The big VAT lie from the Telegraph.

You're a very special person.

Perhaps, but with many poor people their poverty is the *result* of spending money they can ill afford on takeaway food (or failing that on pre-prepared food which just needs heating up (as opposed to cooking)). That's all they *can* eat because no-one taught them how to cook. If only they paid attention to Jamie et al (amazing, innit, how they can magically all afford a TV licence), they'd realise how much more cheaply yet more healthily they could eat if they *made* their owmn meals from scratch. This (poverty through culinary ignorance) is just a secondary effect, of course. The primary is that they're already poor enough after they've squandered much of their meagre income on tobacco and alcohol.

The underclasses may have their priorities wrong, but that doesn't prevent them from being proud of them.

I can understand that. There is a rented house near where I live in which none of the tenants is employable either through Incapacity or inability or unwillingness. They use the local "One-Stop", which is basically Tesco but local and without the discounts, and live on ready-meals which are neither particularly nutricious nor cheap. They may have TVs (er, they do), but not licences, and the last thing they are likely to watch is anything with edifying content. Of course they spend most of their income on tobacco and alcohol, it's all they have to lift them out of their uselessness, self-imposed or otherwise. The result is that when they get their fortnightly benefits in their Post Office accounts on a Monday, they binge for a week, then scrounge or starve for the following week. Budgeting is as unknown to them as is seeking out the bargains at shops' closing times, getting cast-offs from butchers (most will, with a little discussion, chuck a few chicken carcases or bones with meat still on to be boiled into soup), or even dumpster-diving. Yet what these people have most of is time, but they do not seem able to use it to their advantage.

I don't think, in the case I cite above, that it even occurs to them. They're not so much "proud of" as "resigned to" their lot, because none of them is planning, or even thinking about, getting out of the situation they're in, even if they had the capacity. Probably not representative of the underclasses, but whether one is in that situation through choice, incompetence or otherwise, Darling's PBR has done nothing for them. Tobacco and alcohol aside, recent food price rises mean that they stop eating earlier in their benefit cycle.

As Karl Marx said, "Sell a man a fish and he'll eat for a day; sell him a fishing rod, and you lose a great marketing opportunity for fish". Or was that Groucho?

Only working people buy takeaway food. Not noticed many MC Donalds sited outside Job Centres, have you? Not many on the local sink estate either.

Been fleeced by extortioate regresive taxes aimed at the poor you mean.

You have your priorties wrong your just a stuck up snob who thinks he is better than everyone else. Get real.

Stick the VAT up your ass.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ I can't believe you can write that with a straight face. They've received 6K of interest VAT free.

I suppose, by the same logic, you argue that it makes absolutely no difference when you pay any tax bill due.

Let's say I've got 30K of tax due on 31st Jan and I've got the money sitting in the bank ready.

I might just as well pay it now because I'll be paying tax on the interest anyway?

(I don't, unfortuately, pay most of my tax on account, being PAYE instead. I wish I could pay on account)

Case 1: VAT is deducted from credits to the bank: Initially 117500 paid in = 100k total and 17.5k to the taxman End of year 6k interest = 5100 credit and 900 VAT to the taxman Total 105100 to spend

Case 2: VAT is deducted from withdrawals from the bank: Initially 117500 paid in = 117500 total End of year 7050 interest = 124550 total Withdraw money to spend

You pay more tax in your scenario but you're still better off and the taxman is still worse off. That's because you're using 85% of the interest on that 17.5k to pay the VAT on the interest on the other 100k. If the taxman had the 17.5k from day 1 then 100% of the interest on that

(OK, so it's just under 900 rather than over 1000. That will teach me to guestimate it in my head instead of actually doing the sums.)

Tim.

I believe the correct quote is "give a man a fish and he will eat for a day, teach a man to fish and he will sit in a boat and drink beer". It's probably Mark Twain, they usually are.

The other one is: Give a man a fire and you'll warm him for a day.

In message , Bazzer Smith writes

Margin trading helps, as does greed. But greed is good. Jim Follett

A common misconception s[read and believed by complete idiots. It is even sold on the old 'idiot trap' that fact that greed and good both begin with the same letter.Ask the world fat bastards what greed did for them. Or the thousands of criminals executed or begind bars.

Greed is the creed of cretins.

How can you ask executed people anything?

You mean said by Gordon Gekko in the movie "Wall Street" 1987

Don't add Plagiarism you your sins Jim

Steve Terry

What are you on??

If they pay the VAT *up front*, ie at the point they put the money in the account, they'd still end up with the same 106,000.

It makes *no difference* when the VAT is paid. There's no benefit from your so called "loan from the taxman".

Er, no.

But you obviously keep the rest of the interest.

LOL - what a ridiculous proposition. Why would you pay VAT on interest? Should you pay it on earnings too? Should you pay it if you simply transfer money from one account to another?

VAT is on spending - you said it was the "VAT loan" they benefit from, ie they benefit because they pay it later. I proved you wrong. Now your changing the proposition to make VAT something like income tax.

Yeah right. You just multiplied 17,500 by 6% and got 1050 - guess what - just "over 1000". What a co-incidence.

That was your flawed original thinking and you're now trying to cover up by changing the proposition. Admit it and move on.

I thought the quote was "Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day, teach a man to fish and he will deplete the world oceans"

Steve Terry

Really? Try reading the OP, and several of the replies.

For instance, someone without a job?

Indeed. Whereas those in high pressure, long hours jobs will probably rely more on take-aways and eating out.

So you really believe that the poorer you are, the proportionally less you spend on housing?

I don't put weight on the words of those who takes their economic advice from Hollywood movies.

BEtter than him trying to think for himself i would imagine.

I think the correct quote is "Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day, teach a man to fish and he will bore you senseless next time you meat".

A few years back I was in a pretty run-down area of Sheffield. And hungry. Tried asking folk where the nearest chippie was - much scratching of heads, sounded like it was about three miles away. Found a corner shop: didn't seem to sell anything I might eat and when I am hungry I am *not* fussy. Eventually found a pub: no food. And they only kept the lights on in the bits that customers were actually using.