The years go by since you registered it off the road for the first time, you polish it every week, and cherish it. Then, fifteen years and one day after you first took it off the road and stopped actually using it there is aknock on your door. You open the door and the following conversation takes place:
You: "Hello, how can I help you."Sounds horrible doesn't it (and I admit it's deliberately over the top)? But this is essentially what the Gordon Brown wants to do with the money in your bank account if you don't do anything with it and he can't find you. If you put money in a bank account when a child is born with the intention of it gaining interest in preparation for an 18th birthday think again. The money won't be yours when they turn 15 if you've just left it there and they can't find you.
Government Man: "Hello Sir, I'm from the Goevrnment and I've come for your car."
Y: "Excuse me?"
GM: "Your car, that one over there in the showrrom that is lovely and shiny."
Y: "Yes I know what it is, what do you mean you've come for it."
GM: "Well you don't use it anymore Sir. In fact you haven't used it for 15 years now, so we're taking it."
Y: "What do you mean you're taking it?"
GM: "It's ours now Sir. If you don't do something with your private proeprty for 15 years it becomes the property of the Government?"
Y: "But it's mine"
GM: "No Sir, it was yours. It is now ours. If you;re not going to use it, we'll find a use for it."
Y: "But....but.... that's stealing!"
GM: "No Sir, we have the legal power to do it, it's in a law that was drafted nearly 20 years ago. It's not stealing, if it's not illegal. Theft is such a dirty word, this is not theft, it's appropriation. Keys please?"
Y: "But.... but....."
GM: "No ifs, no buts. It's not yours anymore, that's the law."
To put it very simply, the proposed Unclaimed Assets Bill is the legalisation of theft by the Government, but you can bet it will be called appropritation. Should the Bill come to pass it should be manifesto commitment of the Conservative Party to repeal it within days of taking power.
I should point out here that this is the one area of things where I am rampantly ideological. I am pretty much totally opposed to the idea of compulsory purchase of property except in the most specifcally detailed circumstances, and the idea of Government seizing bank accounts just make me wince. Just because they can't find you it does not mean that they should be able to arbitrarily seize your assets.
Update: Croydonian has just reminded me of my reaction to this proposal when it was originally floated. "Of all the absolutely filthy things this government has cooked up, this is perhaps the most stone cold Hall of Infamy candidate, and having shown the story to the generally mild-mannered Dizzy, he started SHOUTING IN ANGLO SAXON on MSN. And he is not given to doing that." - at least I'm consistent!
29 comments:
So what should happen to the money in inactive bank accounts after 15, 20, 50, 100 years? Should the bank just keep it?
Why does something have to be done with it?
Oh dizzy, sometimes you let the idealogy run rampant all over the facts.
The Unclaimed assets bill does not and will not mean that your money is taken away. What it means that the money that banks currently put on their balance sheets as profits and use to invest but make no attempt to find the rightful owners of will be put to social use.
What is does not mean is that you will not be able to have the money should you discover an old savings book under the Mr and Mrs Thinks mattress. Banks will simply take out insurance against the claimant coming back for the money and there it will be in all its insurance gathering glory for you to spend as you see fit.
It is estimated that there is around £10-15bn worth of cash lying around on bank's balance sheets that does nothing bar feather the nests of bank executives. This way, banks have to actually do something to earn their money, your money remains asseccible should you want it, and the cash can be put to good uses like under fives edudaction provision or finding kids something to do in the summer holidays - all things that reduce long term crime and save tax payers money whilst making Britain a nicer place to live.
So, idealogy aside we have a little tickle of the banks which is always popular, we have no extra taxation, we have extra socially good spending that will reduce crime and save money in the medium to long term and you get to keep your money if you want it.
So libertarianism gone mad aside, what exactly is there not to like?
what exactly is there not to like?
It isn't the state's money.
"....we have a little tickle of the banks which is always popular, we have no extra taxation, we have extra socially good spending that will reduce crime and save money in the medium to long term and you get to keep your money if you want it.
So libertarianism gone mad aside, what exactly is there not to like? "
All of the above....
It seems that these damn politicians are still forgetting their place in the world.
They are there to GOVERN.
They are NOT there to RULE.
Anonymous. Your whole ideology is so disgusting that I'm not going to comment.
Theft is theft.
Extortion is extortion.
It doesn't matter if it's the state "redistributing" or a mugger "redistributing" it's still highly immoral. It also destroys the concept of charity.
Socialism kills, both physically and culturally.
What is disgusting is comparing an off the road car in a showroom to money that has not been touched and probably will be touched.
Nobody will be deprived of money if they want to claim it and rather than it simply being written off as profit by banks it is invested in charitable causes. Seems fair to me and a lot more ration than the dogma espoused on here.
You;re a socialist, hardly a suprrise that you would have no respect for property rights.
Am I the only one to spot the major flaw in you 'classic car' story which is the ' if they can't find you' bit.
How come they knocked on you door?
Gwil ap Tomos
PS
I don't necessarily agree with the proposals
But the proposal does nothing to harm property rights. At the moment, the banks are claiming money which isn't theirs (but which they have to give back in the unlikely event that the owner turns up); under the proposal, the government would do the same.
Your analogy at the top is completely wrong - a better one would be where the chaps turn up at your house, you say "err, that's my car actually", and they say "fair enough guv, we'll leave you to it".
Charity is not the same as extortion.
Get that into your thick socialist head.
"Am I the only one to spot the major flaw in you 'classic car' story which is the ' if they can't find you' bit." - Read the paragraph after it. It's pretty clear the analogy is deliberately over the top. So it's not a flaw given I conceded the difference.
"But the proposal does nothing to harm property rights. At the moment, the banks are claiming money which isn't theirs "
No they're not. They're private businesses holding money that was voluntarily given to them by people on the udnerstanding what was going to happen to it. Unlike the Goevrnment which wants to claim it as theirs. The bank is not doing anything that it has not been given permission to do by the fact the money was stored there.
One's approach to this seizure of assets depends on whether one regards all wealth, moveable or otherwise, as only 'belonging' to individuals on the sufferance of the state. If so, the door is wide open for the state to expropriate what it wants, when it wants, to use for whatever purpose. Maybe some of the comment makers take this approach. I do not.
Alternatively, money in bank accounts, classic cars, the contents of one's fridge or whatever have been acquired by virtue of contract, not status and some nebulous 'positive' social purpose is a very poor excuse for violating basic property rights. take away property rights and all of the other basic freedoms become meaningless - free speech cannot be exercised if there is no physical place where where you can exercise it.
"a little tickle of the banks which is always popular"
until the banks laugh all the way offshore.
"simply being written off as profit"
It's quite likely your pension is in some way dependent on those profits.
It is highly likely many jobs are dependent on those profits.
The story of your vintage penis replacement being nabbed is lovely but Dizzingly Illogical.
What is does not mean is that you will not be able to have the money should you discover an old savings book under the Mr and Mrs Thinks mattress. Banks will simply take out insurance against the claimant coming back for the money and there it will be in all its insurance gathering glory for you to spend as you see fit.
When an account holder puts money in the bank and leaves it there the bank can use it as an investment. But the money is always on call should the account holder wish to withdraw it.
The problem is when the Government decides it will take and use the money for social projects. The money is self evidently not on call at the institution where it was left.
Anonymous says that is no problem because the banks can take out insurance to cover such an eventuality. Who will pay the premiums? Customers. Who benefits from tax paid on insurance premiums? Treasury. Customers will be forced to pay for Brown's decision - so yes there IS extra taxation as it happens.
The covenant between banks and customers is being broken by arbitary Government theft. We already pay taxes to fund capital projects - even those these socialist morons waste it hand over fist. Why should we be forced to pay twice for leaving our money in our accounts?
What is there not to like? The new costs borne by customers to fund insurance to cover disgraceful sequestration of assets by the incompetents in the Treaury.
Question for all readers. When is Chris Paul going to go through puberty?
Here's the problem that my sudden crew of left wing commenter don't seem to get. This is about property and the ownership thereof. When you put your money into a bank you enter into a contract with them about your money.
This bill is not about a contract, it is about the Government essentially gaining a priori ownership of our money. It is shifting the notion of owenrship in favour of the state. A more sensible solution to the alleged problem would be for bank to offer accounts where part of the contract covered the eventuality that you die lonely with no family or heir by you entering into a contract with the bank about the money you have and what should happen if, after say a 100 or so years, it becomes clear you're dead and no one is around to execute the owenrship of the monies. At least that way it reamibns your property and your right to decide what happens to it, rather than simply allowing the state to take ownership of it arbitrarily.
It is estimated that there is around £10-15bn worth of cash lying around on bank's balance sheets that does nothing bar feather the nests of bank executives.
Oh, right, yes, that is precisely what happens to all the money that banks invest, isn't it?
It is definitely not the case that money goes to investing in companies, which provide jobs for people so that they can afford to look after their own fucking life-style choices... sorry... kids rather than everyone else being forced to, eh?
... the cash can be put to good uses like under fives edudaction provision...
And there was me thinking that we already pay through the nose for this anyway. But I guess those state podding hutches won't pay for themselves, huh?
Seriously, why do you want to start educating children under 5? They are barely physically complete by that time: can't we allow our children a few years of just gadding about before we start indoctrinating them?
... or finding kids something to do in the summer holidays...
And there was me thinking that this sort of thing might fall under the responsibility of those that spawned them, but no.
... all things that reduce long term crime and save tax payers money whilst making Britain a nicer place to live.
Don't be fucking naive.
DK
You have some money, you stick it under your matress. Not having any need to spend that money (which was why you stuck it under the matress) you don't touch it for a while. One day you find your door has been smashed down and the money under the matress stolen. Clearly there has been a burglery. They only difference between this obvious theft and what Gordon Brown is proposing is that you have agreed with the bank to use their matress rather than your own. Is that really so hard for people to understand?
At 11.52 Dizzy relied to my post thus
""Am I the only one to spot the major flaw in you 'classic car' story which is the ' if they can't find you' bit." - Read the paragraph after it. It's pretty clear the analogy is deliberately over the top. So it's not a flaw given I conceded the difference."
Piis poor effort at replying from someone whom I've seen putting well constructed arguments forward in the past.
Two main ingredients go to make up this proposal.
a) Money not touched for X years.
AND
b) Owner cannot be traced.
You create a scenario that uses one of the ingredients and ignores the other BUT excuse yourself by making some little proviso towards the end. I might as well go back to reading Newspapers and watching BBC News.
Again I reiterate I do not necessarily agree with the proposal.
Just amazed at a piss poor, out of character, posting. Possibly, given your previous enragement, as shown by Croydian and pointed out by you, some red mist comes down re this subject and you should call yourself Dizzy Doesntthinkitthroughproperly.
Gwil Ap Tomos
PS
Please don't refer to me as left wing.
1: I didn't call you left wing.
2: As I already said, I created a deliberately over the top scenario and acknowledged the other part so your point is moot. The analogy was designed to make a point about property rights, little more. It;s not difficult to understand.
3: Whats the BBC and Newspapers got to do with anything? This isn't a news service you know, it's just my website.
4: It's not out of character posting at all. I simply do not beleive that this propsoal is right. In fact, I think it is wrong.
I was going to say
"They would not have knocked on your door so the WHOLE scenario is incorrect.
Why make one up when it is blatatnly wrong. Merely refering to the 'small print' is a sneaky way of presenting an argument."
Instead I'll merely shrug my shoulders and think 'yea, whatever' and go back to lurking.
Gwil ap Tomos
The worst analogy I've heard this year. Does the phrase "straw dogs" mean anything to you dizzy. Seriously, its just lazy. It just really doesn't work.
Straw men and it does work if the point about property rights is understood.
Probably irrelevant but…
I was under the impression that when you deposit money in a bank, it legally becomes the bank’s money. In that way a bank can’t come back to a customer and say “sorry, we just had a burglary and the robbers got away with your £100, Mr Customer”. It’s the banks money that has been stolen and the bank still has a contract with the customer to return the money deposited, with the appropriate interest added, on demand.
So is it being proposed is that a government can confiscate a bank’s money to suit itself?
Why not just abolish money and be done with it. It worked in North Vietnam didn't it?
What about empty houses - perhaps they could be used to help the homeless? A spare room in your house? Fill it up with a squatter.
How much effort are the banks going to go to to find the rightful owner of this money? What if you forget to give them your new address and only remember a few years later?
At what point will the socialists realise that IT IS OUR MONEY, and some of it we give to the government to pay for services which are more effectively bought collectively such as defence, police, fire brigade etc. Public money is not manna from heaven, someone has to earn it!
Incidentally to the anon who mentioned straw dogs, you might also know about the fallacies about damning the example. Very apt here.
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