Reply to: I did better under Labour

[PurpleGorilla]

I did better under Labour

I am Boomer 1, born in 1951. As a small child when I started wanting to eat sweets, they were still rationed. Our favourite places to play were bomb sites. But our parents, the wartime generation, believed in making a better future, and they did. We ran with that: on one side we were the better future and we benefited from their sacrifice; but on the other side we kept building a better world. We signed up for pensions not for ourselves (in the 1960s nobody young thought they'd ever grow old) but for our parents and grandparents because we knew what they had sacrificed. We didn't want to skim off the cream and leave future generations with the only other thing that floats: we believed as no generation before in ever better times. No one is more sorry than we to see that dream die, and I do not believe it needs to. It matters to me personally, I have adult children (millennials). In fact I think that one of the problems now is that the people in power now do not have adult children so they have no idea what it is like for them.

The Boomers' time has passed and most of our dreams were not realised. But we didn't make the tulip, we just failed to make reality live up to our dreams.

Makes no odds if the politicians have teenage kids. The cabinet are all millionaires.

Well your dream/debt needs paying for. Are you going to pay for it?

[expat]

My bad.

I hear you on the B1 B2 thing, let's call Thatcher's yuppies B3 and jobs a goodun.

All have had it gravy though.

I am Boomer 1, born in 1951. As a small child when I started wanting to eat sweets, they were still rationed. Our favourite places to play were bomb sites. But our parents, the wartime generation, believed in making a better future, and they did. We ran with that: on one side we were the better future and we benefited from their sacrifice; but on the other side we kept building a better world. We signed up for pensions not for ourselves (in the 1960s nobody young thought they'd ever grow old) but for our parents and grandparents because we knew what they had sacrificed. We didn't want to skim off the cream and leave future generations with the only other thing that floats: we believed as no generation before in ever better times. No one is more sorry than we to see that dream die, and I do not believe it needs to. It matters to me personally, I have adult children (millennials). In fact I think that one of the problems now is that the people in power now do not have adult children so they have no idea what it is like for them.

The Boomers' time has passed and most of our dreams were not realised. But we didn't make the tulip, we just failed to make reality live up to our dreams.

[LondonManc]

So it was tough paying the mortgage for a few months on your detached 4 bed with half an acre, before inflation eroded the debt after a couple of years.

I was born mid-70s, so take your grump clock-watching post and shove it.

[AtW]

I propose a fair system of wealth distribution. Anyone who earns more than me, pays 99.99% tax. Anyone who earns what I earn or less, pays 0.01% tax.

Simples.

is this the idea you took from your divorce settlement?

[AtW]

Whats the alternative, UKIP and Farage

The Emigration Party.

In 2020 I will vote Komrade Korbyn and fook off to my private island somewhere where it does not rain more than once a year.

[AtW]

They are squealing already - it's glorious

Corbyn boost after condemnations from dreadful people

Viva la Revolution!

[PurpleGorilla]

Give or take the double-digit interest rates being slapped on mortgages in the mid-70s....

So it was tough paying the mortgage for a few months on your detached 4 bed with half an acre, before inflation eroded the debt after a couple of years.

[LondonManc]

My bad.

I hear you on the B1 B2 thing, let's call Thatcher's yuppies B3 and jobs a goodun.

All have had it gravy though.

Give or take the double-digit interest rates being slapped on mortgages in the mid-70s....

[PurpleGorilla]

I did better under Labour

I propose a fair system of wealth distribution. Anyone who earns more than me, pays 99.99% tax. Anyone who earns what I earn or less, pays 0.01% tax.

Simples.

I guess I was brought up to clean up any mess I made. But most Boomer 3's and A lot of boomer 2's expect the clean up of their mess to be done by someone else.

[PurpleGorilla]

I have to correct you on your virtually meaningless throwing around of this term "Boomers". You seem to have this bizarre view of everyone older than you as "Boomers".

The Baby Boom is defined as the period between 1946 and 1964, when birth rates were exceptionally high due most likely to their having been depressed during WW2. It is purely a population birth-rate term.

In terms of generational cohorts, "Boomers" was adopted as a term for those born in these years, however it is often modified now into 2 cohorts, Boomers 1 or Original, born from 1946 to 1954; and Boomers 2 born from 1955 to 1964. After all, someone born in 1964 has very little in common with someone born in 1946 and it makes no sense to classify them as the same. Not unless "older" is all you mean, in which case you have little to say.

There is no such thing as "Thatcher's Boomers", all real Boomers had already come of age (which is the crucial cohort-binding experience) by the time of the Thatcher governments.


PS I might agree with you about "Thatcher's Children" but they are not Boomers.

My bad.

I hear you on the B1 B2 thing, let's call Thatcher's yuppies B3 and jobs a goodun.

All have had it gravy though.

[DimPrawn]

Boomers must pay there dues to sort this mess. 50% basic rate of tax on people over 40yrs old should do it nicely.

I propose a fair system of wealth distribution. Anyone who earns more than me, pays 99.99% tax. Anyone who earns what I earn or less, pays 0.01% tax.

Simples.

[ZARDOZ]

Strange. When Tories spend money on infrastructure it's because they're propping up their cronies but when Labour do it that's because they're traditional socialists building infrastructure for the good of all.

The Labour contenders (3 out of 4) don't want to build HS2.


The Tory party of 2015 is not the Tory party of Thatcher, who love or loathe, was in touch with social mobility. They are (as Expat pointed out earlier) now solely the party of old money. They realised at the election, all they have to do is keep the heavily indebted lower middle class happy through cheap debt, token tax breaks and housing booms... and while that demographic think the Tories are their friends they can continue siphoning the wealth off to their super rich masters who are immune to any "fairness" when it comes to tax treatment.

[SlipTheJab]

Deary me, this is why contractors deserve everything they get.

Whats the alternative, UKIP and Farage

[LondonManc]

The Tories aren't Balancing the books, they are applying their ideology to certain areas while spunking taxpayer money in other areas e.g. the multi billion HS2 farce which no one seems to want. Hmm could that be another ruse for their cronies in the big corps.

Strange. When Tories spend money on infrastructure it's because they're propping up their cronies but when Labour do it that's because they're traditional socialists building infrastructure for the good of all.

[ZARDOZ]

Well this is the kind of "I'm all right jack" attitude that got us as a nation so deeply into hock, and now we're paying for it.

You weren't "doing better" and paying less tax because Bliar created a strong and vibrant economy, you were doing better because the tax that should have been collected was being piled onto the national debt and the illusion of property wealth was maintained.

If the UK economy is ever going to grow "organically" again, there has to be an element of the balancing of the books, and like it or lump it, contractors grossing £100-150k are going to have their pockets targetted.

I think 90% of contractors these days do fall "morally" within IR35 anyway if I'm honest, whatever the contract actually says. They go to work every day on the tube like good little commuters, get paid weekly or monthly by the agency, have desks in big offices, go to works drinks and have their phone numbers listed in the corporate directory then pretend they're businessmen and women.

If "all agency contractors" were deemed IR35 then at least there would be clarity to the rules, and the "real" contractors/consultants wouldn't be looking over their shoulders for Hector all the time.

The free market would eventually help sort out day-rates.

The Tories aren't Balancing the books, they are applying their ideology to certain areas while spunking taxpayer money in other areas e.g. the multi billion HS2 farce which no one seems to want. Hmm could that be another ruse for their cronies in the big corps.

As for the disguised employee bit, not sure how many are as you describe. that's not my MO these days. I was working mainly through MSAs all project based with no direction and control, other than 'this is what we need' and when. I did take some remote contract agency work to fill in the gaps. This whole thing will no doubt spook many of the less well informed clients and the MSA work will probably dry up too.

I did expect that one day contracting would be targeted which is why I never fell into the rock and roll lifestyle that most do. I bunged money away expecting it not to last, it lasted longer than I expected so I can't complain.