Guest 683- Registered: 11 Feb 2009
- Posts: 1,052
Peter
in reality I have very little say in how my taxes are spent. If I did then improving the quality of life of people anywhere would be a priority; way above bailing out greedy bankers or funding questionable wars.
Guest 645- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 4,463
In yet another harrowing story from the coffers of the EU it has emerged that British taxpayers will have to pay almost £170 million next year towards European Union pensions after an above- inflation rise that will grant the average retired official an income of more than £60,000 a year.
Meanwhile pensions in the UK are set to decline as the Tories scrap the 'final year' pension and adopt a 'career average' pension as recommended by the EU slashing some pensions by about 25%.
Marek
I think therefore I am (not a Tory supporter)
Guest 655- Registered: 13 Mar 2008
- Posts: 10,247
Marek. I note that you did not make it clear that the pensions that the 'wicked' Tories are cutting are only the public sector pensions affecting only future accrual.
Lets be clear about this. Final salary pensions are unaffordable and almost the only such pensions that remain are in the public sector. It costs about 7/8 times the contribution rate and the taxpayers have huge bills to cover the cost.
In fact the average person is paying a lot more towards public sector pensions than they pay towards their own pensions.
So yes they are making changes to the public sector pensions, they have to. Sadly though I do not think they are really doing enough and in a few years more changes will have to be made. The changes proposed will still leave public sector pensions far better than anyone in the private sector can get and too expensive for the taxpayers.
The public sector should be switched to money purchase (defined contribution) pensions for all future accrual.
Guest 645- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 4,463
Blast you noticed BarryW. As a person that receives a civil service final year pension I thought it best to keep my mouth shut
However that was the norm when I joined...
Marek
I think therefore I am (not a Tory supporter)
Guest 645- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 4,463
George Osborne could be putting his hand into our pockets again as Greece ask for another billion pounds. He refused to rule out joining a second rescue.
Greece have already indicated that they may have to quit the single currency unless they receive more cash from the EU or the IMF.
We have already paid out £1.3billion to Greece and £3billion to Ireland. The UK could also be liable for around £4billion towards the cost of rescuing Portugal's failing economy.
Just as well we stayed out of the Euro eh? What a joke! Complete lunancy.
Marek
I think therefore I am (not a Tory supporter)
Guest 645- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 4,463
After posting the above missive I found this little gem in the Daily Express on line edition....
EUROCRATS have squandered nearly £12billion of taxpayers' money on failed overseas aid projects to promote democracy in Arab nations, a scathing report concluded last night
Great innit (by the way 'innit' has just made into the scrabble dictionary) .
Marek
I think therefore I am (not a Tory supporter)
Guest 653- Registered: 13 Mar 2008
- Posts: 10,540
Eurocrats squander our money all the time Marek - we all know that.
Lunacy is a good word, but we still do nothing about it, but (perhaps) wring our hands and say "oh bugger".
Brian must be very rich as he is always supporting the EU however much they waste.
Roger
Ross Miller
- Location: London Road, Dover
- Registered: 17 Sep 2008
- Posts: 3,707
ah is that squandered in the same way the US (& UK) have squandered multiple times that plus countless lives on delivering democracy to the Iraquis and Afghanis? or less recently the Vietnamese, the Haitians, the Cubans, the Nicaraguans, the Chileans, the Bolivians etc.
"Dream as if you'll live forever. Live as if you'll die today." - James Dean
"Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength,
While loving someone deeply gives you courage" - Laozi
Guest 653- Registered: 13 Mar 2008
- Posts: 10,540
Probably Ross.
Roger
Brian Dixon
- Location: Dover
- Registered: 23 Sep 2008
- Posts: 23,940
roger,i wish i was rich.wouldnt be living here if i was.
Guest 683- Registered: 11 Feb 2009
- Posts: 1,052
"The European Union is expected to spend 133.8bn euros in 2009, or 1.03% of its members' gross national income. The vast majority will be spent on aid to farmers, rural development and aid to poorer regions."
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/8036096.stm#
I am still happy with this!
Guest 698- Registered: 28 May 2010
- Posts: 8,664
Suppose you were a member of a club. And suppose you were paying your subscriptions in full and on time every year. And suppose the club's auditors had refused to sign off the accounts for 13 years in a row. And suppose the committee of your club were living high on the hog on the proceeds. How much longer would you stay a member?
I'm an optimist. But I'm an optimist who takes my raincoat - Harold Wilson
Guest 673- Registered: 16 Jun 2008
- Posts: 1,388
You would have to think long and hard about that because, when you joined the club, you turned your back on all your old friends and they made new friends and will not welcome you back. Also, during the time that you have been in the club, you have sold off all your assets. Quite a lot of them have gone to other members of the club who now control your electricity supply, your gas, your water, your transport, and a host of other things. Members of other clubs have bought the rest. You put all the money you made from flogging off your assets into the bank but they invested it in all sorts of risky ventures and have blown the lot and you are now deeply in debt. Your options are now necessarily extremely limited and realistically you have little choice other than to stay a member of the club and kick up about the quality of the management.
Guest 696- Registered: 31 Mar 2010
- Posts: 8,115
Mark, 1.03% of its members gross national income does not mean that each member pays that percentage to the EU coffers from their respective income.
Some member states pay a lot more, others receive much more than they pay in.
To translate this into some practical example: a factory owner or farmer (farmer can mean someone owning a large estate with expensive machinery) in an EU state that absorbs EU funds, could sit down and grin, knowing that money will arrive from Brussels.
A poor idiot in the West (Britain, for example), with no work, won't see a penny from the EU.
Is that fair?
The idea that the EU is a beneficial, egalitarian unity of equal rights and opportunities is total humbug.
Guest 683- Registered: 11 Feb 2009
- Posts: 1,052
Should anyone be interested in a balanced view have a look at:
http://www.social-europe.eu/2011/03/the-court-of-auditors-the-need-for-assurance/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+SEJColumns+%28Social+Europe+Journal+%C2%BB+Columns%29
In brief the author states:
"One of the sticks which the anti-Europeans love to beat the EU with is the claim that the EU accounts have not been 'signed off' for more than 10 years. They repeatedly use this to conjure up images of widespread fraud and corruption.
This perceived failure to 'sign off' the accounts is treated as a unique and exceptional event in the world of government accounting. Yet, the UK's Department of Works and Pensions which has a much bigger budget than the EU regularly fails to have its accounts 'signed off'. Similar questions are regularly raised about the accuracy of the Ministry of Defence accounts and about the UK's Inland Revenue. Indeed, the US federal budget has been known not to be 'signed off' by the National Accounting Office".
Brian Dixon- Location: Dover
- Registered: 23 Sep 2008
- Posts: 23,940
mark,good point well made.
Guest 655- Registered: 13 Mar 2008
- Posts: 10,247
Not exactly a 'balanced view' from that source, look at it, playing down as it does the appalling EU record and playing up others to try to justify it.
Guest 683- Registered: 11 Feb 2009
- Posts: 1,052
Barry
'balanced' in the sense that it gives an alternative perspective to the many that decry the EU. I first heard this on the radio about four years ago and was pleased to find this more recent article repeating this message.
I am happy to believe it as I am sure I will not find it in the Express!
Guest 696- Registered: 31 Mar 2010
- Posts: 8,115
Mark, what you are essentially saying, is: if sovereign states don't always sign of their own accounts, then why should the EU?
As for the EU funding farmers in the Mediterranean area with British, German and Scandinavian monies,why not say outright that the British, German and Scandinavian economies fund these farmers?
And may-be expect these farmers to say thank-you to us in return, and pay it back to us.
Incidentally, the British Government is writing off one funding scheme after another in Britain, such as training programmes for people to find work.
The money ain't there any more for these luxuries, and I daresy before long we'll be telling the farmers of other European countries to milk their cows by hand, if they haven't got the money to buy the machinery.
Better than milking us!
Brian Dixon- Location: Dover
- Registered: 23 Sep 2008
- Posts: 23,940
along with uk farmers,grants for fields laying fellow,hedge rows left or replaced etc.
