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PostPosted: Wed Mar 30, 2011 12:33 
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dcbwhaley wrote:
Observing the number of cars on the roads and the number of miles they travel does not suggest that petrol is not affordable for most people.


Food is very expensive for many people - doesn't stop them from eating, though

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PostPosted: Wed Mar 30, 2011 17:51 
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Oscar wrote:
'Petrol per gallon 1950 = 15 (new) pence (36 old pence)'

I was serving petrol in 1949/50 at 11d a gallon (fact).

That's ~ 1p a litre!!!! :scratchchin:

140%? Do wages even begin to compare? :?


If it was 1p/litre it has gone up more than 140%, there might be a couple of noughts to go on there.

I never quite understand why every thing we buy must always get cheaper, electrical goods, clothes, food, with two notable exceptions, namely property and fuel.

The whole point of promotions and pay rises is so you can afford nicer things, what's the point in working harder an or having more stress without reward. But When the tax on fuel has been hiked every year, usually above inflation you have to have a big pay rise just to stand still. Why not put duty on all the consumer tat that everyone seems to think they can't manage without, then there would be less lorries on the road carting it about?


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PostPosted: Wed Mar 30, 2011 18:48 
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I never quite understand why every thing we buy must always get cheaper, electrical goods, clothes, food, with two notable exceptions, namely property and fuel.

You can improve the efficiency of factories and grow more food but... there is only so much oil and land.

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PostPosted: Wed Mar 30, 2011 18:51 
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adam.L wrote:
I never quite understand why every thing we buy must always get cheaper, electrical goods, clothes, food, with two notable exceptions, namely property and fuel.


Indeed. It has long puzzled me why we expect governments to increase our standard of living year on year without us working any harder.

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PostPosted: Wed Mar 30, 2011 19:37 
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dcbwhaley wrote:
adam.L wrote:
I never quite understand why every thing we buy must always get cheaper, electrical goods, clothes, food, with two notable exceptions, namely property and fuel.


Indeed. It has long puzzled me why we expect governments to increase our standard of living year on year without us working any harder.

Constant innovations, improved communications, smaller and tighter geometries, higher efficiencies, optimised production, improved tools – all these feed each other.
From a technological viewpoint, we can reasonably expect constant increases in value for money for such goods.

The real question is: why are we being taxed more and more, yet receive less and less?
The arena of 'government' is the only one where value for money seems to be reducing, even though their own tools have always been always improving.

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PostPosted: Wed Mar 30, 2011 19:43 
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dcbwhaley wrote:
It has long puzzled me why we expect governments to increase our standard of living year on year without us working any harder.


Please explain how you think governments increase our standard of living

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PostPosted: Wed Mar 30, 2011 22:02 
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dcbwhaley wrote:
adam.L wrote:
I never quite understand why every thing we buy must always get cheaper, electrical goods, clothes, food, with two notable exceptions, namely property and fuel.


Indeed. It has long puzzled me why we expect governments to increase our standard of living year on year without us working any harder.


Physically, I can't work any harder and expect my life to be shorter than that of my office based friends, assuming obesity doesn't get them first.


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PostPosted: Wed Mar 30, 2011 23:11 
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Pete317 wrote:
dcbwhaley wrote:
It has long puzzled me why we expect governments to increase our standard of living year on year without us working any harder.

Please explain how you think governments increase our standard of living

Steve described how our standard of living can steadily improve over the years. But, as Henry David Thoreau said, "Government never furthered any enterprise but by the alacrity with which it gets out of its way."

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PostPosted: Thu Mar 31, 2011 00:25 
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You're shortly to find-out if government gets in the way, or if industry trips over its own feet in the rush to generate high profits while offering low service !
My doctor has announced his retirement, several years before he was going to retire.
He went to a meeting to have "GP commissioning" explained to him, came back and announced his retirement.
Apparently (from his own mouth) the only way to make it work is by choosing between "high value or low value patients".
The market at work.
Lets see.
Prison staff soon to be on strike...troops training for that already, and police retreating from staffing prisons.
Police cannot strike, but a process of taking leave due is starting, which will apparently leave staffing levels very low....
With several wars running in the background, and staffing in the forces being reduced by involuntary redundancy, staffing the prisons will be interesting.....except that several security companies are offering staff as well.....and also offering to run the police service.
Yep, looks like interesting times again.....that's without the electoral boundaries being redrawn, and 50 MPs' also "going"...and the voting system being changed......soon there will be enough blue MPs' that they can have a majority and dump the remaining lib-dems...

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56 years after it was decided it was needed, the Bedford Bypass is nearing completion. The last single carriageway length of it.We have the most photogenic mayor though, always being photographed doing nothing


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PostPosted: Thu Mar 31, 2011 08:24 
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Steve wrote:
dcbwhaley wrote:
Indeed. It has long puzzled me why we expect governments to increase our standard of living year on year without us working any harder.

Constant innovations, improved communications, smaller and tighter geometries, higher efficiencies, optimised production, improved tools – all these feed each other.
From a technological viewpoint, we can reasonably expect constant increases in value for money for such goods.


But it is very dangerous to assume that such improvement can continue indefinitely. My son doubled in size between birth and four years old but I didn't extrapolate that to prove that he 50 feet tall when he was 16, :D

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The real question is: why are we being taxed more and more, yet receive less and less?

Is that true? I would like to see you source for that because I really cannot decide whether it is true or not. When I started work income tax was 33% for low earners rising to 98% for the very rich. Purchase tax - the forerunner to VAT - on "luxury goods" such as televisions and motor cars was also at that level but was levied on a smaller range of products than is VAT. I cannot remember what National Insurance was but it cannot of been very onerous or would remember. Rates were lower than their modern equivalent, Council Tax.

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PostPosted: Thu Mar 31, 2011 13:01 
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dcbwhaley wrote:
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The real question is: why are we being taxed more and more, yet receive less and less?

Is that true?

I think it is, from my own experience.
This may not be so true for you as your generation was recovering from global unpleasantness.

For this generation we have seen:
- The end of student grants, now replaced with heavy student fees
- A new and steadily increasing council tax
- An increase on the tax/duty on fuel (and drink and ciggies)
- A surge in parking charges (amount and locations)
- increased VAT

- Less (active) policing
- Reducing bin pickups
- Apparently 'third world' public hospitals
- Road building (particularly motorways) more or less stopped.

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PostPosted: Thu Mar 31, 2011 14:17 
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Steve wrote:
This may not be so true for you as your generation was recovering from global unpleasantness.


Indeed, Steve, my baseline is probably much lower than yours. It is just that my experience is that I am so much better off than my parents or even myself 40 years ago. And I don't think that that is entirely due to my working my way up my profession and making a good marriage.

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PostPosted: Thu Mar 31, 2011 17:12 
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Just had this in from Kieth Peat (ex-traffic cop):
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Driver Protest Weekend. 1st to 3rd April. Details. http://bit.ly/dRZGjT

Despite the petitions, pulling lorries up Whitehall, the publicity given to fuel campaigns and The Budget 'cuts', petrol & diesel is now several pence dearer than before the fuel protests started. Clearly all drivers now need to take action to demonstrate their unity and persuade Government to relieve pressure on them in other ways. Please support all drivers by re-sending this message. http://bit.ly/dRZGjT

Keith Peat, Driver's Protest Union. (Founder)
'Giving power to UK's drivers'
follow twitter @DriverProtest
www.youdrive.org.uk
07722917074
01507441638

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PostPosted: Fri Apr 01, 2011 04:30 
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dcbwhaley wrote:
In the ideal world that would result if I were the Dictator expenses incurred in travelling to work would be tax deductible.


Here! Here! DCB...... I too have long thought that if: "we were all in this together" so why should a self employed man be able to claim his tax back on the fuel he uses to get to work when an employed man can't!

Some of it seems are more equal than others......


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PostPosted: Fri Apr 01, 2011 18:02 
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The self-employed man CAN NOT claim fuel used to GET to his/her workplace against tax.
He/she can only claim fuel used to getting FROM his/her place of work to another place of work.
IE: the window cleaner (if he/she has an office) can only claim fuel from the office to "work" and back...
The revenue rarely allows 100% of fuel claimed anyway....on the basis that there is a fiddle going anyway.
Personally, I get about 85% of my fuel claim passed....even though I DO only claim fuel used during work....
I suppose I could get a stonking great 4WD or two and claim for them...most do...one guy even bought a mobile home and claimed it....after all, it WAS a ford transit van !

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The world runs on oil, period. No other substance can compete when it comes to energy density, flexibility, ease of handling, ease of transportation. If oil didn’t exist we would have to invent it.”

56 years after it was decided it was needed, the Bedford Bypass is nearing completion. The last single carriageway length of it.We have the most photogenic mayor though, always being photographed doing nothing


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PostPosted: Thu Apr 21, 2011 04:23 
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Just had this in :
The Fair Fuel UK Campaign wrote:
The FairFuel UK Update from Quentin Willson

Thank you for signing the FairFuelUK campaign petition. You were one of the 140,000 that helped us force the scrapping of the 5p fuel duty rise and made George Osborne become the first Chancellor for a decade to reduce duty. YOU MADE THAT HAPPEN. Believe it or not, prices would have been 6p even more on the increasing levels we have been seeing since the Budget. So, while we managed to get the government's undivided attention to the Budget day, they have failed us since.

The miserable 1p reduction in duty was swallowed up overnight and proved that tinkering round the edges and making empty political gestures achieves nothing. In fact I'd say the government made themselves look very foolish during the budget. Fuel duty is out of control. All our dire warnings are coming true. The £1.50 litre of diesel is probably only weeks away and the IMF agree that rising crude oil prices are a serious threat to UK growth. £2.00 a litre for diesel could become a awful reality.

On the website http://www.fairfueluk.com we have outlined the next phase of the FairFuelUK Campaign. We intend to focus on these 3 long haul campaign objectives with your support.

1. Try to stop all further duty rises on fuel in this Parliament
2. Aim to acheive parity with Europe in terms of duty. We pay on average 24p more than our EU colleagues
3. Set up an effective fair fuel price stabiliser

With over 30 million drivers in the UK we can make a difference, a real diffrence. We can force the government to control duty and protect the economy. If each one of you contact at least ten of your friends, relatives and colleagues we'll have over a million signatures. And if they do the same too, we'll have several million more. Just imagine how insecure those MPs will feel with this much pressure on their constituency seats.

Our new plans are set out at http://www.fairfueluk.com. Fuel is cheap, its the tax duty that's villainously expensive. So contact as many people as you can and let's start multiplying those numbers. Only together can we make this absolute insanity stop.

Thanks again for your support..

Quentin Willson
FairFuelUK

http://www.fairfueluk.com

For more details, contact:
Peter Carroll, Fair Fuel UK Campaign - Mob: 07866 800755
Lynne Beaumont, Fair Fuel UK Campaign - Mob: 07885940945
Howard Cox, Fair Fuel UK Campaign - Mob: 07515 421611

http://www.fairfueluk.com email addresses: campaign@fairfueluk.com Why not Campaign: The Puffins,Peene, Folkestone, Kent. UK

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PostPosted: Thu Apr 21, 2011 21:43 
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Draco wrote:
dcbwhaley wrote:
In the ideal world that would result if I were the Dictator expenses incurred in travelling to work would be tax deductible.


Here! Here! DCB...... I too have long thought that if: "we were all in this together" so why should a self employed man be able to claim his tax back on the fuel he uses to get to work when an employed man can't!

Some of it seems are more equal than others......


Like councils !
The key findings of this research are:
? £427 million was paid out in mileage allowances in 2009-10 by councils to staff, compared to £402 million in 2008-09.
? Lancashire paid out the most in mileage allowance payments in 2009-10 – a total of nearly £8.8 million.

http://www.taxpayersalliance.com/mileage.pdf

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PostPosted: Sun Apr 24, 2011 23:37 
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Yep, nice to think that councils believe that their employees should be able to claim 65p per mile when the self employed are only able to claim 40p. My mate works for a council and he was claiming something like 40p/ mile at least 15 years ago.

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My views do not represent Safespeed but those of a driver who has driven for 39 yrs, in all conditions, at all times of the day & night on every type of road and covered well over a million miles, so knows a bit about what makes for safety on the road,what is really dangerous and needs to be observed when driving and quite frankly, the speedo is way down on my list of things to observe to negotiate Britain's roads safely, but I don't expect some fool who sits behind a desk all day to appreciate that.


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PostPosted: Mon Apr 25, 2011 19:10 
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In many councils you also get either a lease car or a low-interest loan to purchase one.

http://www.grumpyoldsod.com/wizard%20wheeze.asp

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The world runs on oil, period. No other substance can compete when it comes to energy density, flexibility, ease of handling, ease of transportation. If oil didn’t exist we would have to invent it.”

56 years after it was decided it was needed, the Bedford Bypass is nearing completion. The last single carriageway length of it.We have the most photogenic mayor though, always being photographed doing nothing


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