Entire debate:

"Russell Brand destroys Nigel Farage on immigration"???
I can only assume you are joking. Brand was WAY out of his depth. In fact, much as I dislike the pseudo revolutionary, vainglorious half wit, I actually felt sorry for him. He was put firmly in his place by one astute person; "If you think you can, why don't you stand (for election)?" His response; " Mate, I'm frightened I'd become one of them." So, he doesn't even have confidence in his own childish rhetoric. He calls for anarchy just as long as he is not at the helm. He should put up, or shut up. Oh, and his call for people not to vote is one of the stupidest, most irresponsible things I have heard in a while.

"The rich keep you fed enough that you bark at the intruders." - Some youtuber.

Yes he's a little out of his depth and he's so desperate to try and get people to understand that he's hurrying and nervous. Well, he's a comedian, he isn't used to public speaking, he knows how to make people laugh not convince them in an argument. But he's out there, putting his neck on the line when he doesn't even NEED to - because as the tabloids (controlled by who?) enjoy pointing out he's rich. At least he got rich through his ability to make people laugh, rather than tricking people into voting for him because he'd act in their best interests then selling their decisions to the highest bidder.

We are seeing politicians scrambling for ANYTHING they can to hold power and keep making money for a little longer. That anything is immigration and they're quite happy to let people convince themselves its the immigrants. Even if we are slightly overcrowded for our infrastructure in Britain, we wouldn't be if the money in the system was active and being used to build and be productive instead of sitting in the pockets of people who have everything they want and 8 figure bank balances. These people in charge keep telling us they're going to tackle all these problems, but they never do anything to close the loopholes being used by all the huge corporations who have been paying NO TAX WHATSOEVER during the times of extreme wealth and growth. Is it any wonder our countries are in a dire condition? Our tax system has been starved of hundreds of billions, possibly trillions, who really knows!? And why weren't they closed? Just look at the links between big business and and politics, the only reason we aren't all saying "what the fuck is going on?" is because they can distract people through their control over the media and their convincing oratory skill into going "it's your neighbour.. it's his fault. was he born here? why is he using your hospital?", meanwhile we lose out of BILLIONS because the post office was sold off on the sly! Only to be told next election THAT WE ARE SHORT ON OUR FUCKING BUDGET. You're ok with that happening?! Why is it ok for them to keep coming back having lost our money and asking for more, but if it was a man who came directly to our door to collect our money in exchange for services, we'd tell him to piss off? It's EASIER to blame someone who looks and speaks differently rather than the clever bastard with a gleam in his eye sitting in the pub silver tonguing his constituents.

We are not fucking short on productivity - how many people do you know that think they have a lot of spare time and freedom from work? But that productivity is not being directed appropriately, and if you don't believe that then you need to get outside and talk to people who are less fortunate than you... benefit of the doubt, maybe you just haven't had to see it. But all the money that went on bonuses could be going into improving schools, police, hospitals, public transport and roads and god knows what else. A bunch of people would go without a brand new range rover sport or yacht or champagne holiday for 30... in contrast, thousands less people would die - think of the old people dying in the cold each winter? or hospital beds and treatments for those with cancer or anything that the NHS can't afford to treat? All the freshly educated nurses and doctors thanks to our universities being given cash to improve their facilities and training.

The theory behind all this was trickle-down-wealth, the money will be distributed through society by paying those at the top a lot of money. It CLEARLY does not work, and anyone who suggests otherwise would surely be considered insane. It's not working, we see it not working, so why aren't we fixing it or getting angry and making those in charge fix it?

If Brand is advocating anarchy (and i'd like to know your argument for saying that, i could stand to be convinced), it's because he's exasperated at our inaction and wants to try and stir people to act. We're currently at the other extreme - watching it happen. People are criticising the crowd for being too into brand, too "leftist" or some nonsense. But those are the people that are having their lives drained by these leeches at the top, of course they're only going to come and cheer if someone is going to say what needs to be said. Any other night, it's just drones debating different ways to stack the odds against everyone.

Edited: Tried to make it nicer, more readable, sorry for the long post but he's really really got a great point and i can't understand why we are all ignoring what's going on. We seem to accept that big business WILL get away with not paying billions in tax like that's fine.. but it's not, we can change it, we just have to stop fucking ignoring it and hold these twats to account like Brand is trying to do. It's not like he's suggesting some wild and risky change, he's just saying STOP LETTING AND HELPING PEOPLE STEAL MONEY FROM US. They won't, and watch Farage go bright red when brand talks about his scandals and rich business partners. If they won't, we need to get rid of them. You may not like his demeanour but he is expressing democratic and egalitarian points.

@A10anis you'd have to be ignorant, blind or worse to not understand the plain facts.
Immigration is not the problem. That has been the conclusion of every study into it. Immigrants add to the economy we need more.
The real answer is that the U.K. was raped by the city and dickheads like David Cameron. Sun and Mirror reading drones are why they might actually get away with it. It is the conservatives closing schools and hospitals not immigrants. It is the conservatives that refuse to invest in new homes or jobs.
Furthermore Brand is a comedian ! Just because he is the only person making sense does not mean he needs to run for office, which would likely kill his perspective as an outsider. Take that point up with Jon Stewart.

@dannym3141 Bravo mate !

*promote

Self promoting this video and sending it back into the queue for one more try; last queued Friday, December 12th, 2014 12:08am PST - promote requested by original submitter billpayer.

@billpayer

i dont really understand your attack tactics.
what does it serve?
@A10anis may be many things,but stupid and ignorant are not one of them.
he/she just has a different perspective on things.which @dannym3141 addressed quite succinctly,and respectfully.

i actually agree with many of your posts and i happen to like and respect russell brand for having the balls to stand up for the little guy,but i cannot respect when you presume to know someones political philosophy based on so little.

are you aware that you are using the very same tactics that rabid,rightwing nutters use?
it is so easy to dismiss someone when you can demonize them.
we all become so much easier to manipulate and control when we all buy into the over-simplifed tropes of :conservative/liberal,which are both viewed as dirty words and insults and is a massive success for the propaganda state.

the argument is never conservative versus liberal,those are just labels used to beat us over the head with and paint a divisive line in the sand.where people can take sides and throw poop at each other.it serves nothing and no one besides those who wish to dominate and control.

no,the argument is always power vs powerlessness.

but nothing will ever be gained if we stick to the narrative being fed to us by the very same power structure that wishes us to remain compliant and subservient to a system that no longer serves the population.

so attacking @A10anis 's point of view and opinion,presuming his level of knowledge based on almost nothing,will gain you nothing but perpetuate the very power system that holds us all down.

have to give respect to receive respect.

*talks *controversy

Adding video to channels (Controversy, Talks) - requested by ant.

@enoch .At no point did I say stupid. I said 'you'd have to be ignorant to not understand the facts about immigration'. Which is true.
Facts are facts. I'm not demonizing, that is something THE SUN and MIRROR do to immigrants on a daily basis.

It was @A10anis who used the words "you are joking', half wit, childish, shut up, STUPIDEST"

btw. I agree with your point "the argument is always power vs powerlessness." and I also enjoy your videos.

.

i got ya bill.
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It turns out the big guy with the walking stick wasn't just some random guy, he is the brother of a UKIP MEP. I knew there was something fishy about him when I first saw it.

Russell Brand is honestly not helping himself here. He flat out did not answer the question. Banking and investment may well not be taxed enough, but it's not single-handedly going to do anything about any supposed overcapacity in services. For anyone concerned about that, it is a non answer.

An intelligent answer that actually answered the question would have been either referencing the lump of labour fallacy or the long term benefits of a (generally younger) immigrant population on supporting tax for a country that is ageing and has a diminishing working age population.

Even something more waffly like multiculturalism bringing new innovative prespectives, creativity and productivity would have been a better answer.

Yeah I fucking knew immediately he was some bullshit joe the plumber set up.

I disagree. He gave an answer. I think removing the corruption of money from politics and making corporations pay their fair share in taxes would go a long way towards making things better.
Well, maybe it's not enough of an answer, but how about we just start there and see how it goes?

@speechless Agreed.

The 6 Walton heirs have more wealth that bottom 50% of Americans.
Ditto for the U.K.
U.S. companies have $1.5 Trillion off-shore. Money that should be circulating in the economy.
85 richest people are as wealthy as the poorest half of the world

The problem and solution are obvious.

@speechless

UKIP's support from what I've read, comes significantly from smaller country towns with jobs like manufacturing which are disappearing largely due to continued global trade and outsourcing trends. UKIP's popularity comes from being able to scapegoat these global trends on immigration. I was more arguing from the point of view that countering Farage's demagoguery is best done by explaining why it is incorrect rather than necessary pointing to alternative solutions, although that should certainly be part of it. But citing taxing finance as your one and only solution is demagoguery in itself.

I'm not too familiar with the level of tax avoidance and cronyism in UK politics, at least relative to other rich countries. Would a higher personal or corporate tax rate, particularly in finance help? Maybe. As it is, the UK is a finance hub for Europe disproportionate to its economic size and contributes some 16% of GDP and significantly to the trade balance (boosting the pound to improve international buying power).

Finance is very globalized and business could shift very easily to Hong Kong or New York if taxes were raised to a sufficient extent. I would be not be surprised if a higher tax take could be generated from higher tax levels though, however a political overreaction to tax and regulate finance could be just as damaging as focussing on immigration in the greater scale of things.

Taxing has no negative effects on the economy. Proven. Same with minimum wages increases.
Yes the UK needs to tax the shit out of London and the city.
The UKs problem with UKIP is due to an ageing population of racist tabloid reading dumbfucks who cry about 'their' Britain changing whilst quite enjoying cuts on hospitals, schools and jobs so long as it doesn't effect them or their lifelong pensions.

No, that's not true.

Proof seems to be lacking in your empty non-argument.
Read something not printed by Murdoch.

Wealthiest Pay Higher Taxes With Scant U.S. Economic Harm
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-04-11/wealthiest-pay-higher-taxes-with-scant-u-s-economic-harm.html

"tax increases harm growth is simply false."
http://www.cbpp.org/cms/?fa=view&id=4094

Both of your linked articles specifically cite negative effects. As a blanket and absolute assertion, your statement was wrong.

Yes they cite them in debunking that they are FALSE.

My statement was not blanket and absolute, nothing is except maybe Gravity.
My statement is relevant to this thread and how taxing the mega-rich will solve our current financial woes. period. got it ?

"The high-income tax increase sapped 0.25 percentage points from GDP in 2013, estimates Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Analytics Inc. in West Chester, Pennsylvania."

"Politicians who support tax increases operate under a misconception that there is little real effect, Maloney said.

“A higher tax rate reduces our ability to recapitalize and reduces our ability to expand,” he said. “You keep your forklifts a little longer, you do whatever you can to stretch the dollars you’re left with.”"

"According to Zandi’s estimates, the payroll tax cut subtracted 0.6 percentage points from U.S. economic growth, more than twice the effect of the high-income tax cuts."

“Clearly, taxes affect behavior; they affect some behaviors more than others. What has not been established is that the level of taxes has a clear and important impact on economic growth. And one reason is that this is not a well-posed question. How government activity affects prosperity depends not only on the level of taxes, but also on what the money is used for.”

"Thus, the proper answer to a question as broad as whether tax increases are “positive” or “negative” for growth is: “It depends.”"

In my opinion - and i think Brand's too, though i don't want to put words in his mouth - the motivation to act based upon nothing but profit is the largest and most significant drain on happiness and especially the advancement of us as a people. We need a revolution of principle, a revolution of the mind, we cannot keep on doing what we are doing when it is so clearly not working.

We have been pouring the results of our productivity into bank balances for so long now. If our productivity was represented by food instead of money, we would have been putting corn into a hole in the ground for 30 years and wondering why people are hungry. In a system based on corn, prosperity of a nation is based upon the free and active flow of corn.

I ask this question of you, because i don't know the answer. Do you think that we can continue pouring our productivity into big holes that other people sit on for "whenever they might need it?" Is it reasonable to build a system based on flow, but let huge clumps of it gather and expect everything to keep running quickly and without turbulence?

It just doesn't work anymore. The very rich don't realise it yet because they can afford to pay to avoid it, the quite rich notice it when they sit in traffic for example, but eventually things will become so clogged up that they will have no choice but to notice that there are no quality schools, hospitals, roads, airports, shops nor people to do their shopping, cleaning, cooking and driving. We all benefit, including the rich, if money is put into improving our infrastructure and facilities. We all benefit when productivity is flowing freely and quickly through the system. The opposite of that is called a depression, and it's when people don't have confidence in spending their money... we know that, we accept it, people were repeating it during the recession. How come we can't recognise the polar opposite? We're in a semi-permanent state of inverse depression, where those at the top don't have the means to spend their money, so it doesn't move.

This is an idea that needs to come from grassroots, everyone needs to come together somehow and unify over this idea. Because you can't blame any one individual for taking advantage of their fortunate position on the uneven playing field, or for fighting for a better position on the field. We all need to agree that the playing field has to be even, otherwise eventually the playing field will not be worth using.

I cannot stand this poisonous idea that you cannot ask a company for tax and here's my argument against that:
A lot of people live in the UK and a lot of people want to buy coffee and other assorted goods (starbucks, amazon). Even including tax, there is a lot of money to be made selling to these people. Let's say there is 2 billion pounds in profit available to be made by someone. That's still profit to be made by someone, and whoever offers that service to them under the correct rules makes that money.

The problem is that there's 4 billion to be made without tax, and it's cheaper to buy the politician for a billion to ensure you get the tax breaks. That is the poisoned system that psycho-capitalism has eventually produced... And it's so naive to think otherwise... so naive to think that those with billions of pounds wouldn't buy economists and lawyers, tout the favourable theories, generally spend top money on creating the right environment to make more money. Whether you think more or less tax is a good idea, surely have to agree that whatever the rules are, we adhere to them, or the system that we so carefully designed it around will fail.

Why are people so reticent to believe that we're being duped? No, surely not, it's the government, they can't possibly be lying to us. They stood in front of us, bare-faced, and told us they weren't torturing people, they had intelligence about WMDs, they weren't spying on us all. They prove themselves to be deceitful but like toddlers we trust the adult.

Thank you.

@dannym3141

Broadly speaking, I tend to subscribe to the view that capitalism is the worst economic system anyone ever invented, except for all the others. There are plenty of problems with it but also practical solutions that could be implemented. Pining for a better system is great, but this quasi-vague revolution that Brand is espousing is as almost guaranteed to be as direction-less and short lived as the Occupy movement.

Take campaign finance reform, of what I'm familiar the Mayday PAC in the US is proposing a voucher system where either (1) each voter is given and limited to a set amount tax refund they can spend on campaign contributions or alternatively (2) there is public finance for something like a 10 to 1 matching system for smaller donations. That seems like a good solution to the problem. It's not perfect though, as speech via the media (TV, internet) would still be wielded disproportionately by those with power. But it's a start. More transparency on where donations are coming from would also help.

I'm no fan of inequality either, but it's a far more difficult issue to grapple with. If you approach it with taxes, the problem is you need global coordination. A single country raising taxes will just see incomes shift elsewhere particular the highest percent who are the most mobile. There needs to be some kind of standard on taxation globally as to whether it is incurred where it is earned or where the company is registered, otherwise you have companies like Apple paying next to nothing because they avoid it in both countries (known as the double Irish, although this has now been eliminated it's a good example).

Should investment income be taxed higher? Probably, I'm not too well informed on this subject but it certainly entrenches established wealth. Should there be an estate-like tax of sorts that limits wealth passed on through generations? Perhaps, but it seems like a band-aid of sorts and a double dipping on what should really be collected through income tax in the first place.

I'm all for public services where it makes sense to provide them publicly. I don't like political cronyism either. But solutions need to be practical. Eliminating tax avoidance by multinationals is good policy because otherwise these companies paying virtually no tax intrinsically sets up barriers to entry to smaller competitors which is terrible economically and leads to monopolistic behaviour and higher prices. Targeting finance with a specific tax probably isn't. Business will just shift globally and countries like the UK will lose out more than they gain.

You had me until the part about Russell Brand not wanting to run for office. Then the point you made became utterly ridiculous on any level. He doesn't want to become one of them... Well he would HAVE TO BECOME one of them just to get a bill passed, or he would be tucked into a corner until new elections came around. Then he would be termed obsolete and removed. Think of it like this--would you be encouraging him to become a CEO of an evil, meglo-corporation? But he COULD CHANGE THE ENTIRE CORPORATE WORLD! Um, no. He changes nothing, is useless and a puppet either way...so why would you want him to run?