Dilbert_X wrote:
Uzique The Lesser wrote:
Dilbert_X wrote:
I work with Poles every day.
I'm confident my net contribution is higher than yours ever will be.
i'm not going to rise to that laughable claim, because it comes down to a stupid jay style "i make the most money" argument, which is really not the point here (plus, let's break this down: i am 23 and haven't even finished qualifying for my intended career, so what the fuck are you talking about. and how much did you make in the few short years you were in england to 'contribute more' than someone who is going to be making £60-70k a year, on average, when properly salaried? some brag).
When do you expect to be a Professor? You know a typical academic doesn't make that much, even at Oksferd.
the point is to pay taxes according to your ability, anyway, not a total 'net plus'. if that was the ratiocination of taxes, then we'd live in a society like a bad ayn rand novel, where the rich oligarchs are societies most venerated and noble characters. if the pole who makes £16k a year pays his taxes, then that's fine. it doesn't matter that you 'contribute' more to the pot. idiot. rich people shouldn't get preference in a democracy just because they put more money in the pot. that is not how it works.
The Pole on 16k is a net drain on the economy, once you factor in housing benefit, health costs, family payments, schooling etc, more so if he's sending his money to Poland.
such spurious, uninformed tabloid nonsense. two people working in an average household making £16-17k a year average shouldn't need to take all of those benefits at all. "net drain" is complete conjecture. a hard-working pole can be just as much of a benefit and contributing member to society as any brit who also is on that lower end of the income ladder. absolutely no difference. if they pay as much tax as the brit making £16k a year, i see no reason why they should be scorned for using our public school system, or NHS. you pay taxes - you gain access to the state's benefits. that's how it works. for both the advantaged and the disadvantaged; for both rich and poor, equally. not "hurr durr i worked on £45k a year for 5 years, i am now entitled to claim benefits forever and complain about everyone else". it's just not how it works. ditto some stupid racial or nationalist 'birth-right': just because you're a brit making £15k a year, doesn't mean you're less of a 'drain' than the pole who works just as hard (if not harder), earns the same, and pays the same taxes. if you want to start talking about net drains to society, you would probably have more luck looking at the council sink estates full of unemployed brits, rather than the small minority of immigrants who - shock! horror! - want to improve themselves.
poles send home £4.5bn a year, currently. that's not £4.5bn of 'tax losses', as there's nothing to say they aren't paying their ordinary taxes, too. you can't even get angry about that £4.5b being lost from 'circulation' in the UK economy, because that would go on the assumption that every single pound earned by a brit in a year is re-spent or circulated (it's patently not). it's basically no different in terms of short-term 'damage' or effect on the economy from a UK worker having a savings account, putting it aside for a later date, and thus taking it out of circulation. only here the pole sends home a small amount to support his parents/family at home - where the money will go a lot further, and help people, rather than just pointlessly consume or help the UK high-street, as macbeth referred to. i have no problem with that. £4.5bn a year is a paltry amount. on average estimates there are about 750,000 poles in the UK right now. how much is £4.5bn then, on average? each one sends home about 500 quid? wow. what a vampire existence they lead. sending home less than a grand a year to some loved ones. i bet you never take a grand out of your earnings a year and store it/invest it away somewhere that doesn't immediately help the economy.
and uuum? academics don't make £60-70k a year at oxford? not sure where you're getting this from. i know that professors make £60-70k at my old institution, with a significantly smaller endowment/cash purse than oxford. post-doc starting salary (so for someone in their mid/late 20's) is about £30-40k. which isn't marvelous, but is certainly competitive with most other 'start of career' graduate jobs. i know these figures as a concrete fact because i've spent a lot of time on my internal uni network job vacancies pages - mostly to get part-time library work for myself as a cash-strapped post-grad. again, though: not that the fucking money matters. i just think it's laughable that you have this 'engineering master race' entitlement. you don't make so much dilbert that you've already outgrossed my life contribution to tax. that is farcical. and you definitely are not in a position to denounce the hard-working pole who wants to move to a better place for his family, and be a part of a different market/society. polish people have been coming to the UK to do just that since ww2. funny how it took until 2008 for the economy to crumble from all those damn immigrants!
Last edited by Uzique The Lesser (2013-05-28 04:58:49)
