls as it seems that at a young age, girls are often more articulate than boys, and the HR firewall for many businesses seem to be very focused on this. One of the boys (with grade 2A* and 2A A levels) faced a similar problem trying to get into medical school. He had good writing skills and had already written two novels but getting into medical school requires a demonstration of empathy and at this age it seems to be more natural to girls rather than boys. Perhaps that is partly why medical school intake is largely female. Competition is also massive. When Jeremy Hunt was Health minister he stated that it was cheaper to bring in a qualified doctor from abroad rather than train one up in the UK, so that doesn't help. Fortunately for my son, having been rejected by all but one university my wife and I insisted that he went on a weekend course aimed medical school entry. He did and sailed through his entry into the last remaining one and has been very successful during his training and is now fully qualified. Another one of the boys got a chemical engineering masters from one of the Russell Group universities. Then when he came to trying to get a job, he hit a brick wall and it went on for months. Firstly it wasn't helped by the fact that businesses seem to minimise their graduate training programmes and as with medicine, will tend to bring in qualified experienced people from abroad as and when needed. There are agencies in the UK that do just this. Then there is the HR firewall and that is a real nightmare. In the end my wife and I had to take on getting him a job as a project with formal weekly meetings with him to discuss progress and strategy. Eventually, largely thanks to my wife, he got a job and so far has been very successful in it and has already been promoted.
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  8. Agreed and yet the public, time after time, continue to vote this stuff in. They know what is happening with the health service, they have seen it with dentistry and yet they vote for more and more of it. They have been told that the NHS is being incrementally privatised and the signs are clearly there. They have seen it. Price will eventually become the filter within the NHS to determine who gets treated effectively. Many will eventually fall the wrong side of this barrier but will they then wake up? I somehow doubt it.
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  9. I agree. I expected far more from Labour but the degree of incompetence is astounding. They have a massive majority, they needed to be transformative but all we see is feebleness.
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  10. The Tories had a dream of creating a "Singapore on Thames" but it looks like Starmer may want to take over their mantle.
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  11.  @stevereilly  Unless we understand the past and learn from it similar mistakes will be made in the future. More recently the Tories have given use Brexit and a 5% drop in GDP. Before Cameron called his rushed Referendum car production was heading for 2 million per annum and about to overtake France. Now car production is half of that. Moving forward we have Farage and Badenock waiting in the wings with growing public popularity. I dread to think what nightmare either of them are likely concoct.
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  12. Not a great start by Reeves and doesn't bode well for the future. In a recent interview she was asked if she would create money as the US had done for investment. Her reply was that unlike the US, UK Sterling was not a Reserve Currency and so couldn't. Strangely, the IMF regards Sterling as one of 8 world reserve currencies. On the subject of winter fuel payments, it will be paid to those claiming pension credits but a lot of people who are entitled to pension credits aren't claiming them. Unfortunately she didn't clarify how she will get around this one or perhaps she can't be bothered and doesn't care.
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  13. Unfortunately for Starmer a level of expectation has already been created that he has no intention of fulfilling, so his support will quickly sour. It is also bad news for the rest of us because once the public mood changes Farage is ready and waiting.
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  14. I agree. The problem as I see it is that we recognise that there is a growing wealth inequality in the UK and the wealthy have political influence. I think that the problem is political rather than economic. The wealthy will clamour for a low tax, small state with false economics and if they succeed then the UK economy may grow but the amount available to the public at large may shrink. I think we have seen this in action over the past decade or so.
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  15. Supposedly, western countries are losing about $500bn per annum in corporation tax and $200bn in personal taxes through the use of tax havens. This is massive and impinges on the ability of western countries to provide decent public services and government investment. It is a problem that we are already experiencing and will get far worse if we do nothing.
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  16. The influence of big business and wealth is everywhere and growing. We see it with their control over the media and the messaging that it puts out. As Richard points out, we see it in the pharmaceutical and food industry. It is there in our politics and I think that their influence was there in Labour's budget last week. It is there driving populism and the denigration of democracy etc etc. For more on this, Grace Blakeley's book "Vulture Capitalism" and "The Invisible Doctrine" by George Monbiot are worth a read.
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  17. Having an individual as a national leader might have worked in medieval times but not today. Time and time again we have seen and continue to see that it doesn't work and is dangerous. The alternative is probably something closer to UK Select Committees, being cross party but one that nominates its own chairman and spokesperson.
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  18. Wes Streeting will spell out his vision for the Health Service later today. He has already been on the NewsAgents podcast stating that he wants a mix of public and private sector involvement. He emphasised the Daily Mail as an advocate for private healthcare. I find that troubling. For me, the Daily Mail spews out poison on a daily basis and I certainly would not like to associate my thought processes with anything that they print.
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  19. We have a growing wealth inequality in the UK which as Richard explains is damaging our economy. The problem with the wealthy is widely recognised in that they are unable to spend enough. They always have a surplus each year that they then use to buy assets such as shares or property etc. That in turn pushes up asset prices with a consequence on inflating rents etc but more importantly it acts as a drain on the active economy. As wealth inequality grows, more and more is drained out of the active economy into assets. The economy is inhibited from functioning properly and asset prices rise.
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  20. We live in an increasingly complex and dangerous world yet we place our trust in leaders who cannot be trusted. Can we really afford to continue like this?
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  21. Public sector pensions, not state pensions. He wasn't advocating getting rid of it, just the accrual of future costs some of which run for 50 years or so. Public sector pensions would then just be treated as an annual cost for government based on what was paid.
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  22. Before Starmer became leader he indicated that he was in favour of PR but now hew has made it very clear that he isn't. Carol Vorderman has said that she wants to support Labour this time around and use tactical voting to get the Tories out but next time, if PR isn't introduced, she will try and get tactical voting to remove Labour.
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  23. There are something like 1,300 reservoirs in the UK with new ones being created as demand increased. However, the last one to be constructed was in 1989 and since then the population size has grown and the demands from the economy has increased as is highlighted in this video.
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  24. Is this good news for the UK? The UK is certainly innovative but tends to sell out on the cheap to US private equity. At present there has been a US stranglehold of most things tech related on the UK and the US seems to have a monopoly on many areas within the UK. Worse still, the government has recently sacked the head of the Monopolies Commission. Are we really that much under the thumb of the US?
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  25.  @skyblazeeterno  It's part of the direction of travel globally where the public are easily conned and vote against their own best interests. We see it now in the US, we saw it in the UK with Brexit, we see it in Russia...
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  26. What sort of senior management do we employ at Companies House and HMRC? Are they not making representations like this to government? Is it that government aren't interested? Certainly, apart from Richard, voices are not finding their way through into the media. Perhaps senior management in these organisations are more interested in just keeping their heads down. It's not good enough!
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  27. The country desperately needs Labour to invest and be transformative. Clement Attley was dealt a far worse hand than Starmer will have and yet made very significant changes. Labour now needs to do the same and the tools are available.
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  28. Why is it that Richard is able to think about and articulate very real issues like this, yet government with all of the resources that it has, is incapable of any such articulation or thought process into the future?
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  29.  @adenwellsmith6908  Nonsense. Murphy is an expert on the UK tax system and knows how badly structured and flawed it is. Understandably, he is a keen advocate on rectifying this and that would benefit most of us.
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  30. Well said.
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  31. I am inclined to agree. Resolving it however is another story particularly as the management of the UK economy has been and continues to be a real sh*t show.
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  32. I agree. There is a poor utilisation of skills within the economy. Firstly, people develop at different rates but they are pigeon-holed by their early twenties, if not younger. Some may be lucky enough to develop into a more suitable role but even if they gain a skill set or knowledge, a lack of experience will hamper them. The HR firewall for entry will often block them if they don't have relevant experience, and sometimes the requirement for experience is so narrow that even really good candidates with suitable skills are ignored in favour of someone who ticks all boxes. Then, in large organisations we have the Peter Principle where it is said that everyone rises to their level of incompetence. In that scenario a recruiting and ineffective boss will worry that he or she doesn't recruit someone who is too clever. Adequate is the name of the game.
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  33. Gary Stevenson is concerned about the growing wealth inequality in the UK and the economic damage that arises from that. He believes that it's a problem that needs to be addressed but I didn't think that he was an advocate for any specific measure. I was probably in favour of a wealth tax but Richard's argument makes sense. It needs a more in depth scrutiny. Something needs to be done.
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  34. I am not surprised by Labour's policy. I listened to Rachel Reeves being interviewed by Rory Stewart and Alistair Campbell. Rory asked if Labour would invest heavily out of new money as the US did under Biden through their Inflation Reduction Act. Reeves said that unlike the US dollar, sterling was not a reserve currency so couldn't. Both Stewart and Campbell remained silent, but this was news to me and probably almost everyone including the IMF which regards sterling as a reserve currency. The $ may be the most important reserve currency but Reeves didn't say that. Did she not know or is there something else going on?
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  35. It's surely insane that the ICAEW keeps these fines. The ICAEW in this connection should be acting as agents of government and the fines should be passed over.
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  36. Interesting. If we accept that future pensions will always be paid out of current taxation but still need to provide for the future liability, shouldn't we do the same for all future healthcare costs of all UK nationals currently living and also all future educational costs of all UK children currently living? Why the inconsistency?
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  37. It again is the problem of having an individual in a leadership role. Leaders often tend to mislead and push the boundaries. The American public have voted in a leader and they don't really know what they have got. Policy on the basis of a leader's personal whim is not a great way to run a country.
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  38. I suspect that there are very influential seriously wealthy people that government is mindful of and is inhibiting government's ability to take the big picture view. They have the capability to be bold and transformative but all we are seeing at present is feeble.
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  39. It could also be useful for small charities and societies. I have acted as honorary treasurer for a couple until recently but out of frustration with the banks have given up. I have a distinct impression that there are at least a number of banks that don't want this type of business nowadays. In fact one bank (that shall remain nameless) even froze one of our accounts and threatened to close it for some insane reason that was completely fake. My appeal fell on deaf ears but when I referred it to the Banking Ombudsman the account was immediately unfrozen and the threat of closure removed!
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  40. Agreed and have been aware of this for some time, but will the Labour government make the changes needed? From what I have seen so far from them, I am not hopeful.
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  41. The government externalises costs through privatisation of certain services. We saw it with dentistry so that limited resources were effectively removed from a proportion of the public. The Tories seemed intent on doing the same with medical care.
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  42. It would be nice if government and the media were able to articulate their own thoughts on these issues but perhaps they don't have any.
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  43. Power corrupts and once in government the prospect of PR disappears.
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  44. Agreed. It seems that at present we have some sort of a Wild West lettings market and some degree of regulation is clearly overdue.
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  45. We do need proportional representation but Starmer is not going to give it. Carol Vorderman says that tactical voting will be used to enforce this. She says that she wants to annihilate the Tories with tactical voting in the GE but that the voting swing to Labour is only a borrowed vote and will be used against them if they don't act.
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  46.  @davidc4408  Maybe but we've had plenty of frustrations. A lot of young people will not have the benefit of people like my wife and I to drive things forward and I don't know where my two would have ended up without our help. I just feel sad that so much young potential never gets a chance.
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  47. Labour preference is to feed asset prices rather than growth in the active economy. Asset prices are where we are seeing growth.
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  48. Would Starmer have become leader of the party if he had been as open about his intentions as he is now? Back then he intimated that he was in favour of PR but now states that he is not in favour of it. Isn't national leadership by an individual something that should have been consigned to and left behind in the Middle Ages? We never know what we are getting with a leader and the world has become far too dangerous to let the unpredictable anywhere near power (no reflection on Starmer). I personally would prefer to see some form of cross party executive committee fulfilling this role. I appreciate that this isn't going to happen and also appreciate that one day our luck will run out.
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  49. Agreed. Most of the UK inflation recently has been supply driven and little to do with demand. As such increasing interest rates will not counter this and must surely be to either constrain economic growth or just to provide a bonus for the wealthy through their investments.
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  50. Agreed but by the time Labour get their act together they will be well into their solitary term in office and the Tories will then come back in and undo any such changes. In the UK we have a surging wealth inequality with the wealthiest advocating a smaller state with less taxation, a less effective tax collection service and diminished public services. They will suck more and more out of the economy to the detriment of the public at large. Labour have an opportunity to get us onto a better path but I fear it will be wasted.
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