Where Is The Best Place To Live?
Where is the best place to live? As a business owner in the UK I can see it being more difficult to run businesses here. We seem to have a mentality that's a bit messed up (of course I may well be missing something and be completely wrong). Over the last 10 years I have seen employment costs sky rocket. It's great that we have minimum wages etc, but what people don't seem to realise is we want better incomes but at the same time want services and products to be cheaper!!! This two don't work unless of course you manufacture in places like China. Most businesses biggest costs are labour, you want a higher minimum wage then you must be prepared to pay for it.
The fact is in the UK we will find it difficult to manufacture and produce goods, because no one wants to pay the real price it costs to make it.
I am in the fortunate position I own several businesses in India, this has certainly helped my UK business. There is no way in hell I could achieve half the things I've done if I employed people in the UK as I could quite simply not afford it. I remember saying this to a local council guy and his comment was "yeah it's all child labour over there". The fact is everyone I employ is highly qualified and on good wages compared to most in the area they live. I bet you though the guy who said it to me does not think about where his shoes, socks, trousers, shirts were made? Where the tyres come from for his car, I could go on and on. The fact is the PAYE cost for my company in the UK to employ 10 people equates to employ 30 full time members in India for 2 months (that's just the PAYE). So where would you invest your money as a company?
The housing market has not only made it difficult for first time buyers but also for Businesses. There are very few office premises where we are. If you want to convert a private dwelling into an office, there are so many regulations now it's not worth it. Any land that comes up for sales is over priced for business use, only residential property developers can make it profitable.
My point being is I'm not sure what the UK will have to offer the rest of world in the future? It really worries me as I have 2 young children and I'm not sure I want to bring them up in the UK. People have said things like what about the benefits of the NHS. That's a good point, but when you actually look at it, you pay so much in taxes to cover such services that any country I moved to, I could pay for top health insurance and it would still cost me a fraction of what I pay in taxes here.
I now see many Indian companies learning from us and saying we don't need the UK any longer we can do it ourselves.... and you know what they are right. You only have to look at TATA!!
As always would love to hear peoples comments!!!
Labels: best place to live, future, jobs, PAYE, UK Economy
posted by Mark @ 9:19 AM
8 Comments:
As long as self consuming primitives keep feeding off it. There will be nowt left.
Uk is going to have a teeny meeny economy in the next few decades, dwarfed by India and China.
In my opinion, we will become a Service Industry based economy, as manufacturing moves to India and China. Agriculture, if properly monitored, could flourish, even with the threats caused by Global Warming. The UK could start producing a greater quantity of wine for example.
As to the UK being a great place to live, of course it is. We just have to all make sure that we keep it that way. Pollution control, ecological responsibility, etc.
The one sad thing that all experts agree on is that we are coming to the end of a period of abnormal prosperity. It would be hard to argue otherwise, with the price of staple foodstuffs doubling and the economies of China and India coming on stream.
In 20 years time the UK will be a third world economy and the Superpowers such as China and India will start to relocate manufacturing industry here in order to benefit from the low cost of labour.
not very good.if i was young i'd emigrate to Canada,Australia or New Zealand.even if the economy isn't booming the weathers good for outdoor life.(not Canada).
I believe that UK is a land of glory, peaceful and prosperity, In four years time, 2012,it will host the Olympic games. The games will boost its economy, as it did for countries who were its host before.
After 2012 to another 16years, there should be four cycle of economic turmoils in its economy. And after each slowdowns its economy will rebound. So there is a possibility that in 2028 people will still find it as a best place to live.
Having similar problems here in the US. We are over taxed & under represented. I was watching a doc on the decline of Rome and the resemblance to what is now happening in the western world is uncanny. The rich get richer and the not-so-rich become slaves and soldiers. Western society (Europe and hemisphere) has become inherently biased to keep the wealthy in power and to keep the poor powerless.
From the dawning of my doubts about "the land of the free and the home of the brave" I have been told, "if you don't like it... move to another country". It is my guess that that is why there is a 2 month waiting list for passports out. Since 2001 our rights, liberties and freedoms have been continuously suppressed or removed. The US is becoming a police state. When I was young we were worried about nuclear devices destroying the world yet our freedom was a point of pride and everyone's right. Now our enemy is a few brown guys with boxcutters and we must sacrifice more freedom everyday to protect ourselves from this "threat".
So, I'm looking to immigrate to somewhere better. Canada looks great. I could get used to the cold but I'm really more of a warm weather person. Australia and New Zealand, love it, but I've heard it is hard to immigrate there as an American without a sponsor. I've been looking toward Central America, particularly Belize. Robust tourist economy, beautiful climate and English as an official language. I need to find out more about the political structure. I seem to remember seeing a program in the early '90's which stated there was no income tax. Since the US Supreme Court declared personal income tax unconstitutional more than once (and never changed or revised the decision) before it was illegally foisted upon the "voting" public, I find the idea very appealing.
I am wide open to any other suggestions, these are just the best I have come up with so far. Sorry about my diatribe. It just seems to get worse here all of the time.
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