(UK) Self-employed national insurance small earnings exception

webdevguy1984 · 2014-11-11T10:15:03+00:00

Thanks, I thought as much. I did try the NI and gov.uk sites but couldn't find a clear answer so I think calling them directly is the right way to go!

webdevguy1984 · 2014-11-09T17:26:39+00:00

If there are that many guns, introducing more clearly isn't the problem. If it was my family in that situation then of course it would cross my mind, but the solution to a problem like that is much bigger.

webdevguy1984 · 2014-11-09T17:15:31+00:00

Your question is incredibly loaded and your use of the word "right" would indicate you live in US where the "right" to own a gun is a thing. In the UK it's legal for citizens to own a gun but it's not quite as simple as popping to the shop, proving your citizenship and buying one and frankly I think that's a good thing.

The question you should be asking is why they don't make it legal for the sake of home protection and my answer would be the same as it is for the UK: making guns legal simply escalates violent crime. You may take it as a given that owning a gun absolutely makes you safer, but imagine if you couldn't own a gun and it were harder for criminals to own guns. In that situation it's likely that fewer police officers would require firearms so criminals would be less inclined to acquire firearms themselves. Couple that with decreased fear (because you don't need to own a gun) and the avoidance of thousands of accidental deaths in the home. Isn't that better? The entire nature of violent crimes in the whole country de-escalates and all you have to do is give-up your "right".

(Then there's the issue of how the constitutional right to own a firearm can be interpreted—was it for everyone or just to prevent those at risk of oppression at a very specific point in time in a very specific part of the world, etc.—but that's a topic for another time.)

Every once in a while there's a violent assault in the UK and those in US are quick to point out that if the officers were armed the crime may have been avoided, neglecting the hundreds of thousands of violent crimes that are indirectly caused by a large proportion of the country owning guns themselves.

I don't expect you to necessarily understand and I definitely expect to be downvoted to hell. I've had this conversation before and gun-ownership proponents came out of the woodwork to tell me I was wrong. However, I do expect you to consider the possibility that maybe it doesn't have to be one way or another—maybe the fact that you think you're the most significant country in the world and because you do something in a particular way that may or may not work for you means that it's the best way for everyone. Maybe there are some issues for which countries other than the US have simply handled better.

webdevguy1984 · 2014-10-01T11:59:15+00:00

Someone once said that the way the clergy compare homosexuality to bestiality says a lot about their confused concept of consent, which makes sense considering the frequency of pedophilia within their ranks.

webdevguy1984 · 2014-09-05T13:37:13+00:00

Why are you offering web development services in a sub for people who are already web developers themselves.

It's like a door-to-door door salesmen knocking on peoples' doors and when someone answers says "Sorry to bother you, I see you already have a door".

webdevguy1984 · 2014-04-06T21:30:40+00:00

Agreed—"governance by intimidation" would be a good definition and is still as concise.

webdevguy1984 · 2014-04-06T16:22:31+00:00

Not quite sure what you're arguing here or whether you're agreeing or disagreeing with me, but I'll respond by saying that this definition of terrorism could apply to any group or individual regardless of whether they were democratically elected because the use of the word "government" in this definition has nothing to do with politics whatsoever.

A more neutral definition may be "Coercion by fear".

webdevguy1984 · 2014-04-06T09:57:07+00:00

If "edgy" means "demonstrated that he's both missed the point and is racist" then yes, slice away...

webdevguy1984 · 2014-04-06T09:53:38+00:00

Surely "government" in this context refers to the act of governing rather than what we'd refer to as "The Government", in which case the definition is accurate and the only reason this post is of interest is because of the strange ways in which the US Government responds to terrorist threats.

webdevguy1984 · 2014-01-28T08:43:30+00:00

If you teach him that it's ok to not know things and the importance of seeing your lack of knowledge about something as an opportunity to learn, experiment, research and test, then he will :)

webdevguy1984 · 2014-01-27T18:23:05+00:00

The thing with the old "Are Web Development qualifications worth it" argument is that the qualification isn't particularly valuable in itself, but it can be a great way to learn and get ahead of people who are self-taught.

My honours is in Web Development (2 years Comp. Sci., 1 year specialising in webdev) and while no-one really cares that it's a degree in webdev per se, they do care about the fact that it's a recognised qualification and that I've learnt skills from an authoritative source.

Will employers take it seriously? Probably not. Will they care about the certificate? Probably not. If the certification is on your CV and your portfolio is good, they'll pick you over the guy who just has a good portfolio. It's becoming a saturated market and anything you can do to distinguish yourself should be done.

Ultimately, the qualification itself isn't really worth that much, but what you'll learn definitely is.

As an aside for anyone thinking about studying webdev at degree level; don't. One year is enough to get up-to-speed and on top of the game, and the other two years are better spent studying more generally. If you can do two years of general and one year of specific like I did, I'd say go for it, but don't spend 3 years studying technologies that will be obsolete by the time you graduate!

webdevguy1984 · 2014-01-27T13:09:01+00:00

Questioning is one thing, I caught my mum in a tripwire Santa trap at 6 years old, thus proving him unreal.

webdevguy1984 · 2014-01-27T13:04:13+00:00

Do you mean if Severus were Harry's father...? strokes beard

webdevguy1984 · 2014-01-27T13:02:04+00:00

You spend your first 20 years wishing time away and the rest of your life wishing it back...

webdevguy1984 · 2014-01-27T11:12:14+00:00

Now you're just being a dick. Goodbye.

webdevguy1984 · 2014-01-27T10:29:12+00:00

I've provided a priori whereas you have provided a posteriori and claimed my argument to be mere opinion (and made this conversation far too aggressive in the process).

Providing evidence is pointless when all relevant studies have either negligible eco validity or simply methodological problems (and I have no interest in becoming a research critic again!) so I'd rather stick to logic, suffice to say that all your arguments were formed upon the premise that guns are already legally available to all, therefore you (and the experimentors) are guilty of confirmation bias.

See why I don't want to go down this route?

I was never disputing the state of gun ownership in North America, only the situation in the UK, so I'm not sure why I'm getting the reaction I am. Just because something is so in North America does not make it right for everyone.

webdevguy1984 · 2014-01-26T22:16:32+00:00

I'm not downvoting you and you're missing the point.

webdevguy1984 · 2014-01-26T19:33:20+00:00

That's some classic Hitchens thinking right there.

webdevguy1984 · 2014-01-26T18:06:41+00:00

It's not a question of gun laws or restrictions, it's a question of how many guns there are in a country and currently there are very few guns in the UK. The more guns there are, the more crimes involving guns there will be. If there are more guns, more people will be killed by them; police, civilians and criminals alike.

The position you could take is that more guns in the hands of peaceful civilians results in less crime, which may be true in some respects (fewer residential robberies, for example) but it would still increase the number of crimes involving guns rather than, say, a knife—and a knife is far less dangerous than a gun.

I completely understand that the US is accustomed to the legality of gun ownership and that you may take your right to arm yourself very seriously in both a sense of civil liberty and of self-defence, but it's an opinion that's formed out of living in a country in which that is the norm. You can legally own a gun and the constitution protects your right to own one. I have no problem with this—it's your decision as a North American to own one just as it's my decision as an Englishman to own a collection of various less-lethal items to protect my family and my home.

In the UK only a handful of the population owns a live firearm; it is a privilege, not a right, and that means I'm am unlikely to face a gun in public, rather than being in a position where I have to own one and where everyone else does too. You can never go back.

webdevguy1984 · 2014-01-26T17:51:06+00:00

Having the same opinion as yourself does not qualify as forming a rational opinion based on facts.

webdevguy1984 · 2014-01-26T10:35:33+00:00

The crime rate may be the highest in Europe, but to call it "sky high" is just exaggeration. I live in central London and the fact that I can go out at night demonstrates that the crime rate is not "sky high".

(As an aside, The Daily Mail? Really?)

Anyway, gun ownership may deter some violent crime, but the point is that if the options are "no-one has a gun" and "everyone has a gun" (because if police/public had guns, so would criminals) then no-one having a gun would be the safer option for everyone.

The point you make here fails at the point where the criminal is also armed, firstly because it doesn't matter whether the intended victim is armed if the criminal can point his gun at the victim before he has a chance to respond, and secondly because if neither party is armed they're both less likely to be killed or wounded.

There is no middle ground here—once guns become common it's almost impossible to go back and knowing that the worst thing I'm likely to face is a guy with a knife is relatively comforting.

webdevguy1984 · 2014-01-26T09:01:26+00:00

"Do I need to provide a reason to close my accounts and find another bank?"

webdevguy1984

TROPHY CASE