Bitcoin Forum

Matter of time till we see wealth seizures in Western Europe
The leverage is just unsustainable

Taxes will go up regardless of of how many bank accounts David Cameron raids, capital flight will begin once the government decides it can take everything people own and Bitcoin, Gold, Silver will all go through the roof as well as other commodities.

My advice to the British: Convert all your hard cash to Bitcoins and move to some sane country (i.e not to France). At the moment, the most viable options in the Europe are Russia, Belarus, Switzerland and Andorra. If you own any real estate, don't think that you are untouchable. They will take away our bullion and real estate also.

Dodgy Dave can go fuck himself, guaranteed none of his tax-evading toff mates will have their accounts raided.

We need to vote this shower of shit out at the next election

You are forgetting that if the government can steal our cash stored in the savings accounts, then nothing prevents them from stealing our gold and bullion also, which is stored in the bank lockers. The only thing which they can't steal is... off course Bitcoins.

And that is the main reason why we shouldn't let governments legiferate bitcoin.

Vote Labour.

Yes, they're not perfect, but no-one is and furthermore no-one can be. Pick any one of the ten-a-penny idealistic small parties in the country - if they ever wanted to gain enough supporters to run the country (and they don't), they would have to compromise and U-turn every bit as much as the big parties at the top. If you still think your 'pure' ballot would be spoiled by ever voting for a party that represents anything but 100% of your opinions and no-one else's, consider this: politicians LOVE low turnouts. Low turnouts mean that they can spend more and more of their resources courting a handful of swing voters in the centre who decide the election.

The Blairite/Thatcherite wing of the Labour party are in decline for the first time in 20 years. Ed Milliband may be a piss-poor presenter, but his policies are solid, with a consistent theme of forcing markets to work for ordinary people. The Labour party's core values have always been about standing up for ordinary working people - of course they've made mistakes, but that has to be preferable to the Tories, whose explicit goal is to help the wealthy maintain their wealth and enrich themselves further.

The Tory party started out as a broad coalition opposing voting rights for non-landowners and fighting for more tax money to go to the nobility, but now they can disguise their goals as offering people "freedom from government" and "lower taxes", not mentioning the fact that despite their best efforts, the government still broadly protects workers from the whims of the rich, who also still pay the most tax. Labour was founded by working people and even today its (admittedly posh, policy-wonk) leaders are elected by working people. Labour fought for and won the majority of workers' rights, the NHS, free education, social housing, the minimum wage, racial, sexual and religious equality, all of which were opposed tooth and nail by the Tories.

Even if it's just a least-worst calculation, please vote. If your second or third-worst party is going to get in anyway, they won't get any more power from your vote. On the other hand, if your vote makes the difference then you've prevented the worst party from getting in and bought a small piece of negotiating power to try to change the party that now wants to keep your vote.


This problem, like it or not, can only be solved internationally. If the UK unilaterally forces the thieving bastards to pay all the tax they owe, on time, no exceptions, then the majority will move and we lose the tax that they do pay, while the US or Switzerland gets it instead. The only real solution is an international treaty between the EU, US, Aus etc. promising to all crack down at the same time, meaning that the rich can either pay up or move to Dubai where it's illegal to drink alcohol and fornicate, or Beijing where they can be arrested for criticising the government. No single UK government can make this happen on their own, but you can bet that Ed Milliband would if he could. Would the Tories?

I'd like to know what policies justify the Green Party's position.

Not a snarky reply, genuinely interested.

Miliband has committed to harsh restrictions on zero-hours contracts, including the automatic right to a full-time contract after 6 months. He has also pledged to provide state-funded work for the long-term unemployed, and end the ridiculous "workfare" scheme rewarding companies for not hiring He has pledged more thorough investigation and prosecution of employers not paying the minimum wage. He has promised controls on the rental and energy markets to reduce the cost of living for average people.

He hasn't pledged to roll back any of the privatisations in the NHS introduced by Blair, but he certainly doesn't want any more, and he will not move towards ending the universal healthcare model - not even the Tories would dare to do that with public opinion the way it is, their policy is to intentionally degrade the quality of service in the NHS until people stop liking it so much!

Under a Labour government there will still be inequality and injustice, yes. Flow of wealth from the poor to the rich is the natural state of being for capitalism (and humanity) but under a Labour government it will not be intentional or deliberate, and they will work to stem the flow - they have pledged to reintroduce the 50% rate of tax, among other measures - but they must make compromises in order to be elected, which is something the Green party has no ambition or ability to do.

This is the first chance of a government of truly decent people and policy for a very long time.

Interestingly, this is a precise example of why we should have introduced AV - it allows people to vote for their principles and still stop The Bastards™ from getting in. Under that system, I would vote 1. Green, 2. Labour, 3. LD.

The silver lining of UKIP's rise in popularity for me is the fact that a significant proportion of the Tories who campaigned against AV for short-term gain are now kicking themselves.

Vote Labour.

To be honest, I want government ministers to be good at governance. Direct experience of the lives of average people is an excellent teacher of empathy and compassion, but it takes more than that to be a good leader. I want my politicians to have a good understanding of law, economics, administration and diplomacy - best learned by university study followed by as much experience as a junior minister or shadow as possible. I also want them to be able to win elections, to be charismatic and good at rhetoric. Clement Attlee was part of the elite - he was the son of a solicitor, went to Oxford before training to become a lawyer and spent a few years working for various political/economist types before going into politics himself. He never experienced real economic hardship personally, but became one of the greatest prime ministers in history, and did more to alleviate poverty than any British politician since.

I share your disillusionment in a lot of ways, but I really believe Ed Miliband represents a change.

To add some commonsense:

If a certain proportion of the population don't pay the taxes they owe, everyone else has to pay more to ensure the same total amount of tax revenue.
That isn't particularly complicated.

Where can they be acquired?

Go post in a libertarian thread.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/personalfinance/10819885/David-Cameron-Taxes-will-rise-unless-we-can-raid-bank-accounts.html

It's like Cyprus, only with a British accent.

What Cameron is suggesting is that the government should be able to target people who owe tax money and take money from their accounts.

Well.. if this is true, then I don't have anything against Cameron or this measure. He is just collecting the tax arrears and not robbing anyone as the Cypriots did over there.

Think about it harder. His suggestion is a horrible idea. It opens up an avenue of abuse of unprecedented power. There should always be a presumption of innocence, and if the government wants to take something they should be able to prove that you are guilty, not take the money and then make you prove you are innocent to get it back.

Lol. Have you read this thread?

Potential side effects. People cash can be frozen without court order if they happen to support opposition party and so on and on. And then person have to go to court with free lawyer, as money are frozen, and try to argue for months to have money released.

Think about it harder. His suggestion is a horrible idea. It opens up an avenue of abuse of unprecedented power. There should always be a presumption of innocence, and if the government wants to take something they should be able to prove that you are guilty, not take the money and then make you prove you are innocent to get it back.

This is completely unlike what happened in Cyprus.

In Cyprus, the regime decided that people owed them money and that they should be able to remove it at will from their bank account.

In the UK, if the regime decides that you owe them money, they will be able to remove it at will from your bank account.

They were both for taxation. They were both theft.

I agree. Only the courts should be having that sort of power.... not the government.

In Cyprus, the banks became insolvent, and customer deposits took a haircut to refinance them. For customers who had done nothing wrong.
In the UK, if you owe taxes, and have refused to pay them after being contacted several times, and you have enough money to pay, they will take what you owe.

They are more similar than you care to admit. They both represent wealth confiscation. They are both non-voluntary. Both confiscations occur under the banners of necessity and state-sanctioned legitimacy.

If a person owes taxes, and have the money in their bank account, gov should be allowed to take the money out of his account, instead of wasting time and money in courts or raising taxes.

In one case there is a debt owed that is being collected. In the other there wasn't.

One is targeted to just those who actually owe debts. The other wasn't.

Btw, the equivalent US powers are massively more draconian: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tax_levies

And if you refuse to pay tax because you feel that funding the state is morally repugnant?

Or are you opposed to non-violent, civil disobedience?

Yes, they are similar in that they are both taxes.

Everyone understands that you view all taxation as equally bad, that any forcible redistribution of wealth whatsoever is wrong.

This is literally the most extreme view it is possible to have on the matter, and the vast majority of people don't agree.

As most people understand, some taxes are worse than others.

In Cyprus, they imposed a one-off, regressive, shock tax for which no-one voted, that was automatically confiscated from people's savings.

In the UK, the proposal is to automatically take money for (relatively) fair, progressive taxes that have been imposed and revised by various parliaments of elected representatives, on which parties have won and lost elections, that are consistently applied, and the money is only taken if you have repeatedly failed to pay on your own, and you have enough to afford it.

Step out of your libertarian fantasy-world, and think about actual negative effects of each tax on ordinary people, and you will see that one is worse.

Then you should be prepared to suffer the consequences of your actions.
It is easy to take a moral stand when there are no consequences.

Alternatively: Sod off and live somewhere else.

Do you think you should be able to ignore the law with impunity?

Aar yes, the run-off-in-the-face-of-injustice approach. And as I said earlier in the thread; if Mandela and King had just decided to "sod off and live somewhere else" instead of fighting injustice?

Do you think I should acquiesce in the face of injustice just because that injustice has been committed to the statute books? That's a very odd argument.

Mandela was imprisoned. King was shot. They suffered for what they believed in.

You aren't standing up for the underclasses or the repressed, you are trying to avoid paying your share of taxation.

Just because you think something is unjust doesn't mean I have to agree.

I think that fact that you are benefiting from all the services paid for by taxation without contributing to it to be unjust.

I avoid the state where I can. For example, I pay for private schooling and private healthcare at considerable cost to myself (I have 6 young children).

It is like 'History repeats itself because nobody listens' and 'History repeats itself because the world doesn't learn' and soon we will all learn our lesson. I am afraid our next war won't be with Russia or China. It will be war with our own governments. Something needs to be done about how we are exploited by our governments and financial systems in today's world.

A family of 8 lets say - £10k per child per annum school fees (ish ?) = £60k  . Plus £2k (ish ?) Bupa family health cover. £62k per year. Bloody hell, for an anarchist you aren't short of a few quid are you   ;D ? And there I was picturing you more like Rick from the Young Ones.

Still, with a bit of luck, with that public school education behind them one of them might go on to Oxford, hey  ;) ?

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/personalfinance/10819885/David-Cameron-Taxes-will-rise-unless-we-can-raid-bank-accounts.html

It's like Cyprus, only with a British accent.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/personalfinance/10819885/David-Cameron-Taxes-will-rise-unless-we-can-raid-bank-accounts.html

It's like Cyprus, only with a British accent.