quickbeam wrote: » Agree with this totally. I'm not on massive wages - I think average for the country, but I'd rather pay more income tax than a property tax or bin charges. Income tax (and VAT) goes up and down depending on the climate, but things like property tax will always be here to stay once it's introduced. FG thought they were earning brownie points when they promised not to put up the income tax but it had the opposite effect on me as I knew they'd need to get their money from us somehow if not by income tax.
coonecb1 wrote: » In Ireland, I think you might be right in relation to the "underclasses", but I would disagree that the middle and upper classes get screwed. I'm on 35K and think I'm getting taxed at a generously low rate, relative to the rest of Europe. I would gladly pay an extra 10% if it meant universal healthcare and some form of help for the families struggling with negative equity at the moment. Actually, I realise I've just made an unpopular point of mine just now!
coonecb1 wrote: » Exactly. I'd prefer for them to come out honestly, and say "we are going to increase your income tax, for the following reasons..." Instead, they say "we won't increase taxes", but 6 months later "we were talking about income taxes". "We are going to introduce property tax and water tax, but technically we didn't break our promises as regards income tax". Talk about insulting people's intelligence :rolleyes:
Yahew wrote: » Firstly 35K is a working class income, more of less.
Miss Olenska wrote: » Then I must be underclass!
Yahew wrote: » No, thats a non-working position. To be honest you could argue that anybody who has to work, is working class. I would define the middle classes are largely the old style professional classes who are largely protected from outsourcing, and global capitalism. Lawyers etc. The rich don't have to work - they can live on capital - but some do work.
desertcircus wrote: » Median income in Ireland in 2009 was marginally over 20k. There's a persistent idea in Ireland that there's a "squeezed middle" loads of us belong to, when in reality anyone earning over 30k is well beyond the middle. Someone on thirty-five thousand quid a year is not on a "working class income", and the sooner some people realise this and realise that huge numbers of their fellow countrymen and women are doing a lot worse than them, the better.
Dudess wrote: » I don't like chocolate brownies.
Yahew wrote: » The latest I see, for 2009, is that the median household income was 42K. Admittedly that might be two workers, but costs don't scale for two people. It doesn't matter. 35K is a working class income, just as £500 in 1930 - if that was where the median was - was a working class income. Middle income is not = middle class.
desertcircus wrote: » I don't get what scalability of costs has to do with media income, to be honest. And a sum of money that's almost double the media income simply isn't a "working class income" by any generally understood meaning of the phrase. If we understand working class as being somewhere beside or below middle class (and I don't think that's a controversial position), then a working class wage should be somewhere below median salary, not nearly twice that same salary. The most recent comprehensive figures on income percentiles I can find are from a 2000 study by the ESRI, which indicates that the salary at the 90th percentile - in other words, the salary that means you earn more than 90% of the people in the country - is 189% of median income. I accept that figures may well have changed, but what that means is that in the absence of changes to income deciles, earning 35,000 a year means you're two to four thousand quid a year off joining the top 10% of earners in the country. If we're calling that working-class, then we might as well abandon the phrase, as it's lost all meaning.
Yahew wrote: » Interesting arguments. Insane however: in the sense that you go against your class positions. Firstly 35K is a working class income, more of less. And you paying 10% more won't guarantee anything about the health service - not without reform. It will guarantee that lots of people earning 2-3 times more than you get paid even more. Secondly, workers should be in favour of property tax. Rich people ( and tautologically landlords) own both more property and more valuable property, but can hide, or offset their income. So, yes, a property tax may effect you (if you own), but less than the equivalent tax were it applied only to income tax.
desertcircus wrote: » There's clearly no point in continuing this discussion, as we appear to be at cross purposes as to what "working class" means.
coonecb1 wrote: » Regarding your first point, I'm not claiming that paying more tax would solve the problem, I'm saying that I would be willing to trade an extra 10% of my income, if it meant a health system such as the NHS. I don't quite follow your point that me paying higher tax will "guarantee that people earning 2-3 times more than me will get paid even more". Can you explain?
Regarding the second point, you are correct that I should in theory be in favour of a property tax. The thing I'm arguing about is the way the politicians deny that they'll increase taxes, only to then do it in a stealthy way once they get elected. I find it insulting that they think we don't see through it.
ItsAWindUp wrote: » Nothing that Monty Python ever made was ever remotely funny or good.
Yahew wrote: » During the boom the actual amount spent on the HSE increased proportionately to the economic boom, so it doubled or tripled. Did you notice much difference? Hint: a lot went to consultants. ( also the NHS is really not very good).
krudler wrote: » you realise he's not an actual person right?
Yahew wrote: » or because you don't understand power relationships in statistics. You did come in armed with some statistical terms, but have withdrawn now . Power relationships are tricky huh. We could call someone who earns twice the median in the top 25 percentile ( of population) but like everyone else in the bottom 80% he is playing with 10% of all income.
Deus Ex Machina wrote: » I believe that there are many logically sound arguments in favour of suicide. I believe that human optimism and industriousness are derived by a gestalt of advantageous delusions and evolutionary epiphenomena, and that they are not inherently superior to their opposites. I believe that drug use is a perfectly valid way of achieving pleasure. I believe that sexual intercourse is absolutely revolting if analysed at any level beyond the trite way it is presented by soceity and those who ape it.
d.anthony wrote: » Anyone else read that to the tune of Savage Garden's 'Affirmation'?
AnonoBoy wrote: » You're presuming people know the tune of Savage Garden songs now?
d.anthony wrote: » I'd have assumed it's relatively well known
