wrencat1873 wrote:Ultimately, because you can afford to, when others cannot or, are less able to do so.
This is what would happen in a fully functioning family. However, in a fully functioning society, we prefer to have a few with plenty and the majority with a whole lot less and a system that propagates that situation.
It's designed to keep the masses "where they belong".

bren2k wrote:I've explained this to you before - the H&S Care sector is currently running at 100,000 vacancies, and recruiting to those vacancies is a nightmare; every single provider is grappling with it on a day to day basis. So whilst we might have 600 beds for example, I can only occupy 450 of them, because I don't have the staff to provide care for the other 150; so before you even consider increasing volume - we need to be able to use our existing capacity. And the main issue with recruitment is pay - because LA's don't pay us enough (because the H&S Care settlement from central govt has been cut by £3 billion since austerity was imposed) for the work we do, the sector is stuck on NLW, or thereabouts.

wrencat1873 wrote:It does seem obvious that if you increase pay in a certain sector and not in others, more people will chose to work in the higher paid sector.
I think Sal is worried about having to break open his piggy bank

wrencat1873 wrote:It does seem obvious that if you increase pay in a certain sector and not in others, more people will chose to work in the higher paid sector.
I think Sal is worried about having to break open his piggy bank

bren2k wrote:This is the issue for providers; NLW keeps going up - along with all the associated costs of operating in the sector - but year on year, because they're skint, LA's award a trifling inflationary uplift to their weekly fees, which in no way matches the costs. I have had 4 LA's already notify that they are awarding an inflationary uplift of less than 1%, and 1 has written to advise they are awarding 0% - which is real terms decrease. With that in mind, increasing wages to address the recruitment crisis is next to impossible.

As I have said many times - the sector is a looming crisis - and if it goes bang, the societal fallout will be impossible to manage; culturally, we don't look after our sick and disabled relatives at home, so if there was a sudden and urgent need to do that, we wouldn't cope.

Sal Paradise wrote:I completely agree with your post - we need more investment/resource into a growing sector = the only way is increased taxation but the additional revenues need investing correctly to deliver the returns in improved capacity and quality of care.

bren2k wrote:I often wrestle with the morality of a for-profit care sector - despite the fact that it's where I derive the majority of my income; in some ways, one could argue that with the profit motive removed, the sector could do more with what it has. Unfortunately, that ship sailed many years ago, and I see no LA with the appetite to bring those services back in-house - and the Conservative Govt, despite its new socialist leanings, would probably rather die in a ditch before it even considered renationalising care services.

IR80 wrote:I am perfectly capable and happy to have reasoned, intelligent, discussion. unfortunately your left wing politics of envy preclude such possibilities.

Tax avoidance you say, who is avoiding tax, breaking the law, and not being prosecuted.....?

Sal Paradise wrote:Its is designed to reward those with aptitude and ability and those who are tasked with managing risk. In business the more risk you manage the more you get paid. I have yet find a family where the money gets put in a pot and everyone gets the same share - it simply doesn't happen.

In your world the MD should earn what the cleaner earns i.e. he sacrifices so others can prosper - what is the incentive to progress? Why should anyone risk everything to start a business to simply end up with the same as those that haven't? It is the reason that socialism doesn't function outside of the text book. Capitalism has many challenges but we have yet to find a system that generates wealth in anything like the same multiple. The world has moved on massively since the industrial revolution and the Genesis of Capitalism.

Mild Rover wrote:Tax evasion is illegal, tax avoidance is ‘just’ problematic.

How optimally do you think capitalism in the UK or Western developed nations more generally is working, by its own standards, in offering the whole of society appropriate incentives and opportunities to optimise economic performance at the whole population level? Ignoring concepts of fairness and equality (though their lack could be considered demotivating for many) and focusing purely on efficiency. You mention the many challenges faced by capitalism, and any system will have misalignments and distortions in the real world. What reforms do you see as desirable?