Looking after Number 1!
Two interesting news items have recently aroused my ire – the first, an item in yesterday’s Scotsman regarding the “trimming” of civil service posts (reported in the news as 70,000 jobs, a far cry from Mr Brown’s 120,000) and the fact that there are no proposals to axe any of the “spin doctors” this arrogant and incompetent government have recruited. To add insult to injury, it would appear that there are no plans to axe any of the expensive and incompetent Senior Civil Servants from their featherbedded and protected positions of control, either.
So, all the “cuts” are scheduled to happen at the lower end of the scale of salaries and perks where the savings will actually be pretty minimal. Add to that the fact that the Civil Service is still creating jobs at a phenomenal rate and you can see that the supposed “cuts” are no cuts at all, but rather a re-arrangement of the deckchairs on the Titanic! The fighting troops are cut back and already have problems recruiting to fill natural “wastage” of servicemen and women leaving the forces, and yet the offices of the army of penpushers in MOD HQ in Whitehall is being refurbished for a sum equivalent to the cost of a new Type 45 Destroyer. Nor is this all, the army of penpushers in the MOD is increasing and now outnumbers the total strength of the Army and is 20% greater than the combined RAF and Royal Navy strength. So no “cuts” there then – unless you count the ones being made to the actual services themselves.
And then there is that second item…
Read more Comments are off for this postDeath tax reduction bad?
“A reduction or possible repeal of the federal estate tax could shrink charitable donations by billions of dollars over the next few years,
according to a new study by the Congressional Budget Office. David Kamin with the Washington, D.C.-based Center on Budget and Policy Priorities analyzed the CBO estimates and reported that ‘if estate-tax repeal had been in effect in 2000, charitable donations would have been reduced by $13 billion to $25 billion that year.’ However, the CBO report points out that the reduction of the estate tax has two opposing effects and could also spur on giving as individuals get wealthier, and local non-profit organizations believe the generosity and goodwill of Nashvillians would keep any serous
impact of a possible estate tax repeal to a minimum.” (08/09/04)
Yes, perish the thought: people be able to spend their money they way they want to…that would be a horrible thing! This bit of news about the evil death tax comes via Rational Review.
1 commentSurf’s Up!
One more thing to worry about:
LONDON (Reuters) – The bad news is tens of millions of people along the eastern seaboard of the United States and Canada may drown if the slow slippage of a volcano off north Africa becomes a cataclysmic collapse. But the good news is the world is not likely to be destroyed by an asteroid any time soon.Comments are off for this postScientist Bill McGuire told a news conference on natural disasters on Monday that some time in the next few thousand years the western flank of the Cumbre Vieja volcano on the Canary Island of La Palma will collapse, sending walls of water 100 meters high racing across the Atlantic.
