Today we found out there is yet another Tax coming our way, taking lump sums from our retirement pot is going to be taxed, together with pension tax. The more you put away, the more tax you will pay.

Let’s step outside of the situation for a minute and look at the problem logically.
We can compare any country to a company. There is the CEO, may it be the president or king/queen, there is the board of directors, and managers (ministers and advisors). We have different sectors, instead of sales, marketing, HR, we’ve got health, security, we have defence, we have education..

Every sector is comparable to a mini unit, where there are losses and where people steal, where people are employed and fired, where people are getting paid, just like a company.

Every unit costs money to keep it going. Just like a company. Staff costs, electricity..

UK Inc. – one big company. Huge in fact. £669,26bn turnover. That would logically mean there needs to be a really amazing CEO on top, better than Jobs (who’s company during his reign was making only 10% of what “Cameron’s company” has made at the same time), better than Eric Schmidt, better than Steve Ballmer…

Imagine for a second YOU are running this mega company.
I assume you haven’t got as much experience as Mr Cameron.
I will even go as far as to assume you haven’t got an Oxford degree like he does.

You have got the job. Awesome. If you don’t make a major cock up, it’s yours for at least 4 years.
Lets celebrate. Great.

You get your new office, step up from the corner office, you get the whole wing!
After the dust settles and you stop pinching yourself every time you see your super hot new assistant, you look into the books. Shit.
That doesn’t look good (Most of us would be extatic having 61.8 mln customers on average reocurring annual subscription of £4000 who cannot complain or cancel their subscription but most of us don’t have expenses including countless hospitals and troops).

So what can one do, when the expenses are higher than takings and the balance sheet just doesn’t add up?

We can either make more money or spend less. No degree required to figure this out.

Making more money involves asking our customers to fork out more cash for continuously failing product, knowing they already pay too much for what it’s worth.

Another solution is fixing the holes in the bucket. Getting rid of the staff that steals from the till is always a start. Then we need to look at the clients. The best way is to use 80/20 rule but look at the 80% that cost us money as opposed to concentrating on 20% that pay regularly.

Lets look at various holes in our company bucket.

First on the board: law enforcement and costs of crime.
Crime against individuals and households cost society in England and Wales a staggering £34 billion in 2009-2010. To help us realize what this figure actually means, I will put it this way: it costs taxpayers around £45.000 to keep an adult offender in prison for a year and around £60.000 for a young offender (which is over double what an average person in UK earns in the same period of time).

If we were to compare further: putting one criminal through one year of prison costs the same as putting two kids through one year of the very same Oxford university David Cameron has graduated from. Going further, for the price of 10 year long sentence, we could fully educate 4 smart kids who otherwise may not have that opportunity.

Whilst watching all the crime programs we are being served daily, it got me thinking.. why has death sentence been abolished in UK? I am not saying: “kill everyone who has been caught stealing a car”, but it would not only reduce the amount of people not contributing in any way to society, but due to fear of death row, less crimes would be comitted, cost of police force would be lower, legal costs associated with imposing a prison sentence (on average over £30.000) wouldn’t add to the already huge bill.

How about DNA testing at birth? There’s been a lot of talk over personal data lately, but storing this particular information would certainly help, when traces of DNA are found at a crime scene. Currently it is being followed by hundreds of police hours, looking for a match, which would not be an issue if they were all recorded.

Point number two: army. Recent revelation from the Guardian stating , that while the MoD cuts the number of front line troops, £564 mln has been spent on consultants in just two years. Spending has increased from £6 mln in 2006 to £267mln in 2011 – a 4350% rise. The huge increase has been blamed on the Framework Agreement for Technical Support, bought by the labour government in 2009, which allowed defence officials to hire specialist, short-term help without requiring minister’s signature.

Another hot point and press favorite are the benefits for unemployed in Britain.

I have lived in UK for over 9 years yet never managed to find myself in a situation, where I was unemployed. Luck? Great education? Years of experience and expertise in my field? Not really.

I worked in various field from sales, through finance and IT. From running hotels to building software. From teaching to managing beauty salons. The common denominator? I was employed all the time. But was it worth it, when I could join 8% of the local population and go on the “dole”?

Generous benefits caused the unemployment to rise to 2.8mln.

For the purpose of this post, I went through the application for benefits, answering questions as a 28 year old, single, who is looking for an income support, and turns out I would be able to claim £67 every week for life! (or as long as I am unmarried and child free, renting an appartment). I also found out, that being a registered alcoholic qualifies me to receive another £5 weekly on top of my £67. Being rewarded for an addiction.. Interesting.

Having a child on top of that would give me another £20 per week for one, and £13 for another one and allow me to apply for a council house, so off I go to the sperm clinic (yup, it is better if you are single, as working partner in this case is not welcome).

Would it not be logical to have kids only if you can actually afford them as opposed to making others pay?

The government spends around £11.7bn a year on child benefits.
It would be great for all this cash to go to build new, better schools for our kids, but instead it’s funding a lifestyle for kids most likely to end up costing us not only in their childhood, but also later on in life, when they start claiming job seekers benefits, and in extreme cases.. yup prison costs. And the circle is complete.

I like the new law implemented in some of the states in America, where benefits are taken away from people who have been tested positive for drugs (including soft drugs, such as dope). You can afford drugs?! You certainly can afford to support yourself.

Almost 160,000 council homes are being illegally sublet by tenants in a racket that is costing the taxpayer more than £2billion a year, according to Experian. In another words, 0.033% of your taxes go to fund the lifestyle of someone claiming housing benefits for a house they are subletting.

We could of course implement chinese one baby rule, but that bring me on to another point.. The Department of Health estimated a total of £90m was spent on abortions in 2009-10.

So! Let’s stop here as the list is long.

We all know how bad it is, so I’ll save my overtyped fingers.
What could be done? Tighter monitoring?

The solution?
It’s definitely not punishing customers with higher “subscription” (“taxcription” springs to mind) , but increasing the quality of the existing one. To do that Britain needs to grow some balls and stop being so liberal towards people abusing the rules.

Bring back death sentence and use the money saved by feeding murderers to improve the education. According to the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, the cost for the drugs used in lethal injection is $86.08, so incomparably cheaper than lifelong prison stay, or even a short one. Well, it’s less than keeping a driver who was under the influence, in a prison cell for the night.

Common sense, lately bolstered by statistics, tells us that the death penalty will deter murder… People fear nothing more than death. Therefore, nothing will deter a criminal more than the fear of death.
It would free some space in prisons for all the petty crimes that are currently treated with a hand slap and warning.

Punishment is the best solution for most of the issues that we face here. And we are not talking about 10 hours community service for having illegal drugs on you.
Lets stop here for a second and think about it.
The drugs would otherwise be sold to some kid. This can only go down from here.
Addiction (NHS costs), suicides (depressed parents: NHS costs), loss of productivity (uneployment benefits costs), crime (additional costs for police, and imprisonment).
So.. it’s not just a joint or few grams, it’s a chain of events which creates the society wasting our tax money.
Let’s nip it in the bud.

What happens if you work for a company and have been caught stealing? You’re out.
The same rules should be applied to foreigners, who for example, claim fake housing benefits.
Why foreigners? Because they can be sent back home.
What about British citizens?
They belong here and need to be dealt with on their own soil, as it would not be fair to present them to someone else: “Dear Sweden/France/Belgium, here’s Mr Smith, he’s been avoiding tax, and claiming benefits he doesn’t deserve, you can have him!” No. Prison is the solution here. No certain amount of years. Person like this should work in prison as long as it takes to make up the estimated stolen amount.

I have got tons of solutions, most of which are unfortunately not suitable for public eye, as they are cruel, but if you’ve got something to add, feel free to put it in comments! :) This post is a snowflake in a massive iceberg.
Lets not let our annual subscriptions be wasted.