An honest day’s work for an honest day’s pay, is how the saying went. But when you factor in taxes, it doesn’t quite work like that. Here’s how it goes.
You work for the day, and get paid, cash in the hand. On your way home, a bloke who lives somewhere stops you, and says “I need to take 20% of that money, to sort out people over there somewhere”. But how does he know that person is going to do what he says? He doesn’t. Therefore, a social contract begins to emerge, of promises and plans for that money. To ‘help the community’ and ‘for the greater good’.
That’s a very basic breakdown of how tax can look. And that’s just income tax. Add to that national insurance, stamp duty, corporation tax, inherited tax, capital gains tax, vat and all the other things they can and do tax you on. For the average Joe though, who has already had money taken, it’s an extra bit of thievery on top. Because it’s not necessary. There are all these middle men who have shoehorned themselves between a person and living their life. No longer earn cash and spend it. No, that would be too easy. Now you earn money, they take some. You put it safely in a bank, they take some. You want to buy something; merchant fees then take some more. And people can’t just sell things anymore, you need licenses, regulators, and permissions as well as fees and charges. Same with building things, all have to be applied for, usually for a fee, then approved. You can’t just work hard, build your own house and live a life anymore, there are a hundred of hoops to jump through just to even be allowed a roof over your head in some cases. And it’s all wrong. Especially as we have it so clearly thrown in our faces, that they cannot be trusted with all that money they are stealing from people, who have invested their time and lives to earn it in some cases. So, they take your time and money, then actually charge you for that right if they can.
We’ve also seen astronomical spending in the last few years under the guise of an emergency, all that money they hoarded for years, then just created out of thin air, eye-watering amounts. On nothing essentially, it just ‘disappeared’ into this bank account and that, for this contract and that, private discussions and deals made to take more, give less and laugh right in your face along the way. Printing the number and figures they are wasting, to really rub it in. Yet still we give them more, and more, and more. And all the while they are slowly draining what there is, putting spanners in the works here, there and everywhere. The kind of thing you might to do something you want to destroy, steal everything they have, smash everything they like and have, make it so they can’t have anything else. Too harsh?
We can’t overlook that while they took with one hand, they appeared to be giving back with another – offering debt willy nilly, tying people in to unreasonable social contracts and systems just so they could live, charging more if you can’t afford to pay – bank charges being a classic for that. “Oh, you’re overdrawn and have no money, well, we’re going to take another £25.00, which will make it worse, and then we will keep doing it…” no helping hand there, blunt corporatism that should have been warning of what was to come. It was never about people having enough, it was about seeing how much they could take, and keep taking. Convincing people along the way that it was necessary, and there was no way society could ever function without the ‘elected government’ to guide you, take your money and hold it over you, like an abusive parent who won’t let you go it along. Tying those apron strings ever tighter, realising more money gives you more freedom, and if they don’t have that over you, you won’t listen or do what they tell you. So it becomes a self-perpetuating loop, of dependence, because if we didn’t keep feeding them all that money to lord it over us, and implement dangerous and destructive policies and procedures, then they wouldn’t have that over us. For people who are wealthy and well-positioned, the last thing they would really want to do is help others get to that position as well. Because if everyone has that, no-one is deemed wealthy and you can’t wield influence if everyone is special, or talented, or is well-positioned, it makes it null and void. Like if suddenly everyone decided to not recognise money as real, to view it literally as monopoly money straight out of the box, pieces of paper that someone grabbed and declared themselves the banker, buying all the property and charging people rent, fees and utilities. But you can end that game, can’t you? Just get up and walk away, stop playing, ignore the ‘banker’ and suddenly they are just a regular person with no sway over anything, I can’t help thinking there is a lesson in that, and one we should be paying attention to…
