How many ex-miners would vote for Tories???

I get all that, which means the fixing of libor rates etc is an even more heinous crime than most and again behind all this people (big hitters with big money) are profiting.
The banking industry need watching like hawks, unscrupulous and without reservation, one of the nastiest professions known to man.
To be fair no successive government has ever really "took them on" probably because their all mates and have "deals" on the go.....(imho).
Are any of the parties prepared to have a go? I wonder.

 

Need to go sovereign money supply. Regulations can be avoided.

 

Absolutely spot on!

 

To try and explain take a look at this graphic - sorry it's a bit small - but it shows the basic arguement. Blue is Tory - Grey is Blair - Red is Brown / Bank Crash. It shows fairly stable spending before the crash - then the panic (which would have been the same under the tories so it's all a red herring from the tories as is all this "schools and hospitals were falling down BS from Labour - that's just noise in the system)

The Tories are basically argueing that Labour's modus operandi is the red section and that during Austerity whilst the debt hasn't come down - the rate at which the debt has grown has massively decreased and the Tories are wonderful because of that.

However again - with a margin of error - probably about the same result would have been seen had labour won the last election.

Whichever side of the coin you sit on doesn't really matter there is something fundamental that no one is talking about.

it's not spending on welfaire or imigrants or defence or global aid - or even tax evasion. - it's the plain fact that our population is ageing and those old people cost a lot to keep alive.

If you look at the national spending bill the total is about 40 to 50% of spending is spent on old people and their ailments and their living costs.

And no one wants to talk about it.

Especially when the coffin dodgers vote disproportionately and rattle on about paying in all their lives - well frankly they're over drawn. Between 1970 and 1980 the total tax take for the whole economy for the whole decade is equivalent to about the same we now spend on old people in a single year.

Similarly through the 80's we now spend the whole of 3 years tax income just on old people in a single year. (not just the bit that was collected to look after the old - the whole national tax taking)

I don't care how you dress it up - what colour you are - left right up or down - that is broken. And you can't even blame thatcher for it.

In my view there are three possible solutions (one of which is probably unacceptable) - either Grandma moves in and the burden and cost of care and housing is born by the family - or she hurries up and shuffles off.

The final option and the one which will happen - and will be blamed on imigrants and Thatcher and reckless labour spending and Chinese nuclear power and goat fiddlers and the unions and privatisation and zero hours contracts. - but not the real reason - is that the country will go bankrupt - and no amount of scrounger bashing or chasing down tax avoiders, or restricting benefits to imigrants or cuts in missile systems is going to solve the fundamental problem that we have too many old people and they cost too much.

So if you want to make a vote that makes a difference - vote for the party which promises to cure Alzheimers or introduce Euthanasia. - it's the only one which is going to solve the fundamental problem we have.

Although the one promising to cure Alzheimers would be my recommendation.

 

Source of information please.

And have the figures for the 70s and 80s been adjusted to 'real terms' for a fair comparison ?

I don't disagree with your assertion over the increased cost of an ageing population but figures aren't credible without a source in my opinion.

 

Really ? I beg to differ from personal experience relating to hospitals.

 

Rather ironic coming from someone who defends scab chants and thinks it's perfectly acceptable, and thinks 70's style football hooliganism is just all part of the game!

 

We're definately going to disagree on this - you being an accountant - and me knowing accountants havent' got a clue (joke).

The "real terms" arguement doesn't wash with me on this one - the country is running a nebt debt and has been forever so it's a cash argument not a real terms one.

Only when the organisation has an investment opportunity does the real terms argument even begin to hold water - it's not like there's a bank where the government put the tax receipts or invested in stocks and shares to appreciate.... They spent the money.

There's a small arguement on infrastructure but again - not material - just noise - and the numbers are so big - that the noise is simply that - a distraction.

And I thought you might challenge the figues - so I used your favourite source.

http://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2010/apr/25/tax-receipts-1963

 

I'm not saying it didn't happen. I'm saying it's probably not material to the grand scheme - nor would things have been much different either way.

Are you honestly saying that the same local authorities and NHS management would have done things radically different with the same accountants telling them things about cash flow and assett life time expectancy and budgets.

And more central to my point even if they had spent more the dent on the borrowing and the current plight of the country would have been tiny.

And we'd still have too many old people being cared for by the state at the states expense.

 

But surely it has to ?

If you don't an analogy would be to use the figure for the average wage in 1975... say £5k pa and try to apply that to the cost of building a house in 2015 say £150k.

Also the Guardian isn't my favorite source... toy must be confusing me some pinko liberal leftie like ark104 (only kidding Andy)

 

In the period from Mrs T being elected in 1979 to 1997 I genuinely believe that the NHS was being starved of resources. It was all 'free market' this and that. The Labour government had to rebuild from the bottom at that time.

 

I've been working for 40 years. I've paid my taxes and some of them have gone towards funding the OAPs of the time. Are you saying that when I get to 66 then the working population at that time shouldn't afford the same type of funding to me and my contemporaries ?

 

But how can you use a £5 note from 1970 - it's worth £5 now - it's not worth £200.

Most of the money wasn't invested in infrastructure that exists today that has appreciated. It was spent.


And to get back to the core point - I'm not challenging the value that my grandparents and their generation brought to the country. They made this country great. Particularly those who sacrificed themselves in wars and the like. They have my utmost respect and I love my Nan dearly.

However you can't get away from the fact - whether they are worth it or not - that we're spending too much on pensions and care for the elderly - and not enough was done in the past by either flavour of govt. to prepare for this demographic switch.

Everything else is peanuts in comparison.

Something has to be done that isn't Trident - that isn't immigration - that isn't Scottish Oil, isn't zero hours contracts and isn't tax avoidance.

And none of the parties have even mentioned it.

And the problem with spending and austerity will go on until it is addressed. Or we will go bust.

 

Firslty this is exactly the response why this issue is not discussed by the politicians. You are a voter. You have taken umbridge just at the suggestion. And I'm not even proposing any solutions - simply highlighting an issue.

So no - I'm not saying you don't deserve it.

I'm saying we can't afford it.

I'm saying there's not enough money in the Kitty and whilst we keep borrowing money to pay for it it's killing the countries finances. Not the imigrants. Not the tax avoiders. Not the benefits scroungers.

The shift in demographics - the scourge that is dementia and increasing life expectancy is the core problem. And probably more importantly the cultural fashion that no one wants grandma living with them.

My wife deserves a holiday in the Caribean just like her mate. But we can't afford it. What should I do. Have the house re-possessed?

 

Well I do know, no successive government has EVER set money aside for the retiring pensioners and our NI pays for that now.
Quite rightly if you have paid into something (as with any contract) and both parties agree, then you should get back what was arranged.
"Oh hang on we spent it", doesn't quite cut it! Equitable Life got their sums wrong on guaranteed annuities yonks ago and it took them down!
Were talking about central government here, are they all that stupid they play with our money with no risk attached?
I would love all parties just come out with the unspoken 5 letter word "Truth" then I could make an informed judgment on who to vote for.
That will never happen, so we have make a best guess.
Please tell me who is best, for us all based on that criteria???

 

You can't but the purchasing power of that £5 in the 1970s would buy you a weekly shop. Now it won't buy you a packet of fags.

To use the combined tax take of a decade at that value and then try to apply it to what it would buy in 2015 values is comparing apples with oranges. It gives a skewed view as to how much something costs now and it a tad sensationalist.

To take it to an extreme in a reverse manner. It would be like saying that someone who in 2015 earns say £30k pa now is fabulously wealthy because they would have bought a street of twenty houses in 1960.

I agree with most of your other logic but this one baffles me.

 

"Please tell me who is best, for us all based on that criteria??? "

None. Because the money supply system is broken. Anything else is tinkering round the edges and the main parties are not being honest with us.

 

Really ? So the £6bn from vodaphone, the Starbucks, Amazon and my favorite Philip Green would make no difference ?

I'm not saying that it would fill the gap but if we keep being told what we can't afford then how long before the rhetoric becomes generally accepted.

I am playing devil's advocate here to a certain extent.

If I now pay for your wife's mate's holiday as she is retired, then could her mate's kids not help me ? (bit daft that one )

 

Yeah - to be fair it's the bit I'm least comfortable with.

But there's something there - something along the lines of why people should not get compensation when endowment policies dont cover their mortgage. I give you £20 in 1970 - I just rely rely on the fact that you're "the government" and supposed to be clever than me to make sure it's worth £150k in 2015.

Then take umbridge with folk when it turns out to be worth 3 bob.