A billion.

[k4blades]

The next time you hear a politician use the word 'billion' in a casual manner, think about whether you want the 'politicians' spending YOUR tax money.

A billion is a difficult number to comprehend, but one advertising agency did a good job of putting that figure into some perspective in one of its releases.

A.
A billion seconds ago it was 1959.

B.
A billion minutes ago Jesus was alive.

C.
A billion hours ago our ancestors were living in the Stone Age.

D.
A billion days ago no-one walked on the earth on two feet.

E.
A billion Pounds ago was only 13 hours and 12 minutes, at the rate our government is spending it.


Stamp Duty
Tobacco Tax
Corporate Income Tax
Income Tax Council Tax
Unemployment Tax
Fishing License Tax
Petrol/Diesel Tax
Inheritance Tax
(tax on top of tax)
Alcohol Tax
V.A.T.
Marriage License Tax
Property Tax
Service charge taxes
Social Security Tax
Vehicle License Registration Tax
Vehicle Sales Tax
Workers Compensation Tax

STILL THINK THIS IS FUNNY?

Not one of these taxes existed 100 years ago and our nation was one of the most prosperous in the world.

We had absolutely no national debt.
We had the largest middle class in the world. Mum stayed home to raise the kids, Dad was allowed to discipline kids, a criminal's life was uncomfortable.

What the hell happened? 'Political Correctness', Politicians or both?

[Pete]

Are you serious?

[therealjr]

You could argue that we didn't have the same infrastructure to pay for
or the NHS
Or the rest of the Welfare state
Or 50% less population.
Also I hate to mention this given the debates we have on here over Iraq and Afghanistan but income tax was first introduced in 1799 to pay for the Napoleonic wars!!!

[Pete]

Hey!!! I was going to say that!

[Slacker]

It  is said we (the richer countries of the world) could feed the world for the money we spend on weapons destroying it

[therealjr]

we could probably have done that between 1939 and 1945 as well. What's your point?

[k4blades]

I think I know what Slackers point is. but my point is that we are living way beyond our means.

Look at the farce that is Greece, still going on and will continue now for many more months.

This is basically whats happened over the past few days.

Lets say you owe the bank £1000.
And you are due to pay £100 off of that next month, but you haven't got £100.
So the bank says, "don't worry, we'll write off some of the £1000, lets say you only owe us £800.00"
You say "OK, but I still haven't got the £100 you want next month"
They say, "don't worry, we'll lend you another £500 and you can pay us out of that".
End result is that you are left owing the bank £1200 and no hope of paying it off. Not good for you, or the bank in the long run.

That's exactly what has happened in Greece.
Except that the bank that's lending the money are international monetary institutions such as the EU central bank and the IMF, funded of course, through our taxes.
And the money being written off is mainly from private institutions, (banks, investors, etc), that have been bailed out with our taxes.

And who is benefiting from this, the bankers? Well they would say they are much worse off than a couple of years ago. The Germans? the people of Germany wouldn't say so. Greece, well their people certainly aren't.

So lets forget this silly idea Labour have of spending even more money, getting even more in debt. Lets look for a different one. How about something really ridiculous like adopting the policy that you only spend money when you have it. (Both on a personal level and Govt.)
 

[therealjr]

How about something really ridiculous like adopting the policy that you only spend money when you have it. (Both on a personal level and Govt.)
 

it's a nice idea but it won't work.
You have a level of expenditure that required borrowing. You can't reduce that level of expenditure without serious cuts (see the argument re youth facilities in Derbyshire, as I keep saying tell me what you DO want to cut)
But you manage to make the cuts and can live within your income.
But you STILL need to pay back the debts you ran up when you were living outside your income.
Which means you have to make even more cuts to your outgoings.
Which simply isn't possible.
Unfortunately there's no one out there going to give George Osbourne a free Parker pen for enquiring about consolidating all his debts into one manageable payment!!!

[Slacker]

I don't want anything cut I want the economy boosted not a double dip recession

[Fly]

Sill like the OP's post.
Makes you wonder who's the winners of the 2012 Olympics.

Not me 

[therealjr]

I don't want anything cut I want the economy boosted not a double dip recession

How?

[k4blades]

I don't want anything cut I want the economy boosted not a double dip recession

Thats why Labour nearly bankrupted the country, spending money we just haven't got, and still you don't understand it. Thats why, even as we have gone through a recession, lead my an almost useless government, Labour still can't get ahead in the polls. Because everyone else in Britain thinks that if it were left to Labour we would be like Greece. Either that or everyone, including Labour backbenches, think Ed Milliband is even more useless than Cameron. 

And as for the double-dip, you need to get up to date with your economic information. Though its still very early days, and theres a long way to go, over the past few weeks there has been a whole long list of positive economic news coming through from lots of different sectors. And with inflation sure to fall during the year, the jubilee and the Olympics, and Euro issues on the back-boiler agiain for a few months, there is a lot of optimism in the markets.
Oh dear, Labour couldn't beat the Tories when the Tories were running us in recession, what hope have they got if, by the next election, the economy is well on the up again. 

[Slacker]

If people have money they spend on luxuries rather than just basics then shops don't close down. Banks (who caused the crisis by stopping lending) will have the confidence to start lending again. Partly the Keynesian approach.

[k4blades]

The biggest lie in modern times is the myth that the banks caused the financial crisis by stopping lending. Cobblers! The crisis is caused by weak and incompetent,and lazy, usually left wing Govts, spending more money than they have. And all they did was keep going back to the banks, asking for more and more, all the time. Then as economies started to struggle, particularly in America, banks started to worry they wouldn't get their money back, so stopped lending.
The countries most in trouble are those who's Govts lent more than they could ever pay back, See my post above about Greece.  Today RBS have announced big losses based around their investments, though they have a retail operating profit. The biggest loss was a £billion written off that was lent to Greece. So putting it in simple terms, we taxpayers gave RBS £49billion to stop them going under, and they gave £1billion to Greece to stop them going under, our taxes being used to fund a badly run economy.
So we have useless politicians who just want look good while in office, spending money like its going out of fashion, without the slightest consideration for our children and grandchildren who will spend the next god knows how long trying to pay off that debt. Its about time politicians stopped lying, and accepted some responsibility.



PS, I was going to answer JRs post above about cuts, but it would have been too long, and I've had a long day, but we could start by stopping wasting money on wars that no-one wants.

[Fly]

Do you ever breath in ?