Jeremy Corbyn suggests maximum earnings limit

[ladymuck]

He's called fullyautomix, not dialysis

Tsk, tsk. Gender neutral pronouns please!

[Smartie]

I agree with that and Corbyn is the only politician who can drive this. We need to ensure everybody in the country has a minimum income coming in and it should be revised with inflation. This should be funded by increased taxation. The taxation levels are a disgrace at the moment.

Won't work. We can't tax high enough to cover all benefits, particularly housing benefit. A minimum income should replace the benefits system to make efficiency savings.
It would cost hundreds of billions+ to give everyone say £18k a year and even that won't be enough for many.

Better to fix large company taxation/enforcement so we actually collect some.

And of course the other issue - look what happened when we last provided 'top up' in work benefits. Everyone ends up on minimum wage because the state subsidises the companies.

[jamesbrown]

The taxation levels are a disgrace at the moment.

Agreed, they are far too high

Also, this has avoidance industry wet-dream written all over it. Unless he's proposing to place a limit on total income and capital gains (and some way to prevent it being deferred), as opposed to salary from employment specifically, all those "high earners" are going to avoid it very easily indeed.

[LondonManc]

Won't work. We can't tax high enough to cover all benefits, particularly housing benefit. A minimum income should replace the benefits system to make efficiency savings.
It would cost hundreds of billions+ to give everyone say £18k a year and even that won't be enough for many.

Better to fix large company taxation/enforcement so we actually collect some.

And of course the other issue - look what happened when we last provided 'top up' in work benefits. Everyone ends up on minimum wage because the state subsidises the companies.

The ideal situation is that anyone working at least 20 hours per week is better off than anyone not doing so; that includes means-tested prescriptions and so on. That, though, relies on honesty about income, which many people don't have and which people who are paid cash in hand will never choose to do.

While it's financially better to remain on the dole, there's no incentive for vast swathes of lazy bell-ends to work.

[d000hg]

Perhaps he should suggest that big businesses pay their fair taxes and that the same HMRC rules are applied across the board - to politicians, corporate directors as well as the smaller businesses that are currently being hit.
He might find he picks up a few disgruntled Tory voters.

THat sounds like something he probably does suggest.

The ones that want to see Premier League football continue at a standard where players aren't stuck to earning less than £19,000 per week while the rest of the world happily pays much more, bankrupting our football clubs and leading to mass redundancies across the country in both football clubs and the peripheral businesses.

Scooterscot to the rescue yet again.

I don't think most Labour voters would mind this. You just spin it as making football less about corporate interest, obscene salaries and rich foreigners making money out of the beautiful game and focus on how it will mean English teams will end up full of English players again.

Fans often have a love-hate relationship with their team. The fact their team is made up of millionaires with beautiful hair who despise the working class fans wouldn't be hard to play on surely

[Smartie]

The ideal situation is that anyone working at least 20 hours per week is better off than anyone not doing so; that includes means-tested prescriptions and so on. That, though, relies on honesty about income, which many people don't have and which people who are paid cash in hand will never choose to do.

While it's financially better to remain on the dole, there's no incentive for vast swathes of lazy bell-ends to work.

Except, for a lot of people there is no work. Those in areas without much employment, those with outdated skills in declining industries and those who failed in education (or were failed by it) for instance.

This will only get worse with the rise of AI taking an ever larger share of jobs over the next 20 years.

There are a whole raft of measures required including pushing jobs out to the regions via incentives which would also ease pressure on London's housing market. Better lifetime education and free university education for subjects requiring actual degrees such as hard sciences.

In the end though, we're going to need to address the issue of multi-national corporations owning both the capital AND means of labour. Somehow, states will need to get control of the profits from AI labour in order to provide services. Without this, capitalism will fail due to lack of customers - no work and no benefits = no money.

[AtW]

Oi, he clearly said EARNINGS!

You can still have unearned income, you capitalism pigs!


Taxed at 98% rate...

[LondonManc]

I don't think most Labour voters would mind this. You just spin it as making football less about corporate interest, obscene salaries and rich foreigners making money out of the beautiful game and focus on how it will mean English teams will end up full of English players again.

Rubbish. Football will simply move abroad - Italy had it big in the 80s and 90s because they had the money. The Premier League and Sky brought money into the English game and has given us the most competitive of the big leagues - Man United and Liverpool don't dominate in the way that they would if they were like Barcelona and Real Madrid in Spain. Look at China - Tevez has just signed a deal for 615k per week. You'd simply have all players leaving the country. I know of a Stoke City reserve player who's on 20k per week, which would take him past the £1m maximum figure.

Fans often have a love-hate relationship with their team. The fact their team is made up of millionaires with beautiful hair who despise the working class fans wouldn't be hard to play on surely

You clearly haven't a clue about football (but we figured that out in the previous paragraph). Fans don't have a love-hate relationship with their team at all. For most, it's the ultimate brand loyalty. If Nescafe go under, people would buy Douwe Egberts instead - if your club goes under, you would never feel the same affection for another team (and I'm not including the glory hunters who are now Man City fans who previously were Chelsea fans and probably Arsenal fans before that).

As for players despising fans, they appreciate them, believe me. I've met a fair few professionals and only a small minority had disappeared up their own behinds but they're generally the ones in it for the money rather than the success anyway.

[WTFH]

And there's the rub. Privatised football is big business, big to the point that the nationalised version is a joke.
The national team in England will only improve when the private teams start to play with more local players, stop bringing in immigrants to do jobs that Brits could do, and stop suckling on Murdoch's teat.

[d000hg]

You clearly haven't a clue about football (but we figured that out in the previous paragraph). Fans don't have a love-hate relationship with their team at all. For most, it's the ultimate brand loyalty. If Nescafe go under, people would buy Douwe Egberts instead - if your club goes under, you would never feel the same affection for another team (and I'm not including the glory hunters who are now Man City fans who previously were Chelsea fans and probably Arsenal fans before that).

They are very loyal to the club but it's a tortured relationship full of contradictions. Football fans LOVE bitching about their players, their manager, the commercialisation of football, the price of tickets, etc. The club transcends the manager and the players, perfectly possible to be loyal to the club but seeth about the rich ponces on the field.

As for players despising fans, they appreciate them, believe me. I've met a fair few professionals and only a small minority had disappeared up their own behinds but they're generally the ones in it for the money rather than the success anyway.

So you think Ronaldo has the slightest desire to engage with the pot-bellied, heavily tattooed UKIP stereotypes who epitomise the supporters of some clubs (Newcastle for instance)? He surely appreciates them at an abstract level but doesn't want to go anywhere near them.

The tension between players and supporters goes both ways at the top level.