VILLAFC2000

never...?!

ha ha...!

Evening Villans,

I was wandering are there any players that post on Villa talk, With the current generation now being social media specialists.

It would be a beauty if there were....!?

Cheers.

I thought the ecconomy was picking up slightly.

I know a lot of builders they seem to be stacked for work.

I cant work it out?

He has made some great gags..!

He said to Scameron " at least you can afford your own horse now...!"

"After asking members of the cabinet to raise their hands if they would personally benefit from the top-rate tax cut (they declined to oblige), he dropped a sly reference to the popular TV show Downton Abbey. "We all think it's a costume drama," he said. "They think it's a fly-on-the-wall documentary."

Gabby is Villa through and through.

Ireland has potential to be good but also has potential to be ineffective. For the wages that he is on I dont think he has produced enough.

Mind you his touch and technical ability is class. I think he can become a good player at the club. If they got an offer of 6 million or over we should take it.

The future is with Bannan, Gardner, Herd, Weinman, Clarke, Albtighton and co they understand the club, fans and the football.

I do hope Ireland makes it though.

Obama is up there with one of the greatest American Presidents of all time. The prejudices that he has fought in order to get to where he is - If takes some one special.

An American Republican are you kidding me. Have you heard of George W Bush.

http://politicalhumor.about.com/od/bushquotes/a/dumbbushquotes_3.htm

So yesterday they were flogging the roads (I've got my eye on a cheeky bid for the M42 - I think I could add a cracking extention add a lick of paint and sell in a year or two)

Be terrible wouldn’t it, I mean look at all those tolls in France and how bad those motorways are...

So would you say our trains are better since we sold those off?

The infrastructure of the railway is effectively owned by the government, as are the roads? We are all private operators on the road network, as we have private operators on the rail network. Both pay revenue to operate on the roads or rail.

The reality of both is that we need massive investment, and somehow we need to pay for it. We could do this by various means, whether government or private funding. We could have the government tolling the motorways, or we could have private companies, but it would seem that eventually we will have some kind of tolling on more of the motorway system; its nothing new we used to have toll pikes. Would people be prepared to pay if it mean’t the motorways were as good as they are in France, or is it unfair to compare them?

Whatever the case we need a more efficient and sensible transport policy (whatever that might be...)

I'm not sure you answered the question.

Well is the railway better off privatised? Well its not privatised completely as I point out. Bizarrely the infrastructure is effectively public and then the operating systems are private (and heavily subsidised). Is it better than BR? No, not at all. Was BR better than then big four during its pre war period? Not really, so the railways show that both private and public ownership over the last 70 years has been a real mixed bag. But as I said its hard to compare roads and railways as they are different beasts.

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

ect.

What did you think about cost, service and time comparisons.

Are the railways privatized in France, Germany, Spain and Japan...?

So no one is going to step up and answer my question?

What do you mean by 'losing us the most money'?

Well how much do you think the estimate is of government waste each year in comparison to the amount estimated is lost through tax avoidance in comparison to the amount estimated we lose (or someone might argue we gain) by having the top rate of at 40% as opposed to 50%?

I would personally suspect that the government waste is the most, followed by tax avoidance, followed by the difference between 40% and 50%. I would further suspect that a lot of people who don’t pay the top rate do so through tax avoidance, both legal and illegal and those who do certainly have ways of minimising the total tax they pay

If the government was say 1% more efficient how much would that save and how would that compare to the gain in revenue from a higher rate? I note for example that the second aircraft carrier is going to cost an extra £2 billion...

It depends on how you define Goverment wastage.

In any Large organisation you will be able to point out waste. However if waste equals wages then that never is a waste because its spent.

Taxing 50p in the pound is simply wrong on principle imo. The State should not seek to appropriate 50% of a person's income once their earnings exceed an arbitrary threshold.

Yes your right they should be taxed 60%...!!!

Why stop there comrade? Next up, Yugo's and high rise flats for all!

"Socialism is a philosophy of failure and the gospel of envy, its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery."

In that case lets pay the Bankers Millions on pounds bonuses for loosing yes loosing Brittons Trillions of pounds - oh wait we have done that...!

Let have a system where we pay Nurses, Doctors, Teachers, Firemen, Police man an average of 25 k per year and lets play Emile Heskey 30 k per week for not even playing.

I have always said it comes down to Ethics and Morals.

Who said I am not a fan of capitalism...?!

Speaking of high rise flats...?! Have you been to London, Liverpool, Birmingham, Swindon, Glasgow, Cardiff, Newcastle ect ect

Ah yes that ridiculous inconsolable word Socialism.

It's hardly clever to reduce it to small-minded envy when a proponent is not themselves poor. (Che Guevara, Salvador Allende and Patrice Lumumba for example, were middle class or even upper middle class).

and "philosophy of failure" sounds like it comes from someone with a fatally superficial "philosophy of success" -success independent from the value of the goal itself. A common symptom of great spiritual poverty. Wants to be number one on top of the pops whether his song is shit or not.

As for yout quote. Thanks for winning against the Nazis, Winston, but thank goodness the British people voted for the government that would bring about the NHS after the war instead!!!

I do find it amazing how AJ Rimmer above seems to be talking proudly about stripping the assets of collapsing communist countries, and without batting an eyelid telling us what a pity it would have been to have to share the rewards with the people of Britain.

Why is it considered okay to think that way?

There was no asset stripping of communist countries. Indeed, when communism collapsed it was because these countries had no assets left to speak of. We merely traded with them... though it must be said that something in the communist system made them endemically bad at doing business.

Traded? I thought they had no assets to speak of? Bad at doing business? You must have laughed your head off at those muppets.

As for sharing the rewards with the people of Britain... we must have a different definition of the word sharing. I'm afraid 98% for the government and 2% for the individual, just isn't quite my idea of fair.

Tbh, if you've accumulated massive wealth by trading with people who are a) Too naive to obtain a fair deal for themselves, or Selling things in a kind of fire sale where their right to do so is questionable, I'd say 98% is about right.

And whilst we are on the subject of FAIR... FAIRNESS in Hong Kong meant that everyone paid just 15% of their income in tax. You earned £100 a year you paid just £15 tax, but if you earned £1,000,000 you paid £150,000 in tax.

I get it. The idea of charity and compassion for people unable to earn squillions escapes you.

Perhaps it's time we started learning from how things are done by those who consistently out perform us.

Or we could learn from those who are consistently happier than us. Seldom the same groups of people.

What is progressive and fair about a cleaner in Hong Kong paying proportionately more tax than there multi millionaire boss in Hong Kong...!

F@@k all...!

I am always staggered at the ammount of people who dont earn 150k - no where near who think this is that the higher tax is not progressive.After all this is a tax rate that is good for 98.5% of people...!

Its basically like saying its OK - I will earn less and less for myself and family while you keep earning more and more - thats fine with me - its fair after all.

Its like being a Villa fan and saying sure United should get bigger and bigger they should be able to steal everyone's best players, after all its fair...!

Taxing 50p in the pound is simply wrong on principle imo. The State should not seek to appropriate 50% of a person's income once their earnings exceed an arbitrary threshold.

I agree, and the main argument for me in favour of scrapping it is that the actual amount of additional revenue it brings in is probably not worth the cost of collecting it.

I hope they don't scrap it though!

£ 3.5 billion in two years is not worth collecting...?!

Awesome post.

Taxing 50p in the pound is simply wrong on principle imo. The State should not seek to appropriate 50% of a person's income once their earnings exceed an arbitrary threshold.

Yes your right they should be taxed 60%...!!!

I have read very little of this thread but wish to make a single point:

During the Labour government of the 60's, income tax was at £1 7s 6d in the pound, or £1.38p on each pound over a certain level. I've met numerous people one might describe as wealth creators, who told me they spent more time working out how not to pay tax than they did making money. Hardly surprising.

When Thatcher came to power, income tax was at 83p in the pound with 15p investment income surcharge... this gave an effective top rate of 98p in the pound.

To the howling of the Labour opposition, Thatcher cut the rate to 40p in the pound and not only did a lot of very rich people move to London in order to benefit from UK tax rates, but a lot of famous English people from whom we never saw a penny came home, such as Michael Caine and Mick Jagger... John Lennon was also on his way but never made it.

Within a year or two, the Thatcher government was receiving more money from top rate payers at 40% than they had been at 98%... well now, there's a thing!

What you all have to decide is, whether you wish to collect more money by keeping the top tax rate competitive, or whether you wish to be poorer and howl like dogs because some people are better off that you are... and anyone who thinks there's a different choice is a fool.

Edit: Two minutes after posting this, I switched on the box and John Redwood was giving the exact same example... though he phrased himself more delicately than me.

Its a good thing we are all in it together isnt it....?!

Lol - yes your so right, People like Michael Cane and the Rolling stones were so hard done by the higher tax rate. They only made about 50 million each instead of 55 million. absolutely terrible no justice what so ever - so unfair, they worked so hard for that money, how can you peanalise sucess blah blah blah. Can you remind me of the minimum wage again...?!

They said that when Gordon Brown put the rate of tax up then this would lead to more people like Footballers leaving and playing abroad because of this. I dont think there is one decent Footballer in the PL who has left soley because of taxation rate.

Yet if the 50 p tax is so unfair for the richest people. Why did so many people join PL teams this year.

The Irony is this the Government have deliberately hyped the deficit up. saying we need to increase indirect taxes.Answer me this:-

- How much in VAT.

- How much is Petrol per liter and how much of that is tax.

- How much is inflation

Of course there is not way these taxes can come down. They are squeezing as much money as they possibly can because of the deficit remember...! Its total nonsense that reducing Vat and Indirect taxes will stimulate the economy according to Gideon hence why they have increased them.

Fast forward to today. We are now being told that there will be a tax break for the wealthiest in society - probably all chums with Scameron and Gideon. - there is plenty of money available and we can afford it.

Its complete Hypocracy -All in it together - b~~~~~~s

Well if we can afford this tax then we can afford to reduce VAT to. Like for Like. After all we are all in it together.

This is purely an ideology that has been created by the richest in Society for the riches in Society.

Not to mention the fact that is would create 3.7 billion in two years. Thats guaranteed money that could go into reducing this so called terrible Defict...!

If the bankers who ruthlessly gambled with billions of our money and lost it, want to move abroad - then let them....! The UK is one of the leading country's in the World in the service industry it would nt be hard to replace them. Its similar process to PL footballers.

Churs.

Remember Stuart Downing and Jame Milner. Those guys were immense in a Villa shirt but it took them at least a year to settle in to the team and for them to play there best football and that was playing every single game.

It will take him time for sure. AM has to get the best out of him you cannot keep on chopping, changing and subbing players. It does nothing for there confindent there has got to be more loyalty shown to players. I now understand why MON never used to chop and change and made often subs....!

sounds like a great signing.

why is he leaving

Is he a regular starter in the dutch league or an unused sub...?!

For pity's sake...

Click this

beauty that was hilarious....!

Is he a regular starter in the dutch league or an unused sub...?!

Has anyone got the latest polls...?!

ha ha..! I think its a shame when this happens to a country but I think the bail out will save them long term.

Hi Folks,

With the current economic greek Situation - Would it be a bad idea to visit Greece on Holiday. I have always wanted to go but would it be to dangerous.

Also are the prices of their houses likely to crash..?

You are forgetting they have virtually just paid of the debt of there stadium which cost how much.....?!

They have? Where did you see that?

The Emirates cost between £390 and £470 million to build, depending on what you read and what the costs include (ie, just construction of the Emirates or the entire project costs, including redevelopment of the old Highbury which was converted into property by the club) and Wenger said just last month that the club needs to pay about £20m a season on the mortgage for the place.

They got a fat chunk of the construction cost from the sponsorship deals with Nike and Emirates Airlines and they would also have made a healthy profit on the property built on the former site of Highbury, though those places did not go up for sale until after the bottom fell out of the housing market so Arsenal got less than they were expecting there.

Arsenal posted a £50m profit in November, thanks mostly to selling Fabregas and Nasri, but they also said their debt increased by £39m to £137m. They are probably on top of things because they can clearly afford their bills even if it leaves them unable to compete in the transfer market (though lets not forget they paid Southampton £12-15m for Oxlade-Chamberlain!) but they are far from debt free. They will be operating under these restrictions for another decade probably.

Lets get things into Perspective a bit. I agree with a lot of things yout have said.

My point is this compared to teams around them such as Manchester City, Totteham, Liverpool, Everton, us and pretty much a lot of other PL teams they have by far the better finances in place.

I dont understand are you disagreeing...?

I'll think you'll find that Arsenals profits last year, came from player sales. Not really a sustainable proposition as Arsenal are definately worse than last year. Replacements have not proven to be as good.

Their previous profits have come from the development and sale of property at Highbury. This is coming to an end. I expect them to be making a loss this year, not on the scale of Villa but probably in the £20 mill bracket and it could be worse if they don't qualify for the champions league.

The one area they have got right is their match day revenue, they make more than they do from TV money. However there is one good reason for that, they play attractive attacking football and have done for a number of years. Hence they have 60,000 people wanting to buy a ticket.

You need to get things right on the pitch, something Villa haven't got anywhere near to yet.

You are forgetting they have virtually just paid of the debt of there stadium which cost how much.....?!