The amount of money that tax payers contribute to maintaining the bank accounts of royals is great. They control financial assets which are considerable. If an assessment of their value needs to be understood why not revoke the Civil List payments and allow any interested people to make monetary donations to the royal family.
Very sad news
- Thread starter Garno
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Terry - Somerset
Established Member
Whether supported or not, there are very good economic arguments which justify £70m (~£1 per head) spent each year:
I am somewhat ambivalent about the monarchy as part of the UK democratic process - it seems to have little to contribute. But the monarchy and its fairly trivial cost are unquestionably a force for good (randy andy excepted!!) and the UK.
- Pre covid in 2019, 41m foreign tourists visited the UK and spent £28.4bn - the monarchy is a major part of UK history and heritage and what may attract visitors.
- the Queen is head of state in 16 countries (incl Australia, Canada, New Zealand) and through the Commonwealth (54 nations) the UK can exert global influence well beyound its actual size.
I am somewhat ambivalent about the monarchy as part of the UK democratic process - it seems to have little to contribute. But the monarchy and its fairly trivial cost are unquestionably a force for good (randy andy excepted!!) and the UK.
WilyWelshman
Member
If they are given the Crown Estates back, they won't need anyone's donations
Hear hear. Like it or not the Royals are a bit of a USP for Britain.
Phil Pascoe
Established Member
I worked in the licensed and hotel trade for decades. Never once did I ever speak to anyone who had come to this Country to see a royal palace, personality or ceremony. Anyone who thinks they are value for money should read Norman Fowler's "And What Do You Do?"
Phil Pascoe
Established Member
Only if they promise to give them back to the people their ancestors stole them from.
I want his lathe
Jacob
What goes around comes around.
Most modern states are largely socialist in that they provide extensively for the welfare of the population, financed by taxation. Even the USA does, though in a very inefficient, cack handed and expensive way. Even Cuba has better, more efficient, health and welfare provision. Every year half a million Americans are bankrupted by medical bills, which doesn't account for the even large number who put up with and endure ill health as they can't afford to pay.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news...=“A lot of people, a,Most of them are insured.
Nonsense. America has a vast population of low paid or jobless.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/tommyb...-us-poverty-recorded-in-2020/?sh=1c31293a32bdNot surprising really as the whole wealth of America depended on slavery to start with, and it's still with them in one way or another - most conspicuously in terms of prison workfare - the largest prison population in the world - sent out to work. Was established way back following "abolition"of slavery, as a substitute.
There are pages written about it and it can't be denied.
Beyond cheap labor: can prison work programs benefit inmates?
And of course there's a huge army of illegal workers which is ignored as a good deal of their economy depends on them. Trump's wall wasn't intended to succeed!
https://www.brookings.edu/policy202...ts-are-in-the-united-states-and-who-are-they/
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Terry - Somerset
Established Member
Although the ownership of some property can be traced back to Edward the Confessor, the estate as a whole essentially dates from 1066. After the Norman Conquest, all the land belonged to William "in right of The Crown" because he was King
So I am unclear who specifically the the Crown Estate was taken from, and totally unclear who one would give it back to.
An enthusiasm for remedying the theft 940 years ago could perhaps be applied to more recent incidents to see if there is a way to make the process work - give the good 'ol US back to the native americans, the land of Oz back to the aborigines, etc
A daft proposition!
So I am unclear who specifically the the Crown Estate was taken from, and totally unclear who one would give it back to.
An enthusiasm for remedying the theft 940 years ago could perhaps be applied to more recent incidents to see if there is a way to make the process work - give the good 'ol US back to the native americans, the land of Oz back to the aborigines, etc
A daft proposition!
Putin is doing alright for himself, not a lot of wealth distribution though!!!
I tend to be pretty vocal. I think in China or Russia, I'd probably give myself a list of things that I wouldn't say and probably try to curate my brain from even thinking because who knows what you'll say when you're drunk, under anesthesia for an unexpected operation, etc. The interesting thing, though, is that in a lot of these countries (cuba before soviet aid stopped ,etc), the citizens are like a forum fanboy group for the leaders. The minority stays quiet and the citizens rip anyone who objects to the leadership, especially if it's someone from another country.
There's an interesting documentary here in the states with castro - castro had a legitimate point that the US was not showing the full picture to citizens, and they would hassle him anywhere he went (this shouldn't be a surprise). Most of the citizens interviewed were happy and didn't have lots of wants, and any time defectors who had gone to miami were encountered or were thinking of defecting, the crowd of adherents was almost intolerable. Really over the top.
As time went on, the documentary went from the early 70s through after the fall of the soviets, and aid was cut off or drastically reduced. The tenor changed significantly and some of the folks who had property (vs. apartment dwellers) went very negative, talking about how the lack of resources led to everything they had being stolen constantly. This isn't sort of a one off political statement (things get stolen everywhere), but systemic across the board due to lack of resources -meaning you or I may have trouble criticizing the people doing the stealing as they may have just been trying to survive).
The answer of what really is ethical for all of us in terms of the best governmental setup is really above my pay grade - I know the median and probably even the 25th percentile lives pretty fat in the united states. If you don't believe it, look how fat we are. The 25th percentile has two cars and goes on vacation and lives better than my grandparents ever did. But there are holes here and there (one of them being that it's extremely difficult to retire early in the states even if you otherwise have the means, because the individual insurance market is against you due to your actual expected cost of insurance, and the tax code is against you (if you have saved for retirement, you can't get unpenalized access to the money even if you retire until at least age 55 - and even then only if you've initiated another pension benefit from a certain type of plan. It's later than that for everyone else).
But, I guarantee if I were single and had access to my retirement savings right now (at age 44) I'd be happy to live a spartan life and retire because we, on average, pay the price on work hours. Not like south korea or japan, but we probably work on average 5-10 hours more than the average brit, and one of the reasons I post a lot is that every two hours or so, I take a break from work for 15 minutes and then get back to it. If I'm posting at 9pm or like right now on a Saturday, it's because i'm working and need a short break. I don't do a type of work that you can afford to put your head down and blitz through it - mistakes can lead to millions in misstatements and some of them would be very hard to correct.
I think we'd all like to come up with a way that life isn't a struggle, but when we do, we find other ways to make it difficult. I think in 21 years, I've probably worked close to 70,000 hours. My parents were teachers. In 32 (they retired early), they didn't work as many hours. Being a teacher from what I can gather now isn't as easy as it was when they were teachers, though, either. The burden of documentation, work, etc, is much higher.
I find these discussions somewhat interesting, though, as I have disdain for the hypomanics who run the rest of us through the wringer, but understand that in a different system, the same folks would make it to the top. It's like putting aggregate in a jar and shaking it - no matter what the jar is like, if you shake it for a while, everything will end up in the same order.
The median family income in the US is about $80,000.
As far as our social benefits here - if you become someone who is in need of them, the initiatives are there to find you (unless you don't want to be found - e.g., drug addicts in warm climates often don't want to dry out and get help). My neighbors adopted a son who is MR. He's otherwise "normal" except his IQ is below 70. Strangely enough, he can repair small engines and do some things, but you can't stand to be around him long because he can't tell the truth and there's a fair chance that at some point, he'll call the police and tell them something inaccurate and you'll get a visit.....
...OK, he's not that normal.
His wife is bipolar and bigger than any aircraft ever built in britain. The benefit system here has them covered - their food, their health care, their housing, etc. plus about $2500 a month of income. they generally get assistance to find a place to rent, fail to pay (keep the money and use it for other purposes) and move on. Benefits advised them that they would be better off divorced and cohabitating, so that's what they did. One child (of only one of the parents from a prior relationship) is normal, the other two are very delayed. They live *awfully* well. I have no idea how the guy gets away with charging to repair small engines, but perhaps things have changed. They've got a nicer car than me, but I'm allowed to keep savings and I do pay my bills.
I wouldn't rather live in cuba under any circumstance, and thought it was interesting that their HDI is so much further behind the US despite the access to medical care and food there (which does appear to be pretty uniform). It looks like the folks with no aspirations and no property to guard or care for like it pretty well.
Personally, i wouldn't rather live anywhere else than the US, but I *could* pretty easily live anywhere, I think. I would find work, and chop wood and carry water, just like I do here. There is no nationalist bent to my commentary - I just like accurate discussion.
Jacob
What goes around comes around.
Maybe you've never heard of the clearances, or the enclosures, affecting Scotland and Ireland worst, and much of Britain: the process whereby much of the population lost their livelihoods on the land and were "dispossessed". Many were exported as indentured labour to America (another form of slavery) and/or criminalised and sent off to Australia.
Jacob
What goes around comes around.
He's just another old fashioned dictator in the style of the Tsars.
Serfdom (slavery) came to an end but the Russians never quite got socialism to work - good in parts, disastrous in others. It didn't help that they were severely blasted by WW2 with much bigger losses and more destruction than the west.
It's argued that what they had was "state capitalism" whereby the govt took over the role of the capitalist of old, without democratic control from the population. Worst of both worlds
Not too good now - a corrupt and failing state.
J-G
Established Member
Just a quick one without research - D'Israeli became Disraeli for much less of a negative issue
Jacob
What goes around comes around.
Hardly, it'd take more than dropping an apostrophe!
He would have gone for "Wilson" , or worked "Disraeli" into "Raleigh" or something, if he wanted hide his Jewish origins or just anglicise his name.
He did try to blag up his humble origins though, but obviously failed with the name change!
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selectortone
Still waking up not dead in the morning
I have to admit a sneaking admiration for Cuba. Despite everything the most powerful nation on this planet has done over the last 60 years to crush them they keep hanging in there. One of the many things I learned about Americans during my many visits to the USA is their massively skewed right-wing view of that little island to their south that continues to defy them. They just HATE that.
Auldfart2010
Established Member
i feel for the queen, a big loss for her, probably. As a person, I didn't like him and I hope he is the last of his ilk. The monarchy is hopefully moving closer to the people they serve.
distasteful as it may be to us today, throughout history the big guys have taken what they wanted from the littler guys. Relatively recent stuff.Like the British and other European empires could be reversed, as the original owners were well known. The further back you go the more difficult it becomes. The idea that you could somehow return the crown estates to the descendants of the original owners is absurd. Or would you have them owned by the state, in which case how is that any more fair. Some time in the distant past someone stuck something in the ground where your house now stands and said "this is mine", and then probably fought off anyone else who wanted it. Not very socialist, but that is how it worked. So does that make you any less the owner of your house?
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