The 'Not a Budget' budget

[Borin' Baggie]

A budget for the comfortably well off to help punish the poor. Like a a bad case of Norovirus the only thing that will trickle down with these plans is the shite many people and the country will be in when they’ve finished flushing the U.K. down the toilet.

Dont think it punishes the poor.

Derek won't be able to explain how it punishes the poor CIM. It's just his anti-Tory Tourettes again.

The additional inflation caused by the pound crashing due to stupid fiscal policy, for one.

Worse public services to cover Treasury income losses, for another.

[Protheroe]

FWIW, initial observations:

GOOD
Finally a government that isn't ashamed to recognise the City of London as the primary driver of growth and tax revenues in the UK. Scrapping the ridiculous and counter-intuitive bankers bonus cap is good, scrapping the planned rise in the Bank Corporation Tax Surcharge is even better.

Scrapping the entirely voluntary (unless you work in the public sector) 45% rate of Income Tax.

Scrapping the last two alterations to IR35 which have acted as a perverse disincentive to contractors and massively racked up the the costs to clients of "employing" such contractors (particularly in construction and IT). A massive waste of time and resources for employers over the last few years for which the last couple of Chancellors should be hung drawn and quartered.

Scrapping the planned rise in the insidious Dividend Tax which acts as a disincentive to investment and risk taking.

Not giving in to the moribund "High Street" lobby by offering Business Rates bungs to zombie businesses. Unviable High Street businesses (and there's a lot of them) must be allowed to fail.

BAD
The timing. FFS. Whilst the BoE is making a sham attempt at monetary tightening (real interest rates are still -6%), the Government is inflating a consumption boom. The indiscriminate Energy Price Cap bungs to better off households and businesses serve only to further inflate that boom, and do nothing to promote the reduction in the use of energy nor energy efficiency. These bungs could also be required for a long time leading to massive increases in borrowing, at a more costly interest rate.

Stamp Duty should have been abolished completely, instead we have yet more tinkering.

A penny off the Basic Rate of Income Tax is scant consolation for the thresholds remaining frozen and the Fiscal Drag that will follow. This is what really punishes lower and middle earners.

The sheer scale of the tax changes threatens a debt crisis in the event that the hoped for 2.5% growth in the medium term does not manifest itself. What's clear from the immediate fall in Sterling is that the markets don't believe that growth will happen. Don't rule out an emergency increase in interest rates by the BoE next week (though if they'd had their eye on the ball for the past decade interest rates would already be over 4% and returning to the long run average).

So lots of red meat, but the timing stinks. Moreover there's a distinct lack of supply side measures.....yet. If the government moves as quickly on Solvency II, Gene Editing / Genetic Modification and a bonfire of all manner of regulation holding back investment and innovation from planning reform to H&S legislation to the Tax Code itself then we might have a chance of growth outrunning debt.

I doubt it though. We are on a new and dangerous trajectory where debt is not forecast to decline. We are not the United States. We don't have the biggest economy in the world and the world's reserve currency to fall back on. We are in an entirely new paradigm.

However, the greatest outcome from today is that for the first time since 1990 there is clear blue water between the Government and the Labour Party on economic policy. That is to be welcomed. A gap thin enough only for a Rizla has widened to a chasm in 24 hours. This gives the Labour Party a real opportunity to lay out how its plans would be different - though I fear that we will have is a period of borrowing too much in the hope of growth followed by a period of borrowing too much for current spending. The last time that happened I was babe in arms - and then the IMF turned up.

And then, Dear Margaret.

Don't have nightmares.

[Derek Hardballs]

A budget for the comfortably well off to help punish the poor. Like a a bad case of Norovirus the only thing that will trickle down with these plans is the shite many people and the country will be in when they’ve finished flushing the U.K. down the toilet.

Dont think it punishes the poor.

Derek won't be able to explain how it punishes the poor CIM. It's just his anti-Tory Tourettes again.

Anti-strike laws 
Deregulation of employment laws… we know it’s coming as was predicted, it’s an ERG wet dream
Public service wages stagnate 
The future of public services at the whim of huge borrowing that massively benefits the rich with the assumption they will plough back money into the economy when in reality most will scurry it away and avoid tax 

I don’t need Tourette’s to criticise the Tories they are dividing, vandalising and ruining the U.K. without anyone else’s help. 12yrs with each passing incarnation of them getting worse and as a result the countries public services, law and order, economy are royally fucked for the benefit of a cabal of rich Libertarians who ideology is driving their decision making not the reality facing the country and its people!


@SophyRidgeSky: “But these tax cuts will mainly benefit millionaires”

@MarkJLittlewood*: “You're not going to like this package if you care more about the poor”

Director Pro-Brexit IEA Think - Tank.



Feck all has changed!

[Ournextstriker]

A budget for the comfortably well off to help punish the poor. Like a a bad case of Norovirus the only thing that will trickle down with these plans is the shite many people and the country will be in when they’ve finished flushing the U.K. down the toilet.

Dont think it punishes the poor.

Derek won't be able to explain how it punishes the poor CIM. It's just his anti-Tory Tourettes again.

Anti-strike laws 
Deregulation of employment laws… we know it’s coming as was predicted, it’s an ERG wet dream
Public service wages stagnate 
The future of public services at the whim of huge borrowing that massively benefits the rich with the assumption they will plough back money into the economy when in reality most will scurry it away and avoid tax 

I don’t need Tourette’s to criticise the Tories they are dividing, vandalising and ruining the U.K. without anyone else’s help. 12yrs with each passing incarnation of them getting worse and as a result the countries public services, law and order, economy are royally fucked for the benefit of a cabal of rich Libertarians who ideology is driving their decision making not the reality facing the country and its people!


@SophyRidgeSky: “But these tax cuts will mainly benefit millionaires”

@MarkJLittlewood*: “You're not going to like this package if you care more about the poor”

Director Pro-Brexit IEA Think - Tank.



Feck all has changed!

It has, Starmer wouldn’t say that

[Tom Joad]

After listening to all the commentaries, opinions, experts etc. All say this budget is a huge gamble on something not simply unproven, but generally proven not to work. All apart from one right wing nut job that thought it a step in the right direction. God knows what he thinks would be ideal.
After 12 years, we are now told they have been doing it all wrong.

[Ossian]

FWIW, initial observations:

i). My savings are already giving me a better return than was the case a few weeks back; that return is now likely to increase in the short/medium term.
ii). My tax bill is to be reduced.
iii). Being mortgage free, the pile of equity I'm already sitting on is only likely to get bigger.
iv). I'm probably due a double-digit hike in my state pension 'entitlement' some time in 2023.

So, all things considered, the Tories can still fuck right off come polling day.

[Malcolm Tucker]

Trickle down economics is patently bollocks and only the terminally fuckwitted would argue in favour of it. If you give already rich people more money then they mostly just stick it into assets for safekeeping for their kids. They’re hardly gonna get themselves a second rent boy or bag of coke for the night.

If they’re serious about turning the UK into a low tax haven then it needs to come through a CT tax cut to encourage investment/offshoring in this country. It worked for Ireland so well that the EU are about to ban it.

[Borin' Baggie]

After listening to all the commentaries, opinions, experts etc. All say this budget is a huge gamble on something not simply unproven, but generally proven not to work. All apart from one right wing nut job that thought it a step in the right direction. God knows what he thinks would be ideal.
After 12 years, we are now told they have been doing it all wrong.

Kwarteng lives in his own little bubble where he thinks he's right and everyone arguing otherwise is either out to get him or stupid.

Even when the issue comes to energy policy and his position contradicts the views of senior engineers and data analysts in industry. Speaking from experience.

That's who our Chancellor is, I'd be shocked if he were to look at the actual evidence and take second opinions because that doesn't seem to be his character based on me working with him and this budget.

[Ossian]

We're a post-industrial economy with an aggregate population heading for 70 million.

The idea that we can become some sort of offshore Luxembourg, but bigger, is just fatuous bollocks; we can't.

[Shabby Russian]

FWIW, initial observations:

GOOD
Finally a government that isn't ashamed to recognise the City of London as the primary driver of growth and tax revenues in the UK. Scrapping the ridiculous and counter-intuitive bankers bonus cap is good, scrapping the planned rise in the Bank Corporation Tax Surcharge is even better.

Scrapping the entirely voluntary (unless you work in the public sector) 45% rate of Income Tax.

Scrapping the last two alterations to IR35 which have acted as a perverse disincentive to contractors and massively racked up the the costs to clients of "employing" such contractors (particularly in construction and IT). A massive waste of time and resources for employers over the last few years for which the last couple of Chancellors should be hung drawn and quartered.

Scrapping the planned rise in the insidious Dividend Tax which acts as a disincentive to investment and risk taking.

Not giving in to the moribund "High Street" lobby by offering Business Rates bungs to zombie businesses. Unviable High Street businesses (and there's a lot of them) must be allowed to fail.

BAD
The timing. FFS. Whilst the BoE is making a sham attempt at monetary tightening (real interest rates are still -6%), the Government is inflating a consumption boom. The indiscriminate Energy Price Cap bungs to better off households and businesses serve only to further inflate that boom, and do nothing to promote the reduction in the use of energy nor energy efficiency. These bungs could also be required for a long time leading to massive increases in borrowing, at a more costly interest rate.

Stamp Duty should have been abolished completely, instead we have yet more tinkering.

A penny off the Basic Rate of Income Tax is scant consolation for the thresholds remaining frozen and the Fiscal Drag that will follow. This is what really punishes lower and middle earners.

The sheer scale of the tax changes threatens a debt crisis in the event that the hoped for 2.5% growth in the medium term does not manifest itself. What's clear from the immediate fall in Sterling is that the markets don't believe that growth will happen. Don't rule out an emergency increase in interest rates by the BoE next week (though if they'd had their eye on the ball for the past decade interest rates would already be over 4% and returning to the long run average).

So lots of red meat, but the timing stinks. Moreover there's a distinct lack of supply side measures.....yet. If the government moves as quickly on Solvency II, Gene Editing / Genetic Modification and a bonfire of all manner of regulation holding back investment and innovation from planning reform to H&S legislation to the Tax Code itself then we might have a chance of growth outrunning debt.

I doubt it though. We are on a new and dangerous trajectory where debt is not forecast to decline. We are not the United States. We don't have the biggest economy in the world and the world's reserve currency to fall back on. We are in an entirely new paradigm.

However, the greatest outcome from today is that for the first time since 1990 there is clear blue water between the Government and the Labour Party on economic policy. That is to be welcomed. A gap thin enough only for a Rizla has widened to a chasm in 24 hours. This gives the Labour Party a real opportunity to lay out how its plans would be different - though I fear that we will have is a period of borrowing too much in the hope of growth followed by a period of borrowing too much for current spending. The last time that happened I was babe in arms  - and then the IMF turned up.

And then, Dear Margaret.

Don't have nightmares.

My take from this post is that Proth thinks that his buddy, Said Javid, should be hung drawn and quartered.

Keep your enemies close and your friends at the end of a rope until they are nearly dead, dumped unceremoniously to the floor and then hacked to pieces. 

Edgy.