The Lira or the Naira?

With the advent of our Lord Jesus comes the VAT

( that’s – value added tax ) This supposes it’s a tax paid to assuage the value being received in the purchase. The reality is that our lovely government are the sole beneficiaries of the tax. A way of raising revenue ~ to help us pay for essential frontline public services. That is the theory!

The essential public services as we know are being hacked to death in our health, transport, sport policing,.. you name it. Have you seen the state of our public roads. The debacle of the recent snow event,..non gritting of GB. Standstill Britain! How can they blame this on the previous government. It begs the question where are our taxes being spent? Even our lowly paid nurses are being asked to take a pay freeze in earning to help the economy.

Well,…if the theory of VAT is for value added what can be done if we are not receiving the value? Here are a few tips:

1. 1.Do not buy non-essential goods ( i.e white goods such as: fridges,washing machine and luxury goods like wide screen TV or its new nemesis ~ the 3D flatscreen, furniture etc,..)

2. 2.Only buy FMCG ( fast moving consumer goods), milk, eggs, bread etc,..suppliment with long lasting canned food items. Buy fruit and vegs on a need only basis.Cook and consume within the items lifeline only. Cut out chocolates, biscuits and treats. Stop taking things off the shop shelves to load them on your home shelves, only not to use them and end up throwing them away. We have all done it! Why??? Let’s adopt the bulldog spirit that saw us thru the war years. Let’s find our stiff upper british lip! ( Yah! )

3. 3. Practise what I call the 3 day event on vehicle usage. Let me explain: With fuel so expensive, why not adopt a policy of not using the vehicle 3 times a week. Find an alternative. Your choice.

I could go on and on giving you examples, am sure you have a few of your own.

The elephant in the room is this: The government wants us to help the economy by spending more. How? Spending money we do not have. They claim the cutting of frontline service to the bone will help the economy – How?,.. when more people will lose their jobs, fall on the poverty line and hasten the fracture of families as pressure upon them mount and difficult choices have to be made.

I think you get my drift.

The value of any tax is in the benefit received by the end user and or what he or she is prepared to accept as fair. So it matters not if the VAT is 15%, 17.5%, 20%, or 25%. Or whether the currency is the Lira or the Naira . The value is in the benefit received upon purchase. THE PURCHASE is yours to control ( your spending power ) Trust me, the government will eventually listen. If we adopt the policy of less is more, a lesson we desperately need in the WEST. The government will eventually listen. Why? Intelligent readers can do the maths.

My unitary advise to the government is to reverse the VAT. Make it 10% - call it what you will,…xmas bonus, royal marriage next year bonus,…whatever.

Remember: running water cannot be stopped. It’s a flow continuum!

Wiki-What!

I've always thought freedom of speech and information were essential values to human existence, but then I've always thought Arsenal would win the the premier league at the start of every season and that I would one day explain myself to a cockroach. Afterall I am of a higher order( no comments invited here) How misguided I have been. I've been avoiding this issue of the Wiki-leak for a while. Whilst similarly avoiding X-what-a-load-of craptor, Am-a-nobody-get-me-out-of-here. I think you get the picture. But you know, whilst these reality shows claim to be entertainment for those of us with less refined taste, I will submit they provide a useful diversion at a time when the government need to take away the focus from the upcoming hike in VAT. Happy new year everyone!

This week witnessed the highest hike in petrol prices this country has ever seen, but imagine the rage when you add that increase in Vat in the new year to the petrol prices and everything else. Boy, are we in this together or what!

People criticising the student demonstration miss the point. The students do get the fact that increases in tuition fees are as inevitable as mobile phone bills, what they despise is what led us to having to cut so severely 80% of Vince Cable's department expenditure to universities that those same uni's now need to claw back that money by mortgaging our children's lives. People are not connecting why students might be angry with the like's of Sir Phillip Green. Let me break it down for you: its because luminaries such as Sir Phil, use tax loop-holes to tax avoid. Quite legal, but it kicks this country's teeth-in to the tunes of billions in lost tax revenue's. Which, if it were available would lighten the blow from the economic gloom.

But I digress,..

The crux of my argument about freedom of information is this: with all the information released by wiki-leak, what has the general populace really done with the information? Has it really given us more freedom, has it showed us anything new we didnt know about politicians? Did it really shed any new light on America and its politics in the world? Has it not really just given more editorial pages to the media than really changing anything? Has'nt it just re-affirmed what we have always suspected but could not prove,...that you cant believe everything you read. Politicians come out of meetings and tell everybody, everything is great,..but behind the scene they confirm their true feelings. Nobody needs to expose that! Its a dangerous world we live in. These exposures really only serves one purpose: They put lives in danger. Honourable men and women serving in dangerous theaters of war will become targets. Those serving in charitable sectors in dangerous parts of the world will become targets.

Diplomacy is the best friend of politics and students of politics will tell you one cannot go without the other. What wiki-leak has done is plaintively salacious and a childish pursuit of fame and in leading the misguided, they make uncomfortable rods for our backs. Controlled freedom of information is the prize we pay in the west for the freedom we enjoy and the ability to expound views as we wish.

In other less tolerant countries, wiki-leak will be interpreted as an attack on a way of life, a culture, a religion etc,.. If wiki-leak really wants to serve the world,..it should expose why successful trials of drugs which makes it easier to cope with Aid/HIV were tried on unsuspecting Africans.

Now the drugs are available after clinical trials on the poor and unreported but not available to those same people because it's way too expensive. Wiki-leak should focus on the middle east question as to why atrocities upon atrocities are being visited upon the people of the Gaza, yet the Jewish lobby's aren't exposed. And finally, how the hell did Tony Blair get that job as middle east envoy. A region he only knows too well?

This is my rant for the week.

Remember: running water always finds a path. A path to the truth,..

Venom

The things they say

does not reach me anymore

the naysayers,

the doubters, the mud-pie slingers

no more do I listen to their idle gossip

nor to their wails

and pretense of love

love you one minute

hate you the next!

their useless attempt at emotional blackmail

the drama of it all!

The things they say no longer moves me to rage

No more

Do the things they say reach me

These things only inspire me

They soar me to new heights

Its often borne of jealousy and self loathing

Desperate and loathsome

I cut them off at the core

I remain untouched

I do not even pity them

Unprocessed.

Theirs is a voice in the wilderness

Remaining unheard

Solid remains my stance

Stoic remains my resolve

Remember: running water seeks only the truth, questions the motives and examines the answers

Maybe II

Maybe if we had taken the moment

Thinking,..whispering,..talking

Thinking maybe

If man loved his neighbour

Whispering maybe

The world would be a better place

Talking maybe

We give a chance to take,..

Maybe

Remember: running water cannot be stopped!

maybe I

Maybe if the world stood still

And glimmers of hope shone thru

Embers of forthcoming disasters

Tremors surreal

Impending humanquake

Then maybe

Just maybe

You and I

Maybe come

We,..

remember: running water cannot be stopped!

What If

What if life had no meaning

and to live was hope

in a flurry of despair?

What if day by day

a vision was lost

and the crust of ambition

becomes reward?

values become hope despondent

shattered are beliefs of bright,..

Then

Just then

Something sparkled

A hope is rekindled

new light is shone

and maybe

just maybe,...

You

the vision is clear

You

of happy moments to come

081186Lagos

Remember: Runningwater cannot be stopped, it creates, flows and bewilders!

Thinking of You

At the beginning

it was

fast and furious

then the spurious race

edged to a cataclysmic

pace of delirious stupour

The climax was sexual

a childlike purity

existed

in the interlocking

moment

of the

xanadu

discovery

Remember: running water is enriching and rewarding, it cannot be stopped!

what would you do?

if you were offered Chris Hughton's job

WHAT WOULD YOU DO?

,...a Jol

or

,...a Pardew?

Remember: running water cannot be stopped! it can only inspire

,...when the rain falls

..,when the rain falls it don’t fall on one man’s house top

( Robert Nestor Marley )

Funny isn’t it that most people think that all white people love the snow and that all black people love the sunshine.Yet when the snow came down the other day it fell on everyone’s house. It didn’t know if the inhabitant of the house were black or white. I noticed as the snow fell, moods darkened because one couldn’t get to work, nor start the car but moods cheered as schools were cancelled, one could work from home eat apple pie and drink latte’s.

You could see from the cheeky smiles of young children enjoying the moment on sledges, bombing down hedges all care thrown to the wind. Nobody stopped to think about the colour of the sledgers. All around us the white powder kept us enthralled as it filled our lives from the very top of our homes to the bottom of our gardens. No need for the gardener this week!

I think we need to check ourselves before we wreck ourselves. The crux of my argument is that within us lies the ability to overcome prejudice, racial discrimination, homophobia, ageism and any other isms! Just like the powdered stuff covered our pitiful little life’s over the last couple of days and brought us to a standstill, a moment of appreciation of Gods greater glory. The pause in our lives gave us the chance to examine what was important.

Family. We were forced by this act of God to endure each other’s company. Talk over real issue’s that work and school lifestyle get in the way of. The family of the human race, all people who slept and shivered through the cold snap, the darkened evening. We come through these things. As night pass to day and day to night. We have a chance to see beyond the skin that covers our bones. Just like underneath the white powdered stuff, we were vulnerable, hopeful, brave, ecstatic, thankful. Those things you thought you just couldn’t live without doing,..isnt it funny how that become unimportant when a pause enters your life.

Underneath it all, we are all the same.

Arent we?

Remember: runningwater cannot be stopped. Its all life fulfilling, true and just.