Budget

dinners said:
Ah I see.

We're the polar opposite.

4 kids (15, 6, 3 & 2) and and my wife Karen (teacher) has taken a sabbatical for 5 years

We're OK on my income but we're still 35K PA down
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I know the feeling...we have two kids, both grown up now, but my wife gave up work after my daughter was born and we felt it sometimes. Of course, South Africa has no national health system - all private - and the government introduced fees at state schools just in time for us!
 
I do firmly believe that having children is a choice, and that tax breaks / benefits for doing so are wrong.
This is, of course, simply my opinion.

Fire at will. :-)
 
viv1969 said:
I do firmly believe that having children is a choice, and that tax breaks / benefits for doing so are wrong.
This is, of course, simply my opinion.

Fire at will. :)
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i agree to a point on that...
 
viv1969 said:
I disagree.
Britons need to get over their snobbery so far as apartment living goes.
Build more by all mean, but build up, not out.
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Apartment living is "green" living as low density housing encourages "urban sprawl" - endless characterless "barratt style" housing estates which mean commutes are longer in distance and more likely car based than walking/cycling/public transport based.
I would hate the idea of being tied to a car for most journeys and ideally i'd go "car free" and just walk/cycle/train everywhere like is the norm in many continental cities.
 
boliston said:
Apartment living is "green" living as low density housing encourages "urban sprawl" - endless characterless "barratt style" housing estates which mean commutes are longer in distance and more likely car based than walking/cycling/public transport based.
I would hate the idea of being tied to a car for most journeys and ideally i'd go "car free" and just walk/cycle/train everywhere like is the norm in many continental cities.
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yeah but we the british dont build appartments we build awfull cramped bland featureless flats.
In Europe where apartment living is more popular they do it properly.
 
Mr Bump said:
yeah but we the british dont build appartments we build awfull cramped bland featureless flats.
In Europe where apartment living is more popular they do it properly.
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I wouldn't say that. I used to have two wonderful flat in London. Both duplex apartment, loadsa space. There were and are loads of them. All around the river they are building many today as well.

But I also like countryside living.

Work hard and have both :)
 
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ST4 said:
I've you managed to eat/drink/smoke yourself into a hospital then the amounts are hardly moderate?

Healthcare is a privilege, not a right. IMHO.

I favour BIG spending cuts. Big ones.
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Presumably, when your employer breaks a bunch of laws and is about to go bust, having it bailed out by the taxpayers is a right though?

There really is no sense of irony here:

Let them eat cake?
 
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Phil V said:
Well the last lot of financial help did nothing for the people who had nowt but was a neat windfall for helping the double barrelleds get their kids on the housing ladder.

The truth ought to be obvious, house prices have made property ownership a pipe dream once more for ordinary working people.
You have to laugh at Eastenders, more ridiculous than no-one having a kettle or a washing machine is the idea that a market trader or cabbie could afford to move in to somewhere that close to the centre of London.
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I can only assume you have no idea how much cabbies earn.
 
nilagin said:
I can only assume you have no idea how much cabbies earn.
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Feel free to assume, I naively made a direct comparison with a Northern 'taxi driver', who are far from affluent.
 
But why would a northern taxi driver move in close to the centre of London as you stated. That would be a very long commute ;) me thinks it's the northern back shuffle ;)
 
ST4 said:
17yrs can control their diet and influence how they eat/don't eat.

Medical conditions are medical conditions, but self imposed medical conditions, why should we pick up the tab when our country is broke?
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I'm not sure if you are wilfully missing my point or just confused.

I heard UKIP make a similar blunder on R4 the other day when they proposed the apparently much more reasonable idea that "foreign" visitors to the UK should have health insurance. Unfortunately when you push back on this you end up either having to have a complex kind of cash register in hospitals or putting Border Force agents in every foreign country on earth to stop anybody boarding a plane/boat/train to travel to the UK without insurance. (You can't do it in the UK because who then pays to repatriate them?) It is, unfortunately, all a bit more complicated than just making decisions.

So with the hospitals. It looks like you are proposing free treatment if it's not the patient's "fault" but a charge if it is. So you have doctors making clinical assessments that turn into financial ones (anorexia - lifestyle choice or mental illness?). You also need A&E equipped with super human powers of perception (fat person turns up with a broken leg, is that because they were fat or because they broke it saving a child from being run over or got knocked down by a drunk driver?).

As Hugh points out, the US try to do something resembling this. And they have health care that i considered worse than ours and costs more. Which is kind of a fail really.
 
JonathanRyan said:
You also need A&E equipped with super human powers of perception (fat person turns up with a broken leg, is that because they were fat or because they broke it saving a child from being run over or got knocked down by a drunk driver?).
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Or if a perfectly healthy person turns up with a broken leg they got whilst mountain climbing, bungee jumping or mountain biking. Is that their fault too leading to a charge for care?

I think the system we have now is better. Without it, we would have the mess they have in the US.


Steve.
 
Steve Smith said:
Or if a perfectly healthy person turns up with a broken leg they got whilst mountain climbing, bungee jumping or mountain biking. Is that their fault too leading to a charge for care?
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Exactly. All of a sudden, you have created a whole industry for lawyers. Because if your hospital treatment is charged at £30K, who wouldn't pay £25K to "prove" it wasn't their fault? And the NHS start hiring more lawyers than doctors.
 
JonathanRyan said:
I heard UKIP make a similar blunder on R4 the other day when they proposed the apparently much more reasonable idea that "foreign" visitors to the UK should have health insurance. Unfortunately when you push back on this you end up either having to have a complex kind of cash register in hospitals or putting Border Force agents in every foreign country on earth to stop anybody boarding a plane/boat/train to travel to the UK without insurance. (You can't do it in the UK because who then pays to repatriate them?) It is, unfortunately, all a bit more complicated than just making decisions.
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not to mention that if someone tuns up with an infectious disease I'd rather they were treated. As opposed to spreading it round the community because they can't get treated due to no health insurance.

JonathanRyan said:
As Hugh points out, the US try to do something resembling this. And they have health care that i considered worse than ours and costs more. Which is kind of a fail really.
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You, I and maybe with slightly more weight to their opinion the World Health Organisation all agree on that

JonathanRyan said:
Exactly. All of a sudden, you have created a whole industry for lawyers. Because if your hospital treatment is charged at £30K, who wouldn't pay £25K to "prove" it wasn't their fault? And the NHS start hiring more lawyers than doctors.
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And doctors salaries increasing massively so they can afford the new found insurance permiums
 
dejongj said:
But why would a northern taxi driver move in close to the centre of London as you stated. That would be a very long commute ;) me thinks it's the northern back shuffle ;)
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?
Completely lost me, is there an English version of this question?
 
Aargh!!
Fecking software.
 
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JonathanRyan said:
You also need A&E equipped with super human powers of perception (fat person turns up with a broken leg, is that because they were fat or because they broke it saving a child from being run over or got knocked down by a drunk driver?).
.
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ahh but you are forgetting - there will be no fat people (other than rich fat bastards with private health care) in this distopian vision of the future, as the poor will all be in the workhouse being fed gruel once a day so they'll all be thin :lol:
 
big soft moose said:
ahh but you are forgetting - there will be no fat people (other than rich fat bastards with private health care) in this distopian vision of the future, as the poor will all be in the workhouse being fed gruel once a day so they'll all be thin :lol:
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I didn't think steve's vision went as far as feeding them
 
well you make them pay for their food out of the pittance you pay them obviously - when they can't pay you lend them money at exorbitant rates of interest which they have no hope of paying back,

then you turn that debt into bonds and trade them , until the poor default.

then you throw them out into the street to die and the government bails out the banks who are now holding the worthless paper - the impact of this puts the economy into recession putting more workers out of work, and those people go into the work house where you make them pay for their food.... (and so on)

When the people notice that the economy is knackered and they are being treated like proles and exploited by a minority ruling class you then blame the problems on imigrants taking all the jobs...
 
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dejongj said:
But why would a northern taxi driver move in close to the centre of London as you stated. That would be a very long commute ;) me thinks it's the northern back shuffle ;)
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Now I understand (I think), you were doing your usual habit of looking to pick on anything I said.

Except in your haste you ran straight past what was actually happening...

See here, I'm admitting my mistake...

Phil V said:
Feel free to assume, I naively made a direct comparison with a Northern 'taxi driver', who are far from affluent.
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In response to this...
nilagin said:
I can only assume you have no idea how much cabbies earn.
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But you were trying so hard to trip me up you fell over your own tongue. :asshat:
 
Phil V said:
But you were trying so hard to trip me up you fell over your own tongue. :asshat:
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No idea what you're on about, but you be careful you don't bite your own tongue during your 2nd bite of the cherry 10hrs after your first.
 
Do you think you two could get a room? Maybe you could borrow Ruth and Bernie's if you asked nicely :)
 
boyfalldown said:
Do you think you two could get a room? Maybe you could borrow Ruth and Bernie's if you asked nicely :)
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maybe they'd like a foursome


no forget i said that


mind bleach please
 
big soft moose said:
maybe they'd like a foursome


no forget i said that


mind bleach please
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Beeuuuuuggghhhh I was going to say not at the same time, but I thought that was a little too warped

Screen-Shot-2014-05-07-at-10.03.46-AM.png
 
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boyfalldown said:
Do you think you two could get a room? Maybe you could borrow Ruth and Bernie's if you asked nicely :)
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Or perhaps the one you share with practically anyone? ;)
 
...
 
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