I’m watching the Channel 4 documentary by Martin Durkin on what he claims is wrong with the state.
The programme is so mad it is hard to believe anyone will take it seriously.
But let’s just take a quote:
When a private sector business fails its employees lose their jobs
No. We have a financial crisis because the banks did not go bust when they failed. We had to bail them out. Government was proved over night the most important economic player in the economy, and the underpinning of the well being of us all.
Was that mentioned? No, not of course not.
The analysis of the whole programme is based on a fantasy β a fantasy that’s dangerous to the well being of all in this country.
And based on an ethos that greed is good.
Surely we’ve learned that’s not true by now?
No, apparently the mad are still out there β as the programme revealed, time and time and time again.
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You’ve got more tolerance than me for this sort of thing Richard – I couldn’t face watching it. Just the preview was enough. It looked truly awful. Like something out of an Ayn Rand novel.
By the way my wife says there is an excellent demolition of the Durkin documentary in this weeks’ Times Higher Education Supplement – I’ll read it later today and get back to you on that.
It was absolutely unbelievable. I sat through the whole thing and was shouting at the telly by the end of it (slightly worried about that by the way)
I saw only half an hour and was appalled by the simplistic and prejudiced views it put forward. I don’t know if Channel 4 has a duty to be impartial but they ought to show another programme which gives a more balanced view than: “Public sector = bad, private sector = good. If there were no corporate taxes there would be so much investment that we would have full employment etc.”
I initially thought I’d stumbled across a Conservative Party broadcast justifying the cuts, but then realised it was a documentary. I found the the use of small children to complain about the national debt particular distasteful as I am sure they didn’t have any understanding of the issue. The guy driving round Mr. Durkin in his Open top Porshe or whatever is what didn’t look to be be that hard pressed by the extreme tax regime we have here. Having said all that I stuck to whatching the whole thing and couldn’t help wondering whether higher taxes are such a great idea. I’d be interested to know the effect of Corporate Income Tax on employment rates. I agree with the evidence of tax avoidance being a much bigger problem than benefit fraud, but might it not be possible to actually recover it more easily with a simpler system at a lower rate? I’d be interested to know whether Hong Kong has removed all its tax loopholes. I know expecting the Conservatives to deal with this robustly is like Turkeys voting for Christmas, but if the public could see an advantage they might apply the pressure needed for reform.
It was the most unbalanced, biased piece of programming I haver seen. I was truly shocked. Shame on channel four for airing drivel like that π
@Tony
the reality is that tax systems are complex because life is complex.
and tax systems have to be complex because people try to abuse them
as I have shown in my work on flat taxes, they are the most perfect opportunity for tax abuse that almost anyone can create. The complexity of a tax system is not in calculating the tax due. That is immensely easy. Almost anyone can band income and then apply a percentage. The complexity is in calculating the income to be taxed. flat taxes do not altered this complexity. as such companies will still abuse that process.
remember, It created the most extraordinarily complex process to do so. Vodafone did not avoid tax by going for a simple option. it created an immensely complex structure to do so, and nothing would stop this under a flat tax regime.
I’m afraid there is only one outcome the from a flat tax regime, and that is less tax, and it is no coincidence that those who promote these taxes are also fundamentally opposed to tax, and all government activity. do you see the link?
@Tony
You should really try reading about Latvia where they applied the flat tax logic. Google ‘Michael Hudson’ and ‘Latvia’.
Based in the U.S. I haven’t seen this yet.
But it sounds like its about as balanced his’The Great Global Warming Swindle’ which famously had its interview subjects complaining that their opinions had been misrepresented, by 180 degrees in come cases.
I couldn’t face watching it through either. Keynes, as ever, put it best. “It is an extraordinary example of how, starting with a mistake, a remorseless logician can end up in bedlam”. I can see no more logic to his public/private case than there would be to argue that employment of redheads is harmful to the economy, but employment of dark-haired people is beneficial.