E.U: Leave or Stay? Your thoughts.

They'll blame anyone or anything other than the actual decision to leave, you can already see the dissociation happening between the actual vote to leave the EU and the consequences, the Brexiteers (I'm talking the leading figures of the leave campaign) will probably receive the least blame as they're the ones who brought the public Brexit and are just trying to enact the will of the people™.

Labour, if things continue to shift towards remaining, will probablly vote down whatever deal Mrs May comes up with and we'll fallback to the already agreed upon full customs alignment as Mrs May has already said a border in the NI sea is unacceptable and people will blame Labour, and the MPs who vote with them, for forcing the government to accept a bad deal.

The Conservatives will be reelected as they'll portray themselves as trying to deliver on the will of the people™ while Labour will be portrayed as trying to thwart it and being obstructionist.

 

No, I mean who will the Remainers blame? Soon they are the majority of the electorate, so they are not to be ignored much longer.

Edit: An interesting American view on UK Austerity, by the New York Times: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/28/world/europe/uk-austerity-poverty.html

 

They'll blame Labour for the reasons I've already set out, most Remainers are not "extremists" like myself who believe we should cancel Brexit for any number of reasons, chiefly among which is because it was more about saving the Conservative party than the country.

The vast majority of Remainers have bought into the idea that it's the will of the people™ and come what may we have to act on the result, they believe what they're told, that the referendum was necessary when it wasn't, that the campaign was legitimate when it wasn't, and that it's the will of the people™ when it's not.

Anyone standing in the way of all that will be seen by most as interfering, a bit like how people would blame a passenger in a car for grabbing the wheel in an attempt to prevent the driver from driving headlong into a wall, they won't blame the driver for wanting to drive into the wall, they'll blame the guy who grabbed the wheel and made them crash into a bus stop.

It's especially sad when you consider taxes don't fund government spending so it's all so unnecessary.

 

Government issues whatever fantasy currency it wants to, distributes it in whatever fashion it wants to and then recovers it through taxes, completing the circle of life for the money and the flow along the way is what one would call the economy.

Unfortunately that ignores the public perception of power.

In the simplest of terms:
If something goes wrong in the world (and something always will) the people want to know someone is out there who is capable of looking out for them.
The government can control the tax rate, when it tightens the noose by hiking taxes it is perceived as an all powerful entity.
The public then conjures up all sorts of bs excuses as to how that all powerful entity is good for them.
Essentially it dips into the same corners of psychology as domestic abuse victims staying with and defending their abusive partner, just on a larger scale.
And when there is no perceived as all powerful abuser government around? Just look at any nation where the government has been perceived as weak... Riots, Coups, etc.

So in a roundabout way high taxes are an easily accessible non violent option to pacify the populace.

 

Taxes do a lot of things but i wouldn't say they pacify the populace and they defiantly don't fund government spending, they control inflation, give the £ acceptance, reduce inequality, rearrange the economy, and guide behavior.

I guess at a stretch guiding behavior could be seen as pacifying the populace but I'm not sure how increasing taxes on sugary drinks or actions that contribute to greenhouse gasses is pacification.

 

Not directly no.
But set the taxes high enough and the population has their daily reminder that the government could crush them like bugs if they ever wanted to, leading to the population not revolting against the government.
(of course everything has a breaking point and if you took it too far people would still rise up, at which point you then either have to actually crush them like bugs or stock up on pikes for the heads of politicians)

 

Or set them high enough and you have happy countries with high standards of living like the Scandi and Nordic countries.

 

I still don't see it, if taxes are too high people simply have most of their earnings taken in taxes so either face incarceration for nonpayment or not having enough money left for the basics in life so face destitution.

There are far easier and better ways to quell the anger, agitation, or excitement of a population than changing their tax rate.

 

I think we are calling completely different things "too high".

Economy assigns you value x, government taxes you down to where you have to worry about how make ends meet, which keeps you docile because you are preoccupied to keep the proverbial treadmill going.
No need to take it so far that you sleep in one of the many empty shop entrances in a sleeping bag provided by a charity.
Now I would already qualify any level of taxation that doesn't allow you to safe up a significant portion of your income as too high as it serves the purpose of keeping you trapped in the "system".

 

An economy can't assign you a value it's not a sentient being and a government can't tax you down to a particular level as the tax system isn't precise enough to set tax levels on individual basisis, your value to an economy goes up or down based on the value the market is willing to pay that's not based on who you are but on what you can or can't do, and the level of taxes you pay isn't based on trying to get everyone worrying about making ends meet.

You seem to be saying a government and the resulting taxes people pay is based on emotions as worry, fear, anger are emotions, that's simply not possible as not only do governments not know if one person will feel the same way about the same thing but people lead very different lives so what is a significant portion to you may not be to someone else for many obvious reasons.

You can't use money or taxes as a means of pacification as like you say people call "too high" completely different things, what maybe "too high" for one person may not be "too high" for another, if two people are earning £50k and they both have 50% of that taken from them it may make the person with higher commitments angry or worried and another without commitments happy because the NHS just saved his mothers life.

Taxes are not a means to keep people trapped in a system or pacify a population as it's impossible to have the necessary level of finite control over them to achieve such a result, what happens for instance if you inherited £100k from an uncle you never knew existed? The level of taxes you pay isn't suddenly going to change to bring you back to the level you were at before your inheritance, what happens if you gave away your life savings to a charity and were now penniless?

 

You are overthinking it with the micro management.
The progressive taxation system takes care of larger income fluctuation.
For smaller short time fluctuation you are covered by taxation being present everywhere, spend a bit more on something? Whoops, you also pay more VAT, Petrol Tax, Tobacco Tax, Alcohol Tax, Sugary Drink Tax etc.
So it doesn't need to be in constant flux to keep the masses trapped low enough in the system where they are too preoccupied to rebel against the government.

 

That's odd as if anything I'm saying it can't be micro managed to the level required for your supposed pacification of a populace. Like i said there are far easier and better ways to quell anger, agitation, or excitement in the population than the amount of tax they pay, it's just not nuanced enough to achieve what you're claiming.

Taxes do many things but controlling someones emotional state is not one of them, perhaps you're conflating taxes ability to reduce or increase inequality, rearrange the economy (redistribute wealth), and guide peoples behavior (make alcohol, tobacco, fossil fuels more expensive) with the resulting emotional effect of those actions.

Put simply you can't control someones emotional state, make them less angry for example, via an action unless you know them on a deeply personal level as what may increase anger in one person may have the opposite effect in another, what may push one persons buttons another may find funny, cute, or endearing.

 

Whenever I get my PAYE I'm pretty angry at how much I'm giving away...

 

No, but the govt still has to balance the amount of credit in the economy with incomes/productivity without causing a crash.

Tbf Liverpool was a bad choice for that article its actually been turning things around in the last 20 years somewhere in the midlands would have been a better choice.
Give it 10 years and I bet there will be articles complaining about londonesqe house price rises in both Liverpool and Manchester.

 

And at what point would you not be as what's being proposed by Anfield is that the government has some form of control over your anger.

Yes, very much so. I did mention that in a post shorty after the one you quoted so apologies for not making that clear initially.

 

Sorry, not answering this as I 'd have to go into financial situation on teh internets to explain opinion.

 

Sorry, i wasn't asking you to tell the internet how much you earn if that's how it came across.

What i meant is hypothetically, referring back to the original proposition, is do you consider high taxes to be a way to pacify the populace, that if your taxes were high enough would you have daily reminders that the government could crush you, that if your taxes were high enough you'd be so busy trying to make ends meet that you wouldn't get angry at the government.

 

Sorry, misunderstood. Thought you were asking about personal situation

Thats actually a very interesting question I've never actually given time too. I will have to think.

My first thought would be, if taxes are high, the people with enough money would just leave - but would have to think. I assume we're talking about in the UK, as opposed to a hypothetical country?

 

I think that would depend on what is perceived to be done with those taxes. In Scandinavian countries (and the Netherlands and Belgium) taxes are pretty high by UK standards, but the population gets good public services and a decent social welfare safety net in return. If that pacifies them, it is with a feeling of being looked after by government, rather than by being intimidated by it.

 

Italy creating another headache for the EU. Brexit deals not currently top of their list of worries I imagine.