If you were King/President/Prime Minister, what would be the first 3 things you do?

[mercian billman]

Well, isn't 'poverty' a relative term? Isn't it defined by 'most of our citizens should expect to have at least this', and this changes as society improves itself? 30 years ago, central air conditioning was a pretty extravagant luxury here in the States. Now, no home is built without it. Is it fair to say that a person who's given a free home, but without central air conditioning, is being forced to live in poverty? Is it society's obligation to go build him a new house with central air?

Yes poverty is relative but no to your question.

From an economic viewpoint poverty is not relative. Poverty is defined as lacking the means to provide material needs and comforts required for healthy living.

[Don Corleone]

Sorry, but that is a relative definition.

Why do I say that? The definition of 'need', 'comfort' and 'healthy' keep changing. It may not be relative in the here and now, but do you see how my air conditioning example holds up as a luxury in the past, but could be considered 'poverty' today, in light of this definition?

[Productivity]

1. Apologise to the aboriginal australian's and torres straight islanders. It's completely out of order that our government refuses to do this.

2. Institute government production of MDMA (ecstasy), and make it the only legal form of it. MDMA itself is non-lethal (it has a LD50 measured in kg's from memory), but it is bad manufacturing/aditives that makes it lethal, and so by doing this we would cut overdoses out.

3. Index tax brackets to inflation. Bracket creep is something which governments love to make money off, and it's out of order.

4. Compulsory sterilisation of all cats, including those of breeders, and increased wild cat extermination funding. Enforce the sterilisation by putting down every cat that isn't sterilised, and give large rewards to those who report on an unsterlised cat. Same goes for rabbits.

5. Tiered water pricing. Water is priced along tiers. The first tier is cheap, and the volume is determined by the size of your household. Second tier is moderately expensive and the third tier is expensive. You want a garden, you can pay for it. Same for a pool. Australia doesn't have enough water to allow everyone to have a garden and a pool. Industry gets the same pricing, but doesn't get the first tier.

6. Phase out all weather condition subsidies to agriculture over the next decade. If your farm isn't profitable over a ten year period, get out of the industry.

THose are the easy ones. I'll get to the real guts of the economy later.

[Laridus Konivaich]

1. Apologise to the aboriginal australian's and torres straight islanders. It's completely out of order that our government refuses to do this.

I think that you only need to apologize if you called them bad names ... although I don't know the exact reasons that you would apologize. What are they (the reasons)?

[Al Khalifah]

Allow referenda to be called on an issue on the basis of a 75% in-favour vote in the frontroom.

[Abokasee]

1. set up a secret terrorist organistion it call the AOY (ABOKASEE OWNS YOU)
2.Get them to cause problem's in other contries eg: posion water, destroy power plant etc
3.Decrese tax by 2.5%
4.Stop debt problems 100% (im not in debt)
5.increase army training and give improved equipment eg: give them O.K 1.3 and lauhging gas bullets (used for capturing people with knowledge of troop type etc)
6.INVADE AFRICA!!! (BOTH NORTH AND SOUTH)
7.QUICKLY STOP POVERTY THIER
8.ally with japan and china and then attack the USA
9.attack japan with china and cause serious problems in china using the AOY
10. Conquer china and india and then world!!!!
11. Make a big space program
12. increase reaserch of space seince
13. send robot to mars to make sutibal for humans
14. improve space ship's cargo and speed
15. send ALL the humans on earth to mars before palant explodes!!!!

that should save mankind!!!
NOTE: I WILL TRY TO MAKE DIPLOMATIC DESCUSSTION WITH ALEINS

[ShadesWolf]

SHADEWOLF

Ok what would I do.

1 - Increase the armed services.
More soldiers, planes and especially more ships. Once again Britain would rule the waves.

2- Invade France
I would leave the EU and declare war on France. Gascony would once again belong to the British

3- Execute the Labour government and anybody that voted for BLiar. More power would be returned to the monarchy. And a true two party system would be reintroduced Tory/Libs.

MRS SHADESWOLF

coming later,

If you all thought I was right wing you have seen nothing yet

[AggonyKing]

President:

1. 50% tax increase for the rich, and 40% tax decrease for the poor
2. ABolish any type of monopoly
3. Get some beauty sleep. Come on we all need one

[zelda12]

If I was Prime Minister I would:

1) Abolish the Monarchy, give each royal £20 and tell them to get off Government property.

2) Abolish a flat council tax and have a graded one dependant on income. With Pensioners being excluded.

3) Reform the EU and its constitution without France. Once the member states have been persuaded Declare War on France. Then they'll be forced to use our Anglo Saxon Economic methods that obviously don't work. I mean its not like we have very little Unemployment and France has a huge amount, is it?

4) Take the BNP and give them all life sentences, with no parol hearings and forced labour.

[JAG]

2) Abolish a flat council tax and have a graded one dependant on income. With Pensioners being excluded.

Council tax is far fairer, why should a pensioner living in a huge house be exempt from taxation for local services? Why should someone having been left a huge house yet on a small sum of money not get taxed on the huge assets they own?

3) Reform the EU and its constitution without France. Once the member states have been persuaded Declare War on France. Then they'll be forced to use our Anglo Saxon Economic methods that obviously don't work. I mean its not like we have very little Unemployment and France has a huge amount, is it?

The French way has a lot going for it, I thought you were for workers rights and decent wages?

[zelda12]

I do, but workers rights are all very well as long as the workers have a stable economy and jobs. People prefer work to handouts, job security needs to be secured certainly but not at the expense of the job itself. Just one of the many concessions Socialists need to learn if they are to survive as a major political power.In part its the French hater in me, mainly because I've got exams coming up and things are really annoying me. And fair wages should be guaranteed as well but thats something we do anyway. Its the whole ethic of the French system that frankly smacks of the 1950's. Its outdated in todays economic climate. The French like the dinosaurs seem determined not to change.

Oh and as to council tax I was refering to income based. Sorry if I didn't make that clear.

[mercian billman]

Sorry, but that is a relative definition.

Why do I say that? The definition of 'need', 'comfort' and 'healthy' keep changing. It may not be relative in the here and now, but do you see how my air conditioning example holds up as a luxury in the past, but could be considered 'poverty' today, in light of this definition?

I think a computer is a better example than central air, by todays standards someone would be considered poor if they did not have a computer. Yet not having a computer wouldn't be a condition of poverty. Not having a computer would make somebone poor relative to their neighbors but not poor in absolute terms.

[Kagemusha]

If a would be a Dictator of my country i would introduce "citicenship salary".(forgive me my bad english).
I would abolish wellfare,pensions and child support,housing support and all the other support systems in my country,I would maintain only puplic Schools and puplic healthcare.So heres my idea:I would pay every citicen the same amount what is the minimum unemployment support from cradle to crave.Meaningles if you would either work or not you would get the "citicenship salary".That would allow the normal working people more buyingpower and would increase the manifacturing rates because people would have more money to spend.Secondly it would allmost end the unimployment as we know it,because if you wouldnt have a job you could either study or you could do a parttime work and you could still survive because you would allways have the citicenship salary to back you up.It would also create new jobs because there are many jobs that are not so profitable that novadays an imployer cant even hire person to do that.So jobs for my people and cheap labour to my industry and Byrocrats to profitable work.Wat do you gyues think about that?

[doc_bean]

If a would be a Dictator of my country i would introduce "citicenship salary".(forgive me my bad english).
I would abolish wellfare,pensions and child support,housing support and all the other support systems in my country,I would maintain only puplic Schools and puplic healthcare.So heres my idea:I would pay every citicen the same amount what is the minimum unemployment support from cradle to crave.Meaningles if you would either work or not you would get the "citicenship salary".That would allow the normal working people more buyingpower and would increase the manifacturing rates because people would have more money to spend.Secondly it would allmost end the unimployment as we know it,because if you wouldnt have a job you could either study or you could do a parttime work and you could still survive because you would allways have the citicenship salary to back you up.It would also create new jobs because there are many jobs that are not so profitable that novadays an imployer cant even hire person to do that.So jobs for my people and cheap labour to my industry and Byrocrats to profitable work.Wat do you gyues think about that?

We have a party that proposes this, give everyone (about) 500€ a month.
They also propose to do away with all income tax (and most other taxes) and replace it all with TAV (tax on products and services). I find their ideas interesting, at the very least. I still have to find the time and energy to do some calculations to see if it would be possible, at first glance I would doubt it, but the guy who proposes it seems quite intelligent and is a true believer.

Since it is, essentially, introducing a flat tax AND support rate, ir probably doesn't come as a surprise that he's also very rich

[The Blind King of Bohemia]

1/ Make Birmingham the new capital of England

2/ All the scum, druggies and thuggish elements bulldozed into the channel

3/ As long as the two above are sorted and i have a steady cash flow and living the high life i'll be easy

[Kagemusha]

We have a party that proposes this, give everyone (about) 500€ a month.
They also propose to do away with all income tax (and most other taxes) and replace it all with TAV (tax on products and services). I find their ideas interesting, at the very least. I still have to find the time and energy to do some calculations to see if it would be possible, at first glance I would doubt it, but the guy who proposes it seems quite intelligent and is a true believer.

Since it is, essentially, introducing a flat tax AND support rate, ir probably doesn't come as a surprise that he's also very rich

Yes this isnt originally my idea and i was suspicious too at first but now i have given it bit of thought and its starting to sound better and better every time i think it.

[Duke Malcolm]

1/ Make Birmingham the new capital of England

2/ All the scum, druggies and thuggish elements bulldozed into the channel

you'll spend all eternity bulldozing, then...

[BDC]

Introducing just taxes on sales is a bad idea. The rich just get super-rich because they spend a small portion of their income on stuff, whilst the poorest get poorer because they spend almost all of their income buying things.

[King Henry V]

Have Zelda and all the other liberals/socialists"communists/anybody who doesn't agree with me rounded up and "relocated" to the North Pole. The only contact with the outside world will be free copies of The Daily Mail, the Spectator, and the Daily Telegraph for every inmate. There will be twenty year old copies of the Sun and the Times around to remind them of how Thatcherite it once was. Have a nice day

[doc_bean]

Introducing just taxes on sales is a bad idea. The rich just get super-rich because they spend a small portion of their income on stuff, whilst the poorest get poorer because they spend almost all of their income buying things.

Food is taxed lower over here so I don't think it's such a problem.

Luxury goods are overpriced, so the state also gets more money from them. This system doesn't distort the market much more than a flat income tax, and less than a progressive income tax.

The real problem is that if all the prices go up because of the extra taces, the buying power of our saved money goes down. That and it won't work if just one country in the EU does it, all countries (in a free trade zone) need to adopt the same policy.

My interest in the system is mostly academic

[Kagemusha]

Introducing just taxes on sales is a bad idea. The rich just get super-rich because they spend a small portion of their income on stuff, whilst the poorest get poorer because they spend almost all of their income buying things.

What do you mean by poor?If a guy with minimum vaighe gets 500 euros more in a month he gets poorer?

[mercian billman]

What do you mean by poor?If a guy with minimum vaighe gets 500 euros more in a month he gets poorer?

If his purchasing power goes down then he would become poorer. If everybody was giving 1 million dollars it wouldn't necesarily make people richer because firms would just increase their prices.

[Crazed Rabbit]

1) Take a huge axe and absolutely cleave through the federal government. Slash and destroy every entitlement program, slash politician's budgets, destroy entire departments (like department of housing, labor, PBS, nat'l endowment for the arts, etc.). Maintain only the military and necessary highway infrastructure budgets.

2) Remove all the unconstitution infringements of the second amendment.

3) End judicial activism by removing judicial review.

4) Enforce laws against treason and aiding and abetting the enemy.

5) Return to state and local control of education, and give the government broad power over firing any fifth column professor at a school recieving a penny of gov't money.

6) Don's suggestions for American foreign policy.

7)Kick out the UN and end all funding of it. Issue an act denouncing the UN and whatever it wants.

8) End unconstitutional encroachment into private property and privacy violations like public cameras.

Crazed Rabbit

[bmolsson]

We have a party that proposes this, give everyone (about) 500€ a month.
They also propose to do away with all income tax (and most other taxes) and replace it all with TAV (tax on products and services). I find their ideas interesting, at the very least. I still have to find the time and energy to do some calculations to see if it would be possible, at first glance I would doubt it, but the guy who proposes it seems quite intelligent and is a true believer.

Since it is, essentially, introducing a flat tax AND support rate, ir probably doesn't come as a surprise that he's also very rich

VAT and customs are actually this kind of tax. The problem is that you have to guard the borders and not allow electronic trade. In reality it's an old marxistic idea based on improvements from a feodal society with subjects under the responsibility of the noble class. Pretty much outdated due to modern technology.....

[KafirChobee]

1. Legalize all drugs, tax and govern them. Anyone selling illegal drugs (outside the system) make a mandatory life sentence.

2. Legalize any action that doesnot harm another person physically. ie, prostitution.

3. Limit the election process to 6 weeks prior to the event, and allow for only three commercials per candidate (aside from debates) and make it an offense if special interests contribute in any kind. Max out the "free speech" option to $500. $500, ought to be enough "free speech" for anyone - a billion seems a bit much.

[asilv]

1. Resign

[doc_bean]

VAT and customs are actually this kind of tax. The problem is that you have to guard the borders and not allow electronic trade. In reality it's an old marxistic idea based on improvements from a feodal society with subjects under the responsibility of the noble class. Pretty much outdated due to modern technology.....

Like I said, it's mostly an interesting idea, but practically nearly undoable.

[KukriKhan]

...3. Limit the election process to 6 weeks prior to the event, and allow for only three commercials per candidate (aside from debates) and make it an offense if special interests contribute in any kind. Max out the "free speech" option to $500. $500, ought to be enough "free speech" for anyone - a billion seems a bit much.

I'm jumping on the KafirChobee train on that suggestion. These 18-24 month election campaigns, and overpriced media bombardments turn even the few well-intentioned politicians into money-grubbers, teaching them bad habits that carry over into their terms. Aren't the Brits doing this? And was it by law, or common agreement of the parties?

[IceTorque]

1.Legalize Pot.

2.Remove tax on beer.

3.Get drunk and stoned.

[bmolsson]

This thread really gives a clear view on why the majority of all world leaders are either corrupt or nuts......