Tax Freedom Day

[woolybanana]

Well, there we are guys, today, 29th July is the day that you start earning for yourself in this benighted country. Up to that date you have been paying taxes to feed the State.

What a flippin mess that Mr Hollande has made no attempt to remedy.

Oh, the only country which is worse is Belgium, so avoid.

No wonder Europe is going down the pan with a big flush.

For those interested, here is the link from Figaro:

http://www.lefigaro.fr/economie/le-scan-eco/dessous-chiffres/2015/07/29/29006-20150729ARTFIG00006-en-france-pour-100-euros-nets-il-faut-235-euros-de-salaire-super-brut.php

[Quillan]

I read somewhere the other day, I forget where, that he is going to make poverty illegal, I was wondering how that was going to work? The general consensus around my dinner table amongst the French is that he is a one term president. The problem as I see it is who do you vote for, not much of a choice really. Seems they blunder from one idiot to the next, bit like the UK and most European countries really.

[idun]

THANKYOU Wooly!

IF that is correct, then rip off Britain doesn't seem so bad. And actually 'I' have known that France is like that for more years than I care to remember. The french are experts at stealth taxes.

[woolybanana]

And, babe, they are getting worse.

I wonder whether UK would be quite so favourable if the prices for housing were taken into account?

[Frederick]

The measure I use and can only speak of the UK Is " are our children and those of people we know better off than we were at their age " The answer is a great big YES ... They have been better educated are in good jobs have travelled far more and are able to spend far more than we ever did . As far as I can see the UK is doing right by them today .

[EuroTrash]

They may be better off materially but are they more content, happier, more fulfilled, less stressed? Do they live in and contribute to a caring society? It ain't all about how much money you have to spend.

Better educated... not too sure about that. They'll have spent more years being educated, certainly, but that's not always quite the same thing is it.

[mint]

[quote user="EuroTrash"]They may be better off materially but are they more content, happier, more fulfilled, less stressed? Do they live in and contribute to a caring society? It ain't all about how much money you have to spend.

Better educated... not too sure about that. They'll have spent more years being educated, certainly, but that's not always quite the same thing is it.[/quote]

Eurotrash, your post touches on "imponderables" and I don't know that it's possible to design an objective test to make a real comparison.

OTOH, you are asking the RIGHT questions[:-))]

[ebaynut]

EuroTrash wrote, It ain't all about how much money you have to spend.

 I think you will find it is!!!!!

[EuroTrash]

Well that's for each of us to decide but I can safely say that for me it definitely isn't. In the end I chose the life that makes me happiest, not the one that earns me most money. And yes it was a conscious choice. I could easily have stayed in the UK doing the job I was doing and earning loadsa money. But I didn't, cos I didn't like the life I was leading or the person I was turning into, and however much money I spent would never have changed that.

Maybe it's an age thing, but for some people at least there comes a point when you've got everything you really want and you're bored with it all and you think 'Now what? There has to be more to life than this.' I suppose not everybody gets to that stage.

[Rabbie]

[quote user="Frederick"]The measure I use and can only speak of the UK Is " are our children and those of people we know better off than we were at their age " The answer is a great big YES ... They have been better educated are in good jobs have travelled far more and are able to spend far more than we ever did . As far as I can see the UK is doing right by them today .[/quote]And how many of them can afford to buy their own homes. How many of them have large student loan debts. Are they really better off than we were. Some are, a lot aren't. I know of several university graudates who are still living at home and are struggling to find a job that uses their qualifications. That must be very frustrating.

[ebaynut]

[quote user="woolybanana"]And, babe, they are getting worse.

I wonder whether UK would be quite so favourable if the prices for housing were taken into account?[/quote]

But when you have paid the sky high taxes in France, that money has gone,

never to be seen again. Same with food and just about everything else, as, apart

from houses, it all costs more in France that the UK.

At least when you pay a silly price for a house in the UK, you can resell

it again in a couple of years, and if you brought right, and sold right, plus

made improvements, ( no extra taxes to pay for adding a new bathroom this side

of the channel) you will sell it for an even sillier price than you paid. Try

that in France.

[Rabbie]

An awful lot of young people cannot afford to pay a silly price for a house in the UK especially around London. So they don't have the chance to buy right and sell right. Once you get on the property ladder then the high house prices are not such a problem - it's the initial purchase that is the problem. When I was young it was comparatively easy to buy your first home with just a bit of scrimping and saving. Now it seems to be really difficult to make that first move without help from parents etc.

[ebaynut]

[quote user="Rabbie"]An awful lot of young people cannot afford to pay a silly price for a house in the UK especially around London. So they don't have the chance to buy right and sell right. Once you get on the property ladder then the high house prices are not such a problem - it's the initial purchase that is the problem. When I was young it was comparatively easy to buy your first home with just a bit of scrimping and saving. Now it seems to be really difficult to make that first move without help from parents etc.[/quote]

The high prices of houses are down to supply and demand,  if you have an

large unplanned for increase in the UK population though immigration, then

demand goes up for housings, and of course will keep on increasing. You clearly

support immigration in the high numbers to the UK, as you have made that plain

in your previous postings, so you can hardly expect housing costs to remain

low

I also don't know where you are coming from with all this ‘youngsters cant

afford to buy etc.’, if they are smart, (and I don't mean having lots of

worthless degrees which they will be paying for for the rest of their lives)

they will be able to buy their own homes, both my boys did, and so have all

their friends, without too much help from Mum and Dad.

 

I always think this joke sums up the situation regarding those that go to

university.

 

What do you say to a graduate with a degree in media study's?

 

‘I will have a big mac and fries please’

 

 

 

So many people think that going to uni and getting ‘qualified’ guarantees

them the right to work and their own home. It does not, only working hard and

working smart ensures that.

[woolybanana]

Thus speaks UKIP and white van man!

My degree and two post-graduate qualifications cost me almost nowt and served me well in earning a good living, thank you very much.

Your anti-university rant suggests a chip the size of a deep fried mars bar weighing on your shoulder.

[Quillan]

Well there you have it, lets flood the channel tunnel that should stop the immigrants coming across and buying multi millon pound houses in London thus making them available to UK citizens who could buy them at a knock down price.

[ebaynut]

[quote user="woolybanana"]Thus speaks UKIP and white van man!

My degree and two post-graduate qualifications cost me almost nowt and served me well in earning a good living, thank you very much.

Your anti-university rant suggests a chip the size of a deep fried mars bar weighing on your shoulder.[/quote]

What I always find strange is how anyone who

supports UKIP or the FN is somehow below your high intelligence. A far more

impolite person than myself, would probably ask the following

question,

 

If you are so smart, how come you are not rich

and  live in what I would describe as little more than a shed in a part of

France where many houses are for sale at less than the price of a half decent

car and still no-one wants them?   I viewed your house via the link

you posted before it was removed and could not believe that anyone would buy it,

yet alone at the price you seem to think it commands, its hardly the ‘French

dream’ is it.

 

But as I say, I would never ask such a question as I am far too polite.

 

Its a bit like saying ‘I have just closed my bank account, and it was a SIX

figure number I withdrew’, it just isn't  the done thing, is it??

[lindal1000]

Different things please different people I guess. I had a good career, was well educated etc. But then when I was growing up there was such a thing as free education, so I left education with no debt. I worked in the NHS and later in education so I was never rich and I paid loads of tax as no opportunity for 'earning on the side'. My friends kids in UK struggle now to get the sort of things that I got..

I gave up my full time job pre retirement and earn significantly less money and pay significantly less tax as a result. In fact this year is the first year I've had to pay any tax in France.

[woolybanana]

Interesting question ebaynut, and as full of malice as your questioner can be. And suggesting a dreadful inferiority complex.

To give a partial answer, I retired at 49 (though I was successfully headhunted for a while a few years later) which seems to suggest that I put my qualifications to good use.

As to the house, well, I have never played the property 'game' nor wasted money on the pursuit of false promises; rather like Norman, I suspect, who feels that if a barrel meets his needs, then a barrel it shall be.

Interesting that you bracket UKIP with the FN - racist, nationalist, violent, backed by thugs, hmmm, hardly the place for the intelligent.

[ebaynut]

No need to make excuses for your financial

inadequacy to me, save them for your family. If you have never played the

property game, especially the one in the UK, ( not the one in

France which works in reverse) then you have missed the biggest cash cow around.

Possibly you are one of those that believe houses are for homes and

not investment, if so then I hope your beliefs support you well in

old age and pays all your bills.

 

I also believe that a good education is

important,  my boys were educated privately, though did not get any degrees as

they decided they did not wish to follow that path. Like most things in life,

its not what you have that matters, but how well you use it, and taking the

lazy, ‘easy’  approach, usually means ending up with very little in the way of

tangible assets.

 

As for UKIP and FN being thugs, I suspect in

times of war, these are the very people, those that are passionate about their

country, that the government would be stirring up to send to fight, so people

such as yourself you could write a thesis on them at some stage in the

future.

 

Your dislike of the UK, and anyone with a

white van coupled with your belief that anyone who speaks out

wanting to protect their home country from mass

immigration must be somehow lower intellectually than you and therefore wrong,

suggests to me that you cant think of any

other reasons to use against them.

Where would the IRA be now without fighting

for what they believed in?

 

[lindal1000]

I'm not going to have an argument with you Ebaynut on the rights and wrongs of Fascism, but I can assure that it is perfectly possible to support yourself and whoever else you want to by just earning a living and without having to play any sort of game, and that neither are related to happiness. And I can speak from experience as I have close family members that have played the game you have very successfully, sent kids to private school etc. and it doesn't seem to have brought them any more contentment than those who haven't followed that route. Not that I'm saying it hasn't made you happy, but like I said..everyone is different and as hard as you might find it to believe, others find a different route to fulfilment. I find it very satisfying to do things that may aid my fellow human beings. It's something that gives me great contentment and reward and something that I was very privileged to be paid to do in my lifetime. I'm glad you have been successful but please don't think that your model of success is the only one that counts.

[idun]

EBN, what is wrong with you. Dear me, hearing someone who feels to me as if they are really extolling the virtues of rabid Thatcherism and I suppose Blairism to some extent, is actually rather nauseating on a Monday morning.

Get over yourself. Some of us are not fixated on money or what other's have or haven't. And maybe that is why my friends are an eclectic mix, because, I don't 'envie' anyone anything, I am me and they are what they are.........and they make their choices and I make mine.

[EuroTrash]

What a very unpleasant, blinkered poster there is on here. It's enough to put anyone off visiting or joining this forum. When I would have thought it needed to be doing just the opposite.

However: "Materialism should take over from religion as the opium of the people. Discuss."

[Quillan]

Reading EBN's post I thought it was a bit early in the day to drink but there you go.

 

It seems we are all terribly inferior to EBN and nowhere near as clever. If you say something in reference to the UK then you are anti UK so you can join my club because having been told so many times that I am by him I am starting to believe him.

 

My daughter, who went to a very good private school went on to uni, got her degree, work's for a merchant, used her bonuses to buy houses (for her pension income) and has just retired with a current income I could only dream of at her age which is inflation proof and have a substantial net worth. There is no doubt in my mind that she would never have been able to do this without the education, including her time at university, that she could afford to do this at such a young age because the degree gave her access to the work she did to make the money to buy the houses as the initial money has to come from somewhere. A good education is by far the best thing you can ever give your kids. What they do with it is up to them but at least you know you have set them up right.

 

By the way the last 'political' party similar to Ukip and FN in the UK was banned in 1940 and their leader locked up until 1943. After the war he joined the conservative party as an MP then switched to the labour party then left the country in 1955 to live in France for the remainder of his life and died there a broke and lonely man.

[ebaynut]

LINDAL1000,

 

No argument from me, I may not agree with you on many things, but you

always put your side forward well.

 

IDUN,

 

Congratulations, you managed to make a post without telling us that you

live in the UK with France paying your healthcare costs. [Www]

 

EUROTRASH,

 

I know what you mean, but however he is a forum mod, and has been on here

forever.

 

Q,

 

Thank you for clearing up your daughters employment position. When you said

before that she worked for a German company in the city, handling lots of other

peoples money, I somehow assumed that she worked the checkout in Aldi or Lidl

somewhere in London.

 

Q wrote,

 

then left the country in 1955 to live in

France for the remainder of his life and died there a broke and lonely

man.

 

Most people who go there usually

still do!!!!

[Quillan]

[quote user="ebaynut"]

Q,

 

Thank you for clearing up your daughters employment position. When you said before that she worked for a German company in the city, handling lots of other peoples money, I somehow assumed that she worked the checkout in Aldi or Lidl somewhere in London.

 

Q wrote,

 

then left the country in 1955 to live in France for the remainder of his life and died there a broke and lonely man.

 

Most people who go there usually still do!!!!

[/quote]

 

Well I thought you would have worked it out seeing as she never, unlike some, had to borrow money to invest in the property market.

 

And you base your last statement on what exactly. Can you give a reference, a web link for example or are you, as always making it up as you go along.

 

Fortunatly we don't have to worry about Ukip as they are a 'has been party' with only one MP. Mr Farrage has been making his normal gaffs again I see by implying the British army 'invade' Calais. The man is somewhat of an idiot which probably explains why he attracts the type of person who he does i.e. typical single mind set little Englanders who live in their three bed semi's in the south of England who won't hear of any critism of their country or themselves regardless of if it is true or not. I think Wooly summed them up quite well.