It's the economy, stupid.

[delilah]

Cast your mind back 30-40 years (younger readers, ask an oldie) and make a list of the businesses in your local area that played some role in the food chain.

Probably a livestock market. Possibly an abattoir/ packhouse/ dairy/ bakery, or a specialist food processing factory of some description. Most certainly a huge range of retail outlets of every shape and size. Businesses that payed rates and taxes. Businesses that employed people, who paid tax and spent a good chunk of what was left over back into the local food economy .
Then make a list of those businesses that are still trading in your local area today.

Today's electioneering has involved the Labour and Conservative parties batting tax avoidance to and fro, claiming they will raise zillions by clamping down on firms who avoid paying their dues. They are barking up the wrong money tree. The tax isn't there, because the businesses aren't there.

The food chain has gone global, and the tax with it (anyone doubting that, spend some time on WikiCorporates). The local food economy has been hollowed out, leaving local authorities with a business rates deficit and central Government with a black hole that no amount of clamping down can fill.

The only way to balance the books is to recreate a circular food economy, where tax revenue from every stage of the food chain is generated, collected and spent within our borders. That will only happen once our elected representatives see the need for policies to halt consolidation and reintroduce diversity. Market share is the root of all evil. When they come knocking on your door asking for your vote, tell them.

 

[Danllan]

Do you know why most small slaughterhouses closed?

 

[Still Farming]

They all promote the phrase, grow, sell eat local, support local but it reality the small farms are gone, the local Markets gone and the local abattoir gone??

We had the lot!

They bang on about climate change and effects of global warming, food miles etc. etc when in essence we are forced to travel further.

We had it all.

Gone.

 

[Kidds]

I have noted it many times but it is not just the food related industry.

 

[Cab-over Pete]

If anyone thinks that there will be even a partial return to those days then they’re pi$$ing in the wind.

It’s the relentless march of time and nothing will stop it.

Even if we went back to loads of small businesses, where would they find the staff? Finding staff is the one problem that most small businesses share. Everyone these days wants so much for doing very little.

Suggesting that we will go back to some good old days business model would have to go hand in hand with no motorways, no internet, no technology to speak of and no efficient systems. Because as long as those things exist businesses will take advantage of them for financial gain.

Nice ideas, which I would wholeheartedly agree with, but there is no chance of it happening.

 

[Still Farming]

Banks all but gone here too.

 

[delilah]

Do you know why most small slaughterhouses closed?

Because we decided - at a political, societal, individual, and industry, level - that small is stupid.

 

[delilah]

If anyone thinks that there will be even a partial return to those days then they’re pi$$ing in the wind.

It’s the relentless march of time and nothing will stop it.

Even if we went back to loads of small businesses, where would they find the staff? Finding staff is the one problem that most small businesses share. Everyone these days wants so much for doing very little.

Suggesting that we will go back to some good old days business model would have to go hand in hand with no motorways, no internet, no technology to speak of and no efficient systems. Because as long as those things exist businesses will take advantage of them for financial gain.

Nice ideas, which I would wholeheartedly agree with, but there is no chance of it happening.

Well done for totally avoiding the point of the OP How are you proposing the taxation black hole be filled ?

(I could dismantle your post point by point, but am more interested in your fiscal strategy).

 

[tullah]

When the satellites go down things might go back to where they were.

 

[Still Farming]

When the satellites go down things might go back to where they were.

Headless chickens then.
Only 1 generation away from it totally.

 

[Cab-over Pete]

Well done for totally avoiding the point of the OP How are you proposing the taxation black hole be filled ?

(I could dismantle your post point by point, but am more interested in your fiscal strategy).

Crack on, I’ll leave it to you.

You always have the answers, or at least think nobody else does.

 

[essex man]

Cast your mind back 30-40 years (younger readers, ask an oldie) and make a list of the businesses in your local area that played some role in the food chain.

Probably a livestock market. Possibly an abattoir/ packhouse/ dairy/ bakery, or a specialist food processing factory of some description. Most certainly a huge range of retail outlets of every shape and size. Businesses that payed rates and taxes. Businesses that employed people, who paid tax and spent a good chunk of what was left over back into the local food economy .
Then make a list of those businesses that are still trading in your local area today.

Today's electioneering has involved the Labour and Conservative parties batting tax avoidance to and fro, claiming they will raise zillions by clamping down on firms who avoid paying their dues. They are barking up the wrong money tree. The tax isn't there, because the businesses aren't there.

The food chain has gone global, and the tax with it (anyone doubting that, spend some time on WikiCorporates). The local food economy has been hollowed out, leaving local authorities with a business rates deficit and central Government with a black hole that no amount of clamping down can fill.

The only way to balance the books is to recreate a circular food economy, where tax revenue from every stage of the food chain is generated, collected and spent within our borders. That will only happen once our elected representatives see the need for policies to halt consolidation and reintroduce diversity. Market share is the root of all evil. When they come knocking on your door asking for your vote, tell them.

Why 30-40 years?
Why not 50?
100?
200?
5000?
All these processes you describe have been going on for thousands of years... it's called progress

 

[delilah]

You always have the answers,

Nope. What I know about lime would fit on the back of a postage stamp.

You took the p!ss out of the OP, it is entirely reasonable of me to ask what your alternative strategy would be.

 

[killie_cowboy]

Cast your mind back 30-40 years (younger readers, ask an oldie) and make a list of the businesses in your local area that played some role in the food chain.

Probably a livestock market. Possibly an abattoir/ packhouse/ dairy/ bakery, or a specialist food processing factory of some description. Most certainly a huge range of retail outlets of every shape and size. Businesses that payed rates and taxes. Businesses that employed people, who paid tax and spent a good chunk of what was left over back into the local food economy .
Then make a list of those businesses that are still trading in your local area today.

Today's electioneering has involved the Labour and Conservative parties batting tax avoidance to and fro, claiming they will raise zillions by clamping down on firms who avoid paying their dues. They are barking up the wrong money tree. The tax isn't there, because the businesses aren't there.

The food chain has gone global, and the tax with it (anyone doubting that, spend some time on WikiCorporates). The local food economy has been hollowed out, leaving local authorities with a business rates deficit and central Government with a black hole that no amount of clamping down can fill.

The only way to balance the books is to recreate a circular food economy, where tax revenue from every stage of the food chain is generated, collected and spent within our borders. That will only happen once our elected representatives see the need for policies to halt consolidation and reintroduce diversity. Market share is the root of all evil. When they come knocking on your door asking for your vote, tell them.

I wrote a rather lengthy email to my MP about supporting primary producers, particularly about the steelworks which are being shut down as they are a strategic resource for the military to be met with essentially, well it's cheaper to import from abroad. No wonder we are doomed.

 

[delilah]

Why 30-40 years?
Why not 50?
100?
200?
5000?
All these processes you describe have been going on for thousands of years... it's called progress

Again, not addressing the point raised then.

(30 years, 5,000 years, it doesn't matter, have we previously had a financial system where the tax revenue left the country to the extent it does today ? Or if we did, was it a time where the public simultaneously expected so much ?)

 

[killie_cowboy]

When the satellites go down things might go back to where they were.

There's some truth in that, space junk is rising at an alarming rate, breaking up, then those pieces destroy more equipment and the cycle continues.

 

[nxy]

This year is my 25th in France. I actually think there are just as many local businesses now as when I arrived, possibly even more. Why? Because we have an interventionist government that spends money stimulating the local economy and understands the knock on effect of investing in agriculture. Not chucking money at it but very careful targeted investment, the sort that costs money to administer and manage. Having been bought up under Margaret Thatcher in the UK it has taken me almost all of those 25 years to realise that the civil service here isn't my enemy they are often my biggest supporter. While that feeling has taken a knock in the last year or two under Macron and the Green Deal it still feels like we are long way from the situation in the UK.

A good example is that this area is all about red meat, its what drives the local economy, not much else happens here. What's different to the UK is the government pays a headage payment, maintains payments for grassland and ensure local slaughter-houses stay open and so we have a local livestock industry, local butcher shops, and a whole raft of tax payers from the knacker men, and transport companies to the input suppliers and machinery dealers etc etc. If what has happened in the UK had happened here I hate to think what this area would be like.

 

[Cab-over Pete]

I didn’t take the p!ss at all @delilah don’t be so tetchy.

I merely stated that time and progress cannot be stopped.

If you think it can then get amongst it nut deep. Let us know how you get on.

Until that day I’ll take no more part in the thread, cos’ I’ve better things to do like have an early night in anticipation of a very busy day tomorrow.

But I’ll be all ears when you can tell us all how to return to the good old days.

 

[fgc325j]

Do you know why most small slaughterhouses closed?

New laws from the EU, to which additional layers were added to, by our civil servants - in order to justify their existence.

 

[essex man]

Again, not addressing the point raised then.

(30 years, 5,000 years, it doesn't matter, have we previously had a financial system where the tax revenue left the country to the extent it does today ? Or if we did, was it a time where the public simultaneously expected so much ?)

How much tax revenue does the government spend??
It's an enormous sum!
Far more than necessary.
There is no problem with the government not having enough tax revenue.