Re: Benefits of EU membership?
Originally Posted by
swimfeeders
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Hi
We blame the EU for so much which is our fault not theirs.
One of the big advantages of leaving is that our bunch of useless idiots will have nowhere to hide.
My vacuum cleaner, a Henry, is only 600 watts, absolutely brilliant and British Made.
We can do it, if we put our heads together.
The one thing that concerns me is the gung ho, Britain can be a major power again, punching above our weight.
There are proposals to build new military bases overseas.
Why?
My view is that we need to pull our necks in, slash overseas aid and concentrate on what we need to do to make life better here.
We spent just under £14 billion on overseas aid last year, marginally less than we paid to the EU. Yes we can make savings but we cannot become a nation that is insular and uncaring towards others less fortunate
There are far bigger savings to be had by addressing the gravy train scandal of the £38 billion and ever increasing annual cost of public sector pensions which taxpayers are funding. The total liabilities is something approaching £1.2 trillion
These pensions are grossly over funded by the taxpayers to the extent that public employees can expect the times the pension a private sector worker would receive for the same contributions. There are low paid worketlrs who cannot afford a private pension yet through their taxes are funding others inflated benefits.
If the public sector pensions were normalised we could save £26 billion a year
If there is an economic downturn when we leave the EU the cost of these pensions will be untenable
Whether we will have sufficient funds in the public purse maintain let alone increase defence spending remains to be seen. As regaining so you is one of the major points of Brexit it may be relevant that we also cede some sovereignty to NATO. Are we going to withdraw from that as well?
If we go it alone in the world we need to reduce our trade deficit else the borrowings become untenable we become one downgrade in credit ratings away from disaster
How we do this and maintain our standard of living I don’t know. We have few natural resources left and have an over reliance on services. We’ve sold off most of our assets to foreign buyers so our saviour may be the tech industry but for that to prosper we need to Stacy the best from around the world and that might be harder now
So. there are opportunities but are we in a fit state to take them on.