Cutting pay for the Police - what next

[Osem]

Originally Posted by Pog66

....and you are happy for your taxes to be increased and/or benefits be reduced to subsidise this?

Of course he isn't! He doesn't want other services cut either. Arthur subscribes to Gordon Brown's buy now, pay later school of economics and believes he's entiled to have his cake and eat it. He's in total denial about the serious size/implications of the nation's debt, whines incessantly about the spending cuts but never seems able to say where the money needed to run his 'dreamworld' would come from. I reckon he was one of Gordon Brown's senior economic advisors at one time...

[Pog66]

....indeed - I mean the Govt must have access to an arboretum providing all the readies mustn;'t they

[Osem]

Originally Posted by Pog66

....indeed - I mean the Govt must have access to an arboretum providing all the readies mustn;'t they

Well the BofE has been printing quite a bit of money over the last year or two so......

[Arthurgray50@blu]

Why does think l am a Labour Voter, I will vote for the party that will look after myself and my family.

And at the moment it is being torn to pieces by a stupid government who thinks of making cuts in everything - yet splash OUR money on lavish parties and themself silly wages.

[Stuart]

Originally Posted by Arthurgray50@blu

Why does think l am a Labour Voter, I will vote for the party that will look after myself and my family.

Perhaps it's because you continually attack the current government yet were oddly silent while the Labour government were busy getting us into this situation.

Originally Posted by Arthurgray50@blu

Why does think l am a Labour Voter, I will vote for the party that will look after myself and my family.

Because the only reason you withheld your vote from Labour last year was due to your local candidate being crap and from Hounslow. Nothing to do with you disagreeing with Labour's policies.

[Ignitionnet]

Originally Posted by Arthurgray50@blu

Why does think l am a Labour Voter, I will vote for the party that will look after myself and my family.

And at the moment it is being torn to pieces by a stupid government who thinks of making cuts in everything - yet splash OUR money on lavish parties and themself silly wages.

Wasn't aware it was the government's job to look after us.

While you're discussing our money where do you think the money to look after you and your family will come from? No party can look after you and your family because no party has their own money, it's our money, there's a limited supply of it and it has to be prioritised.

The alternative is taxes going up by a quarter. Given your complaints about taxation I've no idea where the money to look after you and your family and not cut services is coming from.

Incidentally I couldn't care less which party you vote for, I just don't get your view of the world or of what you're entitled to.

[Stuart]

Originally Posted by Ignitionnet

Wasn't aware it was the government's job to look after us.

I suppose technically it's the government's job to manage the state which is supposedly there to look after those who need it.

While you're discussing our money where do you think the money to look after you and your family will come from? No party can look after you and your family because no party has their own money, it's our money, there's a limited supply of it and it has to be prioritised.

This is something a lot of people forget. While the Government routinely deals in amounts of money far higher than the average person will ever encounter in their lifetime, they still do have a finite supply of money.

You are right, the Government's primary income is from us. As such, when they waste money, it's our money.

The alternative is taxes going up by a quarter. Given your complaints about taxation I've no idea where the money to look after you and your family and not cut services is coming from.

This is the classic rock/hard place situation for me. If the cuts go too deep, I could very well lose my job. Which I cannot afford to do. If they raise taxes too much, I cannot afford that either.

Incidentally I couldn't care less which party you vote for, I just don't get your view of the world or of what you're entitled to.

Clearly Arthur favours Gorden Brown's method of economic management which seemed to involve getting the country heavily in debt, so he could attempt to finance a "boom" in the economy, then selling off the country's gold reserves for a fraction of what they were worth. The Governmental equivalent of maxing out your credit cards, taking out loans (from one of these easy credit companies that advertise on TV in the middle of the night and charge almost triple digit interest rates), then taking the wife's jewellery down to CashConverters just so you can afford to take the family on Holiday..

[Osem]

Originally Posted by Stuart

I suppose technically it's the government's job to manage the state which is supposedly there to look after those who need it.



This is something a lot of people forget. While the Government routinely deals in amounts of money far higher than the average person will ever encounter in their lifetime, they still do have a finite supply of money.

You are right, the Government's primary income is from us. As such, when they waste money, it's our money.



This is the classic rock/hard place situation for me. If the cuts go too deep, I could very well lose my job. Which I cannot afford to do. If they raise taxes too much, I cannot afford that either.



Clearly Arthur favours Gorden Brown's method of economic management which seemed to involve getting the country heavily in debt, so he could attempt to finance a "boom" in the economy, then selling off the country's gold reserves for a fraction of what they were worth. The Governmental equivalent of maxing out your credit cards, taking out loans (from one of these easy credit companies that advertise on TV in the middle of the night and charge almost triple digit interest rates), then taking the wife's jewellery down to CashConverters just so you can afford to take the family on Holiday..

You see Arthur can't/won't grasp that fact. He thinks money comes from thin air and even though the BofE has been printing plenty of it, it's still not enough for him because cuts are being made. He's so scathing about the current government's policy because he's bought into all that New Labour spin and thinks it's purely political - big city Tory fat cats against good old Arthur and his working class chums. The fact that the party he so stridently supports and still can't bring himself to call to account for what happened had more than it's fair share of Oxbridge types, millionaires and sleazy, self serving hyprocrites seems to escape his notice for some odd reason. Likewise, the major roles the current leader and Shadow Chancellor played in New Labour's financial debacle is conveniently overlooked. No, I'm afraid Arthur can't see beyond the end of his rose tinted nose and still can't accept what a mess we're in, let alone how we're actually going to pay for Brown's decade of excess. Perhaps he thinks that what's actually happening in Greece, Portugal, Iceland and Ireland is all fiction or can't happen to us. Perhaps Arthur thinks we can just dictate what we borrow and the terms which apply to that borrowing. Perhaps he thinks that UK PLC can just continue borrowing more and more money and printing notes to repay the interest due. Perhaps he thinks foreign investors will continue lending us money no matter what and out of the goodness of their hearts. Perhaps he thinks we can just walk away from our debts like so many of our less than prudent countrymen/women have done. Perhaps he thinks taxing the rich and the banks will wipe the slate clean overnight and then the spending can start all over again and that his children and grandchildren won't have to work harder for longer and get even less in return for the tax they pay than he does. Then again perhaps Arthur just doesn't think at all.....

[Ignitionnet]

Originally Posted by Stuart

I suppose technically it's the government's job to manage the state which is supposedly there to look after those who need it.

Purely a safety net though - the idea of being 'looked after' by the government doesn't appeal, it's their job to be there when you can't look after yourself, any other expectation is, to my mind, inappropriate. Maybe I'm a bit too libertarian in that regard

Originally Posted by Stuart

You are right, the Government's primary income is from us. As such, when they waste money, it's our money.

It's basically all from us. Something people often forget when they talk about companies paying tax is that these companies make money from their customers, and eventually the customers are us most of the time, either directly or through our purchases of other items relying on them.

[Osem]

Originally Posted by heero_yuy

The fact is that we'll be paying across the board in cuts and higher taxes for decades as a result of GB's "prudence".

Correct and although Arthur says he'll vote for any party which 'will look after myself and my family' it clearly hasn't dawned on him that what's been spent on him and his family has been borrowed and will ultimately have to be repaid by him, his family and their offspring for years to come. Spending money they didn't have and creating massive debt - that's how well you, your family and the rest of us mere taxpayers were looked after by our last 'government' Arthur!

[Ignitionnet]

The kids, 'yoof' and Generation X/Yers that will be paying these bills off aren't as numerous, or as politically active, as Arthur's cohort. As a politician wanting to get re-elected you do the maths. Even these cuts and tax rises fall disproportionately on younger generations and families.