This seems pointless. Why do you insist on burning strawmen rather than reading what I wrote about "a negative income tax bracket"? Are you afraid to actually consider what I've written? Is it more important to keep this idea "impossible" inside your own head?
General / Off-Topic The persecutions of the British
- Thread starter Patrick_68000
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This seems pointless. Why do you insist on burning strawmen rather than reading what I wrote about "a negative income tax bracket"? Are you afraid to actually consider what I've written? Is it more important to keep this idea "impossible" inside your own head?
Even if true, it's divide and conquer Verminstar. Without a single immigrant they would not treat you any better. Best if we try to stick up for each other rather than fight among ourselves for the few scraps they throw down for us.
What do you mean, "seems"?
In the UK we already have what you call a negative income tax bracket - we call it tax credits. Depending on how much a person earns money is added or taken off their wages. Guess what? Where the amount to be added/taken varies according to amount earned and circumstance the administration of these tax credits or negative income tax brackets costs much more than it would if every person just had a set amount paid to them every week.
As for straw man arguments I have yet to hear anything as straw man as the one about how a person deserves a certain level of living just because they exist. However I am totally ignoring that one - mother nature will deal with that one as and when she wants in the meantime I am quite happy to play the how we should organize our created structures to try and achieve the greatest quality of life for the largest number of people game.
I will again state my opinion for how this can be achieved is a combined structure change to linked or maximum wage (highest paid in any organization may not earn an equivalent hourly rate more than say 20 times that of the lowest) combined with guaranteed employment (local authorities administer allocation of unskilled tasks for a rate of pay 10% below local minimum on a daily basis).
Yaffle
Volunteer Moderator
Laudable as that is, and I do agree it's wrong how exec pay is so far removed from performance and their employees, but there are a few flaws with it. How do you work it out?
Most execs get a salary (easy to work out) plus benefits (easy to work out) plus share options (harder to work out) plus capital growth on share price (becomes a big issue if they have lots of shares) plus dividends.
What do we want to call 'earnings' there? Making it just salary and bonuses will just mean the remuneration will shift to share-based remuneration. Trying to incorporate both is really difficult. Steve Jobs was famous for having a $1 per annum salary - he was far from being in the same wealth bracket as his lowest employee.
verminstar
Banned
Oh its true alright...can supply addresses if ye really want them. The house they got used to belong to a single mum of two kids...now the three of them share a one bedroom flat...ye want her name? Ye can ask her yerself if ye dont believe me.
It only takes one and word spreads fast when scapegoats are required...I dont blame them, just giving an example of why people like me have turned so hostile against te establishment. Of every ten stories printed by the rag press, Id guess 9 of them are total ..its the one that is true that causes the majority of problems. This during a housing crisis with not enough to go around as it is...funny they can find houses fer others while the rest of us face a 9 month waiting list...and thats if yer lucky, I know others who have been waiting over a year.
This creates a helluva lotta tension...however...can of worms lets not dwell on that singular example.
As fer sticking up fer each other...we already do in our local communities...we have our own laws which are enforced with a level of brutality thye law frowns upon. Theres no crimes against the community...none whatsoever. Drugs are never sold to kids...this is an area of zero tolerance no matter how connected they are. No house breaking, no joyriding, very little grafitti, very little vandalism, no driving like an eejit and neighbours make sure the old folk are ok. Without this vigilante justice system, the estate would have gone downhill fast because there is very high unemployment here...but we will not live like animals. We have rules here...those rules are setup to protect the community from itself...thats more than the establishment ever did fer us and thats why theres a lot of ground support fer this.
Ye wanna know why I support the reintroduction of the death penalty? Because Ive been in prison...its soft easy time and it never went to trial because my brief got me off on technicalities even though I was guilty as charged. Ye get a good brief and they can perform wonders because the law is broken...more holes than a sieve. Its simply not enough to scare me into staying a good boy...and its easier to score drugs inside than it is on the street...and its a lot cheaper.
The only way this country is gonna deal with people like me is to...well tbh Im not sure ye would like the answer to that...yer an idealist who wants the EU dream at any cost. Punishing us makes it worse in the long run, and threatening us just doesnt work...brexit demonstrated that. Telling us things would get worse than what we have now? Come see where I live and then define worse when we already have nothing to lose. The government made sure of that and when they said we were all in this together, it didnt half make me laugh I can tell ye.
Especially since they said it within weeks of attempting to cut benefits to the bare bone and giving themselves massive payrises...uh huh ^^
Great questioning lol.
OK like you say salary and benefits are fairly easy to work out (1/20th of a dental plan not so much lol) it is the lovely grey area of "perks" that gets complicated. I would get around it by requiring some sort of shared ownership scheme where every employee is granted one non transferable share which can be increased with time served or promotion or whatever. They have the option to buy more shares, vote in any shareholder decisions etc. They get paid a dividend (or not depending on how the company is doing) and upon leaving the company are paid the share price.
The precise number of shares would have to be worked out by people far more skilled than I am - just as would the multiplier for the wage link. I use 20 times just as an example to be honest it is probably too small as taking minimum wage as it stands £7.20 and a 40 hour week gives a maximum wage of just short of £300,000 per annum which is nowhere near the heights many top executives are paid.
As far as bonuses go it would be a case of them having to be available and identical for all employees - if the boss gets and end of year bonus of 10% of his salary if he hits certain targets then the cleaner should also have the chance of a 10% bonus for hitting their targets. Targets should be similarly achievable - or not as the case may be. If the boss gets 10% even though the company has reduced their market share then the cleaner should get 10% even though the toilets only get cleaned once a month.
What I think is integral to my suggestion is that it would require a sea change in peoples attitude towards pay bonuses shares company ownership etc - but that sort of sea change is possible. It happened with women in the work place, and child labour, and other work place rule changes. What I believe (and yes I accept that my belief has no more weight than anyone elses) is that the attitude change that would happen would be the one people tried to achieve with minimum wage and one which is already seen to some extent in Scandinavian economies with their tax rules. The ultimate aim it seems to me is to reduce the disparity between rich and poor - minimum wage and universal basic income seek to do this by raising the bottom up but as has been seen time and time again the result of that is that the top simply climbs further above than it was before. My idea is to make the top pull the bottom with it. There will still be people who make more money with their shares etc but the opportunity to do that will be extended to the bottom and if the cleaner manipulates their share options better than the MD the cleaner will be able to reduce the gap.
For what it is worth you are totally accurate in what you say. I have myself seen the immigrant get the house needed by people who had been waiting longer. To the credit of my neighbours nobody ever held it against the family who were given the house and they were welcomed into the community and became a part of it. People recognized that the family who moved in were not directly to blame for the families who were denied desperately needed housing and that the blame was firmly with the authorities.
Again, even if true, that isn't the fault of immigrants.
That isn't true. Life inside UK prisons is pretty brutal at the moment. Chris Grayling has a lot to do with it, as he had plans to turn prisons from centers of rehabilitation into concrete torture blocks.
Also, my GF is a lawyer, your characterisation of the legal profession is very very different from the reality. A lawyer can't "get you off", particularly if you are guilty. Indeed if you tell your lawyer that you're guilty they're not even allowed to claim that you're innocent (although they can "test" the prosecution case).
Most "technicalities" are infact the prosecution not having a decent case. If a prosecution doesn't have a decent case the defendant should lose their liberty. If the prosecution does have a decent case the judge will allow a trial.
verminstar
Banned
I actually wasnt blaming the immigrants...I did say I didnt blame them and I dont...I blame the soft politics of the nanny state, the political idealists who judge us all from their ivory towers. The family who comes from a hell worse than this? Fair play to them, so long as they conform to our way of life, I applaud them. I wish I was an immigrant considering the waiting blist I have to face compared to how long they face.
Im not racist and I didnt once blame them, so stop looking for a burning cross where one does not exist. I blame the establishment for creating this mess in the first place.
Getting off on atechnicality...they had no search warrant and I could prove my whereabouts on the dates they claimed I did the deed as it were. Guilty maybe and they knew it, but couldnt prove it and the case fell apart. Northern ireland prisons are different in that the prisoners rule the wings...the screws are too scared to clamp down hard considering they have to live in the same communities. Why ye think so many of them have been targetted here in the past? This was also some time ago and I appeciate things have changed...not as much as you think however considering how many of my friends are currently serving terms of their own. Good m8 of mine was out on a 24 hour pass at xmas...he seems comfortable enough so maybe the english do things different.
Lawyers are mostly all above board...helps to know who to ask when ye want stuff done that avoids the law, and pay with cash only, completely off the books. Oh yes, they do exist and they very good at what they do. If they affiliated with one the main political parties, then they worth their weight in gold...these guys are protected.
Ye seem to think theres no corruption...thats very naive to say the least. Look at how our own politicians have been caught out over the cash fer ash scheme over here...something that could see the entire political institutions here implode. Its worse now than 20 years ago...we closer to the brink than ye can imagine and its just more of the same. Politicians caught out with their fingers in all sorts of financial pies...trust is at an all time low because the taxpayer gets the final bill while they get massive pensions.
The establishment cannot change...they simply arent capable and they must be destroyed in order to create something new.
As far as getting off on a technicality goes - how about getting off of driving while disqualified because the prosecution didnt contact DVLA to prove he was disqualified. As a result of which several other charges had to be dropped and instead of jail time it was a fine and (ironically) disqualification. The telling off the bench gave the prosecution team was blistering, case had already been adjourned once and they refused to adjourn it again.
The one thing I find very odd about the UK is how little mention NI gets in the news and such. Back in the 80's NI was on the news constantly but now bit is like NI isn't even in the union. Scotland has the SNP banging on about indyref2 and Brexit ALL THE TIME, so Scotland is a constant, Wales is normally on the news in some way (I live near the border with Wales though to be fair). But NI is very under represented. The funny thing is that you lot are so utterly distinct from the other nations and add so much to our combined history. Some of the stuff you are saying in here would sound odd if I didn't have a mate from NI that has explained a lot of what you are saying in the past. The accent might be terrible but I love this series of sketches
[video=youtube;cOESpIz8Mjg]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cOESpIz8Mjg[/video]
verminstar
Banned
Hows about this one? Got off from assaulting a peeler because the peeler in question was in an unmarked car and not in uniform. Road rage incident, he tried to cut me up on a roundabout so I gave him the fingers and flashed my lights at him. First thing he did was tried to grab my arm at which point I put him on the ground and kept him there while I called the peelers.
Guy was off duty peeler himself and I was arrested at the scene...then released shortly after I told them I had a camera in my car which would clearly show he didnt identify himself before attempting to put hands on me which was clearly assault. It would also show said peeler driving very dangerously.
Found out later that I almost crushed his windpipe when I hit him...he needed a week in the hospital anyway and no charges against me after I told them my brief had the recording from the dash cam. Not even a warning because technically, I was merely defending myself from an unknown assailant.
Dangerous world out there...never know whos watching ^
It's not odd. They're not bombing the mainland anymore, and major attrocities are not occurring so it's not a big deal. England doesn't really care about NI apart from it's quite a nice place to fish. In most English minds, NI = Kind of Ireland. Can't speak for the Welsh.
Anyway, anywhere west of the Bann never got much of a mention anyway, not even in the 80s and 90s (apart from two very major incidents) so nothing is new there.
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verminstar
Banned
The one thing I find very odd about the UK is how little mention NI gets in the news and such. Back in the 80's NI was on the news constantly but now bit is like NI isn't even in the union. Scotland has the SNP banging on about indyref2 and Brexit ALL THE TIME, so Scotland is a constant, Wales is normally on the news in some way (I live near the border with Wales though to be fair). But NI is very under represented. The funny thing is that you lot are so utterly distinct from the other nations and add so much to our combined history. Some of the stuff you are saying in here would sound odd if I didn't have a mate from NI that has explained a lot of what you are saying in the past. The accent might be terrible but I love this series of sketches
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cOESpIz8Mjg
I cant link stuff from here but ye should search out the comedy sketches from groups like 'Hole in the wall gang' who created the Give my head peace comedy shows. They touring the stage shows now but they still making us laugh with that famous gallows humour of here. Very politically incorrect so be warned, but all just sketches of us laughing at ourselves.
BBC used to air the show years ago before they went all politically correct and boring...BBC that is.
Things are different here now...something I am thankful for but peace has brought its own problems. Now we have open top buses full of tourists who pose in front of the wall murals and visit all the places where atrocities were carried out. Americans especially always question why we are permitted to keep the wall murals to which depict terrorist organisations...americans are very naive sometimes.
I am genuinely happy we not the object of scrutiny from the world, but bringing about the peace cost some of us very dearly. Healing old hurts will take an entire generation, maybe two and even now, there is still bitterness and hatred bubbling just under the surface. Personally, I still cant be within ten miles of the border without taking personal protection and I break out in a cold sweat every time I have to go into republican areas.
Old habits die hard Im afraid and there was a time I would have been under genuine threat...still am in some areas. It is what it is...I stick with my own and rarely venture out much now.
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Anybody have a reasonable answer to this question?
One contributing factor?: maybe they're the ones that have jobs in the UK?
It is often reported that businesses say the 'working class' of the UK are not interested in work at a certain pay level.
Regarding IT work in the UK where I have worked for the last 20 years, I have seem many reports of a skill shortage but there is never any mention at what pay level prospective employers are offering for their required skill sets. Many firms resort to recruiting from other countries for their required skillset / pay level.
I also know that this happens in the trades - plumbers, electricians etc.
Even in low skilled areas people are coming from other countries to the UK to take these type of jobs.
Hence the Brexit vote to some extent; a non-violent way of protesting.
And then there are the likes of Uber, people who use IT to insert themselves as the ultimate middlemen using zero hour contracts etc.
I know one thing work, is not just to put bread on the table, it's a social act; being with other people, working together in groups or small communties, creating a social history and memories of people, of creating experiences with people, and to share identity with them.
It's ironic that politicians and the so called elite seem to not understand this or are not willing to, but seem to quite readily stick together for their own ends.
I think I've just had a rant!
Please forgive me.
The thing is you really were defending yourself. Had the beak found in the police officers favour that would become part of case law which potentially give off duty coppers free reign. That's not merely a technicality.
By the way, I know plenty of corruption exists. But I also know the legal profession has an extremely bad reputation which is completely false. Bad lawyers exist, but so do bad cops and bad teachers and bad doctors. And law isn't the gravy train portrayed in the DM. My other half actually went into HR in the end largely because it can be difficult to even make ends meet practising law. An average crim barrister makes around 30k after overheads and stoppages.
I care, I just never hear about it on the news. I sort of get what you are saying, but I don't think it is justified. I'd actually be really interested to hear what is happening in NI. I wouldn't mind betting someone was murdered in NI this week but the only murder I have seen on TV was that bloke in Huddersfield that was obviously criminal as hell and that people in Bradford got upset about, because he got shot, even though he had a gun in the car... I digress. Perhaps the BBC being all diverse, regional and lovey is actually a bit divisive. If the main news recentralised I might hear about stuff in NI or deep dark Wales that I otherwise wouldn't. I dunno but but there is room for improvement.
You may well be interested but you are in a tiny minority.
Northern Irish newspapers have their own websites, which won't surprise you If you want the news, you're probably best trying some of them. I doubt you'd be interested in the Tyrone Constitution or the Fermanagh Herald though!
Radio Ulster and Downtown Radio should be easy to find too.
Northern Irish newspapers have their own websites, which won't surprise you
If you want the news, you're probably best trying some of them. I doubt you'd be interested in the Tyrone Constitution or the Fermanagh Herald though!Radio Ulster and Downtown Radio should be easy to find too.
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You may well be interested but you are in a tiny minority.
Northern Irish newspapers have their own websites, which won't surprise you
Radio Ulster and Downtown Radio should be easy to find too.
I see what you mean but I'd rather the BBC feed me this stuff (I may sound like I'm joking but i'm not). I suppose if I was creative I could use iPlayer or Itv Hub to see what people in NI see, but bet people in NI see what is happening in England constantly.
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NI is a distinct country and I feel it deserves more respect from the main media, is what I'm trying to say.