Our country has gone fudged

[Woolless]

Not a lot, and it’s diminishing. Much higher mandatory investment (tax) for much lower returns. Quite how this has been allowed to happen under a supposedly conservative government is a strange one.

A question I have asked myself too, high taxes yet crap public services, how??

I think the answer is more government money/assets have gone into private hands. And when I say private, I mean the very wealthy. The middle class is left to pick up the tab.

 

[Woolless]

The price for living in a bureaucracy.

My latest hero is the new Argentinian president who just culled 70,000 state employees and reduced the ministries from 22 to 8. My man.

The UK needs to follow suit, but it will be a long long way off. Things will have to get a lot worse (like Argentina’s 25 year stagflation) before a truly reforming candidate will be allowed to govern.

Read 'The Fifth risk' by Michael Lewis. Yes, public services could always be managed better/more efficient. But a slash and burn policy is not the answer.

 

[wanton dwarf]

A lot of the people who own the rental houses and let the commercial properties post on here.

I doubt if anyone would be posting on here if they'd made 10+ million on a 100+ housing estate, but then again you have to be a certain kind of person to even get a sniff of such

 

[tractorsandcows]

Don't forget Honduras has no extradition treaty with the UK. Michelle Mone and Doug Barrow man are residing there now.

To paraphrase Warren Zevon

I'm hiding in Honduras and I'm a desperate wo-man
Send lawyers bras and money

 

[toquark]

A question I have asked myself too, high taxes yet crap public services, how??

I think the answer is more government money/assets have gone into private hands. And when I say private, I mean the very wealthy. The middle class is left to pick up the tab.

Absolutely, New Labour and the Tories since 2010 have presided over a gutting of the middle class. The same has happened in the states, and they wonder why people vote for a charismatic demagogue.

 

[toquark]

Read 'The Fifth risk' by Michael Lewis. Yes, public services could always be managed better/more efficient. But a slash and burn policy is not the answer.

I sort of agree, and an instant slash and burn could result in throwing out the baby with the bath water. But my instinct to reduce the size of the state tells me that in principle, Argentina are on the right track. Time will tell. If it’s a success, I expect we may see other countries follow suit. The markets are certainly responding positively.