Preparedness for when

Frugalsod

COOLTRIKERCHICK wrote: »

Hubby just to informed me we got sugar beet. Which I think is similar.

We also got informed by the place where we bought the stuff ( bulk farm feed suppliers) that they are now using the stuff now for some sort of energy production??? Which is starting to push the price up, so I hope it doesn't go up too much, as we are going to use it to lower the feeding cost of the pigs..( still feed hard feed, but a lower amount and top up with the beet)

So before the potato came into our country, what was the staple veg eaten ??

It is probably being used to make ethanol, as a supposedly more sustainable fuel but is really more about boosting subsidises to beet farmers in Europe, and maize farmers in the US. While it can be a greener fuel it is still not as green as electric vehicles and renewable energy combination.

mardatha

Up here we lived on porridge and broth made with barley, mutton and the green stuff :eek: Thank god somebody found tatties before I was born.

GreyQueen

CTC, would pigs eat spent barley grains from a brewery? The reason I ask is that I'm acquainted with someone who works in a small craft brewery and their spent grains are given to a local farmer who feeds them to his cows. They love it, apparently. Maybe you have one near you?

Mind you, my Dad used to work on a farm and always reckoned pigs would eat anything; your wellies, your jacket if you left it hanging over a pen, your dead body if you karked it and fell down in the pig pen.

Wasn't it self-sufficiency guru John Seymour who described pigs as the cornerstone of peasant agriculture?

COOLTRIKERCHICK

Just got this link to a post over on the eBay boards that newshadow started..

From a prepper point of view what does this mean? Is it the start of the end of selling your unwanted hoarded possessions, or your hobby makes etc without declaring or paying tax on them??
http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showpost.php?p=70328398&postcount=4

GreyQueen

Dunno, CTC, but HMRC are laying of a helluva lot of staff and closing more and more offices, so it's a great time to be a tax evader as your odds of getting caught are pretty low, and shrinking every month.

If I sound a tad bitter, one of my oldest pals works for HMRC and is one of those affected and will be out of a job later this year.:(

COOLTRIKERCHICK

Yes I had forgot about the spent brewery grain!

Yes pigs will more or less eat anything.. BUT.. There are 2 things that come in nto it, what you can legally feed your pigs/ farm animals, and about feeding them ' hollow' food as I call it. Which is just feeding them to feel full and had no nutritional food value. And the pigs/ meat is crap

A nice mix of bulking feed and nutritional feed is what I am trying to get. To try and get the feeding costs down.
They are a hobby for us, as we want to rear our own meat etc, but to try and make small business out of it would be near impossible at the moment. My heart goes out to proper pig farmers atbthe moment.
Yesterday at the market. There was a sow and her young. ( and a few other lots tpthat came from the same owner) couldn't afford to feed his pigs. I have never seen such a thin SOE. Every bone in her body was showing. She must have been a 3rd of her proper weight. And not an inspector in sight... I was surprised the auction even excepted them!!!! But the person who bought them. Will bring on the piglets, and prob put the sow down.

COOLTRIKERCHICK

GQ.. That's awful. But sadly your friend is not alone with n losing their job because of this government... It just doesn't make sense! The country is on its knees, and they cut back on the department ( hmrc) that got the powers to get the tax avoiders etc..

Do you think they are trying to get us a bit like the us?? Where (I think) everyone has got to fill in a tax return)??

So with what the government has said, does that mean potentially they can have any information they ask for , from online selling platforms, shopping carts, worldpay card payments that alot of small traders, hobby sellers use, small websites??

As I am sure alot of people selling stuff online and use PayPal. Instead of transferring money into their normal bank accounts, spend the money online using PayPal. So there is no trace of it on their bank statements especially if they claim benefits.

GreyQueen

I have no idea what the grubbyment think they're doing by cutting tax inspectors to the bone. My pal chases down company directors, not small fry, and the potential losses at that kind of scale are huge.

And as for being caught benefit frauding, I knew 12 months ago from convos with our own fraud investigators, that the amount of money government puts into investigating benefit fraud was dramatically reduced. DWP have less money and fewer investigators, and are extremely risk adverse about going for prosecutions. They will only go to court if they feel 100% of getting a conviction, whereas local authorities will go for it if they're about 95% sure.

Realistically speaking, the watchdogs of the public purse are on short-time and it's going to be a lot easier to be dishonest than it has been for years.

But that's grubbyment for ya; the fish rots from the head, as the old saying has it.

Very sad to hear about that sow and piglets. Add that into the problems with equines, and things are pretty grim in the countryside. My own family lost our last (very small) farms in the agri depressions of the early 20th century. We're mostly townies now; lorry drivers, warehousemen, delivery drivers, office wallahs like me.

COOLTRIKERCHICK

I am no expert, but alot of the cut backs they are doing, just doesn't make sense.especially as its having no effect what's so ever in bring our deficit down.

So to throw another thought out there..

If you were elected to be in power after this government.. And you had to get our country out of this SHTF financial situation.. How would you go about it??

GreyQueen

Gotta post and run as have to be somewhere shortly;

1. No trade without UK tax liability - lookin' at you TopShop et al.

2. Ban zero hours contracts.

3. Remove incentives to hire p/t over f/t workers - get rid of hiring people for a few hours a week and getting the rest of us to top 'em up with tax creds. Talking people with no dependants/ disabilites here.

4. Name and shame lousy employers.

Bye!