Increase The Cost Of Everything To Fix All Our Problems

[interestrateripoff]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-2239358/Raise-cost-parking-force-motorists-walk-Nanny-watchdogs-plan-Britain-fit.html

Drivers should be charged more for parking to make them walk instead, health chiefs said yesterday.

New guidelines say going by foot or bicycle should become the norm for short journeys to work, school and the shops.

Families should even consider selling their car to end the ‘bad habit’ of using it for trips of less than a mile.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-20515918

Ministers are to unveil plans later for a minimum price for alcohol in England and Wales as part of a drive to tackle problem drinking.

The Home Office is expected to publish a consultation on the proposal, which was first put forward in the government's alcohol strategy in March.

A price of 40p per unit was suggested at the time.

But pressure has been mounting on ministers to follow Scotland's lead, where 50p has been proposed.

Yeah lets make everything more expensive, in a recession it can only boost growth.

Edited November 28, 2012 by interestrateripoff

[Downside]

Charging more doesn't usually end up with the results they want and always has unintended consequences. Charge more for parking and watch the high street die while online shopping goes up. Charge more for alchohol and home brewing will rocket giving even less revenue all round

Somietimes I really think these people are as thick as 2 short planks!

Edited November 28, 2012 by Downside

[interestrateripoff]

http://www.sheffield.ac.uk/polopoly_fs/1.150021!/file/scotlandupdatejan2012.pdf

MODEL-BASED APPRAISAL OF ALCOHOL MINIMUM PRICING AND OFF-LICENSED TRADE DISCOUNT BANS IN SCOTLAND USING THE SHEFFIELD ALCOHOL POLICY MODEL (v 2):- SECOND UPDATE BASED ON

I think this was the paper referred too in BBC news piece I heard on the TV.

Peer reviewed it said, clearly by those with low intelligence as I can't find any mention of home brew in the 184 pages of waffle produced.

[Traktion]

How about these so called experts/ministers stop threatening people?

They seem to be incapable of giving advice, without some form of threat/theft being involved. It's a strange affliction.

[interestrateripoff]

Should also add if you increase the unit price of alcohol the sale of counterfeit alcohol will go up as a result.

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/4271283/Scandal-of-counterfeit-hooch-being-sold-across-Britain.html

http://www.eveningnews24.co.uk/news/fake_alcohol_found_in_norfolk_stores_could_cause_blindness_1_1385860

http://www.thejournal.ie/revenue-warns-that-fake-alcohol-can-cause-blindness-336197-Jan2012/

[Austin Allegro]

Charging more doesn't usually end up with the results they want and always has unintended consequences. Charge more for parking and watch the high street die while online shopping goes up. Charge more for alchohol and home brewing will rocket giving even less revenue all round

Somietimes I really think these people are as thick as 2 short planks!

If cycling becomes more popular than driving, it will be subjected to compulsory insurance, taxation, licensing, parking fees etc.

If homebrewing becomes more popular than shop bought booze, it will be banned (or rather, the sale of home brewing equipment will be taxed into oblivion). Homebrewing was illegal until the 1960s in the UK so it can happen again.

[interestrateripoff]

Retailer revenue from the sale of alcoholic beverages is estimated to increase under all policies: the model predicts increases in both off-trade and on-trade sectors (excluding duty and VAT). Higher minimum prices lead to greater additional retail revenues; however the model does not provide a breakdown of the revenue across the supply chain. For a 40p minimum price with combined discount ban, total retailer revenue is estimated to increase by £83m per annum; and for a 50p minimum price with combined discount ban, total retailer revenue is estimated to increase by £125m per annum.

From the paper.

[Austin Allegro]

Yes - it says "if we increase prices this much, it will reduce drinking by that much and reducing drinking by that much will reduce illness and NHS spending by another much"

Reduced drinking as measured by reduced alcohol sales at offies and supermarkets and pubs. Meanwhile everyone is busily brewing and stilling in the comfort of their own homes getting super sloshed on the strong stuff. They can't work out why liver disease has gone up so much...we'll just have to increase prices even more!

I think they assume that the majority of Brits are too stupid and/or lazy or brand-fixated to brew their own booze. There may be an element of truth in that. Just look at how many people still buy cigarettes from corner shops instead of growing their own baccy (which is difficult but not impossible).

[Traktion]

Yes - it says "if we increase prices this much, it will reduce drinking by that much and reducing drinking by that much will reduce illness and NHS spending by another much"

Reduced drinking as measured by reduced alcohol sales at offies and supermarkets and pubs. Meanwhile everyone is busily brewing and stilling in the comfort of their own homes getting super sloshed on the strong stuff. They can't work out why liver disease has gone up so much...we'll just have to increase prices even more!

The NHS spending is at the core of this.

As we're all forced to pay for it and health care is delivered (largely) without question, there is a huge free rider problem.

Rock climbers are more likely to use their services, as are people with dangerous jobs. So too are druggies, alcoholics, fat people etc.

A sane and peaceful solution would be to allow the NHS to reduce the subscription costs for those who are at low risk. This would encourage a healthy lifestyle.

The statist solution is to keep NHS subscription costs fixed, then threaten people more, so that they adopt (and continue with) a healthy lifestyle. Even if you have a healthy lifestyle, it doesn't mean you can escape the threats either (hint: the drink prices are still artificially high, no matter how often you buy them).

Edited November 28, 2012 by Traktion

[MaoZedong]

We stopped being a real productive economy making useful things a long time ago. To make the laws of economics and the universe balance out whatever, our collective living standards have got to lower somehow innit. That happens by everything costing a lot more (including houses) or we are going to get paid a lot less. Looks to me like its the first option that is happening.

[goldbug9999]

Yeah lets make everything more expensive, in a recession it can only boost growth.

It "creates value" according to wonderpup.

[deflation]

Should also add if you increase the unit price of alcohol the sale of counterfeit alcohol will go up as a result.

Since the only big increases would be on the 'White Lightning' - type ciders, and are drunk by people who will drink just about anything, there's no change there then. At the proposed 45p per unit, the normal price of beer (well, the stuff I drink) would not be affected, BUT multibuys would fall foul:

A 275ml of Becks has 1.4 units in it according to the label. A crate of 15 (some shops now selling 12 or even 10 as a crate!) at Sainsburys is £11. That's 11 / 21 = 52.3p per unit.

However, at the moment they're doing 3 crates for £24.That's 45 bottles (63 units), 24 / 63 = 38.1p. The minimum price for a crate would become £9.45.

In pubs, a pint of beer is already about 80p per unit or more. The landlords should be supporting it, if they think it'll bring people back to pubs. The relative fall in the price of booze compared to the pubs, the rise of decent heating and big home TVs has lost them a lot of trade.

[BalancedBear]

The political and bureaucratic solution to everything is always to increase or add taxes and/or put in place further means testing or state control. The people that propose these things are generally too stupid or lazy to do any other job and cannot think of any other solution. Their solution is always to take more money of someone they perceive has too much and use it themselves for whatever pet project they deem is more worthwhile.

This is just another example that shows the government has too much money to spend.

[Goat]

If homebrewing becomes more popular than shop bought booze, it will be banned (or rather, the sale of home brewing equipment will be taxed into oblivion). Homebrewing was illegal until the 1960s in the UK so it can happen again.

You can get a reasonable result with 4 cartons of value apple juice, a bag of sugar, an empty 5 litre bottle of mineral water and some baker's yeast.

Which of the above do you want to ban.

Edit.

Incidentally, the above is frequently known as "inmate brew". How appropriate for what is becoming prison camp UK.

Edited November 28, 2012 by Goat

[winkie]

Charging more doesn't usually end up with the results they want and always has unintended consequences. Charge more for parking and watch the high street die while online shopping goes up. Charge more for alchohol and home brewing will rocket giving even less revenue all round

Somietimes I really think these people are as thick as 2 short planks!

Sometimes I think these people think we are as thick as two short planks.

Everything is rising faster than the official rate of inflation....things are rising not in 10p or 20p but in 50p and £1s.........we all have a budget we have to live within....if they keep upping the anti, more and more of us will spend less and less.....or better still find new and better ways of doing things.

[interestrateripoff]

Sometimes I think these people think we are as thick as two short planks.

Everything is rising faster than the official rate of inflation....things are rising not in 10p or 20p but in 50p and £1s.........we all have a budget we have to live within....if they keep upping the anti, more and more of us will spend less and less.....or better still find new and better ways of doing things.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/9707915/Supermarkets-banned-from-irresponsible-alcohol-offers-under-new-plans.html

Speaking on BBC Radio Four, Mr Green said it is a "fact of economics and life that if you put the price up, demand for it goes down".

“What we’re trying to stop specifically is very cheap, very strong alcohol because that’s what contributes most to the terrible scenes we see in too many of our cities on a Friday and Saturday night of hugely drunk people, many of whom preloaded – in that wonderful phrase – before they go out for an evening’s drinking," he said.

“The reason for doing minimum unit pricing and not just increasing taxes is precisely to hit those irresponsible offers of very cheap, very strong lager – it can’t be right that you can buy a can of lager for 20p when a bottle of water will cost ten times that much."

The plans would effectively end buy-one-get-one free offers for supermarket drink and substantially raise the price of spirits.

What fecking can of strong lager can you buy for 20 fecking pence? You might be able to buy some really weak cheap crap that you'd have to drink 60 to get p155ed at that price but 20p for a decent can of lager? I've never seen anything even remotely at price level apart from maybe the really cheap stuff which is around 1%.

I do wish when they make statements like this the presenters would ask what lager can be bought for this.

As for buy one get one free I've never seen that offered on any lager has anyone come across it?

[tinker]

What fecking can of strong lager can you buy for 20 fecking pence? You might be able to buy some really weak cheap crap that you'd have to drink 60 to get p155ed at that price but 20p for a decent can of lager? I've never seen anything even remotely at price level apart from maybe the really cheap stuff which is around 1%.

I do wish when they make statements like this the presenters would ask what lager can be bought for this.

As for buy one get one free I've never seen that offered on any lager has anyone come across it?

Quite. As ever our useless, 'on message' so-called journalists and media presenters, allow the lies and dodgy facts to perpetuate.

Everything is rising, whilst budgets are being squeezed. The blame can be laid squarely at politicians of all main parties whose continued malice, ignorance and incompetence hits us hard, yet fails to address the more important issues that we might actually care about.

Why shouldn't people enjoy are drink, or be able to pick up a special offer at the supermarket. If drink in pubs hadn't been taxed into oblivion - or the sites turned into leveraged investment opportunities - then perhaps more pubs would be able to survive and we could social there instead of , erm... here.

Edited November 28, 2012 by tinker

[blackgoose]

First they will charge more for the parking places. Then they will start complaining that certain disadvantaged groups cannot afford to drive. Then they will tax the rest of us more to pay for said group to have the right to park there while we walk.

[Ah-so]

Is it not the case that about 25% of tobacco smoked in the SE has been imported/smuggled from Europe? Surely we will just see more booze cruises.

[Snafu]

******ing left wing piece of shit environmental piece of whoring drivel.

[Democorruptcy]

The NHS spending is at the core of this.

As we're all forced to pay for it and health care is delivered (largely) without question, there is a huge free rider problem.

Rock climbers are more likely to use their services, as are people with dangerous jobs. So too are druggies, alcoholics, fat people etc.

A sane and peaceful solution would be to allow the NHS to reduce the subscription costs for those who are at low risk. This would encourage a healthy lifestyle.

The statist solution is to keep NHS subscription costs fixed, then threaten people more, so that they adopt (and continue with) a healthy lifestyle. Even if you have a healthy lifestyle, it doesn't mean you can escape the threats either (hint: the drink prices are still artificially high, no matter how often you buy them).

The NHS budget has gone on huge pay rises and PFI.

You see these NHS experts on TV proclaiming what a good idea it is to make poorer people pay more for alcohol. Meanwhile they drain so much of our taxes via the NHS gravy train that they can afford to drink what they want. It seems to me that they want the government to raise taxes on alcohol "to help people" so they can so they can keep helping themselves, as they are paid from our taxes.

If a minimum price for alcohol resulted in less NHS use, are these experts going to take a pay cut because there would be less for them to do?

[durhamborn]

Charging more doesn't usually end up with the results they want and always has unintended consequences. Charge more for parking and watch the high street die while online shopping goes up. Charge more for alchohol and home brewing will rocket giving even less revenue all round

Somietimes I really think these people are as thick as 2 short planks!

Yes but they were hoping wages would go up as well to inflate the debt away,,they forgot our borders are so open a blind snail could finds its way here and that we signed up to the globalisation cult.

In 2008 the banks and the over leveraged were skint,the great plan has made sure now everyone is skint,

Our local council is complaining our high street is dieing,the same meeting they decided to put up parking charges to pay for "traffic control officers".

Then again the councils only care about one thing,,fleecing as much money as possible to pay for their pensions.

The big 4 supermarkets are all here and dead,never seen them as empty,nobody is even dumping the trolleys in the river anymore,,Aldi though is booming,always packed out.

[Downside]

You would think that doing the exact opposite of what they are suggesting would be a better policy, make parking free then more people are likely to go to the shops and buy stuff which increases tax revenue. Make booze dirt cheap, people then get smashed and make stupid decisions like buying stuff they don't need (ok most of it is kebabs and burgers but its till money in the economy).

The only downside would be an increase in drunken A and E visits but by introducing a small fee for anyone who injures themselves through their own stupidity after drinking should make up for that.

I know this is impossibly far fetched buts just an idea.

Edited November 28, 2012 by Downside

[winkie]

You would think that doing the exact opposite of what they are suggesting would be a better policy, make parking free then more people are likely to go to the shops and buy stuff which increases tax revenue. Make booze dirt cheap, people then get smashed and make stupid decisions like buying stuff they don't need (ok most of it is kebabs and burgers but its till money in the economy).

The only downside would be an increase in drunken A and E visits but by introducing a small fee for anyone who injures themselves through their own stupidity after drinking should make up for that.

I know this is impossibly far fetched buts just an idea.

Far better idea......charge the guilty not the innocent........£80 is the going rate the police charge, why not the HNS?

[Traktion]

The NHS budget has gone on huge pay rises and PFI.

You see these NHS experts on TV proclaiming what a good idea it is to make poorer people pay more for alcohol. Meanwhile they drain so much of our taxes via the NHS gravy train that they can afford to drink what they want. It seems to me that they want the government to raise taxes on alcohol "to help people" so they can so they can keep helping themselves, as they are paid from our taxes.

If a minimum price for alcohol resulted in less NHS use, are these experts going to take a pay cut because there would be less for them to do?

If there was competition, they would be driven to increase efficiency by market forces. This would likely lead to optimum use of staff and their wages.