I will happily pay 45% tax on my salary knowing the Gov has my back in difficult times like these. I'm fortunate enough to still have a job, but I'm happy I live in Europe.
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UK government to pay up to 80% of wages for employees not working
101–110 of 183 posts
Re: UK government to pay up to 80% of wages for employees not working
#102I will happily pay 45% tax on my salary knowing the Gov has my back in difficult times like these. I'm fortunate enough to still have a job, but I'm happy I live in Europe.
In theory if you saved the difference in taxes...but then we don't generally save, but consume. max 2500 pounds. Say for 6 months? A Year? That's 15k to 30k. This is not enough to justify "45%" taxes for life...
It's not just consumption.
You (or I) would need to save for worst-case scenarios and get very few economies of scale: you can't have 0.001 of an epidemiologist on retainer.
The government can at least pool risk (and everything) over the entire country.
Re: UK government to pay up to 80% of wages for employees not working
#103Has anyone calculated the value of life that we are saving here? The Imperial College report had 510,000 dying in the UK under a no-action scenario. Average age lets say 79 as the virus progresses. 510,000 * (82.5-79) * GBP 30,000 (QALY for the NHS) = 53.5 billion pounds based on the funding methodology used for the NHS. Instead the Uk seems to be willing to throw its entire GDP at this problem, 3 trillion pounds. Th…
Firstly, is QALY really the right number to use here? We are talking about deaths. Secondly, yes, 500000 deaths in the short term is much more alarming and destructive than the same in the long term or some time in the future.
Interesting this age thing...I bet older people are all for it, others less so. Might even solve any unfunded pension problem :) but then no age group is safe and everyone is scared. Topped off with the government's job to do the best for all citizens.
Re: UK government to pay up to 80% of wages for employees not working
#104I will happily pay 45% tax on my salary knowing the Gov has my back in difficult times like these. I'm fortunate enough to still have a job, but I'm happy I live in Europe.
I'd be shocked is most people on this page who are fully employed devs/techs/etc in the US do not already donate roughly 45% to the government. SS and Federal, plus state (3% for me, and almost 4% for local), now that's just on income, not anything you spend. Again, here we go. 9% sales tax in my municipality, plus individualized taxes on a variety of goods the government deems bad. This includes markups on booze, to…
> I'd be shocked is most people on this page who are fully employed devs/techs/etc in the US do not already donate roughly 45% to the government.
Yeah, but 45% would be federal income tax only in Europe. Social Security, pensions, sales tax etc pp would be on top, and are generally also considerably higher than in the US.
Re: UK government to pay up to 80% of wages for employees not working
#105Re: UK government to pay up to 80% of wages for employees not working
#106Anyone listened properly to the speech? First they were talking about "grants" then started mentioning interest and how nice they are not to charge it for a year, then started talking about LOANS, presumably to be paid back.
There are several support elements available to businesses. There has previously been the announcement of interest free loans, and grants to small businesses.
Today they announced that the government will pay 80% of furloughed workers' salaries, up to £2500 per month. That does not need to be repaid. They also announced today that the interest free period on the loans will be extended to 12 months, up from 6, which is separate to the salary intervention.
Re: UK government to pay up to 80% of wages for employees not working
#107Has anyone calculated the value of life that we are saving here? The Imperial College report had 510,000 dying in the UK under a no-action scenario. Average age lets say 79 as the virus progresses. 510,000 * (82.5-79) * GBP 30,000 (QALY for the NHS) = 53.5 billion pounds based on the funding methodology used for the NHS. Instead the Uk seems to be willing to throw its entire GDP at this problem, 3 trillion pounds. Th…
I can assure you if tomorrow we woke up and the world was 2 degrees hotter and people were dying left right and centre from it, the same thing would have happened with climate change. > Average age lets say 79 as the virus progresses No idea what you're on about. Most people in the UK don't even make it to 79 as is, nevermind with a highly contagious and dangerous virus floating about. > Instead the Uk seems to be wi…
> I can assure you if tomorrow we woke up and the world was 2 degrees hotter and people were dying left right and centre from it, the same thing would have happened with climate change.
That’s the point he’s making though, we’re overcommitting resources to this problem because we can see it. Once climate change is apparent enough for people to panic, it’ll be too late.
> Thousands of people are already dying from this in one small concentrated area in Italy, in a matter of weeks. Shall we just say fuck it and let thousands more die here too? Should the whole world say the same thing? Shall we let the entire economy hit the sort of fucked levels we haven't seen since like WW2?
Looking at the data from Italy, 98% of the people who died were retired, had pre-existing conditions, and were making no noticeable economic contribution. I’m not saying that economic utility should be what determines someone’s value of life, but the argument that spending trillions of dollars to save the lives of some 85-year-olds “avoids economic disaster” makes no sense. If a world leader were acting in a purely Machiavellian manner, they would let the virus run its course as quickly as possible so productivity could return to normal.
Re: UK government to pay up to 80% of wages for employees not working
#108Earlier quoted context omitted.
You need a UBI on a level that allows people to live. That’s a lot of money. Better to extend unemployment benefits for a limited time.
This is 80% of pre-existing wages! And, even though it's an employer subsidy, this is more beneficial in the long run if the economy recovers, because employers don't have to go through the fire/hire destruction and deadweight loss.
I will retire immediately if I can get a 80% UBI.
Re: UK government to pay up to 80% of wages for employees not working
#109Earlier quoted context omitted.
Unfortunately this isn’t true. A massive amount of debt is going to be racked up in this time. The economic impacts are not immediate, but they will come.
Debt is just consuming now what we will produce later. That means that later we will have less. Luckily, the number which tells us how much it costs to shift production temporally: the real interest rate, is low. As a result, we can deal with the impact over the course of decades. As long as there is no crisis of confidence in the ability to repay that debt, it will not be an issue.
> Luckily, the number which tells us how much it costs to shift production temporally: the real interest rate, is low.
That measure has been meaningless for a long time now since the central banks manipulate it for whatever goal they are currently trying to achieve.
With the amount of uncertainty in the current economic climate if interest rates were set by the market they would be skyhigh as nobody would risk loaning money.
Re: UK government to pay up to 80% of wages for employees not working
#110Could someone correct me if I am wrong.
UK is going to print lots of GBP to fund this, and in doing so, it will devalue its currency, since EU will possibly be doing much of the same, the Euro and GBP will devalue against US ( and everyone else ), assuming US on a relative terms did not print as much ?
Or is this assumption wrong?