'What should I ask George Osborne? Question suggestions wanted.' blog discussion

whatmichaelsays

What should I trust you with the running of the economy, given that you strike me as the sort of person that probably shouldn't be trusted with running anything more complicated that a bath?

snagaII

Was his lobotomy successful?

yellowduck_2

PLease Mr Osbourne why has my council tax more than doubled as have my water rates and fuel bills yet oddly my income has not!!!

lady_wolfs_head

tomell wrote: »

I would love to ask him if he thinks its right or fair that these appointed company directors of large institutions and the like, Can give themselves huge huge bonuses of millions of pounds while they force the lower paid workers to take pay cuts and worse terms and conditions.
I think the government and company executives are an absolute disgrace allowing this to happen ( as in the banking sector,royal mail etc.etc.)
where will it end when we are on poverty level wages.

Well said:T

lady_wolfs_head

What is it like living in that ivory tower of yours and can you see Gordon Brown from your window in his tower!!!

Linton

What about.....

1) Are you in favour of increasing the gap between the richest and poorest people in this country?

2) How will the policy "to recognise marriage in the tax system" not lead to a poor widow struggling to bring up a family being relatively disadvantaged compared with a wealthy married banker?

harryhound

I've worked my way through all the postings on here and tried to categorise them.
So here we go by number of postings:

43 Gimme more
42 Techie - to make the systems "better"
23 The whole system is corrupt: Bankers, MPs, Donors etc.
21 Get real - the country is in massive deficit.
20 Its soo unfair.
14 The Tory is an out of touch idiot.
9 Where is Robin Hood when he is needed.
7 Hands off my money.

As a cynical old realist, a member of "the ghetto" on this forum, some of us were telling GB what had to be done about 6 months ahead of him doing it.
Frankly the disaster that has made us all poorer has been worse than I expected.
So now you know my vote would be in the "Get real" camp and I am worried that Labour are addicted to printing money to support their unproductive core vote; whereas the Tories don't know what they are doing.

So the analysis is mine and somewhat crude as the following examples illustrate:

Does a suggestion of reforming the stamp duty system on property purchases count as a technical suggestion, an appeal for fairness, or a gimme? (Usually the third, when it becomes obvious that the poster lives in an unproductive carbon generating mansion or aspires to do so).
I feel a bit sorry for pensioners whose postings are in the "gimme" count or the "its soo unfair" category - Sorry folks governments have no money of their own, they can tax to get it, borrow to get it, or print it; I would say they have now "maxed out" on all three possibilities. So there is no more money; unless you want to be further robbed by inflation - unproductive people have less power and get ignored.

I could go on.:eek:

My conclusion is that there are a lot of people out there, who are still in denial about what has happened to the economy of our country in a global environment.

I just hope they will manage to "get real" and try to take control of their own futures.

Andy_Spoo_2

Will he force banks to make it as easy for someone to stop 'recurring payments' as it is to stop a direct debit. Because at the moment, a company can continually take YOUR money from YOUR account and there is little you can do about it.

MSE_Martin

UPDATE NOTE:

You can now read the full George Osborne Interview Transcript

Porcupine

Bit late, and a bit specialist, but I'll list it here anyway in case anyone is still listening:
Will he force an opt-out for premium rate texts?

At the moment, any company who gets hold of your mobile number can sign you up for reverse charge premium rate texts. You don't have to request this, or send anything from your phone, and they don't need to give any proof that you signed up. These can be up to £5 each, but if you're on PAYG you don't get an itemised bill so have to be paying attention.

If you spot it, you have to open a dispute with PhonePayPlus (formerly ICSTIS) and wait a few months and you might get your money back. Complaining to your mobile network gets you nowhere.

Only a few mobile networks allow you to permanently opt out of such services, so for the rest dodgy service companies can dip into your account whenever they want (and the mobile network takes a cut of the profits). Mobile networks should be forced to offer an optout.