Socialist paradise: Britain cancels 50,000 surgeries

Life is not equal. Babies get bone cancer. People with high IQs get better jobs and make more money. Tall, thin, blonde women marry rich men. Progressives suffer under the delusion that a) these differences are inherently wrong, and b) that they can "correct" them.

 

Oh I like to speak about it. It is a tax imposed on us by being a member of the EU. I think it is an unjust tax as it is levelled at the same rate on the rich as on the poor.

It is also a tax that is often avoided by a tradesman offering that if you pay by cash he won't charge VAT. We have shops around here that won't accept cards, only cash or cheque, and one laundry will only take cash.

In France I bought a used Brushcutter and the shop owner said if I paid cash he wouldn't charge VAT, I also had an Electrician who said the same and he added "I suppose you have the same system in your country?" Even David Cameron who was then PM said that he sometimes paid cash.

One of our church members started a bistro about a year ago and recently declared to the Inland Revenue that his turnover had reached the level where he should register for VAT and they it for the taxt from the start of his business.

VAT works like this.
If you import something or make something you have to charge VAT on it the general rate is 20% but some things are lower, and some are liable to tax but are zero rated, others are VAT exempt.

The tradesman can can claim back the amount, of VAT he has paid. The person who buys the item has paid the VAT and if he is the end user, the consumer, that is the end. If the person who purchases the product sells it on or either as a merchant of business that has made something from it they pay the VAT which they can claim back, it is the end user that pays the tax on all the value, the original price and all the value added..

In the UK VAT is not paid on food, but food in a restaurant is charged at 20% I believe, My friend has to charge the VAT, but as he has not paid VAT on the food he has bought he can't claim it back.

In France the general VAT rate is 20% but they tax food at 5% in stores and in restaurants.

When I worked in a newspaper, advertising was zero rated in UK. We had a magazine which was jointly published in France, Germany and Italy . Advertising was from all four countries and w had to charge VAT on those advertisers from the other countries, the lowest was UK 0%, Top rate was Italy at 26% I can't remember what the German and French rates were but Germany was lowest.

Welcome to the world of VAT logic.

A friend has told me that our church could register for VAT and we could claim back any VAT we paid but as we don't sell anything there is no added value.

 

You are way over the top. You complain that wages are stagnant. Well, Obama made things worse. Trump at least gave a tax cut to the working poor. You are talking all the time about phantom cuts and poor healthcare. If things were what you say they are, you would be heading to socialist England where they would give you free healthcare for life and they already have the high taxes that you like.

 

Non sequitur, not a tax.

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Correct but under the U.S. constitution which I thought you supported, they are treated equally under the law. All have certain "unalienable rights" among these life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. They are two kinds of justice today. One for the rich and one for the poor especially minority and immigrant poor.

 

Thank you. In comparison with you I would want to be way, way over your top which isn't very good. Why should I leave America? YOU need to get out.

 

Dynamic economic growth. Consumerism. What is the population of the world compared to 1980? How many more consumers are there now? How many new products are there to buy?

There is not a static pile of money that everyone shares and it just gets shifted around.


This is Econ 101, no it's Econ 01.


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There is a double standard, indeed. If I break the law I am prosecuted, but if a criminal, ignoring our laws and borders, comes to and stays in my country illegally, he is applauded as a hero and given my money.

 

Inequality means that when the economy grows most of the benefits go to the rich and large corporations.

 

I don't support illegal immigration. I also don't support the many hypocrites who denounce it and then hire illegal immigrants. That is a federal felany by the way and I think is a very good way to cut illegal immigration. Jail the hypocrites.

 

I am not complaining. I do not want socialized medicine. I do not want high taxes. I do not believe your doomsday scenario, for which you do not have a shred of evidence. It is just that you yourself want socialized medicine and high taxes and your ideas were defeated for the time being in the election but you have another chance this November if North Korea does not drop the atomic bomb on us before then.

 

Matt, Dont know about GB but here in America some money never makes it to the pay check (about 7% for what was once called FICA).

Then of course TAX galore out in the market place (about .50 to $1.00/gallon of gas), etc, etc,...

We (USA) are in effect a socialist Republic (if you can imagine that).


HankD

 

Well, gee whiz...I wonder who is the engine of economic growth? Who produces the goods that consumers purchase? Who hires people?

And BTW, I noticed your attempt to redefine inequality from wealth transfer to greater participation in economic growth.

 

Part is - VAT - AND part isn't- excise

 

May be helpful to say where I'm coming from .....

Before WW1, when poor relief was in the workhouse, where minimal food was provided & meaningless work was demanded - scrubbing & rescrubbing, shovelling rocks, turning treadwheels ...you went there to die.

One local hospital has an interesting display of when it was a workhouse;
Another was a lunatic asylum.

My father, Lloyd George Day was the 8th in a poor family. The previous year Lloyd George had the first National Insurance Act passed. (My mother was Doris Day, but that's another story.) His parents were so grateful for the provision that they gave him the name. A few pence were deducted from wages, a few paid by employer, & a few by the government, you could claim relief when unemployed.

In the previous centuries, fields were enclosed by the landowners who even owned the wild rabbits - snare a rabbit & you could be transported, at first to the American colonies, then to Australia, leaving the family destitute.
Work was casual - farm in season, loading & unloading ships, etc. Steady employment was in the mills at slave rates & long hours.
This song tells the account of the hardships - read the story of the author at the end.
There was no "wild west" where you could hitch your wagon & stake out a farm. People were totally dependent on employers.

I was born in 1939 & lived through WW2. My mother was always singing, & I remember Paul Robeson's lullabies. We had his songs on 78s, played on a windup grammaphone. In the 50s I wondered why we never heard him on the radio, & Mum stopped playing his records. When I asked - "He was a communist."

1946-7 I became very ill - 6 months off school with a chest complaint. The NHS was established & a radio appeal for an X-ray machine for Gt Ormond St Hospital was so over supported that Southampton got one as well. I was one of the first to be xrayed. It wasn't the suspected TB, & I fully recovered.

I digress -
Around 1980 I bought a remaindered record of Paul Robeson & decided to learn about him. Why did he espouse rights for the negro & trade union & the poor?

Negro soldiers fought & died for European freedom, but when they returned, they found they had no rights, hundreds suffering lynching. Paul spoke up for them & his passport was taken away, every concert hall in the US was closed to him. His records were taken off the market. But he was NEVER indicted for any crime. Just accused of being "unamerican."

The NHS & Socialism provided the health care I needed, free schooling & a grant for university education. I completed my education with no money, but no debts. We married a year after I graduated, bought a home with a deposit provided by the firm, & raised our family.

I'm happy to pay the national insurance & the state & local taxes that provide the health care & stable community we live in. A health service that under a Conservative government is being deliberately underfunded so it can be sold off for being inefficient.

 

And your story is typical of so many who were given a hand up not a hand out by the Welfare State

 

https://photos.app.goo.gl/6rCLUOfYRiLrV9Mg1

 

My twin brother has a MS in Econ/MBA and had a 10 year career as a corporate financial analyst. At the age of 42 he felt the call to the ministry and earned an MDIV from the Southern Baptist Seminary. He pastored a poor SBC church in a rough neighborhood of Louisville which barely paid him a salary and provided no medical insurance.He had a pre-existing condition which meant the only insurance he could buy was extremely expensive. He was without insurance for 10 years and had a serious operation to repair a rising thoracic aneurysm during that period. A genuine Christian surgeon operated on him for nothing (6 1/2 hour open chest/stop your heart surgery). His hospital stay was covered by the government.

Then he had surgery on the tendons on both legs which connect the knee to the hip. They were severed and the second one required two operations because the first one failed.

Anyone who thinks this shows that anyone can get decent medical care in America for free think again. For one I guarantee you can't find a skilled surgeon to do a surgery like this for free. Secondly, you have to be poor to get the hospital care Jim did at a low cost. Try facing a life-threatening disease without insurance. It's a terrible experience.

He finally was able to buy insurance at a reasonable price when Obamacare was passed. Now he like me is on Medicare.

I'll listen to anyone who's had to go through this kind of terrible experience argue that we have a great healthcare system in America and don't need Obamacare with improvements. Otherwise, you just don't know what you're complaining about..

 

I have three herniated disks in my neck, I have two herniated disks in my lower back and one fractured vertebrae. My church does not provide insurance. I believe we have the best health care system in the world.

Far too many of those in America that have received Obamacare did not actually receive any day to day coverage. This is due to a 9 to 12 thousand dollar deductible per year per person. My wife had a double mastectomy and reconstruction surgery. We will be paying on that deductible for quite some time.

I believe we have the best healthcare system (pre-obamacare) in the world.

The difference between you and me is I do not believe it is governments job to solve all my problems. Its my responsibility. Whatever the government gets involved in costs way to much money.

Obamacare is nothing but a pretense of insurance that leaves people struggling anyway.