Suzy please don't get the idea that I am a total fan of all things German! "the Fatherland" is our family joke name for them. ( I'm sure I said this before) having said that, I do like the fact that they have dedicated part of their economic philosophy to the importance of making things. The Certainty principle is post unification. My wessie friends would rather the wall had remained because of the cost of bailing the ossies out. My older ossie acquaintances would rather the wall had remained because of the certainties of work, education, and health, as they see it.

Neither the ossies or wessies expressed an opinion on tea btw.

Earl Grey when mixed with Northumbrian blend is not a wimpy tea. Wor spoons stand in it mind

I do get you Joe....you've explained the Fatherland thing to me after years of me feeling it didn't sit quite right (for me, personally) and now it does read better,

 

And thanks for clearing up your experience post re-unification and how former DDR and BRD folk have explained it to you. It's just I see you use these terms and I can't figure out the context sometimes. Like I said, it's me having the problem in understanding.

this has the potential to sway me.... i need half a pint of milk in it tho mind

It's difficult to explain many things within the confines of this forum. Plus I have always struggled with the language. Grade 6 o level. Our friend Gove would probably equate that to one of today's degrees.

Well, I don't have a set of anecdotes from miners' strike on police thuggery and Thatcher implementing Stalinist restrictions on movement, or anecdotes from the homeless or the millions of people chucked on scrap heap and into poverty.  Yeah, strikes were 'bad' they were 'annoying' they seemed 'unjustified' and petty at times, but that's just tough.  We don't have a divine right to expect people to work when all kinds of shit are thrown at them.  

 

Crushing the unions didn't stop us piling up the debt didn't stop off-shoring and unreasonable salary hikes.

 

Since the unions have been crushed fatcats have seen it as a green light to pay themselves much more for doing the same work.  Ironic isn't it, that the unions were called 'greedy' yet the fatcats have just hacked an ever larger slice of the cake WITHOUT NEEDING TO STRIKE!

 

We are all serfs under neo liberalism destined to get poorer in relation to the self serving rich.  We're expected to make efficiency savings to barely stand still whereas the rich cream off all the benefits.  Not only that, we're expected to pay more of our income to the state while those bastards free-load off us.

 

You're happy defending a bunch of self serving parasites, then more fool you.  it makes me laugh when the Tory lot say "Labour spent all the money".  What kind of sick joke is that coming from a bunch of sponging crooks who ship their funds out of the country.  They don't give a f*** about this country and don't pay their dues yet they sit in judgement on the rest of us WHO DO PAY OUR DUES!  FFS, we have a chancellor who has money abroad!  What a piece of work he is saying "Labour spent all the money". 

 

Back to the 70s - in a heartbeat!  It's far better than the right wing shit hole we live in now.

 

 

But you drive a pile of Rover shite?  Oh, you can't because despite privatisation and our wonderful anti-trade union regulations it went into wrack and ruin and no longer exists!

 

You can't really get more shite than not making any cars at all!

 

The thing about 'BL shite' was that despite it being shite, people still bought that shite in preference to other makes, which suggests to me that it wasn't quite as shite as people like to recall.  Or at least it was no more shite than what the rest of the industry was selling at the time.

 

Cars in the 70s were generally shite rust buckets.

 

So, BL shite or no British car manufactures at all.  Take your pick!

I have never owned a car in my life as such. I don't like them. Mrs Jer has had a few but we try to make 'em last at least a decade apiece. It's not all bad news my Norwich supporting chum. At least we have freedom. The Stassi for example used to spy on people and monitor their communications. If they were still here now they would be listening into mobiles, SMS, and emails. I can't see that ever happening here. :ninja;

As opposed to our corporate overlords? 

True. But the DDR free press should have exposed those shenanigans right, and the State sponsored Private Eye would have had some Colmanballs about Erich Honecker to balance it all out.

Yeah, those ones who are what they say on the tin.

I'm a socialist.  I think that capitalism is a inefficient means of using global resources. The defenders of capitalism just use the affluent west, which is at the apex of the capitalist pyramid of exploitation - and ignore the dozens of nations that are dirt poor under capitalism.

It's not even the affluent West any more. It's post-Mao China that are the major global corporate raiders. About a third of Africa's industries are now partly or wholly owned by the Chinese. Ghana fisheries, cocoa farms and gold mines have more Chinese directors than all the tradition Colonialists could ever imagine. Zambia's world famous copper mines, the same. All over the continent the same.

It's not even the affluent west anymore! They appear to be bust!

Exactly. 

Of course one off my fave political philosophers J M Hendrix predicted the rise of Chinese influence.

ah but the problem for is you aren't so you can't!  Because you aren't rich, your income is taxed at source and can't avoid income tax. 

 

That's what I don't get!  The 'good luck to them' attitude.  In theory there's no reason why a scheme couldn't exist for those on low and average salaries to put their salaries into if the gov't allowed one to exist.  It could be used to bypass PAYE and avoid tax.  In theory we could all pay our wages into a channel islands fund and pay the same rates as Jimmy.  However, the gov't won't allow that for the serfs.

It's double that! I should imagine.

It is not what a lawyer tells me what I may do,but what humanity,reason and justice tells me i ought to do.

 

Edmund Burke....speaking to Gary Barlow

It is really, it's £5640 for cash isa and then £5640 for a share ISA but you can put the whole £11280 into a share isa, if you wish, but you can't put any more than £5640 into a cash isa.  Every penny over £5640 that you put into a share isa is deducted from your cash isa allowance.

 

I'm not sure a share ISA is sensible investing with the Euro about crash.

I hope that hypocrite Gary Barlow isn't on "Children in Need" later this year

 

I hate the way charity has replaced government spending

the rich can feel good about themselves and the disadvantaged can feel even more patronised and humiliated

Gary Barlow's a Tory ?! 

Yes he campaigned for Cameron last election, the eejit

 

 

Can't believe Sean Lock said this, but so true!

 

The Jubilee, a tax dodgers' party!

 

Jimmy Carr and Gary Barlow together really shows how the tax dodging rich ingratiate themselves into an establishment that dodges tax as a matter of course. 

Shit band, shit politics!

Meanwhile Cameron announces plan to slash benefits.

he's a very silly boy.

He was on the ropes and the best way to get off the ropes if you're Cameron is to throw a class warfare bone to the Tory right to have a good old gnaw on.

Funny you should say that,the guy who started Class War is called Bone

It's fascinating. Essentially we have to rely on what the press let us know. They were very efficient at letting us know of MPs misplacing a few quid in expenses. They love us to know about a West Midlands family making a few quid out of housing benefit. However someone has decided to put a cap on this and leave it to Carr and that Tory. They don't want us to know about Tax avoidance.

I remember him Amy,he lived near us with his wife who was a hooker,they sent their kid to public school on her earnings...think she must have specialised if you know what I mean Ian Bone that was him.

I'm so angry  

The youngest grandson has ceased demolishing the house to have a well earned nap,  so I have been catching up with the papers. Some ex Rugby playing cock called Will Greenwood spoke thusly.... "The 50% rate is a disincentive to work and there is no doubt I have turned down work to avoid it in the past couple of years!" Words fail me.

People like Greenwood are up their own arse with their own self importance that a monied lifestyle has given them.  Where does he think his salary comes from if not from TV revenue (UK viewers pay for), sponsorship (UK shoppers pay for), ticket revenue (UK spectators pay for). 

 

He's just a cog in the entertainments industry.  We need our fun and entertainment, so we don't mind making the rich richer at our expense at times, Greenwood creates little real wealth for the nation.

 

If he's turned down some event because the money wasn't easy enough for him, then it just means some money wasn't moved from generally poorer consumers in the direction of him and his fellow providers.

 

Perhaps that suggests he's too comfortable and our rich have too many carrots and not enough sticks.  If our entertainers were paid much less and taxed much more, would they be any less entertaining? I doubt it.

50%

 

Was that the highest in Europe?

 

All rugby players are pricks.