Helen, you’re being paid your own money back and other peoples taxes.

Comment on General Election 2010 Poll Results by sarah in the desert.

Helen, you’re being paid your own money back and other peoples taxes. It would be cheaper for the country if you stayed home, albeit someone else would have to do your job for you.

Public sector economy is like a goldfish bowl, you get fed regularly from outside however you need to have your water changed from time to time too otherwise you stagnate. Before you comment, this is partly formed of my own personal experiences of working in the public sector (in 2002) before escaping all the change resistant, innovation-lacking, stuck-in-the-mud dinosaurs and into the private sector.

I read the Telegraph, the Times, the Guardian and the Independent. I felt that the Daily Express was more your cup of tea as you previously said “no thanks” to an article from the Telegraph.

I am both a believer in a free market economy and a realist. Free markets don’t work in their entirety and neither do command economies. I don’t believe a large public sector in any country is good, particularly if that country can’t afford it. There needs to be a certain element of socialism but it shouldn’t be all consuming.

“You have left this country, but someone willing to work for less than you, with the same skills may have taken your place.”

Capitalism does indeed result in the dynamic movement of skilled labour however, each country needs a certain element of protectionism and socialism (immigration control and incentives to retain skills) to protect its own markets and skills shortages.
I find it quite horrifying that your thought process is that it’s ok to not worry about people leaving and that you can just to import cheaper labour rather than incentivise people to do well for themselves financially and stay in their home country. More often than not, you get what you pay for and you’re pushing salaries down and keeping people poorer.

I don’t expect you to fully appreciate this, due to you not living outside the UK and seeing for yourself the competition between different nationalities – British work ethic is unique, just having the skills to do a specific task or a qualification is not enough, it’s about the approach and how we do things too. We can’t import our mindset or our cultural behaviour (in work terms sometimes it’s not great in moral terms!).

What has your opinion on my compassion got to do with anything??

Actually our work ethic is also a dying breed now if you take note of the Guardian article stating that company’s are now struggling to recruit due to the low quality of school leavers and graduates due to Labours education successes.
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2010/mar/10/tesco-director-slates-school-leavers

2009/2010 Income tax receipts are projected at 140 billion and welfare payments projected at 164 billion, so really I’m not sure and couldn’t comment on whether it’s a fair assessment of distribution.
I’m not sure who’s paying for the emergency services at the minute; quite possibly out of the National Insurance receipts, which I do still pay.

I have a very balanced view on taxes, a Government needs to make sure its spends only what it can afford to buy. Keep taxes fair and people are happy to pay their share and give help to those who need it; sting people who do well and they either leave or hide their money or stop working.

I know you like to think of people like us as completely selfish, how dare we want a better life for ourselves??? We pay for every element of our lives and every service we use because we are required to. We just get to keep that little bit more of what we earn and we derive more benefit from it.

“ If you believe any government could completely eliminate societal problems such as these, please elaborate” – I don’t believe they can completely eliminate it but they certainly could have a good go at dis-incentivising it rather than encouraging it and certainly not making it worse than it already was! I wouldn’t bother outlining any kind of plan as you have shown before that you have no objectivity whatsoever from your “public sector is good” / “private sector is bad” mentality.