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Toad Tax

Cliff4WD said:
If we all told the government that we required zero services, then we could have no tax bill at all; might be a bit problematic trying to live our lives though.
The rot is too deeply set in now as we have demanded far more than we can afford, and that has to paid for. We've been living on borrowed money for years now so it's hardly a surprise that taxes will continue to rise. The only way out is to earn more as a nation so productivity and positive global trade is what's needed.
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To illustrate how the economy of UK works I'll tell you a story.
A traveller arrives in a town and wants to spend the night in a hotel.
The hotelier asks the fellow for the money and the traveller pays him £100
The hotelier takes this money and uses it to pay his bill at the laundry.
The laundry owner takes the money and uses it to pay his bill at the soap shop.
The soap shop owner uses the money to pay his bill at the butcher.
The butcher uses it to pay his debt to the village prostitute.
She uses it to settle her bill at the hotel.
The traveller changes his mind about staying at the hotel, asks for a refund, takes his £100 and leaves.
That is why the economy is in such a mess, everybody is paying for stuff with something that doesn't exist.
There is a far better explanation in the book "The party's over"
 
jenks69 said:
It's been discussed before whereby the batteries are all the same and rented, when you goto "fill up" you simply drop your battery and a charged battery is popped in. The problem comes from all manufacturers wanting to use their own design and build it into the chassis of the car etc.
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And companies like Tesla where the battery is also the "floorpan"
Bit tricky to change that at a roadside filling station, and I'll bet other manufacturers have batteries that are equally embedded into the vehicle.
Trouble is we tend to think of the battery as a black lump sat in the corner of the engine bay with just 2 connections, rather than it being an integral element in the structure of the vehicle. Even the battery in this thing has a (very tiny) multi pin connector
 
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The making of an Electric car causes more damage to the environment than petrol or diesel , and what the battery life of a electric car , what happens when it’s no longer any good
 
There are two major issues with electric vehicles at the present time:

  1. Most of our electricity is still produced by the burning of fossil fuels (although renewables are steadily catching up)
  2. The production of the batteries is not particularly environmentally friendly, and their subsequent disposal is not environmentally friendly either.

So for the moment, electric vehicles are not exactly the green alternative they are hyped up to be. I suppose in some way you have to create the need (electric vehicles) first before the infrastructure and energy solutions will follow.

I do also wonder how the whole electric vehicle industry is going to scale. It seems to me that the production of batteries is inherently limited (with current technologies) and could not possibly feed the entire motoring industry. So it will be interesting to see if improvements to battery technology can solve this.

And then there's the oil and gas industry, which can see that the end is nigh and is now scrambling to transfer its business into renewables instead. And they've made clear the way they intend to do this. With rising oil and gas wholesale prices they are making an absolute fortune, and when challenged on this they claimed that they need the extra revenue in order to invest in the necessary infrastructure for sustainable energy.

In other words, the likes of you and I will pay for the infrastructure and once that's established they'll sell the output of it back to us 😂 they are having their cake and eating it.

And finally, we all know what the Government is going to do once the switch to electric is complete. They established the horrendous tax on petrol and diesel under the guise of environmental concern, but rather than directing the associated funds purely at the environment it is instead used as another form of income tax with the motorist disproportionately footing the bill. You think they will be willing to give up this tax when the 'dirty' fuels are gone?
Of course not. They'll shift it onto electricity and we'll be paying through the nose for that instead.
 
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Cliff4WD said:
We've been living on borrowed money for years now so it's hardly a surprise that taxes will continue to rise.
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100% agreed. And I think it's a major failing of the way our political system works. Any Government of the time is only going to concern itself with working toward goals that it can claim back as achievements within the scope of its term. In other words, 5 years.
If a Government were to invest in some good for which the return comes after the 5 years, they are in the position of doing all the leg work (which potentially involves unpopular decisions such as tax rises) only for their opposition to win the following election and reap the rewards of the previous Government's hard work.

This means that our Government is implicitly short sighted in all of its decisions.

So borrow now, worry later is a perpetual problem. And the bigger the problem gets, the longer the problem will take to solve and therefore the more tempting it is for the subsequent Government to pass the buck again.
 
Governments of all persuasions are reactive rather than pro-active.
There is a book called "The party's over"

The Party's Over: Oil, War and the Fate of Industrial Societies: Amazon.co.uk: Heinberg, Richard: 9781902636450: Books

Buy The Party's Over: Oil, War and the Fate of Industrial Societies by Heinberg, Richard (ISBN: 9781902636450) from Amazon's Book Store. Everyday low prices and free delivery on eligible orders.
www.amazon.co.uk
The author makes the argument that there is no such thing as money, just debt. Governments have to grow the economy sufficiently to make the interest payments on the debts
He describes it in far greater detail that that, obvioulsy.

Similarly in the book "State of fear" governments need their population to live in fear. In the past it was really easy. The big, bad Russian bear is going to invade. When that threat diminished governments had to cast around for another reason to raise unpopular taxes, cue the environment becoming the perfect device, it is large enough, diffuse enough and the scary bit is that if we don't do what we are told we will all die in a colossal flood/hurricane/tornado/ice age/ etc etc ad nauseum
 
What we need is alternate fuels for the oil burners we already have,by keeping them going it saves money on replacing.
EVs cannot sustain HGV industry for instance,think how many batteries itd take to transport large loads.
Same as electric diggers they do 2 hours work,then need a generator to recharge them for 8 hours 🤣
JCB are doing it right with a hydrogen powered digger,still a piston engine but no co2 out the exhaust.
Porsche are investing into synthetic & biofuels
 
110landycamper said:
What we need is alternate fuels for the oil burners we already have,by keeping them going it saves money on replacing.
EVs cannot sustain HGV industry for instance,think how many batteries itd take to transport large loads.
Same as electric diggers they do 2 hours work,then need a generator to recharge them for 8 hours 🤣
JCB are doing it right with a hydrogen powered digger,still a piston engine but no co2 out the exhaust.
Porsche are investing into synthetic & biofuels
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There is a comparison test in Harry's garage on YouTube. A fully electric BMW V a hybrid full fat Range Rover V a Rolls Royce petrol engine running on petrol synthesized from numerous elements including carbon dioxide. Makes some interesting points, not least the environmental impact of building zillions of new cars
 
plug in battery powered cars are the new laser disc.
Most of the debate right now is caught up the rush to be seen as "sustainable" at some point someone will wake up and say its not possible for 8billion people to live life on this earth with a western style standard of living and not effect the climate.

We need to have people talking about how we make the economies of the world more circular, where by we don't but so much crap every five minutes. The greenest car on the road is the one you already have..... make last as long as possible. We cannot consume our way to sustainability.

The problem is we are constantly being told that we have to buy our way to a greener future, its utter B.S
 
Ok - so this year, letter just arrived (literally 5 minutes ago).

Letter says £320 for 12 months - actual cost when I check-out £335

I guess I just need to add 15 quid a year to whatever they say on the letter - still a bit rubbish though.

Don't even start me on the 'state of the roads' debate :) - one of the strongest reasons for keeping a Defender is that you need to be able to handle the pot-holes with something more than a standard car <think I'm getting old aren't I>....
 
Thinman21 said:
Ok - so this year, letter just arrived (literally 5 minutes ago).

Letter says £320 for 12 months - actual cost when I check-out £335

I guess I just need to add 15 quid a year to whatever they say on the letter - still a bit rubbish though.

Don't even start me on the 'state of the roads' debate :) - one of the strongest reasons for keeping a Defender is that you need to be able to handle the pot-holes with something more than a standard car <think I'm getting old aren't I>....
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Is that the charge for paying by monthly direct debits rather than a one off payment.. 🤔
 
110landycamper said:
I went out for a drive last weekend,the roads are shockingly bad ! Not just local stuff,it's bad & getting worse everywhere. Out on my big KTM adventure Monday,at least it's designed to go off-road on the road 🤔 🕳️🕳️🕳️🕳️🕳️🕳️🕳️
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Have to feel sorry for all the folks that opted for the speedy handling alloy wheels of 18" or larger. No side walls. Belt-like tyres. Must feel horrid when they hit a pot hole.
 
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