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Fox
Joined: 04 Mar 2009
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 Posted: Mon Mar 01, 2010 5:19 pm Post subject: |
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| Reggie wrote: |
| 10,000 pounds doesn't sound like a lot until you start wondering how many pints of beer or how many platters of fish and chips he will have to sell to net 10,000 pounds. A fine like that could put some businesses completely under and put all of the people who work there out of a job. |
If the fine was trivial, companies would just ignore regulations and pay the trivial fines. Fines aren't supposed to be trivial; they're meant to force compliance. You're essentially complaining about a fine serving its intended purpose; the man shouldn't have allowed smoking when it was illegal. He did. There are consequences for breaking those laws, and they aren't meant to be trivial.
| Reggie wrote: |
| I could make a lot more money if I hired people, but I don't because of the government, their BS fines, their wage laws, regulations, making employers deal with the health care plans and such of employees and so on. Therefore, I do all I can by myself and hire nobody. Other people in my hometown sit around unemployed even though I would like to hire them if it wasn't for the government. The stress is just not worth it to me. |
If the stress isn't worth it for you, then they're better off not working for a fragile little butterfly like yourself anyway.
There are certainly good cases to be made for simplifying tax and regulation laws to make things easier for small businesses, but anyone who can't handle the concept of basic fines for clear-cut violations of health care laws isn't cut out to be employing other people anyway. |
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bacasper
Joined: 26 Mar 2007
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| Posted: Tue Mar 02, 2010 2:20 am Post subject: |
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| Reggie wrote: |
Fines for BS like that and government interference in the private sector is a driver for unemployment.
10,000 pounds doesn't sound like a lot until you start wondering how many pints of beer or how many platters of fish and chips he will have to sell to net 10,000 pounds. A fine like that could put some businesses completely under and put all of the people who work there out of a job. |
A lot of these places struggle week to week just to pay bills and meet payroll. The fine would seem to be OTT. He would have gotten the message just fine with a �1,000 fine.
Bureaucrats are no longer doing this to compel compliance but to generate revenue it would seem. |
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Fox
Joined: 04 Mar 2009
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| Posted: Tue Mar 02, 2010 4:19 pm Post subject: |
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| bacasper wrote: |
| Reggie wrote: |
Fines for BS like that and government interference in the private sector is a driver for unemployment.
10,000 pounds doesn't sound like a lot until you start wondering how many pints of beer or how many platters of fish and chips he will have to sell to net 10,000 pounds. A fine like that could put some businesses completely under and put all of the people who work there out of a job. |
A lot of these places struggle week to week just to pay bills and meet payroll. The fine would seem to be OTT. He would have gotten the message just fine with a �1,000 fine.
Bureaucrats are no longer doing this to compel compliance but to generate revenue it would seem. |
If their goal was to generate revenue, the big fines would work against that. Sure, a violation would lead to a -- by governmental standards fairly small -- chunk of money, but it could also very well lead to the bankruptcy of an otherwise tax-paying, revenue generating business.
I think it's fairly safe to say that these fines are as high as they are to force compliance. Not to raise revenue, not to "send a message", but to make business owners choose between complying with the law or having their business suffer. Health codes are there to be obeyed. You can't throw a business in jail, so the only way to force a business to comply is to threaten it with serious financial reprocussion. If businesses are allowed to flaunt health codes with nothing more than a slap on the wrist, there's really no point in having health codes at all. |
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mises
Joined: 05 Nov 2007
Location: retired
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| Posted: Wed Mar 03, 2010 9:46 am Post subject: |
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http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/03/business/global/03pound.html?pagewanted=print
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Britain Grapples With Debt of Greek Proportions
LONDON � As Greece�s debt troubles batter the euro, Britain has done its utmost to stay above the fray.
Until now, that is. Suddenly, investors are asking if Britain may soon face its own sovereign debt crisis if the government fails to slash its growing budget deficits quickly enough to escape the contagious fears of financial markets.
The pound fell to $1.4954 on Tuesday, its lowest level against the dollar in nearly 10 months. The yield on 10-year government bonds, known as gilts, slid as investors fretted that Parliament would be too fragmented after a crucial election in May to whip Britain�s messy finances back into shape.
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�If you really want a fiscal problem, look at the U.K.,� said Mark Schofield, a fixed-income strategist at Citigroup. �In Europe, the average deficit is about 6 percent of G.D.P. and in the U.K. it�s 12 percent. It is only just beginning.�
Since the Labour government�s intense fiscal intervention in 2008 and 2009, yields on British government debt have soared to among the highest in Europe. And on a broader scale, which includes the borrowing of households and companies, the overall level of debt in Britain is the second-largest in the world, after Japan�s, at 380 percent of the country�s gross domestic product, according to a recent report by the consulting company McKinsey.
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Britain is not in the 16-nation euro zone and, unlike Greece and other struggling countries that use the currency, it retains control over its monetary policy. As a result, it has benefited so far from a huge bond-buying program undertaken by the Bank of England � proportionally, the largest in the world � that has kept mortgage rates and gilt yields at unusually low levels.
That means the government and its citizens have been able to continue to borrow at interest rates that do not reflect their true financial situation.
Indeed, the increase in private and government debt here contrasts sharply with the deleveraging that has been going on in the United States.
British household debt is now 170 percent of overall annual income, compared with 130 percent in the United States. In an echo of the United States� rush into subprime mortgages with low teaser rates, millions of homeowners in Britain have piled into variable-rate mortgages that are linked to the rock-bottom base rate.
As for the British government, it has been able to finance a budget deficit of 12.5 percent of G.D.P. � equal to Greece�s � at an interest rate more than two full percentage points lower only because the Bank of England bought the majority of the bonds it issued last year.
�It�s not just �basket cases� like Greece that can be considered candidates for sovereign crises,� said Simon White of Variant Perception, a research house in London that caters to hedge funds and wealthy individuals. �Gilts and sterling will continue to come under pressure as scrutiny of the U.K. fiscal situation intensifies.�
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The quack ideas of Labour must die for Britain to live. |
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chellovek
Joined: 29 Feb 2008
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| Posted: Thu Mar 04, 2010 4:42 am Post subject: |
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It's pretty bad if it is true, but come on it was an article in the Daily Mail. My mum reads that paper (and by extension I also have wee read whilst drinking afternoon tea), and that paper is pretty poor to be honest. Taking things out of context/blowing things out of proportion etc.
I'd take it with a pinch of salt.
edit- just to clarify I'm talking about the article in the OP. |
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bigverne
Joined: 12 May 2004
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| Posted: Thu Mar 04, 2010 7:23 am Post subject: |
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| chellovek wrote: |
It's pretty bad if it is true, but come on it was an article in the Daily Mail. My mum reads that paper (and by extension I also have wee read whilst drinking afternoon tea), and that paper is pretty poor to be honest. Taking things out of context/blowing things out of proportion etc.
I'd take it with a pinch of salt.
edit- just to clarify I'm talking about the article in the OP. |
Do you have any evidence that the article was untrue?
By the way, it's not like this is just an isolated case. The hate crime/equality/diversity police have been active in the UK for quite some time now. |
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chellovek
Joined: 29 Feb 2008
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| Posted: Fri Mar 05, 2010 1:26 am Post subject: |
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I'm not claiming this particular story is untrue (like I said, if it's true then that's quite bad), I'm just saying don't automatically believe it or get too riled up about it. A regular subscription to Private Eye (with particular attention paid to the "Street of Shame" section) quickly instills a (un?)healthy level of scepticism when it comes to more tabloidish papers like the Mail.
I agree it's not be an isolated case as you say, but on the other hand I'm not sure how common it is either. I live in area with a heavy ethnic presence and never had problems with Political Correctness or the rest of it.
Though on the other hand, I keep my mouth shut about such issues because as you suggest, some people do get counter-productively tetchy and uptight about equality/diversity, which I guess would have been the genesis of the incident in the article.
..assuming the article is true  |
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nautilus
Joined: 26 Nov 2005
Location: Je jump, Tu jump, oui jump!
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| Posted: Tue Mar 09, 2010 3:22 am Post subject: |
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Violent Crime Up 44% Under Labour
Shadow home secretary Chris Grayling said his party had conducted research which showed offences against a person had risen from 618,417 in 1998 to 887,942 last year.
"This new analysis confirms that the level of violent crime actually reported to police officers in police stations up and down the country is much higher than it was a decade ago," he said.
"This just serves to underline the scale of the challenge the country faces in fixing our broken society."
http://uk.news.yahoo.com/5/20100309/tuk-tories-violent-crime-up-44-under-lab-45dbed5.html |
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mises
Joined: 05 Nov 2007
Location: retired
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| Posted: Tue Mar 09, 2010 12:15 pm Post subject: |
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http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article7052580.ece#cid=OTC-RSS&attr=797084
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Don�t mock my lentils: vegans to get discrimination rights
VEGANS and teetotallers are to be given the same protection against discrimination as religious groups, under legislation championed by Harriet Harman, the equalities minister.
Members of cults and �new religions� such as Scientology, whose supporters include the film stars Tom Cruise and John Travolta, would also be offered protection, as would atheists.
A code of practice explaining the legal implications of the equality bill states that religions need not be mainstream or well known for their adherents to gain protection. �A belief need not include faith or worship of a god or gods, but must affect how a person lives their life or perceives the world.�
The code, drawn up by the Equality and Human Rights Commission, singles out vegans, who do not eat any animal products or wear leather, as meriting protection from religious discrimination. It says: �A person who is a vegan chooses not to use or consume animal products of any kind. That person eschews the exploitation of animals for food, clothing, accessories or any other purpose and does so out of an ethical commitment to animal welfare.�
Related Links
A spokesman from the commission explained: �This is about someone for whom being vegan or vegetarian is central to who they are. This is not something �thought up by the commission�. Parliament makes the law, the courts interpret it and the commission offers factual and proportionate guidance to organisations where necessary. We are providing guidance on the implications of the equality bill.�
The legislation also covers �any religious belief or philosophical belief� and even �a lack of belief�.
Philosophical beliefs to be protected could include humanism and pacifism, but a spokesman for Harman said scientific or political beliefs such as Marxism and fascism would not be covered. The commission added that the recently founded International Church of Jediism, with 500,000 followers worldwide who base their philosophy on the Star Wars films, would not qualify. Beliefs had to be heartfelt.
The watchdog also warns that advertisements giving preferential treatment to men or women could be illegal. This could mean the end of �ladies� nights� at clubs, when women receive cut-price drinks or free entrance but men pay full price.
People for whom abstention from alcohol was a way of life would also be protected. Conversely, the bill would make it unlawful for a shopkeeper to refuse to sell cigarettes to a woman because she was pregnant. |
Leftists really have replaced god with the state. Bring on the British funding crisis. Let's see how the multi-culti stiff upper lip performs. |
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Captain Corea
Joined: 28 Feb 2005
Location: Seoul
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| Posted: Tue Mar 09, 2010 3:08 pm Post subject: |
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This doesn't make sense to me:
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| Philosophical beliefs to be protected could include humanism and pacifism, but a spokesman for Harman said scientific or political beliefs such as Marxism and fascism would not be covered. The commission added that the recently founded International Church of Jediism, with 500,000 followers worldwide who base their philosophy on the Star Wars films, would not qualify. Beliefs had to be heartfelt. |
Who are they to decide which is heartfelt? Why some, but not all? |
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Street Magic
Joined: 23 Sep 2009
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| Posted: Tue Mar 09, 2010 3:27 pm Post subject: |
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| Captain Corea wrote: |
This doesn't make sense to me:
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| Philosophical beliefs to be protected could include humanism and pacifism, but a spokesman for Harman said scientific or political beliefs such as Marxism and fascism would not be covered. The commission added that the recently founded International Church of Jediism, with 500,000 followers worldwide who base their philosophy on the Star Wars films, would not qualify. Beliefs had to be heartfelt. |
Who are they to decide which is heartfelt? Why some, but not all? |
Particularly weird given that the motivation for expanding what qualifies for religious type protections was probably that very question.
I kind of like where this move is headed in that it takes power away from the interests that were exclusively protected before. It'd be better if no one got special protections for religions/heartfelt beliefs, but giving tons of blatantly absurd "beliefs" equal protections with more apparently legitimate religions is the next best thing. You can only get so out there with this kind of legislation before it all collapses under the weight of its own absurdity. |
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English Matt
Joined: 12 Oct 2008
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| Posted: Tue Mar 09, 2010 6:55 pm Post subject: |
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| Sergio Stefanuto wrote: |
To repeat what I said in the John Terry thread*, the UK is economically-socialist and socially-conservative. That's another way of saying that it makes the life of the individual an absolute nightmare, with public services outrageously expensive and quality ranging from the merely shabby to the wretched, and the British (understandably) the most miserable people on Earth. Alongside Somalia, Sudan and North Korea, it is quite possibly the worst place in the entire world.
* John Terry, England soccer captain, was fired for having an affair. Apparently, men who have affairs can no longer kick a ball.
Anyway, this sums it up:
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70 percent think that Britain is 'broken,' while 68 percent say that people who play by the rules get a raw deal. The figure that leaps out, however, is that 42 percent of people in Britain would emigrate if they could. That figure represents over 25 million people!
Britain does have its drawbacks, including endemic discomforts such as its appalling weather and even more appalling Guardian columnists, but it is doubtful that these are enough to drive people out of the country. The real reason is probably lack of opportunity. Social mobility has declined under Labour governments, with the chances higher than before that someone born into a social milieu will remain trapped there. Taxation, including income and stealth taxes, act against opportunity and ambition, and the dead hand of bureaucracy stifles innovation and enterprise.
If. . .42 percent do manage to emigrate, they will include all those who might otherwise improve things
http://www.adamsmith.org/blog/tax-and-economy/everybody-out%21/ |
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John Terry was fired from the position of England Captain because he slept with other players girlfriends. It'd be a bit like your boss at work being asked to step down because he slept with your girl.
You're an odd little man. Have you even been to the UK? For that matter have you been to Somalia, Sudan or North Korea? Your statement is so farcical I'm not even going to waste my time typing a rebuttal.
For what it's worth, I'm glad I don't live in the same world as most of the people on this current events forum......it must be absolute hell inside your heads. |
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Fox
Joined: 04 Mar 2009
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| Posted: Tue Mar 09, 2010 7:08 pm Post subject: |
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| mises wrote: |
| Conversely, the bill would make it unlawful for a shopkeeper to refuse to sell cigarettes to a woman because she was pregnant. |
I may just be strange, but I find this by far the most absurd aspect of the bill in question. A shopkeeper refusing to sell a pregnant woman cigarettes is engaging in a kind of ethical activity that should be supported, not attacked. Sure you could say she's just "Buying them for someone else," but if the shopkeeper thinks they're for her, he should be able to refuse to sell them to her; it's not like anyone is going to die because his wife wasn't able to buy cigarettes for him due to being pregnant. |
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geldedgoat
Joined: 05 Mar 2009
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| Posted: Tue Mar 09, 2010 7:23 pm Post subject: |
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| Quote: |
Don�t mock my lentils: vegans to get discrimination rights
VEGANS and teetotallers are to be given the same protection against discrimination as religious groups, under legislation championed by Harriet Harman, the equalities minister. |
As a vegan, all I can say is... thank God I don't live in Europe. They are surpassing California by leaps and bounds for the title of the bat-shit-craziest place on Earth. |
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caniff
Joined: 03 Feb 2004
Location: All over the map
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| Posted: Tue Mar 09, 2010 7:25 pm Post subject: |
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I have some good memories of myself as a poor 18-year-old spaz working illegally in London.
Hopefully places like that don't become victim to a wave of stone-age silliness. |
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