Needless to say there is also serious demand. Last time I was there, I was offered several imported Lagers, Vodka, a really nice malt Whiskey, Brandy and of course Shiraz red wine (albeit by the pint!) I probably got through more alcohol in Iran than I ever do in Europe.

QED ~ bans don’t work if there is any demand, and the market (which we on this blog mostly believe in) will meet that demand regardless of how severe penalties get and Iranian judges don’t issue ASBO’s !

When you say

2. Public sector wage freeze – saves around £6 billion

Remember that alot of “new” staff get promoted every year within their job title and get 2-4% pay rises each year. These are not counted as pay rises. So I would amend your request to say

2. Public sector wage and automatic promotion freeze – saves around £6 billion

I do think that the double dip may come from (1) a drop in Government spending and (2) a rise in interest rates (due to Government borrowing and inflation).

We are at the asset-bubble end of the recession. That is to say in 2000 we had the investment bubble (dot com) bursting (just like the city/privatisation bubble of 87) and we are now at the asset bubble-end and interest rates rising will cause problems (just like the ERM debacle in 92).

For me the parallels between 1987 & 2000 (investment bubble) and 1992 & 2008 (asset bubble) are very striking. Its easier going into a investment crash for the public than an asset crash – Investment Banks suffered in 1988 and 2002 but jobs were not really effected. Today we are in the middle of a asset crash. Assets in the country are held by the public and the direct result is a demand depression and the retail sector suffers.

Triggers, timing, duration are also subtly different but can be explained by the different circumstances of the crash.

But what’s most encouraging is that human nature hasn’t really changed since the Roman times. War has been pretty much put stamped out. Demand and the desire for wealth will return, business will be set up, taxes will be generated and we will recover.

This time the circumstances are different because we have the highest real debt ever and relatively POOR INVESTMENT public services to show for it. I think when interest rates do go up and house prices possibly fall again we will look at our dimishing public services and disposable income (relative to other economies) as the real legacy of the New Labour Government.

I am fully aware that the present system has failed, I am fully aware that drugs are now cheaper than they probably ever have been.

The point I was trying to make is if they were legalised, do you think they would be cheaper than now, or more expensive.

The answer I beleive is if they were legalised and taxed, they would be more expensive, because even if they were legal they would not be free.

If that is so, and you are a drug addict, then you will have to pay more for your fix, and given that an addict will have to find more money for his fix, he will need to find that money from somewhere.

Given that many addicts (not all) turn to crime to get money for their fix, they they will by neccessity have to commit more crime
For the same amount of drug use than at present if the cost is higher. Its a simple mathematical fact.

Our pathetic attempts at Policing has failed no question.

Our pathetic attempts at education has failed no question.

Unless we get real on both of these, then we may as well give up, and I am sorry I do not believe that this (giving up) is a viable option. It will in time destroy us, as more and more of future generations eventually become dependant.

My wife works in a high security environment and beleive me, it is very, very clear, that exposure and constant use of drugs damages peoples brains, that is a fact, and damaged brains do much damage to society, of that there is absolutely no question.

In my opinion a free for all drugs policy is absolute maddness.

The income tax paid by on earners up to about £35k is confiscatory, and it is especially damaging for those on about £14 to £15K. The same applies to small businesses, especially small partnerships.

Of these only the first would be likely to increase & the other 3 would virtually disappear.

The government can’t keep drugs out of it’s own prisons where they essentially keep people in cages, how can they hope to ban drugs from anyone free in the wider populace?

Alan, on this I can’t agree with you. Drugs are now way cheaper in cash or real terms than they were when I was a youngster, in a major metropolitan city in the 1980’s cocaine was about £75 for a wrap, now it’s about £20. Similarly ecstatsy tablets were £10 in the early 1990’s now they are £1. What does this tell us about the effectiveness of a ban? We really needto grasp a fundamantal here ~ the ban has failed totally, anyone who wants drugs can now get them. There really wouldn’t be an increase in users (after an intial surge perhaps) following legalisation.

And I really think the idea of “more drugs education” is just a cop out in the absence of any practical ideas ~ is there anyone who thinks that drugs are good? People know ~ they are just risk takers

Corporation Tax should be reduced to 10% for all businesses, with a £100,000 a year “reinvestment” relief. All other spurious “allowances” should be scrapped.

Growth of the private sector economy is the only route out of recession, out of deficit and back in to surplus so we can start to repay some of Brown’s £1 trillion debt mountain.

Idea 1 your end to the banking subsidies would help. would we now have three major solvent banks if gordon brown hadn’t cajoled lloyds into its disastrous menage a trois with HBOS and the treasury?

Idea 2 i work in the public sector and i accept the idea of a wage freeze as the best way to cut costs and still deliver services that even conservative voters need eg schools, highways, street cleaning, etc etc.

Idea 3 the recruitment freeze will be rather tricky. you can’t rely on public sector HR departments they are hopeless. defining frontline is very difficult – i bet you all the top directors and chief execs will define themselves as front line although most on the front line never see or hear from them.

the person who says he would sack anyone with more than ten years experience shows such a serious lack of common or business sense, he must be a consultant. ( john, i reckon you’ve been an mp for more than ten years, do you think you need experience of the ‘real world’? whatever that is!!)

the reasons the government and its organs and even the private sector rely on consultants are many, but one of the most important is that people nowadays just are not prepared to take responsibility for decisions. it is so much easier to get someone else in to do the thinking and make the decisions for you. we see it everywhere, but it is a very expensive way of working. i see it in my own line of work, but management would prefer to trust a well paid consultant compared to their own much cheaper staff.

Idea 4
Perhaps we should sharpen the knives for some rather greedier sacred cows? When are the politicians of that bottomless pit, also known as Northern Ireland or Ulster, going to stop using the threat of going back to the bad old days and their bad old ways as a means to squeeze more cash out of HM Treasury? There’s lots of talk about the peace dividend, well it’s about time the british taxpayer had his/her share.

If David Cameron gets elected, he should ring up Vaclav Klaus and ask how did he manage to get rid of his moaning neighbours so speedily. we can’t build a carbon neutral economy on scottish oil and they can’t either so let’s move on and leave them and the polluting oil industries behind. think of the money we’ll save when alec has to pay for his socialist utopia out of his own pocket money.

Final option – slap a one off tax on all those tax havens that are british dependencies. these sleazy sun traps need cleaning out as they don’t in any way improve the fortunes of UK plc, in fact they undermine our economy. we pay off lots of their bills, now they can help pay off Labour’s.

Idea 5
VAT should be raised to the same level as the basic rate of income tax. the idea saving money should be taxed more than spending money must surely have had its day when we are all so in debt.

best wishes to a fellow john

1. 10% pay cut across the public sector.

2. Quangos. Most can go. PS they aren’t government

http://extras.timesonline.co.uk/quango.pdf but I’m sure you’ve read it.

3. Axe expensive projects like Cross rail. It’s not an asset its a liability.

4. Axe future accruals to the state pension. Replace it with compulsorary savings and a guarantee. What’s interesting about this is that the money has to go into investment. Investment over time will produce a higher level of income than the current ponzi scheme. That means the guarantee over time becomes very cheap. The crucial point is that those savings have to be invested, and that provides the funding for firms that the banks can’t provide at the moment. That funding will provide the money to get the 2-3 million ex public sector workers real jobs.

Nick

Cameron should immediately drastically cut business tax to restore confidence and get (real) job creation onto a positive path. VAT needs to rise to 20% too.

Some of the posts on here seem to think we will have permanent recession if we drastically cut back public expenditure (too much listening to Brown-Balls ?) We won’t.

Confidence and sound money is everthing. The economy will turn quickly with the right signals and incentives.
And yes, a well publicised campaign to simplify and cut red tape is also a powerful signal.

The productive sectors of the economy need to be made to smile again !

Reply: I did, in the days when that would have made a big impact on the then levels of public debt. It was not a popular idea on this site, but it seems likely that any new main road will need to be paid for by private capital and tolls like the M6 tollway.