My Take on 2016 – but I’m not an expert!

WHO WOULD HAVE PREDICTED THE EVENTS OF THIS YEAR ?

We are coming to the end of an extraordinary year and one that will go down in the history books as so.

2016 has seen the people revolt in many countries. Apart from all the unrest and terrible suffering in Aleppo the scariest part is that the war seems to be moving nearer to Europe. I am not the worlds best at geography and indeed politics, but to me it all started a few years ago in Afghanistan when our troops went out for support, it then involved parts of Iraq and Iran but it seems to have moved further towards Europe now. as far as Syria where we have seen the atrocities in Aleppo and is finally now entering Turkey, where is this going to end?

Terrorism has also plagued Europe with Paris taking the worst hit as a truck attack killed 84 in Nice on Bastille Day.

This followed the last terrible attacks on 13th November 2015 in Paris only 7 month earlier which killed 130 people and injured hundreds of others. It was the most deadly assault on French soil since World War II. A suicide bombing at the Stade de France stadium were followed by more explosions and shootings at popular bars and restaurants in Paris. Three gunmen also opened fire at Bataclan concert hall and killed spectators who were watching the Eagles of Death Metal perform. 

Great Britain has narrowly escaped up to present but that is down to our great intelligence service which has foiled more than one or two attempts to bomb us.

Because of all the free movement in Europe and all the terrorism and unrest raging from around that part of the world, immigration has been a big issue in Great Britain and the USA. This has caused conflicts within each of the countries and in America it resulted in Donald Trump being voted president-elect and in England BREXIT winning the vote to get out of the European Market and free movement of people.

When you look at what has been going on in the world Globally and how it has effected many countries you cannot blame anyone for taking the stance that they have taken. We all go into protective mode when any of our family is being threatened and the same goes for our country. We have to be careful who comes over our borders because before we know it we will be in a situation as Aleppo has been in. Is this what we want to see in our country –

A before the war picture then below an after the war picture

More can be seen on this link Before And After The War In Aleppo

Where will it ever end? This iconic picture says it all –

The World Economic Situation

On top of all this disaster and suffering we have had many people in our own country and Europe suffering from low wages and zero hour contracts. Life has been very difficult indeed. Because of constantly rising immigration our country is struggling to manage, its infrastructure creaking at the seams. We have had the Junior Doctors strikes, the Brexit vote and in even in the USA people are so discontented they have voted for a proven businessman to run their country namely Donald Trump, no one would have predicted that!

Yes the point is the rich are getting richer and the poor poorer, we seem to have taken a step back in fact a whole century back. Some things never change you see, when the government introduced a new minimum wage most companies, because they are so greedy for profit had to reduce the hours of their staff so their turnover was not spoilt. Oooops don’t want to spoil the executives yearly bonus the poor things!

It is terrible that basically things have not changed over the years. We still have the haves and we still have a rising population of have nots and its getting slowly worse. The normal working people are having to run two and three jobs to survive. We have the food banks instead of the soup kitchens and the workhouse. Is that progress? When George Osborn bragged about how unemployment had dropped did he include the fact that some of those employed people were taking 3 jobs and some of those jobs were only 10 hours a week, that could screw your figures a bit Mr Osborn!

At the end of the day the fat cats want their cream and cake and want to eat it too and that will never change! The only way that people can be helped is by tax credits and working tax credits funded by tax revenues gained from these large companies and high wages earners because unfortunately it doesn’t work any other way. So come on you big companies and high earners stop this terrible tax evasion hand over the cash we need it!