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gordon brown : your hopes
- Thread starter a2b chris
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Robert Jarvis
Player Valuation: £35m
Top himself so we can have a general election.
That is the viewpoint that governments would like you to believe because that means we have to rely on them to be altruistic on our behalf but I believe the opposite is true.
Where I live for instance there are two excellent examples of altruism at work. First is a hospice run by a non-profit charity. They do excellent work and are highly valued by the local community, therefore people regularly do fund-raisers for them and the facility has operated now for decades very successfully. We have also recently secured an air ambulance for the Island that will also be funded via donations. The cost is around £10,000 per week so is very significant.
This is backed up by recent research done by the Max Planck Institute. They found that humans are naturally altruistic. Experiments involving prelinguistic and just post-linguistic children as young as 18 months showed the toddlers to be freely and voluntarily helpful in situations where the experimenter feigned a need for help.
Further research by the National Institute of Health in America showed that being altruistic actually produces positive feelings in the brain that are normally associated with eating or having sex.
To add further weight to the issue you could look at this study by Brown University that suggests that in small groups altruistic people flourish.
There is even more evidence in the fields of emergence and complexity science to show that incredibly complex systems don't require a commanding figure to survive and flourish. It's the status quo to suggest that we need a government to act on our behalf but when push comes to shove I really don't believe we do at all.
There is a good example provided by the late Milton Friedman that whilst applied to economics I think applies to life in general equally well.
The problem with these studies in to Altruistic behaviour is inherent in their nature, and the practicability of performing such a study. Similar studies have also shown that an individual is far more likely to behave in an altruistic manner when in a face to face situation (where they can identify with and empathise with their co-subject or plant). When studies move to more abstract subjects (such as providing large scale care or financial provision for people you will never meet) subjects tend to be far less generous.
The two examples you gave are also quite illuminating. A hospice that is obviously very close to the hearts of the community and relies on regular fund raisers, and an Air Ambulance to serve the Island (it could be argued that as it is in the interests of the donors to have such a facility available, this isn't entirely altruistic, but we'll put that to one side). Do you think that the fund raisers would be as keen to raise funds for a methadone clinic and young offenders institute?
You see, face to face, or for 'nice' good causes, we can get by, and get a nice warm fuzzy feeling.... but when it comes to the abstract or unappealing, it's far less likely that there would be sufficient support to provide the services the country as a whole needs.
Another point to ponder.... how would you 'police' who gives to what, or how much.... would we end up with a Hospice and Air Ambulance on every street and one prison and methadone clinic somewhere in Glasgow?
Also, what to do with the truly greedy, who decide despite their millions, they don't fancy giving any away?
The two examples you gave are also quite illuminating. A hospice that is obviously very close to the hearts of the community and relies on regular fund raisers, and an Air Ambulance to serve the Island (it could be argued that as it is in the interests of the donors to have such a facility available, this isn't entirely altruistic, but we'll put that to one side). Do you think that the fund raisers would be as keen to raise funds for a methadone clinic and young offenders institute?
You see, face to face, or for 'nice' good causes, we can get by, and get a nice warm fuzzy feeling.... but when it comes to the abstract or unappealing, it's far less likely that there would be sufficient support to provide the services the country as a whole needs.
Another point to ponder.... how would you 'police' who gives to what, or how much.... would we end up with a Hospice and Air Ambulance on every street and one prison and methadone clinic somewhere in Glasgow?
Also, what to do with the truly greedy, who decide despite their millions, they don't fancy giving any away?
Like I said, I don't really think there is a need to police it at all as there are countless examples and academic disciplines constructed around the belief that complex systems can operate perfectly well with no over-riding control or central management. I suspect the same would happen with our society if it were given the opportunity as there are no doubt countless charities already operating quite successfully in less fashionable areas.
Now I'm not suggesting that such a system would be perfect, I don't believe any system can ever claim to be such, least of all one with heavy government involvement. What I do believe however is that one where people give voluntarily, either through commercial transaction or altruism would encourage far faster correction of any mistakes that occur than a government system where financial contributions are mandated via law purely on account that in the former you are actually required to deliver on your promise to gain repeat 'custom'.
I'm not all together convinced that my philosophy will get a public airing any time soon but it does make for an interesting philosophical debate. It's unfortunate that modern politicians seem to fall back on the emotive reasoning demanded by the media when discussing political theories as it tends to prevent anything deeper from being debated.
Now I'm not suggesting that such a system would be perfect, I don't believe any system can ever claim to be such, least of all one with heavy government involvement. What I do believe however is that one where people give voluntarily, either through commercial transaction or altruism would encourage far faster correction of any mistakes that occur than a government system where financial contributions are mandated via law purely on account that in the former you are actually required to deliver on your promise to gain repeat 'custom'.
I'm not all together convinced that my philosophy will get a public airing any time soon but it does make for an interesting philosophical debate. It's unfortunate that modern politicians seem to fall back on the emotive reasoning demanded by the media when discussing political theories as it tends to prevent anything deeper from being debated.
Robert Jarvis
Player Valuation: £35m
What a load of waffle and bullshit you guys are coming out with. I'll tell you what Brown did.
Sold nearly alll our gold reserves when the price was at rock bottom against advice, and the Chinese bought it.
Good economy, then why have so many businesses and factories closed down with the loss of thousands of jobs.
The so called strong economy has been on the back of personal spending fuelled by increasing debt and house prices.
One year increased the state pension by an obscene 75p a week, ie £39 for the year.
3 years did not increase the personal allowances that means your code number did not go up, amounts to a negative tax increase.
Created the biggest cockup in years called the tax credits which has been riven every year by fraud and irrecoverable overpayments amounting to about 2 billion every year.
Under Brown the fraud on VAT, Income Tax, Corporation Tax, Welfare benefits has increased to record levels yet the resources to tackle that fraud have been cut back.
Wage increases have been supposedly limited to the rate of inflation, which in fact is not the true rate but the Treasury massaged rate.
Created Insurance Premium Tax which is another drain on family incomes.
Created the passenger duty Tax on airline travel to help climate control but not a penny of it spent on that just goes into Brown's money bags.
During the ten years he has been Chancellor help to councils has not been enough hence your council tax has doubled from 1997 to 2007.
Made a cock up of the car tax where the so called gas guzzlers still do not pay enough.
In his last budget did away with the 10p tax band and decreased the standard rate by 1p which means all those people earning £16,000 a year or less will next year pay more tax.
Has consistently raised fuel taxes and drinks and tobacco which has a marked effect on increasing the rate of inflation each year.
Has failed to get a grip on the masses of money paid as income abroad which has evaded income tax and used to buy assets abroad.
There is much more but suffice it to say that under Brown it is the ordinary folk, working and pensioners who have suffered and this is supposed to be a party to help those people. Under Brown the gap between the rich and poor has got wider.
That's Brown for you.
Sold nearly alll our gold reserves when the price was at rock bottom against advice, and the Chinese bought it.
Good economy, then why have so many businesses and factories closed down with the loss of thousands of jobs.
The so called strong economy has been on the back of personal spending fuelled by increasing debt and house prices.
One year increased the state pension by an obscene 75p a week, ie £39 for the year.
3 years did not increase the personal allowances that means your code number did not go up, amounts to a negative tax increase.
Created the biggest cockup in years called the tax credits which has been riven every year by fraud and irrecoverable overpayments amounting to about 2 billion every year.
Under Brown the fraud on VAT, Income Tax, Corporation Tax, Welfare benefits has increased to record levels yet the resources to tackle that fraud have been cut back.
Wage increases have been supposedly limited to the rate of inflation, which in fact is not the true rate but the Treasury massaged rate.
Created Insurance Premium Tax which is another drain on family incomes.
Created the passenger duty Tax on airline travel to help climate control but not a penny of it spent on that just goes into Brown's money bags.
During the ten years he has been Chancellor help to councils has not been enough hence your council tax has doubled from 1997 to 2007.
Made a cock up of the car tax where the so called gas guzzlers still do not pay enough.
In his last budget did away with the 10p tax band and decreased the standard rate by 1p which means all those people earning £16,000 a year or less will next year pay more tax.
Has consistently raised fuel taxes and drinks and tobacco which has a marked effect on increasing the rate of inflation each year.
Has failed to get a grip on the masses of money paid as income abroad which has evaded income tax and used to buy assets abroad.
There is much more but suffice it to say that under Brown it is the ordinary folk, working and pensioners who have suffered and this is supposed to be a party to help those people. Under Brown the gap between the rich and poor has got wider.
That's Brown for you.
Welton Toffee
Player Valuation: £40m
Christ I'm now realising why I've not really looked at this thread before. Some serious posts in here!
Ah well, the Tories aren't running the country therefore I'm happy
Ah well, the Tories aren't running the country therefore I'm happy
ok... looked at from a different angle... how effectively do you think these voluntary or otherwise necessary services could budget if they were entirely dependent on the whims of members of the public... not knowing from one month to the next who would donate.
On the basis of commercial survival, would the emergency services check the list of donors before responding to any call out?
I can understand what you're driving at Bruce, the world would be a nicer place if we gave because we wanted to, and everyone wants more say in what their money goes towards, but once things get so complex there is a need to centralise. Could you honestly be arsed to spend a couple of days a month dividing out your earnings:
that's £1.25 to the local fire station
£2.36 to the local hospital
24p to the binman
£1.24 to the Police
£3.21 to the local schools
etc etc
Never mind who chucks into the pot for running the foreign office, or overseas embassies or any of the other background activities that would otherwise fall between the cracks.
On the basis of commercial survival, would the emergency services check the list of donors before responding to any call out?
I can understand what you're driving at Bruce, the world would be a nicer place if we gave because we wanted to, and everyone wants more say in what their money goes towards, but once things get so complex there is a need to centralise. Could you honestly be arsed to spend a couple of days a month dividing out your earnings:
that's £1.25 to the local fire station
£2.36 to the local hospital
24p to the binman
£1.24 to the Police
£3.21 to the local schools
etc etc
Never mind who chucks into the pot for running the foreign office, or overseas embassies or any of the other background activities that would otherwise fall between the cracks.
Believe it or not I don't have a fully fledged manifesto sat in front of me ready to rebuff any questions raised 
I just think it would be nice if politicians in general gave the public more credit and undertook this kind of philisophical debate more often. As it currently stands it all gets awfully boring very quickly and it's no wonder people are choosing not to vote in record numbers. It comes to something when the Tories are scared to offer tax cuts because both Labour and Lib Dems immediately scream about public services. They're like Mrs Lovejoy in the Simpsons "won't somebody please think of the public services".
I think most of your queries are workable even if I don't have the answer to every single eventuality raised. Organisations in both the commercial and non-profit sector seem to cope perfectly well with irregular incomes (or voluntary income at any rate).
The emergency services issue is a red herring often raised by people suggesting that ambulances would turn away people without the means to pay. The RNLI has operated coastguard services for nearly 200 years on a voluntary basis (both from coastguards and donors) and seems to work very well. Now I'm not suggesting healthcare will run on a similar basis, although it's feasible that a charitable trust would operate for those without means, but it is easy to find fault in most things, even the NHS, but that doesn't mean those faults are insurmountable. We have to bare in mind, with healthcare in particular, that as our population ages our dependance on healthcare will rise and funding it via general taxation will simply not be possible. Blair has already started the process of independance with foundation hospitals and I suspect he would have liked to have gone further but for the emotive political capital opposition parties (not to mention the unions) would have made about it.
Finally in answer to the point about individuals budgeting appropriately, we already do budget adequately enough (some more so than others admittedely) for an enormous range of things. I mean the average grocery list probably has in excess of 100 items on it each week and I suspect if someone suggested that the grocery market be nationalised because its too complicated and food too important an issue to be left to the rigours of competition people would look at them very oddly. After all, it's not as if the streets are filled with starving folks is it
I just think it would be nice if politicians in general gave the public more credit and undertook this kind of philisophical debate more often. As it currently stands it all gets awfully boring very quickly and it's no wonder people are choosing not to vote in record numbers. It comes to something when the Tories are scared to offer tax cuts because both Labour and Lib Dems immediately scream about public services. They're like Mrs Lovejoy in the Simpsons "won't somebody please think of the public services".I think most of your queries are workable even if I don't have the answer to every single eventuality raised. Organisations in both the commercial and non-profit sector seem to cope perfectly well with irregular incomes (or voluntary income at any rate).
The emergency services issue is a red herring often raised by people suggesting that ambulances would turn away people without the means to pay. The RNLI has operated coastguard services for nearly 200 years on a voluntary basis (both from coastguards and donors) and seems to work very well. Now I'm not suggesting healthcare will run on a similar basis, although it's feasible that a charitable trust would operate for those without means, but it is easy to find fault in most things, even the NHS, but that doesn't mean those faults are insurmountable. We have to bare in mind, with healthcare in particular, that as our population ages our dependance on healthcare will rise and funding it via general taxation will simply not be possible. Blair has already started the process of independance with foundation hospitals and I suspect he would have liked to have gone further but for the emotive political capital opposition parties (not to mention the unions) would have made about it.
Finally in answer to the point about individuals budgeting appropriately, we already do budget adequately enough (some more so than others admittedely) for an enormous range of things. I mean the average grocery list probably has in excess of 100 items on it each week and I suspect if someone suggested that the grocery market be nationalised because its too complicated and food too important an issue to be left to the rigours of competition people would look at them very oddly. After all, it's not as if the streets are filled with starving folks is it
yeah, but we're not all doing someone else's shopping or buying stuff that we may or may not need and so on....
As i said, I can understand what you're getting at, but I believe its something that could only be achieved in far smaller societies.
Maybe we'll just have to agree to disagree on this one
As i said, I can understand what you're getting at, but I believe its something that could only be achieved in far smaller societies.
Maybe we'll just have to agree to disagree on this one
Rob
Player Valuation: £20m
I suppose you would prefer a recession then?
The lost jobs in factories has been largely down to the strong pound, but then people like you are against joining the euro right?
Robert Jarvis
Player Valuation: £35m
Way out of line Rob, you are not living here so hardly in a position to see what the score is here.
It does not call for a recession and how Brown could contribute to that happening by continually increasing the tax burden is not clear to me.
As for Rover perhaps we should have bought more of their cars but they failed due to bad management and poor sales. Add to that as regards the public sector we must be the only European country that consistently buys vehicles made abroad, like the Police using BMW, Volvo, Mercedes, Ford, Mitzsubishi, rather than cars made here like Vauxhall, Honda, Nissan, Land Rover and before they closed Peugeot and Rover. Add to that all the other parts of the Public sector which continually buy foreign adds up to thousands of vehicles.
The strong pound is due to the high interest rates to curb the inflation being generated by the house prices because lenders have made it so easy to get credit, like 5 times your salary for a mortgage, in real terms our economy is not good.
Add to that the fat cats getting away with their millions of income not paying any tax or not enough although they live here. EG The owners of Equity Firms paying only 10% on their hundreds of millions they make by asset stripping because Brown decided their income should be treated as Capital Gains and not subject to Income Tax at 40%
For your information I was in favour of the Euro.
Before you mouth off get your facts and information right. AKA engage your brain before you open your mouth.
It does not call for a recession and how Brown could contribute to that happening by continually increasing the tax burden is not clear to me.
As for Rover perhaps we should have bought more of their cars but they failed due to bad management and poor sales. Add to that as regards the public sector we must be the only European country that consistently buys vehicles made abroad, like the Police using BMW, Volvo, Mercedes, Ford, Mitzsubishi, rather than cars made here like Vauxhall, Honda, Nissan, Land Rover and before they closed Peugeot and Rover. Add to that all the other parts of the Public sector which continually buy foreign adds up to thousands of vehicles.
The strong pound is due to the high interest rates to curb the inflation being generated by the house prices because lenders have made it so easy to get credit, like 5 times your salary for a mortgage, in real terms our economy is not good.
Add to that the fat cats getting away with their millions of income not paying any tax or not enough although they live here. EG The owners of Equity Firms paying only 10% on their hundreds of millions they make by asset stripping because Brown decided their income should be treated as Capital Gains and not subject to Income Tax at 40%
For your information I was in favour of the Euro.
Before you mouth off get your facts and information right. AKA engage your brain before you open your mouth.
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Rob
Player Valuation: £20m
I believe I am right, just because you see it a different way doesn't make either of us right or wrong.
The weak yen is killing the american car market, and its the same situation in the UK, a strong pound just can't compete and as such we lose out.
Glad to hear you are in favour of the Euro, too many idiots out there that think having the pound is part of being British or something....
The weak yen is killing the american car market, and its the same situation in the UK, a strong pound just can't compete and as such we lose out.
Glad to hear you are in favour of the Euro, too many idiots out there that think having the pound is part of being British or something....
You do realise that if we had the Euro we wouldn't be able to set interest rates though right?
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