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

Three months?  The place I moved in wanted six months rent in advance and one months bond.

Astrid, thank you for your post as you have captured my feelings so well. I do enjoy train travel but need to book assistance in order to do this. I would like to work on the railways but as you say, I would find dealing with people too much some days. I loath the Torys introducing policy's to demonize the poor and vulnerable while cutting taxes for the wealthy. The 2018 UN report on poverty covers this so well.

Somehow I'm not actually surprised LOL. The government do everything except support and help us so this comes as no surprise.

It's a shame there isn't an autistic government running things. Things would be better for us and the neurotypicals because we would be fair to all.

Regardless of what governments are in, they will do this - I’ve watched a lot of Gemma O’ Doherty’s streams and I’ve learned a lot about this stuff - Agenda 2030 and the Great Reset, UBI, etc are all very real, as I’m very much awake to what is really going on at age 53 - I worry for my family’s safety in Rural Ireland, as I’ve also seen the footage of the Dublin riots - before 2020, I was partially awake to this stuff but the truth of what’s come out has been mind-blowing 

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.

My brother always says 'You have to be ruthless to make it in business', and he was right, he IS ruthless in business and very selfish with money but he's made it big and no longer has any financial worries and is driving a nice new Audi. I tried my hand at my own business a couple of years ago but was unsuccessful, not ruthless enough... but it's not in my nature to be like it and that spelled the end of my business.

I Sperg said:

A bank will give you an umbrella when it's sunny, then snatch it away as soon as it starts to rain"...

Ha bloody good that! And ironically 100% correct  

Banks always look out for themselves first.

A lot of people here think I'm wrong or conspiracy minded or perhaps even a bit nuts, so a bit of validation goes a long way...

You might enjoy the following aphorism: "A bank will give you an umbrella when it's sunny, then snatch it away as soon as it starts to rain"...

The most financially sucessful and one of the nicest, most decent folk I know, once told me; "I am honest but in business you have to lie about money..." At the other end of our lives now he has multiple properties having cashed in big on his business which he built and both derives money from and "cares for" his renters. I've tried very hard to break his paradigm and do business sucessfully without any element of concealment or dishonesty and it seems to have put me at such a disadvantage. Compared to my early efforts where I was more, er, money focussed. 

Excellent points I Sperg cash is good, it's in your hands and it can't be taken away, easily... Digital banking and cards can be switched off and emptied in the blink of an eye.

They just need bank balances for that, not the entire statements.

Try submitting one with all the other (irrelevant to the stated objective) data "redacted" and see how far that gets you..

We are moving into a "total management of all aspects of your life" scenario at breakneck speed, and everyone seems to be pretending like mad that it isn't happening. 

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 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.

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.