Today is the 4th January 2010, but it’s not just a normal Tuesday.  Today is Vat increase day, which means things will be three percent more expensive than before or does it?

Well for  a start we all know that the usual tax increase products will have some added; for those not in the know that’s: Fuel, Tabacco and Alcohol.  The last two causing particular concern amongst those at Rant Towers, but what else will the Vat increase hit?

Vat on the rise...

In our research it’s pretty much everything from a loaf of bread, right through to a widescreen telly, you will shortly see the cost of everything marginally increase and life get just that little bit more expensive.

Can we afford it?

For most we still struggle a little bit more, that three percent actually works out to around £590 year on average, which in anyones books is a big chunk of a salary (except those running the country, eighteen of the current cabinet and front benchers each have massive personal fortunes: Fact.) so what to do? To be quite honest we don’t know.  It’s a brand new world out there and we have to hope that the retailers get into some competition with each for who is the cheapest and who can get the most business, not excellent for them but good for us.

Time will tell if this country’s retailers survive after the Vat increase.  In the back of my mind there’s a sly hope that it fails and it’s proven that we’re spending less, we need to teach the current government a lesson and prove to them that what they’re doing isn’t going to work.

So we shall have to wait it out, but in the mean time with all the increases remember it’s only the 4th January and alread 2011 has gone to pot!

Happy New Year!

A healthy start to 2011 you said, a brand new year you muttered, but nothing has really changed has it?

It definitely hasn’t in Birmingham.

We seem to have stepped back in time to the mid seventies and began our very own local winter of discontent. You see, our rubbish hasn’t been collected in nearly three weeks now, and would you have guessed that it’s all due to pay decreases causing strikes by the Bin Men – sorry Refuse Collectors here?

Uncollected Rubbish

Sound familiar? Well it should, we’ve been here before, many a time and once again the Bin Men – ugh Refuse Collectors are holding us to ransom by attempting to force their hand. Annoying? Yes. Wrong? Unfortunately not for Birmingham City Council. I’m actually with the Bin Men, Er dammit Refuse Collectors on this one. I believe strongly that you should fight to keep what you have and if that’s a job paying good money for a manual work then you should do it, shout it from the rooftops and make everyone aware of the semi-political quandary you’ve been placed in.

However, (wait for it, the slightly edgy part is coming) when you earn about twice as much as the average worker, and are payed by public taxes (in this case council tax) should you be moaning that much? I figure that it would be a far worse situation if the local government turned around and sacked you because you cost too much to employ as is likely to happen with my job. So stop moaning? Is that a better option than losing you’re job altogether? Call me cynical (You’re cynical – Thanks) but who has the right to actively annoy the wider community?

I’d like nothing more than to have my rubbish collected in line with the promises from the Council, Can you manage that? Just this once…