Am I just being a grumpy old git?

[WheresOurTaxGone]

Hi there,

Well I'm 35 years old, worked continuously from before I left school, and have always contributed more than my fair share of tax. Now that I have kids then I am probably getting more back, but are we getting value for money? So I feel I have earnt the right to wonder how my tax is spent, and also question the priorities of whoever is ruling us.

So the big questions for me are:

Pensions: Are they fairly distributed?

Is it fair that we have a whole generation of local and central government employees retire at 50, on 2/3 of their final salery, when most (not all) never had to take a risk at work in their whole career, with a very high degree of security? Well the answer in the perfect world would be "yes", as they were promised it, unfortunately all this is leading to a huge imbalance. Compare these people with war veterans, or people who work for private companies where the pension scheme has collapsed. It is also worth noting that this generation of people are also the ones who have benefitted most from the huge increase in property wealth over the last 30 years.

Secondly, people who have contributed to a pension all their life have to realistically save over £200,000 into their pension pot to make it worth having a private pension over and above the government MIG (Minimum Income Guarantee). Therefore, if someone works all their life and saves £120,000 into their pension, then they will only be marginally better off than someone who never works a single day in their life and gets the MIG worth approximately £100,000

I believe that we should all share the pension risk, and that means people who choose not to work all their life should end up on vouchers, and the pensions of the feather bedded should be cut to support the very poor pensioners in this country. Incentives to encourage lower paid people to contibute to a meaningful pension that will mean that they are eventually rewarded for their hardwork, over and above someone who has never bothered to work.

Global warming: Are we going to look back in 50 years and regret the soundbite solutions we have taken now?

The obsession with bio-fuels is already having a serious impact on the environment on two fronts. Rainforest is being destroyed at an increased rate to plat Palm Olive trees to produce bio-fuel. Food production being diverted to fuel production, increasing food prices, and therefore taking food out of people mouths.

Wind farms are an incredibly inefficient way of producing energy, and not a reliable source either (i.e. The wind cannot be guaranteed), which then needs a traditional back-up source running 24x7x365 to cover the drops in production. They take a lot of energy to manufacture, you need an awful lot of them, you need to use energy to keep them turning when the wind isn't blowing, and the energy used to site/maintain them (i.e. They are in the middle of the sea), is much higher than a traditional/modern nuclear facility.

These are just some examples where governments are jumping on quick solutions, and giving the impression they are doing something about global warming, but the eventual outcome could be disasterous, with subsequent generations laughing/crying over our pathetic attempts to "do something" no matter what.

Crime: Have they made prison meaningless, and therefore we are destined to always have overcrowded prisons?

I don't know about anyone else, but even 15-20 years ago prison was something you definitely didn't want on your CV, let alone having to run the risk of having to pick up the odd bar of soap in the shower room. But now you see people younger than myself having been locked up over 20 times for long strings of offences, some of which are very serious. The other night I saw a program about a ram raid gang in Manchester, where they caught the gang leader, who had 30 previous convictions for similar offences, but only ever served 1 custodial sentence for 18 months (of which he servered a couple of months). Oh yes, they also routinely carried a samurai sword, which was used to threaten the police when they were caught!

Now we live in a country that can see someone driving at excessive speed, receiving an enormous fine, even getting put in prison for a few weeks, and losing their job/house etc... Now I'm never going to condone excessive speeding, as it can and does destroy lives, but there is a massive difference between a family guy getting caught using an empty road early in the morning to test out his motorbike (I am not complaining here because it has happened to me by the way!), and a guy with 30 ram raid convictions who carries a samurai sword for protection. If this guy killed someone in the act of getting away he definitely would not hang around to help the victim.

So we are now living in a society whereby a certain segment of the population are almost below the law. They can't be fined because they have no money, they are not diverted from crime because the courts won't put them inside for long enough, and if they are put inside it is not harsh enough because of their "human rights". What is needed is for people to come out of prison into such communities sending the message to their peers, and the younger generation, that prison was very harsh, and they certainly don't want to try it again.

I believe that if we are destined to keep the human rights act, that it amended to have two levels, the first is the enhanced rights that we all "enjoy" today, but if you are convicted of a crime you revert to the basic rights while you server your sentence, which effectively means that you are fed and housed. This would also allow us to pack more people into prison under basic conditions (basic food, an exercise yard, no TV, the minimal level of comfort/warmth). This would make prison a negative choice, and might start to instill some fear again into the younger generation.

NHS: Will it ever be efficient?

Simple answer is NO. Not while the NHS tries to do everything. At the moment it will always be badly run because it is simply too big, centrally controlled, and hamstrung by political dogma. Yes care should be free at point of delivery, but just because certain services are provided free by the government, does not mean that the government has to provide the service itself. For example, does the NHS have to provide chiropedy services? Would it not be better for the goverment to provide vouchers to people who want to use the free services (issued by your GP) and the private sector just performs the service for them? The NHS could then focus its efforts on being the best in difficult areas that the private sector would be useless at. i.e. Maternity care, transplant surgery, life saving techniques, reabilitation from crashes/strokes, cancer reasearch. At the moment we are destined for mediocre services at best (odd pockets of excellence due to exceptional doctors), and downright awful services at worst (such as drug availability).