Has this country gone mad?

[tommog]

Hi,

Sorry guys bit of a political rant coming up but no doubt you have your own views and it would be good to know i am not the only one:

It just really p*ss*s me off how we (the UK) live in a country that has has all the bad points of a capitalist country (ridiculous prices) and all the bad points of a socialist party 9pretty much everything) and not a lot else. The amount of tax we have to pay extortionate and what do we have to show for it? Dirty street, kids that leave school without learning how to read, kids that by 17 have a drink problem and 2 children. A transport system that is pretty pathetic. A man that "chose" to leave school at 16 realises by 20 that he probably should have gone to school surrenders himself to the government and get a free house! Yet the people that work bloody hard to make something of their lives get punished by income tax/council tax/fuel tax/ value added tax. Surely if we pay this much tax we should get something back, like a health service that can afford to pay its nurses AND still have enough beds for you. We pay all this money and Brown still gets himself into record debt. SO i guess we'll all have to pay even more to bail him out! Only in the UK can you be a millionaire and still have money concerns.

Ok that will do it for now, dont even get me started in the fact we have a government that does what it wants when it wants, oh yeah and giving even more of our money to Europe forgot about that!

 

[rossored]

ah ha, my favourite subject!

Agree with just about everything you say, tommog. My partner (soon to be wife) and I have plans to emigrate in 2007 once I've completed my degree, and I know an awful lot of people (colleagues and friends) who are exercising similar thoughts.

 

[apples10]

Hi,

Sorry guys bit of a political rant coming up but no doubt you have your own views and it would be good to know i am not the only one:

It just really p*ss*s me off how we (the UK) live in a country that has has all the bad points of a capitalist country (ridiculous prices) and all the bad points of a socialist party 9pretty much everything) and not a lot else. The amount of tax we have to pay extortionate and what do we have to show for it? Dirty street, kids that leave school without learning how to read, kids that by 17 have a drink problem and 2 children. A transport system that is pretty pathetic. A man that "chose" to leave school at 16 realises by 20 that he probably should have gone to school surrenders himself to the government and get a free house! Yet the people that work bloody hard to make something of their lives get punished by income tax/council tax/fuel tax/ value added tax. Surely if we pay this much tax we should get something back, like a health service that can afford to pay its nurses AND still have enough beds for you. We pay all this money and Brown still gets himself into record debt. SO i guess we'll all have to pay even more to bail him out! Only in the UK can you be a millionaire and still have money concerns.

Ok that will do it for now, dont even get me started in the fact we have a government that does what it wants when it wants, oh yeah and giving even more of our money to Europe forgot about that!

Merry Xmas !! :cheesy:

 

[tommog]

Merry Xmas !!

lol and to you

My partner (soon to be wife) and I have plans to emigrate in 2007 once I've completed my degree

I don't blame you i'm seriously considering it also.

 

[tomorton]

A word in support of capitalism.

High prices are not a bad thing if you hold shares in the company that is charging them. For example, nobody in this community needs to feel oppressed by high petrol prices when we have access to shares in the oils.

Capitalism is an active means of improving our race's environment, by which I mean our lot in life (not just the atmosphere and our eco-system). Humanity has always strived to find a better cave to live in, hunt or gather or grow better food, using better tools. From that drive has come the opportunity to co-ooperate, by which I mean trade, to do a good deal to get better means of survival (and later comfort and pleasure). Money is just the lubricant that facilitates trade and tramnslates one form of goods or labour into a totally unrelated form.

Sure, capitalism has worrying side-effects. But so does eating. And who's going to give that up? And the point of it isn't just survival, its a better life

I love it.

 

[Quenkish]

ah ha, my favourite subject!

Agree with just about everything you say, tommog. My partner (soon to be wife) and I have plans to emigrate in 2007 once I've completed my degree, and I know an awful lot of people (colleagues and friends) who are exercising similar thoughts.

Which country do you want to emmigrate to?

 

[tommog]

Tomorton,

I agree 100% with everything you said, my post was intended to show the bad situation having a limp wristed socialist government has caused.
I agree high prices are not bad if it is the product of a fully capitalist economy but when prices go up and buying power is reduced through taxes it leads to an unhealthy economy. The fact taxes may well go up further due to Brown's latest announcement will only increase the problem in my view.

However the problem I see is that socialism doesnt reward effort and production it hinders it with taxes and promotes a larger middle and lower class. So in order to keep voters happy they promise more benefits to the growing lower class which compounds the problem. SO i see things getting far worse before they get better.

But on the plus side Spain's only a couple of hours flight away and for the price of a town house in the south of England you get year round sun and a house with a swimming pool, mmm its getting more and more tempting

 

[tommog]

Nice to know i'm not the only one that thinks something isn't quite right.

Its a shame that the innovators and producers of this country are being left with little alternative but to leave.

 

[rossored]

Which country do you want to emmigrate to?

Canada.

Not sure yet if we're going to go to Toronto or Vancouver - probably TO, or somewhere in the Niagara region.

EDIT:

Chump, funnily enough I'm an ex-BMW driver. I've had a hell of a lot of cars, from BMWs, Alfas, Porsches and even a Ferrari - but I never had trouble pulling out into traffic in any of them apart from the BMWs. Funny that, eh......

This was something else I found mildly irritating this morning:

http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/transport/article334686.ece

 

[blackcab]

It's worse than socialist, this country is actually communist, probably far worse than that. It's gone so far to the lunatic left wing that you literally cannot say or do anything without written permission from the state - literally. I resent paying one penny in taxes and do all I can within the law to keep my money that I earned myself, for myself and my family, i.e. I seek to withold my money from SCROUNGERS. Living in this country is absolutely, literally worse than living under Pol Pot -- in fact it's the same, it's actually the same as living under Pol Pot. gOrdon brOwn, pOl pOt - see the similarity? I'm so disgusted I'm not even going to emigrate, I'm just going to kill myself, right here and right now.

*thud*

 

[rossored]

rofl

v good bc.

 

[dc2000]

Not to mention that we keep voting back in to government the cretins that are ruining the Country. Id like to see Mr Blur give his own money to Europe and not ours and as for Brown "I want to be leader nah na na na nah" Toys Pram etc

Canada sounds a good choice

 

[Quenkish]

rossored Canada.

Not sure yet if we're going to go to Toronto or Vancouver - probably TO, or somewhere in the Niagara region.




Vancouver appeals to me.

 

[trendie]

there is a "Merry Christmas" thread to which people are encouraged to add to.

I will be most disappointed in theis "bah humbug" thread gets more posts than that one.

PS: I concur with most of tommogs views, but the reasons as to why it is this way, many may NOT be prepared to contemplate. It is also important to see the true data rather than falling back on Daily Mail stereotypes, as this thread could so easily do.
One for the New Year perhaps, but meantime, have another sherry and post a "hello" on the Merry Christmas thread.

 

[rossored]

Vancouver appeals to me.

Yep, recently voted the best place in the world to live - I think Tronno came in at No.6 or No.7. Can't recall where 2-5/6 were.

 

[Bigbusiness]

Was it so much better under the conservatives? With 4 million unemployed, the miners strike, poll tax riots, Kenneth Clarke in charge of the NHS and then 6 years of John Major, the man who took us in and out of the ERM and did, well, er, nothing else that I can remember. Glory days

 

[DaveJB]

Can't help but wonder what would happen in say 2000 BC when a guy in an 'official' loincloth pops into your cave, slices a bit of your latest kill off (without asking how okay that might be with you and the rest of the hunters) , tells you he's going to waste 50% of it and give the rest to the idle so and so 3 huts down (the hut you all built for him and his 17 kids) who reckons it's his 'right' to be given your stuff 'cos frankly he's too flaming lazy to hunt himself.

Just interested really - if things get intolerable then migration is usually an option, the trick is to find somewhere that's nice and less screwed up. I genuinely think all politicos do their best, or close to it, but that they're just not very good. Throw in a good dose of 'Yes Minister' stuff and you can well understand how injecting money into the NHS means more administrators and a reduction in hospital beds.

Nowt wrong with capitalism though - by 'eck, when I were a lad grandad used to tell us stories about Yorkshire, ah used t'dream of going to Yorkshire....
(Apologies to anyone unfamiliar with Monty P).

Dave

 

[tommog]

Can't help but wonder what would happen in say 2000 BC when a guy in an 'official' loincloth pops into your cave, slices a bit of your latest kill off (without asking how okay that might be with you and the rest of the hunters) , tells you he's going to waste 50% of it and give the rest to the idle so and so 3 huts down (the hut you all built for him and his 17 kids) who reckons it's his 'right' to be given your stuff 'cos frankly he's too flaming lazy to hunt himself.

Good point,

Was it so much better under the conservatives? With 4 million unemployed, the miners strike, poll tax riots, Kenneth Clarke in charge of the NHS and then 6 years of John Major, the man who took us in and out of the ERM and did, well, er, nothing else that I can remember. Glory days

The fact the likes of Major and Clarke have been the leading alternative to things isnt much comfort really is it!?

Having said that though I read recently that the bottom 10% of society under Maggie Thatcher had more real disposable income than when they were employed under the previous socialist government.

 

[trendie]

What a bunch of misery-guts you all are!

What we need is a damn good WAR to take our minds off domestic issues.

Lets invade, sorry, liberate, Canada, since thats where most want to be.

Bagsy the helicopter gun-ship.

 

[DaveJB]

Mmm,
don't really want to come over as 'digusted of Tonbridge, Col (Retd)' .... I'm convinced that most politicians have more in common with each other, regardless of party, than with the rest of us. I also think the 'Yes Minister' series had a strong kernel of truth in it, as every other bureaucracy on the planet operates primarily to ensure its own survival first., it's expansion and increased power second, and its official purpose third at best. I'm not surprised, or disappointed at what we get - we vote for these people (the majority of us) in a sort of beauty contest where their ability is largely immaterial. We don't bother to find out if they are at all qualified to run anything... so why be surprised to find the result is a bunch of amateurs with no discernable ability?

I've always figured it dangerous to encourage anyone who wanted my vote - they start to think they're important. Take care of you and yours, be prepared to go elsewhere if the loonies get too thick on the ground... and don't rely on anyone giving you what commonsense dictates they ought by way of an even break.