LLL

Fixing the UK is very simple. We simply need to stop spending so much state money on very wealthy people.

[LLL @LongLostLiberty]

The UK state is spending unprecedented, record-breaking amounts on millionaires.

The UK state is spending unprecedented, record-breaking amounts on multimillionaires.

If the UK state stopped all spending on millionaires and multimillionaires tomorrow, we could slash income tax meaningfully for everyone, pay off the national debt entirely and begin the creation of a sovereign wealth fund – all within just 30 years! Eventually, we could transform the UK into one of the most prosperous, low-tax developed nations on earth.

Unfortunately, both left and right are unanimously aghast at the prospect of cutting state expenditure on millionaires and multimillionaires.

The left hate any challenge to the universality of public services, pensions & healthcare, seeing this as a stepping stone to further erosion. The right despise the idea that the poor might get some entitlement they don't – and thus also demand universality.

Even the most vociferous critics of the big state and our ever-swelling state budget cannot bring themselves to suggest just the slightest curtailment of expenditure on millionaires and multimillionaires. On the contrary, all political parties fall over themselves to outcompete one another regarding who can raise state expenditure on multimillionaires more. There isn't even a minor political party who advocates for a curtailment of state expenditure on multimillionaires.

In the UK, there is absolutely zero discussion about any of this. The idea that we should STOP SPENDING STATE MONEY ON MILLIONAIRES AND MULTIMILLIONAIRES is so far outside of the Overton Window, that if anyone actually read this rant, their response would likely be "Huh?? The UK state doesn't spend money on multimillionaires!"

I'm pretty sure I'm the only person on this island who believes the state should radically and swiftly reduce state expenditure on millionaires.

The UK is done.

[LLL @LongLostLiberty]

@shannonsbrokey @DanielPriestley He clearly understands the difference between income and asset wealth. His entire philosophy is tax wages less, and asset wealth more.

Just because you don't like someone's ideas, doesn't make it acceptable to repeatedly lie about them.

[LLL @LongLostLiberty]

@verusphoenix @DanielPriestley He very clearly understands the difference between assets and income. His entire philosophy is tax income less and asset wealth more.

To repeatedly say he doesn't understand this is not intellectually honest. Why try so hard to deceive people like this?

[LLL @LongLostLiberty]

@LeRef5 @DanielPriestley Criticising his ideas is fine.

Inventing things he doesn't understand when he clearly does just makes you look bad, and makes me think you have no sound arguments.

[LLL @LongLostLiberty]

The list of things he says Gary doesn't understand is absurdly dishonest.

For instance, it's very obvious that Gary understands the difference between income and asset wealth – his entire philosophy is that we should tax income less and asset wealth more.

If you're going to criticise him, then fine, but don't invent his positions.

[LLL @LongLostLiberty]

I read and understood it the first time he posted this idea a year ago you dotard.

Yes, small businesses obviously, obviously, obviously underpay tax. There's little anyone can do about it either.

And personally, I don't blame them. It is a moral good to refuse compliance with a deeply morally corrupted system. Any conversation about compliance must occur after the system is repaired morally.

[LLL @LongLostLiberty]

@zechris92 @DanNeidle Nothing is derailed dotard. And if you think it's normal for the state to spend billions on multimillionaires, then you are the problem with this nation.

Why would we tax small businesses more to pay benefits to multimillionaires? Surely you are not that stupid??

[LLL @LongLostLiberty]

@crlosp22 @FootballNerdUK @TheMasterBucks It's meant to be a thrilling edge-of-your-seat event, not a dull analytics event where we all sit around waiting for 5 minutes to see which rules were broken this time.

[LLL @LongLostLiberty]

@FootballNerdUK @TheMasterBucks Perhaps, but maybe the ball shouldn't be jammed with sensors.

If we're keeping VAR, it should intervene for clear and obvious errors – not go out of its way to analyse and re-analyse every minor issue. Litigating every moment and revoking goals like this is killing the sport.

[LLL @LongLostLiberty]

The financial reason is that the birth rate crisis means the worker to non-worker ratio is moving sharply in the wrong direction – that's why they keep pushing the age up.

Moreover, triple lock is mathematically unsustainable. It will eventually consume more money than exists in the known universe. If you care about the long term success of the concept, you don't make it mathematically unsustainable.

The more debt we rack up now to pay for these mathematically unsustainable pension increases, the less money that will be available in what already looks like a bleak future.

The current crop of boomer pensioners are behaving in a massively irresponsible way by loading their own coffers with borrowed money, but yno... nothing new under the sun.

[LLL @LongLostLiberty]

@zechris92 @DanNeidle You don't get to control what people say you pathetic dotard 😂

[LLL @LongLostLiberty]

'The main home should be excluded' is absolutely daft and this attitude is precisely why we're so fundamentally broken.

We're a nation of retired old people pottering around in 5-bedroom homes whilst young families live in tiny flats.

Even worse, young people are not even having kids! Why do you think that is?? I mean... if you're paying attention, you'll notice there's a powerful inverse correlation between birthrates and intergenerational inequality. Simply put – the less poor young people are comparative to their society, the more babies a nation has.

We have gone truly mad when we are willing to risk civilisational death just to shower yet more capital on the wealthiest generation in the history of the known universe. Old people already have all of the stuff. Why are they consuming all of the state's resources????

I honestly would not wish what we're doing here upon my worst enemies. Please God make the stupidity stop!! 🙏

[LLL @LongLostLiberty]

Wrong.

For at-home care (which is the majority of it), the value of your home is not counted in the equation.

Additionally, if you need carehome care, but your partner still lives at home, then again... home is not counted.

Believe me – this country has no shortage of millionaire old ladies in 4-bed London homes who have care three times a day – paid for by taxing struggling working people – just so they can gift their millions to their kids when they eventually pass.

We are morally, spiritually and intellectually bankrupt as a nation.

[LLL @LongLostLiberty]

Nope. The last time the ONS compiled stats on household net wealth was between 2020 – 2022.

That is how we know approx 50% of retirees have >£500k household net wealth.

This data was gathered before the S&P 500 and gold both doubled in value – assets that are overwhelmingly possessed by the over 55s in the UK.

Regardless, they never gathered data specifically on the number of multimillionaires. We know that approx 1% of Britain had >£3.1M in household net wealth wealth back then, but this has likely moved markedly upwards since.

Of course, there is also a strong suspicion that wealth is generally dramatically underreported. The methodology of the ONS data itself is under currently under question. There's a strong suspicion it has dramatically underreported the wealth of rich, old people's private pensions.

Ultimately, as a lifelong data analyst with a keen interest in global wealth data, I can assure you, the information is not publicly available. It is very expensive to gather such data and very much not in the interests of anyone with money to pursue any of this.

If you have any evidence whatsoever to suggest otherwise, I'd be very curious to see it. Feel free to embarrass me.

[LLL @LongLostLiberty]

A clown is someone who thinks they're a Thatcherite, but out of an inconceivably profound level of stupidity, ends up accidentally advocating for big state.

Your hero Thatcher would pity the muddled ideological tragedy that is your brain.

Very sorry you're such an idiot man, but don't interrupt again when adults are talking.

[LLL @LongLostLiberty]

@JamesSpackman Absolutely, and always will be until you abolish cash. Even if you do, they'll simply find an alternative.

"How many psa 7 charizards to fit this new sink?"

Sounds absurd of course... for now at least...

[LLL @LongLostLiberty]

Do you consider only addressing only 1 of the 2 points you made to be ignoring what you say? That is a interesting perspective psychologically.

To address the other point; I am not confusing stocks and flows. However, I am making some assumptions in the absence of data that we do not have, and seemingly do not care to gather.

I assume, for instance, that the number of pensioners who don't claim the state pension is effectively negligible. I assume that the 1% of people with net household wealth above £3.1M – as of 4–6 years ago – are mostly pension-aged or thereabouts. We know that over 25% of pensioners had £1M 4 years ago, and that was PRIOR TO the doubling of the gold price & the doubling of the S&P500 – assets most prominently held by pension-aged people.

It is not absurd to suggest that at least 5% of pensioners are multimillionaires now. Again – we don't know this because nobody has ever cared to gather the data – but we can infer it from many of the data points we do know.

Okay, so what is 5% of the NHS budget + 5% of the pension budget + 5% of the social care budget + 5% of the pensioner perks budget? Again, we're are assuming that only a neglible amount of multimillionaires don't use these services. We're over £15 billion already.

And you understand why we're assuming that, right? Piers Morgan uses all of these services. Perhaps Sir James Dyson doesn't, but Piers Morgan certainly does. The number of multimillionaires who don't is negligible.

In a country that works, our tax specialist financial journalists are having these conversations.

Sadly, we do not have a country that works, nor any tax specialist financial journalists either, and so we decay further.

[LLL @LongLostLiberty]

No, this loser is suggesting that the state is supposed to provide a safety net for the poor and not a luxury cruise fund for the rich.

But if you're going to advocate for state expenditure on wealthy people, then this loser will happily vote Green – or whatever else needs to be done in order to blow up the corrupted gravy train that your retarded lizard brain so desperately craves to maintain a lifestyle it doesn't deserve.

[LLL @LongLostLiberty]

Not mental. You're simply not very good at thinking from 1st principles & you haven't heard these points before, so you assume they're mental.

Let me help. If 25% of pensioners are millionaires, and old people consume the vast majority of healthcare expenditure, and the entirety of the social care expenditure... then what % of the combined healthcare + pension + social care budget is spent on millionaires?

You could do some pretty radical stuff with all the money you'd save if millionaires simply spent their own money rather than the state's.

[LLL @LongLostLiberty]

@DanNeidle 'Stick to actual figures please' is nonsense if nobody is putting in the work to generate the data.

You are simply not interested in how much the state spends on multimillionaires because philosophically, you agree with this expenditure.