Cost of living!

[PaulCP]

2 hours ago, Rambo said:

NB those figures I show above for Scotland don't account for Thursday's increases in the 2 top tiers which are now 42% and 47% 🤔

Someone has to fund all the money that the “Nutcase in Red” pours down the drain brushing up her ego in her quest to have the whole of Europe laughing at her😉

[Rambo]

10 minutes ago, PaulCP said:

Someone has to fund all the money that the “Nutcase in Red” pours down the drain brushing up her ego in her quest to have the whole of Europe laughing at her😉

Herr Sturgeon and the SNP have just funded a new MORI opinion poll showing, shock horror, that most of Scotland want to leave the Union.

I can't find any detail of sample size or location so it was probably 99 people in Cumbernauld and East Kilbride on Giro day 🤔

[C8RKH]

3 hours ago, Kimbers said:

What gets me is that it's not just "High Earners" it's Middle Income. Anyone on the higher tax rate (40% in England) and again more on the highest rate. But the high rate is £40k a year so that's Long standing/ in employment Police Officers, Nurses, Truck Drivers etc etc. So the SNP says its just taxing the high earners when its really middle income who are actually coming to terms with high mortgages, costs of living etc with no help from the state already!

 

You got it Kimbers. The problem is there are too many numbfooks up here who don't.

It's staggering just how thick, stupid, docile and gullible some people are.

In England high rate kicks in around £50k, Scotland it's just over £40k. But try explaining what that means to the SNP fan boys....

 

I'm now paying just shy of £6k a year more tax than my colleagues are paying in rUK. That's a mortgage! I'm now accelerating my thinking about leaving Scotland.

[Rambo]

Better choice of Lotus specialists and independents in Englandshire anyway 😉

[Kimbers]

2 hours ago, C8RKH said:

You got it Kimbers. The problem is there are too many numbfooks up here who don't.

It's staggering just how thick, stupid, docile and gullible some people are.

In England high rate kicks in around £50k, Scotland it's just over £40k. But try explaining what that means to the SNP fan boys....

 

I'm now paying just shy of £6k a year more tax than my colleagues are paying in rUK. That's a mortgage! I'm now accelerating my thinking about leaving Scotland.

I would, I can do my job anywhere and so can Wendy soon when she goes Professional. If I was told You can pay 50% where you live now or just over the border 30-100 miles away you can pay 10% less I'd be gone! 

Lets see the SNP cope with the loss of taxes when half their "Average rate" (I can't call it upper)payers F Off across the border! You know what? They are so stupid they'd just raise it again to get the lost income back!

[PaulCP]

2 hours ago, Rambo said:

Herr Sturgeon and the SNP have just funded a new MORI opinion poll showing, shock horror, that most of Scotland want to leave the Union.

I can't find any detail of sample size or location so it was probably 99 people in Cumbernauld and East Kilbride on Giro day 🤔

Is it true that she asked Putin for advise before the poll went ahead?

[C8RKH]

2 hours ago, Rambo said:

Herr Sturgeon and the SNP have just funded a new MORI opinion poll showing, shock horror, that most of Scotland want to leave the Union.

I can't find any detail of sample size or location so it was probably 99 people in Cumbernauld and East Kilbride on Giro day 🤔

The force is strong in those in Dundee, Angus, Perthshire, Glasgow, Ayrshire and Inverness-shire and the highlands. Ironically, a lot of older/retired english up those parts desperate for Independence so god knows how they think they'll survive on a reduced pension in an independent Scotland. Personally, I'll have moved to England before then so my pension will be safer.

@Kimbers -  you are quite correct. There are 33,000 people who pay the highest tax rate in Scotland. It doesn't take many of them to get pissed off and move to realise that the imapct to the Scottish tax take will be immense.

By playing with the tax rate, and the income bandings, more lower paid people are being dragged into the higher (not highest) tax bracket. In 2016 6% of Scottish workers paid the higher tax rate, that is not forecast to increase to 17%, and that is not because they've been getting 10% pay rises a year! It's called a progressive policy. Yup, progressively reducing the living conditions of everyone in Scotland to the lowest common denominator. Progressively convincing those that want to get out of bed and work hard that it is better to not bother and just let others give them free money. But, people believe, and they believe that "freedom" will deliver them money trees in the beaks of storks, so each person in Scotland can live in harmony with nature for no effort or cost at all to themselves. God, that whiskey was good.....

[MPx]

4 minutes ago, C8RKH said:

There are 33,000 people who pay the highest tax rate in Scotland. It doesn't take many of them to get pissed off and move to realise that the imapct to the Scottish tax take will be immense.

 

Sadly, in practice I dont think the impact will be vaguely noticeable let alone immense.   Of the 5.5m population, around 4.4m are old enough to have an income - so say 7.5% at the highest rate.  33000 of them paying an extra 10p in the pound isn't going to fund Sturgeon's own lifestyle let alone a "free" Scotland.  It was a bit like the abandoning 50% rate on the richest down here.  Tories shooting themselves in the foot politically of course, but I can see their point.  The actual cost to the treasury was almost negligible and it might be good to have a world view seeing that we are a good place for rich people to go for low tax - they tend to be the industry leaders and entrepreneurs and of course wannaby celebs who merit very little.  But the pervading view of envy of anyone "who has more than me" leads to the easy headlines of tax the rich and feed the poor. 

But where does rich start?  I suspect many people would define it as at about twice their own income.  So an income somewhere between maybe £25k and £500k???  Even at £500k we're not in helicopter owning territory so not really rich, just more comfortable than most.  The higher you go up the scale the fewer people are in the net, and the actual tax take becomes pathetic.  Its a cruel fact that a few pence off everyone will bring in a lot more than tens of thousands off "the rich"

Its clear from what's written above that as soon as tax appears to be more punative in one place rather than another then there's an incentive to vote with feet and move.  So that may well impact the numbers of "rich" people in a given state and therefore the numbers that might actually be any good at doing the more highly paid positions.  At all levels there's plenty of people who don't actually merit their position and sadly it tends to be the good people that are bright enough to leave first.  Those that hang on are just happy being as big a fish as they can be in a diminishing sized pool.  And corruption looks good in there...

[C8RKH]

52 minutes ago, MPx said:

Sadly, in practice I dont think the impact will be vaguely noticeable let alone immense.   Of the 5.5m population, around 4.4m are old enough to have an income - so say 7.5% at the highest rate.

You have to remember that 7% of the population pay 80%+ of the income tax collected. You lose any part of that 7% you are not losing the extra 10p in the pound, you are losing their TOTAL tax contribution. That gets quite big very quickly.

There are 4.6m adults in Scotland, roughly half of that total pay tax. 41% of adults in Scotland (around so c. 1.9m) pay NO income tax at all. So the impact of losing those who pay the most, is disproportionately higher and will hurt Scotland's ability to "pay its way" hard. The economists up here are looking at 20% of that top 7% leaving over the next 5 years. That is some hit!

[MPx]

1 hour ago, C8RKH said:

You have to remember that 7% of the population pay 80%+ of the income tax collected.

Really?? UK Gvt papers say top 50% pay (nearly) 80% of receipts.  Dont know how/if that includes anything about Scotland, but that's a lot different to the top 7%. 

http://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/CBP-8513/assets/889ae590-bb54-418b-9327-09c8be476303.png

[Rambo]

Mike - many moons ago we used to have a theatre company in Edinburgh called the 7.84 theatre company.

It was based on the fact that 7% of Scotland owned 84% of its wealth.

I don't know how correct that would be these days?

[C8RKH]

1 hour ago, MPx said:

Really?? UK Gvt papers say top 50% pay (nearly) 80% of receipts.  Dont know how/if that includes anything about Scotland, but that's a lot different to the top 7%. 

http://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/CBP-8513/assets/889ae590-bb54-418b-9327-09c8be476303.png

UK is not Scotland. Scotland IS part of UK, but demographics are different so stats will be different.

[andydclements]

10 hours ago, Kimbers said:

What gets me is that it's not just "High Earners" it's Middle Income. Anyone on the higher tax rate (40% in England) and again more on the highest rate. But the high rate is £40k a year so that's Long standing/ in employment Police Officers, Nurses, Truck Drivers etc etc. So the SNP says its just taxing the high earners when its really middle income who are actually coming to terms with high mortgages, costs of living etc with no help from the state already!

 

If you cut it and say people are either high earners or low earners, then technically the politicians are right, in that the UK as a whole, more than 50% of those in full time work earn less than £40k p.a., It's actually £33k p.a. so I dare say that it's probably quite a lot more than 50% who don't earn at least £40k  so even with a middle ground the politicians may be right, it just depends how big we define that "middle earners" space to be.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/416139/full-time-annual-salary-in-the-uk-by-region/

[Frickin_idiot]

40 k is not a fantastic salary, squeezing the middle earners ever more tightly is counterproductive. 

[RobinB5]

If anyone's interested, UK census stats for FY ending 2020 are here:  https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/personalandhouseholdfinances/incomeandwealth/bulletins/householddisposableincomeandinequality/financialyear2020

Including this nice histogram of disposable income (basically net income):

I wonder if mean or median is a better representation of the 'average'?

Stats for FY ending 2021 are here: https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/personalandhouseholdfinances/incomeandwealth/bulletins/householddisposableincomeandinequality/financialyearending2021 though doesn't have the same histogram.

One thing that's missing is a histogram of income tax contributions. It would be interesting to know which salary band results in the biggest income tax for the government. 

[Rambo]

Here's another example of how iniquitous Scotland's tax system is.

More workers in Scotland are being hit by a "quirk in the system" that will see them pay an effective marginal tax rate of 54p in the pound next year.

The Scottish Fiscal Commission (SFC), the official forecaster, highlighted the quirk, which affects those earning between £43,663 and £50,271.

They will pay 22p in the pound more than counterparts in England because of the interaction between income tax and national insurance.

National insurance rates are tied to the UK higher rate of income tax, which is £50,271, rather than the lower Scottish threshold of £43,663.

 

 

[C8RKH]

You would have thought, @Rambo, that Scottish politicians, especially the SNP, would have a handle on this stuff. But they don't, as too busy blaming Westminster for everything.

[MPx]

8 hours ago, RobinB5 said:

Including this nice histogram of disposable income (basically net income):

I wonder if mean or median is a better representation of the 'average'?

One thing that's missing is a histogram of income tax contributions. It would be interesting to know which salary band results in the biggest income tax for the government. 

Interesting...but annoying how opaque the definitions actually are so difficult to understand where (eg) "I" might fit in as an individual.  Its net income so after tax, NI and surprisingly Council Tax and what else? (not defined in the text).   Then its "equivalised" - so in some undefined way, somehow takes into account the number of people in the household - taking into account (eg) that two people require more to live than one, but not double.  Of course noone outside the ONS will ever drill into the stats to see how well they work and where they're weak.  One reported weakness is that it inevitabley excludes all institutional dwellers (Prisons, care homes, etc) and homeless people, so misses out on some of the poorest sections of society which would obviously depress the numbers even further if they were included.  Like all such stats probably best used to see trends over time rather than trying to read anything into the absolute numbers 

[andydclements]

Have we seen the tea-light heaters being pushed as a cheap source of heat?

Lets do the maths  Somebody please check this because it seems so way out in terms of stupidity of advice, that I suspect my maths/ assumptions.

weight of wax , be generous and say 17g

Lets assume paraffin wax and chemical energy store of 220j/g so that's 17*220jules  = 3740 joules if maths serves me right

Lets assume 100% efficiency which seems fair given it will be in a room so any light will be absorbed and turned to heat,  and any fumes are still heating the room now vented, and ignore any unburned compounds. So 3740J is just a tiny amount over 1/1000th of  kwh, 

Cost of tealights, Wilko seem to charge £3.75 for 100pk and that seems to be about as cheap as they go (within reason), but lets say they are £3.40 for 100pk (you'll see why).

Electricity is capped at 34p /kwh, or (using the above price) 10 tealights. so 1kwh of electricity gives 10 tealights with energy of ........ rum roll please........ 10* 1/1000 kwh or 1/100kwh. So the "money saving advice" means people get told to waste 99% of the money they spend on it.   I get how these are hand warmers and perhaps have value when out in the wild with no electricity, but surely they'd be better to switch a kettle on for a few seconds to get the same amount of heat for a tiny fraction of the cost, and repeat if 100 times for a lot more heart yet the same total cost.

 

 

[Bibs]

Now the NHS spending £180bn a year makes more sense!

 

[Sparky]

Load of corporate-speak bollox.  There's no coming back once that culture is embedded.

[910Esprit]

Mystic Meg style, I have placed a  description of the successful candidate in a sealed envelope.

[LotusLeftLotusRight]

I bet there’ll be a lot of sniggering around table when that person turns up for their first boardroom meeting.

[PaulCP]

I’d love to see the cost v benefit analysis that has been approved for this new post 🤔

[RobinB5]

On 17/12/2022 at 19:55, andydclements said:

Have we seen the tea-light heaters being pushed as a cheap source of heat?

Lets do the maths  Somebody please check this because it seems so way out in terms of stupidity of advice, that I suspect my maths/ assumptions.

weight of wax , be generous and say 17g

Lets assume paraffin wax and chemical energy store of 220j/g so that's 17*220jules  = 3740 joules if maths serves me right

Lets assume 100% efficiency which seems fair given it will be in a room so any light will be absorbed and turned to heat,  and any fumes are still heating the room now vented, and ignore any unburned compounds. So 3740J is just a tiny amount over 1/1000th of  kwh, 

Cost of tealights, Wilko seem to charge £3.75 for 100pk and that seems to be about as cheap as they go (within reason), but lets say they are £3.40 for 100pk (you'll see why).

Electricity is capped at 34p /kwh, or (using the above price) 10 tealights. so 1kwh of electricity gives 10 tealights with energy of ........ rum roll please........ 10* 1/1000 kwh or 1/100kwh. So the "money saving advice" means people get told to waste 99% of the money they spend on it.   I get how these are hand warmers and perhaps have value when out in the wild with no electricity, but surely they'd be better to switch a kettle on for a few seconds to get the same amount of heat for a tiny fraction of the cost, and repeat if 100 times for a lot more heart yet the same total cost.

 

 

I did a pretty detailed study of these tea light heaters a few years ago. The blogs have been dusted off and marketed again due to the recent upswing in interest in cost effective heating. This part 1 of 5 parts in all:

https://blogs.sw.siemens.com/simulating-the-real-world/2013/11/18/heat-your-home-office-for-8p-a-day-part-1-really/

I went with 35W supplied over a ~4 hour period (42 MJ/kg (42000 J/g) taken as the calorific value of paraffin wax, I don't think 220 J/g is right?).

The problem with any form of full room heating is that you spend loads of Joules heating up air in places that you'd never occupy, e.g. especially near the ceiling. Heated clothes is the way to go, but until energy density of batteries improves considerably, that's off the table for now.