"Worldwide" Disasters

[Dan]

Going back to the Pakistan aid, isn't it possible that if Britain don't have the co-operation of both the Pakistan government and the 'hearts and minds' of the people, efforts to withdraw our troops from Afghanistan will be considerably hindered? The cost of that will make £10 million seem like pocket money.

sandy is all over this and has it sussed

we rely heavily on inteligence from pakistan and the special relationship we have with them, most of the terrorist plots that have been stopped have been thanks to info passed on from pakistan, they are in a unique position to hear whats going on in their part of the world and pass it on

we really owe pakistan a lot and I dont begrudge them recieving 10 million aid to help rebuild their shattered country

that oaf cameron nearly blew that relationship out of the water by being ill informed, world politics are complicated, pakistans president had to meet him and put him straight on a few things

Whilst I agree with what you're saying. This is a bit deeper than I wanted to go myself.

Leave it at the 10mil then. But stop asking for more, from the General Public. Is sort of the angle I was aiming at. Not just this disaster, but all, generally, and our attitude towards them.

Though I do agree if we can get our lads our asap, it's well worth a figure. But it's funny how the 'charity feel' goes from the 'help' when it's down to cutting down our own costs :lol: not something I thought of until just.

Fair play for speaking out guys. Thanks.

 

[The Legend; Phil Hobson RIP]

Wow guys.... you are really well on the ball here , i would like to add to a comment about us getting a backbone and soon.... there was a time when we had one hell of a strong backbone and we were quite well known for making some of the worlds finest products , our engineering was the best as we were the masters of coal and steel , sadly we have hardly any of our industries left and the best brains work abroad as thats where the money is , we also have to buy in from overseas as its way cheaper to go that route even if the product is inferior.... but at what cost i wonder, i know this much , our government leaders from the past have made some very difficult choices that have made sense on paper as the numbers game looks good that way but the paper faild to give the crippled industries left in the wake an alternative way to stay open and keep people working... not sure how that could have been done but it just seems that we are always last on the list for investments , look at our car factories , we have lost tons of it and whats left aint owned by uk investors , look at our prestige end of the scale (Rolls Royce motor Division)... its basically a V.W.

I know i have wandered off the track a little here but the industry that i work in has seen much more than its fair share of poor support from our government , i am an aircraft engineer and its a crying shame what happened to the T.S.R.2 back in the sixties and also our beloved concorde , if the people from the U.K. feel that we should look after our heritage and not send perfectly good things to the scap heap and buy cheaper from abroad , then the government should follow their wishes... but of course they never do follow our wishes and we end up in the mess we are in today , its the same in so many walks of our lives and it comes right back to what i said ealier (charity begins at the home ) lets proporly look after our aged and sick as we will all be there ourselves one day!.

Its been a very intersting read chaps, well done.

silverbullit

It may not be politically correct, but I have to say (Amen) to that:incazzato:

 

[user123]

Such a tricky subject.... I agree with what everyone else has said, BUT charity begins at home to me means being human from one human to another, wherever we are from. Isn't that the issue around charitable giving revolves?
People put their hand in their pocket to help, because we are all fed up about seeing inhuman behaviour. And thankfully so, because once generosity dies we've all had it.

Governments know this, so it is a double win situation fo rthem to be seen to give, politically by the receiving country, and internally by the public, and hopefully by those people in the most dire circumstances, who are there by accident of birth (that of course is another discussion) but to stop aid to keep it all for ourselves is not the answer. And before anyone blames the poorer countries for continuously digging their own graves mainly by bad organisation, laziness, corruption... well, those without sin throw the first stone. We are just all benefitting or suffering from our environments, what we are used to, and trying to hang on to our status quo comfort zone, no different in THOSE OTHER countries... people are people, pain is pain wherever you are.

Why is England in a state? And so many other countries, like France as we just recently heard? Or Greece? It always come back to individual decision making, and the accumulation of bad decisions, but to deny generosity within our hearts, now that would be a REALLY bad decision in the long run, however tempting it is.

The fact that England was once great has precious little to do with us, most of us weren't old enough to be involved, we are resting on the moral laurels of the previous generation. What kind of laurels will the next generation rest on? That will be OUR decision. Let's humanity still play a part.

 

[mikethetile]

well said g

10 million is a drop in the oceon, it will cost billions to reebuild the infrastructure in pakistan

the people affected have had their livelyhoods washed away, they are ordinary people like us who get out of bed and earn our way through life, theres no social handouts, they work or they starve its as simple as that, noone hands them a living on a plate like we do for far too many in the west

our industry is gone becouse the working class people in other countries work very hard for a lot less money than we do in this country, we have to pay enormous amounts of tax to pay for the welfare system, over two thirds of our earnings go in tax of one kind or another and the countries skint and living beyond its means

its charity at home that has got us into this mess and that is what needs sorting asap, only then can we compete properly on the world markets and have a strong economy, if ev eryone is paying less tax and we go into deflation then we can afford to charge less and be competive world wide. if all the wasters sat on benefits had to take the low paid work or starve then thette would be no point in immigrants coming here working cheap

this country is a mess and needs sorting , we can learn a lot from the hard work and enterprise of the pakistanis, its not their fault they got a seasons rain in less than an hour

 

[Dan]

We will never pay less tax Mike. Governments will just see it as 'oh, they're doing alright, so they can pay the tax now the whole world is trading'.

Being a failing country now, if we keep giving we'll end up with nothing and won't be able to help anybody, and we don't get much help ourselves really. We owe the US some cash, other than that I don't think we've been helped much. Even by the EU as we told 'em sod off when they wanted us in on the Euro, and we said no our pounds stronger thanks. That was a wise move :lol:

I hear what you're saying. Give a bit of everything you get, but keep it local and you'll build your own local strengths, and then when somebody needs our help, they can have lots of it.

I totally understand the nice thought of every country being able to trade fairly, but until America does take over the world, I can't see it happening in our lifetimes. So you give what you want mate but I say keep it local, thanks.

 

[mikethetile]

not so Dan

ive experianced several tax cuts in my working life along with the rises

theres no such thing as trading fairly, its trading competitively that will bring a return to our industry and full employment, if the pound strengthens we are at a disadvantage on the foreign markets. the only money coming in will be from investment banking and we have experiance of how fragile that is

we can only compete by cutting costs and that means a reduction in wages, this can only be achieved with deflation and tax cuts, this is where the tories are heading, they will encourage free markets and enterprise and a poor life for those that fail to keep up

 

[Dan]

Fair play mate.

I don't think the fact that 5% of the people in the world control 95% of the world's money will every change though. The bar height might change, but the percentage won't.

You can be a guy that gives all day long mate, but as you know even at the level a forum is at (so just information sharing), you need to get something back out of giving something.

If you give local, it comes right back. Just my view mate.

We've always been limited as a country as to what value we can give to the rest of the world as we have very limited raw materials, and our own country is over capacity, and many just not only not paying taxes, they're costing tax payers.

The only reason we give a tosh about other countries is if they have something we want.

And you and I don't get to see the benefit in that mate, we see the other side, our soldiers even die fighting for it.

I don't think you'll convince me on this one mate. Unless the day comes I'm given the chance to make the decision on what country to support next, I doubt we'll ever support our own.

I'll be buying my next garden bench from a guy down the road who makes garden benches in his work yard, who buys what he can to make his products from the UK, or the closest reasonably priced country to us. He holiday's in the UK as often as abroad, and he not long bought a website from me. I can't tell you how many times I've enjoyed real trading, right here even in Stoke, let alone in the UK generally. I get my services free on my cars, as I provide online marketing FOC to the firm. I got free driving lessons recently, get business cards FOC, for similar reasons.

Whilst I own an Apple or two, work on Microsoft computers all day long, build websites using american software, then host it on american hardware. I can honestly say I just can't get my hands on anything like this in the UK.

And it's not the fact we don't have cheap labour and we all need to be paid less. It's down to the fact we've just had nobody intelligent enough to make a company grow to a point where we can actually employ thousands of Chinese (even under-age in Apple's case - they recently got done for it).

We need to bring back the value in skill, and gain skilled people. And quit with this make the world better, we'll all be much better off. (That said, I totally agree with all the recycling, eating and even growing organic, and that sort of thing, I just mean giving money here).

Perhaps I'm wrong.

 

[mikethetile]

I see where your coming from Dan

I own a 50 yr old british bike which im restoring, im having trouble sourcing british made parts as most parts available are made in india which devalues the bike

I was thinking yesterday that apart from the bike everything I own is foreign made. our peugeot was made in the uk by a french company

even our food is imported

I do the same as you and have done for years, I support my local economy. its important as a local tradesman to be seen in local business's as thats the way to get your number passed around

I watched newsnight last night there was 2.5 billion wrongly paid out in benefits last year. if thats the over payment what is the total bill

ive got the taxman on my case again, they are going through everyones returns trying to claw back money, they want a further £350 I either give it to them or spend money fighting it plus pay the penalties for late payment

it sems to me that those who do the right thing suffer while the fiddlers get away with it