A LESSON IN WASTING OUR TAXES
THE DAILY EXPRESS Friday July 31 2015
With the date for our tax returns to be submitted looming in the next few months allowing the Government to remove large sums from our pockets, it has got me wondering where all the money goes to. Well our newspaper report by Frederick Forsyth does not disappoint, because in it he enlightens us with some little known facts.
The Liberal Democrats did a deal in 2013 called The Green Deal whilst they were in power, joined at the hip, as they were, with the Conservative Party. We were informed sometime later that the deal was a monumental flop and had been shelved.
The idea, sold to the public as a win-win scheme, was that gullible folk would take out loans to upgrade the insulation of their homes, fit new energy-efficient boilers and seal draughts, with a promise that the savings on energy bills would reimburse them.
If you know anything about *THE SOUTH SEA BUBBLE, this particular deal is up there with it. It was riddled with scams and swindles but it made the Green Deal Finance Company an eye watering £59 million profit. Unsurprisingly, it also had a lot to do with a particular Lib Dem minister who was in charge of climate control. So much for squeaky clean leadership!
In another revelation, the Government signed a cheque for £500 million of our money and gave it to the Swiss-Based Global Fund, simply because they had that kind of money on their books only days before the expiry date to meet our Prime Minister’s obsession with giving away billions in foreign aid.
Just by the way, The Global Fund has 600 employees with an average salary of £130,000 per year, so you may well ask what the money will be spent on?
The Global Fund are trying to combat Malaria, (or so they say) by shipping out mosquito nets to plagued countries, but the trouble is that the locals use the nets as wedding dresses and to strain their rice. Someone has even spotted them using the nets to catch fish.
Another report which caught my eye was the great excitement which surrounded the discovery of Earth 2 or to give it its proper name – KEPLAR 452b, on July 23 2015.
It is known as an Exoplanet. What is an Exoplanet? – I hear you ask. Well it is a planet beyond our own solar system, and is one of many Earth-like planets known to date. Here comes the tricky bit – this planet is about 1,400 light-years away from the Solar System and travelling at about 59,000 km/h or 37,000 mph, it would take us, depending on traffic conditions, approximately 26 million years to get there. Yes, you have read correctly – 26 million years!
Now you will have to forgive me if I display a lack of imagination and excitement, but I am trying desperately to supress the urge to scream at the complete and utter waste of money this has incurred. We have hungry people, we have sick people, we have homeless people, we have dying children, not to mention many millions of people, in our own country, who would have benefitted greatly if even 20% of the money was spent on their plights, rather than sending a camera to film the remote chance that there may be a pond on Keplar. What is wrong with this world?
I think the answer to this question lies in the fact that greed is at the bottom of most, if not all, of the world’s problems, and the Bible is not wrong when it tells us that:
For the love of money is the root of all evil: which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows.
1 Timothy 6:10
He that loveth silver shall not be satisfied with silver; nor he that loveth abundance with increase: this is also vanity.
Ecclesiastes 5:10
Yes, many, many sorrows indeed!
*THE SOUTH SEA BUBBLE – All through history, one subject appears again and again. How to make a lot of money quickly! In 1720 the whole of England became involved with what has since become known as The South Sea Bubble. In return for a loan of £7 million to finance the war against France, the House of Lords passed the South Sea Bill, which allowed the South Sea Company a monopoly in trade with South America. The company underwrote the English National Debt, which stood at £30 million, on a promise of 5% interest from the Government.
Shares immediately rose to 10 times their value, speculation ran wild and all sorts of companies, some lunatic, some fraudulent or just optimistic were launched. The country went wild, stocks increased in all these and other ‘dodgy’ schemes, and huge fortunes were made. Then the ‘bubble’ in London burst!
The stocks crashed and people all over the country lost all of their money. Thousands of people became destitute almost overnight. The Clergy, Bishops and the Gentry lost their life savings; the whole country suffered a catastrophic loss of money and property.
Suicides became a daily occurrence. The gullible mob whose innate greed had lain behind this mass hysteria for wealth, demanded vengeance. The Postmaster General took poison and his son, who was the Secretary of State, avoided disaster by fortuitously contracting smallpox and died! Later on the South Sea Company Directors were arrested and their estates forfeited.
We read about the South Sea Bubble today and wonder how so many people got involved in such a dubious undertaking. But it must be said, if something similar was to be launched today, who would not be tempted at the thought of a great deal of easy money!
It would appear that this old Russian maxim has had little effect on man’s greed for easy gain.
It is best to keep one eye on the past
and the other on where you are going.
Rather than both on where you have come from
and be blind on where you are heading.