Off Topic Political Debate

This is too personal -I could not start to comment on your finances. AllI will say though is that everybody has priorities and that we choose those - how we eat, drink smoke, have leisure, holidays etc vary from folk to folk When I saved for my mortgage I spent almost nothing on anything else for a while
Why would anyone work hard and long hours to lose over 90% of what they earned. A recipe for disaster.
Pay bills - does that include their mobiles?
We can agree to disagree on how Labour and the Coalition manage an economy

 

You are right that this point was not reasoned debate. However observation is sometimes necessary too. It is no anecdote to see that many many people claiming poverty find money to buy things that others would deem less essential. It is important - you cannot claim sympathy if you choose to smoke rather than buy food. It is very much in the anti-Tory interest to exagerate the plight and numbers of people in poverty - it has been going on for decades.

 

I say let them go - if they want to avoid paying what is their moral duty to pay then let them go - we do not need them. If whole firms go then blacklist their names and boycott their goods. The main problem I have with people from the right is their rampant individualism. Their social image of man as being something from a Darwinian jungle. No man is an island, in fact men are more dependent on their society than any other animal is on theirs - every farm cat can survive longer in the wild than you can. Your clothes are made by someone else, your food is produced by someone else, your car (I don't have one) is made by someone else, the road was made by someone else - almost everything in your life that you need was 'done' by someone else - yet according to high priestess Maggie's philosophy there 'was no such thing as society`. It naturally follows that no man can become rich in isolation from society, no, he became rich because of it, because he was able to use its infrastructures - and now must pay more for it than others. The social image of man formed on the right is one of unfettered competition - a Darwinian jungle in which every man wants to become rich. Life is not like that, man is not like that. The main driving force of man is the need for society, friendship, mutual respect and the knowledge that he is valued by his society - and yes, to share. Cooperation is a stronger gene in humans than competition is (if we only competed we would not have survived as a species). You may want to create 'needs' in people and thus envy (the market needs to do this) but this is not the natural nature of man. I have no wish to be richer than my neighbour - have no wish for a second house (because it would not automatically double my happiness), and I am not unusual.

 

Just a few words about food banks and what has happened here. When we first came to France, just before Christmas each year there would be a public appeal to provide some "extras" so that people who were having a struggle could have a little more over the festive season. During the past three years people have come to rely on the banks just to feed their families. Four months of the year have gone by, and already there have been three country wide appeals, not for "extras", but for basic food stuffs. As I have friends who are very involved with one of the charities that gather and distribute these food items I get a very good idea what is actually happening. Over the past three years there has been an explosion of people entitled to visit and claim goods from the banks. Because the basic economy of the country has failed, companies have been closing down and people cannot get employment. Too late for many the government has started to reduce it's expenditure, although companies haven't seen any great reduction in taxation and are still closing because of it, but the way in which they are trying to save will have the effect of putting many civil servants out of work. The money being spent was not there to be spent, and as interest rates to the country have increased, it becomes harder to find funds to kick start the economy. The promise was that people would have a better standard of living as the government knew that they could do everything the population would wish for without any cut backs. The opposite has been the reality, which is clearly the reason the government has approval ratings of less than 20%.

 

Please read the above Cologne, that is the damage an anti austerity socialist government can do in a few years.

As for Cologne backing a high taxation plan that would ruin our high tech industries, the NHS, even our beloved football team I must ask if you are on something.?

Where is the logic in any of that?. The obvious result would more equality, everyone would be poor.

 

I tend to disagree with keeping top tax rates to reasonable levels - I think there is more of a case for everyone to be paying at the same single rate, and the key word there is 'paying'. Not everyone does and that's where part of the problem lies - if they did, the country as a whole would be better off. I find it particularly distasteful that there are those in public life who pontificate about what those less fortunate than themselves can have/have access to - whilst they themselves treat tax avoidance as a game, and pay little to no tax at all.

My eyes may have been opened to this in another country, but the 'game' is basically the same in the UK. Many years ago, I had a rather acrimonious fight with the Australian Tax Office. After working my butt off for over three years in a full time job, a part time job and a shared business for around 80 hours a week, and saving every cent that I could whilst working towards achieving a five year plan, I was hit with a bill for $2000 by the ATO for what they called Provisional Tax. It seems my unearned income had reached a level high enough for me to have the privilege of paying tax on it before I had even bloody well earned it. At the same time as this hit me, the ATO investigated Kerry Packer - it transpired that he had paid the princely sum of $5 tax per year for each of the previous five years. The result of all this? I had to stump up or else, whilst Australia's, and one of the world's, richest man was allowed to walk away, thumbing his nose at the country, without having to pay anything. His attitude then is all too prevalent here today, and if his ilk actually paid at the rate others have to pay, we wouldn't be in such a mess. If the tax rate is 20%, that's what we should all pay - nothing more, nothing less.

Rant over...

 

Do you ever read through people's texts properly ?

 

Have you noticed as we get nearer the election that the wish list of the left leaning posters are getting more bizarre?

Some of these rants could have been written by Wolfie (citizen) Smith from the Tooting Popular Front!!

"Power to the People"

 

What has this to do with debate ?

 

Sorry cologne - i thought my post was slightly relevant...

 

It wasn't directed at you BB.

 

Unfortunately yes.

We should have two political threads. One to discuss possible alternatives to the present political systems and the other requiring ever increasing amounts of imagination, a bit like watching Doctor Who.

 

Unfortunately there are some people who never let up. Either debate like an adult, and that means accepting that others have reasons for their beliefs, or don't bother. Your childish baiting is becoming more than a little boring, which is a shame because everyone else is having a very interesting debate here.

 

Just realised that - my 'ignore list' hid someone elses post...

 

Plus it's full of the usual exaggerated claims - "jobs outside the SE pay peanuts" well except for Public Sector jobs and skilled jobs and taxi drivers and, and, and...

 

The problem is Cologne you always push forward your ideals that are a million miles from reality, try to debate sensibly on alternatives that at least have a chance of becoming law however small.

 

Fortunately there are others on this thread who make it worthwhile staying on here. All I can do here is repeat my last post.

 

We can discuss theoretical systems of government until we are blue in the face, but when you see with your own two eyes what it can mean to an individual you can realise how some things work and others don't. If you qualify for some benefits here you will not receive money but food tokens. Last Saturday I was in LeClerc having just bought a few bottles to see me through the Watford game. At the check out was a youngish lady who had clearly been round the out of date counter and the economy shelves, so while I had a trolley, she had a single basket. She had all her items go through the scanner, handed over her tokens and then rummaged around in her purse to pay the outstanding amount. Despite finding every last small piece of copper she was still 50 cents short and stood there looking at what she needed, but knew she didn't have sufficient to pay for it. Yes, I did give her a euro, not because of my guilt at having things she had to live without, but because of anger at how this government fooled people into believing, then let them down.

 

Sounds a good idea to pay some benefits in food tokens rather than cash that could be spent on non essential items. Should be adopted in the UK.

 

Of course you would like to stand at the check out and show everyone that the state was paying in part for your shopping. I am sure you would feel humiliated, especially if there were people around that you knew. To take dignity away from people as well as them losing their job, is not something I would subscribe to.