Rip off britain

[ginsambo]

I'm Italian..
..fuggums.

I thought you were...American... Damn if you guys love the old country so much come and live here and we'll all move out there. No problems, and I get to legally buy myself a full auto AK47 from Wallmart and can take my Ford Transit with me. And I won't get sent down for murder if I break a burglar's fingernail. And the temperature may even get above 17 degrees Celcius for more than two hours in the summer. Being English is something nobody admits to. I bet a load of you are.


Gonna try the 'Replacement, not for resale' thing though with USPS. thanks for the tip. Obviously gone are the days where anything for personal use slipped under the radar in the UK. We owe everyone but ourselves too much money apparently. Don't see the Ministers of Parliament economizing or struggling to get by though...or the bankers for that matter.

[Nightbat]

Think I'II immigrant to Greece. they are all feckless and laxy and retire at 40 with an easy life....

please, I'm not platinum member anymore, I can't start a political rant

The only thing I must state is that I already can't retire ANY earlier than 67 because of the past crisis, while those goddamn leeches are now protesting about working untill they're 63, while they had their ass bailed out with 160 (!) BILLION euros they don't even deserve

I wrote a longer reply before this one, but replaced it because it got out of hand
"Pissed beyond civil reasoning" would have been a good description for it

*bows out*

[rjohnstone]

I thought you were...American... Damn if you guys love the old country so much come and live here and we'll all move out there. No problems, and I get to legally buy myself a full auto AK47 from Wallmart and can take my Ford Transit with me. And I won't get sent down for murder if I break a burglar's fingernail. And the temperature may even get above 17 degrees Celcius for more than two hours in the summer. Being English is something nobody admits to. I bet a load of you are.

Sorry... contrary to the BS media reports, you still can't buy full autos at Walmart.
The feds frown on those things. But you can pick up some nice semi-autos that are just as fun.
You want a full auto, you have to jump through hoops, pay a huge tax and hope your local sheriff approves the purchase. That is after you sit on your ass for 6 to 12 months waiting for your background check to clear.

[wilkinsi]

Well, now you know why I've given up buying guitars from USA. UK Customs can't do simple maths either. Cockroaches, the lot of them.

[horns666]

I'm Italian Americano..Pablo! My grandbros and grandbrosallinas are from Italy!!

Well in my country ..rabble..rabble, and your country is a dick!!

who cares...fuggums..

[Rsmacker]

Well, now you know why I've given up buying guitars from USA. UK Customs can't do simple maths either. Cockroaches, the lot of them.

And you know the best of it? The last itme I went to pick up a guitar from C&E, totally in the dark as to how much I was going to have to fork out, the staff seemed to be all um, "heavily tanned". Not so long ago those fuckers were picking tea for my grandad, now they are making ME jump through hoops in MY country.

Make sure you write to your MP and tell him he's a cunt. I do, regularly (picking names out of the phone book to sign it).

Oh, and vote for Uncle Nick and the BNP. (Or, keep on voting for the same old same old and keep getting fucked.)

[Rsmacker]

Hmmmm, you could always try the Guy Fawkes approach...

[horns666]

OH oh..Wilksbro and 'Smaker is here..nice!


.......




..it's my kid's birthday!

[Rsmacker]

Here's a tip that works for me here, it's worth a shot... Instead of putting "gift" on the package, put "Replacement, not for resale".

Makes no difference, it's the value of the item which you pay duty on. If you haven't got a value, HMC&E will impound it and one of their officers will decide how much the item is worth for you. Anything worth more than a couple of hundred quid (can't recall the figure but up until recently it was about £39!) that has been imported, no matter what you intend to do with it, or where it came from, incurs a duty.

[ginsambo]

Well its just been announced that the bosses of Britains top 100 FTSE companies have awarded themselves a 49% pay rise on average this year. Meanwhile 99 of these companies pay no corporation tax as they are based n tax havens. Meanwhile it will soon be announced that this quarter will offically see the UK slip into recession again. Utility bills have gone up 200%, due to there only being 6 providers, most of which are foreign owned, because the government sold off the infrastructure years ago and flat refuses to regulate them. Car and van insurance which is another unregulated proivate sector industry which, ny law we must all pay to, has gone up another 500%, the average being around £2000 a year. The rail network, which the government sold off years ago will see fares rise by around 600%, even though you can't get a seat and they are packed beyond capacity. Wages are going down, if you still have a job. Taxes are still going up and fuel is still sky high and rising, despite the wholesale prices falling massively and the government plan to put more duty on fuel come January and road tax will also rise in line with the 6% inflation. The money and heart is being sucked out of this country.

It makes you puke. It is obvious that the little guy is having to pick up the pieces and pay for the elites mistakes, yet they still want to raise taxes. We need a model more like the american one. I mean no one would want to see the NHS get privatised, which successive governments have been trying to do for years. But honestly the reality is that this is overstretched and if you are poor and cvannot afford to heat your home, you will die this winter, as they have reduced the winter fuel payments for the elderly, whilst the unregulated private utility industry mounts up record profits again this year, 50% up. But high taxes are killing the very people who support the economy.

I do write to my MP, then the Party whip goes around in Parliament and tells him if he doesn't vote on side he will get kicked off the bench and loose his financial perks.

Yeah the USA thinks of the UK as a socialist superstate, but the reality is its more like living under Stalin, where we are all equal but some are more equal than others, cream huge bonuses at our expense and don't pay any taxes.

Just imagine having to pay to private industries that are monopolised, corrupt and unregulated and which put their prices up 300% year on year either by law, or out of necessity for survival. You either have competitive free market capitalism, or socialism, you don't have this corrupted, on the take socialist-capitalism that we have over here, where the poor get poorer and the rich do less for more and we all must pay the company Ceos huge bonuses by law and what with utility and fuel companies making record profits whilst MP's are still on the take and living in luxury they want to scrap employers rights, so we can work for less without any days off ever seven days a week and be fired whenever they want rid of us with no comeback. It is an outrage. The Victorians did more for Britain than these feckers.

Al I do know is that they are pulling out all the stops to feck us over.

Anyway, happy Birthday to your kids Horns, unfortunately I can't read Brail.

Yeah its hard being Highland Scottish, originally from Ireland, originally from Scandinavia upon a time in the 6th century, possibly originally from outer space, Australian, Welsh, Neandertile - English. Feck that man, I'm English and proud! Stupidly probably. Think I'd be better off emigrating. Bunch of factory farmed chickens that have become. Just wish the people at customs and excise were also.

And I'm fed up of the pro government regime propaganda on the BBC against china and places that previously were decent countries with no credit rating, who looked after their people and cracked down on terrorists like Libya...now they are becoming a fragmented bunch of vigilantes who are killing each other with mass geneocide like every other country we have 'liberated'. Celebrating in parading Gadaffi's dead body around like some savage victory token and showing torture videos on the BBC news at 7:30pm before the watershed so the kids can have eternal nightmares and they can justify the nato bombing of civilians. Hell, petrol and deisel prices are STILL going up....so where are the benefits? Oh yeah, the 49% pay rise for the CEO's and executives....I forgot. Well worth destroying a country for. Great job, crusading nato. And now they talk of population control, its enough to make you beleive in the new world order. Its not the population that is the problem, its the Stalinist elite.

Damn at leat the chinese won't allow private pharmaceutocal copyrights. Oh well, they be taking over soon with a bit of luck. Sooner the better at this rate.

It wouldn't matter, I'd let it all lie, if the tax wasn't so high on guitars imported from the USA...think I'm gonna write to my MP and tell him he's a cunt!

Meanwhile the other headline of the day 'Cases of children suffering from rickets soars' you couldn't make it up.

[wilkinsi]

I suppose one way would be to "declare a lower value", but I imagine the customs pigs would figure it out and fine both sender and recipient, probably dish out criminal proceedings too. Ironic. UK Customs are the fucking criminals, not us. Fucking pigs, money eating oinkus rufeus POS pigs.

[Endrik]

Does Britain has also a high tax on self-esteem? From Henry VIII and Sid Vicious to little whiney girls who want to sit on the lap of yank daddy and get his approval. No wonder why many continentals call that rainy island Amerika II.

[Evol]

Makes no difference, it's the value of the item which you pay duty on. If you haven't got a value, HMC&E will impound it and one of their officers will decide how much the item is worth for you. Anything worth more than a couple of hundred quid (can't recall the figure but up until recently it was about £39!) that has been imported, no matter what you intend to do with it, or where it came from, incurs a duty.

So, if you send something back for warranty work you have to pay again? :think:

[ginsambo]

Does Britain has also a high tax on self-esteem? From Henry VIII and Sid Vicious to little whiney girls who want to sit on the lap of yank daddy and get his approval. No wonder why many continentals call that rainy island Amerika II.

Its more a case of not being able to breathe without permission from the big brother, nanny superstate. Everything, including your personal life is legislated against, taxed and regulated. If you want to know how Brits really are, get on the motorway or a main road in the car, or go out on a Friday night to a club, or go to a concert. Brits rock harder than any other nation on earth -ask any band - and that is a fact! But it is unfortunately a result of years of tugging our furlocks to aristocracy, but now its the nouveux riche aristocracy as well, that is what we have adopted from you guys. Its their only freedom and all the repression comes out, why do you think we are all alcoholics and take shit loads of drugs and teenage pregnacies are so high? Years of being powerless to do anything about the regime and putting up with the weather! It scares the hell out of most Americans...

A comedian summed the British psyche up in a nutshell. When chatting up women, British blokes must have at least 12 pints of Stella Artois and seven shots first, girls maybe 14 pints. It usually involves a load of puke and they will probably have all manner of sex a few minutes later after meeting and after half an hour forget who the hell each other are and continue on their merry way. An American chats a girl up politely and respectfully, completely sober, talks sense, compliments her and charms the hell out of her, in the middle of the day in broad daylight the JCPennys..then they date...then they have great sex. By this time the average British guy has scored twenty chicks, although can probably only remember one of them. Anyway, even if we tryed that technique, sober in broad daylight, the girl would cry rape straight away, just by trying to talk to her about the weather. Yeah its a weird fucked up hypocritical country. Women have the power and we all lack confidence from years of being brow beaten. British girls will eat you alive and British guys and girls don't need guns to stop them from killing each other on the streets every weekend because someone looked at them the 'Wrong' way.

The same comedian compares US porn to UK porn, and I reckon that is a good indicator of the mindset of a nation. US porn is (Mostly) all glamerous and ALL the girls look the same, have the same bleached blonde air, loads of makeup and conform to type. In the UK, the translation is some dodgy camerawork filming some low tech dogging behind a skip in the drisel. Its class arthouse cinema!

The main difference, however in the psyche of your average British guy, compared to your average New World American or Australian guy is that the American or Austrailan thinks that we are all in this together, as a nation of equals and that acheiving anything is possible if you put you mind to it. In the UK, we know this is damn well not true, because it has always been a case of 'Them' and 'Us' you know damn well that, even if you try your damnest you will only reach a certain level of money or status, because the glass ceilings will come down on you as you never went to the right school to make the connections or weren't born with a silver spoon or have a family crest and your blood runs red rather than blue.

The irony is however that in reality, in the USA, the super noveux riche aristocracy live on a different planet, don't pay any tax and have caused all the currrent problems and are impossible to break into, whilst everyone slog 's on in the daily grind all the same, and Australia is still living in Victoria times and most suburban 'Australian Club' Australians are becoming bigger whingers or more money/housing obsessed than the Brits ever were. In reality Britain is probably a lot more tolerant, fair and progressive and full of equal opportunities for all than America or Australia put together. But still the psyche lives on, it is hard to change and that is what makes a nation what it is. The government and big business takes advantage of that and it needs to change and the courrupted capitalist model is global and one of the same.

Also to dispell another myth, this spring we went almost four months without a single drop of rain. Total drought! Fucked crops and growers up something special. How is that for New Britain!....of course its raining everyday now but...

I think it is the same with a lot of countries, if you turn them on their head and analyse them objectively, like for like, as from the point of view of your average joe. None of us are as free as the propagandist superstates would want us to feel, and the Axis of evil, isn't all its cracked up to be. 99% of people all round the world have one thing in common, valuing family and community. Its the powers that be that feck it up for everyone and create these myths and conquer and divide. One thing is for sure though, and we got this from Uncle Sam....working seventy hours+, seven days a week as the norm, just to be able to afford to survive. We never used to be like that. A man worked hard and had his leisure time. Shops and garages were closed on Wednesday afternoons and on Sundays and for aroundtwo weeks at Christmas you couldn't buy a packet of cigarettes as the stores were all closed. Now everything is 24hr and you get fired for not be able to do unpaid overtime at a moments notice. If you look at how our economies work these days, we are not so different from communist China, where they also work seven days, just to survive....but they have long drawn out tea breaks and socialist policies for all. Us guys, we eat whilst we are working. I yearn for the days when you could graft an honest weeks work and afford a house, to support your family and take a holiday every year, but those days are over. All those benefits have been critically analysed, packaged up and taken away from your average working man, so that the members of the Board can get their sickening 50% pay rise year on year, whilst the rest of us find it harder to afford to the basics such as food, heating fuel and shelter. We now live in completely moraless times where the more selfish you are, the more you are rewarded.

People over here now blame the Greeks for the current crisis and the feckless workshy greeks who 'Retire early' have been scapegoated. I blame the bankers who borrowed money at 1% interest and then loaned it out at 5-6% interest. The Greeks are no different to you or I. Did you know that after WWII, Germany had the biggest worldwide debt ever...and they never paid it back, it was written off, they say that if they started to pay it back it would set a precedent so it is bad for the economy. Now they have the strongest economy in Europe and dictate what Greece should do. Kind of like the pot calling the Kettle black. Hell the UK only just finished off paying back it WWII loan to the USA a few years before we started taking out massive loans with the Chinese and the Russians. Some thanks for your industrial might and entering the world wars and three and two years late respectively.... Damn, it was your Great Depression and consequent market failure of German exports that partly catalysed WW2 in the first place...

I don't know how the warranty situation checks out exactly, but I would imagine that the Duty and VAT is paid upfront by the shop, who is VAT registered and then they claim it back at the end of the tax year.

[Endrik]

Nah, what I mean is that people in every single country complain about their government, it's just that in recent years many Brits address their complains specifically to usamericans like you did here. And when they say they want to leave, the destination is usually former anglo-centric colonies like there's no other place on earth. Talk about low self-esteem. Obsession over yank tv shows and fast food have made you politically illiterate and demagogic. Your Stalinist remark is just one example of this. My grandfather who was in gulags during Stalinism would have gotten a real kick out of this rubbish.

I live in the least regulated western country in the northern hemisphere (if you count out small, rich tax-heavens like Luxembourg, Switzerland, Monaco and Liechtenstein) and we have the highest food prizes in Europe while the wages are some of the smallest. A brit alcoholic over here would be a modest drinker and a cheerful chap compared to the local vodka indulging and suicidal average folk. Hey the taxes are low but everything else is too, infrastructure, culture, food quality etc. But it's nothing, I've heard that in Mongolia the taxes are really low... no better yet... Somalia.... there's no evil government getting in your way, you don't have to pay a thing to no one and can "protect yourself" with the latest heat seeking missiles if you want.