And right now in my damned honest opinion if you can't see that you're a ruddy IDIOT.

They have spent every last bean. They are borrowing TRILLIONS of pounds to feed into the economy, and is this doing a blind bit of difference? If it's doing anything, it's merely prolonging the innevitable due to the intense beaurocracy.

He sold our country's gold reserves at stupidly low rates for a bit of quick cash. DID HE REALISE THOSE RESERVES WERE INTENDED TO SUPPORT THIS COUNTRY IN A RECESSION??? I guess he forgot about that.

Our relationship with the EU sucks as well. Petty laws are being implemented and our economy is suffering because of it. And what is our government doing about all this? Blaming other people.Sure, there are far too many greedy people out there (for example bank executives) with far too high salaries when MILLIONS of people are being made redundant because of 'cuts'. Among those greedy people are politicians in general who need their salaries cut as well. I'm sure Mr Brown doesn't have to worry about his pension or being made redundant.

Even worse is that no other political party appears to have clear set policies. Labour's current policies are stupid and easy to criticise, which is what the other parties are doing. But they have yet to reveal policies of their own.

Gordon Brown is at the controls and no one voted for him. He's made a real mess of it, no other political force in this country offers any real alternative (which is worrying).

It's only a matter of time before the IMF gets called in.

Discuss.

Communisn is a pretty cool idea.

It's too easy to agree with you, so that's why I am going to agree with you.

Semi agreed, but you said it yourself, the alternatives are just as bad. UK politics sucks, it's all backstabbing and talking.

That explains Mettys huge intrest in it all. You'd be an awesome politicain with all that backstabing and talking malarky!

Yes well, policies need to be put forward.

I don't have a very clear aim, but the salaries of EVERYONE should be limited to a maximum of £50000 per annum. We don't need ridiculously rich people. Especially pointless celebrities.

Politician salaries would all be reduced to the same level to remove the urge to take someone elses post for their salary (less backstabbing).


Still, I have no idea how easy that would be to implement, and being a democracy no doubt all other politicians would vote against such acts. We need Executive Orders etc like in the US.

The world is coming to an end.
I blame footballers: they are paid too much (something like £100,000 a month to kick a bloody ball around for 90 mins... anyone could do that!).

hehe hawke, the type of footballer you are reffering to [premiership footballers] which is what u sound like your reffering to cus u sound like a stereotypical football player salary moaner :p.... is

100,000 a week
and i am sure u will know due to your vast knowledge of the subject of football...
recently Manchester city put an offer in for a transfer for 110million, and pay him 500,000 a week ! even more pissed off?
xx

The salaries for sports stars in general are crazy. Sure it's a job, fine, but why do they need higher salaries than anyone else?

That needs to be changed.

Disagreed. If you get people to 50K per annum, where's the incentive to do better?

I know what skillers is saying, but along with that people should learn to enjoy their live with normal stuff. you know a normal four bedroom house probably with a tv ad nice car etc for that. not a mansion in london with 5 supercars and dog trainers/walkers for everyday of the year whilst yoru chef makes you lobster

While I agree that people shouldn't be making millions for rubbish (read celebrities, sports stars and useless execs), you should be allowed to earn as much as you can properly. For example, some people at the top of big companies, such as Bill Gates, have actually earned their money, they put a lot of work in to create a successful company and should be justly rewarded as such.

Wage caps in general are a silly idea, better distribution of wages would be good (though how that would be possible is unknown to me with regards to sports stars, would be easier with execs).

One thing to think about is this - setting a wage cap at £50k (IMO, rediculously low cap, yes it is above the average of £30k, but not much, and in the spectrum of wages it's quite low) would never work. You NEED disparity in the workplace, otherwise people lose all incentive to work better. Sure, Kyhas, people should be able to live in nice little houses etc, but wouldn't you want to have something big or fancy? That's what makes people work harder unless they really enjoy their job, people aren't just going to work harder for nothing.

Personally, I wouldn't want a big house, too much space for pretty much nothing. A decent sized house would be nice, keep it modern, have some nice technology, good food etc. A nice life, not a rediculous, OMG, I have 7 sports cars and a massive house (check out my yacht!) kind of thing.

That's my point Skillers, money should not be the only incentive. People should have a goal to try and improve something other than themselves. If you're doing it for the money, don't do it at all.

Did you know that in the past MPs did not have salaries? They got into Parlaiment etc because they had a determination to try and change things, rather than just getting the higher salary of someone in the Cabinet. That was quite a long time ago though, and I believe they added salaries so that the less wealthy could get into politics. Fair enough.

Basically, what I'm saying is, as Kyhas says, that people need to just live normally. And by normally I mean as average citizens, not all the glamour and glitz, crazily expensive items, etc. £50000 per annum is still an aweful lot in my eyes.

Additionally, I think second homes should be outlawed. Second homes are simply wrong. Renting a house out for a holiday is fine, there are special holiday cottages in the countryside for example, often run by members of the community. It brings income into the village. Unlike a hoarde of second homes that leave ghost towns for most of the year.


This is more of my radical ideas streaming out. Flame me!

EDIT: You could always have people appeal for a higher salary, but the fact is that executive at the top of the company should be concerned about keeping the company running and future-proof. If all they are concerned with is lining their own pockets they should not be there at all.

If people don't want to work better then they should be removed. People should learn that if they want their job, they need to put effort into it not just for the salary, but to ensure they do a GOOD job. I stand by my opinion.

Money is an incentive. Take it away and the world will collapse, there is no getting around that. People will not work harder just for the sake of self improvement, why do more work when you get the same out of it for less work?

That's MPs in the past sounds like the other driving force in this world - power. To be one of the few people in the country who could actually change stuff about the way it was run, that's quite an incentive, and one that doesn't exist in many other places, and also, some people don't want power.

£50K is a lot, but not an aweful lot.

We have/had a second home. My dad used to work in Reading, a 2hour drive away, so we bought a house in Didcot where he lived during the week, saving a lot of driving (petrol/time/tiredness) or hotel costs. When he got a different job (he now works from home/in Cheltenham) we didn't sell the house because the housing market sucks, but instead rent it out. Still, we technically have (or had, seeing as we can't actually use it now) a second home.

P.S. We posted at the same time, so you probably missed my point up there ^^

I edited my post. And I don't so much mean second homes with regards to jobs, those are special circumstances. I'm referring to the people who have them so they can spend certain times of the year on holiday etc.

And I'll again re-itterate. there might be special cases for a salary of higher than £50000, but that should be enough for most people.

People should not work because of the money. If they don't work to do a good job, they should lose their job. People will then lhopefully begin to learn that if you don't work for bettering something other than their salary, they won't be working at all.

EDIT: I've decided to revise my salary view slightly. It should reflect how many family members there are in some way. I'm not too sure how yet, but it just came to me.
This will of course mean a revisal of the benefits system so people can't simply afford to live on benefits alone.

Skillers just wants lots of money for his retirement after all the work he does thats all .

and yeah second homes are ruining the forest here, people from london buying summer homes which in turn causes local people to be kicked out of the area by rising house prices or lack of avaliable homes....

Higher paid wages are the only things keeping the government getting money atm through taxes. Your solutions would actually screw this country over. We're not in a bad economical situation because of footballers, or people doing jobs for the money. I sense much jealousy about people who earn more, still, that will always exist.

The government needs more money because it has spent STUPIDLY. We are a country heavily in debt, partly due to the fact that the governemnet keeps creating these huge 'bail-out' packages that will fail and already are failing, and partly due to their insane public spending. The NHS in the UK is one of the most highly funded organisations in the world, yet the NHS is also one of the most inefficient slow and complicated as well as outdated systems in the world. We have patient waiting-lists that surpass other countries that spend less on their health organisations.

Then there are the petty interests of the Councils etc taking people to court over parking tickets and other stupid points. It's rediculous, and it wastes tax-payers money.

In fact, Wynney, considering you take economics I expect you already know that it is the taxpayer who is funding the government bail-outs.

Salaries and taxes could be lowered, but only once the mess that is our current government and political system has been sorted out and reorganised.

i decree a system of no money and equal sharing, enforced by a mindless horde of robots that grow food, distribute goods and enforce the equality to normal citizens >.>

this is currently build 12.04 of an idea i had as a kid

no money = no theft if you an just ask for it and recieve it but i'm slowly workign out kinks....

Like who would grow food if not getting paid or love their job :O so robots.

Second homes for holidays is a bit silly, I agree, just go to a holiday home!

Money is a good incentive to make people do a good job. When at school, did you work to go a warm fuzzy feeling that you're doing a good job, or because you wanted the grades? I would expect that in 99.9% of the cases it would be the latter. You want the grades to improve your chances of getting a good job. The incentive for doing well at a job is getting a payrise, simple as. It's quite hard to get a job, let alone a job your really enjoy, and will therefore do good at them because you want to.

We already have the incentive, you don't do well, you lose your job, but you're basically saying cut the carrot then start shooting people's feet, that doesn't work very well. Offering incentives is far better than threats, and it reduces stress. You want to do better so you can have a smoother life, a nice TV, a nice holiday, whatever, but you don't need to, if you're good enough you'll still have a job at the end of the day. If you get rid of that incentive you'd have to raise the minimum performance boundary to keep work up, but that would stress people out, in turn, having a negative effect.

And yes, Kyhas, I do want to earn lots of money, simple as. And as such I will work towards it. I could quite easily sponge off my parents for a while then get a dead end job and live moderately decently, but I wouldn't do that for 2 reasons. The first is that I would be a huge disappointment to my family and the second is that I want to earn my way, and I want my way to be a good one. I want a nice house, a nice car, good food etc, I want to be able to buy things that I want without having to worry, I want to enjoy my life, and I will work towards that. Having a big salary is quite key to a lot of that. "Money can't buy happiness" probably springs to mind, and while that is true, it does go a long way to leading a nice, comfortable life, making things happier.

And Wynney is right, the way the tax system works is that you get the first ~5K/annum free of tax, the next ~15K/annum with 20% interest (only on that 15K, the 5K is still free) and after that it's 40% interest. High wages = more tax. You may also say "well tax the rich more", but that's a really bad idea. The rich are rich enough to move, and everyone damn well wants to keep their money, taxing them higher will send them away, losing money for the govement, and in some cases, losing skilled workers (these are the people who earn their money).

On that note, it's worth noting that setting a wage cap will have the same effect. You really think I would stay in Britain if I could go work in America for more wage? You would be deluded if you think that.

Also, the government has spent stupidly, but frankly they could have done a lot worse. The entire world is screwed atm. The NHS is actually a fairly good system, and I doubt it's one of the best funded systems in the world [citation needed].

Considering I've taken economics, economically every single point you have made is inconceivable.

In fact, I'll start with footballers. Do they deserve to be paid so highly? Your matter of opinion is no, but economics would prove they can be paid more. The thing about people is you never think of 2 sides of a coin, only someone to blame for problems. Arguably the crisis is because of banks that the government has had to bail out so many times to save an even bigger crisis, but I'm not going into that. Footballers start playing from a very young age, if good enough they progress to the next level until eventually you get to the top, highly paid level. How many people play football or are capable of having the skills required to play football. >5% of the population at most. This means that only a small people will be in the job and therefore they are paid higher. It's simple economics. The reason Dr's are paid so highly is not because of the importance of their jobs, it's because of how few people are become dr's - a very small % of the population due to the vast skills required to become a Dr. If everyone could become a Dr. the wages would be lower.

Think of all the young kids, dropping out of school, who don't make it, and are then screwed for the rest of their lives.

The limit on wages, is frankly, ridiculous. Wages are always lower than what a company is willing to pay in reality and higher than what people would willingly work for. It's an equilibrium. People are paid therefore at the market clearing rate, any other rate would be inefficient and screw the country over. I'm not accepting I should be capped to 50k per year. I have worked hard at school, I'm doing university causing me to be in debt. If I then work another 5 years after university getting qualifications, and the market clearing rate is £70k, I'm not accepting it, economically it's a disaster to be limited to 50 and hugely unfair on myself who has got these qualifications.

This is currently a GLOBAL recession, even China's growth rate is slowing. How can you blame the government trying to stop people losing their jobs, lowering interest rates to encourage spending (keep businesses going) and help people keep their houses?

MP's are paid a LOW wage in face, but they are allowed to claim up to £62,000 tax free on (can't remember the word, the one for travelling costs, food, etc.)

People like to complain, and how it should be different. When you do, arguing a huge economic point, you need to research it properly first. Your proposed action would ruin this country and labour has done a lot to stop something much worse. I'm not a labour fan, I would at this moment vote conservative.

@ Skillers
Best funded? I said most funded.

It was something I read in the telegraph iirc. Anyway, this was just a random rant of mine, it's not like I know much about anything or can do anything about it.


And finally, before I lock my naff, Markus, I simply said reduce the salaries of crazily overpaid footballers to that of a normal salary. Skill be damned, just treat it like a normal job.


Also, there's a reason why the UK is suffering more and will suffer hardest in the recession.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2008 ... on-economy
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/7828405.stm
http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/news/artic ... _page_id=2

Sure, it's a global event, but we are going to feel it worst.


And £50000 feels like a lot to me, but anyway, sod the salary limit, I don't have any knowledge of that anyway, I'm just ranting. ;D

EDIT: And that this moment I would abstain from voting, as the Conservatives suck too.

Kyhas for goverment with his robots and no money and equality

Eh? This says:

http://www.parliament.uk/faq/members_faq_page2.cfm



And that's excluding the expenses for traveling costs, departments, etc.


Yes you did economics and know more than me, but I only go on what I read.


I suggest stupid ideas for lulz because I'm a pretend-fanatic!

Perhaps the wage limit is stupid, as the more I think about it, the more I see other stuff that affects it, but only in part. Sports stars don't need pointlessly high wages, why not limit it to £100000 per annum?

Also, I think the bailouts won't work. The banks are simply sharing the money amongst themselves and stuff isn't getting any better.

Find me genuine evidence that Labour's economic policy and bailouts are helping the UK out of the recession and I'll give you 1000TCs.


EDIT: And bailing out the banks to prevent an even bigger crisis?

Look at what happened when the Conservatives (under Thatcher) were elected. A policy of non-interference was elected to ride out the crisis, rather than constantly interfering which both prolongs it, and increases the likelyhood that things will be even worse after the government runs out of money to bail out the banks when things get worse after the latest bailout attempts fail.

It is only a matter of time before the IMF get called in.

The bankers are being given money who don't share it UK hits all time low and many people turn to theft and violence, huge street riots.

Bankers are targetted and killed for money by druggies and criminals who are encouraged to spend it to stay out of jail and the money goes into the ecomony and lifts us back up and bankers fearful of their lives share and lend again thus saving us all.

Them criminals and druggies are re-arrested and money spent goes into pubs across the country to give everyone a free drink to celebrate.

Does that earn me 1000TC?