Budget 2016

[LateThanNever]

Sorry but I can't let that stand. Gordon Brown spent like crazy during the boom years of the mid 2000's so when the crash did happen Govt spending was so high a massive deficit soon racked up. You can't borrow borrow borrow on the never never pumping more and more money into the economy without looking at cutting spending otherwise you end up exactly where Greece are. Would Gordon Brown have tackled the welfare budget in 2010 and got thousands back to work? Probably not. McDonnell just says that he wants to pump more and more money into the economy but won't say ANY spending cuts he will make even though he is trying to claim economic competence.

Ow and not all people who try and save money are "trustfarians" thanks. A lot of people on moderate incomes are responsible with their money and try and save and don't blow it all every month. They will be given a nice boost for being sensible with their money and not relying on state handouts all their lives.

Oh dear, there are lots of misconceptions here!
First, Tax research UK has shown "that the Conservatives’ claim to be the custodians of the public finances while Labour has been the spendthrift party is unjustified. In the past 70 years, Labour governments have borrowed less than Conservative governments and repaid more debt. That holds true when adjusted for inflation and when the Conservative borrowing since 2010 (which Osborne has always blamed on his legacy from Gordon Brown) is excluded." According to the Grauniad.
The link to the actual research is here http://www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/...epaid-more-than-the-conservatives-since-1979/
You also forget that the billions on Brown's debt was in fact the private debt of the bailed out banks, which was put on to the public debt in order to save the UK economy.
So it is the banks' private debt causing the problem, not Brown's public debt.

Second Britain has its own sovereign so called 'fiat' currency so can print money at no interest or cost - just as it has done for the banks -AGAIN - with the £375billion of Quantitative Easing still being reissued. Hence there is no reason for, or logic to, Austerity.
You cannot expand the economy by cutting the budget, unless exports suddenly take off and we get a balance of payments surplus - and that is, to say the least, improbable.
The private banks still issue 97% of all the money issued in the UK in the form of loans and over 80% of that goes to property loans - that's really going to help those exports. This money is created out of thin air becauswe that is what the banks are authorised to do (see this paper issued by the Bank of England http://www.bankofengland.co.uk/pu...letin/2014/qb14q1prereleasemoneycreation.pdf )

Third Britain is never, ever like Greece as Britain has its own sovereign currency which it creates. Greece doesn't.

Fourth Glad you're able to save. Those poorer than you cannot and so neither can they take advantage of any bonus Osborne may offer. This link https://cornwallindependentpovertyforum.wordpress.com/2016/03/16/housing-crisis-falmouth/to an article on housing in Cornwall might give some indication as to why people conclude that it is more important that money should be directed to spenders rather than savers.
Additionally of course, unless savers put up capital for industry, only spenders expand the economy.

Lastly it should be remembered that the economy is not like the weather but it is a human construct. It needs to be made to work for us all - not just the banks!

 

[overthewater]

Has anyone else seen this: http://moveyourmoney.org.uk/budget-2016/

He really is a bad at his job,

 

[Dave1987]

Gibberish. In the period 1997-2002 the Labour government were running a budget surplus of about 2% GDP on average. There have been a total of eight years since 1960 where a budget surplus was achieved, and Gordon Brown was responsible for four of those.

In the period 2002-2008 the budget deficit was averaging about 3% of GDP.

By contrast, the smallest budget deficit managed by Economics George was in 2015, where it was 4.8% of GDP.

http://www.tradingeconomics.com/united-kingdom/government-budget

Hmmm budget surplus of juts 2% during a period where tax revenues were insanely high. Huge taxes coming in from a banking sector that was arguably out of control. In fact all I remember the Brown era for was tax tax and more tax. Every budget was how much is he going to hike fuel duty up by, how much is he going to hike beer duty up by, what other ways could he come up with to tax the hell out of ordinary working people while his spending boom was going on. He should have have a massive budget surplus and not just 2%.

There is no restriction on the Lifetime ISA, therefore anyone can get the handout. People with higher incomes are able to save more than people with lower incomes, therefore the benefit of the scheme will primarily go to people who already have significant wealth behind them.

How "sensible" someone is doesn't come into it, except where people are trying to morally justify why they should get a state handout when other people (like, ooh, disabled people) should not.

I asked you on the Lifetime ISA thread, and I'll also ask you here: why, if you're so against "government spending" and "state handouts", are you so supportive of 18 year olds being given a forty grand cheque from HM Treasury?

Er I'm all for people being encouraged to save and not blow there entire wage packet each month! And I all for the higher wages and those on minimal wages being taken out of paying tax altogether.

I have nothing against the genuinely disabled and wish that they have all the support they can. Amazing how many people who were "disabled" under the previous Labour Govt have suddenly discovered that they are fit enough to go back to work now it isn't so easy to claim off of the state isn't it!
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A slight deficit, averaging about 2% of GDP.

A "slight deficit"? You have got to be kidding me. If we had kept spending at the levels Gordon Brown was spending before the crash we would be in a worse state than Greece. The deficit was £150bn a year! So the Labour Govt was spending £150bn more per year than it took in tax. Call that a "slight deficit"?

And you wonder why Labour has lost two GE's since 2010.
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Oh dear, there are lots of misconceptions here!
First, Tax research UK has shown "that the Conservatives’ claim to be the custodians of the public finances while Labour has been the spendthrift party is unjustified. In the past 70 years, Labour governments have borrowed less than Conservative governments and repaid more debt. That holds true when adjusted for inflation and when the Conservative borrowing since 2010 (which Osborne has always blamed on his legacy from Gordon Brown) is excluded." According to the Grauniad.
The link to the actual research is here http://www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/...epaid-more-than-the-conservatives-since-1979/
You also forget that the billions on Brown's debt was in fact the private debt of the bailed out banks, which was put on to the public debt in order to save the UK economy.
So it is the banks' private debt causing the problem, not Brown's public debt.

Second Britain has its own sovereign so called 'fiat' currency so can print money at no interest or cost - just as it has done for the banks -AGAIN - with the £375billion of Quantitative Easing still being reissued. Hence there is no reason for, or logic to, Austerity.
You cannot expand the economy by cutting the budget, unless exports suddenly take off and we get a balance of payments surplus - and that is, to say the least, improbable.
The private banks still issue 97% of all the money issued in the UK in the form of loans and over 80% of that goes to property loans - that's really going to help those exports. This money is created out of thin air becauswe that is what the banks are authorised to do (see this paper issued by the Bank of England http://www.bankofengland.co.uk/pub...letin/2014/qb14q1prereleasemoneycreation.pdf )

Third Britain is never, ever like Greece as Britain has its own sovereign currency which it creates. Greece doesn't.

Fourth Glad you're able to save. Those poorer than you cannot and so neither can they take advantage of any bonus Osborne may offer. This link https://cornwallindependentpovertyforum.wordpress.com/2016/03/16/housing-crisis-falmouth/to an article on housing in Cornwall might give some indication as to why people conclude that it is more important that money should be directed to spenders rather than savers.
Additionally of course, unless savers put up capital for industry, only spenders expand the economy.

Lastly it should be remembered that the economy is not like the weather but it is a human construct. It needs to be made to work for us all - not just the banks!

Well I would have expected Labour to have borrowed less that the Conservatives considering they were in power during the boom years of the 2000's. Just a shame they got public spending so high that when the honeymoon period was over and the crash happened they were spending so much that they turned a budget surplus into one of the biggest peace time deficits that this country has ever seen! But I'm sure Labour supporters are very keen to see McDonnell in the treasury and tax every work man and women to within an inch of their lives.

By the way pointing people to websites that are clearly biased towards Labour isn't going to convince the majority of British people that Labour know what they are economically responsible. The only way for the Labour party to do that is for them to detail exactly what spending they would cut and McDonnell point blank refuses to seemingly even contemplate any cuts, so by that logic he must be only interested in returning to the mass tax and spend regime.

When you have your own currency, yes you can print as much of it as you like and hand it out but all you are doing is lowering its value. As a nation that imports most of our goods we rely on the pound being strong against other currencies, particularly the Dollar and the Euro.
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Has anyone else seen this: http://moveyourmoney.org.uk/budget-2016/

He really is a bad at his job,

Hmmm so why did Brown pay so much for the shares in the first place when the crash happened? He should of been able to get them dirt cheap. Just like why did Gordon Brown sell off our gold reserves when the price of gold was at its lowest?

 

[overthewater]

Because that is how much was needed to stop the bank going under. Six years and the current government has done a very bad job at getting this bank back in shape, and its NO where near its proper vaule. If you a bank should only be valued at 25p on the old market then no wonder you believe the Tories have done a good job. There have increased our national debt and have failed to pay any of it off.

 

[Dave1987]

Because that is how much was needed to stop the bank going under. Six years and the current government has done a very bad job at getting this bank back in shape, and its NO where near its proper vaule. If you a bank should only be valued at 25p on the old market then no wonder you believe the Tories have done a good job. There have increased our national debt and have failed to pay any of it off.

Brown should have demanded the appropriate number of shares for the state of the bank at that time. That is what you do when you invest in a company, you get back the appropriate amount of shares for the value of the company! Gordon Brown paid way over the odds per share, and then sold off our gold when the gold price was at it lowest!

 

[LateThanNever]

Hmmm budget surplus of juts 2% during a period where tax revenues were insanely high. Huge taxes coming in from a banking sector that was arguably out of control. In fact all I remember the Brown era for was tax tax and more tax. Every budget was how much is he going to hike fuel duty up by, how much is he going to hike beer duty up by, what other ways could he come up with to tax the hell out of ordinary working people while his spending boom was going on. He should have have a massive budget surplus and not just 2%.



Er I'm all for people being encouraged to save and not blow there entire wage packet each month! And I all for the higher wages and those on minimal wages being taken out of paying tax altogether.

I have nothing against the genuinely disabled and wish that they have all the support they can. Amazing how many people who were "disabled" under the previous Labour Govt have suddenly discovered that they are fit enough to go back to work now it isn't so easy to claim off of the state isn't it!
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A "slight deficit"? You have got to be kidding me. If we had kept spending at the levels Gordon Brown was spending before the crash we would be in a worse state than Greece. The deficit was £150bn a year! So the Labour Govt was spending £150bn more per year than it took in tax. Call that a "slight deficit"?

And you wonder why Labour has lost two GE's since 2010.
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Well I would have expected Labour to have borrowed less that the Conservatives considering they were in power during the boom years of the 2000's. Just a shame they got public spending so high that when the honeymoon period was over and the crash happened they were spending so much that they turned a budget surplus into one of the biggest peace time deficits that this country has ever seen! But I'm sure Labour supporters are very keen to see McDonnell in the treasury and tax every work man and women to within an inch of their lives.

By the way pointing people to websites that are clearly biased towards Labour isn't going to convince the majority of British people that Labour know what they are economically responsible. The only way for the Labour party to do that is for them to detail exactly what spending they would cut and McDonnell point blank refuses to seemingly even contemplate any cuts, so by that logic he must be only interested in returning to the mass tax and spend regime.

When you have your own currency, yes you can print as much of it as you like and hand it out but all you are doing is lowering its value. As a nation that imports most of our goods we rely on the pound being strong against other currencies, particularly the Dollar and the Euro.
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Hmmm so why did Brown pay so much for the shares in the first place when the crash happened? He should of been able to get them dirt cheap. Just like why did Gordon Brown sell off our gold reserves when the price of gold was at its lowest?

You heard it here first - the Bank of England website is biased towards Labour!
Never mind the Cornwall Poverty Forum.

Labour were not only in power during the boom years of the 2000s but post second world war in 1945 when Britain was bust and there was still rationing in place. Somehow it still managed to set up the National Health Service yet borrow less overall.

Brown overpaid for the RBS shares because the nation was within 12 hours of cash machine lockdown so I suggest the price was not paramount.

About a quarter of the world's gold is in the teeth of South Americans (which must be why their economies do so well), and yes, Brown sold gold at a loss but actually less of a loss than Osborne proposes (and has) sold RBS shares for. Osborne could and should create local banks out of RBS so too big to fail doesn't recur.
Oh and Osborne has just doubled the National Debt since he took office. Which is a catastrophic failure in his own terms.

You do not lower the value of a currency by printing it. Unless you think that £375billion of printing currency for the banks has lowered its value? If so by how much?
The government prints money every time it issues gilts on which your and my pensions depend - should they stop doing that then on the grounds that it devalues the currency?

And when about 98% of forex trading is speculation and just 2% is for real world trade it suggests that the casino operators have a bit too much influence I'd say.

 

[Dave1987]

You heard it here first - the Bank of England website is biased towards Labour!
Never mind the Cornwall Poverty Forum.

Labour were not only in power during the boom years of the 2000s but post second world war in 1945 when Britain was bust and there was still rationing in place. Somehow it still managed to set up the National Health Service yet borrow less overall.

Brown overpaid for the RBS shares because the nation was within 12 hours of cash machine lockdown so I suggest the price was not paramount.

About a quarter of the world's gold is in the teeth of South Americans (which must be why their economies do so well), and yes, Brown sold gold at a loss but actually less of a loss than Osborne proposes (and has) sold RBS shares for. Osborne could and should create local banks out of RBS so too big to fail doesn't recur.
Oh and Osborne has just doubled the National Debt since he took office. Which is a catastrophic failure in his own terms.

You do not lower the value of a currency by printing it. Unless you think that £375billion of printing currency for the banks has lowered its value? If so by how much?
The government prints money every time it issues gilts on which your and my pensions depend - should they stop doing that then on the grounds that it devalues the currency?

And when about 98% of forex trading is speculation and just 2% is for real world trade it suggests that the casino operators have a bit too much influence I'd say.

Haha, have you actually looked at the people who have funded the guy who has published that report you refer to? All Labour supporters, so clearly an unbiased report!

And yes you do devalue you currency by just printing more of it. You can't just create wealth for you country by just printing more of you currency it doesn't work like that.

Brown made a complete horlicks of buying RBS shares and of selling off our gold. He also thought that he could keep raising the taxes on beer and fuel to get more money in until pubs started closing and people used their cars less and less. I hate to think what state the country would be in if he had won in 2010. There probably wouldn't be any pubs left.

Osborne is a bit of an oaf but he is a darn sight better than Brown or Darling were and I hate to think how much taxes would go up if McDonnell ever got his grubby mist into the treasury!

 

[LateThanNever]

Haha, have you actually looked at the people who have funded the guy who has published that report you refer to? All Labour supporters, so clearly an unbiased report!

And yes you do devalue you currency by just printing more of it. You can't just create wealth for you country by just printing more of you currency it doesn't work like that.

Brown made a complete horlicks of buying RBS shares and of selling off our gold. He also thought that he could keep raising the taxes on beer and fuel to get more money in until pubs started closing and people used their cars less and less. I hate to think what state the country would be in if he had won in 2010. There probably wouldn't be any pubs left.

Osborne is a bit of an oaf but he is a darn sight better than Brown or Darling were and I hate to think how much taxes would go up if McDonnell ever got his grubby mist into the treasury!

I was unaware the Bank of England were funded by anyone other than the government. Or that Cornwall Independent Poverty Forum were funded by Labour - which seems to be Church funded.
Personally I'm unconcerned in any case.
What does concern me is the truth without the spin and I notice you have not been able to indicate how £375billion - not small change - has devalued Sterling.
It has also created wealth! Just not for most of us.
Have you looked at the prices of assets lately?

 

[DynamicSpirit]

Haha, have you actually looked at the people who have funded the guy who has published that report you refer to? All Labour supporters, so clearly an unbiased report!

Oh this is starting to get very silly.

Look - I'm a Labour supporter. But I still read stuff produced by supporters of all parties. I don't discount what a website says merely because it was written by - say - Conservative supporters. After all, people of all political persuasions can (and do) often make very sensible observations. I discount an article if on reading it and assessing it, it turns out that it's giving inaccurate information or missing out key facts that lead to it giving a misleading picture. If you wish to make out that the article referred to is somehow wrong, then how about you find something actually wrong about it, rather than simply ignoring it because you don't like the political views of the people who (allegedly) fund the author.

If you choose to ignore everything that's written by Labour supporters purely because they are Labour supporters, then you'll end up with a very distorted and inaccurate view of the world (Which I have to say, on reading your posts, it rather looks to me like you already do ).

And yes you do devalue you currency by just printing more of it. You can't just create wealth for you country by just printing more of you currency it doesn't work like that.

It's more correct to say that you can cause the currency to devalue by printing more of it. That's not necessarily true though. It depends. Printing more of it can in some situations considerably help the economy if done correctly, but that obviously depends on the circumstances. Bear in mind too that devaluing the currency isn't necessarily a bad thing: It tends to hurt importers but help exporters.

 

[Dave1987]

I was unaware the Bank of England were funded by anyone other than the government. Or that Cornwall Independent Poverty Forum were funded by Labour - which seems to be Church funded.
Personally I'm unconcerned in any case.
What does concern me is the truth without the spin and I notice you have not been able to indicate how £375billion - not small change - has devalued Sterling.
It has also created wealth! Just not for most of us.
Have you looked at the prices of assets lately?

China is a prime example of a country that prints money routinely to devalue its currency to ensure its products are dirt cheap for the rest of the world to buy. Printing money would be like the government handing out £100 to every person in the UK to spend, but then every shop would increase their prices slightly because they know that people have this "free" money to spend and therefore the currency is devalued.

 

[Tetchytyke]

I love how anyone who disagrees with Dave1987 is a "Labour supporter"

As for Gordon Brown's "bumper tax revenue", his tax take was about 35% of GDP, which is where it has been since the 1960s. But let's not let facts spoil an argument.

 

[Dave1987]

Oh this is starting to get very silly.

Look - I'm a Labour supporter. But I still read stuff produced by supporters of all parties. I don't discount what a website says merely because it was written by - say - Conservative supporters. After all, people of all political persuasions can (and do) often make very sensible observations. I discount an article if on reading it and assessing it, it turns out that it's giving inaccurate information or missing out key facts that lead to it giving a misleading picture. If you wish to make out that the article referred to is somehow wrong, then how about you find something actually wrong about it, rather than simply ignoring it because you don't like the political views of the people who (allegedly) fund the author.

If you choose to ignore everything that's written by Labour supporters purely because they are Labour supporters, then you'll end up with a very distorted and inaccurate view of the world (Which I have to say, on reading your posts, it rather looks to me like you already do ).

All facts and figures can have spin attached to them to make them look better or worse for the people involved. The way I look at it was Gordon Brown was at the helm during the boom years of the 2000's yet left the economy with a huge £150bn yearly deficit when he lost the election. The economy he built was based on the excesses of the city and huge taxes on fuel, beer etc etc. When the crash happened the economy he had built could not cope as he did not build a balanced economy. And when the election came in 2010 the Labour Party simply refused to accept that major spending cuts were needed. If he hadn't spent so bloody much during the boom years then the economy might have weathered the crash a darn sight better than it did. And since 2010 all you ever hear from Labour is spend spend spend. So I would not trust Labour to keep a check on public spending while growing the economy sensibly. I mean what did the last Labour Govt do, fuel duty escalator, beer duty escalator, a "temporary" 50p top rate of income tax that suddenly became permanent.

 

[LateThanNever]

China is a prime example of a country that prints money routinely to devalue its currency to ensure its products are dirt cheap for the rest of the world to buy. Printing money would be like the government handing out £100 to every person in the UK to spend, but then every shop would increase their prices slightly because they know that people have this "free" money to spend and therefore the currency is devalued.

And - remind me - isn't that the world's second economy?

 

[overthewater]

What a load of utter crap: Labour made it VERY CLEAR Major spending cuts would be needed: Darling said " it would need to be cuts bigger than thatcher"

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/8588673.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/8587877.stm

But what is this? David and his Tory chum agreed and promised to match Labour spending http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/6975536.stm

until November 2008
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2008/nov/18/david-cameron-tax

For the past six years the amount of money he has spent is disgusting, George has double the national debt.

 

[Dave1987]

What a load of utter crap: Labour made it VERY CLEAR Major spending cuts would be needed: Darling said " it would need to be cuts bigger than thatcher"

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/8588673.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/8587877.stm

But what is this? David and his Tory chum agreed and promised to match Labour spending http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/6975536.stm

until November 2008
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2008/nov/18/david-cameron-tax

For the past six years the amount of money he has spent is disgusting, George has double the national debt.

Ow yeah Darling gave some wonderful rhetoric about cuts to public spending that the majority of the electorate didn't buy. Labour then proceeded to object and vote against every single spending cut put through by the coalition government and since the last election all Labour have talked about is spending. So the electorate were right not to believe a word Darling said.
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And - remind me - isn't that the world's second economy?

Yup and one that's in major trouble at the moment.

 

[northwichcat]

Brown should have demanded the appropriate number of shares for the state of the bank at that time. That is what you do when you invest in a company, you get back the appropriate amount of shares for the value of the company! Gordon Brown paid way over the odds per share, and then sold off our gold when the gold price was at it lowest!

Remember Brown wanted EU legislation tightened so that Banker's couldn't earn such big bonuses while Osborne (both in opposition and in government after the crash) actually wanted the EU to stop interfering in the matter! If Osborne had been chancellor in 2008 the mess would have been even bigger than it was with Darling as chancellor.
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Has anyone else seen this: http://moveyourmoney.org.uk/budget-2016/

He really is a bad at his job,

Osborne should never have become Chancellor. In 2010 when the Coalition was formed there were numerous people better qualified for the position in both the Conservative Party and the Lib Dem Party but Cameron wanted to give the job to his best mate who studied History at university not Economics!

 

[LateThanNever]

Ow yeah Darling gave some wonderful rhetoric about cuts to public spending that the majority of the electorate didn't buy. Labour then proceeded to object and vote against every single spending cut put through by the coalition government and since the last election all Labour have talked about is spending. So the electorate were right not to believe a word Darling said.
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Yup and one that's in major trouble at the moment.

China is in trouble because it relied on exports to Europe and the US. If the Western World's demand hadn't collapsed then China would be okay. It at least has the advantage that the government tells the financial sector what to do. Whereas the Western World has been stupid enough to let the bankers and corporations rule.
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Remember Brown wanted EU legislation tightened so that Banker's couldn't earn such big bonuses while Osborne (both in opposition and in government after the crash) actually wanted the EU to stop interfering in the matter! If Osborne had been chancellor in 2008 the mess would have been even bigger than it was with Darling as chancellor.
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Osborne should never have become Chancellor. In 2010 when the Coalition was formed there were numerous people better qualified for the position in both the Conservative Party and the Lib Dem Party but Cameron wanted to give the job to his best mate who studied History at university not Economics!

As the Bank of England is on record as saying that many economic testbooks are incorrect, I'm not sure that studying economics would have been particularly advantageous!

 

[Dave1987]

China is in trouble because it relied on exports to Europe and the US. If the Western World's demand hadn't collapsed then China would be okay. It at least has the advantage that the government tells the financial sector what to do. Whereas the Western World has been stupid enough to let the bankers and corporations rule.

The China slowdown is far far more fundamental than just the Western world demand dropping! Watch Business Live on the Beeb News channel in the mornings it spells out in simple terms what is happening around the globe with business. China has only just relaxed its one child policy and is now suffering from having an ageing population. Its just cut thousands and thousands of job in its steel industry. I'm amazed at how much people on the left constantly berate the banking sector when the Labour Govt was more than happy to take the tax receipts off of it in the mid 2000's!

 

[me123]

I'm a winner from this budget. It looks like I'll come out of the 40% tax bracket for a year. My fuel bill will be frozen (in truth it'll actually go up because I'm traveling more, but it won't be as high as I'd expected). My (very modest) alcohol bill will be frozen. And when I'm saving money, the government will give me a 25% interest rate on £4000 of my savings in my shiny new ISA.

I'm in a privileged position, and I'm going to do even better in the next few years at least. Thanks Mr Osborne. I"m going to be all right. I should be thrilled. Yet, I'm not thrilled. I'm annoyed.

In the same budget, Osborne has managed to introduce massive cuts to the most vulnerable in our society, so much so that even Iain Duncan Smith was outraged. Any spending cuts needed could have been at least partially achieved by holding the 40% tax bracket where it is, a modest increase in fuel duty (the fuel price having dropped 20% in the last few years, it shouldn't be too much of a hardship), and not giving rich young people bonuses for stashing their money away in the bank. I'm not going to claim that this would necessarily prevent all cuts to the welfare budget, but I think it would redistribute the burden much more fairly.

The fact is that I and people on my kind of salary lead a comfortable life on the whole. With rising inequality, rising poverty, and increased demand for food banks, this is quite simply not a time for the more privileged members in our society to receive tax breaks. Yes, I do think that I should be paying more in tax, and I'd happily do so if it would improve social justice and help those in a less fortunate position.

The "Sugar Tax" is a good move, that I broadly support. It will hopefully improve public health.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

All facts and figures can have spin attached to them to make them look better or worse for the people involved. The way I look at it was Gordon Brown was at the helm during the boom years of the 2000's yet left the economy with a huge £150bn yearly deficit when he lost the election. <snip lots of allegations about Labour>

That is irrelevant to the point I made, which was that if you refuse to take notice of articles solely on the basis that those articles were written by Labour supporters, you will end up with a very distorted view of the world. Indeed, your paragraph gives strong evidence for my point. As far as I can tell from what you've said here, you apparently pay attention to articles written by Conservatives but refuse to pay attention to articles written by Labour supporters - and hey, surprise surprise, you've ended up believing exactly what most Conservative propaganda keeps (inaccurately) saying about the last Labour Government!

Labour then proceeded to object and vote against every single spending cut put through by the coalition government and since the last election all Labour have talked about is spending. So the electorate were right not to believe a word Darling said.

Your logic is flawed. Assuming you are correct that Labour voted against every single spending cut [1], that merely proves that Labour were against the particular cuts the Conservatives and coalition Government selected. It doesn't prove Labour were against cuts in principle. As far as I'm aware, most of the cuts since 2010 have tended to target the most vulnerable in society, while being combined with tax breaks etc. for the wealthy - so it would hardly be surprising that a party concerned about fairness would oppose those cuts even if they agree that some [other] cuts should be made.

As for your comment about 'the electorate' not believing a word - that's pure speculation, and therefore - if you care about truth and accuracy - should not be written as if it were fact. In all probability, some people believed what Darling said, others didn't.

[1] I don't know how to verify that, and in the light of your long record of posting falsehoods and implausible assertions on this forum as if they were fact, I'd rather see some other evidence rather than go by your assertion alone.

 

[Oswyntail]

That is irrelevant to the point I made, which was that if you refuse to take notice of articles solely on the basis that those articles were written by Labour supporters, you will end up with a very distorted view of the world. Indeed, your paragraph gives strong evidence for my point. As far as I can tell from what you've said here, you apparently pay attention to articles written by Conservatives but refuse to pay attention to articles written by Labour supporters - and hey, surprise surprise, you've ended up believing exactly what most Conservative propaganda keeps (inaccurately) saying about the last Labour Government!...

I am sure you appreciate the irony here. Many Labour supporters on here (I do not include yourself) give the impression of having an equally one-eyed view. To talk of "Conservative propaganda" is perhaps deliberately ironic. We all need to be a tad less inflexible, particularly when discussing economics, where it is well known that you can ask two experts the same question, and they will vehemently argue for three undeniable answers.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

​

I am sure you appreciate the irony here. Many Labour supporters on here (I do not include yourself) give the impression of having an equally one-eyed view. To talk of "Conservative propaganda" is perhaps deliberately ironic. We all need to be a tad less inflexible, particularly when discussing economics, where it is well known that you can ask two experts the same question, and they will vehemently argue for three undeniable answers.

There is indeed some irony there, and I perhaps should have phrased the comment about Conservative propaganda slightly differently. However, I don't think it would be that controversial to suggest that any one political party's version of events on a controversial matter such as this is likely to be distorted. I indicated that the version of events prior to 2010 that tends to be put out by the Conservatives is inaccurate - if my memory serves me correctly, a fair number of people on railforums have over the past couple of years posted various links to indicate that is probably correct. Note that I did not state that any version given by Labour was accurate.

And by the way, I do agree with you that some people with left wing views here do also have somewhat distorted views of events.

 

[overthewater]

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/u...ne-secret-stealth-privatisation-a6938441.html

Another thing hidden away, did one else spot this?

 

[Butts]

I'm a winner from this budget. It looks like I'll come out of the 40% tax bracket for a year. My fuel bill will be frozen (in truth it'll actually go up because I'm traveling more, but it won't be as high as I'd expected). My (very modest) alcohol bill will be frozen. And when I'm saving money, the government will give me a 25% interest rate on £4000 of my savings in my shiny new ISA.

I'm in a privileged position, and I'm going to do even better in the next few years at least. Thanks Mr Osborne. I"m going to be all right. I should be thrilled. Yet, I'm not thrilled. I'm annoyed.

In the same budget, Osborne has managed to introduce massive cuts to the most vulnerable in our society, so much so that even Iain Duncan Smith was outraged. Any spending cuts needed could have been at least partially achieved by holding the 40% tax bracket where it is, a modest increase in fuel duty (the fuel price having dropped 20% in the last few years, it shouldn't be too much of a hardship), and not giving rich young people bonuses for stashing their money away in the bank. I'm not going to claim that this would necessarily prevent all cuts to the welfare budget, but I think it would redistribute the burden much more fairly.

The fact is that I and people on my kind of salary lead a comfortable life on the whole. With rising inequality, rising poverty, and increased demand for food banks, this is quite simply not a time for the more privileged members in our society to receive tax breaks. Yes, I do think that I should be paying more in tax, and I'd happily do so if it would improve social justice and help those in a less fortunate position.

The "Sugar Tax" is a good move, that I broadly support. It will hopefully improve public health.

Very noble of you - why don't you donate the money to a worthwhile charity if it bothers you that much ?

I take it you will be a "Scottish Taxpayer" for taxation purposes. If the SNP are committed to redistribution they now have the power to vary the rate from the rest of the UK. The question is will they use it ?

I'm not sure if they can alter the earnings thresholds where the top rate kicks in, but if they can you may not have to worry about feeling guilty for to long

 

[me123]

From August, I will (sadly) no longer be a Scottish taxpayer, but a Welsh taxpayer. Even for the few months I am to stay a Scottish taxpayer, the SNP's plan on income tax does not address all the inequality.

Yes, I am considering donating the difference to a charity/charities supporting those in poverty. I'd urge others who feel similar to myself to consider doing the same.

 

[LateThanNever]

The China slowdown is far far more fundamental than just the Western world demand dropping! Watch Business Live on the Beeb News channel in the mornings it spells out in simple terms what is happening around the globe with business. China has only just relaxed its one child policy and is now suffering from having an ageing population. Its just cut thousands and thousands of job in its steel industry. I'm amazed at how much people on the left constantly berate the banking sector when the Labour Govt was more than happy to take the tax receipts off of it in the mid 2000's!

China's cutting thousands of jobs in the steel industry is because of the decline in exports. Their steel consumers were not in the home market.
Meanwhile those tax receipts from banks' profits had to be paid back many times over when the banks went bust. Never was privatising profits and nationalising losses more overtly demonstrated.

 

[northwichcat]

As the Bank of England is on record as saying that many economic testbooks are incorrect, I'm not sure that studying economics would have been particularly advantageous!

Having the right background can still help you make better decisions. I did A Levels Maths and I never do any trigonometry or calculus now but learning how to approach Mathematical problems in a logical manner helped with learning programming languages and using them in a logical manner.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

Your logic is flawed. Assuming you are correct that Labour voted against every single spending cut [1], that merely proves that Labour were against the particular cuts the Conservatives and coalition Government selected. It doesn't prove Labour were against cuts in principle. As far as I'm aware, most of the cuts since 2010 have tended to target the most vulnerable in society, while being combined with tax breaks etc. for the wealthy - so it would hardly be surprising that a party concerned about fairness would oppose those cuts even if they agree that some [other] cuts should be made.

Also worth noting when Darling proposed a temporary VAT to 15% to encourage people with money to spend more someone called George Osborne voted in favour of it. Then when he got in to government not only did Osborne rule out extending that temporary cut, he successfully proposed increasing VAT to 20% to get the deficit down. That suggests Osborne had a completely different view when he was in government compared to when he was in opposition.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

China's cutting thousands of jobs in the steel industry is because of the decline in exports. Their steel consumers were not in the home market. Meanwhile those tax receipts from banks' profits had to be paid back many times over when the banks went bust. Never was privatising profits and nationalising losses more overtly demonstrated.

Do you ever think that the Chinese would consider in recalling the loans they have made in past years to the USA as one method of supplementing their currency reserves.?

 

[DynamicSpirit]

As the Bank of England is on record as saying that many economic testbooks are incorrect, I'm not sure that studying economics would have been particularly advantageous!

I'm guessing the article you are referring to is this one. To be clear, it is very definitely not dissing the entire economics syllabi of the UK's Universities. Rather, so far as I can understand it, it appears to be arguing that a couple of technical details concerning the processes by which commercial banks create money are not presented in the correct way in many textbooks. I see no reason based on that to argue against studying economics - indeed I would suspect that that a reasonable education in economics would be an essential prerequisite to being able to understand the significance of the Bank of England's claims.

By analogy, if someone discovered that some aspect of quantum mechanics was being presented incorrectly in some physics textbooks, I bet you wouldn't go on from that to argue that studying physics was pointless!

 

[Dave1987]

I'm a winner from this budget. It looks like I'll come out of the 40% tax bracket for a year. My fuel bill will be frozen (in truth it'll actually go up because I'm traveling more, but it won't be as high as I'd expected). My (very modest) alcohol bill will be frozen. And when I'm saving money, the government will give me a 25% interest rate on £4000 of my savings in my shiny new ISA.

I'm in a privileged position, and I'm going to do even better in the next few years at least. Thanks Mr Osborne. I"m going to be all right. I should be thrilled. Yet, I'm not thrilled. I'm annoyed.

In the same budget, Osborne has managed to introduce massive cuts to the most vulnerable in our society, so much so that even Iain Duncan Smith was outraged. Any spending cuts needed could have been at least partially achieved by holding the 40% tax bracket where it is, a modest increase in fuel duty (the fuel price having dropped 20% in the last few years, it shouldn't be too much of a hardship), and not giving rich young people bonuses for stashing their money away in the bank. I'm not going to claim that this would necessarily prevent all cuts to the welfare budget, but I think it would redistribute the burden much more fairly.

The fact is that I and people on my kind of salary lead a comfortable life on the whole. With rising inequality, rising poverty, and increased demand for food banks, this is quite simply not a time for the more privileged members in our society to receive tax breaks. Yes, I do think that I should be paying more in tax, and I'd happily do so if it would improve social justice and help those in a less fortunate position.

The "Sugar Tax" is a good move, that I broadly support. It will hopefully improve public health.

If that is how you feel then you are entitled to your own opinion. But when I look at the fact that with income taxes, NI, fuel duty, VAT, insurance taxes etc etc I think I pay my fair share to the treasury. Around half my income goes to the treasury in taxes.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

China's cutting thousands of jobs in the steel industry is because of the decline in exports. Their steel consumers were not in the home market.
Meanwhile those tax receipts from banks' profits had to be paid back many times over when the banks went bust. Never was privatising profits and nationalising losses more overtly demonstrated.

The world economy is slowing down because China's economy is collapsing. China's policies on children has meant they have a very old average population age. There are many other factors as well.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---
Whether you sit on the left or the right on politics then you will see facts and figures in a different light. In 2010 I remember Darling making comments about how the huge deficit would need to be dealt with. Labour lost the election and then proceeded to vote against or criticise every cut the coalition government made. So it's not hard to see why a large portion of the electorate just don't see the Labour Party as credible on the economy. Brown increased the top rate of income tax to 50p as a "temporary measure" which then became policy even though it's been proven to bring in less tax as those that are liable to pay it try harder to avoid it or just move their money out of the UK Economy. Considering Labour are really gunning for Osbourne on his borrowing figures, McDonnell then says he would borrow even more. The SNP wanted control over income taxes, they have got it but haven't changed the rates in Scotland yet are running a truly massive budget deficit.