Posts by Damion

The rise and rise...

I sat and read most of the posts above with great interest in the polar opinions that have been written. Are benefit cheats a huge problem to the tax payer? Not so much. Is cheating the benefit system right? Definitely not. Is pouring huge sums of money into creating a belief that benefit claimants are villains the way forward? Of course not - but that is what is happening.

To the comment earlier relating to having to get up at 6.30 to go to work meaning that everyone should have to. Boo-hoo. In my last posting I had to leave my home at 6am every morning to make the 2 and a half hour journey to work and the same back again. Out of the house 14 hours a day to make a living for three years. That's three years where I barely got to see my son whilst he was growing up. Barely got to see my wife before having to go to sleep for the next day. Barely had enough energy to do much of anything at the weekend. Had a grand total of 5 days holiday over the whole thing. Suffered an acute viral infection of the heart at the end of one week and dragged myself back to work at the beginning of the next, despite the insistence of doctors that I should be in hospital - and I certainly would NEVER suggest that 'people should just find a job' especially if they have an illness. I did what I did, but I don't expect that people should do that just because I did. I certainly wouldn't do it again.

Many of the social and economic travesties that are faced in this country are engineered by our government and the business impact on the costs to live. Misappropriation of funds by our councils and government departments. Spending by public sector on parties for staff or directors (not what I want to see my tax money spent on - particularly when you see figures such as £250,000 being spent on a Christmas party for Nottingham PCT's directors). The selling of medicines for UK prescriptions by local PCT's to Europe rather than being supplied to the people for which they were meant - then complaining that they can not supply medication as funds are not available.

Local councils stockpiling money in bank accounts outside of the UK. Many councils were hit by the Icelandic bank crash (Kent county council with £50m; Nottingham city council, £42m; Norfolk county council, £32.5m; Dorset county council, and Hertfordshire county council, both £28m) - those funds should not be invested in foreign banks. You can claim that they get a better return - but I do not want a council stockpiling my tax payments into a bank for a rainy day - especially in other countries. Really, our councils should not be stockpiling money at all! They are not the only ones - many public sector departments are doing the same.

Gordon Brown wanted us to believe that he was good with money and had made the right decision taking our funds out of gold and investing in the Euro... That's the kind of financial thinking that REALLY helps! Thanks for losing us all that money Mr. Brown.

If you think rising the minimum wage will help, perhaps you need to consider the negative effects first? Rise in minimum wage means more expense to material manufacturing/import businesses (depending upon which sector you look at). This increases material costs which are passed onto product manufacturers. These increases are compounded by their own rise in wage bill and in turn passed onto the supply chain. These increases are compounded by their own rise in wage bill and in turn passed onto the service/retail industry. Who have to add the cost of their own rise in wage bill. What this means is that at the final sale, you have to support that wage rise for a lot of people. Can guarantee that this will mean a small increase in minimum wage will lead to a larger increase to the cost of living.

The big key to our current (and seriously floored system) of financial independence is the fair distribution of taxes, and the prevention of corporate tax avoidance/evasion. At the moment, our current government is set to make tax avoidance easier for large scale businesses to the detriment of our country's coffers. Businesses claim that reducing their tax burden will help the economy - but fail to address the fact that their reduction in tax will need to be met by the workers and the small businesses.

If we want to stick with this system of existence then there needs to be a few considerations. Allowing the high salaried to have such a low tax band on all of their income needs to stop. Sure, if you are earning a high salary you want to see an increase benefit. However, capping income tax for everything over £150,000 at 50% doesn't cut it. There needs to be a further tax band - say, 75% for everything over £500,000.

About £12,000,000,000 (I hate the way our own government calls that a billion rather than the thousand million it is. That's an American billion - and it seems that our population has forgotten that this 'should' be referred to as 12 thousand million. However, there has been a shift towards the American numeric system - thank you very much!) every year is missing from the corporation tax income for this country because large businesses and banks use very clever accounting and the 'legal' moving of funds between countries principal to avoid paying it.

According to the Benefit office, benefit fraud cost's the pubic purse some £1,000,000,000 a year. On the other hand, according to the national fraud authority, the cost to the public purse from tax evasion (not the tax avoidance mentioned above) is £15,000,000,000! That's £27,000,000,000 a year lost to tax evasion and avoidance - and £1,000,000,000 to benefit fraud.

We are in a dire situation - but so many of you are being led down the path of blaming the wrong people. A guy I worked with liked to use the phrase "Don't hate the player, hate the game"... Seems very valid here. There are so many people who are throwing out negative comments about benefit claimants regardless of their situation or legitimacy. So many that want to say that people with intermittent illnesses should be getting work anyway (think about that for a minute please... How is that going to work out?) Get out of the 'Free-Market' mindset and realise that it is the 'game' that is causing the problem.

For all those that made it through this rant fully... Well, congratulations - I didn't expect anyone to read it all.