The Night Mail

[Compound2632]

50 minutes ago, DenysW said:

The cost of the NHS is roughly £4,000/taxpayer/year (£120Bn divided by 30 Million). Those numbers for taxpayers include the income-tax-paying poor. I understand 70% of its cost is wages. A big pay rise after years of below-inflation pay rises may be fair, but would be very visible in the tax bill, be it from VAT, income tax, or whatever.

 

On your rough estimate, a 35% increase in NHS wages would add £980 per year to that £4,000.

 

But it was pointed out recently here or elsewhere that 43% of income tax comes from higher-rate taxpayers of whom there are about six million out of a total of 32 million. Hence one should be dividing 57% of £120 billion among about 26 million standard rate income tax payers, i.e. an average of around £2,700 per year. A 35% increase in the 70% of that which is wages would then add about £640 per year. 

 

Income tax raises about £230 billion; applying the same rough calculation gives an average standard rate tax of around £5,700 per year, so a one percentage point increase would yield £280.

 

But of course this is still just an average. Someone on £20,000 pa would see a very much smaller increase than someone on £50,000 pa.

 

But the real point is that we have been under-taxed for too long - if we had continued to pay 22% we wouldn't be in the current mess.

Edited April 19, 2023 by Compound2632

[Northmoor]

24 minutes ago, DenysW said:

The cost of the NHS is roughly £4,000/taxpayer/year (£120Bn divided by 30 Million). Those numbers for taxpayers include the income-tax-paying poor. I understand 70% of its cost is wages. A big pay rise after years of below-inflation pay rises may be fair, but would be very visible in the tax bill, be it from VAT, income tax, or whatever.

Thank you; so the NHS spends £1M every 268 seconds and we are paying £11/day towards it.  As my family have made good use of the NHS over the last two decades plus, I'm happy to pay up (but I also think the NHS could manage itself better), but I also think the general public who always ask for more to be spent on the NHS, have very little idea what it already costs them.

[Winslow Boy]

12 minutes ago, Happy Hippo said:

You've missed out sadistic narcissist from your character assassination.

 

I was. Being kind as its first thing in the morning. Ask me later in the day and my kindness will have most likely have worn down/out due to dealing with the usual numpties, f£%&£#&%£s and scrotes that inhabit the confines of the greater urban district I happen to reside in or greater manutopia to those who know better.

[Happy Hippo]

11 hours ago, Dave Hunt said:

 

When I was stationed at RAF Valley a colleague and I went into a pub in Holyhead where just that happened. When the scrotes started pointedly speaking Welsh and glancing at us in a way that said, "We're talking about you, boyos, but you can only guess what we are saying," the two of us switched from English into German and gave them back the meaningful glance treatment. Soon afterwards they left, giving us filthy looks on the way out. The barman laughed and told us he was  from South Wales and couldn't wait to go back there. 

 

Dave

I've encountered this on a number of occasions where the Gogleddian has done the same thing.  Immediately answering in Flemish, and when you get no response, follow it with German and then French or even a smattering of Hebrew usually turns Gogledd to Goggle eyed and they start speaking English.

 

I don't have any issue with those who speak Welsh as a first language, and am quite happy to get by with my limited Welsh skills,but you do tend to find that some of the worst offenders are those who have learned the language later on and put on this air of smug superiority.

 

West Wales is a different matter..

 

We were on a railway trip and a crony walks into the predominantly Welsh speaking pub and in a broad South Wales accent says rather loudly:

 

'Sorry about the accent,  English see!'

 

Which promoted a lot of laughter and a good evening followed.

 

 

[iL Dottore]

DUMPSTER DIVING

 

Some things I have lurking around the workshop and I'm in two minds about whether or not I should bin them:

 

Church (Heljan kit, modified)

Water Tower (scratch built, based on a GWR Prototype)

Really not sure about either of them.

Any thoughts?

Edited April 19, 2023 by iL Dottore

[Compound2632]

52 minutes ago, Northmoor said:

we are paying £11/day towards it. 

 

On average; it depends how much income tax and NI you are paying. Those who currently make greatest use of the NHS are on the whole those currently contribute leas in taxation - but that is how redistributive taxation works.

 

In my back-of-the-envelope calculation, I failed to take into account that any increase in the standard rate of income tax would undoubtedly be accompanied by a larger increase in the higher rate, so the proportion of the additional funding for NHS wages coming from standard rate taxpayers would be commensurately less than I estimated.

 

But of course there's also teachers' salary increases to be taken into account before that part of state provision collapses too - teetering on the bring as it now is.

[skipepsi]

1 hour ago, iL Dottore said:

DUMPSTER DIVING

 

Some things I have lurking around the workshop and I'm in two minds about whether or not I should bin them:

 

Church (Heljan kit, modified)

Water Tower (scratch built, based on a GWR Prototype)

Really not sure about either of them.

Any thoughts?

Put them on free to a good home just make sure they know postage has to be paid.

[Happy Hippo]

The promised (by the weather forecast) sunshine has so far failed to materialise.

 

[jamie92208]

As a 6yr old learned 4 words of Welsh from the owner of a house we stayed in. 13 yrs later as a callow yoof camping on The Isle of Lewis my mate and I got into conversation with two Welsh girls in the next tent.  We were outside with beer aboard, they were inside.  Our intentions were probably not honourable. Every time we asked them something,they chattered away in Welsh then replied in English.  Eventually we realised that we were getting nowhere. My mate said goodnight and I said Nis Da.  The shreiks from inside the girls tent could be heard some distance away. 

 

Jamie

[Dave Hunt]

5 hours ago, Happy Hippo said:

Likewise probably the most well known air to air missile system is the AIM-9 Sidewinder.

 

The Sidewinder being another Rattlesnake:  Crotalus cerastes.

 

 A Raytheon engineer who was involved with the development of the Sidewinder told me that when it was being developed at China Lake in California in the late 50s/early 60s there was a naturalist research centre nearby. One evening some of the China Lake guys were in a bar talking to some of the naturalists when one of the latter said, "This Sidewinder we're hearing about, it's a heat seeker is it?" After a bit of a stunned silence one of the China Lake guys said, "How the hell do you know that, it's a damned secret. You a spy or something?" and told them he was going to call the security people. At that juncture the naturalist said, "Sorry, I just assumed that since the Sidewinder snake detects its prey by heat receptors that that would be the case with the missile." The China Lake guy looked a bit nonplussed and said "Oh, no, we call it the Sidewinder because its been giving us so much damned trouble."

 

Dave 

[TheQ]

2 hours ago, Happy Hippo said:

The promised (by the weather forecast) sunshine has so far failed to materialise.

 

Tis over here in Norfolk..

But with the wind off the sea it's only 10C

Edited April 19, 2023 by TheQ

[jjb1970]

The problem with the 'I'd pay more tax to fund X' argument is that if taxes go up it's unlike the revenue would be directed to X.

 

I support paying doctors, nurses, teachers, military service people, Police, firefighters and various other public servants a good income. However I object profoundly to the way government squanders huge amounts of money and at the risk of sounding cynical I am not sure the problem is a lack of money but that the money the government does raise isn't spent wisely or where we'd like it to be spent.

 

Another complication is it's not as simple as saying public servants are underpaid. Nurses, junior doctors, enlisted service people, junior civil servants yes. But there are plenty of government employees who do nicely, I used to work with senior officers in the RN and they had no complaints about their pay. Consultant doctors are not known for being underpaid, nor head teachers. I know people in DfT who I'd consider crazily overpaid given their levels of expertise and work ethic, I also know more junior people who are paid a pittance given their knowledge.

 

Comparing different countries is fraught with difficulty, as it is a bit of an apples and oranges comparison presented as apples with apples. Based on my admittedly limited experience healthcare and education seem much better in Singapore than in Britain and taxes are much lower, but healthcare here is a sort of state insurance/private hybrid model and people have to pay school fees, and the whole budget system is different. Something it does do is puncture the myth we're always told that the alternative to the NHS is American healthcare. Put aside the fact that it's not correct to present it as American=bad/NHS=good ( my American colleagues have plenty of criticism of US health insurance but none of them have expressed a wish to import the NHS model to the US), there is a whole spectrum of healthcare funding models. Singapore seems to be similar to many European countries, healthcare is private but there is government mandated health insurance which is regulated to ensure most people can access it, with fully private health insurance alongside it and a government scheme to support those in financial difficulty. It's not perfect but it works very well for most people and the quality of healthcare here is superb.

[jamie92208]

1 hour ago, TheQ said:

Tis over here in Norfolk..

But with the wind off the sea it's only 10C

It's here in France as well we've pinched it so that the telfs don't get their hands on it.

 

Jamie

[iL Dottore]

1 hour ago, jjb1970 said:

The problem with the 'I'd pay more tax to fund X' argument is that if taxes go up it's unlike the revenue would be directed to X.

 

I support paying doctors, nurses, teachers, military service people, Police, firefighters and various other public servants a good income. However I object profoundly to the way government squanders huge amounts of money and at the risk of sounding cynical I am not sure the problem is a lack of money but that the money the government does raise isn't spent wisely or where we'd like it to be spent.

 

... Singapore seems to be similar to many European countries, healthcare is private but there is government mandated health insurance which is regulated to ensure most people can access it, with fully private health insurance alongside it and a government scheme to support those in financial difficulty. It's not perfect but it works very well for most people and the quality of healthcare here is superb.

(my highlights) Having worked in the NHS (albeit quite a few years ago) I definitely agree with your first point - British officialdom (from local council to NHS to Ministry) does not have a good track record of spending money either wisely or well.

 

The healthcare system in Switzerland follows the Bismark Model: private health insurance, which is heavily regulated and a mixture of private and public hospitals clinics and medical services. In Switzerland everyone must have it and basic coverage can NOT be denied to anyone, regardless of past medical history (a person who has a long history of X might find it rather expensive to get supplementary health insurance - but this is for luxuries such as private rooms [standard hospital room in all but university hospitals is a two person room] and paid-by-the-insurance "wellness" spa treatments and the like, not essential care). The truly indigent are supported by the state.

 

My overall tax burden is lower than what it would be in the UK, but if I add in health insurance costs and a modest amount of co-pay then my total outgoes are equivalent (or perhaps somewhat less) of what I would pay were I domiciled in the UK. But with the advantage, here in Switzerland, of accessing medical care as and when needed, at an incredibly high standard, without queues and waiting lists*, knowing that all monies raised for the purposes of healthcare go directly into the healthcare system. Is it perfect? No, of course not - but even with the superb clinical excellence of many physicians working in the NHS, I know in which country I want to be treated.

 

I suggest it's time to have an honest and difficult conversation about the NHS: what is its purpose in this decade? who should/shouldn't it treat? which is the best way of funding it? (a ring fenced NHS tax that everyone must pay would be a start) and how should it be structured?.

 

* my last knee surgery was delayed a month or two for the simple reason the surgeon and I had to find a mutually acceptable date for the surgery. None of this "the op's next week. Take it or leave it"

Edited April 19, 2023 by iL Dottore

[jjb1970]

I asked my boss here what to do if we needed to see a doctor. He said go to a clinic and claim the cost back from the company insurance scheme. If it's serious the clinic will charge the insurer directly. When I said yes, but how do I make an appointment, his only answer was to go to a clinic, they're all good. He genuinely couldn't understand the concept of chasing an appointment.

 

They have what are called polyclinics here which are the nearest thing to government healthcare and provide much of the safety net for low income people. They're linked to universities and are large multi-discipline clinics. 

[Happy Hippo]

All this talk of health services reminds me that I have to go and have my stitches removed from my finger tomorrow.

With the non existent support from the GP surgery over dressing changes, I carried out my own with no real problem, and as everything healed up, so I reduced the size of the dressing so in the end it was just keeping the area around the stitches clean. I took the dressing off this afternoon after having had a shower, and decided I might as well leave it exposed.  It's nice and clean and the holes in the finger seem to have healed up ok.

 

The sun is currently hiding behind a large bank of cloud, although there is blue sky around.  It was a pity it wasn't able to make an appearance whilst I mowed the front lawn and the banks of the Muddy Hollow.

 

I'm now about to go and find the 7mm scale Heljan BR(W) AEC railcar from it's hiding place:  The post today saw the arrival of the sound decoder.  Usually I have to wire these up, but this one is plug and play and comes complete with a stay alive and a speaker already wired in.

 

All I have to do is remember that Heljan in their wisdom put the 21 pin socket onto the PCB the wrong way up, so the decoder has to go in 'upside down'.  I just need to make sure the pins all line up properly when plugging the decoder in.

 

I suspect it will take longer to adjust the motor CVs than it will to strip, the body off, fit the decoder and reassemble.

[Happy Hippo]

Well the decoder with it's attached stay alive and speaker went into the Railcar in double quick time.  I couldn't find my cap tape or black sticky sticky tape so had to jury rig the stay alive and speaker under the floor.  All works well apart from many of the F keys not doing what they are supposed to do.  Lord knows where the lights are because they are certainly not where the list tells us.

 

ie F1 is start/stop No 1 engine.  F11 is supposedly start No 2 engine, except it doesn't, but  it does give me the sound of the windscreen wipers!

 

I'll sit down with it tomorrow and find out where they are so I can get them into some semblance of order.

 

 

 

 

[J. S. Bach]

8 hours ago, iL Dottore said:

Water Tower (scratch built, based on a GWR Prototype)

 

Really not sure about either of them.

Any thoughts?

If that were O scale, I would say send it to me; yes, I would pay the shipping.

[BoD]

It looks rather pretentious for a soldering iron stand.

[Hroth]

2 hours ago, BoD said:

It looks rather pretentious for a soldering iron stand.

 

Counterproductive too, it'd chill the bit each time you rested the iron, though after a while you could pop a teabag in and make a mug of tea...

 

[AndyID]

6 hours ago, iL Dottore said:

 but if I add in health insurance costs and a modest amount of co-pay then my total outgoes are equivalent (or perhaps somewhat less) of what I would pay were I domiciled in the UK.

 

Which I think captures one very significant difference between healthcare in the US and healthcare in the UK. In the US everyone is acutely aware of how much a visit and procedure actually costs. Even if you are insured or on Medicare you still see all the charges and they are far from inexpensive. I doubt if actual costs between the US and the UK are all that different but unless you are on a private plan in the UK I doubt you have the faintest idea of the cost. I do know we were pretty shocked when we moved to the US 🙂

[AndyID]

5 hours ago, Happy Hippo said:

All this talk of health services reminds me that I have to go and have my stitches removed from my finger tomorrow.

With the non existent support from the GP surgery over dressing changes, I carried out my own with no real problem, and as everything healed up, so I reduced the size of the dressing so in the end it was just keeping the area around the stitches clean. I took the dressing off this afternoon after having had a shower, and decided I might as well leave it exposed.  It's nice and clean and the holes in the finger seem to have healed up ok.

 

 

Not caused by interference with a fast pointy thing but I do have an injury in my left-hand (left-foot?) big toe. I think it was originally banjaxed in a ski boot that wasn't fitting quite as it should. The nail-bed became a bit dodgy and after about 20 years the nail finally came off. It has recently re-grown but it's still not exactly "normal".

 

Raise a hand if you'd like me to post some close-up pics.

 

(MrsID is a fully qualified nurse and I've asked her to look at it. I'd think it would be right up her street but every time I ask she mumbles a lame excuse along the lines of "toes were not part of my training.")

[Tony_S]

45 minutes ago, AndyID said:

I doubt if actual costs between the US and the UK are all that different but unless you are on a private plan in the UK I doubt you have the faintest idea of the cost. I do know we were pretty shocked when we moved to the US 🙂

Aditi’s brother Raj is a GP. One weekend when he was visiting our dog had been at the vets  for surgery.  He thought Robbie’s stitches were neat and he had a look at the vet bill. He said the costs were not different to those for NHS procedures for humans though the vets drug costs were a bit higher than what the NHS paid. Every procedure has a cost but we end users don’t know it usually. Whenever I get get my reminders for my hospital visits to the Royal London the message includes a comment of how much a missed appointment costs the NHS. 

Edited April 19, 2023 by Tony_S

[polybear]

43 minutes ago, AndyID said:

I doubt if actual costs between the US and the UK are all that different but unless you are on a private plan in the UK I doubt you have the faintest idea of the cost. 

 

Possibly more expensive in the U.S. due to the potentially huge insurance claims (and therefore premiums) in the event of negligence etc.

[Happy Hippo]

1 hour ago, AndyID said:

 

Not caused by interference with a fast pointy thing but I do have an injury in my left-hand (left-foot?) big toe. I think it was originally banjaxed in a ski boot that wasn't fitting quite as it should. The nail-bed became a bit dodgy and after about 20 years the nail finally came off. It has recently re-grown but it's still not exactly "normal".

 

Raise a hand if you'd like me to post some close-up pics.

 

(MrsID is a fully qualified nurse and I've asked her to look at it. I'd think it would be right up her street but every time I ask she mumbles a lame excuse along the lines of "toes were not part of my training.")

Apart from discussing modelling techniques using foam and plasticard, the consultant orthopaedic surgeon who has been dealing with my finger(s), was telling me about his toe nail losses.  One of his pastimes is mountaineering and the boots he wears regularly cause nails to give up the ghost.

 

'I presume you'll pull them out with a pair of pliers, like you'll do mine' said I.

 

'Yes' he replied,

 

'But without any anaesthetic'.