Government want to look at disability bank accounts to see what we are spending on: this is not good for us autistic.

Don't EVER stop using cash.

DO NOT ADOPT CBDC's "for the convenience". 

FFS stop using direct debits, and paying "interest" on everything you own! The first takes all control away from you under the guise of helping you manage, and the second is financially speaking like voluntarily submitting to having leeches attached to your financial (metaphorcal) body.

Learn the difference between your annual turnover of money and your net cashflow, and (if you can of course, according to some members and people I meet in real life, some concepts I find obvious and "basic" are too difficult to follow) work out just HOW MUCH of you weekly income directly benefits you and your family.

I think you will all find (as I did) how incredibly unselfish with your money you all are. You literally throw it into the hands of rich strangers at every turn, who in exchange enact rules to further restrict and tax your activities, using those taxes to do what exactly?

Once they get you hooked on digital money, it'll be worth whatever (((they))) say it is on any given day, and your access to it will depend on a dazziling variety of ever changing factors completely outside of YOUR control. And the amount of financial fleas will multiply...

Sorry, I'll keep using direct debits and contactless payments because otherwise I would never remember to pay everything and I abhor touching things too many people have touched.

For me increasingly digital systems are a massive benefit, the less I have to interact with people and physical things to do things the better.

To each their own, the option to have the choice is the happy medium.

I can see your reasoning, and for those people who's income exceeds their expenditure by a moderate amount consistently, and who have enough self control to keep a wary eye on their own consumption and expenditure our modern "conveniences" are wonderful.

As to your last line, providing we have the option to have a choice between cash and digital, that will be fine by me.

Amerantin (former member) said:

I had to do one as part of my autism assessment.

Why?

I'm really surprised by this

im not sure, the company i work at we had a vote on wages as we always do, just a yes no as to accept, ofcourse everyone just selects yes and accepts the very first offer because no one understands what they are voting for and they just see it as vote yes for more money lol mostly all dont speak english... so they dont understand.

but anyway, being a analytical thinker type i took like 30 minutes or so thinking and questioning the union guy and running the figures before i voted lol it turns out just to raise our lowest wage by 10p per hour it would cost the company overall 10 million per year.... and the company only makes around 50 million profit per year. so just 10p extra a hour on our lowest wages wipes out 10 million a year.... 50p extra a hour would mean no profit at all. ofcourse there could be alot in their spending they can cut and it could have been a trick.... either way i said they can do better and voted no because i dont like them anyway lol but it shows things are run close to the bone most of the time.

Yeah but those who live at the edge of the IQ  bellcurve tend to lack EQ so it all evens out...

Unless you believe that having a higher intelligence automatically elevates one, over other people.

That Idea of course is pure racism amongst it's other failures, based on even the most cursory viewing of the IQ statistics by country...  

There’s headlines about record profits in energy companies just now but that comes after many years of truly appalling shareholder returns.

One of the worst buys I ever made was right at the start of my investing career about 15 years ago. I bought shares in Shell and BP because on paper they looked like money printing machines.

But BP shares crashed after the oil spill in the Caribbean so I dumped them. My Shell shares gradually lost value which wasn’t mitigated by the dividends. It’s only in the last year that the Shell shares have yielded a return for me but I’d have done at least as well just putting the money in a bank account for the last 15 years.

But these things are all learning experiences, and you’re right it is at least a useful interest.

Anyway, I’m venturing into the office tomorrow for the first time in a while so I’d better get to bed so I can lie worrying about it all night.

Good debating with you all tonight

Hey, I won't knock it, mine is birds and philosophy. Yours can at least be useful.

There's too many headlines about record profits then, even the energy companies, although perhaps that's multinationals.

Most UK companies really aren’t passing on much in the way of value to shareholders and profits are generally not high. Shareholders won’t invest in companies if there are better rewards elsewhere. These are just financial realities.

(I speak as someone who has the very dull special interest of finance and investing in stocks and funds).

Increasing minimum wage to a living wage could easily be covered by the vast majority of companies without it impacting the cost of the product/service if the higher ups and shareholders didn't expect quite so much in terms of bonuses, dividends and profits. As an example, a friend worked in a local shop that served food and drink, she worked out how much it cost them to make a cup of tea, it was 5p. Take a guess at how much they charged the customers for that cup of tea.

Prices have been inflated by years of companies wringing as much profit as they can out of even the simplest things. That's capitalism that's caused that, not socialism.

You're only looking at what you see as Labour's lies. You're not mentioning the Tory ones at all. And they're just as destructive and targeted, if not more so.

So more education all round will lead to a more informed voter who can make an informed choice. Personally, I'd hope that more people would then vote for policies that support the whole of society rather than just their specific subset but I tend hope for the best in people.

Also, trickle down economics has been categorically proven to be a failure in terms of spreading the wealth through society. Instead it leaves a small number of individuals with a massively disproportionate amount of money. Money which they don't pay tax on because they have ways to completely avoid it. So that's rubbish.

And yes, austerity, and other economic policies are obviously universal, it's the implementation of them that is questionable. As theories they have their uses, but it's how and when that is often the problem.

id rather keep more of my money at the moment, especially if they want to combat the cost of living crisis then they need to allow us to keep more of our money. 

increasing minimum wage all the time doesnt fix it as by increasing minimum wage the companies and productions have to add all the extra wage costs onto the products, and this is what causes inflation.... keep increasing minimum wage and you will keep increasing inflation. this again is another thing people should be educated on to understand. like a basic food chain but economics.

the gov then needs to prove it can spend efficiently with the less tax it gets... and when it proves it and has learned to make more use out of less tax then and only then can a tax increase actually be effective so long as they dont fail to use it efficiently when it raises. 

yeah education on politics is perhaps needed if everyones gonna stick their hand into it anyway.

it swings both ways though... do people think the tories created austerity? if they learned politics they realise its just a thing thats always existed in every single country, eu nations enact austerity right now... its a balancing of the books, it isnt a tory creation... it dates back as far as rome and its a needed thing at times.

this education can destroy the fanaticism and hate and wrong cult hatred ideas.

people can see things for what it is... take tax, if you cut tax on businesses your not just giving mates a back hander as labour voters say.... the goal of tax easing on the wealth is a goal to steal high end tax payers from other countries so they pay tax here instead... so there shouldnt be anger in these things but understanding of why these things are a thing... its not cheating or giving themselves a hand job, its another purpose to try raise funds and attract more higher end people over to increase the amount of tax revenue in the end.

education on politics as you see might end up destroying alot of the labour spread hatred as i just pointed out here. not that im supporting the tories, but the labour party have done this alot where they want to be elected so badly that they have spread all this fake stuff and outrage over social media that with education youd see it for what it is and youd see the policy for its real intent..... although i dont get the cut on inheritance tax... that one is a bit sketchy, but perhaps i need a explanation on that one, is it to keep our dying rich people from just leaving to spain or andorra before they die to avoid inheritance tax here?

I had to do one as part of my autism assessment. Wechsler Intelligence Scale actually, a variant of IQ test that tops out at 155.

I would, it'd be funny as hell. Although the saying is "You can't argue with stupid".

Who accused you of being a communist and when? I'm not sure I'd like to meet that person.

I think you'll find that a lot of Labour voters would agree with a tax increase if it meant education, healthcare and the social support systems were adequately funded. I absolutely would. You only have to look at the socialist democratic systems in Scandinavia to see how it works, higher taxes, better quality of life.

I don't want to pay less tax, I want the tax I pay to be used appropriately.

No, that way they'd be forced to actually look at what they're voting for. Informed voting is the ideal, not diminishing who can vote.

The current problem is the disinformation, party politics and apathy of a large number of potential voters. More education on politics in school would be good. A legal requirement to vote would be another, like Australia. Proportional representation so we can get away from basically a two party system. More options create more opportunities for a broader spectrum of political views to be represented.

Oof Americans are dumb lol (light hearted. I can make fun of them cause I am american)

Caelus said:

the average iq of europe is said to be 100.... and 100 is actually the average anyway so europe is very average.

america on the other hand has a average iq of 98.... this is all google by the way.

No, the mean IQ is 100 or thereabouts and 50% have IQs below that and 50% above. Although even if the mean was 70 or 250, it would still hold that 50% would be below averages and 50% above. That’s what the average is all about.

the average iq of europe is said to be 100.... and 100 is actually the average anyway so europe is very average.

america on the other hand has a average iq of 98.... this is all google by the way.

but as i said its nonsense because no one does iq tests lol

Believe it or not, the nationalists are proposing what is called “Sterlingisation”.

This means unofficially using Sterling as the currency. There’s nothing the UK could do to stop this (we could equally use the US dollar or the Indian Rupee).

But it comes with massive disadvantages - no control of the money supply, interest rates being set by what would be a foreign country to us, no lender of last resort to bail us out if there was a financial crisis or another pandemic, and disqualification from joining the EU.

All things which the SNP have acknowledged at one time or another, but they truly can believe six impossible things before breakfast.

BeckyThump said:

Perhaps they call your views right wing because they are. If you support a party like the Tories, as you have in other threads, then you are supporting a right wing party. That is unavoidable.

i support no party, i support direct democracy and single voting events.
but if the tories were to do something like lower my tax id agree with them that my tax needs to be lowered.... and id expect labour voters should have agreed on them when they lowered the entry level for the upper tax band as that made more people  pay upper tax band but apparently labour voters dont like socialist policies when the tories do them. showing again its a cult as you said in another comment, rather than policy voting.

my direct vote on single issues is a direct democracy voting that gets rid of party cults

BeckyThump said:

Perhaps they call your views right wing because they are. If you support a party like the Tories, as you have in other threads, then you are supporting a right wing party. That is unavoidable.

i support no party, i support direct democracy and single voting events.
but if the tories were to do something like lower my tax id agree with them that my tax needs to be lowered.... and id expect labour voters should have agreed on them when they lowered the entry level for the upper tax band as that made more people  pay upper tax band but apparently labour voters dont like socialist policies when the tories do them. showing again its a cult as you said in another comment, rather than policy voting.

my direct vote on single issues is a direct democracy voting that gets rid of party cults

im not sure, the company i work at we had a vote on wages as we always do, just a yes no as to accept, ofcourse everyone just selects yes and accepts the very first offer because no one understands what they are voting for and they just see it as vote yes for more money lol mostly all dont speak english... so they dont understand.

but anyway, being a analytical thinker type i took like 30 minutes or so thinking and questioning the union guy and running the figures before i voted lol it turns out just to raise our lowest wage by 10p per hour it would cost the company overall 10 million per year.... and the company only makes around 50 million profit per year. so just 10p extra a hour on our lowest wages wipes out 10 million a year.... 50p extra a hour would mean no profit at all. ofcourse there could be alot in their spending they can cut and it could have been a trick.... either way i said they can do better and voted no because i dont like them anyway lol but it shows things are run close to the bone most of the time.

There’s headlines about record profits in energy companies just now but that comes after many years of truly appalling shareholder returns.

One of the worst buys I ever made was right at the start of my investing career about 15 years ago. I bought shares in Shell and BP because on paper they looked like money printing machines.

But BP shares crashed after the oil spill in the Caribbean so I dumped them. My Shell shares gradually lost value which wasn’t mitigated by the dividends. It’s only in the last year that the Shell shares have yielded a return for me but I’d have done at least as well just putting the money in a bank account for the last 15 years.

But these things are all learning experiences, and you’re right it is at least a useful interest.

Anyway, I’m venturing into the office tomorrow for the first time in a while so I’d better get to bed so I can lie worrying about it all night.

Good debating with you all tonight

Hey, I won't knock it, mine is birds and philosophy. Yours can at least be useful.

There's too many headlines about record profits then, even the energy companies, although perhaps that's multinationals.

Most UK companies really aren’t passing on much in the way of value to shareholders and profits are generally not high. Shareholders won’t invest in companies if there are better rewards elsewhere. These are just financial realities.

(I speak as someone who has the very dull special interest of finance and investing in stocks and funds).

Increasing minimum wage to a living wage could easily be covered by the vast majority of companies without it impacting the cost of the product/service if the higher ups and shareholders didn't expect quite so much in terms of bonuses, dividends and profits. As an example, a friend worked in a local shop that served food and drink, she worked out how much it cost them to make a cup of tea, it was 5p. Take a guess at how much they charged the customers for that cup of tea.

Prices have been inflated by years of companies wringing as much profit as they can out of even the simplest things. That's capitalism that's caused that, not socialism.

id rather keep more of my money at the moment, especially if they want to combat the cost of living crisis then they need to allow us to keep more of our money. 

increasing minimum wage all the time doesnt fix it as by increasing minimum wage the companies and productions have to add all the extra wage costs onto the products, and this is what causes inflation.... keep increasing minimum wage and you will keep increasing inflation. this again is another thing people should be educated on to understand. like a basic food chain but economics.

the gov then needs to prove it can spend efficiently with the less tax it gets... and when it proves it and has learned to make more use out of less tax then and only then can a tax increase actually be effective so long as they dont fail to use it efficiently when it raises. 

I think you'll find that a lot of Labour voters would agree with a tax increase if it meant education, healthcare and the social support systems were adequately funded. I absolutely would. You only have to look at the socialist democratic systems in Scandinavia to see how it works, higher taxes, better quality of life.

I don't want to pay less tax, I want the tax I pay to be used appropriately.