Thought Id start this one going because its rather dead on this board at the moment and I suppose all my usual muckers are either at the Stella tennis event watching Dim Tim (lose again) or at Henly Regatta eating cucumber sandwiches (they wish,...NOT).

Anyway please feel free to just talk to yourself blast away and let it go on any company or subject you wish. Just wish Id thought of this one before.

cheers GF.

gf
You cannot stop queue jumping in education. When a state school gets a reputation for excellence then wealthy people buy houses close to the school to gain entry. That cannot be stopped. Where I live the local school is full of kids who are the children of champagne socialists. The catchment area for the school is about 600 yards. Outside that area you don't get a place. Consequently all the houses near the school start at £1m.


If you stop private health care then the wealthiest will leave the country. When I had my software business we paid for private health insurance for ALL the staff.


An interesting aside is that a number of trade unions have had their own hospitals just for their members.

I think income tax rates should reduce as earnings increase. Why should somebody earning £100k contribute more than somebody earning £25k? They don't get any more for the extra money they've contributed, so it's only fair imo that a zero-rate tax band should be introduced on earnings above £100k.

Btw, it costs £550 to set up a company in the BVI and nearly as much again to service it annually. It also costs around another £750 to set up an offshore bank account, virtual office and all the other gubbins.

If the government were to introduce a zero-rate tax band for high earners, that's £1,300 that could go back into the economy!

3 M.

For god sake don't send them to your MP if a tory, or they will think it a good method of rising taxes or revenue for the party.

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Part of the problem with London prices is that is was subsidised by London ratings, which paid disproportionate wages.

This passed into the housing market and went with the house holder went they sold up and moved out.

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I don't see why a group of people should avoid financial responsibilities and pass excessive amounts on their children at the expense of the general tax payers who enabled them to make their "pots".

Even, if it is legal, it could be consider morally questionable, but the latter is within in the eyes of the operator. But it does seems the attitude of what you can get away with is O.K. A bit like a self selecting Mafia.

Hilary
That would be a lot fairer as the wealthiest consume less per capita of the services that taxes pay for.

Perhaps an extension to that idea would be useful. High earners could get a card to show how much they earn. This could be shown to buy goods without paying any VAT.


As the burden for the welfare state comes from the poorest then they should pay the most tax. The poor should pay for health care as they are more unhealthy. Smoking and obesity have become working class problems.

GF.

If your son has good results at the end of the year, give him a 1K and encourage him to do the same next year.

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If successful at end of degree, cover his expenses for his education.

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You can afford it.

Did more or less that for 4 daughters. Satisfied with the outcome.

The idea of a card sounds great, Haystack. Do you think they would do platinum cards to use in shops north of Watford?

Not sure where Watford is! I usually work to north of Hendon or North Circular.

As there appears to be a surfeit of unemployed people it would make sense to allocate them to more wealthy families as servants. This would act as a reward for the high earners and give the servants something useful to do. I believe the system worked quite well some years ago.

FRED a lot of the higher property prices in London aswel are fueled by the promotion of the likes of call me Dave inviting rich foreigners into the country. Indians yesterday, chinese a year ago French 6 month back...oh yes the red carpet treatment .

At the same time people like school teachers are forced to rent and in turn this further pushes prices up.

Thats why you are getting modest houses at £1 million or more.

Still an election winner for Labour.

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Question Dave?........... is it true you were shagging Rebbeca Wade and in fact horseback rather than bareback.

If that was true they would both be showing poor taste.


Uggh,

Joined you guys long in CIU cape. Talked me in to it.

(fos)fred - i have been lucky in that all my children seem to have avoided drink and drugs, got good A-level results and subsequent degress and are all now gainfully employed in their chosen fields ...... that is not to say that any of them strolled into jobs or did not suffer the usual trials and tribulations along the way - e.g. periods of unemployment and similar

================

gf - post 21599 is a load of total and utter rubbish with no factual base whatsoever ..... it's the sort of tosh that i would expect (fos)fred to write, but i thought you had more sense

I'm voting for the Hilary / Haystack party

Cyners post 21603....your talking shite.

Ive been a big bear of property company NTA Northacre for the past 2 years, out now with a £87,000 gain on my short of the lancasters (Kensington). In that time Ive spent hours and hours of research on London property.

Their is no doubts in my mind and that of the proffessionals that foreign demand for higher priced (mansions and larger premises) by foreigners who mostly dont even have domicile here have caused a upward domino effect on house prices and rents in London.

Far more to it than that, but its the truth.

ps, read the NTA thread over the road, both of them and youl see where my facts come from. I post as MT.

Nice cheese.......

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In 1887 Alexander Tyler, a Scottish history professor at the University of Edinburgh, had this to say about the fall of the Athenian Republic some 2,000 years prior: "A democracy is always temporary in nature; it simply cannot exist as a permanent form of government. A democracy will continue to exist up until the time that voters discover that they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates who promise the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that every democracy will finally collapse over loose fiscal policy, (which is) always followed by a dictatorship."



"The average age of the world's greatest civilizations from the beginning of history, has been about 200 years. During those 200 years, these nations always progressed through the following sequence:



From bondage to spiritual faith;
From spiritual faith to great courage;
From courage to liberty;
From liberty to abundance;
From abundance to complacency;
From complacency to apathy;
From apathy to dependence;
From dependence back into bondage."

It doesn't hurt to read this several times.

Professor Joseph Olson of Hamline University School of Law in St. Paul, Minnesota, points out some interesting facts concerning the last Presidential election:


Number of States won by: Obama: 19 McCain: 29

Square miles of land won by: Obama: 580,000 McCain: 2,427,000

Population of counties won by: Obama: 127 million McCain: 143 million

Murder rate per 100,000 residents in counties won by: Obama: 13.2 McCain: 2.1



Professor Olson adds: "In aggregate, the map of the territory McCain won was mostly the land owned by the taxpaying citizens of the country.

Obama territory mostly encompassed those citizens living in low income tenements and living off various forms of government welfare..."

Olson believes the United States is now somewhere between the "complacency and apathy" phase of Professor Tyler's definition of democracy, with some forty percent of the nation's population already having reached the "governmental dependency" phase.

"Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time." W Churchill.

Winston Churchill
Success is the ability to go from failure to failure without losing your enthusiasm.