Recession Time

Well finally Mr Brown is admitting we’re heading on into a recession following the lead of Mervyn King the head cheese for the Bank Of England.

Here are just a few radical ideas for our Government to save money and avert the current situation we’re heading for:

The current annual salary for an MP is £61,820. In addition, MPs receive allowances to cover the costs of running an office and employing staff, having somewhere to live in London and in their constituency, and travelling between Parliament and their constituency.

Taken from: http://www.parliament.uk/about/how/members/pay_mps.cfm

Ok so lets start making some cuts to help dodge the recession or at least ease the pressure on the public and lets cut some of those additional allowances, lets also have those MP’s give back, take a pay cut to £40k or £30k that’s more than enough to live on whilst the public are suffering to make ends meet on crappy £9k jobs, well if they have a job.

MP’d didn’t help with their recent second homes and extra cash for all the interior and such so give those second homes back to the public, cut the dead meat away and you don’t need big cars.

According to a document also downloaded from this website, Mr Brown earns some  £189k per year with others like the Speaker earning £138,724. Most of these Salaries could be cut by up to 75% saving the tax payer some money, easing our living costs, fuel costs and so on. Surely the Prime minister could live on £70k a year?

Government Pay – PDF file from the above site.

These don’t have to be permanent changes but should take affect to help our economy save money until we’re in the clear again.

Companies announcing high profit margins like British Gas, First (Bus) and others should either be forced to lower their prices to help the public or should be penalised for imposing high prices on us when they don’t have to, this money would then go back to the economy.  The Price of oil has recently dropped a hell of an amount but the reduction we pay for petrol doesn’t reflect this change, the price for us shot up, it should shoot down also.

Stop unessential road maintenance, There is a perfectly fine road near us that seems to be dug up every year, why? It would be cheaper for someone to asses if a road really does need doing once a year or not, don’t just blow money on it because you can.

Remember you work for us, it shouldn’t be the other way round! So we shouldn’t suffer for your lifestyle.

I’m all for charity, that’s something that starts at home. So stop throwing all that money and aid to other countries first, let the public decide if they want to donate don’t just use the funds because look at what all that money could of done right now. I’m not saying stop all together but just to be more conservative and Remember we also have poor, homeless, and dying people who can’t afford to live.

I’m not being heartless here, but if we can’t look after our own and then our country falls to pieces who will give these other poorer countries the money and aid? No one because we won’t be able to.

Red Nose and other fantastic charities allow the public to choose if they want to donate, let them carry on the good work.

Take the easy FREE ride away from illegal immigrants, either send them home or make them work to live here rather than handing it to them on a plate. And if there are immigrants in this country that want to work then let them, I have two friends that live here and they are not allowed to be employed they have to be self employed which is something to do with the visa or what ever it’s called that allows them to live in this country, because of this it can sometimes be hard for them to find work unless the employer is happy to pay them as a self employed person.

Prisons is another big waste, stop giving inmates such as easy ride. If they want a TV, a Playstation, or any other perks then make them work for it, don’t give them a free ride, free food, free accommodation.

An idea would be for the prison service to be like a business, make the inmates work, perhaps make blankets for the old and poor, grow and farm food which could be sold to Tesco’s, ASDA’s or even better, smaller businesses at a price which would let them compete with the bigger chains and still make a healthy profit because remember no work force to pay, the inmates are working for their wrongs and to get perks in addition to paying for the accommodation and staff needed to guard them.

For a days work the inmate could earn some privileges temporary or permanent. Inmates could do this in secure environments with money generated from selling products used to fund the prison system and help the public.

Shortlist:

PM Salary Cut.

MP Salary Cut.

Force energy companies with high profit to reduce costs and compensate the public or penalise them for unreasonable pricing.

Force other essential companies such as transport companies to reduce their costs for the public (based on high net profits and thus not penalising the small business and sole traders).

Stop thieving from the public with excessive speed camera’s, use speed camera’s to make a difference not to charge a fortune, i.e. put them where they are needed to reduce speed and accidents not just to make a quick buck. Take action on repeat offenders obviously if a fine isn’t a deterrent then do something that is, to protect life.

Stop thieving from the public with traffic wardens, reduce the cost of tickets, often these penalties hit the families and not the rich.

Reduce the amount of public money spent on foreign aid efforts, temporarily at least.

Either send illegal immigrants home or make them work to live here, thus giving back to the UK and not just taking.

Make prison inmates work for their privileges, they could produce products to help small businesses make profit, or help the poor and elderly live.

Summary:

The money saved on these few things alone may not steer our Country away from recession completely but it would most certainly ease the pressure and those monies could be used for the people and families that really need it.

Some of these could easily be done straight away and only have to be temporary whist we ensure our country stays on it’s feet.

Others could be more permanent and would maybe take a little more time to provision but still there are ways to make money and save money in addition to making costly services pay for there own.

There are no easy over night fixes and I realise this, but we need to look at trimming the fat and building the muscle that makes our nation, the UK, what it is.

A conclusive list of ideas and ways to trim the fat whilst saving money it isn’t, but a starting point it is!

Another Note:

Now that the public own shares in some major banks I’m hoping to see them starting to work for us and not just for themselves, they do of course have to stay profitable but they could still reduce the cost of such things like being overdrawn for a day, stop charging £20 to £40 for a letter when you do go over drawn, by charging those that don’t have the money your simple throwing them further into debt and poverty, this doesn’t help anyone, and you may loose a customer or even worse kill a customer.

Consider allowing a customer a grace period of maybe ten days, send them a £2 letter informing them they have X days to fix the balance and then they will be charged further, but give them the option to speak with a human because a few days may not be enough for someone who is getting close to financial ruin.

In the past I’ve had problems where I was expecting payment which arrived a moment or two late and a Direct Debit going out which sent me into Zero’s with a £30 charge for a matter of hours.

I know something was going through High Courts about this recently, I’ll be honest in saying I haven’t followed it much but I believe a High Court ruled that Office of Fair Trading (OFT) could decide on if the fee’s charged are fair or not. If something has changed on how they can charge then something positive is happening but if not then it’s now time for the Banks to do something because it’s right and helps people.

Well this was only going to be a short blog which turned out to be a little long so I’ll stop here for now, but will say there are other things the government and we could all be looking at to keep the country afloat