I think there is a legal requirement to provide a VAT receipt to businesses that require them (ie that are registered for VAT), but there is no such requirement for shops to give receipts to customers. It’s a convenient way to provide a proof of purchase, but it’s by no means the only way of doing so.
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"I do not approve of anything that tampers with natural ignorance. Ignorance is like a delicate exotic fruit; touch it and the bloom is gone. The whole theory of modern education is radically unsound. Fortunately in England, at any rate, education produces no effect whatsoever. If it did, it would prove a serious danger to the upper classes, and probably lead to acts of violence in Grosvenor Square."
Lady Bracknell The importance of Being Earnest -
Eventually I’ve been saying that eventually all hard cash will disappear and we just have debit or credit cards. I don’t think there’ll be much in the way of retail outlets as is happening now, it’s all happening online.Don’t cry for me
I go where music was born
J S Bach 1685-1750Comment
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The financial crash was enabled by neoliberal reforms to finance and banking - i.e. deregulation which positively encourages reckless behaviour. How did cocaine fuel the crash exactly? In any case, financial crises are an inevitable part of capitalism.Originally posted by Lat-Literal View PostComment
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An informative article from The Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/science/...aking-cannabisComment
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"Coked-up bankers caused the credit crunch, according to the [very liberal] former drug tsar David Nutt. One former City worker can well believe it":Originally posted by Joseph K View Post
Note that this conclusion was drawn from the academic who go into hot water by claiming that taking ecstasy was less dangerous than going horse riding.
Thank you for that opinion. It probably isn't wrong. From what I have now read, it also appears that a customer who pays by cash has a right to request a receipt but not to receive one. It is frequently said that a receipt is "merely" proof of purchase. I don't see any "merely" in it. It is the difference between being able to have firm grounds for getting a faulty good replaced, having paid by cash, and not having firm grounds. The recent phenomenon of regularly not providing receipts for a cash exchange must surely be the ultimate example of caveat emptor. There is no doubt now in my mind that if a receipt is not provided then the best position for customers would be to say they don't want the good after all. The problem is that the cash is handed over first. Consequently the unscrupulous could refuse both to give a receipt and to hand back the money on the basis that the good has to be taken.Originally posted by LHC View Post
To have once had receipts given as routine avoided all of this potential argy-bargy. Consequently, there must, I reiterate, be a reason for the shift either in not providing a receipt or in asking if the cash customer wants one. Clearly the handing of cash for a good does not necessarily show up on a shop's own paperwork other than for internal purposes. Given that high street stores are also playing this game now, I think one does have to ask if it has been established for the purposes of avoiding some tax on some profit. And if so, that could or would substantially alter the image of them - in some cases ethical - that their media campaigns seek to convey. As for any lack of political leadership, I think along with more obvious things, Bbm is right that this sits in the broader context of cash being prepared for abolition. It isn't so much a nudge towards plastic - and further power for bankers - as a great big shove.Last edited by Lat-Literal; 27-05-18, 13:20.Comment
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Oh dear, somebody's triggered a debate about guns....Originally posted by Lat-Literal View PostComment
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Also note that it's from an academic whose specialty is drugs and not capitalism. I wouldn't be too hasty in ascribing behaviour to drug in-take. The same drug can have different effects on people depending on their personality. I suspect cocaine probably exaggerated and accelerated behaviour in people which was there already. Besides which this is first and foremost bankers' behaviour, which goes on regardless of whether drugs are legal or not - it is only enabled by the system of banking that we have, and the amount of money they have (cocaine is expensive). This is a system of banking that was only enabled by laws put through by various (neoliberal) governments, starting with Thatcher - that is the fact of the matter - take away those laws and I don't care how much cocaine the bankers took, the crisis wouldn't have occurred.Originally posted by Lat-Literal View Post"Coked-up bankers caused the credit crunch, according to the [very liberal] former drug tsar David Nutt. One former City worker can well believe it":
Note that this conclusion was drawn from the academic who go into hot water by claiming that taking ecstasy was less dangerous than going horse riding.
I mean, one can point to cannabis and LSD use by the Beatles, but only a mad person would wholly ascribe their achievements to their drug use! Far better to point out the socio-economic conditions of their achievements as more fundamental, and see the drugs as perhaps giving a certain shape to creativity.
Lastly, I would point out that drugs, including cocaine, have been used for thousands of years. The drug laws that exist now exist simply to enrich gangsters.Comment
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If there is a European country to note, it isn't the Netherlands but Italy. In the 1940s, Italy had the biggest cannabis production in Europe outside the Soviet Union. It could have that again. Around three quarters of people want the law to be relaxed beyond the current permissions for medical marijuana. In its absence, it is being introduced illegally in products such as gelato. In parallel, the Northern League wants a significant relaxation of gun ownership laws in what is the European country with the highest rate of serious gun related crime. It has in some towns proposed paying every individual who wants to own a gun the money for one as a means of self-defence. The wider context is a long term notoriety for mafia and other corruption and extensive fraud among politicians and financiers with understandable public resentment at controls applied from Brussels. The "answer" appears to be to chill out on drug flavoured children's ice cream while having a weapon and artillery at the front door rather than serious economic reform. Such approaches are merely illustrations of the clueless.Originally posted by LMcD View Post
Thank you for your contribution. I think you are choosing selectively to identify with social liberalism as left leaning. It's in your name. That is the 1960s version, genuinely, and the post 1997 version as an illusion to which many still subscribe. In many ways, it is a contradiction in terms. It's natural bedfellow is economic liberalism which when taken to its ultimate point is essentially the wild west. Leftism is more about significant or partial top down management or greater planning and controls. I believe in a mixed economy. I also believe in a balance of rights and responsibilities in social policy which I accept is calculable in different ways by different people. However, a key point in my calculation is the need to balance the rights of individuals and groups with the well-being of all citizens. I was not a supporter of Margaret Thatcher. She started a bandwagon. Nevertheless, she was the most left wing Prime Minister of the UK since 1979. It's a point that I drive home at every opportunity as the mythology is so different. And anyone who thinks differently has had the wool pulled over his/her eyes.Originally posted by Joseph K View Post
I am in no doubt you are right that cocaine accentuates the traits of many in the finance industry rather than turning them into economy wreckers when otherwise they could have been the Archbishop of Canterbury. But I doubt that this alters much at the cutting edge. As for the Beatles, illegal drugs accentuated their creativity rather than being responsible for it and while I think there is still some scope for some leeway in terms of the truly artistic, I do not sense there is big artistry as opposed to shed loads of artfulness on most average streets.Last edited by Lat-Literal; 27-05-18, 15:52.Comment
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Yep - that's fair dues.Originally posted by eighthobstruction View Post
It ain't paintin' another someone's house or the 24rth year of commuting into the office.
As I did and more.
We could loosen it all by going back to a protectionist rural economy which I favour.
No cities and no grand towns.
(It's a sublime track by the way)
Last edited by Lat-Literal; 27-05-18, 19:21.Comment
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