I imagine they'll draw a huge number of negatives - maybe 100%.Originally Posted by Graham Breeze
The anti-body tests will be far more interesting.
I imagine they'll draw a huge number of negatives - maybe 100%.
The anti-body tests will be far more interesting.
Richard Taylor
"William Tell could take an apple off your head. Taylor could take out a processed pea."
Sid Waddell
Maybe optimistically I think it will burn itself out. It is more transmissible, which will perhaps see it have a longer timeline and reach. But only time will tell.
Richard Taylor
"William Tell could take an apple off your head. Taylor could take out a processed pea."
Sid Waddell
Hi Oracle, re your last couple of posts. The crisis has not been overegged it is a reaction to the unknown and sensibly erring on the side of caution while attempting to come to the correct conclusion, for every study there is another opposing one, and there’s thousands of studies.
Schools are a complex puzzle that will take a bit of care and attention to solve probably along with a reasonable track and trace system. I’m sure schools will get to it, yes, leaving documents for 72 hours seems obvious, lots of things for them to look at to reduce the chance of infection while the real risk is defined.
I think most of the things you see as unfair, wrong or a greedy scam have occurred because of the “rules” (I use rules loosely to describe necessity, regulations and negotiations whereby a purchase, contract, wage, pension, tax offset, bonus, benefit, etc, comes about, the power of money).
Companies and Governments all take advantage of the rules, why should people not do the same?
I did like your comment about us being “personally responsible for wage levels, and every time you buy cheapest or when that isn’t cheap enough you buy from abroad”. Reality is almost everyone does it, and it’s because of the “rules”. (I’m wearing a Primark tee shirt just now ��).
We have to follow a lot of the rules whether we agree with them or not and those we have a choice with have a cost associated with them. I think you need to learn to live with it or do something positive to change the rules, either way might help to ease your frustration.
One solution to the financial issues would be an equivalent of the South Korean Gold Collecting campaign except from the top down! The rich would still be rich but it would enable the rest of us to get by, or alternatively find a leader like Atilla the Hun.
Having see the number of people who have died below the age of 44 (500) personally I would have all the 5-11 junior schools open in June. Providing the staff are under 44.
There were rules permitting slavery once.
It doesn’t make the rules right.
The public sector pension scam is heading for a catastrophe. It cannot last.
Once upon a time, savings, return, bonds and interest rates were a heady 6 percent or more. People didn’t live 20 years in retirement. People saved then spent. At that time public sector pensions self funded. But then money saved by private joe got the same returns. All was bliss.
Long term Government bonds that underpinned annuities traded at 5 percent or more.
Now there is no savings interest rate, ( a government choice to screw savers, encourage borrowers as “ stimulus” started by Blair and brown) , negative bond yields in some countries, creating the bubble. It shafted the private sector royally.
Public sector employees are the ultimate tax dodgers. Their pensions cost more at market rate than they will ever pay in pensions and tax. How dare they point at others for avoidance? But because MPs abuse the same rules theyrefuse to do anything about it.
Most workplace pensions tanked with equities. It is private sector paying for corona.
As for overegging, the financial catastrophe is about to begin.
The response to covid will kill by starvation and deprivation . How is that “ better “?
As for frustration. Not really. I’m out of it. I saw the crash coming and made money out of it. But I still have enterprise and manufacturing underpants, and all that I see is destined to destroy enterprise, and discourage any from starting it. I have refused to employ in the last ten years. It was already too onerous then.
A sad state for the future.
Last edited by Oracle; 22-05-2020 at 07:36 PM.
Surely tax dodging implies intent, public sector workers are just the beneficiaries of a system they chose to work in.
Regarding buying cheap or abroad I've just checked out my shoe collection, 5 different brands, none cheap, one putatively British , All made in Guess Where?
What a particularly cheap comparison - surely you could have chosen better.
The problem will your arguments is they are binary with no suggestion of improvement- merely attacks.
Graham Breeze made a good point earlier - calm rational arguments are the best received. Perhaps time to rethink your approach Mr Oracle?
Hello Oracle,
We may be getting to the crux of the matter here. You see a rigged, unfair system and so do I. It’s just that we see it from opposite view points.
You really wont like this next bit. So, sit down, pour yourself a stiff drink and cover your keyboard with clingfilm…….
The affordability (or otherwise) of public sector pensions is a political choice. The state of the economy and all that entails, with regard to private sector pensions, food banks, inequality, in work poverty, social care, NHS funding – the list could fill this post, is the result of a political choice. CV has thrown a huge spanner in the works, but I’ll come to that. What happens next, how we deal with it is also a political choice.
You’re quite keen on blaming Brown & Blair. I’m a self-confessed ‘lefty troublemaker’ and I must admit, they weren’t my favourites either. Thatcher even called Blair her ‘greatest success’. I think we need to look a little bit further back to get to the root of our current problems.
The neo liberal pro market ideology that flourished under Thatcher and Reagan allowed policies of low taxes, reduced public spending and the de-regulation of markets (that sowed the seeds of the debt fuelled economy and the subprime debacle that led to the crash of 2008) to become acceptable, even seen as good common sense. It’s a global problem and I agree with your point about buying cheap – it’s a product of the neo liberal economic model we now have.
This shifted the focus of government away from the management of the economy for the benefit of the country at large (the post war consensus – the introduction of the nhs and welfare state and falling levels of inequality up to about the early 80’s or so – there’s a surprise).
Instead the focus became that of facilitating the reduction of labour costs and legislating to reduce workers’ rights and the power of unions. All in order to achieve maximum profit and shareholder value, that would then ‘trickle down’ through the economy and we’d all be happy and fulfilled. We’d have everything we needed, it would be competitively priced, our investments would see us enjoy a happy and early retirement. All would be, as you say, bliss. Then it all fell apart.
The neo liberal, pro market, low regulation ideology isn’t working. We all can see it. It was a political choice. However, we continue to vote in government after government (usually tory) who hold this model as the ideal. The current crop want to go even further (Britannia Unchained?). CV has changed things for the moment. It could go either way. The last time government borrowing was anywhere near the current level (ww II) we came up with the NHS and the welfare state.
I won’t give up hope yet.
Anyway Oracle, we are way off topic. I started posting on this thread to counter the attacks on the public sector with regard to the CV crisis. I’ve said what I wanted (and more than I intended). We’ll never agree and I don’t want to Hi-jack the corona virus thread any longer than I have. I’m off back to the occasional lurk.
Last edited by jackd; 23-05-2020 at 12:16 AM.
So called “ tax dodging” is a massively exaggerated media myth, based on poor understanding of how international corporations have to work, and so called “ avoidance” is simply working within the rules which you claim is fair.
All businessmen are accused of sharp practice, and for the vast majority it is unfair.
I used similar mechanisms to repatriate profit to the UK , just as US companies are obliged to repatriate profit there, it is after all where all the money was invested into intellectual property, so charging regional subsidiaries for the IPR ( cost of developing! ) and avoiding double taxation is sensible.
Because of the way the US system works, US companies cannot afford to repatriate money if they want to avoid double taxation. It is why some hold IPR offshore.
Look at cause Celebres: take the Accounts of an apple for example and see they pay tax at eyewatering rates close to 30 percent. Look at amazon see it reinvests every penny, so it doesn’t make any money! That’s why it pays little tax.
Facebook pays little but it only has a small set up here and because employees are paid highly , personal tax is far higher than corp tax, so the taxman wins by that!
Tax allowances are a necessary part of making tax systems function, and corporation tax is an unfair and unnnecessary double tax to begin with, based on an opinion not a fact called profit. There is no right answer to transfer pricing, despite the EU determination to screw apple.
All are tax dodgers in the same sense.
I bet you are too!
I have no idea who you are, I will wager you take the tax relief on pension payments. And So you too are a tax dodger with “ intent”
There is no obligation to donate tax over the minimum required by the system.
Very little tax is paid by the bottom half of society, and the lowest part are given credits, so they are the best tax dodgers of all, they are net recipients!
Public sector employees using the HMRC multiplier for pension limits are screwing the taxman royally. The rule makers make rules that benefit themselves. And with them the public sector generally.
You cannot accidentally early retire, all of public sector know the retirement age.
MPs knew the math when they decided to cheat the taxpayer out of all the tax they ever pay.
The problem is put people in charge of other people’s money, and they are all creative about claiming sone of it.
The fact that others are screwing the system doesn’t make it right.
Last edited by Oracle; 23-05-2020 at 04:53 AM.
