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

  1.  @adenwellsmith6908 Completely wrong. The tax system is seriously flawed. Much of the problem is that much of the tax levied is misdirected rather than the extent of tax itself.
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  2.  @adenwellsmith6908 No, the tax system a shambles. I am a chartered accountant and know this as well as Richard. Certainly, government doesn’t help but a fundamental overhaul is sadly needed.
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  3. Absolutely crazy that we allow individuals to have leadership of a country. It doesn't work and at some point in the future will kill us all, maybe even by a mistake.
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  4.  @goingpostal5858  At the top of some of the corporates it might help to clear out some of the deadwood and give energetic and promising bright sparks a chance to rise up.
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  5.  @Ahduciekwndnbbbsvvvghhhyyyyy  How did you work that one out? There is no evidence for that. Richard's video even discusses the failure to invest by the private sector during the past decade.
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  6.  @greenfields9977  No. I wasn't referring to a stealth tax either, just a tax on assets. As you say, this seems to be a tax on purchases whereas I am suggesting a tax on assets in existence in the UK. It would primarily be aimed at tax shelters, secretive and laundered assets.
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  7.  @pauljameshanley8542  Crap! You've been following too much of the mindless propaganda that is circulated in the media.
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  8. There is still a disconnect between the reality as Richard has outlined and messaging in the media. Theresa May once said that there was "no magic money tree" but then covid came along and government managed to conjure up £450bn. Did she lie? Perhaps she needed to qualify her statement, but this is still the messaging in the media even today. Do they want us to think that it never happened? Perhaps they don't want us to think at all.
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  9. Tory shill? You seem to be a bit confused. Pity you couldn't articulate this a bit more. Do you really want to shut yourself off from reality?
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  10. I agree exactly. I welcomed the increases to minimum wage but that probably needed to be offset by a reduction in employers national insurance rather than an increase. I can't see that this helps the economy and is slightly inflationary.We have a beating heart of an economy which is under strain with a lot of unproductive fat on the outside. Any surgical intervention from Reeves in the budget needed to be directed towards the fat and not the heart itself. The UK's economic heart has has been increasingly put under strain over the past decade or so as more and more has been drained off from the active economy into assets. In this context I relate the hearty to the active economy and assets as the unproductive fat. It may be a generalisation but is probably not far from reality.
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  11. I agree with Richard and this is an important video and I left a comment earlier which is still shown. I had three replies and responded to one of the replies to challenge the legitimacy of the statement made in a polite and factual manner. My reply was posted but then disappeared. Is there some agenda issue going on here? I can't imagine it was Richard that deleted the reply.
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  12.  @moon_knight8578  Yet is was during Blair's time as PM that we saw the real surge in buy-to-lets, but I take your point and about 50% of MPs have supposedly had rental properties. The real problem though has been the rapidly growing wealth inequality in the UK that has driven up asset prices such as property and shares. This continues, it hasn't been addressed and acts like a drain on the active economy of business, jobs and services as increasing amounts are drawn out.  The wealthy are unable to spend anywhere near enough, they always have a surplus and they use that to buy assets which is why we have crazy asset prices. The drain on the active economy then has a detrimental effect on government's ability to fund services such as the NHS, schools etc.
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  13. It seems to me that personal power and achievement is once again going to trump national responsibility. Why do we always seem to end up with the worst of the worst as leader?
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  14. Richard touched on tax havens. Isn't it time that countries started to specifically tax profits being routed through tax havens and significant assets where the owner is resident in a tax haven?
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  15.  @12theotherandrew  At present I am not sure what makes Starmer tick. All too often with leaders it is the prospect of power and then holding onto that power that trumps everything. That's what makes leaders dangerous and why national leadership doesn't work in the world today, not that I am saying that Starmer could be dangerous, but there are enough who are or could be.
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  16.  @RobinHarris-nf4yv  Yes transformative. That is what is needed. Perhaps you think that public services are fine, that there is no housing crisis and that the growing wealth inequality is not a problem. Is that really the case? I would be surprised if it is. What is meaningless about a wealth tax? There is a growing wealth inequality within the UK. Having a wealth tax is one means of addressing that. The problem with this inequality is that the affluent are unable to spend enough. They always have a surplus each year which they invest in assets such as shares and property, then as their surpluses grow, they buy more and more assets. This results in ever increasing asset prices through the increased demand and with it increased letting and rental costs. We are then left with a process of a continual drain on the real economy of jobs, services and business which is economically damaging. Interesting that you think that MMT does work. How is that?
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  17.  @SciaticJones  You and your whole generation deserve better. Somehow you have just got to stay strong and determined but realistically may have to consider developing a career outside of STEM subjects. That may even include an apprenticeship to gain a completely different skill. Awful I know but that's the state of the whole western world at present, and it's not going to improve anytime soon. I wish you well and get some luck, but keep trying.
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  18. Health and education are two of the most costly areas of government expenditure. The student loan system was dreamt up as a means to reduce the costs of tertiary education, by why pick on that one and not health? We have an aging population and know that health costs are increasing rapidly, particularly for the elderly as new and more sophisticated treatments become available, so why aren't the young asking why pick on them and not the elderly? I can imagine an equivalent loan system being applied say to the over 60s whereby expensive hospital treatments have to be paid for through a loan system. The loan would then be repaid in full from their estate upon their eventual death or be written off at that stage. If we are not prepared to accept medical loans for the elderly why do we accept student loans for the young?
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  19. That may be true but the far right newspapers and media have already convinced a majority of the public of a different reality. Platforms like this may eventually cut through the propaganda but it will be a very long time coming but thanks Richard, we certainly need this.
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  20. Do we really get much thinking by commentators? Sadly, there isn't much evidence that this happens. I am not an economist but I can see that the biggest problems have been an unwillingness to invest and the surging wealth inequality with their allied asset prices. There is so much else but I think that they are the fundamental starting points. Just focusing on the wealthy, the main problem is that they are incapable of spending enough. They always have a surplus beyond their spending needs and they use that to invest in assets such as housing and shares etc. If this increases significantly, which it has, then the problem then is that increasing amounts have been withdrawn from the active economy of business, jobs, services into asset purchases. What we then see is that asset prices increase and there is an increasing drain on the active economy which gets worse and the lives of the public becomes increasingly sh*t. Some people say that we can't tax the rich because they will just emigrate. That's fine. If a board member from a top company decides to go and live abroad then there is always someone else willing and quite possibly more able, to take his or her place. If a businessman sells up then he may go but the business, now in new hands remains. One thing that we should be doing and don't even talk about is taxing those significant assets in the UK where the owner either lives in a tax haven or can't be identified. In a similar way we should tax the UK profits of those businesses that are based in a tax haven and disallowed certain expenses such as intellectual property rights unless that have previously been taxed in the UK.
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  21. Is Rachel Reeves an advocate of MMT? I suspect not. Labour's fiscal policy includes a requirement to reduce UK debt by their fifth year in government. Won't this happen automatically with quantitative tightening regardless of whatever else they are likely to do?
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  22. I agree but all the while government is on the road to neoliberalism, incremental privatisation and profit extraction is the objective until the service is no longer functional and will have to be disbanded.
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  23. Over the past decade or so the Tories sold the UK down the river to the US and Labour look as though they will continue with that but under Trump the take could be far more aggressive. Do we really want to be a poor vassel state under their control? Elon Musk is already showing signs that this is how we are viewed.
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  24. Seems as though you admire Trump. He is dangerous as are very many leaders in the world today. In my view, national leadership by any individual doesn't work. Far too often we see leaders mislead once in power, push the boundaries and the public never really know what they are getting. In the modern era this unpredictability creates risk and is dangerous. Any semblance of stability in the world today is precarious and at some point our luck will run out. The only solution that I can see is for leadership to be in the hands of a small cross party group of MPs (in the case of the UK). They may appoint a chairman and spokesperson to represent the leadership group but the group would have control. They would be appointed by means of some form of PR election, preferably annually and largely electronically (much like the submission of Tax Returns). Having it annually would reduce short terms and enable better long term planning. The above is just a broad outline but in reality is unlikely to ever be implemented. There is no discussion of anything along these lines. The powerful and wealthy influencers wouldn't like it and would interfere. Even if something like this was established in one country it is unlikely to be replicated elsewhere. As you can probably gather, I am not optimistic about the ability of our species to survive. At some point I think that our luck will run out but no-one seems to be concerned so perhaps I shouldn't either in our insane world.
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  25.  @antonyjh1234  This is a side issue and subset of what I referred to. Yes there is borrowing by the general public particularly in terms of credit card debt and mortgage debt. Increases in these as interest rates rise increases the worth of the bank shares that lend and are owned by the wealthy. Significant changes here have arisen in recent years because of inflation and interest rate rises. They can also relax once interest rates and inflation return to their target levels. The changes in wealth inequality that I referred to are more of a long term problem and have been increasing for decades and are ongoing.
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  26.  @antonyjh1234  The problem with the wealthy is that they are incapable of spending enough. They always have a surplus above their spending needs that they invest. That tends to be into assets such as property, shares etc and over time as more and more money is chasing these assets, their price increases. The other side of this is that increasing amounts are being withdrawn from the active economy of jobs, business and services into asset purchases. It is an increasing drain on the active economy and it becomes increasingly difficult to achieve growth there. Nearly all of the growth that we see is in asset prices. That in turn has another detrimental effect on the active economy because as asset prices rise, their use within the active economy also becomes more expensive, most notably in the cost of rents. The solution is to reduce this drain on the active economy so that it is manageable. That can only be done through taxation. Within limits, every £1 taken from the 1% and given to the 99% will see a boost to the active economy as they will spend whereas the 1% are unable to. Effectively what we would see is a transfer out of asset prices back into the active economy.
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  27.  @stephfoxwell4620  Probably by postal vote or at local library. We have something like this with Tax Returns. They are generally expected to be filed online but a paper one can be submitted provided it is done by 31 October.
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  28. Agreed. Our current pseudo democracy is damaging for our economy and society and the extremes of parliamentary power that arise as a consequence is the reason for the frequent insane political swings that we have to live through.
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  29. Labour will only win in 2029 if the other parties fail. The right of politics is so congested with Labour, Reform and the Tories, but Labour isn't naturally positioned there. Apart from the Greens, there is a massive void to the left that doesn't look as though it is going to be filled anytime soon.
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  30.  @andyinsuffolk  Depends upon your scope of the word "supreme". I would suggest that democratic leaders often push the boundaries of what the public expected when they were elected. Leaders, particularly with a large mandate, have a strong control over their party. The party way well remain onside particularly if it has a narrow political stance. In these situations we often see leaders acting in their own best interests or their own narrow political vision rather than that of the country.
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  31.  @andyinsuffolk  Controlling politicians is easier said than done. In the past decade we have seen Cameron offer an ill thought through Brexit Referendum based on his own insecurity regarding the far right in his party. Then we had Johnson plough ahead with an extreme version of Brexit with no proper analysis and public discussion of the options. More recently we had Starmer indicate that he was in favour of PR but back track once it became clearer that he would win the election.  Going back further we had Thatcher implement absolutely massive changes to the UK. These were politically motivated by herself and the single minded nature of her character. She was willing to take a huge gamble in implementing changes on this scale. She may have been convinced in her own mind that they were right but changes of this magnitude can be damaging and need to be carefully thought through. Only a cross party collective can handle this in a careful and measured way.
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  32. I don't believe that national leadership by an individual works anywhere. Leaders mislead, the public seldom know what they are going to get or how far they will push the boundaries. More importantly, they are often potentially dangerous.
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  33. I agree with nearly all of this. In the UK we see a surge in wealth inequality and increasing asset prices. Those two are linked and are economically damaging. I am not convinced about aligning capital gains tax rates and income tax rates, something else is needed. The problem with this idea is that capital gains tend to crystallise in one tax year but are the result of the gain accruing over many tax years. Just bringing the whole gain into a single tax year may result in higher rates of tax applying than would be the case if the gain was spread. It could be dealt with but in my view CGT rates are currently too low and also in my view we see far too much of UK business being sold off to foreign private equity aided by low CGT rates. With regards corporation tax I would add a surcharge of taxing of those businesses operating in the UK but based in tax havens. I would also disallow costs that they like to charge for intellectual property unless that had previously been taxed in the UK.
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  34.  @metallitech  Richard also did a video on that topic: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0yMMTDYFlLc
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  35.  @fredfredrickson5436  Which are?
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  36. Exactly. Politics is being redefined as having a fascist equivalent norm. The vast majority of the population have no interest in trying to understand anything about the economy and are led by the superficial, even if it is nonsense and doesn't make sense. The oligarchs who own much of the media know how to manipulate the messaging and this propaganda works. People will quite happily vote against their own best interests. Just listen to the women in Whitby being interviewed on The News Agents today.
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  37.  @downshift4503  Since the financial crash UK growth per capita has been minimal and investment has been dire. Despite that the wealth of the richest in the UK has surged. There is still a thriving economy for the wealthy and their high end brands and also those areas where they live or tend to have a second home. Many areas beyond this are becoming a wasteland of despair, homelessness etc and it will continue to get worse.
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  38.  @downshift4503  No. Most of the increase in wealth for the rich in the UK has come from the rentier economy and from UK QE. Rentier refers to ownership of assets in general and not just property.
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  39.  @Vroomfondle1066  Sadly we are heading in that direction.
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  40.  @downshift4503  From a mix of government funding, overseas investment and UK investment from pension funds and individuals. Overseas investors tend to be attracted if the UK government is willing to invest. Since 2010 UK government has shown little interest in investing and couldn't even complete HS2.
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  41.  @downshift4503  Yes done on a massive scale. The BofE did this initially to prop up the banks and provide money for the banks to use but it didn't work. Instead the money just transferred from gilts to shares. This created a surge in the market that the wealthy took advantage of by buying current and selling at the top of the market (i.e. selling long).
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  42.  @downshift4503  The private sector often isn't great either. The best ones often are the private sector in partnership with government. I am certainly not attacking the wealthy, just providing some common sense to avoid extremes. The overseas investors come from all sources. The major shareholders of Thames Water for example include a Canadian state pension fund and a Chinese Sovereign Wealth Fund.
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  43.  @downshift4503  Thanks for letting me know that I misunderstood what QE was. I wasn't aware that I had said that gilts and money weren't effectively interchangeable. We know that the Bank of England Asset Purchase Finance Facility Ltd which is owned by the government provided the loan by which the Bank of England created money with which they then bought gilts from the banks. This created an increase in reported UK debt and it still does. Currently about 30% of the repoprted UK debt is owed by government to itself.
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  44.  @downshift4503  I am still not clear what you are saying. We know that about 30% of UK debt relates to QE for gilts purchased by the Bank of England and owing to the BofE Asset Purchase Finance Facility Ltd. The gilts will either be held until maturity and some have been resold at a loss. This is part of the process to repay the original QE loan from government.
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  45.  @downshift4503  Quite!
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  46. It seems that stupid people vote stupid so who knows. Trump has a lot on his agenda for the next 4 years but if he can get democracy to end then perhaps he or even Musk will carry on with the crazy agenda.
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  47. Sadly I agree. The main Tory void that their shift to the right has created has been taken over by Labour.
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  48. Trump is just one example from a whole sequence of deranged leaders having control across our world and over time. Such leaders create friction across and within states and are always potentially dangerous on a global scale. Over time these risks will multiply and increase but at some point our luck will run out. Isn't that obvious?
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  49. Reeves's pandering to extreme wealth and the dominant American corporates is not the answer. Having just read "Vassal State" by Angus Hanton, I find that the later is becoming really scary.
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  50.  @downshift4503  No, that is why there has been a succession of wars. I'ts just that now the potential cost and scale of major wars has increased beyond any imagination. My personal view is that individuals as leaders doesn't work. I would much rather see leadership by a small cross party group. That group would probably elect their own chairperson and spokesperson and general elections could be annually to fine tune the make up of the group over time. Voting could be done electronically similar to the filing of Tax Returns. I would also increase civil servant numbers and expertise in support of the group. In my view leadership of this nature would be more stable, more inclined to plan long term and be less willing to make to make rash decisions.
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