Huh?
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Thank you for volunteering. Good of you.
Look at that spineless little cunt. Despicable. Not that I’m surprised, mind…
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A stunning takedown of Musk here from a guy (Silicon Valley founder Philip Low) who knows him better than most. Well worth the read :
‘a fellow who got his BA in Econ at 26 all of a sudden pretending to be an expert in mechanical engineering, chemistry, rocket science, neuroscience and AI and keeping the people actually doing the work hidden and paying people to play online games in his name to appear smart and feed his so-called “Supergenius” Personality Cult — the “Imperator” has no clothes, and he knows it’
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Very refreshing:
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The responses to this have been deranged.
Many point out that his mother is wealthy (a famous Bollywood director) and he had a privileged upbringing. And? That is only a retort if you pretend he is going full communist and saying that people should not be allowed to make money. His point is the gap between even that level of privilege he experienced and Billionaire is astronomical and something has gone wrong with an economy when so many people are able to bridge that gap.
The other popular retort is to point out the benefits that Gates, Bezos and the Google lads have brought society. This of course is an argument that ignores the wealth of anti-trust and workers rights issues all of the companies headed by these people have waded through to earn their owners their billions. Which again is his point.
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I continually come across arguments that the tax contributions made by the extremely wealthy dwarf everyone else (bots perhaps?). The maths of it all would probably fascinate me, but at the end of the day too much money is heading in the wrong direction.
There may be some truth in this terms of income tax alone but not so much in terms of total government income.
This is a breakdown of UK government income for 2023/24:
2023-24
Receipts (£bn)
Share of total government receipts
Income tax (gross of tax credits): 268.0
National Insurance contributions (NICs): 172.3
Value added tax (VAT): 162.2
Other indirect taxes (e.g. fuel and other duties): 93.4
Capital taxes: 41.8
Company taxes: 101.0
Other taxes: 37.6
The very rich will typically pay more income tax so that will be skewed towards the highest earners. VAT is paid by everyone as are duties. NICs tend to fall mostly on low to middle income workers. Capital taxes tend to be skewed more to those with wealth and company taxes will affect middle to higher earners more.
Overall it is reasonably balanced. However as a percentage of available income (i.e. what is left after food, shelter and the basics to actually survive) those on low to middle incomes are paying a fair percentage more of what is left. Remember, council tax is not included in this breakdown, and there are incredible disparities in that. For example, the King pays less for Buckingham Palace than someone does for a 3 bed semi in Nottingham.
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Would also like to add that the UK has a much more even, progressive taxation system than America. America’s approach is like the worst instincts of the British right… taken farther.
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100% agree and thanks for the actual numbers. Always good to see this in numbers and I’ve always argued against the low tax for the extremely wealthy.
This is exactly how I see the UK / US from a taxation perspective and the UK is teetering on the edge of going further in the same direction as Orange Land.
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