We do need to get money flowing in our economy again and the only way that is going to happen is if the everyday working man/woman has some spare cash in their pocket, if we don't then we don't buy anything and the recession gets deeper. With the current levels of tax we pay from our wages, then taxed on what we buy and even taxed if you have any savings, I dread to think just what the % of my wages goes into government coffers every month. I believe we must cut expenditure by frankly wasteful government departments but we must put some money back into the pockets of the general public. Companies should be paying employees fair wages and increasing those wages at least in line with inflation. My company agreed a 3 year deal with the union for 3% a year payable in January with an agreement that for this last year that if inflation in Nov 2011 was greater than 3.2% or less than 2.8% then they would meet to renegotiate (it was 5.2% in the November) but what did the company do, oh yeah that's right they told us " no you don't deserve any more so stick with it! Oh and we'll give the chairman a huge 50% rise in his pay and bonuses" hardly fair is it. All I want is to see my pay rise fairly, I don't expect huge leaps because I know it's not sustainable, but when it's now at the stage where there is no money left at the end of the month and no savings then I start to worry, what happens when something breaks? We had our boiler break last month and it cost £170 to repair, good job the weather had been so poor I hadn't been out on the bike buying petrol etc as it would still be broken now. Someone in this government needs to stand up and say that enough is enough, there are too many fat cats getting too rich and too many ordinary folk suffering and it needs to change now!!!!
Not really, I moved to Abu Dhabi (it has been affected despite oil revenue) but my salary is good here so not really affected. Missing the UK a bit, missing mainland Europe a lot.
I believe the complaints were about draconian laws governing driving, "public order" (one man's 'aving a lark is another man's "civil unrest"), very high cost of living, other issues. There may be a division across the sample - my biking friends over the years have expressed a dislike for Switzerland, the folks indifferent to biking have liked it - but I don't think it's as cut and dried as that. It's not purely a biking, or even a driving, issue. I won't be able to satisfactorily answer your question as I am remembering attitudes of other people, rather than specific complaints.
That seems quite odd. Many are the folk on here who are having, planning to have or aspiring to have holidays on their bikes in the Swiss Alps. It doesn't get much better than that. Maybe they will want to chip in with their experiences. There are so many clichés surrounding Switzerland - boring place full of gnomes of Zurich where you can't use your lawnmower on a Sunday etc. The reality is somewhat different. My best friend took years to visit me when I moved here as he was convinced he would die of tedium and there were much better places to visit. Can't keep him away from the place now. I've spent a lot of time in the UK over the past few years (was working in London). I have to say that I find the constant health and safety announcements ("Mind the gap", "Wet platform" "The following sequence contains flash photography") far worse than anything here, not to mention the constant police surveillance, Gatso cameras etc. etc. Even France isn't what it used to be. Beware the laser binoculars used to give you a ticket.
I couldn't agree more! I love Switzerland! It's clean, beautiful, punctual, efficient and while everyone else was killing each other in WW2, the Swiss were building hotels and ski resorts. Anyway, back on topic. My business has suffered during the recession. We are a graphic design and advertising agency and our clients have really tightened their purses. Some have stopped marketing altogether while others want twice as much for half the price. Unfortunately, many designers have been made redundant and are now operating as freelancers, at about half the price of an agency. This has driven prices down and led to more redundancies. I'm sure there'll be a level, where we can all earn a living but any thought of 'the good old times' are long gone.
'Poor Gordon Brown' - exactly. Resource depletion, increasing environmental costs and financial instability will strangle growth. Richard Heinberg tells it better than I ever could Life after the end of economic growth | Richard Heinberg | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk
Its all Gordon Browns fault! Not the bankers, not the short selling scum who killed countries and businesses alike. Browns decisions and encouragement of growth at any cost. And dont start on the pension funds he raped, which continue to be raped then we blame the city and business for any deficit....!
As I say, I have had the praises of Switzerland sung to me and I've heard complaints, too. My mind is open. This is in complete contrast to my opinion of Britain - bankrupt both spiritually* and financially, with the life being strangled out of it in every way imaginable (health & safety, personal freedoms, joie de vivre, national pride, everything really). *I am not referring to "spiritual" in any religious sense whatsoever, I mean in terms of community or national spirit, general happiness, contentedness and such.
+1 about Brown the rapist of pension schemes.....he also sold off our gold reserves at half market value.....cant see the Olympics cheering everyone up....£12 BILLION out of the taxpayers pocket that we can ill afford ? That would employ the whole of British industry for long enough to get the country back on its feet, instead of a jolly for the corporate fat cats who arent even taking up their ticket allocation......total waste of time.......Can you tell I am MIGHTILY PISSED OFF ?
Does Nog seem angry to anyone? :biggrin: Olympics will make everything better - if by better, you mean further in debt.
£12 billion is about what the government borrows each month !!, it spends 4 times that each month. The rape of the pension funds continues.
Remind me: the state pension fund is a Ponzi scheme, isn't it? The money paid out on pensions is financed by people paying into them. Ponzi schemes collapse when more money is taken out than is put in. If you have an ageing population - an inverted age pyramid - it stands to reason that this is going to happen. So what is being planned for this? After all, the only certainty in life is that every day you are older, so it's not a what if, it's a when. Of course, if you take the money out of the pension fund and use it for other things (à la Robert Maxwell), this day will come sooner rather than later.
Pensions are paid for out of the general pot, there are no hypothecated taxes in the UK, all taxes, income, vat, national insurance etc are treated the same there is no account labeled Pensions, future, for the use of. The promises made by the state to the public sector are a massive gold plated commitment compared to the private sector where defined contribution pension schemes yield bugger all due to piss poor anuity rates. The expansion of the public sector under Gordon Brown was, in my opinion, deliberate to tie more people to, and be dependent upon, the state for their future. The ageing population, with increasing levels of dementia, is just another problem we face.
The Gordon Brown raid on pensions was not a one off, it continues to this day. And IIRC it was Norman Lamont, a Conservative, who first came up with the idea.
If as you say, it all just goes into one pot, there is no raid on pensions. There is just a total lack of planning for paying them in the future. Pensions should be earmarked for future use. That is what any pension scheme you pay into is designed for. You are forced to save for the future because otherwise you'd be too stupid to. But then governments have this same stupidity and don't lock down the cash. And we elect these cretins and don't force change. What is wrong with us?
Most taxes are not hypothecated in the UK, but there are some exceptions (e.g. TV Licensing, Congestion charging, and pre-1926 Road Fund Licensing). How you love making categorical blanket assertions, John! It is true that the Treasury traditionally opposes hypothecation whenever it is proposed, which is often.
The state pension comes out of general taxation. The promise was that those retired today were paid by those in work who in time would benefit in the same way. Public sector pensions are paid in a similar way but certain sectors have built up assets from conributions that back up the pension, I think Teacher's Pensions works in this way. The 'raid' that people refer to is the way in which private pensions are dealt with and the removal of tax breaks on the activities of the pension funds. So the 'raid' is real but it only affects the private sector, a small number of public sector pensions and it does not affect the state pension which is paid directly from the goverments current account. That is my understanding.
