Well now look, lessbeclear, he's a neighbour of mine, just like Mr Clarkson and Ms Brooks and he's a really nice chap,
does a lot for charity, that sort of thing and if the chancellor and I had our way people like him - and the jolly decent chaps at Vodafone and Google and Amazon and Oh, I dunno, all the thoroughly decent rich people in the country to whom we all owe so much, or is it the other way 'round, never too sure about the details - people like him, anyway, wouldn't pay any tax at all.
I know, I know we've gone some way towards that but we still have a lot to do. What, take back his OBE?
Well, that was, I think you'll find, given to him for services to the country, so.....What, well, of course paying your taxes is a sort of service to the country but Look, let's not get into a blame culture, here, 'cos that doesn't help, well it doesn't help those being blamed, anyway, apart from Mr Carr. And as you know, I am always happy to give people a second chance, and so should everyone be. And Gary does make a considerable contribution to the public good by bribing me and my party. It's not as though he was caught wanking off a police officer in a public toilet. Not that there's anything wrong with that, so long as they're married. Wossat? No, no, George Michael is not a neighbour, are you saying that my constituency is a den of thieves and degenerates?
In a boy band, myself ? Well, yes, I spose I was, probly, only we called it the Bullingdon Boys, and it was a Rich Boy Band;
D'ya wanna be in my gang, my gang, my gang?
smashing time we had.
smashing time we had.
What, play instruments, fuck me, no; but neither did Take That.
I don't know who Gary Barlow is or what he does; apart from the fact that he was in entertainment and that immediately makes me think of Rolf Harris and Jimmy Saville, Max Clifford and the rest of showbusiness, Michael Jackson, that global gang of simpering hideous kiddyfiddlers.
Well, as one old queen to another, one does agree that income tax is quite tiresome, one's inspectors seem to want to take this and - aha-ha - take that, don't they? Are you in the same line of work as that Sir Savile fellow, whom one knighted?
Yes ma'am, one am. I mean is. One is.
One does hear that there is no business like show business.
Quite, ma'am, there is. Isn't. Is no. Is no business like show business.
There's a great book about all these ghastly singers, it's called Black Vinyl, White Powders, by Simon Napier Bell, chronicling the legions of predatory,druggy, homosexual Svengali pop managers, from Larry Parnes in the 'fifties, Epstein in the 'sixties and people like himself in the 'eighties and 'nineties; I think that Take That and Boyzone fell outside the scope of Bell's book but I wouldn't trust my dog, Harris, with their management, never mind an impressionable child. Barlow will be just another talentless, dodgy, preening piece of showbiz filth, good for fuck all, bleating about charity and ducking his tax obligations.
Well, as one old queen to another, one does agree that income tax is quite tiresome, one's inspectors seem to want to take this and - aha-ha - take that, don't they? Are you in the same line of work as that Sir Savile fellow, whom one knighted?
Yes ma'am, one am. I mean is. One is.
One does hear that there is no business like show business.
Quite, ma'am, there is. Isn't. Is no. Is no business like show business.
There's a great book about all these ghastly singers, it's called Black Vinyl, White Powders, by Simon Napier Bell, chronicling the legions of predatory,druggy, homosexual Svengali pop managers, from Larry Parnes in the 'fifties, Epstein in the 'sixties and people like himself in the 'eighties and 'nineties; I think that Take That and Boyzone fell outside the scope of Bell's book but I wouldn't trust my dog, Harris, with their management, never mind an impressionable child. Barlow will be just another talentless, dodgy, preening piece of showbiz filth, good for fuck all, bleating about charity and ducking his tax obligations.
mr mongoose, who passed this way an hour ago, used to say, pithily, that taxation equalled civilisation. I had never heard it put like that but of course he was right, it does. But try telling that to those within the charmed circle of celebrity. Who can forget the great holyman, swami, guru and wife-sharing fuckwit, Hari Georgeson, chuntering about divinity and whining about paying his tax, revolting Scouse git?
yeah, that's it, tax, it's just so wordly.
And, like, I shoulden 'ave to pay it.
paltry collection of hugely expensive instruments.
We will know only the tip of the showbiz tax avoidance iceberg, any one of them who can afford the services of the organised criminal faculty of accountancy will be up to their arses in fiddles. There should be a review of this nonsensical lawyerly nit-picking over evasion and avoidance. Anyone not paying what they properly owe should have their assets confiscated, be stripped of their citizenship and deported to anywhere that'll have them. Bangkok, perhaps, they seem to like it there, pop stars. Fuck 'em, throw them out, never mind giving them fucking medals.
Another showbiz Gary, flying the flag abroad.
49 comments:
Taxation equals civilisation? If civilisation means taking by force what someone else has earned, yes it does. A civilisation based on force? Don't like it; I wouldn't burgle a rich man's house because it's wrong and it's still wrong if HMRC does it on my behalf.
Taxation equals oppression
Without taxation there would be no infrastructure, no society in which anyone could earn anything, not even an educated or even a physically fit workforce to expoloit, how DO you think things work? How does anybody "earn" anything, without a taxpayer-funded society in which to do it?
Errm... what? Society exists in spite of Government, not because of it. Or do the Bullington boys' cash-grabs result in a great paradise? The tax all goes to pay for the interest on the national debt anyway; as some Labour knob said, there's no money left.
If taxation had a positive result we would all be happy to pay it and the threat of jail for tax evasion (or not giving a load of psychopaths your money) wouldn't be necessary. The Government is shite, if they had a monopoly on telecommunications the mobile phone would merely have a longer curly wire and a circular dial. brrrrr...click. br...click.
You can't have it both ways, mr anonymous; the larceny of govament is in the bloodstream of these commetaries, as are the tax favours they do for themselves and their familiars; these crimes, however, do not justify your assertion that civilisation could exist without taxation and - obviously - enough taxation is spent to ensure that most kids can go to most schools most days and that most sick people can get treated mostly effectively.
What these crimes do is emphasie the point of the post - that rich people should not be exempted from paying tax on the entirely spourious basis that they are wealth creators or, worse, that they bung funds to the unelected prime minister.
To avoid massive meltdown of systems that all now alive have taken for granted - taken as "civilised - we must all pay more tax, directly or indirectly, I don't care how they arrange it, and those who feel that they should not pay theor share must be treated in something like the manner I suggest, this criminalising of spivvery should of course apply to government.
If we look at the taxation and expenditure involved in, for instance, the Iraq invasion and occupation we would see your point
- (or not giving a load of psychopaths your money)- amply demonstrated. That does not mean that taxation per se is oppressive, it is nothing of the sort, it is the only way in which the maintainance and development of large numbers of people living together can be managed. That the tax collector is a crook does not mean that we should abandon taxation. We should jail that HMRC cunt who did the deal with Vodafone, we should jail Osborne and Cameron and we should deport fuckface, wotsisname, Barlow; somewhere over the rainbow would suit the worthless piece of shit. It's me that's your friend, mr anonymous, not these thieving gits.
When i used to work @ HMRC it was 'all tax is theft' but now i really do think GlobalCorp has taken over. Obviously corporation tax is just a category of the overall tax statement but these Tories have abjugated any intention of going for the bigger boys and have instead engaged in beggar my neighbour shite. If Barlow's a criminal then he should be convicted, otherwise it's just a thing.
Taxes aren't difficult - for Cammo to want to raid bank accounts is, yer know, inevitably stupid.
You venture onto the infinitely slippery slope, mr dtp, which prevents the prosecution of troughing MPs and uncivil servants - It may be utterly abhorrent, old chap, revolting and amoral, motivated only by greed and venality but ir's not actually illegal, so fuck off.
"If Barlow's a criminal then he should be convicted, otherwise it's just a thing." You see, it might be wrong but it's not a crime, is what you are saying; recognising the deliberate lawyerly vagueness of all this, normal people are calling, at least, for the removal of Cunthead's gong. You might've read the recent post on The Price of Everything....in which WW1 medals were worth fuck all whilst Prada handbags were worth a fortune. This is like that, giving medals to shit like Barlow who won't even pay his fucking taxes is pissing in the ghostfaces of millions. Here, mr dtp, is Ruin.
Cameron is saying that it is OK for HMRC to just take our money from our bank accounts because they are just more powerful than us. He and his mates likewise act with our money as if it was theirs - they call it legitimate expenses - and soon thereafter comes "I didn't know what I was doing was wrong or I wouldn't have done it".
I think he doesn't know that just thieving our stuff because he is king - and it is all mixed up and the same in his head, as it always is with politicians - was outlawed in Magna Carta, and that was some time ago now. "No man shall be deprived of his liberty or his property etc etc except by due process...
This doesn't mean that tax isn't a sensible mechanism. It does mean that we should be at their backs every day with a precautionary bayonet. Just in case they turn into NHS bureaucrat bastards taking taxis from London to Preston.
Mr I: "Without taxation there would be no infrastructure".
This is not theoretically or even practically correct.
Economically speaking, there is no reason why a non-state, non-tax model should not work. Its simply a matter of the efficient application of resources, and the generation of a return on those resources to justify their application. In fact, the state raises much if not most of its resources from the private market. It is highly arguable whether the state model is remotely efficient with its in-built pork-barrelling and corruption. Thats not to argue that capitalism is perfect, merely that its an alternative.
The buggered up PPI infrastructure schemes proves not that the capitalists are bad - on the contrary, they seem very efficient in getting a return. But they are evidence that the state is the least efficient when it comes to funding major infrastructure.
Some of the great infrastructure projects were built with private capital. Think of Brunel for example. There would never have been a Great Western Railway without private capital.
Taxation is a relatively recent phenomenon - income tax only being introduced to fund the Napoleonic wars. Prior to that there were taxes on windows, sheep, wine - whatever could be counted, not to fund infrastructure, but to fund kings, nobles and wars.
Probably the most sensitive issue would be with health. Only the most blinkered would argue that the NHS (ie a fully tax funded system) is efficient. Indeed, its not true to say there is no alternative, as I can't think of any other country that has a similar system. Literally, it would not be stretching the truth to say a tax-based system is killing people, not saving them - the alternatives being more efficient - look at the motality and other health stats of comparable countries.
Sorry to go on so much, but its budget day here in Australia, and we have the real prospect of a Government cutting back the state and all the usual suspects are out bleating.
All of that is true, Mr Mike, except that at the time of the Napoleonic Wars, the only thing that the state provided for the people was war, and therefore that was all they needed to raise revenues to supply. But that the state is inefficient at all these relatively new things is absolutely true and I would minimise the fuckers in a heartbeat - but from the top down.
The argument cannot be that everyone should pay their whack; this surely is self-evident. The problem arises when everyone doesn't and then it is the richest who will always have the means to minimise what they pay - within and without the law. Meanwhile I have to listen to the likes of Cameron saying that he finds perfectly legal means of tax avoidance "wrong" while 650 MP snouts are in thrust firmly into the trough. So we need a system of minimal screwing around with numbers, and that will never happen because there would be a revolution the next morning.
If we look - quite close to me - at Norway and Sweden, we see almost the opposite of what you describe, mr mike, achieved by what we would see as very high levels of taxation delivering a very safe, energetic, cared-for and civilised society.
I have the industrial, Empire argument constantly with mr vincent , constantly; sure, we built railways but public health,sanitation, education, housing and so on were comparatively non-existent, only organised and properly directed taxation made these things possible and only the state can deliver these things in a universal and relatively reliable fashion. No point talking about capitalism, it is passed, it is history, and what we have now is risk-free banditry in which profit is privatised, even when it hasn't actually been made, and loss is nationalised, it is big business which is the globally oppressive state, the financial terrorist. I don't know if you are aware of the numbers of small and medium sized businesses recently bankrupted, asset stripped and sold to a different arm of the banks which wrought the havoc in the first place by compelling customers to accept deliberately ruinous financial products but it is a large scandal here, bubbling away but suppressed by the Treasury, for now, Vince Cable, too, lying his foxtrotting arse off about it. There is no way that GlobaCorp can deliver decent public services and there is equally no way that a majority can earn enough to provide for itself and proponents of a vastly smaller state are merely assisting in the creation of a NotFreeForAll which spells catastrophe for us and even greater, larcenous wealth for the already massively wealthy. There is no conservatism to vote for; there is only a redundant, discredited, corrupt and corrupting party political system, suited, maybe, for the nineteenth century but whose onlybraison d'etre is the enrichmentvand empowering of filth like Mr and Mrs Balls, Messrs Clegg, Alexander and Cable and those smirking imbeciles, Cameron and Osborne. Uncle Sam rejoices now, to have whore dynasties of filth, the Bushes, the Clintons and no doubt, in time the Obamas, maybe, it wouldn't surprise me, Hillary Trousers and Michelle Obama as the Dream Ticket in the next election. I am sure there is personality cult equivalence down under, too; they all look wretched, racist and criminally repellent to me, Ozzie politicos, Faragistes gone mental.
I remain convinced that until we, as we must, arrive at a post-money world the creation and distribution of survival tickets must be rigidly controlled not by the printers themselves but by the holders, small as well as large. No taxation without representation would be a good slogan for an incoming, independent, non party political, non carreerist administration. G'luck, cobber. with the election, it'll be a buncha sheepfucking arseholes, whoever gets in, you can bet yer arse on that, mate.
That's right, mr enoch, although you don't need me to tell you that. The argument is often made -decrying the idea of a large public sector - that we ran India with a fraction of the numbers now employed at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, that the Navy had fewer admirald but in the first case we did it at the gun or cannonpoints of the East India Company and then the Army and in the second Jack Tar's flogged life wasn't worth shit and the enemy largely ineffective. The possible iniquity of the window tax and the Napoleon-inspired income tax are nothing to do with the post-WW2 social compact, which has immeasurably benefitted so many here foregathered bemoaning Ruin and which has seen a massive increase in taxation but also in earnings, safety, health and, broadly speaking, education. That scum like Sir David Nicholson are not immediately thrown in prison is not a failure of taxation per se but of, in this case, the unspeakable Andy Burnham, of New Labour generally and of that thieving git, wotsisname, Andrew Lansley, of the Coalition.
There have been revolutions, whether there may be more, and whether they will be successful is unknown. What is for certain is that they will be neither inspired nor led by rock'n'roll's Mr Gary Barlow. London, GlobaCrime's money laundry is just no place for a street fighting man.
Mr I: I'm pondering a reasoned response, but quickly - my understanding is that Norway & Sweden have been fucked up by the Islamic hoards, encouraged by state largesse, and that trouble is imminent?
Money is the most misunderstood thing in everyday life.
It is also the most useful thing and most misused and abused thing in everyday life.
The mystique surrounding it, created by the modern money changers in the temple, has left the world mesmerised and hypnotised by it. A slow and careful read through the following is quite revealing.
http://www.angelfire.com/realm3/accord/montrick.htm
There was talk, geez - there always seems to be talk doesn't there - but anyway, there was talk before the election of simplyfying the tax code as part of a great repeal act - ah, heady days but that never happened.
I can defo see the slippery slide where legality is the only judge being a bit, well, binary but I guess that's why these accountants get £500 per hour and the tax man gets by on £50k a year after 10 years learning his trade. In many ways Barlow's crime was aided and abetted by HMRC - by making the whole thing arbitrary, opaque and spread over a few years - they've actively hamstrung their own collectors. The big boys can get off as it just takes too long to train a tax man and wtf is one guy gonna do when he wanders into GlobaCorp London Office - 'hiya, where's yer accounts dept?'
There was a thing in Sunday's Observer about how everyone now uses the British Virgin Isles to squirrel away vast vast wealth and what do our government do about it - zilch.
What offends me most is that the stupidity of the Tories - what possible harm could it have done to go for Amazon, Google etc - even if it was just flummery, even if it was pointless and would inevitably lead to nothing so that there was some vague moral relatvism about the bedroom tax and universal credit etc but no, no, the message or narrative created by those stupid teenaged fake Tories was 'if you're poor, we're gonna screw you, if you're minted we're gonna ignore you'. I mean even if it's true, surely to God these ejeets must have some self awareness not to say it in public but no, they shouted it out. Hence I ain't working for them or voting for them no more - not that there would be a cat in hell's chance of them winning round here again for another term anyway.
Someone on the Speccie is quoted as calling 'Cammo, Clegg, Osborne & Miliband - 5th rate minds with 1st rate educations' and some cheeky cove then fisked whether their education stood up to that classification but they're right. We're being led by kids who can't do politics - that's why it's so fooked - that £500 per hour accountant knows his business and is just laughing his moobs off at the sheer incompetence coming from the Treasury. There's even more fun to be had checking out HMRC's 'new' chief exec - totally incompetent stooge replaces totally incompetent stooge - nah, that can't be the case, surely!
If you're bored:
http://www.jerryhayes.co.uk/posts/2013/03/25/lin-homer-eat-my-shorts-allah-ukba
Taxation comes after people start to accumulate wealth in a voluntary economy, and is not the means by which a wealthy society develops. Secondly, evein if it's used for good (which it isn't) it's still extracted without consent under threat of imprisonment so it's morally wrong. Thirdly, anyone who wants to rule must ipso facto be a cunt and if I could avoid taxation I would do so on this basis alone.
I am not the rampant imperialist you imagine me, Mr Ishmael, I merely recognise that the British Empire was an enormous civilising factor, and if a few fuzzy wuzzies were introduced to Sheffield steel the hard way, well, what can ya do?
I think, for what my opinion is worth, that taxation is not wicked nor unworkable per se, it is oppresive levels of taxation which actually damage and fragment society. I don't really care if the man next door to me has more cash, good luck to him, and I certainly not going to cheerlead the theft of his money whilst bemoaning the theft of my own. And that's what it is, theft. It is nothing more than a mafia style protection racket. Give us cash, at whatever level we decide, when we decide, or the boys will be round to smash ypur front door in and leave you to the tender mercies of Bubba in E wing for a few years.
I'm sure you're aware of the Laffer curve, Mr Ishmael, which basically says that the higher the level of taxation, the higher ther level of evasion. That's where I am today. Around 65% of my cash is routinely stolen and, what a cheek I have, I think it a little steep. There is no reason a civilised society could not be run on a maximum of 20% taxation, total, an amount I would consider fair and my civic duty to pay, instead of the current state, which I deeply resent and has quite literally deprived my family and I of numerous things, including education worth a fig.
If you were interested in a possible alternative, you could try 'Servile State', Hilaire Beloc. Makes an argument for distributism.
Mr Mike,
I was in Oslo not so long ago and you're right, it's wrecked.
Vincent
Norway's oil reserves and revenues are vast, mr mike, and have pushed the sardine trade into second place, very high standards of living, amazing services and, as we saw with that massacre a while back, a thoughtful and civilised people, unlike our own blood-crazed lunatics fired-up in a second by filth like Kelvin McKenzie. There is high, skilled employment. They pay a lot of tax, beer is about six quid a throw but the streets are peaceful, unlike ours. I know one is comparing small with large but certainly the idea of higher tax leading to a better society seems right to me.
I saw an interview with Norway's prion minister. Asked by an incredulous Britisher why his major, island prison was so - in comparison with HMP Britain - comfortable for the inmates, he replied, equally incredulously, Why shouldn't it be, we want people to come out better, not worse, and they do. Those sentenced to imprisonment can negotiate a bit about how a sentence is to be served, weekends for instance, so that employment and family may be maintained and in any event nobody actually goes to prison until there is a place available, recidivism is infintesimal. I know, they have a smaller population and are reluctant, rightly, to imprison with such enthusiasm as do we but we might move to a similar penal philosophy, even if its application was some way off. I dunno about Islamic hordes in relation to Scandinavia particularly but as far as I can discern they are becoming a problem for everyone, one way and another.
Bravo, and thanks, mr dtp, every one of them words rang true and glowed like burning coals. Jerry Hayes? My young friend stanislav made him cry, once. I must have a look
If, mr anonymous, you are positing Every Man For Himself then not only do I part company from you but I insist that you are wrong. We are naturally collectivist. It was collective effort which got us here, which sustains us; the robber baron is an aberration, unnatural and destructive, this current crop will have to be taken down and deprived, as were their predecessors; it is a long struggle but one for which we should, as the New People say, be up.
I agree entirely that those who wish to rule must be prevented from so doing and have long argued for a senate drawn from the electoral roll and appointed only for a fixed term. How could it be any worse than MediaMinster? But I repeat that we should chastise the Barlows and the rest, before we abandon one another.
I love money, mr alphons, I no longer make any but I loved it when I did, the creation of taxable added value to a commodity previously almost worthless is a joy in itself, that it gives others employment is a commendable bonus. But the making of money where there wasn't any money is magical. It is not money I object to, it is money launderers, extortionists, criminals, ponces, pimps, slags and thieves - bankers, politicians, GlobaCorp; they are Ruin, they have melted the ice caps, they will darken the Sun, they will poison our children.
I will read your link later, thanks.
Barlow should have bankrolled some politicians. He`d have a knighthood, be chairing a few quangos and no taxman would have come near the fucker.
Mr Yardarm,
That's basically what has happened. He bunged Cameron's mob in the last 'election'.
Mr Ishmael.
I understand what you ar saying, that it could be so much better, and I agree. It is not tax that is wicked, it's the scum that steal it from you to spend it on murdering brown people, or unborn children, or nuclear submarines, or any number of other rubbish that is harmful, wasteful and unnecessary. but until this waste and wickedness stops, I'd like to hang on to my cash, ta very much.
BTW, it is not the sign of a civilised society that when a man murders 70 odd children, he is given a 21 year sentence an an xbox. It is a sign of decay, and wickedness, and weakness.
Vincent
The sentence was what could be passed. The same authorities as displayed such common sense regarding rehabilitation acknowledge that in this case release is unlikely at any time.
Unless you go into tax exile, mr vincent, like great britons such as the Rolling Stones do, you have no choice but to pay tax. Unless you break the law which, by your own assertion, you won't. Better then to do - however apparently trivial - what one may to dispossess the thieves of the temple.
I think you're missing the point, Mr.I.
If I stole 25% of your wages and did good works with it would I be a one-man Norway? Would you mind? I have always admired your way with words and your effortless spotlight on those in power; being the creatures that to a man they seem to be I can't see how access to our wallets can possibly benefit anyone but themselves. It isn't a matter of every man for himself if you avoid tax. It's a matter of consent. I would rather pay for what I need when I need it than for what someone thinks I should have, such as bank bailouts and the various parasite preservation societies of one sort or another. It has taken ALL the tax I have paid in the last dozen years or so to keep my MPs (N.Ireland assembly) potted plants alive for one year. Sixty grand, for plants, per year, which I have paid for; if we allocate each outrage to an individual instead of across a broad back it would focus the mind more than somewhat. Imagine getting an invoice for a tank, or a stretch of road, or the upkeep of the Queen's memorial Lancaster bomber, or a social worker's wages, payable by you and your unborn children. Still think it's ok? Because I don't.
-richard
Ah, good to see you, mr richard. I did read that Mr Robinson, your first minister, owned twelve hundred neckties, and this was before he suffered his wife's infidelity with a teenager, we have probably bought him a gross or two more by way of compensation. The man is an obnoxious, thieving cunt who should be in jail for his property dealings, alone. I can understand your ire and share it. I simply do not see how we might, even those of us able to pay something - and there is an increasing number who cannot- fund individually such things as schools and hospitals, roads and social services, it is simply impossibe. I try to opt out as much as possible from life among the New People, which is why I am here, I don't believe in this, I hate that and I simply cannot tolerate the other; the insolence of office and the law's delay, I keep as far from them as I can and still be in, for now, the United Kingdom. I probably feel a stronger sense of outrage than do you about the system you despise and the post from which this discussion sprang is unassailable, people like this cunt, Barlow, should pay their taxes, simple; and if they don't pay their taxes they should be severely punished, as would you or I be.
The logic of this is not altered by the fact, as mr dtp, reminds us, that successive heads of HMRC are shameless crooks, that government is rotten, the cops and the judiciary are filth and the press live in their own, pspecial, exclusive sewer.
All I do is do what I can do, lots don't even do that. One of the first handful of posts, here - I must try to find it - excoriated one of your provincial governors, one of those repulsive New Labour vermin, Adam Ingram, and my young friend stanislav waged a guerrilla war against Mr Geoffrey Hoon, turning his very name into a swear word. Both of their names are now linked to the International Criminal Court's investigation of atrocity in Iraq. The blogosphere and the blogosphere alone hounded Mr Gordon Snot from office and into permanent scorn, it was, of course picked up by MediaMinster but the driving voices were yours and mine, cold comfort, I know, but better than nothing, imagine a world in which Gordon Brown still held sway, still berated us about his moral compass, still insisted that he alone knew the right thing for the country, banging his nail-bitten claws of doom on the despatch box, jerking his. jaw, like a fucking lunatic.
These days even the so called Mainstream Media mocks and scorns and exposes politicians with a ferocity never before seen, that in so doing it exposes itself is a subtlety beyond most in journalism.
I would be happy to join any bona fide movement to withhold specific taxes, to reclaim unjustified expenses and to lobby for the criminalising of many of Accountancy's activities but I remain convinced that the collective funding of the common good is good in itself, civilised.
Barlow should sue for breach of contract, Mr Vincent. One of the pillars of our klepto oligarchy national security state is that when politicians are purchased they damn well stay purchased.
But then pricks like Barlow and Jimmy Carr are just window dressing, exposed and held to ridicule while the puppetmasters, the City remain untouched, even unnoticed. Stinking clerks like Hartnett no doubt progress to honours and quangos and chairs on grateful Boards instead of the nick where the fucker belongs.
As long as the sun never sets on the New British Empire of offshore tax havens, as long as the City remains open for laundering loot from Bad Vlad`s chums, drug cartels and dictators then Big Non Existent Globa Dosh pulls the strings and our one party state jerks about.
And this scam others on the thread mention, where the govt can steal at will out of our accounts. Their masters with the likes of Google will have been assured it applies not their excellencies but just to Joe Soaps.
I normally view charity bandits with a great deal of scepticism, mr yardarm, as you will know; if it is public it stops being charity and is instead, self-congratulatory glad-handing, like the verminous von Windsors do. This lad, though, who has just passed away, alright, he was a collision-bound bandwagon jumped on by loads of filth but even so, we must presume that it brought him such meagre comfort as is available to those in his grim situation. I am a bit queasy about a public dying, I feel they should all be private but setting aside my own ethical nit-picking, if we contrast this lad with scum like Barlow, prime ministerial friend and neighbour, we cannot but rage.
As ever, Mr Yardarm, an offshore bank account is a phonecall away from those with the dosh to open one. The Revenue will be sucking cash out of peoples' accounts as soon as the assessments are sent out. It is a disgrace - short and simple.
The relationship between taxation and inflation bears examination.
Of course it depends on ones understanding of both before the relationship can be properly be examined.
Cheers Mr.I. No, we'll have to cordially disagree. Free money from the unborn to pay for power in the present is not going to work. It might do, I will give you that, if politicians weren't as you ably describe them, and if, instead, honest noble rulers genuinely cared about public money. Does taxation in UK today even cover the interest on the national debt?
Anyway, unlike Barlow, wallowing in cash given to him by people who willingly did so to get something in return and is not a crime just because someone who wants a share says so, all we can do is make homebrew and buy dodgy tobacco.The fieldhands' modest Fuck You, a small echo of Barlow's attempt to keep his wealth away from the squanderings of suit-wearing humanoids. Norway's lot may be benign for now - but States and empires seem to grow under low tax then eventually crumble under high tax.
Not to mention Peter Robinson, relying on votes, as they all do here, om people who merely hate someone else. I tore up my polling card; a half- millionth share in each two minute reply which is all an MEP gets to discuss laws imposed by the Reich didn't seem like a suitable recompense for the waste of petrol plus VAT and fuel duty which is itself taxed, and the general up-against-the-wall-ishness of the entire nest of 'em.
- richard
Certainly Treasury estimates of inflation are wildly at odds with those I calculate from , well, just from my own life, so I don't understand inflation's relationship to anything, do tell, mr alphons.
I dont know if you read it but I watched the select committee looking at RUC/PSNI Iinvolvement in the letters of comfort issued, mainly, to PIRA veterans and it was like comic opera, mr richard, Gilbert and Sullivan, especially Lady Herman quizzing Sir Ronnie Flanagan and I sometimes watch Stormont on the parliament channel. I don't know if Ulster filth are filthier than mainland filth but they don't hide things so well, I can well understand your vexation.
Treasury (BoE) estimates of inflation are a total joke - not only in their method but their presentation. I've been an analyst for what seems like ever and they use fan graphs - where the use of a tram line establishes the most likely projection with shaded areas to either side depicting possible outcomes and keyed up accordingly - all fair enough, you'd think. However, it's a total cop out - if I went off to do a presentation and said apple production next year is gonna be this but there's a liklihood of a,b,c,d...x,y,z gives rise to the interpretation 'hang on a mo lads, this geezer knows nowt' which would be a fair assessment.
I blagged an economics degree and i'm in no way saying that inflation's easy to predict but ffs, some of the guys at the BoE are meant to be the brains of us bullshitting metricians and yet can't seem to tell the difference between their arse and their elbows. I know that much of the point of economics is to define what's already happened and serves approximately FA purpose but, seriously, to be so wrong, so often, with so much hedging and presumably so qualified makes me think they're total losers.
It seems to me that there are two types of inflation.
One type is the type that “those in charge” trot out as an excuse, or a reason, for their most recent cock-up. It is usually justified as being “good for the country in the long term”.
The other type is the one that goes on in the background, unsung and largely ignored. One of its major causes is the way in which the government of the day, wishing to prove that they are “world statesmen” (and all that bullshit) splash out with Joe Public's money and squander it on every conceivable stupidity both at home and abroad. This profligate behaviour results in the increase of taxes and the reduction of Joe Public's spending power.
Joe, in turn, demands an increase in wages and his employer, as usual put up his price for the product Joe produces. There is, of course, a limit to this and eventually Joe is put out to grass and the government of the day gains another passenger.
Over riding all this is the fact that “real money” represents “real work”. “Real work” is not moving fictional money about from one place to another but instead is effort put into work which benefits others who “work”.
I am afraid, Mr Ishmael, that I can only ask you to have a look at
http://www.angelfire.com/realm3/accord/montrick.htm
It would take up a lot of space to explain it here.
As I said mr alphons, I used to love making money, where there hadn't been any there before, but this was due to effort and not to the mysticism which passes for banking.
I will look at angelfire right now
Thats it, Mr DTP. The Treasury and BoE are merely puffed up clerks who have always fancied themselves as the intellectual elite despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary.
Either they are as thick as shit, not noticing the Money Riot and Great Tits Up until it kicked them in the arse and then acted as bumboys to the banksters by creating bankster dole: QE and bailouts.
Or they saw the Money Riot and Great Tits Up as inevitable, good, brilliant and then acted as bumboys to the banksters creating bankster dole: QE and bailouts.
Either way they ought to be subjected to Dreyfuss style degradation; the state teat withdrawn...their desks smashed into firewood in front of them then be forced to strip off their suits then marched down in their undercrackers to the Job Centre to redeem themselves by working in care homes and supermarkets.
Mervyn King ? The Iceberg Awareness Officer on the Titanic has more professional acumen than that fucking twat. And now Gideon`s hired this fucking ' rockstar ' Carney with money the bastard is always pretending he doesn`t have. Another financial terrorist.
Media minster are in thrall to these fuckers, never asking; " Mervyn King, why are you such a thick cunt, Treasury bastards, can you add up a fucking shopping list ? " Human rubbish the lot of them.
One of the most frustrating things about the blogosphere is that so many are so visually illiterate, so many blogs would make your eyes bleed, red fonts on a black backround, white fonts on a green background, mad comic fonts, never meant to be written in and up and down the sides a whole list of charites and adverts and countdowns and fuck knows what else.
It's not hard. I don't know what html is, I don't know where the address bar is, what cookies are, I don't know how to download programmes, takes me fucking weeks, I don't know how to insert a link but I could manage to set up a clean and readable weblog. And I can't see the point of not doing so.
I mention this because I have just spent half an hour at mr alphons's commended site, angelfire Real Reality, I read a couple of the essays, The myth of money and How pariamentary democracy works ( or doesn't ) and they were both excellent, painstaking and persuasive, fluid and cogent but disastrously mispresented, tiny, nerdy font in hugely wide lines. I would commend the content to anyone with an interest in Ruin and his works; it is not something I could write, far too measured and organised but I fear many will be deterred by, well just by the fact that it's a pain to read, not for what it says but for how it looks.
I was comforted, therefore, to reach home and find mr yardarm's caustic rage and venom and to find it readable as well as agreeable. That, of course, is not to say that people should avoid angelfire real realit, on the contrary, it is as logical a refutation of MediaMinster and its works as you will find but as we used to say in the days of chauvinism, nice legs shame about the face.
Given their continuance in office, mr dtp, given their pensions, given their post-retirement entree to organised crime surely these lads are winners, not losers.
Mervyn King, I used to caption him unable to do his two times table so I lean to mr yardarm's first position - thick as shit. As for Dreyfussian degradation it is a lovely yet poignant image based upon the original possession of honour by the supposed miscreant and the ritualistic removal of its symbols. Mervyn King and his gang were never possessed of any such quality, thieves, spivs, gangsters,m slags, ponces and pimps; up against the wall, motherfuckers, that should be the hymn we sing them.
My take on Mervyn King is that he simply took the money.
Having been promoted to Governor of the BoE during the Imbecility he simply decided that if he stood up to the Imbecile by (say) resigning with a public 'what the fuck are you doing to the national finances you insane cunt' then the Imbecile would simply have got in somebody else to rubber-stamp his Imbecility.
Somebody like that Blanchflower jackass for whom no interest rate is too low and no amount of printed money is too great.
He figured that it might as well be him getting the KG (an award which I predicted and was roundly mocked on the webosphere) as some cunt who genuinely did believe in the Maximum Imbecile's fucked up maths. When the Imbecile was taking the accolades for 'fixing' the 'global economic crisis that started in America and had fuck all to do with me, Gordon Brown' it was probably best to have had Mervyn King there explaining how manage rather than that utter fuckwit Blanchflower egging him on to print more money.
That's as charitable as I can be to King.
Today's (late) Private Eye does however highlight a point of hilarity that I must share.
King has been made a KG and, pointedly, Brenda has left a spare seat by having only 23 of a possible 24 KGs. The inside story is that Blair has been approached and declined his KG while he touts himself on the world stage as a common man made good.
What this means (apparently) is that, etiquette-wise, the Maximum Imbecile cannot be made a KG while they wait for his predecessor to step up.
Once again the Imbecile is thwarted by the posh boy.
Fucking delicious.
King, a knight of the garter, 'sabit strong, isn't it. Did Brenda make a killing out of his cackhandedness?
I shouldn't think Tony and Imelda's security team could handle regular visits to Windsor, or the house of lords for that matter. It will be a matter of their personal safety as much as modesty -especially Imelda - which keeps them commoners. Maybe, who knows, they are aware, also, of Chilcott embarrasments; it can't be sat upon forever, can it?
I doubt, also, that Snotty would go for a KG if offered, he is, after all, touched by divinity of his own but if Blair has been offered and Brown not it is , as you say, delicious.
Brown`s Imbecility is so pertinent it should never be allowed to fade from our memories. His great lumpen head should be severed and in the empty brain cavity a closed loop tape should endlessly repeat " No return to boom and bust " mounted on a rotating armature in a glass case in the heart of the City.
Blair`s coat of arms would be a sight; Blair, couchant, tongue up the fundamental orifice of a Bush rampant and Slotgob, Golden Ambulance pursuing. Framed by the parted thighs of Wendi Murdoch, emblazoned on a pile of filthy lucre motif and edged by crossed dead Iraqis.
I`m sure many Iraqis would wish to honour our Jug Eared Jesus for his services to their land by bestowing on him the Golden Axe of Fallujah, live on Al Jazeera.
Skinning him alive, I think, would be the cultural prefetence; he really mus shit himself at times.
Mr Ishmael wrote ;-
" I would commend the content to anyone with an interest in Ruin and his works; it is not something I could write, far too measured and organised but I fear many will be deterred by, well just by the fact that it's a pain to read, not for what it says but for how it looks."
A dyslexic friend of mine first put that up on the 'net towards the end of John Major's term of office, using Windows 95. (guess who had to do the “proofing!”).
I know it has been “updated” several times since.
He had domestic problems and moved to somewhere in Wales. I have not had contact with him for several years, but he had a very astute mind.
It is a poignant thought, mr alphons, who will sweep away our cyber footprints? Or is cyberspace really infinite, an endless repository of rant, of learning and of filth, a vast echo-chamber, murmuring forever?
callmeishmael said...
It is a poignant thought, mr alphons, who will sweep away our cyber footprints? Or is cyberspace really infinite, an endless repository of rant, of learning and of filth, a vast echo-chamber, murmuring forever?
You are right to be concerned Mr. Ishmael but I have a feeling that it will not cause a problem in our lifetime.
I have a feeling that Erwin Schrödinger will have left a blue print for a suitable box to made to make it all disappear!!
Dear Mr Smith
I believe blogging is an art form.
http://annaraccoon.com/2014/05/19/catherine-of-arrogant/
Cheers dude
Dtp
You said in a reply
"Without taxation there would be no infrastructure, no society in which anyone could earn anything, not even an educated or even a physically fit workforce to expoloit, how DO you think things work? How does anybody "earn" anything, without a taxpayer-funded society in which to do it?"
Mr.Ishmael, I couldn't agree more - an untaxed free-for-all would be a recipe for anarchy. It would be a disaster!
If it is, mr dtp, it is in the eye of the beholder, and that was not to my taste, thanks, anyway.
The problem, Mr Gibson, lies in that the belief in pooled resources - and their inevitable consequences, law and order, for instance, transport, defence, health, education and so on - is often confused with a concurrent belief in the misapplication and theft of those resources. I believe in higher taxation as long as all who are able are compelled to pay it.
Again, you are absolutely right. The real problem then is - how do we reach that goal, if it's even possible?
Smaller nation states seem to be generally more democratically run, perhaps their governments being closer to hand makes the high-handed 'We know what's good for you' stance harder to realise?
Would independence or genuine federalism for England, Wales,and N. Ireland, as well as Scotland help? Although I suspect that even then England is still too large in terms of population for truly democratic government.
I believe that the words career and public service are oppositional, you can't do the one in the other. The careerist party political system, therefore, is intrinsically anti-democratic and that those currently enamoured of the NutKippers have -paradoxically - realised that, whilst still thinking that the NutKip Party is somehow different, this generation]'s MouldBreakers, it isn't, it is just a slightly more grubby wannabee elite.
I do hear that smaller nation states are better run but the problems, the real problems - water, energy, the environment, food and so on - are global, immune to solution by national governments.
I think it is possible for our condition to be radically transformed by a transition from nineteenth century rotten borough politicking by greedy unscrupulous careerists - and worse - simpoly by kicking them all out and replacing them with a small senatorial body, limited in tenure, advised by a civil service of probity and drawn, like a jury, from the electoral roll. Our endless squabbling about Tory-UKIP -LibLab-Tribesmen nonsense seems to me to be dancing for our masters' amusement; performing the spastic shuffle for those who have it arranged that they pay no tax at all whilst we argue among ourselves about nothing.
Fuck parliamentary democracy, mr gibson, it's just showbusiness.
Again, agreed. It is indeed a stage-managed charade, and there are issues which transcend national boundaries - my question still pertains - what can we do about it?
Not voting for 'All Of The Above' won't change anything, in fact the governments of the day are given to interpret that as tacit agreement (because that suits them of course), and I must admit that the various movements towards greater global coagulation - EU,IMF,Nafta and the like - fills me with the dread vision of even fewer, more distant, more powerful governments overriding their populations wishes more often. Lack of competition leads to monopoly and uniformity, in governments, as in everything else. Hence my predeliction for smaller national units who co-operate on transnational issues.
That may be fanciful, but your senate won't magically pop into being out of nowhere (unfortunately).
I don't think we differ much, Mr Gibson, and part of me is sympathetic to a smaller - but not nationalistic - series of inter-locking administrations, in the short term.
Planetary survival, however,needs something else, less corporatist, more redistributive, more population-conscious.
As for my senate, well, I don't need to be able to provide its genesis; prompting it, encouraging the concept is as much as I can do; few, after all, say to Pope Frankie de los Fray Bentos: This Heaven stuff, your holiness, it's all very well but where's it gonna come from? Do they? And even if they did, the Nonce-Protector General'd just say, Faith, my child, you gotta have faith.
I am, as you might find elsewwhere, here, evolving a different view of NoneOfTheAbove; there is a danger that feverish participation in Project Fruitcake or Project Sinn Fein or Project Tribesmen is simply a distraction, welcomed gleefully by the unGodly, mocking us from their own Mt. Olympus, the one on Wall Street.
Post a Comment