colhint

So Jubilee week rural wales, canoing, chilling and drinking

July North Yorkshire walking chilling and drinking

August 2 weeks in the Dordogne, swimming chilling and drinking

Ah the joys of camping. Actually by camping, reckon the whole lot will cost about £800 for the 4 of us, including travel

So neither Bolton or QPR can afford to lose

He's like the boil on your back that you can't reach. You know its going to annoy you until its gone

as we want Arsenal to win its hard not to admire Wigan performance. They have some brutal football players like CAldwell but they try pass the ball and it works

whats this pass thing you speak of

'UK Lifestyle Survey'.

3 times this week I've been called by an Indian chap claiming his name is Jack who wants to know about our gas supplier. First 2 times I've let him know that the person who deals with that is on holiday. The third call this morning I pre-empted all his questions, told him he'd rung yesterday ('No I did not sir!'), told him no he couldn't continue with his questions and hung up.

Anyone know what scam this is? Google doesn't reveal much besides other people getting nusiance calls.

I get those types of calls regularly at work. I just wind them up something rotten until they get fed up .

Tell them you can only discuss matters after THEY have answered some security questions. I usually put them on hold for ages too whilst I go and make a cup of tea .

I'm sure I read about some guy, when phoned asked the caller why he is calling a murder scene and how he new the deceased. then wouldn't let him put the phone down till he answered his questions

just bloody well get better Stan. Top Villa bloke

and what do you know. Penalty not given

I think its time someone was prosecuted. This one would be a good start. He should not be allowed to work in politics again

It would be a very big mistake to buy the "one rogue fundraiser" line.

Oh I don't think its just the one, but I do think people in senior positions should begin to understand the consequence of their actions

I think its time someone was prosecuted. This one would be a good start. He should not be allowed to work in politics again

Dont go to utah. was in a bar one night and after 2 beers the waitress asked us if we should wrap it up. ie thats enough for you guys ehy dont you just go home for a bible reading

Kenny Dalgleish and Suarez apparantly

I dont agree with that, I have worked in large companies employing 800+ people on the shop floor. When we put incentiveised bonus schemes, not only did production improve but individual pay packets did also. So these people, and about 99% of them got it, worked harder to get more

I beg to differ Martin. You're right they are there for everyone to use. That's the point. The state provides the transport network which businesses use to distribute their goods. They don't have that resource available to them because of their own efforts. Transport links are cited as a clear business advantage. As is a pool of either skilled or desperate labour available. These things are not down to individuals "efforts", but to the nation as a whole (hole). Much of the tools available to business are quite happily used by those businesses to generate wealth for the owners and staff, but have nothing to do with the "hard work" of the owners. Come the time the Country wants them to contribute to the upkeep or improvement of these things it's all "wah wah wah 50% tax not fair my hard work". Which rather contrasts with calls for better transport links, a third runway, tax breaks for business from the Gov't.

Double standards and taking credit for stuff that's not their doing.

Surely these companies using HGV's etc,to distribute their goods, by paying about 6 times more for road tax, than the average family car, are paying their share towards the infrastructure

Just wondering Peter, what proportion of these rich people made the money out of their own graft and hard work.

wont steam bugger the electrics?

ebay. why put no reserve if the opening price is £50.

I was just wandering if you have used the trains in this country compared to the rail Services in France, Germany, Spain Japan.

I have in all of them

Say it quietly but I was impressed with the French trains

I'm just wondering how to put this.

Didn't you find they had, well, sort of...French...people on them?

not sure if this is true, but its what I heard

4 people in the carriage of a train - Tony, a pretty young blonde

girl, an ugly old woman and a Frenchman. It all goes dark when the train

goes through a tunnel. In the dark there's the sound of an almighty slap,

and when the train emerges from the tunnel the Frenchman is rubbing his

face, and there's a huge red mark on his cheek.

The old lady thinks "I bet that Frenchman fondled the blonde in the dark and

she slapped him"

The pretty young blonde thinks " I bet the Frenchman tried to fondle me in

the dark, got the old lady by mistake, and she hit him"

The Frenchman thinks "I bet that Englishman fondled the blonde in the dark,

but the blonde thought it was me and hit me"

Tony thinks "I hope there's another tunnel coming up soon so I can

slap that French twit again"

just call it PFI and everyones happy

why not?

Correlation does not imply causation.

No, you are right. But it does provide a strong hint as to what may well happen and historically has happened

Oh i don't know if you just took the G8 countries and looked at the past 100 years, well I would think that generally if a tax reduction resulted in more / less revenue in most cases , then the same would apply here.

Why?

Correlation...

why not?

I was just thinking on a historical level over the last 100 years, it should be relatively easy to compare what happened in comparable countries.

What qualifies as a comparable country?

I should imagine that it would be rather difficult, actually, and probably not too sensible to draw conclusions on that basis.

Oh i don't know if you just took the G8 countries and looked at the past 100 years, well I would think that generally if a tax reduction resulted in more / less revenue in most cases , then the same would apply here. Now I'm not trying to make it an exact science, and I don't know the outcome (more or less revenue). But In my mind anyway It would take away many of the arguments from both sides if you could just state that historically this is what happened

I think the only one that could be defined would be the tax rate. That could be compared to other countries and what generally happened when tax rates were altered. You would think that would happen here

Well, the C4 news story at the moment is just explaining how a number of companies (including A4E and Emma Harrison - formerly a government tsar/guru/advisor or summat) had paid unusually large dividends before the beginning of the tax year in order to avoid incurring the increased rate.

Ignoring any debate on whether that ought to have been expected and so on, it would mean that any calculation on how much this tax increase raised is distorted by these kinds of transactions. To get some kind of picture (though for reasons mentioned earlier in the thread this would still be pretty finger in the air), one would need to run the rate for at least a couple of FYs so that these kinds of single transaction distortions could be taken out of that equation.

I agree with that. However we always have to reinvent the wheel don't we

I was just thinking on a historical level over the last 100 years, it should be relatively easy to compare what happened in comparable countries. And I know some people try to avoid tax, but I dont think thats a new thing, There must have been tax dodgers before the war

Question; what is losing us the most money, tax avoidance, the possible reduction of the top rate from 50% to 40%, or government waste?

Good question.

I think he is asking which is the greater sum of money.

Tax avoidance,

How much more money, (or less) would be collected if 50% tax rate was abolished

and what is the cost of government waste.

I dont know where to look for the figures.

I think the only one that could be defined would be the tax rate. That could be compared to other countries and what generally happened when tax rates were altered. You would think that would happen here

I just think its a class thing. No one ever complains about the bloke sitting on the edge of a lake, river or canal, trying to hook a fish, weighing it and the throwing it back. There are over 2m doing that in the UK alone

its a strange one isn't it. Nothing is really black and white. If it was a close member, I would strongly disapprove. If it was a distant family member over claiming a few quid then no. If it was a distant family member who was really taking the piss, like the poster who said about getting a new car on disability allowance every 3 years. Well I don't know what I would do in that situation, but it would really piss me off.

Another point on this though, In the scenario where a different member of the family reported them, and it all came out in a family do, who would you side with? The one one the benefit fraud or the one who reported it.

And lets not compare it to murder, what about burglary. A few TV's DVD's etc. What then. most burglars eventually shit on their own patch. Its difficult.

Like I said nothings ever black and white