Separate Moan Thread About The Election

Not for one moment saying this is true or verified, but certainly a line that should be investigated:

 

National Insurance was always paid by workers into a pool to provide for the current pensioners, it was never an individual pot. Otherwise when it first started in 1908 it would have taken a generation to start helping the needy.

 

The blockage to most of it is our political classes looking far too much at what is going on elsewhere, far too much at the soundbites they think will get them elected, far too much about getting/keeping their snouts in the trough.

@shiney mentioned that he votes based on local issues and to a large degree that is exactly how it should be - but for far too long, parties have parachuted in candidates into constituencies that they don't live in and frankly don't give a monkeys about.

I'd suggest more folks would engage in politics if it were speaking for them at a local level - roads, schools, housing, healthcare etc etc... that is what folks need and care about, not whether someone with a penis should be allowed into a women's toilet or all the posturing on Gaza/Palestine etc.

 

I think the real issue is that the things it is used for grew exponentially and indeed (here we go with the numbers again) - the amount of people claiming/needing it.

 

Stating the obvious, we live in a capitalist state, it's always been like that. A few get rich and the majority don't. It happened in the wars and some also made more money in the great depression whilst many starved.

 

It is the way of almost everything at the moment - the vociferous minority are being favoured in the vain hope that will garner their vote in the future.. meanwhile, the majority suffer. Government at all levels has forgotten that they are paid for and exist to serve the public and carry out the wishes of the majority.

 

There was a time when I would have been with you @BenCotto - I think many of us have simply seen far too many "run 'uns" - the first past the post system also doesn't help, I believe, as we may well feel that one particular person is best for our local area, yet the party they are affiliated with we do not want in government. For me, that is the Lib Dems - really good at local level, yet I wouldn't lend them my vote because it has a national implication also.

 

The rich get richer because they're in a position to do so. They have talented and well paid monetary advisors to help them pay less tax and earn more interest. Globally, these people are required. If all the big earners are suddenly penalised by a government then they'll simply relocate from the UK; the banks and industry will panic affecting the markets and the UK gets their credit rating reduced meaning we all end up paying more just so a few wealthy individuals can be smacked about which they won't give two craps about anyway.

 

Perhaps better to incentivise the wealthy to spread the cash locally (no idea how). Look at Taylor Swift - on her recent tour she chucked loads of money to fund food banks for a year in every town she performed in