Lots of talk on TwiX now about the millionaires and non Doms fleeing the UK. At a time of great impoverishment the Labour government has contrived to frighten away the most important part of our tax base, and told them btw private schools will be slowly abolished via taxes
It’s all adding up. All these allegedly small things are adding up to a looming and desperate collision with reality. Even as we allow in millions of migrants who will be a net drain on the treasury, house thousands of asylum seekers in the savoy at billions a year, and pay Tanzania forty trillion quid to take control of Cornwall
It’s coming. A crash
Brace
As always 'More or Less' is your friend. When you were spouting this awhile ago More or Less debunked it. Who to believe, some nutters on twitter or people who analyse the data properly. It appears the definition of millionaire and sample selection were, how can we put it, bollocks.
Are you seriously disputing that rich people are leaving the UK? Every metric shows they are and in number
COUTTS LONDON PRIME PROPERTY INDEX Q3 2024: PRICES DROP AND BUYERS GET BIGGER DISCOUNTS
Our latest research on luxury London property shows prices falling, average discounts close to 9% and almost 80% of sales coming in below asking price.
Nope I'm not. Just pointing out that last time you did this by quoting a survey you saw somewhere it turned out to be complete bollocks. I know you think you are always right, but you seem to have a very short memory and a very poor source of your data.
If it helps I can give you personal experience instead of surveys - over the pre Christmas drinks party rounds I met (and I noted the number for work reasons) 22 couples who have already or are in the process of moving here from the UK as an absolute direct result of Labour winning the election last year.
All of these people, all 22 couples were people who had set up successful businesses - not inherited money. They are selling or have sold their UK properties, stopped paying staff, stopped buying luxury goods and cars in the UK. Will not be setting up new business or employing people in the UK for the foreseeable future, not paying any more taxes to the UK.
This is one small place - just think how many are going to larger places such as Switzerland, Dubai etc.
I’m sure there will be people who say “good riddance” but remember the new car they bought each year covered an essential salary from the VAT. The shops they shopped in need fewer staff with fewer customers. Their gardeners and housekeepers will find fewer hours to work.
I’ve said it before - I do not rejoice in this, it’s not necessarily good for where I live but it’s worse for the UK which I love.
So ideologically sticking it to the rich will prove to be a stupid act of self harm.
It is a shame they're going. But I also fear there's very little we can do to help people who are so utterly selfish.
Or perhaps you/we are?
I'd certainly think so if someone demanded all my money whilst I took all the risk and did all the work.
Nah. I've not demanded all your money. Far from. But from what I see, you live a good life. Others, who work harder than you, and take many more risks, are much less rewarded.
I want to reward those who work hard, and also those who take risks (e.g. in starting up businesses). But that has to be tempered by the fact you also live in society. If you take risks and fail - as can happen if it is a genuine risk - then you should not be left destitute.
And an awful lot of people earn money with very little risk - in both the private and public sector.
If, heaven forfend, you are taken ill, then you would want the doctors and nurses who look after you not to be overworked and to have access to all the equipment you need? Why should the binmen who are out collecting our bins this morning not get paid well for work I wouldn't want to do? How about a careworker I know who just told me he got threatened by an elderly patient, and the police had to be called?
We live in a society, and that society needs to work as a whole. We are not islands.
Yeah, but this is motherhood and apple pie stuff and you could use it to defend any level of tax. In fact, you just have. Because you're using it as an argument to pay tax - period - and not acknowledging there's a limit. What it comes down to is resentment that some people earn more than you, and you want some of it.
When you tax people at 60%+ for stressful jobs, that involve a lot of stress, professional and personal risk (no-one gets paid a good salary for a simple job just about anyone can do) then at some point they will say, fuck it.
You will have no recourse to criticise them.
No, is it resentment. I'm perfectly happy with people earning more than we do as a family. Incredibly relaxed. I've said so many times in the past. I want work rewarded - at the low as well as the top end. And there's big problems with both of these at the moment.
But I also understand that we live in a society, and are part of that society. Without money, that society falls apart - including the bits you rely on. So it becomes a question of where to balance that. And sadly, that balance is currently set so the country is in debt.
If you want stress, I might suggest you try not having enough money to get food on the table for your family, or not enough to pay rent to keep the roof over your head. To have two kids, one of whom has Down's Syndrome. to have a spouse with cancer, and finding it hard to get the bus fare to the hospital (only to find the appointment has been cancelled...)
Yeah, fuck off JJ. I have plenty of my stress in my life, including a brother in law who died of cancer. And my wife nearly died during childbirth.
I don't need twats like you telling me we have it easy, nor that we don't know what hard times in life are like - both my wife and I started with nothing.
Twat.
I'm sorry to hear about those problems. But you do have it easier than others, as you have money. Money helps massively, as we ourselves know from experience.
If you started with nothing, you would understand what it is like not being able to food on the table. What it is like having to live day-by-day, rather than being able to have the luxury of saving. And you might contemplate what minor issue - illness, accident, a failed relationship, whatever - would have changed you from the success you are today to a failure.
A friend of mine was from a coal-mining family and was the first in her family to go to university. She is as bright as a button. Whilst she was there, she got struck down with ME and another complication. Getting her degree nearly killed her, and she has been bedridden ever since. Living off the state. That could have been me. It could have been you.
There would be no safety net in Casinoworld. Now that is fair enough if one is so inclined, but not for me. I think it an outrage that after six months of a LABOUR government ex servicemen with PTSD are still living in tents under Westminster Bridge.
Er, no. I haven't argued for that, so please don't put words in my mouth. False binaries are a stupid way of conducting political debate.
Several things can be true at once: yes, "there but for the grace of God go I", is one and it also the case that we are spending far too much money on welfare and have reached the limits of taxation, which is now suppressing growth and public funds, not growing it.
We can all find powerful personal stories that illicit empathy and sympathy, as we can the other way, and these can and will fall either side of whatever line is drawn, but we are spending far too much on incapacity benefits, pensions and, I think, health and that is where I'd look to make major savings. I'd spend more on education and defence. And I'd create a competitive tax regime that encourages growth.
The comments on this thread and the likes they've got just go to show how politically difficult that will be but that's got to be done. Some seem to think that those that are earning more than them must be undeserving of it, and are on the take at their expense, and give the impression they'd far rather cut them down to size than actually tax them at a rate that would maximise growth - which must be done to afford any of the things you care about.
There will be no safety net if the country goes insolvent.
How can the country go insolvent? Our debt is issued in a currency which we control. We cannot run out of pounds as we can print them to repay the debt. And don't say "we can't" because we can and already do.
We can run out of people willing to lend us more money at a price we want to pay, but that is a long way from insolvency.
Funnily enough, I'm just reading a book on MMT, called the Deficit Myth, which argues exactly this. I though it'd be useful to understand MMT before criticising it.
Blimey, it's superficial. It runs to 260 pages but can be summed up as 'free lunches all round. And then dinner, breakfast, supper and tea too'.
Yes, we can print our own money. Yes, the government can oblige its creditors to take it. None of this stops inflation from happening when more money chases the same amount of goods and services. And inflation is the inevitable consequence of such a policy, as has been demonstrated many times through history, as well as in the famous identity MV≡PY (which the author doesn't even bother to reference, never mind refute).
In reality, many currencies across time have been depreciated into worthlessness by excessive printing, which is why some countries either peg their currency to another or use that other one outright - because that gave the only acceptable assurance that the money in people's hands meant anything.
Money is simply a means of exchange. Printing more of it does not make us richer overall; it just dilutes what's already there.
The better MMT economists are very keen on pointing out that the limit on government expenditure in a fiat economy is not taxes or bond sales but /inflation/. You can (and possibly should) print as much as you like /until/ inflation starts kicking in.
The reality is that an awful lot of the time, that means you can’t print at all - this obstinate fact often seems to be glossed over by the more naïve MMT types & their hangers on. There’s no economic benefit to printing if all that happens is an immediate countervailing inflation in the price level, which may well be the condition the UK economy is in right now.
It's pretty simple - money is just a representation of stuff. If you change the ratio of money to stuff, the value of money changes.
The problem is that deflation wrecks economies in a credit money system where debts can’t be re-negotiated except through bankruptcy, which is incredibly disruptive. The Muslims have it right - if you want a sound money economy (where deflation is a real possibility) then creditors have to be forced to take equity-like risks when they lend money.
MMT says: in a fiat money system the government can always be the spender of last resort, providing an alternate approach to solving this problem.
Twerps who say that MMT means that the goverment can always spend whatever they like without consequences need beating up with an economics textbook until they come to their senses. MMT doesn’t change anything about reality.
In answer to the question posed in the header, I think it highly unlikely Starmer will sack Reeves.
The proximate reason for high bond yield prices now is the same as for Liz Truss: the market doesn't believe future tax revenues will cover future expenditure requirements.
There's a huge political difference between the two however. In Truss case she didn't see why revenues need to cover expenditure. In Reeves case it's because the market believes it will be politically difficult to either increase taxes or reduce expenditure to balance the books, and both will negatively affect growth. Replacing Reeves doesn't remove that dilemma.
Your last sentence hits the nail on the head
It doesn't matter who is COE we have run out of money, room to tax or borrow, so austerity is inevitable
The problem for Labour is it goes against everything they stand for and is politically toxic
If I'd been Labour CoE - I'd have gone for merging NI and Income Tax, simplifying the bands, getting rid of the silly withdrawal of the personal allowance stuff. While doing that, put up tax as part of the redo - given the NI gains from everyone paying NI (in effect), that wouldn't have to be vast.
Sell it as "We need to do this now to save the NHS etc. When things are on an even keel, we can look at reductions. Simpler taxes are easier to collect and cheaper."
I think this would have gone down better, politically, than the budget we had. With the markets (tax in order to spend, save money on a simplified tax system), with the Labour Party (raise taxes for the NHS) and the country at large (brave, upfront about what we need to do).
Lots of talk on TwiX now about the millionaires and non Doms fleeing the UK. At a time of great impoverishment the Labour government has contrived to frighten away the most important part of our tax base, and told them btw private schools will be slowly abolished via taxes
It’s all adding up. All these allegedly small things are adding up to a looming and desperate collision with reality. Even as we allow in millions of migrants who will be a net drain on the treasury, house thousands of asylum seekers in the savoy at billions a year, and pay Tanzania forty trillion quid to take control of Cornwall
It’s coming. A crash
Brace
As always 'More or Less' is your friend. When you were spouting this awhile ago More or Less debunked it. Who to believe, some nutters on twitter or people who analyse the data properly. It appears the definition of millionaire and sample selection were, how can we put it, bollocks.
Are you seriously disputing that rich people are leaving the UK? Every metric shows they are and in number
COUTTS LONDON PRIME PROPERTY INDEX Q3 2024: PRICES DROP AND BUYERS GET BIGGER DISCOUNTS
Our latest research on luxury London property shows prices falling, average discounts close to 9% and almost 80% of sales coming in below asking price.
Nope I'm not. Just pointing out that last time you did this by quoting a survey you saw somewhere it turned out to be complete bollocks. I know you think you are always right, but you seem to have a very short memory and a very poor source of your data.
If it helps I can give you personal experience instead of surveys - over the pre Christmas drinks party rounds I met (and I noted the number for work reasons) 22 couples who have already or are in the process of moving here from the UK as an absolute direct result of Labour winning the election last year.
All of these people, all 22 couples were people who had set up successful businesses - not inherited money. They are selling or have sold their UK properties, stopped paying staff, stopped buying luxury goods and cars in the UK. Will not be setting up new business or employing people in the UK for the foreseeable future, not paying any more taxes to the UK.
This is one small place - just think how many are going to larger places such as Switzerland, Dubai etc.
I’m sure there will be people who say “good riddance” but remember the new car they bought each year covered an essential salary from the VAT. The shops they shopped in need fewer staff with fewer customers. Their gardeners and housekeepers will find fewer hours to work.
I’ve said it before - I do not rejoice in this, it’s not necessarily good for where I live but it’s worse for the UK which I love.
So ideologically sticking it to the rich will prove to be a stupid act of self harm.
It is a shame they're going. But I also fear there's very little we can do to help people who are so utterly selfish.
Or perhaps you/we are?
I'd certainly think so if someone demanded all my money whilst I took all the risk and did all the work.
Nah. I've not demanded all your money. Far from. But from what I see, you live a good life. Others, who work harder than you, and take many more risks, are much less rewarded.
I want to reward those who work hard, and also those who take risks (e.g. in starting up businesses). But that has to be tempered by the fact you also live in society. If you take risks and fail - as can happen if it is a genuine risk - then you should not be left destitute.
And an awful lot of people earn money with very little risk - in both the private and public sector.
If, heaven forfend, you are taken ill, then you would want the doctors and nurses who look after you not to be overworked and to have access to all the equipment you need? Why should the binmen who are out collecting our bins this morning not get paid well for work I wouldn't want to do? How about a careworker I know who just told me he got threatened by an elderly patient, and the police had to be called?
We live in a society, and that society needs to work as a whole. We are not islands.
Yeah, but this is motherhood and apple pie stuff and you could use it to defend any level of tax. In fact, you just have. Because you're using it as an argument to pay tax - period - and not acknowledging there's a limit. What it comes down to is resentment that some people earn more than you, and you want some of it.
When you tax people at 60%+ for stressful jobs, that involve a lot of stress, professional and personal risk (no-one gets paid a good salary for a simple job just about anyone can do) then at some point they will say, fuck it.
You will have no recourse to criticise them.
No, is it resentment. I'm perfectly happy with people earning more than we do as a family. Incredibly relaxed. I've said so many times in the past. I want work rewarded - at the low as well as the top end. And there's big problems with both of these at the moment.
But I also understand that we live in a society, and are part of that society. Without money, that society falls apart - including the bits you rely on. So it becomes a question of where to balance that. And sadly, that balance is currently set so the country is in debt.
If you want stress, I might suggest you try not having enough money to get food on the table for your family, or not enough to pay rent to keep the roof over your head. To have two kids, one of whom has Down's Syndrome. to have a spouse with cancer, and finding it hard to get the bus fare to the hospital (only to find the appointment has been cancelled...)
Yeah, fuck off JJ. I have plenty of my stress in my life, including a brother in law who died of cancer. And my wife nearly died during childbirth.
I don't need twats like you telling me we have it easy, nor that we don't know what hard times in life are like - both my wife and I started with nothing.
Twat.
I'm sorry to hear about those problems. But you do have it easier than others, as you have money. Money helps massively, as we ourselves know from experience.
If you started with nothing, you would understand what it is like not being able to food on the table. What it is like having to live day-by-day, rather than being able to have the luxury of saving. And you might contemplate what minor issue - illness, accident, a failed relationship, whatever - would have changed you from the success you are today to a failure.
A friend of mine was from a coal-mining family and was the first in her family to go to university. She is as bright as a button. Whilst she was there, she got struck down with ME and another complication. Getting her degree nearly killed her, and she has been bedridden ever since. Living off the state. That could have been me. It could have been you.
There would be no safety net in Casinoworld. Now that is fair enough if one is so inclined, but not for me. I think it an outrage that after six months of a LABOUR government ex servicemen with PTSD are still living in tents under Westminster Bridge.
Er, no. I haven't argued for that, so please don't put words in my mouth. False binaries are a stupid way of conducting political debate.
Several things can be true at once: yes, "there but for the grace of God go I", is one and it also the case that we are spending far too much money on welfare and have reached the limits of taxation, which is now suppressing growth and public funds, not growing it.
We can all find powerful personal stories that illicit empathy and sympathy, as we can the other way, and these can and will fall either side of whatever line is drawn, but we are spending far too much on incapacity benefits, pensions and, I think, health and that is where I'd look to make major savings. I'd spend more on education and defence. And I'd create a competitive tax regime that encourages growth.
The comments on this thread and the likes they've got just go to show how politically difficult that will be but that's got to be done. Some seem to think that those that are earning more than them must be undeserving of it, and are on the take at their expense, and give the impression they'd far rather cut them down to size than actually tax them at a rate that would maximise growth - which must be done to afford any of the things you care about.
There will be no safety net if the country goes insolvent.
How can the country go insolvent? Our debt is issued in a currency which we control. We cannot run out of pounds as we can print them to repay the debt. And don't say "we can't" because we can and already do.
We can run out of people willing to lend us more money at a price we want to pay, but that is a long way from insolvency.
And there we have the economic literacy of the Liberal Democrats, ladies and gentlemen.
Whose government vastly inflated the national debt with nothing concrete to show for it?
It was yours wasn't it?
And even then, our vast debts are minimal on the scale of previous debts held by this country or debts vs GDP of other countries. We're not about to go bust no matter how many times Tories accuse Labour of making it imminent. Our borrowing costs remain very low by global standards.
Besides, a third of our debt is owed to the Bank of England. Which we own. We're paying a lot of interest payments to ourselves. Its paper dollars. The proper debate should be how we are so wasteful with what we spend and how we spend it. What is the point in simultaneously tipping record amounts of cash into an NHS which is starved of cash at the point of delivery? We're spending money on all the wrong things.
I'll let the cavalier attitude to debt and inflation pass for now.
We are trying to have that debate.
What, pray, do you think are the wrong things we are spending money on ?
The list under the Johnson regime was f*****' enormous, not least the eye watering cost of imposing economic sanctions on ourselves after a faulty plebiscite in 2016.
Lots of talk on TwiX now about the millionaires and non Doms fleeing the UK. At a time of great impoverishment the Labour government has contrived to frighten away the most important part of our tax base, and told them btw private schools will be slowly abolished via taxes
It’s all adding up. All these allegedly small things are adding up to a looming and desperate collision with reality. Even as we allow in millions of migrants who will be a net drain on the treasury, house thousands of asylum seekers in the savoy at billions a year, and pay Tanzania forty trillion quid to take control of Cornwall
It’s coming. A crash
Brace
As always 'More or Less' is your friend. When you were spouting this awhile ago More or Less debunked it. Who to believe, some nutters on twitter or people who analyse the data properly. It appears the definition of millionaire and sample selection were, how can we put it, bollocks.
Are you seriously disputing that rich people are leaving the UK? Every metric shows they are and in number
COUTTS LONDON PRIME PROPERTY INDEX Q3 2024: PRICES DROP AND BUYERS GET BIGGER DISCOUNTS
Our latest research on luxury London property shows prices falling, average discounts close to 9% and almost 80% of sales coming in below asking price.
Nope I'm not. Just pointing out that last time you did this by quoting a survey you saw somewhere it turned out to be complete bollocks. I know you think you are always right, but you seem to have a very short memory and a very poor source of your data.
If it helps I can give you personal experience instead of surveys - over the pre Christmas drinks party rounds I met (and I noted the number for work reasons) 22 couples who have already or are in the process of moving here from the UK as an absolute direct result of Labour winning the election last year.
All of these people, all 22 couples were people who had set up successful businesses - not inherited money. They are selling or have sold their UK properties, stopped paying staff, stopped buying luxury goods and cars in the UK. Will not be setting up new business or employing people in the UK for the foreseeable future, not paying any more taxes to the UK.
This is one small place - just think how many are going to larger places such as Switzerland, Dubai etc.
I’m sure there will be people who say “good riddance” but remember the new car they bought each year covered an essential salary from the VAT. The shops they shopped in need fewer staff with fewer customers. Their gardeners and housekeepers will find fewer hours to work.
I’ve said it before - I do not rejoice in this, it’s not necessarily good for where I live but it’s worse for the UK which I love.
So ideologically sticking it to the rich will prove to be a stupid act of self harm.
It is a shame they're going. But I also fear there's very little we can do to help people who are so utterly selfish.
Or perhaps you/we are?
I'd certainly think so if someone demanded all my money whilst I took all the risk and did all the work.
Nah. I've not demanded all your money. Far from. But from what I see, you live a good life. Others, who work harder than you, and take many more risks, are much less rewarded.
I want to reward those who work hard, and also those who take risks (e.g. in starting up businesses). But that has to be tempered by the fact you also live in society. If you take risks and fail - as can happen if it is a genuine risk - then you should not be left destitute.
And an awful lot of people earn money with very little risk - in both the private and public sector.
If, heaven forfend, you are taken ill, then you would want the doctors and nurses who look after you not to be overworked and to have access to all the equipment you need? Why should the binmen who are out collecting our bins this morning not get paid well for work I wouldn't want to do? How about a careworker I know who just told me he got threatened by an elderly patient, and the police had to be called?
We live in a society, and that society needs to work as a whole. We are not islands.
Yeah, but this is motherhood and apple pie stuff and you could use it to defend any level of tax. In fact, you just have. Because you're using it as an argument to pay tax - period - and not acknowledging there's a limit. What it comes down to is resentment that some people earn more than you, and you want some of it.
When you tax people at 60%+ for stressful jobs, that involve a lot of stress, professional and personal risk (no-one gets paid a good salary for a simple job just about anyone can do) then at some point they will say, fuck it.
You will have no recourse to criticise them.
No, is it resentment. I'm perfectly happy with people earning more than we do as a family. Incredibly relaxed. I've said so many times in the past. I want work rewarded - at the low as well as the top end. And there's big problems with both of these at the moment.
But I also understand that we live in a society, and are part of that society. Without money, that society falls apart - including the bits you rely on. So it becomes a question of where to balance that. And sadly, that balance is currently set so the country is in debt.
If you want stress, I might suggest you try not having enough money to get food on the table for your family, or not enough to pay rent to keep the roof over your head. To have two kids, one of whom has Down's Syndrome. to have a spouse with cancer, and finding it hard to get the bus fare to the hospital (only to find the appointment has been cancelled...)
Yeah, fuck off JJ. I have plenty of my stress in my life, including a brother in law who died of cancer. And my wife nearly died during childbirth.
I don't need twats like you telling me we have it easy, nor that we don't know what hard times in life are like - both my wife and I started with nothing.
Twat.
I'm sorry to hear about those problems. But you do have it easier than others, as you have money. Money helps massively, as we ourselves know from experience.
If you started with nothing, you would understand what it is like not being able to food on the table. What it is like having to live day-by-day, rather than being able to have the luxury of saving. And you might contemplate what minor issue - illness, accident, a failed relationship, whatever - would have changed you from the success you are today to a failure.
A friend of mine was from a coal-mining family and was the first in her family to go to university. She is as bright as a button. Whilst she was there, she got struck down with ME and another complication. Getting her degree nearly killed her, and she has been bedridden ever since. Living off the state. That could have been me. It could have been you.
There would be no safety net in Casinoworld. Now that is fair enough if one is so inclined, but not for me. I think it an outrage that after six months of a LABOUR government ex servicemen with PTSD are still living in tents under Westminster Bridge.
Er, no. I haven't argued for that, so please don't put words in my mouth. False binaries are a stupid way of conducting political debate.
Several things can be true at once: yes, "there but for the grace of God go I", is one and it also the case that we are spending far too much money on welfare and have reached the limits of taxation, which is now suppressing growth and public funds, not growing it.
We can all find powerful personal stories that illicit empathy and sympathy, as we can the other way, and these can and will fall either side of whatever line is drawn, but we are spending far too much on incapacity benefits, pensions and, I think, health and that is where I'd look to make major savings. I'd spend more on education and defence. And I'd create a competitive tax regime that encourages growth.
The comments on this thread and the likes they've got just go to show how politically difficult that will be but that's got to be done. Some seem to think that those that are earning more than them must be undeserving of it, and are on the take at their expense, and give the impression they'd far rather cut them down to size than actually tax them at a rate that would maximise growth - which must be done to afford any of the things you care about.
There will be no safety net if the country goes insolvent.
How can the country go insolvent? Our debt is issued in a currency which we control. We cannot run out of pounds as we can print them to repay the debt. And don't say "we can't" because we can and already do.
We can run out of people willing to lend us more money at a price we want to pay, but that is a long way from insolvency.
Funnily enough, I'm just reading a book on MMT, called the Deficit Myth, which argues exactly this. I though it'd be useful to understand MMT before criticising it.
Blimey, it's superficial. It runs to 260 pages but can be summed up as 'free lunches all round. And then dinner, breakfast, supper and tea too'.
Yes, we can print our own money. Yes, the government can oblige its creditors to take it. None of this stops inflation from happening when more money chases the same amount of goods and services. And inflation is the inevitable consequence of such a policy, as has been demonstrated many times through history, as well as in the famous identity MV≡PY (which the author doesn't even bother to reference, never mind refute).
In reality, many currencies across time have been depreciated into worthlessness by excessive printing, which is why some countries either peg their currency to another or use that other one outright - because that gave the only acceptable assurance that the money in people's hands meant anything.
Money is simply a means of exchange. Printing more of it does not make us richer overall; it just dilutes what's already there.
The better MMT economists are very keen on pointing out that the limit on government expenditure in a fiat economy is not taxes or bond sales but /inflation/. You can (and possibly should) print as much as you like /until/ inflation starts kicking in.
The reality is that an awful lot of the time, that means you can’t print at all - this obstinate fact often seems to be glossed over by the more naïve MMT types & their hangers on. There’s no economic benefit to printing if all that happens is an immediate countervailing inflation in the price level, which may well be the condition the UK economy is in right now.
It's pretty simple - money is just a representation of stuff. If you change the ratio of money to stuff, the value of money changes.
The problem is that deflation wrecks economies in a credit money system where debts can’t be re-negotiated except through bankruptcy, which is incredibly disruptive. The Muslims have it right - if you want a sound money economy (where deflation is a real possibility) then creditors have to be forced to take equity-like risks when they lend money.
Errr:
Isn't the Islamic system absolutely the opposite, with no opportunity to discharge debts?
Lots of talk on TwiX now about the millionaires and non Doms fleeing the UK. At a time of great impoverishment the Labour government has contrived to frighten away the most important part of our tax base, and told them btw private schools will be slowly abolished via taxes
It’s all adding up. All these allegedly small things are adding up to a looming and desperate collision with reality. Even as we allow in millions of migrants who will be a net drain on the treasury, house thousands of asylum seekers in the savoy at billions a year, and pay Tanzania forty trillion quid to take control of Cornwall
It’s coming. A crash
Brace
As always 'More or Less' is your friend. When you were spouting this awhile ago More or Less debunked it. Who to believe, some nutters on twitter or people who analyse the data properly. It appears the definition of millionaire and sample selection were, how can we put it, bollocks.
Are you seriously disputing that rich people are leaving the UK? Every metric shows they are and in number
COUTTS LONDON PRIME PROPERTY INDEX Q3 2024: PRICES DROP AND BUYERS GET BIGGER DISCOUNTS
Our latest research on luxury London property shows prices falling, average discounts close to 9% and almost 80% of sales coming in below asking price.
Nope I'm not. Just pointing out that last time you did this by quoting a survey you saw somewhere it turned out to be complete bollocks. I know you think you are always right, but you seem to have a very short memory and a very poor source of your data.
If it helps I can give you personal experience instead of surveys - over the pre Christmas drinks party rounds I met (and I noted the number for work reasons) 22 couples who have already or are in the process of moving here from the UK as an absolute direct result of Labour winning the election last year.
All of these people, all 22 couples were people who had set up successful businesses - not inherited money. They are selling or have sold their UK properties, stopped paying staff, stopped buying luxury goods and cars in the UK. Will not be setting up new business or employing people in the UK for the foreseeable future, not paying any more taxes to the UK.
This is one small place - just think how many are going to larger places such as Switzerland, Dubai etc.
I’m sure there will be people who say “good riddance” but remember the new car they bought each year covered an essential salary from the VAT. The shops they shopped in need fewer staff with fewer customers. Their gardeners and housekeepers will find fewer hours to work.
I’ve said it before - I do not rejoice in this, it’s not necessarily good for where I live but it’s worse for the UK which I love.
So ideologically sticking it to the rich will prove to be a stupid act of self harm.
It is a shame they're going. But I also fear there's very little we can do to help people who are so utterly selfish.
Or perhaps you/we are?
I'd certainly think so if someone demanded all my money whilst I took all the risk and did all the work.
Nah. I've not demanded all your money. Far from. But from what I see, you live a good life. Others, who work harder than you, and take many more risks, are much less rewarded.
I want to reward those who work hard, and also those who take risks (e.g. in starting up businesses). But that has to be tempered by the fact you also live in society. If you take risks and fail - as can happen if it is a genuine risk - then you should not be left destitute.
And an awful lot of people earn money with very little risk - in both the private and public sector.
If, heaven forfend, you are taken ill, then you would want the doctors and nurses who look after you not to be overworked and to have access to all the equipment you need? Why should the binmen who are out collecting our bins this morning not get paid well for work I wouldn't want to do? How about a careworker I know who just told me he got threatened by an elderly patient, and the police had to be called?
We live in a society, and that society needs to work as a whole. We are not islands.
Yeah, but this is motherhood and apple pie stuff and you could use it to defend any level of tax. In fact, you just have. Because you're using it as an argument to pay tax - period - and not acknowledging there's a limit. What it comes down to is resentment that some people earn more than you, and you want some of it.
When you tax people at 60%+ for stressful jobs, that involve a lot of stress, professional and personal risk (no-one gets paid a good salary for a simple job just about anyone can do) then at some point they will say, fuck it.
You will have no recourse to criticise them.
No, is it resentment. I'm perfectly happy with people earning more than we do as a family. Incredibly relaxed. I've said so many times in the past. I want work rewarded - at the low as well as the top end. And there's big problems with both of these at the moment.
But I also understand that we live in a society, and are part of that society. Without money, that society falls apart - including the bits you rely on. So it becomes a question of where to balance that. And sadly, that balance is currently set so the country is in debt.
If you want stress, I might suggest you try not having enough money to get food on the table for your family, or not enough to pay rent to keep the roof over your head. To have two kids, one of whom has Down's Syndrome. to have a spouse with cancer, and finding it hard to get the bus fare to the hospital (only to find the appointment has been cancelled...)
Yeah, fuck off JJ. I have plenty of my stress in my life, including a brother in law who died of cancer. And my wife nearly died during childbirth.
I don't need twats like you telling me we have it easy, nor that we don't know what hard times in life are like - both my wife and I started with nothing.
Twat.
I'm sorry to hear about those problems. But you do have it easier than others, as you have money. Money helps massively, as we ourselves know from experience.
If you started with nothing, you would understand what it is like not being able to food on the table. What it is like having to live day-by-day, rather than being able to have the luxury of saving. And you might contemplate what minor issue - illness, accident, a failed relationship, whatever - would have changed you from the success you are today to a failure.
A friend of mine was from a coal-mining family and was the first in her family to go to university. She is as bright as a button. Whilst she was there, she got struck down with ME and another complication. Getting her degree nearly killed her, and she has been bedridden ever since. Living off the state. That could have been me. It could have been you.
There would be no safety net in Casinoworld. Now that is fair enough if one is so inclined, but not for me. I think it an outrage that after six months of a LABOUR government ex servicemen with PTSD are still living in tents under Westminster Bridge.
Er, no. I haven't argued for that, so please don't put words in my mouth. False binaries are a stupid way of conducting political debate.
Several things can be true at once: yes, "there but for the grace of God go I", is one and it also the case that we are spending far too much money on welfare and have reached the limits of taxation, which is now suppressing growth and public funds, not growing it.
We can all find powerful personal stories that illicit empathy and sympathy, as we can the other way, and these can and will fall either side of whatever line is drawn, but we are spending far too much on incapacity benefits, pensions and, I think, health and that is where I'd look to make major savings. I'd spend more on education and defence. And I'd create a competitive tax regime that encourages growth.
The comments on this thread and the likes they've got just go to show how politically difficult that will be but that's got to be done. Some seem to think that those that are earning more than them must be undeserving of it, and are on the take at their expense, and give the impression they'd far rather cut them down to size than actually tax them at a rate that would maximise growth - which must be done to afford any of the things you care about.
There will be no safety net if the country goes insolvent.
How can the country go insolvent? Our debt is issued in a currency which we control. We cannot run out of pounds as we can print them to repay the debt. And don't say "we can't" because we can and already do.
We can run out of people willing to lend us more money at a price we want to pay, but that is a long way from insolvency.
And there we have the economic literacy of the Liberal Democrats, ladies and gentlemen.
Whose government vastly inflated the national debt with nothing concrete to show for it?
It was yours wasn't it?
And even then, our vast debts are minimal on the scale of previous debts held by this country or debts vs GDP of other countries. We're not about to go bust no matter how many times Tories accuse Labour of making it imminent. Our borrowing costs remain very low by global standards.
Besides, a third of our debt is owed to the Bank of England. Which we own. We're paying a lot of interest payments to ourselves. Its paper dollars. The proper debate should be how we are so wasteful with what we spend and how we spend it. What is the point in simultaneously tipping record amounts of cash into an NHS which is starved of cash at the point of delivery? We're spending money on all the wrong things.
I'll let the cavalier attitude to debt and inflation pass for now.
We are trying to have that debate.
What, pray, do you think are the wrong things we are spending money on ?
The list under the Johnson regime was f*****' enormous, not least the eye watering cost of imposing economic sanctions on ourselves after a faulty plebiscite in 2016.
Lots of talk on TwiX now about the millionaires and non Doms fleeing the UK. At a time of great impoverishment the Labour government has contrived to frighten away the most important part of our tax base, and told them btw private schools will be slowly abolished via taxes
It’s all adding up. All these allegedly small things are adding up to a looming and desperate collision with reality. Even as we allow in millions of migrants who will be a net drain on the treasury, house thousands of asylum seekers in the savoy at billions a year, and pay Tanzania forty trillion quid to take control of Cornwall
It’s coming. A crash
Brace
As always 'More or Less' is your friend. When you were spouting this awhile ago More or Less debunked it. Who to believe, some nutters on twitter or people who analyse the data properly. It appears the definition of millionaire and sample selection were, how can we put it, bollocks.
Are you seriously disputing that rich people are leaving the UK? Every metric shows they are and in number
COUTTS LONDON PRIME PROPERTY INDEX Q3 2024: PRICES DROP AND BUYERS GET BIGGER DISCOUNTS
Our latest research on luxury London property shows prices falling, average discounts close to 9% and almost 80% of sales coming in below asking price.
Nope I'm not. Just pointing out that last time you did this by quoting a survey you saw somewhere it turned out to be complete bollocks. I know you think you are always right, but you seem to have a very short memory and a very poor source of your data.
If it helps I can give you personal experience instead of surveys - over the pre Christmas drinks party rounds I met (and I noted the number for work reasons) 22 couples who have already or are in the process of moving here from the UK as an absolute direct result of Labour winning the election last year.
All of these people, all 22 couples were people who had set up successful businesses - not inherited money. They are selling or have sold their UK properties, stopped paying staff, stopped buying luxury goods and cars in the UK. Will not be setting up new business or employing people in the UK for the foreseeable future, not paying any more taxes to the UK.
This is one small place - just think how many are going to larger places such as Switzerland, Dubai etc.
I’m sure there will be people who say “good riddance” but remember the new car they bought each year covered an essential salary from the VAT. The shops they shopped in need fewer staff with fewer customers. Their gardeners and housekeepers will find fewer hours to work.
I’ve said it before - I do not rejoice in this, it’s not necessarily good for where I live but it’s worse for the UK which I love.
So ideologically sticking it to the rich will prove to be a stupid act of self harm.
It is a shame they're going. But I also fear there's very little we can do to help people who are so utterly selfish.
Or perhaps you/we are?
I'd certainly think so if someone demanded all my money whilst I took all the risk and did all the work.
Nah. I've not demanded all your money. Far from. But from what I see, you live a good life. Others, who work harder than you, and take many more risks, are much less rewarded.
I want to reward those who work hard, and also those who take risks (e.g. in starting up businesses). But that has to be tempered by the fact you also live in society. If you take risks and fail - as can happen if it is a genuine risk - then you should not be left destitute.
And an awful lot of people earn money with very little risk - in both the private and public sector.
If, heaven forfend, you are taken ill, then you would want the doctors and nurses who look after you not to be overworked and to have access to all the equipment you need? Why should the binmen who are out collecting our bins this morning not get paid well for work I wouldn't want to do? How about a careworker I know who just told me he got threatened by an elderly patient, and the police had to be called?
We live in a society, and that society needs to work as a whole. We are not islands.
Yeah, but this is motherhood and apple pie stuff and you could use it to defend any level of tax. In fact, you just have. Because you're using it as an argument to pay tax - period - and not acknowledging there's a limit. What it comes down to is resentment that some people earn more than you, and you want some of it.
When you tax people at 60%+ for stressful jobs, that involve a lot of stress, professional and personal risk (no-one gets paid a good salary for a simple job just about anyone can do) then at some point they will say, fuck it.
You will have no recourse to criticise them.
No, is it resentment. I'm perfectly happy with people earning more than we do as a family. Incredibly relaxed. I've said so many times in the past. I want work rewarded - at the low as well as the top end. And there's big problems with both of these at the moment.
But I also understand that we live in a society, and are part of that society. Without money, that society falls apart - including the bits you rely on. So it becomes a question of where to balance that. And sadly, that balance is currently set so the country is in debt.
If you want stress, I might suggest you try not having enough money to get food on the table for your family, or not enough to pay rent to keep the roof over your head. To have two kids, one of whom has Down's Syndrome. to have a spouse with cancer, and finding it hard to get the bus fare to the hospital (only to find the appointment has been cancelled...)
Yeah, fuck off JJ. I have plenty of my stress in my life, including a brother in law who died of cancer. And my wife nearly died during childbirth.
I don't need twats like you telling me we have it easy, nor that we don't know what hard times in life are like - both my wife and I started with nothing.
Twat.
I'm sorry to hear about those problems. But you do have it easier than others, as you have money. Money helps massively, as we ourselves know from experience.
If you started with nothing, you would understand what it is like not being able to food on the table. What it is like having to live day-by-day, rather than being able to have the luxury of saving. And you might contemplate what minor issue - illness, accident, a failed relationship, whatever - would have changed you from the success you are today to a failure.
A friend of mine was from a coal-mining family and was the first in her family to go to university. She is as bright as a button. Whilst she was there, she got struck down with ME and another complication. Getting her degree nearly killed her, and she has been bedridden ever since. Living off the state. That could have been me. It could have been you.
There would be no safety net in Casinoworld. Now that is fair enough if one is so inclined, but not for me. I think it an outrage that after six months of a LABOUR government ex servicemen with PTSD are still living in tents under Westminster Bridge.
Er, no. I haven't argued for that, so please don't put words in my mouth. False binaries are a stupid way of conducting political debate.
Several things can be true at once: yes, "there but for the grace of God go I", is one and it also the case that we are spending far too much money on welfare and have reached the limits of taxation, which is now suppressing growth and public funds, not growing it.
We can all find powerful personal stories that illicit empathy and sympathy, as we can the other way, and these can and will fall either side of whatever line is drawn, but we are spending far too much on incapacity benefits, pensions and, I think, health and that is where I'd look to make major savings. I'd spend more on education and defence. And I'd create a competitive tax regime that encourages growth.
The comments on this thread and the likes they've got just go to show how politically difficult that will be but that's got to be done. Some seem to think that those that are earning more than them must be undeserving of it, and are on the take at their expense, and give the impression they'd far rather cut them down to size than actually tax them at a rate that would maximise growth - which must be done to afford any of the things you care about.
There will be no safety net if the country goes insolvent.
How can the country go insolvent? Our debt is issued in a currency which we control. We cannot run out of pounds as we can print them to repay the debt. And don't say "we can't" because we can and already do.
We can run out of people willing to lend us more money at a price we want to pay, but that is a long way from insolvency.
Funnily enough, I'm just reading a book on MMT, called the Deficit Myth, which argues exactly this. I though it'd be useful to understand MMT before criticising it.
Blimey, it's superficial. It runs to 260 pages but can be summed up as 'free lunches all round. And then dinner, breakfast, supper and tea too'.
Yes, we can print our own money. Yes, the government can oblige its creditors to take it. None of this stops inflation from happening when more money chases the same amount of goods and services. And inflation is the inevitable consequence of such a policy, as has been demonstrated many times through history, as well as in the famous identity MV≡PY (which the author doesn't even bother to reference, never mind refute).
In reality, many currencies across time have been depreciated into worthlessness by excessive printing, which is why some countries either peg their currency to another or use that other one outright - because that gave the only acceptable assurance that the money in people's hands meant anything.
Money is simply a means of exchange. Printing more of it does not make us richer overall; it just dilutes what's already there.
The better MMT economists are very keen on pointing out that the limit on government expenditure in a fiat economy is not taxes or bond sales but /inflation/. You can (and possibly should) print as much as you like /until/ inflation starts kicking in.
The reality is that an awful lot of the time, that means you can’t print at all - this obstinate fact often seems to be glossed over by the more naïve MMT types & their hangers on. There’s no economic benefit to printing if all that happens is an immediate countervailing inflation in the price level, which may well be the condition the UK economy is in right now.
In that case, it's not really much different from classical monetary theory then. The likes of Friedman would no doubt have advocated printing money as an emergency measure during a credit crunch, both for liquidity and to stabilize prices - and via both, economic activity.
There are some useful insights that MMT brings: the world has changed since Ricardo, Marx, Keynes and Friedman, and economic thinking does need to review its core assumptions from time to time. But while you can print yourself out of debt, you cannot print yourself into prosperity.
Lots of talk on TwiX now about the millionaires and non Doms fleeing the UK. At a time of great impoverishment the Labour government has contrived to frighten away the most important part of our tax base, and told them btw private schools will be slowly abolished via taxes
It’s all adding up. All these allegedly small things are adding up to a looming and desperate collision with reality. Even as we allow in millions of migrants who will be a net drain on the treasury, house thousands of asylum seekers in the savoy at billions a year, and pay Tanzania forty trillion quid to take control of Cornwall
It’s coming. A crash
Brace
As always 'More or Less' is your friend. When you were spouting this awhile ago More or Less debunked it. Who to believe, some nutters on twitter or people who analyse the data properly. It appears the definition of millionaire and sample selection were, how can we put it, bollocks.
Are you seriously disputing that rich people are leaving the UK? Every metric shows they are and in number
COUTTS LONDON PRIME PROPERTY INDEX Q3 2024: PRICES DROP AND BUYERS GET BIGGER DISCOUNTS
Our latest research on luxury London property shows prices falling, average discounts close to 9% and almost 80% of sales coming in below asking price.
Nope I'm not. Just pointing out that last time you did this by quoting a survey you saw somewhere it turned out to be complete bollocks. I know you think you are always right, but you seem to have a very short memory and a very poor source of your data.
If it helps I can give you personal experience instead of surveys - over the pre Christmas drinks party rounds I met (and I noted the number for work reasons) 22 couples who have already or are in the process of moving here from the UK as an absolute direct result of Labour winning the election last year.
All of these people, all 22 couples were people who had set up successful businesses - not inherited money. They are selling or have sold their UK properties, stopped paying staff, stopped buying luxury goods and cars in the UK. Will not be setting up new business or employing people in the UK for the foreseeable future, not paying any more taxes to the UK.
This is one small place - just think how many are going to larger places such as Switzerland, Dubai etc.
I’m sure there will be people who say “good riddance” but remember the new car they bought each year covered an essential salary from the VAT. The shops they shopped in need fewer staff with fewer customers. Their gardeners and housekeepers will find fewer hours to work.
I’ve said it before - I do not rejoice in this, it’s not necessarily good for where I live but it’s worse for the UK which I love.
So ideologically sticking it to the rich will prove to be a stupid act of self harm.
It is a shame they're going. But I also fear there's very little we can do to help people who are so utterly selfish.
Or perhaps you/we are?
I'd certainly think so if someone demanded all my money whilst I took all the risk and did all the work.
Nah. I've not demanded all your money. Far from. But from what I see, you live a good life. Others, who work harder than you, and take many more risks, are much less rewarded.
I want to reward those who work hard, and also those who take risks (e.g. in starting up businesses). But that has to be tempered by the fact you also live in society. If you take risks and fail - as can happen if it is a genuine risk - then you should not be left destitute.
And an awful lot of people earn money with very little risk - in both the private and public sector.
If, heaven forfend, you are taken ill, then you would want the doctors and nurses who look after you not to be overworked and to have access to all the equipment you need? Why should the binmen who are out collecting our bins this morning not get paid well for work I wouldn't want to do? How about a careworker I know who just told me he got threatened by an elderly patient, and the police had to be called?
We live in a society, and that society needs to work as a whole. We are not islands.
Yeah, but this is motherhood and apple pie stuff and you could use it to defend any level of tax. In fact, you just have. Because you're using it as an argument to pay tax - period - and not acknowledging there's a limit. What it comes down to is resentment that some people earn more than you, and you want some of it.
When you tax people at 60%+ for stressful jobs, that involve a lot of stress, professional and personal risk (no-one gets paid a good salary for a simple job just about anyone can do) then at some point they will say, fuck it.
You will have no recourse to criticise them.
No, is it resentment. I'm perfectly happy with people earning more than we do as a family. Incredibly relaxed. I've said so many times in the past. I want work rewarded - at the low as well as the top end. And there's big problems with both of these at the moment.
But I also understand that we live in a society, and are part of that society. Without money, that society falls apart - including the bits you rely on. So it becomes a question of where to balance that. And sadly, that balance is currently set so the country is in debt.
If you want stress, I might suggest you try not having enough money to get food on the table for your family, or not enough to pay rent to keep the roof over your head. To have two kids, one of whom has Down's Syndrome. to have a spouse with cancer, and finding it hard to get the bus fare to the hospital (only to find the appointment has been cancelled...)
Yeah, fuck off JJ. I have plenty of my stress in my life, including a brother in law who died of cancer. And my wife nearly died during childbirth.
I don't need twats like you telling me we have it easy, nor that we don't know what hard times in life are like - both my wife and I started with nothing.
Twat.
I'm sorry to hear about those problems. But you do have it easier than others, as you have money. Money helps massively, as we ourselves know from experience.
If you started with nothing, you would understand what it is like not being able to food on the table. What it is like having to live day-by-day, rather than being able to have the luxury of saving. And you might contemplate what minor issue - illness, accident, a failed relationship, whatever - would have changed you from the success you are today to a failure.
A friend of mine was from a coal-mining family and was the first in her family to go to university. She is as bright as a button. Whilst she was there, she got struck down with ME and another complication. Getting her degree nearly killed her, and she has been bedridden ever since. Living off the state. That could have been me. It could have been you.
There would be no safety net in Casinoworld. Now that is fair enough if one is so inclined, but not for me. I think it an outrage that after six months of a LABOUR government ex servicemen with PTSD are still living in tents under Westminster Bridge.
Er, no. I haven't argued for that, so please don't put words in my mouth. False binaries are a stupid way of conducting political debate.
Several things can be true at once: yes, "there but for the grace of God go I", is one and it also the case that we are spending far too much money on welfare and have reached the limits of taxation, which is now suppressing growth and public funds, not growing it.
We can all find powerful personal stories that illicit empathy and sympathy, as we can the other way, and these can and will fall either side of whatever line is drawn, but we are spending far too much on incapacity benefits, pensions and, I think, health and that is where I'd look to make major savings. I'd spend more on education and defence. And I'd create a competitive tax regime that encourages growth.
The comments on this thread and the likes they've got just go to show how politically difficult that will be but that's got to be done. Some seem to think that those that are earning more than them must be undeserving of it, and are on the take at their expense, and give the impression they'd far rather cut them down to size than actually tax them at a rate that would maximise growth - which must be done to afford any of the things you care about.
There will be no safety net if the country goes insolvent.
How can the country go insolvent? Our debt is issued in a currency which we control. We cannot run out of pounds as we can print them to repay the debt. And don't say "we can't" because we can and already do.
We can run out of people willing to lend us more money at a price we want to pay, but that is a long way from insolvency.
And there we have the economic literacy of the Liberal Democrats, ladies and gentlemen.
Whose government vastly inflated the national debt with nothing concrete to show for it?
It was yours wasn't it?
And even then, our vast debts are minimal on the scale of previous debts held by this country or debts vs GDP of other countries. We're not about to go bust no matter how many times Tories accuse Labour of making it imminent. Our borrowing costs remain very low by global standards.
Besides, a third of our debt is owed to the Bank of England. Which we own. We're paying a lot of interest payments to ourselves. Its paper dollars. The proper debate should be how we are so wasteful with what we spend and how we spend it. What is the point in simultaneously tipping record amounts of cash into an NHS which is starved of cash at the point of delivery? We're spending money on all the wrong things.
I'll let the cavalier attitude to debt and inflation pass for now.
We are trying to have that debate.
What, pray, do you think are the wrong things we are spending money on ?
The inescapable fact is that covid and the war in Ukraine caused economic havoc, and that they are conveniently forgotten by many doesn't alter the fact that is the reason for much of our debt
The unknown question is how labour and the lib dems would have dealt with these 2 crisis, which has seen most every government in charge in that period fall
Lots of talk on TwiX now about the millionaires and non Doms fleeing the UK. At a time of great impoverishment the Labour government has contrived to frighten away the most important part of our tax base, and told them btw private schools will be slowly abolished via taxes
It’s all adding up. All these allegedly small things are adding up to a looming and desperate collision with reality. Even as we allow in millions of migrants who will be a net drain on the treasury, house thousands of asylum seekers in the savoy at billions a year, and pay Tanzania forty trillion quid to take control of Cornwall
It’s coming. A crash
Brace
As always 'More or Less' is your friend. When you were spouting this awhile ago More or Less debunked it. Who to believe, some nutters on twitter or people who analyse the data properly. It appears the definition of millionaire and sample selection were, how can we put it, bollocks.
Are you seriously disputing that rich people are leaving the UK? Every metric shows they are and in number
COUTTS LONDON PRIME PROPERTY INDEX Q3 2024: PRICES DROP AND BUYERS GET BIGGER DISCOUNTS
Our latest research on luxury London property shows prices falling, average discounts close to 9% and almost 80% of sales coming in below asking price.
Nope I'm not. Just pointing out that last time you did this by quoting a survey you saw somewhere it turned out to be complete bollocks. I know you think you are always right, but you seem to have a very short memory and a very poor source of your data.
If it helps I can give you personal experience instead of surveys - over the pre Christmas drinks party rounds I met (and I noted the number for work reasons) 22 couples who have already or are in the process of moving here from the UK as an absolute direct result of Labour winning the election last year.
All of these people, all 22 couples were people who had set up successful businesses - not inherited money. They are selling or have sold their UK properties, stopped paying staff, stopped buying luxury goods and cars in the UK. Will not be setting up new business or employing people in the UK for the foreseeable future, not paying any more taxes to the UK.
This is one small place - just think how many are going to larger places such as Switzerland, Dubai etc.
I’m sure there will be people who say “good riddance” but remember the new car they bought each year covered an essential salary from the VAT. The shops they shopped in need fewer staff with fewer customers. Their gardeners and housekeepers will find fewer hours to work.
I’ve said it before - I do not rejoice in this, it’s not necessarily good for where I live but it’s worse for the UK which I love.
So ideologically sticking it to the rich will prove to be a stupid act of self harm.
It is a shame they're going. But I also fear there's very little we can do to help people who are so utterly selfish.
Or perhaps you/we are?
I'd certainly think so if someone demanded all my money whilst I took all the risk and did all the work.
Nah. I've not demanded all your money. Far from. But from what I see, you live a good life. Others, who work harder than you, and take many more risks, are much less rewarded.
I want to reward those who work hard, and also those who take risks (e.g. in starting up businesses). But that has to be tempered by the fact you also live in society. If you take risks and fail - as can happen if it is a genuine risk - then you should not be left destitute.
And an awful lot of people earn money with very little risk - in both the private and public sector.
If, heaven forfend, you are taken ill, then you would want the doctors and nurses who look after you not to be overworked and to have access to all the equipment you need? Why should the binmen who are out collecting our bins this morning not get paid well for work I wouldn't want to do? How about a careworker I know who just told me he got threatened by an elderly patient, and the police had to be called?
We live in a society, and that society needs to work as a whole. We are not islands.
Yeah, but this is motherhood and apple pie stuff and you could use it to defend any level of tax. In fact, you just have. Because you're using it as an argument to pay tax - period - and not acknowledging there's a limit. What it comes down to is resentment that some people earn more than you, and you want some of it.
When you tax people at 60%+ for stressful jobs, that involve a lot of stress, professional and personal risk (no-one gets paid a good salary for a simple job just about anyone can do) then at some point they will say, fuck it.
You will have no recourse to criticise them.
No, is it resentment. I'm perfectly happy with people earning more than we do as a family. Incredibly relaxed. I've said so many times in the past. I want work rewarded - at the low as well as the top end. And there's big problems with both of these at the moment.
But I also understand that we live in a society, and are part of that society. Without money, that society falls apart - including the bits you rely on. So it becomes a question of where to balance that. And sadly, that balance is currently set so the country is in debt.
If you want stress, I might suggest you try not having enough money to get food on the table for your family, or not enough to pay rent to keep the roof over your head. To have two kids, one of whom has Down's Syndrome. to have a spouse with cancer, and finding it hard to get the bus fare to the hospital (only to find the appointment has been cancelled...)
Yeah, fuck off JJ. I have plenty of my stress in my life, including a brother in law who died of cancer. And my wife nearly died during childbirth.
I don't need twats like you telling me we have it easy, nor that we don't know what hard times in life are like - both my wife and I started with nothing.
Twat.
I'm sorry to hear about those problems. But you do have it easier than others, as you have money. Money helps massively, as we ourselves know from experience.
If you started with nothing, you would understand what it is like not being able to food on the table. What it is like having to live day-by-day, rather than being able to have the luxury of saving. And you might contemplate what minor issue - illness, accident, a failed relationship, whatever - would have changed you from the success you are today to a failure.
A friend of mine was from a coal-mining family and was the first in her family to go to university. She is as bright as a button. Whilst she was there, she got struck down with ME and another complication. Getting her degree nearly killed her, and she has been bedridden ever since. Living off the state. That could have been me. It could have been you.
There would be no safety net in Casinoworld. Now that is fair enough if one is so inclined, but not for me. I think it an outrage that after six months of a LABOUR government ex servicemen with PTSD are still living in tents under Westminster Bridge.
Er, no. I haven't argued for that, so please don't put words in my mouth. False binaries are a stupid way of conducting political debate.
Several things can be true at once: yes, "there but for the grace of God go I", is one and it also the case that we are spending far too much money on welfare and have reached the limits of taxation, which is now suppressing growth and public funds, not growing it.
We can all find powerful personal stories that illicit empathy and sympathy, as we can the other way, and these can and will fall either side of whatever line is drawn, but we are spending far too much on incapacity benefits, pensions and, I think, health and that is where I'd look to make major savings. I'd spend more on education and defence. And I'd create a competitive tax regime that encourages growth.
The comments on this thread and the likes they've got just go to show how politically difficult that will be but that's got to be done. Some seem to think that those that are earning more than them must be undeserving of it, and are on the take at their expense, and give the impression they'd far rather cut them down to size than actually tax them at a rate that would maximise growth - which must be done to afford any of the things you care about.
There will be no safety net if the country goes insolvent.
How can the country go insolvent? Our debt is issued in a currency which we control. We cannot run out of pounds as we can print them to repay the debt. And don't say "we can't" because we can and already do.
We can run out of people willing to lend us more money at a price we want to pay, but that is a long way from insolvency.
Funnily enough, I'm just reading a book on MMT, called the Deficit Myth, which argues exactly this. I though it'd be useful to understand MMT before criticising it.
Blimey, it's superficial. It runs to 260 pages but can be summed up as 'free lunches all round. And then dinner, breakfast, supper and tea too'.
Yes, we can print our own money. Yes, the government can oblige its creditors to take it. None of this stops inflation from happening when more money chases the same amount of goods and services. And inflation is the inevitable consequence of such a policy, as has been demonstrated many times through history, as well as in the famous identity MV≡PY (which the author doesn't even bother to reference, never mind refute).
In reality, many currencies across time have been depreciated into worthlessness by excessive printing, which is why some countries either peg their currency to another or use that other one outright - because that gave the only acceptable assurance that the money in people's hands meant anything.
Money is simply a means of exchange. Printing more of it does not make us richer overall; it just dilutes what's already there.
The better MMT economists are very keen on pointing out that the limit on government expenditure in a fiat economy is not taxes or bond sales but /inflation/. You can (and possibly should) print as much as you like /until/ inflation starts kicking in.
The reality is that an awful lot of the time, that means you can’t print at all - this obstinate fact often seems to be glossed over by the more naïve MMT types & their hangers on. There’s no economic benefit to printing if all that happens is an immediate countervailing inflation in the price level, which may well be the condition the UK economy is in right now.
Inflation can't be calibrated like a precision instrument though. If you 'miss' and it really takes off the impacts are traumatic.
Yes but even then on that poll Farage has zero chance of becoming PM without Tory confidence and supply. So Kemi would be Kingmaker and want a place in his Cabinet assuming she didn’t back Starmer.
Most likely though on that poll it would be a Labour minority government with LD and SNP confidence and supply
Who would you anticipate would be the 3rd party that would prop up a Reform/Con government? It would still be a long way short of a majority?
The DUP and TUV and UUP but yes not quite there UK wide on that poll
In answer to the question posed in the header, I think it highly unlikely Starmer will sack Reeves.
The proximate reason for high bond yield prices now is the same as for Liz Truss: the market doesn't believe future tax revenues will cover future expenditure requirements.
There's a huge political difference between the two however. In Truss case she didn't see why revenues need to cover expenditure. In Reeves case it's because the market believes it will be politically difficult to either increase taxes or reduce expenditure to balance the books, and both will negatively affect growth. Replacing Reeves doesn't remove that dilemma.
Your last sentence hits the nail on the head
It doesn't matter who is COE we have run out of money, room to tax or borrow, so austerity is inevitable
The problem for Labour is it goes against everything they stand for and is politically toxic
There is plenty of room to tax more. Labour has boosted tax revenue as a proportion of GDP to 38.5%, compared with 36.5% under Tory plans.
That compares with 46% in France, 44% in Norway, 42% in Denmark, 39% in Germany.
Tax isn't really the problem, IMO. It's what we tax and what we spend the revenue on.
The late Gerald Ford's son is reading out his eulogy to Carter he would have given had he still been alive, quite touching about unity across the partisan divide, needed more than ever now in the USA
You are going to have to wait awhile after Orange Diapers won the election.
Lots of talk on TwiX now about the millionaires and non Doms fleeing the UK. At a time of great impoverishment the Labour government has contrived to frighten away the most important part of our tax base, and told them btw private schools will be slowly abolished via taxes
It’s all adding up. All these allegedly small things are adding up to a looming and desperate collision with reality. Even as we allow in millions of migrants who will be a net drain on the treasury, house thousands of asylum seekers in the savoy at billions a year, and pay Tanzania forty trillion quid to take control of Cornwall
It’s coming. A crash
Brace
As always 'More or Less' is your friend. When you were spouting this awhile ago More or Less debunked it. Who to believe, some nutters on twitter or people who analyse the data properly. It appears the definition of millionaire and sample selection were, how can we put it, bollocks.
Are you seriously disputing that rich people are leaving the UK? Every metric shows they are and in number
COUTTS LONDON PRIME PROPERTY INDEX Q3 2024: PRICES DROP AND BUYERS GET BIGGER DISCOUNTS
Our latest research on luxury London property shows prices falling, average discounts close to 9% and almost 80% of sales coming in below asking price.
Nope I'm not. Just pointing out that last time you did this by quoting a survey you saw somewhere it turned out to be complete bollocks. I know you think you are always right, but you seem to have a very short memory and a very poor source of your data.
If it helps I can give you personal experience instead of surveys - over the pre Christmas drinks party rounds I met (and I noted the number for work reasons) 22 couples who have already or are in the process of moving here from the UK as an absolute direct result of Labour winning the election last year.
All of these people, all 22 couples were people who had set up successful businesses - not inherited money. They are selling or have sold their UK properties, stopped paying staff, stopped buying luxury goods and cars in the UK. Will not be setting up new business or employing people in the UK for the foreseeable future, not paying any more taxes to the UK.
This is one small place - just think how many are going to larger places such as Switzerland, Dubai etc.
I’m sure there will be people who say “good riddance” but remember the new car they bought each year covered an essential salary from the VAT. The shops they shopped in need fewer staff with fewer customers. Their gardeners and housekeepers will find fewer hours to work.
I’ve said it before - I do not rejoice in this, it’s not necessarily good for where I live but it’s worse for the UK which I love.
So ideologically sticking it to the rich will prove to be a stupid act of self harm.
It is a shame they're going. But I also fear there's very little we can do to help people who are so utterly selfish.
It's interesting that some people like the half the idea of Global Britain - easy to come here and work. But the corollary to that is that people find it easier to leave.
Take one bloke in my team. Indian, first generation immigrant. Got wife and baby, no school as yet. Been in the country about 6 years. Why shouldn't he move to Berlin, or wherever?
He looks at what he is paying in taxes and what he gets for it. And is not impressed. Transactional, maybe. But why should he think differently?
I agree. Mrs J is in that situation. She could be earning more in Turkey - or the USA - than here. But we don't move. Why? Partly the reasons she moved to this country in the first place, and partly because the UK is still a good place to live on a moderate income.
Others disagree. But the country needs more money to fix problems it has. Austerity - which I was in favour of - has been tried, and probably went too far. So how else do we get the money? There is no magic money tree.
Isn’t this attitude from you and Mrs J selfish? Mrs J could earn more and contribute more in taxes to the country that nurtured her but instead she has upped sticks to another country for reasons she has decided are better for her rather than society in general?
And frankly if you worked a bit harder you could contribute more in taxes to the UK but instead you rather selfishly have decided to balance your work and life to suit the needs of your family?
I think it’s perfectly fair and correct that you and Mrs J have chosen your residence to suit your priorities over the needs of a country as a whole.
Lots of talk on TwiX now about the millionaires and non Doms fleeing the UK. At a time of great impoverishment the Labour government has contrived to frighten away the most important part of our tax base, and told them btw private schools will be slowly abolished via taxes
It’s all adding up. All these allegedly small things are adding up to a looming and desperate collision with reality. Even as we allow in millions of migrants who will be a net drain on the treasury, house thousands of asylum seekers in the savoy at billions a year, and pay Tanzania forty trillion quid to take control of Cornwall
It’s coming. A crash
Brace
As always 'More or Less' is your friend. When you were spouting this awhile ago More or Less debunked it. Who to believe, some nutters on twitter or people who analyse the data properly. It appears the definition of millionaire and sample selection were, how can we put it, bollocks.
Are you seriously disputing that rich people are leaving the UK? Every metric shows they are and in number
COUTTS LONDON PRIME PROPERTY INDEX Q3 2024: PRICES DROP AND BUYERS GET BIGGER DISCOUNTS
Our latest research on luxury London property shows prices falling, average discounts close to 9% and almost 80% of sales coming in below asking price.
Nope I'm not. Just pointing out that last time you did this by quoting a survey you saw somewhere it turned out to be complete bollocks. I know you think you are always right, but you seem to have a very short memory and a very poor source of your data.
If it helps I can give you personal experience instead of surveys - over the pre Christmas drinks party rounds I met (and I noted the number for work reasons) 22 couples who have already or are in the process of moving here from the UK as an absolute direct result of Labour winning the election last year.
All of these people, all 22 couples were people who had set up successful businesses - not inherited money. They are selling or have sold their UK properties, stopped paying staff, stopped buying luxury goods and cars in the UK. Will not be setting up new business or employing people in the UK for the foreseeable future, not paying any more taxes to the UK.
This is one small place - just think how many are going to larger places such as Switzerland, Dubai etc.
I’m sure there will be people who say “good riddance” but remember the new car they bought each year covered an essential salary from the VAT. The shops they shopped in need fewer staff with fewer customers. Their gardeners and housekeepers will find fewer hours to work.
I’ve said it before - I do not rejoice in this, it’s not necessarily good for where I live but it’s worse for the UK which I love.
So ideologically sticking it to the rich will prove to be a stupid act of self harm.
It is a shame they're going. But I also fear there's very little we can do to help people who are so utterly selfish.
It's interesting that some people like the half the idea of Global Britain - easy to come here and work. But the corollary to that is that people find it easier to leave.
Take one bloke in my team. Indian, first generation immigrant. Got wife and baby, no school as yet. Been in the country about 6 years. Why shouldn't he move to Berlin, or wherever?
He looks at what he is paying in taxes and what he gets for it. And is not impressed. Transactional, maybe. But why should he think differently?
I agree. Mrs J is in that situation. She could be earning more in Turkey - or the USA - than here. But we don't move. Why? Partly the reasons she moved to this country in the first place, and partly because the UK is still a good place to live on a moderate income.
Others disagree. But the country needs more money to fix problems it has. Austerity - which I was in favour of - has been tried, and probably went too far. So how else do we get the money? There is no magic money tree.
Isn’t this attitude from you and Mrs J selfish? Mrs J could earn more and contribute more in taxes to the country that nurtured her but instead she has upped sticks to another country for reasons she has decided are better for her rather than society in general?
And frankly if you worked a bit harder you could contribute more in taxes to the UK but instead you rather selfishly have decided to balance your work and life to suit the needs of your family?
I think it’s perfectly fair and correct that you and Mrs J have chosen your residence to suit your priorities over the needs of a country as a whole.
She had reasons other than money and payment of taxes to come over here: in many ways she would (probably) be earning more over there. And hopefully she has been more than a net benefit to her adopted country.
And yes, you have a point: we are all selfish to a certain degree. I bet, if you dig deep into your soul, you what see selfishness in your good self.
So hopefully you'd agree with my original proposition, that these people are being selfish?
Oh I’m very selfish, I have chosen not to have children as too much effort, I have loose relationships for a few years or friends with benefits so I don’t have to work my life around other people, I’ve prioritised work and it’s rewards and mindless fun - that’s properly selfish.
People arranging their finances and choosing where to live is just being human and sensible not selfish.
Do you say the same about economic migrants coming to the UK? Are they just being human and sensible?
Jessop give your head a wobble. I fear you are turning into a centrist dad.
Centrist Dad isn't a Centrist Dad.
Centrist Dad means someone who's firmly on the centre-left who wants their politics to be seen as entirely middle of the road.
I've always thought it was just a vague insult with no real set morning. People seem to use it in different ways.
But I am a dad, and I do think I'm generally in the centre of politics, so I am probably a 'centrist dad'...
Economically, your arguments demonstrate you to be on the centre-left.
If so, then only because the discourse has shifted. I believe I've generally been centre-right economically, and centre-left socially. Though that varies: look at my support for your position on the ill-considered and ill-meant VAT on school fees.
I'd *love* there to be lower taxes for everyone. But the country is nowhere near a state to allow that, and in fact, quite the opposite. People want more spending - e.g. on defence - but are not willing to spend more on it.
I'm just being realistic.
I'm arguing that taxes on wealth creation need to be reduced to give us growth.
I know that's unfashionable. But I think it's essential to keep us competitive, encourage investment and for people to innovate and take risks that grow the size of the pie.
In answer to the question posed in the header, I think it highly unlikely Starmer will sack Reeves.
The proximate reason for high bond yield prices now is the same as for Liz Truss: the market doesn't believe future tax revenues will cover future expenditure requirements.
There's a huge political difference between the two however. In Truss case she didn't see why revenues need to cover expenditure. In Reeves case it's because the market believes it will be politically difficult to either increase taxes or reduce expenditure to balance the books, and both will negatively affect growth. Replacing Reeves doesn't remove that dilemma.
Your last sentence hits the nail on the head
It doesn't matter who is COE we have run out of money, room to tax or borrow, so austerity is inevitable
The problem for Labour is it goes against everything they stand for and is politically toxic
If I'd been Labour CoE - I'd have gone for merging NI and Income Tax, simplifying the bands, getting rid of the silly withdrawal of the personal allowance stuff. While doing that, put up tax as part of the redo - given the NI gains from everyone paying NI (in effect), that wouldn't have to be vast.
Sell it as "We need to do this now to save the NHS etc. When things are on an even keel, we can look at reductions. Simpler taxes are easier to collect and cheaper."
I think this would have gone down better, politically, than the budget we had. With the markets (tax in order to spend, save money on a simplified tax system), with the Labour Party (raise taxes for the NHS) and the country at large (brave, upfront about what we need to do).
Sounds eminently sensible.
I would have combined this with a small Gross Assets Levy, and removed stamp duty from people trading down (maybe even eliminating it altogether). I would also treble council tax on properties that are lived in less than 7 months a year, and add another three or four bands on top of the existing ones.
It has to be Reform now, you know you want to. The Tories are done, finished, nixed. They cannot be forgiven for the Boriswave, and they can’t be trusted to do anything actually rightwing, most of them are actually Cameroon Lib Dems anyway. Fuck them and let them die
Reform it is. Let’s have a proper right wing government, no more ersatz shit. A government that will destroy Woke and sort immigration and act like it’s just got out of the gym and it’s had three gins and it’s ready to RUCK, and then have a nice Penang curry
You are even older than me, so old enough to remember the SDP. They were going to "break the mould" and replace Labour, and for those who remember Spitting Image they may remember David Steele saying "Oh David I feel the surge, the surge." The surge was a bit premature.
The SDP is still around, though is Reform Light these days and, if it has any sense (which is doubtful given it *has* kept going so long), will fold into it soon enough.
But the Liberal-SDP alliance led polls through late 1981-82, peaking at 50%, so did stand a very real chance of winning outright. Indeed, the tipping point was probably not the Falklands, which propelled the Tories back into the lead, but Healey edging out Benn for Labour's deputy leadership. Had that election gone the other way, it would likely have produced a further tide of defections which may well have cemented the SDP's primacy on the left. But such are the footprints in the shores of history.
Obviously, if Reform did win then they'd flounder hopelessly, screw everything up and blame someone else; that's what radical parties do. but they could win.
Technically, the SDP is not still around. The SDP ceased to exist formally when it merged with the Liberals to form the LibDems. A few former SDP members who disagreed with that move formed a new party with the same name.
That new SDP then formally wound itself up and ceased to exist. Again, a few former members disagreed with that move and formed a third party with the same name. They're who the current SDP are.
Lots of talk on TwiX now about the millionaires and non Doms fleeing the UK. At a time of great impoverishment the Labour government has contrived to frighten away the most important part of our tax base, and told them btw private schools will be slowly abolished via taxes
It’s all adding up. All these allegedly small things are adding up to a looming and desperate collision with reality. Even as we allow in millions of migrants who will be a net drain on the treasury, house thousands of asylum seekers in the savoy at billions a year, and pay Tanzania forty trillion quid to take control of Cornwall
It’s coming. A crash
Brace
As always 'More or Less' is your friend. When you were spouting this awhile ago More or Less debunked it. Who to believe, some nutters on twitter or people who analyse the data properly. It appears the definition of millionaire and sample selection were, how can we put it, bollocks.
Are you seriously disputing that rich people are leaving the UK? Every metric shows they are and in number
COUTTS LONDON PRIME PROPERTY INDEX Q3 2024: PRICES DROP AND BUYERS GET BIGGER DISCOUNTS
Our latest research on luxury London property shows prices falling, average discounts close to 9% and almost 80% of sales coming in below asking price.
Nope I'm not. Just pointing out that last time you did this by quoting a survey you saw somewhere it turned out to be complete bollocks. I know you think you are always right, but you seem to have a very short memory and a very poor source of your data.
If it helps I can give you personal experience instead of surveys - over the pre Christmas drinks party rounds I met (and I noted the number for work reasons) 22 couples who have already or are in the process of moving here from the UK as an absolute direct result of Labour winning the election last year.
All of these people, all 22 couples were people who had set up successful businesses - not inherited money. They are selling or have sold their UK properties, stopped paying staff, stopped buying luxury goods and cars in the UK. Will not be setting up new business or employing people in the UK for the foreseeable future, not paying any more taxes to the UK.
This is one small place - just think how many are going to larger places such as Switzerland, Dubai etc.
I’m sure there will be people who say “good riddance” but remember the new car they bought each year covered an essential salary from the VAT. The shops they shopped in need fewer staff with fewer customers. Their gardeners and housekeepers will find fewer hours to work.
I’ve said it before - I do not rejoice in this, it’s not necessarily good for where I live but it’s worse for the UK which I love.
So ideologically sticking it to the rich will prove to be a stupid act of self harm.
It is a shame they're going. But I also fear there's very little we can do to help people who are so utterly selfish.
It's interesting that some people like the half the idea of Global Britain - easy to come here and work. But the corollary to that is that people find it easier to leave.
Take one bloke in my team. Indian, first generation immigrant. Got wife and baby, no school as yet. Been in the country about 6 years. Why shouldn't he move to Berlin, or wherever?
He looks at what he is paying in taxes and what he gets for it. And is not impressed. Transactional, maybe. But why should he think differently?
I agree. Mrs J is in that situation. She could be earning more in Turkey - or the USA - than here. But we don't move. Why? Partly the reasons she moved to this country in the first place, and partly because the UK is still a good place to live on a moderate income.
Others disagree. But the country needs more money to fix problems it has. Austerity - which I was in favour of - has been tried, and probably went too far. So how else do we get the money? There is no magic money tree.
Isn’t this attitude from you and Mrs J selfish? Mrs J could earn more and contribute more in taxes to the country that nurtured her but instead she has upped sticks to another country for reasons she has decided are better for her rather than society in general?
And frankly if you worked a bit harder you could contribute more in taxes to the UK but instead you rather selfishly have decided to balance your work and life to suit the needs of your family?
I think it’s perfectly fair and correct that you and Mrs J have chosen your residence to suit your priorities over the needs of a country as a whole.
Lots of talk on TwiX now about the millionaires and non Doms fleeing the UK. At a time of great impoverishment the Labour government has contrived to frighten away the most important part of our tax base, and told them btw private schools will be slowly abolished via taxes
It’s all adding up. All these allegedly small things are adding up to a looming and desperate collision with reality. Even as we allow in millions of migrants who will be a net drain on the treasury, house thousands of asylum seekers in the savoy at billions a year, and pay Tanzania forty trillion quid to take control of Cornwall
It’s coming. A crash
Brace
As always 'More or Less' is your friend. When you were spouting this awhile ago More or Less debunked it. Who to believe, some nutters on twitter or people who analyse the data properly. It appears the definition of millionaire and sample selection were, how can we put it, bollocks.
Are you seriously disputing that rich people are leaving the UK? Every metric shows they are and in number
COUTTS LONDON PRIME PROPERTY INDEX Q3 2024: PRICES DROP AND BUYERS GET BIGGER DISCOUNTS
Our latest research on luxury London property shows prices falling, average discounts close to 9% and almost 80% of sales coming in below asking price.
Nope I'm not. Just pointing out that last time you did this by quoting a survey you saw somewhere it turned out to be complete bollocks. I know you think you are always right, but you seem to have a very short memory and a very poor source of your data.
If it helps I can give you personal experience instead of surveys - over the pre Christmas drinks party rounds I met (and I noted the number for work reasons) 22 couples who have already or are in the process of moving here from the UK as an absolute direct result of Labour winning the election last year.
All of these people, all 22 couples were people who had set up successful businesses - not inherited money. They are selling or have sold their UK properties, stopped paying staff, stopped buying luxury goods and cars in the UK. Will not be setting up new business or employing people in the UK for the foreseeable future, not paying any more taxes to the UK.
This is one small place - just think how many are going to larger places such as Switzerland, Dubai etc.
I’m sure there will be people who say “good riddance” but remember the new car they bought each year covered an essential salary from the VAT. The shops they shopped in need fewer staff with fewer customers. Their gardeners and housekeepers will find fewer hours to work.
I’ve said it before - I do not rejoice in this, it’s not necessarily good for where I live but it’s worse for the UK which I love.
So ideologically sticking it to the rich will prove to be a stupid act of self harm.
It is a shame they're going. But I also fear there's very little we can do to help people who are so utterly selfish.
It's interesting that some people like the half the idea of Global Britain - easy to come here and work. But the corollary to that is that people find it easier to leave.
Take one bloke in my team. Indian, first generation immigrant. Got wife and baby, no school as yet. Been in the country about 6 years. Why shouldn't he move to Berlin, or wherever?
He looks at what he is paying in taxes and what he gets for it. And is not impressed. Transactional, maybe. But why should he think differently?
I agree. Mrs J is in that situation. She could be earning more in Turkey - or the USA - than here. But we don't move. Why? Partly the reasons she moved to this country in the first place, and partly because the UK is still a good place to live on a moderate income.
Others disagree. But the country needs more money to fix problems it has. Austerity - which I was in favour of - has been tried, and probably went too far. So how else do we get the money? There is no magic money tree.
Isn’t this attitude from you and Mrs J selfish? Mrs J could earn more and contribute more in taxes to the country that nurtured her but instead she has upped sticks to another country for reasons she has decided are better for her rather than society in general?
And frankly if you worked a bit harder you could contribute more in taxes to the UK but instead you rather selfishly have decided to balance your work and life to suit the needs of your family?
I think it’s perfectly fair and correct that you and Mrs J have chosen your residence to suit your priorities over the needs of a country as a whole.
She had reasons other than money and payment of taxes to come over here: in many ways she would (probably) be earning more over there. And hopefully she has been more than a net benefit to her adopted country.
And yes, you have a point: we are all selfish to a certain degree. I bet, if you dig deep into your soul, you what see selfishness in your good self.
So hopefully you'd agree with my original proposition, that these people are being selfish?
Oh I’m very selfish, I have chosen not to have children as too much effort, I have loose relationships for a few years or friends with benefits so I don’t have to work my life around other people, I’ve prioritised work and it’s rewards and mindless fun - that’s properly selfish.
People arranging their finances and choosing where to live is just being human and sensible not selfish.
Do you say the same about economic migrants coming to the UK? Are they just being human and sensible?
Jessop give your head a wobble. I fear you are turning into a centrist dad.
Centrist Dad isn't a Centrist Dad.
Centrist Dad means someone who's firmly on the centre-left who wants their politics to be seen as entirely middle of the road.
I've always thought it was just a vague insult with no real set morning. People seem to use it in different ways.
But I am a dad, and I do think I'm generally in the centre of politics, so I am probably a 'centrist dad'...
Economically, your arguments demonstrate you to be on the centre-left.
If so, then only because the discourse has shifted. I believe I've generally been centre-right economically, and centre-left socially. Though that varies: look at my support for your position on the ill-considered and ill-meant VAT on school fees.
I'd *love* there to be lower taxes for everyone. But the country is nowhere near a state to allow that, and in fact, quite the opposite. People want more spending - e.g. on defence - but are not willing to spend more on it.
I'm just being realistic.
I'm arguing that taxes on wealth creation need to be reduced to give us growth.
I know that's unfashionable. But I think it's essential to keep us competitive, encourage investment and for people to innovate and take risks that grow the size of the pie.
I'd go further. We need to offer tax incentives for companies to invest. Not fiddling around the edges allowances, actual hard cash if they invest here and that investment stays here.
We have a decades-long aversion to investment, having decided that a quick profit now is better than slower profits over a longer period. That needs to be reversed.
Lots of talk on TwiX now about the millionaires and non Doms fleeing the UK. At a time of great impoverishment the Labour government has contrived to frighten away the most important part of our tax base, and told them btw private schools will be slowly abolished via taxes
It’s all adding up. All these allegedly small things are adding up to a looming and desperate collision with reality. Even as we allow in millions of migrants who will be a net drain on the treasury, house thousands of asylum seekers in the savoy at billions a year, and pay Tanzania forty trillion quid to take control of Cornwall
It’s coming. A crash
Brace
As always 'More or Less' is your friend. When you were spouting this awhile ago More or Less debunked it. Who to believe, some nutters on twitter or people who analyse the data properly. It appears the definition of millionaire and sample selection were, how can we put it, bollocks.
Are you seriously disputing that rich people are leaving the UK? Every metric shows they are and in number
COUTTS LONDON PRIME PROPERTY INDEX Q3 2024: PRICES DROP AND BUYERS GET BIGGER DISCOUNTS
Our latest research on luxury London property shows prices falling, average discounts close to 9% and almost 80% of sales coming in below asking price.
Nope I'm not. Just pointing out that last time you did this by quoting a survey you saw somewhere it turned out to be complete bollocks. I know you think you are always right, but you seem to have a very short memory and a very poor source of your data.
If it helps I can give you personal experience instead of surveys - over the pre Christmas drinks party rounds I met (and I noted the number for work reasons) 22 couples who have already or are in the process of moving here from the UK as an absolute direct result of Labour winning the election last year.
All of these people, all 22 couples were people who had set up successful businesses - not inherited money. They are selling or have sold their UK properties, stopped paying staff, stopped buying luxury goods and cars in the UK. Will not be setting up new business or employing people in the UK for the foreseeable future, not paying any more taxes to the UK.
This is one small place - just think how many are going to larger places such as Switzerland, Dubai etc.
I’m sure there will be people who say “good riddance” but remember the new car they bought each year covered an essential salary from the VAT. The shops they shopped in need fewer staff with fewer customers. Their gardeners and housekeepers will find fewer hours to work.
I’ve said it before - I do not rejoice in this, it’s not necessarily good for where I live but it’s worse for the UK which I love.
So ideologically sticking it to the rich will prove to be a stupid act of self harm.
It is a shame they're going. But I also fear there's very little we can do to help people who are so utterly selfish.
It's interesting that some people like the half the idea of Global Britain - easy to come here and work. But the corollary to that is that people find it easier to leave.
Take one bloke in my team. Indian, first generation immigrant. Got wife and baby, no school as yet. Been in the country about 6 years. Why shouldn't he move to Berlin, or wherever?
He looks at what he is paying in taxes and what he gets for it. And is not impressed. Transactional, maybe. But why should he think differently?
I agree. Mrs J is in that situation. She could be earning more in Turkey - or the USA - than here. But we don't move. Why? Partly the reasons she moved to this country in the first place, and partly because the UK is still a good place to live on a moderate income.
Others disagree. But the country needs more money to fix problems it has. Austerity - which I was in favour of - has been tried, and probably went too far. So how else do we get the money? There is no magic money tree.
Isn’t this attitude from you and Mrs J selfish? Mrs J could earn more and contribute more in taxes to the country that nurtured her but instead she has upped sticks to another country for reasons she has decided are better for her rather than society in general?
And frankly if you worked a bit harder you could contribute more in taxes to the UK but instead you rather selfishly have decided to balance your work and life to suit the needs of your family?
I think it’s perfectly fair and correct that you and Mrs J have chosen your residence to suit your priorities over the needs of a country as a whole.
Lots of talk on TwiX now about the millionaires and non Doms fleeing the UK. At a time of great impoverishment the Labour government has contrived to frighten away the most important part of our tax base, and told them btw private schools will be slowly abolished via taxes
It’s all adding up. All these allegedly small things are adding up to a looming and desperate collision with reality. Even as we allow in millions of migrants who will be a net drain on the treasury, house thousands of asylum seekers in the savoy at billions a year, and pay Tanzania forty trillion quid to take control of Cornwall
It’s coming. A crash
Brace
As always 'More or Less' is your friend. When you were spouting this awhile ago More or Less debunked it. Who to believe, some nutters on twitter or people who analyse the data properly. It appears the definition of millionaire and sample selection were, how can we put it, bollocks.
Are you seriously disputing that rich people are leaving the UK? Every metric shows they are and in number
COUTTS LONDON PRIME PROPERTY INDEX Q3 2024: PRICES DROP AND BUYERS GET BIGGER DISCOUNTS
Our latest research on luxury London property shows prices falling, average discounts close to 9% and almost 80% of sales coming in below asking price.
Nope I'm not. Just pointing out that last time you did this by quoting a survey you saw somewhere it turned out to be complete bollocks. I know you think you are always right, but you seem to have a very short memory and a very poor source of your data.
If it helps I can give you personal experience instead of surveys - over the pre Christmas drinks party rounds I met (and I noted the number for work reasons) 22 couples who have already or are in the process of moving here from the UK as an absolute direct result of Labour winning the election last year.
All of these people, all 22 couples were people who had set up successful businesses - not inherited money. They are selling or have sold their UK properties, stopped paying staff, stopped buying luxury goods and cars in the UK. Will not be setting up new business or employing people in the UK for the foreseeable future, not paying any more taxes to the UK.
This is one small place - just think how many are going to larger places such as Switzerland, Dubai etc.
I’m sure there will be people who say “good riddance” but remember the new car they bought each year covered an essential salary from the VAT. The shops they shopped in need fewer staff with fewer customers. Their gardeners and housekeepers will find fewer hours to work.
I’ve said it before - I do not rejoice in this, it’s not necessarily good for where I live but it’s worse for the UK which I love.
So ideologically sticking it to the rich will prove to be a stupid act of self harm.
It is a shame they're going. But I also fear there's very little we can do to help people who are so utterly selfish.
It's interesting that some people like the half the idea of Global Britain - easy to come here and work. But the corollary to that is that people find it easier to leave.
Take one bloke in my team. Indian, first generation immigrant. Got wife and baby, no school as yet. Been in the country about 6 years. Why shouldn't he move to Berlin, or wherever?
He looks at what he is paying in taxes and what he gets for it. And is not impressed. Transactional, maybe. But why should he think differently?
I agree. Mrs J is in that situation. She could be earning more in Turkey - or the USA - than here. But we don't move. Why? Partly the reasons she moved to this country in the first place, and partly because the UK is still a good place to live on a moderate income.
Others disagree. But the country needs more money to fix problems it has. Austerity - which I was in favour of - has been tried, and probably went too far. So how else do we get the money? There is no magic money tree.
Isn’t this attitude from you and Mrs J selfish? Mrs J could earn more and contribute more in taxes to the country that nurtured her but instead she has upped sticks to another country for reasons she has decided are better for her rather than society in general?
And frankly if you worked a bit harder you could contribute more in taxes to the UK but instead you rather selfishly have decided to balance your work and life to suit the needs of your family?
I think it’s perfectly fair and correct that you and Mrs J have chosen your residence to suit your priorities over the needs of a country as a whole.
She had reasons other than money and payment of taxes to come over here: in many ways she would (probably) be earning more over there. And hopefully she has been more than a net benefit to her adopted country.
And yes, you have a point: we are all selfish to a certain degree. I bet, if you dig deep into your soul, you what see selfishness in your good self.
So hopefully you'd agree with my original proposition, that these people are being selfish?
Oh I’m very selfish, I have chosen not to have children as too much effort, I have loose relationships for a few years or friends with benefits so I don’t have to work my life around other people, I’ve prioritised work and it’s rewards and mindless fun - that’s properly selfish.
People arranging their finances and choosing where to live is just being human and sensible not selfish.
Do you say the same about economic migrants coming to the UK? Are they just being human and sensible?
Jessop give your head a wobble. I fear you are turning into a centrist dad.
Centrist Dad isn't a Centrist Dad.
Centrist Dad means someone who's firmly on the centre-left who wants their politics to be seen as entirely middle of the road.
I've always thought it was just a vague insult with no real set morning. People seem to use it in different ways.
But I am a dad, and I do think I'm generally in the centre of politics, so I am probably a 'centrist dad'...
Economically, your arguments demonstrate you to be on the centre-left.
If so, then only because the discourse has shifted. I believe I've generally been centre-right economically, and centre-left socially. Though that varies: look at my support for your position on the ill-considered and ill-meant VAT on school fees.
I'd *love* there to be lower taxes for everyone. But the country is nowhere near a state to allow that, and in fact, quite the opposite. People want more spending - e.g. on defence - but are not willing to spend more on it.
I'm just being realistic.
I'm arguing that taxes on wealth creation need to be reduced to give us growth.
I know that's unfashionable. But I think it's essential to keep us competitive, encourage investment and for people to innovate and take risks that grow the size of the pie.
While I don't disagree with you, the fundamental issue all developed world countries have is an ever increasing number of oldies, who require pensions and healthcare. In the UK, we've ameliorated that by importing lots of young people (who have jobs and work and pay taxes!), but that brings with it its own problems, such as expensive housing and stretched public services.
The late Gerald Ford's son is reading out his eulogy to Carter he would have given had he still been alive, quite touching about unity across the partisan divide, needed more than ever now in the USA
You are going to have to wait awhile after Orange Diapers won the election.
Indeed, albeit Trump is also in the congregation though seems to be taking the opportunity to have a nap (as indeed does Biden)
In answer to the question posed in the header, I think it highly unlikely Starmer will sack Reeves.
The proximate reason for high bond yield prices now is the same as for Liz Truss: the market doesn't believe future tax revenues will cover future expenditure requirements.
There's a huge political difference between the two however. In Truss case she didn't see why revenues need to cover expenditure. In Reeves case it's because the market believes it will be politically difficult to either increase taxes or reduce expenditure to balance the books, and both will negatively affect growth. Replacing Reeves doesn't remove that dilemma.
Your last sentence hits the nail on the head
It doesn't matter who is COE we have run out of money, room to tax or borrow, so austerity is inevitable
The problem for Labour is it goes against everything they stand for and is politically toxic
If I'd been Labour CoE - I'd have gone for merging NI and Income Tax, simplifying the bands, getting rid of the silly withdrawal of the personal allowance stuff. While doing that, put up tax as part of the redo - given the NI gains from everyone paying NI (in effect), that wouldn't have to be vast.
Sell it as "We need to do this now to save the NHS etc. When things are on an even keel, we can look at reductions. Simpler taxes are easier to collect and cheaper."
I think this would have gone down better, politically, than the budget we had. With the markets (tax in order to spend, save money on a simplified tax system), with the Labour Party (raise taxes for the NHS) and the country at large (brave, upfront about what we need to do).
Sounds eminently sensible.
I would have combined this with a small Gross Assets Levy, and removed stamp duty from people trading down (maybe even eliminating it altogether). I would also treble council tax on properties that are lived in less than 7 months a year, and add another three or four bands on top of the existing ones.
The later would get you in deep shit. The only way out of the council tax comedy is a new system. Perhaps a personal, local tax? Try it out first in Scotland?
Lots of talk on TwiX now about the millionaires and non Doms fleeing the UK. At a time of great impoverishment the Labour government has contrived to frighten away the most important part of our tax base, and told them btw private schools will be slowly abolished via taxes
It’s all adding up. All these allegedly small things are adding up to a looming and desperate collision with reality. Even as we allow in millions of migrants who will be a net drain on the treasury, house thousands of asylum seekers in the savoy at billions a year, and pay Tanzania forty trillion quid to take control of Cornwall
It’s coming. A crash
Brace
As always 'More or Less' is your friend. When you were spouting this awhile ago More or Less debunked it. Who to believe, some nutters on twitter or people who analyse the data properly. It appears the definition of millionaire and sample selection were, how can we put it, bollocks.
Are you seriously disputing that rich people are leaving the UK? Every metric shows they are and in number
COUTTS LONDON PRIME PROPERTY INDEX Q3 2024: PRICES DROP AND BUYERS GET BIGGER DISCOUNTS
Our latest research on luxury London property shows prices falling, average discounts close to 9% and almost 80% of sales coming in below asking price.
Nope I'm not. Just pointing out that last time you did this by quoting a survey you saw somewhere it turned out to be complete bollocks. I know you think you are always right, but you seem to have a very short memory and a very poor source of your data.
If it helps I can give you personal experience instead of surveys - over the pre Christmas drinks party rounds I met (and I noted the number for work reasons) 22 couples who have already or are in the process of moving here from the UK as an absolute direct result of Labour winning the election last year.
All of these people, all 22 couples were people who had set up successful businesses - not inherited money. They are selling or have sold their UK properties, stopped paying staff, stopped buying luxury goods and cars in the UK. Will not be setting up new business or employing people in the UK for the foreseeable future, not paying any more taxes to the UK.
This is one small place - just think how many are going to larger places such as Switzerland, Dubai etc.
I’m sure there will be people who say “good riddance” but remember the new car they bought each year covered an essential salary from the VAT. The shops they shopped in need fewer staff with fewer customers. Their gardeners and housekeepers will find fewer hours to work.
I’ve said it before - I do not rejoice in this, it’s not necessarily good for where I live but it’s worse for the UK which I love.
So ideologically sticking it to the rich will prove to be a stupid act of self harm.
It is a shame they're going. But I also fear there's very little we can do to help people who are so utterly selfish.
Or perhaps you/we are?
I'd certainly think so if someone demanded all my money whilst I took all the risk and did all the work.
Nah. I've not demanded all your money. Far from. But from what I see, you live a good life. Others, who work harder than you, and take many more risks, are much less rewarded.
I want to reward those who work hard, and also those who take risks (e.g. in starting up businesses). But that has to be tempered by the fact you also live in society. If you take risks and fail - as can happen if it is a genuine risk - then you should not be left destitute.
And an awful lot of people earn money with very little risk - in both the private and public sector.
If, heaven forfend, you are taken ill, then you would want the doctors and nurses who look after you not to be overworked and to have access to all the equipment you need? Why should the binmen who are out collecting our bins this morning not get paid well for work I wouldn't want to do? How about a careworker I know who just told me he got threatened by an elderly patient, and the police had to be called?
We live in a society, and that society needs to work as a whole. We are not islands.
Yeah, but this is motherhood and apple pie stuff and you could use it to defend any level of tax. In fact, you just have. Because you're using it as an argument to pay tax - period - and not acknowledging there's a limit. What it comes down to is resentment that some people earn more than you, and you want some of it.
When you tax people at 60%+ for stressful jobs, that involve a lot of stress, professional and personal risk (no-one gets paid a good salary for a simple job just about anyone can do) then at some point they will say, fuck it.
You will have no recourse to criticise them.
No, is it resentment. I'm perfectly happy with people earning more than we do as a family. Incredibly relaxed. I've said so many times in the past. I want work rewarded - at the low as well as the top end. And there's big problems with both of these at the moment.
But I also understand that we live in a society, and are part of that society. Without money, that society falls apart - including the bits you rely on. So it becomes a question of where to balance that. And sadly, that balance is currently set so the country is in debt.
If you want stress, I might suggest you try not having enough money to get food on the table for your family, or not enough to pay rent to keep the roof over your head. To have two kids, one of whom has Down's Syndrome. to have a spouse with cancer, and finding it hard to get the bus fare to the hospital (only to find the appointment has been cancelled...)
Yeah, fuck off JJ. I have plenty of my stress in my life, including a brother in law who died of cancer. And my wife nearly died during childbirth.
I don't need twats like you telling me we have it easy, nor that we don't know what hard times in life are like - both my wife and I started with nothing.
Twat.
I'm sorry to hear about those problems. But you do have it easier than others, as you have money. Money helps massively, as we ourselves know from experience.
If you started with nothing, you would understand what it is like not being able to food on the table. What it is like having to live day-by-day, rather than being able to have the luxury of saving. And you might contemplate what minor issue - illness, accident, a failed relationship, whatever - would have changed you from the success you are today to a failure.
A friend of mine was from a coal-mining family and was the first in her family to go to university. She is as bright as a button. Whilst she was there, she got struck down with ME and another complication. Getting her degree nearly killed her, and she has been bedridden ever since. Living off the state. That could have been me. It could have been you.
There would be no safety net in Casinoworld. Now that is fair enough if one is so inclined, but not for me. I think it an outrage that after six months of a LABOUR government ex servicemen with PTSD are still living in tents under Westminster Bridge.
Er, no. I haven't argued for that, so please don't put words in my mouth. False binaries are a stupid way of conducting political debate.
Several things can be true at once: yes, "there but for the grace of God go I", is one and it also the case that we are spending far too much money on welfare and have reached the limits of taxation, which is now suppressing growth and public funds, not growing it.
We can all find powerful personal stories that illicit empathy and sympathy, as we can the other way, and these can and will fall either side of whatever line is drawn, but we are spending far too much on incapacity benefits, pensions and, I think, health and that is where I'd look to make major savings. I'd spend more on education and defence. And I'd create a competitive tax regime that encourages growth.
The comments on this thread and the likes they've got just go to show how politically difficult that will be but that's got to be done. Some seem to think that those that are earning more than them must be undeserving of it, and are on the take at their expense, and give the impression they'd far rather cut them down to size than actually tax them at a rate that would maximise growth - which must be done to afford any of the things you care about.
There will be no safety net if the country goes insolvent.
How can the country go insolvent? Our debt is issued in a currency which we control. We cannot run out of pounds as we can print them to repay the debt. And don't say "we can't" because we can and already do.
We can run out of people willing to lend us more money at a price we want to pay, but that is a long way from insolvency.
Funnily enough, I'm just reading a book on MMT, called the Deficit Myth, which argues exactly this. I though it'd be useful to understand MMT before criticising it.
Blimey, it's superficial. It runs to 260 pages but can be summed up as 'free lunches all round. And then dinner, breakfast, supper and tea too'.
Yes, we can print our own money. Yes, the government can oblige its creditors to take it. None of this stops inflation from happening when more money chases the same amount of goods and services. And inflation is the inevitable consequence of such a policy, as has been demonstrated many times through history, as well as in the famous identity MV≡PY (which the author doesn't even bother to reference, never mind refute).
In reality, many currencies across time have been depreciated into worthlessness by excessive printing, which is why some countries either peg their currency to another or use that other one outright - because that gave the only acceptable assurance that the money in people's hands meant anything.
Money is simply a means of exchange. Printing more of it does not make us richer overall; it just dilutes what's already there.
The better MMT economists are very keen on pointing out that the limit on government expenditure in a fiat economy is not taxes or bond sales but /inflation/. You can (and possibly should) print as much as you like /until/ inflation starts kicking in.
The reality is that an awful lot of the time, that means you can’t print at all - this obstinate fact often seems to be glossed over by the more naïve MMT types & their hangers on. There’s no economic benefit to printing if all that happens is an immediate countervailing inflation in the price level, which may well be the condition the UK economy is in right now.
In that case, it's not really much different from classical monetary theory then. The likes of Friedman would no doubt have advocated printing money as an emergency measure during a credit crunch, both for liquidity and to stabilize prices - and via both, economic activity.
There are some useful insights that MMT brings: the world has changed since Ricardo, Marx, Keynes and Friedman, and economic thinking does need to review its core assumptions from time to time. But while you can print yourself out of debt, you cannot print yourself into prosperity.
Oh absolutely: MMT /is/ just classical economics (well, neo-Keynsian really I guess) with some of the accounting identities made so explicit that not even the slowest of brains can deny them.
The proponents of MMT are trying to beat modern economic thought into the brains of people who’s only exposure to economics is doing PPE at Oxford. Spelling things out in small words turns out to be more necessary than one would hope for this audience.
Lots of talk on TwiX now about the millionaires and non Doms fleeing the UK. At a time of great impoverishment the Labour government has contrived to frighten away the most important part of our tax base, and told them btw private schools will be slowly abolished via taxes
It’s all adding up. All these allegedly small things are adding up to a looming and desperate collision with reality. Even as we allow in millions of migrants who will be a net drain on the treasury, house thousands of asylum seekers in the savoy at billions a year, and pay Tanzania forty trillion quid to take control of Cornwall
It’s coming. A crash
Brace
As always 'More or Less' is your friend. When you were spouting this awhile ago More or Less debunked it. Who to believe, some nutters on twitter or people who analyse the data properly. It appears the definition of millionaire and sample selection were, how can we put it, bollocks.
Are you seriously disputing that rich people are leaving the UK? Every metric shows they are and in number
COUTTS LONDON PRIME PROPERTY INDEX Q3 2024: PRICES DROP AND BUYERS GET BIGGER DISCOUNTS
Our latest research on luxury London property shows prices falling, average discounts close to 9% and almost 80% of sales coming in below asking price.
Nope I'm not. Just pointing out that last time you did this by quoting a survey you saw somewhere it turned out to be complete bollocks. I know you think you are always right, but you seem to have a very short memory and a very poor source of your data.
If it helps I can give you personal experience instead of surveys - over the pre Christmas drinks party rounds I met (and I noted the number for work reasons) 22 couples who have already or are in the process of moving here from the UK as an absolute direct result of Labour winning the election last year.
All of these people, all 22 couples were people who had set up successful businesses - not inherited money. They are selling or have sold their UK properties, stopped paying staff, stopped buying luxury goods and cars in the UK. Will not be setting up new business or employing people in the UK for the foreseeable future, not paying any more taxes to the UK.
This is one small place - just think how many are going to larger places such as Switzerland, Dubai etc.
I’m sure there will be people who say “good riddance” but remember the new car they bought each year covered an essential salary from the VAT. The shops they shopped in need fewer staff with fewer customers. Their gardeners and housekeepers will find fewer hours to work.
I’ve said it before - I do not rejoice in this, it’s not necessarily good for where I live but it’s worse for the UK which I love.
So ideologically sticking it to the rich will prove to be a stupid act of self harm.
It is a shame they're going. But I also fear there's very little we can do to help people who are so utterly selfish.
Or perhaps you/we are?
I'd certainly think so if someone demanded all my money whilst I took all the risk and did all the work.
Nah. I've not demanded all your money. Far from. But from what I see, you live a good life. Others, who work harder than you, and take many more risks, are much less rewarded.
I want to reward those who work hard, and also those who take risks (e.g. in starting up businesses). But that has to be tempered by the fact you also live in society. If you take risks and fail - as can happen if it is a genuine risk - then you should not be left destitute.
And an awful lot of people earn money with very little risk - in both the private and public sector.
If, heaven forfend, you are taken ill, then you would want the doctors and nurses who look after you not to be overworked and to have access to all the equipment you need? Why should the binmen who are out collecting our bins this morning not get paid well for work I wouldn't want to do? How about a careworker I know who just told me he got threatened by an elderly patient, and the police had to be called?
We live in a society, and that society needs to work as a whole. We are not islands.
Yeah, but this is motherhood and apple pie stuff and you could use it to defend any level of tax. In fact, you just have. Because you're using it as an argument to pay tax - period - and not acknowledging there's a limit. What it comes down to is resentment that some people earn more than you, and you want some of it.
When you tax people at 60%+ for stressful jobs, that involve a lot of stress, professional and personal risk (no-one gets paid a good salary for a simple job just about anyone can do) then at some point they will say, fuck it.
You will have no recourse to criticise them.
No, is it resentment. I'm perfectly happy with people earning more than we do as a family. Incredibly relaxed. I've said so many times in the past. I want work rewarded - at the low as well as the top end. And there's big problems with both of these at the moment.
But I also understand that we live in a society, and are part of that society. Without money, that society falls apart - including the bits you rely on. So it becomes a question of where to balance that. And sadly, that balance is currently set so the country is in debt.
If you want stress, I might suggest you try not having enough money to get food on the table for your family, or not enough to pay rent to keep the roof over your head. To have two kids, one of whom has Down's Syndrome. to have a spouse with cancer, and finding it hard to get the bus fare to the hospital (only to find the appointment has been cancelled...)
Yeah, fuck off JJ. I have plenty of my stress in my life, including a brother in law who died of cancer. And my wife nearly died during childbirth.
I don't need twats like you telling me we have it easy, nor that we don't know what hard times in life are like - both my wife and I started with nothing.
Twat.
I'm sorry to hear about those problems. But you do have it easier than others, as you have money. Money helps massively, as we ourselves know from experience.
If you started with nothing, you would understand what it is like not being able to food on the table. What it is like having to live day-by-day, rather than being able to have the luxury of saving. And you might contemplate what minor issue - illness, accident, a failed relationship, whatever - would have changed you from the success you are today to a failure.
A friend of mine was from a coal-mining family and was the first in her family to go to university. She is as bright as a button. Whilst she was there, she got struck down with ME and another complication. Getting her degree nearly killed her, and she has been bedridden ever since. Living off the state. That could have been me. It could have been you.
There would be no safety net in Casinoworld. Now that is fair enough if one is so inclined, but not for me. I think it an outrage that after six months of a LABOUR government ex servicemen with PTSD are still living in tents under Westminster Bridge.
Er, no. I haven't argued for that, so please don't put words in my mouth. False binaries are a stupid way of conducting political debate.
Several things can be true at once: yes, "there but for the grace of God go I", is one and it also the case that we are spending far too much money on welfare and have reached the limits of taxation, which is now suppressing growth and public funds, not growing it.
We can all find powerful personal stories that illicit empathy and sympathy, as we can the other way, and these can and will fall either side of whatever line is drawn, but we are spending far too much on incapacity benefits, pensions and, I think, health and that is where I'd look to make major savings. I'd spend more on education and defence. And I'd create a competitive tax regime that encourages growth.
The comments on this thread and the likes they've got just go to show how politically difficult that will be but that's got to be done. Some seem to think that those that are earning more than them must be undeserving of it, and are on the take at their expense, and give the impression they'd far rather cut them down to size than actually tax them at a rate that would maximise growth - which must be done to afford any of the things you care about.
There will be no safety net if the country goes insolvent.
How can the country go insolvent? Our debt is issued in a currency which we control. We cannot run out of pounds as we can print them to repay the debt. And don't say "we can't" because we can and already do.
We can run out of people willing to lend us more money at a price we want to pay, but that is a long way from insolvency.
And there we have the economic literacy of the Liberal Democrats, ladies and gentlemen.
Whose government vastly inflated the national debt with nothing concrete to show for it?
It was yours wasn't it?
And even then, our vast debts are minimal on the scale of previous debts held by this country or debts vs GDP of other countries. We're not about to go bust no matter how many times Tories accuse Labour of making it imminent. Our borrowing costs remain very low by global standards.
Besides, a third of our debt is owed to the Bank of England. Which we own. We're paying a lot of interest payments to ourselves. Its paper dollars. The proper debate should be how we are so wasteful with what we spend and how we spend it. What is the point in simultaneously tipping record amounts of cash into an NHS which is starved of cash at the point of delivery? We're spending money on all the wrong things.
I'll let the cavalier attitude to debt and inflation pass for now.
We are trying to have that debate.
What, pray, do you think are the wrong things we are spending money on ?
The list under the Johnson regime was f*****' enormous, not least the eye watering cost of imposing economic sanctions on ourselves after a faulty plebiscite in 2016.
"A faulty plebiscite".
Jesus.
No, Brexit!
If Brexit were all that were required to balance the books (it isn't, and it's a distraction) then I'm stumped as to why Alastair Darling and George Osborne had to do so much tax raising and cutting of spending between 2008 to 2016.
Lots of talk on TwiX now about the millionaires and non Doms fleeing the UK. At a time of great impoverishment the Labour government has contrived to frighten away the most important part of our tax base, and told them btw private schools will be slowly abolished via taxes
It’s all adding up. All these allegedly small things are adding up to a looming and desperate collision with reality. Even as we allow in millions of migrants who will be a net drain on the treasury, house thousands of asylum seekers in the savoy at billions a year, and pay Tanzania forty trillion quid to take control of Cornwall
It’s coming. A crash
Brace
As always 'More or Less' is your friend. When you were spouting this awhile ago More or Less debunked it. Who to believe, some nutters on twitter or people who analyse the data properly. It appears the definition of millionaire and sample selection were, how can we put it, bollocks.
Are you seriously disputing that rich people are leaving the UK? Every metric shows they are and in number
COUTTS LONDON PRIME PROPERTY INDEX Q3 2024: PRICES DROP AND BUYERS GET BIGGER DISCOUNTS
Our latest research on luxury London property shows prices falling, average discounts close to 9% and almost 80% of sales coming in below asking price.
Nope I'm not. Just pointing out that last time you did this by quoting a survey you saw somewhere it turned out to be complete bollocks. I know you think you are always right, but you seem to have a very short memory and a very poor source of your data.
If it helps I can give you personal experience instead of surveys - over the pre Christmas drinks party rounds I met (and I noted the number for work reasons) 22 couples who have already or are in the process of moving here from the UK as an absolute direct result of Labour winning the election last year.
All of these people, all 22 couples were people who had set up successful businesses - not inherited money. They are selling or have sold their UK properties, stopped paying staff, stopped buying luxury goods and cars in the UK. Will not be setting up new business or employing people in the UK for the foreseeable future, not paying any more taxes to the UK.
This is one small place - just think how many are going to larger places such as Switzerland, Dubai etc.
I’m sure there will be people who say “good riddance” but remember the new car they bought each year covered an essential salary from the VAT. The shops they shopped in need fewer staff with fewer customers. Their gardeners and housekeepers will find fewer hours to work.
I’ve said it before - I do not rejoice in this, it’s not necessarily good for where I live but it’s worse for the UK which I love.
So ideologically sticking it to the rich will prove to be a stupid act of self harm.
It is a shame they're going. But I also fear there's very little we can do to help people who are so utterly selfish.
Or perhaps you/we are?
I'd certainly think so if someone demanded all my money whilst I took all the risk and did all the work.
Nah. I've not demanded all your money. Far from. But from what I see, you live a good life. Others, who work harder than you, and take many more risks, are much less rewarded.
I want to reward those who work hard, and also those who take risks (e.g. in starting up businesses). But that has to be tempered by the fact you also live in society. If you take risks and fail - as can happen if it is a genuine risk - then you should not be left destitute.
And an awful lot of people earn money with very little risk - in both the private and public sector.
If, heaven forfend, you are taken ill, then you would want the doctors and nurses who look after you not to be overworked and to have access to all the equipment you need? Why should the binmen who are out collecting our bins this morning not get paid well for work I wouldn't want to do? How about a careworker I know who just told me he got threatened by an elderly patient, and the police had to be called?
We live in a society, and that society needs to work as a whole. We are not islands.
Yeah, but this is motherhood and apple pie stuff and you could use it to defend any level of tax. In fact, you just have. Because you're using it as an argument to pay tax - period - and not acknowledging there's a limit. What it comes down to is resentment that some people earn more than you, and you want some of it.
When you tax people at 60%+ for stressful jobs, that involve a lot of stress, professional and personal risk (no-one gets paid a good salary for a simple job just about anyone can do) then at some point they will say, fuck it.
You will have no recourse to criticise them.
No, is it resentment. I'm perfectly happy with people earning more than we do as a family. Incredibly relaxed. I've said so many times in the past. I want work rewarded - at the low as well as the top end. And there's big problems with both of these at the moment.
But I also understand that we live in a society, and are part of that society. Without money, that society falls apart - including the bits you rely on. So it becomes a question of where to balance that. And sadly, that balance is currently set so the country is in debt.
If you want stress, I might suggest you try not having enough money to get food on the table for your family, or not enough to pay rent to keep the roof over your head. To have two kids, one of whom has Down's Syndrome. to have a spouse with cancer, and finding it hard to get the bus fare to the hospital (only to find the appointment has been cancelled...)
Yeah, fuck off JJ. I have plenty of my stress in my life, including a brother in law who died of cancer. And my wife nearly died during childbirth.
I don't need twats like you telling me we have it easy, nor that we don't know what hard times in life are like - both my wife and I started with nothing.
Twat.
I'm sorry to hear about those problems. But you do have it easier than others, as you have money. Money helps massively, as we ourselves know from experience.
If you started with nothing, you would understand what it is like not being able to food on the table. What it is like having to live day-by-day, rather than being able to have the luxury of saving. And you might contemplate what minor issue - illness, accident, a failed relationship, whatever - would have changed you from the success you are today to a failure.
A friend of mine was from a coal-mining family and was the first in her family to go to university. She is as bright as a button. Whilst she was there, she got struck down with ME and another complication. Getting her degree nearly killed her, and she has been bedridden ever since. Living off the state. That could have been me. It could have been you.
There would be no safety net in Casinoworld. Now that is fair enough if one is so inclined, but not for me. I think it an outrage that after six months of a LABOUR government ex servicemen with PTSD are still living in tents under Westminster Bridge.
Er, no. I haven't argued for that, so please don't put words in my mouth. False binaries are a stupid way of conducting political debate.
Several things can be true at once: yes, "there but for the grace of God go I", is one and it also the case that we are spending far too much money on welfare and have reached the limits of taxation, which is now suppressing growth and public funds, not growing it.
We can all find powerful personal stories that illicit empathy and sympathy, as we can the other way, and these can and will fall either side of whatever line is drawn, but we are spending far too much on incapacity benefits, pensions and, I think, health and that is where I'd look to make major savings. I'd spend more on education and defence. And I'd create a competitive tax regime that encourages growth.
The comments on this thread and the likes they've got just go to show how politically difficult that will be but that's got to be done. Some seem to think that those that are earning more than them must be undeserving of it, and are on the take at their expense, and give the impression they'd far rather cut them down to size than actually tax them at a rate that would maximise growth - which must be done to afford any of the things you care about.
There will be no safety net if the country goes insolvent.
How can the country go insolvent? Our debt is issued in a currency which we control. We cannot run out of pounds as we can print them to repay the debt. And don't say "we can't" because we can and already do.
We can run out of people willing to lend us more money at a price we want to pay, but that is a long way from insolvency.
Funnily enough, I'm just reading a book on MMT, called the Deficit Myth, which argues exactly this. I though it'd be useful to understand MMT before criticising it.
Blimey, it's superficial. It runs to 260 pages but can be summed up as 'free lunches all round. And then dinner, breakfast, supper and tea too'.
Yes, we can print our own money. Yes, the government can oblige its creditors to take it. None of this stops inflation from happening when more money chases the same amount of goods and services. And inflation is the inevitable consequence of such a policy, as has been demonstrated many times through history, as well as in the famous identity MV≡PY (which the author doesn't even bother to reference, never mind refute).
In reality, many currencies across time have been depreciated into worthlessness by excessive printing, which is why some countries either peg their currency to another or use that other one outright - because that gave the only acceptable assurance that the money in people's hands meant anything.
Money is simply a means of exchange. Printing more of it does not make us richer overall; it just dilutes what's already there.
The better MMT economists are very keen on pointing out that the limit on government expenditure in a fiat economy is not taxes or bond sales but /inflation/. You can (and possibly should) print as much as you like /until/ inflation starts kicking in.
The reality is that an awful lot of the time, that means you can’t print at all - this obstinate fact often seems to be glossed over by the more naïve MMT types & their hangers on. There’s no economic benefit to printing if all that happens is an immediate countervailing inflation in the price level, which may well be the condition the UK economy is in right now.
Inflation is bad because it penalises thrifty savers who store their savings in cash. But in cases like we have now, with many wealthy elderly retired savers and many poor younger working people, inflation acts as a transfer of wealth from elderly to younger as the younger wage goes up and the older savings are worth less. This achieves a rebalancing. It also reduces Government debt by inflating it away.
Lots of talk on TwiX now about the millionaires and non Doms fleeing the UK. At a time of great impoverishment the Labour government has contrived to frighten away the most important part of our tax base, and told them btw private schools will be slowly abolished via taxes
It’s all adding up. All these allegedly small things are adding up to a looming and desperate collision with reality. Even as we allow in millions of migrants who will be a net drain on the treasury, house thousands of asylum seekers in the savoy at billions a year, and pay Tanzania forty trillion quid to take control of Cornwall
It’s coming. A crash
Brace
As always 'More or Less' is your friend. When you were spouting this awhile ago More or Less debunked it. Who to believe, some nutters on twitter or people who analyse the data properly. It appears the definition of millionaire and sample selection were, how can we put it, bollocks.
Are you seriously disputing that rich people are leaving the UK? Every metric shows they are and in number
COUTTS LONDON PRIME PROPERTY INDEX Q3 2024: PRICES DROP AND BUYERS GET BIGGER DISCOUNTS
Our latest research on luxury London property shows prices falling, average discounts close to 9% and almost 80% of sales coming in below asking price.
Nope I'm not. Just pointing out that last time you did this by quoting a survey you saw somewhere it turned out to be complete bollocks. I know you think you are always right, but you seem to have a very short memory and a very poor source of your data.
If it helps I can give you personal experience instead of surveys - over the pre Christmas drinks party rounds I met (and I noted the number for work reasons) 22 couples who have already or are in the process of moving here from the UK as an absolute direct result of Labour winning the election last year.
All of these people, all 22 couples were people who had set up successful businesses - not inherited money. They are selling or have sold their UK properties, stopped paying staff, stopped buying luxury goods and cars in the UK. Will not be setting up new business or employing people in the UK for the foreseeable future, not paying any more taxes to the UK.
This is one small place - just think how many are going to larger places such as Switzerland, Dubai etc.
I’m sure there will be people who say “good riddance” but remember the new car they bought each year covered an essential salary from the VAT. The shops they shopped in need fewer staff with fewer customers. Their gardeners and housekeepers will find fewer hours to work.
I’ve said it before - I do not rejoice in this, it’s not necessarily good for where I live but it’s worse for the UK which I love.
So ideologically sticking it to the rich will prove to be a stupid act of self harm.
It is a shame they're going. But I also fear there's very little we can do to help people who are so utterly selfish.
It's interesting that some people like the half the idea of Global Britain - easy to come here and work. But the corollary to that is that people find it easier to leave.
Take one bloke in my team. Indian, first generation immigrant. Got wife and baby, no school as yet. Been in the country about 6 years. Why shouldn't he move to Berlin, or wherever?
He looks at what he is paying in taxes and what he gets for it. And is not impressed. Transactional, maybe. But why should he think differently?
I agree. Mrs J is in that situation. She could be earning more in Turkey - or the USA - than here. But we don't move. Why? Partly the reasons she moved to this country in the first place, and partly because the UK is still a good place to live on a moderate income.
Others disagree. But the country needs more money to fix problems it has. Austerity - which I was in favour of - has been tried, and probably went too far. So how else do we get the money? There is no magic money tree.
Isn’t this attitude from you and Mrs J selfish? Mrs J could earn more and contribute more in taxes to the country that nurtured her but instead she has upped sticks to another country for reasons she has decided are better for her rather than society in general?
And frankly if you worked a bit harder you could contribute more in taxes to the UK but instead you rather selfishly have decided to balance your work and life to suit the needs of your family?
I think it’s perfectly fair and correct that you and Mrs J have chosen your residence to suit your priorities over the needs of a country as a whole.
Lots of talk on TwiX now about the millionaires and non Doms fleeing the UK. At a time of great impoverishment the Labour government has contrived to frighten away the most important part of our tax base, and told them btw private schools will be slowly abolished via taxes
It’s all adding up. All these allegedly small things are adding up to a looming and desperate collision with reality. Even as we allow in millions of migrants who will be a net drain on the treasury, house thousands of asylum seekers in the savoy at billions a year, and pay Tanzania forty trillion quid to take control of Cornwall
It’s coming. A crash
Brace
As always 'More or Less' is your friend. When you were spouting this awhile ago More or Less debunked it. Who to believe, some nutters on twitter or people who analyse the data properly. It appears the definition of millionaire and sample selection were, how can we put it, bollocks.
Are you seriously disputing that rich people are leaving the UK? Every metric shows they are and in number
COUTTS LONDON PRIME PROPERTY INDEX Q3 2024: PRICES DROP AND BUYERS GET BIGGER DISCOUNTS
Our latest research on luxury London property shows prices falling, average discounts close to 9% and almost 80% of sales coming in below asking price.
Nope I'm not. Just pointing out that last time you did this by quoting a survey you saw somewhere it turned out to be complete bollocks. I know you think you are always right, but you seem to have a very short memory and a very poor source of your data.
If it helps I can give you personal experience instead of surveys - over the pre Christmas drinks party rounds I met (and I noted the number for work reasons) 22 couples who have already or are in the process of moving here from the UK as an absolute direct result of Labour winning the election last year.
All of these people, all 22 couples were people who had set up successful businesses - not inherited money. They are selling or have sold their UK properties, stopped paying staff, stopped buying luxury goods and cars in the UK. Will not be setting up new business or employing people in the UK for the foreseeable future, not paying any more taxes to the UK.
This is one small place - just think how many are going to larger places such as Switzerland, Dubai etc.
I’m sure there will be people who say “good riddance” but remember the new car they bought each year covered an essential salary from the VAT. The shops they shopped in need fewer staff with fewer customers. Their gardeners and housekeepers will find fewer hours to work.
I’ve said it before - I do not rejoice in this, it’s not necessarily good for where I live but it’s worse for the UK which I love.
So ideologically sticking it to the rich will prove to be a stupid act of self harm.
It is a shame they're going. But I also fear there's very little we can do to help people who are so utterly selfish.
It's interesting that some people like the half the idea of Global Britain - easy to come here and work. But the corollary to that is that people find it easier to leave.
Take one bloke in my team. Indian, first generation immigrant. Got wife and baby, no school as yet. Been in the country about 6 years. Why shouldn't he move to Berlin, or wherever?
He looks at what he is paying in taxes and what he gets for it. And is not impressed. Transactional, maybe. But why should he think differently?
I agree. Mrs J is in that situation. She could be earning more in Turkey - or the USA - than here. But we don't move. Why? Partly the reasons she moved to this country in the first place, and partly because the UK is still a good place to live on a moderate income.
Others disagree. But the country needs more money to fix problems it has. Austerity - which I was in favour of - has been tried, and probably went too far. So how else do we get the money? There is no magic money tree.
Isn’t this attitude from you and Mrs J selfish? Mrs J could earn more and contribute more in taxes to the country that nurtured her but instead she has upped sticks to another country for reasons she has decided are better for her rather than society in general?
And frankly if you worked a bit harder you could contribute more in taxes to the UK but instead you rather selfishly have decided to balance your work and life to suit the needs of your family?
I think it’s perfectly fair and correct that you and Mrs J have chosen your residence to suit your priorities over the needs of a country as a whole.
She had reasons other than money and payment of taxes to come over here: in many ways she would (probably) be earning more over there. And hopefully she has been more than a net benefit to her adopted country.
And yes, you have a point: we are all selfish to a certain degree. I bet, if you dig deep into your soul, you what see selfishness in your good self.
So hopefully you'd agree with my original proposition, that these people are being selfish?
Oh I’m very selfish, I have chosen not to have children as too much effort, I have loose relationships for a few years or friends with benefits so I don’t have to work my life around other people, I’ve prioritised work and it’s rewards and mindless fun - that’s properly selfish.
People arranging their finances and choosing where to live is just being human and sensible not selfish.
Do you say the same about economic migrants coming to the UK? Are they just being human and sensible?
Jessop give your head a wobble. I fear you are turning into a centrist dad.
Centrist Dad isn't a Centrist Dad.
Centrist Dad means someone who's firmly on the centre-left who wants their politics to be seen as entirely middle of the road.
I've always thought it was just a vague insult with no real set morning. People seem to use it in different ways.
But I am a dad, and I do think I'm generally in the centre of politics, so I am probably a 'centrist dad'...
Economically, your arguments demonstrate you to be on the centre-left.
If so, then only because the discourse has shifted. I believe I've generally been centre-right economically, and centre-left socially. Though that varies: look at my support for your position on the ill-considered and ill-meant VAT on school fees.
I'd *love* there to be lower taxes for everyone. But the country is nowhere near a state to allow that, and in fact, quite the opposite. People want more spending - e.g. on defence - but are not willing to spend more on it.
I'm just being realistic.
I'm arguing that taxes on wealth creation need to be reduced to give us growth.
I know that's unfashionable. But I think it's essential to keep us competitive, encourage investment and for people to innovate and take risks that grow the size of the pie.
All very good in theory, but the Duke of Westminster isn't going to finance a battery plant in Cumbernauld. He'll just buy more posh houses in Mayfair.
Japanese newspaper reports on Yoon's heavy drinking habits, mentions of martial law
https://m.koreatimes.co.kr/pages/article.asp?newsIdx=389972 ...Citing a former cabinet minister under the Yoon administration who dined with the president several times, Asahi reported, "Yoon began bringing up the term ‘martial law' more frequently in gatherings after the ruling party's crushing defeat in the April elections last year. His stress levels and alcohol consumption increased as well."
According to the report, Yoon often drank at venues such as a government residence in Samcheong-dong, Seoul. These gatherings typically included samgyeopsal (grilled pork belly), paired with rounds of "somaek" — a shot of soju mixed with beer. Apparently, Yoon drank up to 20 glasses of somaek in a single sitting.
The former minister said, "Most people fill their somaek glasses halfway, but the president filled his to the brim. While drinking, the president would criticize opposition politicians, though he sometimes directed criticism at ruling party members as well."
The report speculated that this habit may stem from Yoon's days as a prosecutor when he drank a mix of whiskey and beer called "Ten-Ten." This potent drink, designed for quick intoxication, was said to be popular among prosecutors.
A former foreign affairs aide from Yoon's administration revealed that these drinking sessions frequently lasted until dawn.
Asahi also reported that Yoon became heavily influenced by far-right YouTube channels amid declining approval ratings and criticism of his unilateral governance style...
Lots of talk on TwiX now about the millionaires and non Doms fleeing the UK. At a time of great impoverishment the Labour government has contrived to frighten away the most important part of our tax base, and told them btw private schools will be slowly abolished via taxes
It’s all adding up. All these allegedly small things are adding up to a looming and desperate collision with reality. Even as we allow in millions of migrants who will be a net drain on the treasury, house thousands of asylum seekers in the savoy at billions a year, and pay Tanzania forty trillion quid to take control of Cornwall
It’s coming. A crash
Brace
As always 'More or Less' is your friend. When you were spouting this awhile ago More or Less debunked it. Who to believe, some nutters on twitter or people who analyse the data properly. It appears the definition of millionaire and sample selection were, how can we put it, bollocks.
Are you seriously disputing that rich people are leaving the UK? Every metric shows they are and in number
COUTTS LONDON PRIME PROPERTY INDEX Q3 2024: PRICES DROP AND BUYERS GET BIGGER DISCOUNTS
Our latest research on luxury London property shows prices falling, average discounts close to 9% and almost 80% of sales coming in below asking price.
Nope I'm not. Just pointing out that last time you did this by quoting a survey you saw somewhere it turned out to be complete bollocks. I know you think you are always right, but you seem to have a very short memory and a very poor source of your data.
If it helps I can give you personal experience instead of surveys - over the pre Christmas drinks party rounds I met (and I noted the number for work reasons) 22 couples who have already or are in the process of moving here from the UK as an absolute direct result of Labour winning the election last year.
All of these people, all 22 couples were people who had set up successful businesses - not inherited money. They are selling or have sold their UK properties, stopped paying staff, stopped buying luxury goods and cars in the UK. Will not be setting up new business or employing people in the UK for the foreseeable future, not paying any more taxes to the UK.
This is one small place - just think how many are going to larger places such as Switzerland, Dubai etc.
I’m sure there will be people who say “good riddance” but remember the new car they bought each year covered an essential salary from the VAT. The shops they shopped in need fewer staff with fewer customers. Their gardeners and housekeepers will find fewer hours to work.
I’ve said it before - I do not rejoice in this, it’s not necessarily good for where I live but it’s worse for the UK which I love.
So ideologically sticking it to the rich will prove to be a stupid act of self harm.
It is a shame they're going. But I also fear there's very little we can do to help people who are so utterly selfish.
Or perhaps you/we are?
I'd certainly think so if someone demanded all my money whilst I took all the risk and did all the work.
Nah. I've not demanded all your money. Far from. But from what I see, you live a good life. Others, who work harder than you, and take many more risks, are much less rewarded.
I want to reward those who work hard, and also those who take risks (e.g. in starting up businesses). But that has to be tempered by the fact you also live in society. If you take risks and fail - as can happen if it is a genuine risk - then you should not be left destitute.
And an awful lot of people earn money with very little risk - in both the private and public sector.
If, heaven forfend, you are taken ill, then you would want the doctors and nurses who look after you not to be overworked and to have access to all the equipment you need? Why should the binmen who are out collecting our bins this morning not get paid well for work I wouldn't want to do? How about a careworker I know who just told me he got threatened by an elderly patient, and the police had to be called?
We live in a society, and that society needs to work as a whole. We are not islands.
Yeah, but this is motherhood and apple pie stuff and you could use it to defend any level of tax. In fact, you just have. Because you're using it as an argument to pay tax - period - and not acknowledging there's a limit. What it comes down to is resentment that some people earn more than you, and you want some of it.
When you tax people at 60%+ for stressful jobs, that involve a lot of stress, professional and personal risk (no-one gets paid a good salary for a simple job just about anyone can do) then at some point they will say, fuck it.
You will have no recourse to criticise them.
No, is it resentment. I'm perfectly happy with people earning more than we do as a family. Incredibly relaxed. I've said so many times in the past. I want work rewarded - at the low as well as the top end. And there's big problems with both of these at the moment.
But I also understand that we live in a society, and are part of that society. Without money, that society falls apart - including the bits you rely on. So it becomes a question of where to balance that. And sadly, that balance is currently set so the country is in debt.
If you want stress, I might suggest you try not having enough money to get food on the table for your family, or not enough to pay rent to keep the roof over your head. To have two kids, one of whom has Down's Syndrome. to have a spouse with cancer, and finding it hard to get the bus fare to the hospital (only to find the appointment has been cancelled...)
Yeah, fuck off JJ. I have plenty of my stress in my life, including a brother in law who died of cancer. And my wife nearly died during childbirth.
I don't need twats like you telling me we have it easy, nor that we don't know what hard times in life are like - both my wife and I started with nothing.
Twat.
I'm sorry to hear about those problems. But you do have it easier than others, as you have money. Money helps massively, as we ourselves know from experience.
If you started with nothing, you would understand what it is like not being able to food on the table. What it is like having to live day-by-day, rather than being able to have the luxury of saving. And you might contemplate what minor issue - illness, accident, a failed relationship, whatever - would have changed you from the success you are today to a failure.
A friend of mine was from a coal-mining family and was the first in her family to go to university. She is as bright as a button. Whilst she was there, she got struck down with ME and another complication. Getting her degree nearly killed her, and she has been bedridden ever since. Living off the state. That could have been me. It could have been you.
There would be no safety net in Casinoworld. Now that is fair enough if one is so inclined, but not for me. I think it an outrage that after six months of a LABOUR government ex servicemen with PTSD are still living in tents under Westminster Bridge.
Er, no. I haven't argued for that, so please don't put words in my mouth. False binaries are a stupid way of conducting political debate.
Several things can be true at once: yes, "there but for the grace of God go I", is one and it also the case that we are spending far too much money on welfare and have reached the limits of taxation, which is now suppressing growth and public funds, not growing it.
We can all find powerful personal stories that illicit empathy and sympathy, as we can the other way, and these can and will fall either side of whatever line is drawn, but we are spending far too much on incapacity benefits, pensions and, I think, health and that is where I'd look to make major savings. I'd spend more on education and defence. And I'd create a competitive tax regime that encourages growth.
The comments on this thread and the likes they've got just go to show how politically difficult that will be but that's got to be done. Some seem to think that those that are earning more than them must be undeserving of it, and are on the take at their expense, and give the impression they'd far rather cut them down to size than actually tax them at a rate that would maximise growth - which must be done to afford any of the things you care about.
There will be no safety net if the country goes insolvent.
How can the country go insolvent? Our debt is issued in a currency which we control. We cannot run out of pounds as we can print them to repay the debt. And don't say "we can't" because we can and already do.
We can run out of people willing to lend us more money at a price we want to pay, but that is a long way from insolvency.
And there we have the economic literacy of the Liberal Democrats, ladies and gentlemen.
Whose government vastly inflated the national debt with nothing concrete to show for it?
It was yours wasn't it?
And even then, our vast debts are minimal on the scale of previous debts held by this country or debts vs GDP of other countries. We're not about to go bust no matter how many times Tories accuse Labour of making it imminent. Our borrowing costs remain very low by global standards.
Besides, a third of our debt is owed to the Bank of England. Which we own. We're paying a lot of interest payments to ourselves. Its paper dollars. The proper debate should be how we are so wasteful with what we spend and how we spend it. What is the point in simultaneously tipping record amounts of cash into an NHS which is starved of cash at the point of delivery? We're spending money on all the wrong things.
I'll let the cavalier attitude to debt and inflation pass for now.
We are trying to have that debate.
What, pray, do you think are the wrong things we are spending money on ?
The list under the Johnson regime was f*****' enormous, not least the eye watering cost of imposing economic sanctions on ourselves after a faulty plebiscite in 2016.
"A faulty plebiscite".
Jesus.
Well, obviously it was faulty. The People got the answer wrong.
Lots of talk on TwiX now about the millionaires and non Doms fleeing the UK. At a time of great impoverishment the Labour government has contrived to frighten away the most important part of our tax base, and told them btw private schools will be slowly abolished via taxes
It’s all adding up. All these allegedly small things are adding up to a looming and desperate collision with reality. Even as we allow in millions of migrants who will be a net drain on the treasury, house thousands of asylum seekers in the savoy at billions a year, and pay Tanzania forty trillion quid to take control of Cornwall
It’s coming. A crash
Brace
As always 'More or Less' is your friend. When you were spouting this awhile ago More or Less debunked it. Who to believe, some nutters on twitter or people who analyse the data properly. It appears the definition of millionaire and sample selection were, how can we put it, bollocks.
Are you seriously disputing that rich people are leaving the UK? Every metric shows they are and in number
COUTTS LONDON PRIME PROPERTY INDEX Q3 2024: PRICES DROP AND BUYERS GET BIGGER DISCOUNTS
Our latest research on luxury London property shows prices falling, average discounts close to 9% and almost 80% of sales coming in below asking price.
Nope I'm not. Just pointing out that last time you did this by quoting a survey you saw somewhere it turned out to be complete bollocks. I know you think you are always right, but you seem to have a very short memory and a very poor source of your data.
If it helps I can give you personal experience instead of surveys - over the pre Christmas drinks party rounds I met (and I noted the number for work reasons) 22 couples who have already or are in the process of moving here from the UK as an absolute direct result of Labour winning the election last year.
All of these people, all 22 couples were people who had set up successful businesses - not inherited money. They are selling or have sold their UK properties, stopped paying staff, stopped buying luxury goods and cars in the UK. Will not be setting up new business or employing people in the UK for the foreseeable future, not paying any more taxes to the UK.
This is one small place - just think how many are going to larger places such as Switzerland, Dubai etc.
I’m sure there will be people who say “good riddance” but remember the new car they bought each year covered an essential salary from the VAT. The shops they shopped in need fewer staff with fewer customers. Their gardeners and housekeepers will find fewer hours to work.
I’ve said it before - I do not rejoice in this, it’s not necessarily good for where I live but it’s worse for the UK which I love.
So ideologically sticking it to the rich will prove to be a stupid act of self harm.
It is a shame they're going. But I also fear there's very little we can do to help people who are so utterly selfish.
It's interesting that some people like the half the idea of Global Britain - easy to come here and work. But the corollary to that is that people find it easier to leave.
Take one bloke in my team. Indian, first generation immigrant. Got wife and baby, no school as yet. Been in the country about 6 years. Why shouldn't he move to Berlin, or wherever?
He looks at what he is paying in taxes and what he gets for it. And is not impressed. Transactional, maybe. But why should he think differently?
I agree. Mrs J is in that situation. She could be earning more in Turkey - or the USA - than here. But we don't move. Why? Partly the reasons she moved to this country in the first place, and partly because the UK is still a good place to live on a moderate income.
Others disagree. But the country needs more money to fix problems it has. Austerity - which I was in favour of - has been tried, and probably went too far. So how else do we get the money? There is no magic money tree.
Isn’t this attitude from you and Mrs J selfish? Mrs J could earn more and contribute more in taxes to the country that nurtured her but instead she has upped sticks to another country for reasons she has decided are better for her rather than society in general?
And frankly if you worked a bit harder you could contribute more in taxes to the UK but instead you rather selfishly have decided to balance your work and life to suit the needs of your family?
I think it’s perfectly fair and correct that you and Mrs J have chosen your residence to suit your priorities over the needs of a country as a whole.
Lots of talk on TwiX now about the millionaires and non Doms fleeing the UK. At a time of great impoverishment the Labour government has contrived to frighten away the most important part of our tax base, and told them btw private schools will be slowly abolished via taxes
It’s all adding up. All these allegedly small things are adding up to a looming and desperate collision with reality. Even as we allow in millions of migrants who will be a net drain on the treasury, house thousands of asylum seekers in the savoy at billions a year, and pay Tanzania forty trillion quid to take control of Cornwall
It’s coming. A crash
Brace
As always 'More or Less' is your friend. When you were spouting this awhile ago More or Less debunked it. Who to believe, some nutters on twitter or people who analyse the data properly. It appears the definition of millionaire and sample selection were, how can we put it, bollocks.
Are you seriously disputing that rich people are leaving the UK? Every metric shows they are and in number
COUTTS LONDON PRIME PROPERTY INDEX Q3 2024: PRICES DROP AND BUYERS GET BIGGER DISCOUNTS
Our latest research on luxury London property shows prices falling, average discounts close to 9% and almost 80% of sales coming in below asking price.
Nope I'm not. Just pointing out that last time you did this by quoting a survey you saw somewhere it turned out to be complete bollocks. I know you think you are always right, but you seem to have a very short memory and a very poor source of your data.
If it helps I can give you personal experience instead of surveys - over the pre Christmas drinks party rounds I met (and I noted the number for work reasons) 22 couples who have already or are in the process of moving here from the UK as an absolute direct result of Labour winning the election last year.
All of these people, all 22 couples were people who had set up successful businesses - not inherited money. They are selling or have sold their UK properties, stopped paying staff, stopped buying luxury goods and cars in the UK. Will not be setting up new business or employing people in the UK for the foreseeable future, not paying any more taxes to the UK.
This is one small place - just think how many are going to larger places such as Switzerland, Dubai etc.
I’m sure there will be people who say “good riddance” but remember the new car they bought each year covered an essential salary from the VAT. The shops they shopped in need fewer staff with fewer customers. Their gardeners and housekeepers will find fewer hours to work.
I’ve said it before - I do not rejoice in this, it’s not necessarily good for where I live but it’s worse for the UK which I love.
So ideologically sticking it to the rich will prove to be a stupid act of self harm.
It is a shame they're going. But I also fear there's very little we can do to help people who are so utterly selfish.
It's interesting that some people like the half the idea of Global Britain - easy to come here and work. But the corollary to that is that people find it easier to leave.
Take one bloke in my team. Indian, first generation immigrant. Got wife and baby, no school as yet. Been in the country about 6 years. Why shouldn't he move to Berlin, or wherever?
He looks at what he is paying in taxes and what he gets for it. And is not impressed. Transactional, maybe. But why should he think differently?
I agree. Mrs J is in that situation. She could be earning more in Turkey - or the USA - than here. But we don't move. Why? Partly the reasons she moved to this country in the first place, and partly because the UK is still a good place to live on a moderate income.
Others disagree. But the country needs more money to fix problems it has. Austerity - which I was in favour of - has been tried, and probably went too far. So how else do we get the money? There is no magic money tree.
Isn’t this attitude from you and Mrs J selfish? Mrs J could earn more and contribute more in taxes to the country that nurtured her but instead she has upped sticks to another country for reasons she has decided are better for her rather than society in general?
And frankly if you worked a bit harder you could contribute more in taxes to the UK but instead you rather selfishly have decided to balance your work and life to suit the needs of your family?
I think it’s perfectly fair and correct that you and Mrs J have chosen your residence to suit your priorities over the needs of a country as a whole.
She had reasons other than money and payment of taxes to come over here: in many ways she would (probably) be earning more over there. And hopefully she has been more than a net benefit to her adopted country.
And yes, you have a point: we are all selfish to a certain degree. I bet, if you dig deep into your soul, you what see selfishness in your good self.
So hopefully you'd agree with my original proposition, that these people are being selfish?
Oh I’m very selfish, I have chosen not to have children as too much effort, I have loose relationships for a few years or friends with benefits so I don’t have to work my life around other people, I’ve prioritised work and it’s rewards and mindless fun - that’s properly selfish.
People arranging their finances and choosing where to live is just being human and sensible not selfish.
Do you say the same about economic migrants coming to the UK? Are they just being human and sensible?
Jessop give your head a wobble. I fear you are turning into a centrist dad.
Centrist Dad isn't a Centrist Dad.
Centrist Dad means someone who's firmly on the centre-left who wants their politics to be seen as entirely middle of the road.
I've always thought it was just a vague insult with no real set morning. People seem to use it in different ways.
But I am a dad, and I do think I'm generally in the centre of politics, so I am probably a 'centrist dad'...
Economically, your arguments demonstrate you to be on the centre-left.
If so, then only because the discourse has shifted. I believe I've generally been centre-right economically, and centre-left socially. Though that varies: look at my support for your position on the ill-considered and ill-meant VAT on school fees.
I'd *love* there to be lower taxes for everyone. But the country is nowhere near a state to allow that, and in fact, quite the opposite. People want more spending - e.g. on defence - but are not willing to spend more on it.
I'm just being realistic.
I'm arguing that taxes on wealth creation need to be reduced to give us growth.
I know that's unfashionable. But I think it's essential to keep us competitive, encourage investment and for people to innovate and take risks that grow the size of the pie.
If you take a step back, it does seem mad that we tax capital gains, rather than just having a general capital tax.
We also need to remove all these protections for land and property which distort how people use their money.
In answer to the question posed in the header, I think it highly unlikely Starmer will sack Reeves.
The proximate reason for high bond yield prices now is the same as for Liz Truss: the market doesn't believe future tax revenues will cover future expenditure requirements.
There's a huge political difference between the two however. In Truss case she didn't see why revenues need to cover expenditure. In Reeves case it's because the market believes it will be politically difficult to either increase taxes or reduce expenditure to balance the books, and both will negatively affect growth. Replacing Reeves doesn't remove that dilemma.
Your last sentence hits the nail on the head
It doesn't matter who is COE we have run out of money, room to tax or borrow, so austerity is inevitable
The problem for Labour is it goes against everything they stand for and is politically toxic
If I'd been Labour CoE - I'd have gone for merging NI and Income Tax, simplifying the bands, getting rid of the silly withdrawal of the personal allowance stuff. While doing that, put up tax as part of the redo - given the NI gains from everyone paying NI (in effect), that wouldn't have to be vast.
Sell it as "We need to do this now to save the NHS etc. When things are on an even keel, we can look at reductions. Simpler taxes are easier to collect and cheaper."
I think this would have gone down better, politically, than the budget we had. With the markets (tax in order to spend, save money on a simplified tax system), with the Labour Party (raise taxes for the NHS) and the country at large (brave, upfront about what we need to do).
Sounds eminently sensible.
I would have combined this with a small Gross Assets Levy, and removed stamp duty from people trading down (maybe even eliminating it altogether). I would also treble council tax on properties that are lived in less than 7 months a year, and add another three or four bands on top of the existing ones.
The later would get you in deep shit. The only way out of the council tax comedy is a new system. Perhaps a personal, local tax? Try it out first in Scotland?
What's wrong with Clacton, Hartlepool and Witney? Their turn ...
Lots of talk on TwiX now about the millionaires and non Doms fleeing the UK. At a time of great impoverishment the Labour government has contrived to frighten away the most important part of our tax base, and told them btw private schools will be slowly abolished via taxes
It’s all adding up. All these allegedly small things are adding up to a looming and desperate collision with reality. Even as we allow in millions of migrants who will be a net drain on the treasury, house thousands of asylum seekers in the savoy at billions a year, and pay Tanzania forty trillion quid to take control of Cornwall
It’s coming. A crash
Brace
As always 'More or Less' is your friend. When you were spouting this awhile ago More or Less debunked it. Who to believe, some nutters on twitter or people who analyse the data properly. It appears the definition of millionaire and sample selection were, how can we put it, bollocks.
Are you seriously disputing that rich people are leaving the UK? Every metric shows they are and in number
COUTTS LONDON PRIME PROPERTY INDEX Q3 2024: PRICES DROP AND BUYERS GET BIGGER DISCOUNTS
Our latest research on luxury London property shows prices falling, average discounts close to 9% and almost 80% of sales coming in below asking price.
Nope I'm not. Just pointing out that last time you did this by quoting a survey you saw somewhere it turned out to be complete bollocks. I know you think you are always right, but you seem to have a very short memory and a very poor source of your data.
If it helps I can give you personal experience instead of surveys - over the pre Christmas drinks party rounds I met (and I noted the number for work reasons) 22 couples who have already or are in the process of moving here from the UK as an absolute direct result of Labour winning the election last year.
All of these people, all 22 couples were people who had set up successful businesses - not inherited money. They are selling or have sold their UK properties, stopped paying staff, stopped buying luxury goods and cars in the UK. Will not be setting up new business or employing people in the UK for the foreseeable future, not paying any more taxes to the UK.
This is one small place - just think how many are going to larger places such as Switzerland, Dubai etc.
I’m sure there will be people who say “good riddance” but remember the new car they bought each year covered an essential salary from the VAT. The shops they shopped in need fewer staff with fewer customers. Their gardeners and housekeepers will find fewer hours to work.
I’ve said it before - I do not rejoice in this, it’s not necessarily good for where I live but it’s worse for the UK which I love.
So ideologically sticking it to the rich will prove to be a stupid act of self harm.
It is a shame they're going. But I also fear there's very little we can do to help people who are so utterly selfish.
It's interesting that some people like the half the idea of Global Britain - easy to come here and work. But the corollary to that is that people find it easier to leave.
Take one bloke in my team. Indian, first generation immigrant. Got wife and baby, no school as yet. Been in the country about 6 years. Why shouldn't he move to Berlin, or wherever?
He looks at what he is paying in taxes and what he gets for it. And is not impressed. Transactional, maybe. But why should he think differently?
I agree. Mrs J is in that situation. She could be earning more in Turkey - or the USA - than here. But we don't move. Why? Partly the reasons she moved to this country in the first place, and partly because the UK is still a good place to live on a moderate income.
Others disagree. But the country needs more money to fix problems it has. Austerity - which I was in favour of - has been tried, and probably went too far. So how else do we get the money? There is no magic money tree.
Isn’t this attitude from you and Mrs J selfish? Mrs J could earn more and contribute more in taxes to the country that nurtured her but instead she has upped sticks to another country for reasons she has decided are better for her rather than society in general?
And frankly if you worked a bit harder you could contribute more in taxes to the UK but instead you rather selfishly have decided to balance your work and life to suit the needs of your family?
I think it’s perfectly fair and correct that you and Mrs J have chosen your residence to suit your priorities over the needs of a country as a whole.
Lots of talk on TwiX now about the millionaires and non Doms fleeing the UK. At a time of great impoverishment the Labour government has contrived to frighten away the most important part of our tax base, and told them btw private schools will be slowly abolished via taxes
It’s all adding up. All these allegedly small things are adding up to a looming and desperate collision with reality. Even as we allow in millions of migrants who will be a net drain on the treasury, house thousands of asylum seekers in the savoy at billions a year, and pay Tanzania forty trillion quid to take control of Cornwall
It’s coming. A crash
Brace
As always 'More or Less' is your friend. When you were spouting this awhile ago More or Less debunked it. Who to believe, some nutters on twitter or people who analyse the data properly. It appears the definition of millionaire and sample selection were, how can we put it, bollocks.
Are you seriously disputing that rich people are leaving the UK? Every metric shows they are and in number
COUTTS LONDON PRIME PROPERTY INDEX Q3 2024: PRICES DROP AND BUYERS GET BIGGER DISCOUNTS
Our latest research on luxury London property shows prices falling, average discounts close to 9% and almost 80% of sales coming in below asking price.
Nope I'm not. Just pointing out that last time you did this by quoting a survey you saw somewhere it turned out to be complete bollocks. I know you think you are always right, but you seem to have a very short memory and a very poor source of your data.
If it helps I can give you personal experience instead of surveys - over the pre Christmas drinks party rounds I met (and I noted the number for work reasons) 22 couples who have already or are in the process of moving here from the UK as an absolute direct result of Labour winning the election last year.
All of these people, all 22 couples were people who had set up successful businesses - not inherited money. They are selling or have sold their UK properties, stopped paying staff, stopped buying luxury goods and cars in the UK. Will not be setting up new business or employing people in the UK for the foreseeable future, not paying any more taxes to the UK.
This is one small place - just think how many are going to larger places such as Switzerland, Dubai etc.
I’m sure there will be people who say “good riddance” but remember the new car they bought each year covered an essential salary from the VAT. The shops they shopped in need fewer staff with fewer customers. Their gardeners and housekeepers will find fewer hours to work.
I’ve said it before - I do not rejoice in this, it’s not necessarily good for where I live but it’s worse for the UK which I love.
So ideologically sticking it to the rich will prove to be a stupid act of self harm.
It is a shame they're going. But I also fear there's very little we can do to help people who are so utterly selfish.
It's interesting that some people like the half the idea of Global Britain - easy to come here and work. But the corollary to that is that people find it easier to leave.
Take one bloke in my team. Indian, first generation immigrant. Got wife and baby, no school as yet. Been in the country about 6 years. Why shouldn't he move to Berlin, or wherever?
He looks at what he is paying in taxes and what he gets for it. And is not impressed. Transactional, maybe. But why should he think differently?
I agree. Mrs J is in that situation. She could be earning more in Turkey - or the USA - than here. But we don't move. Why? Partly the reasons she moved to this country in the first place, and partly because the UK is still a good place to live on a moderate income.
Others disagree. But the country needs more money to fix problems it has. Austerity - which I was in favour of - has been tried, and probably went too far. So how else do we get the money? There is no magic money tree.
Isn’t this attitude from you and Mrs J selfish? Mrs J could earn more and contribute more in taxes to the country that nurtured her but instead she has upped sticks to another country for reasons she has decided are better for her rather than society in general?
And frankly if you worked a bit harder you could contribute more in taxes to the UK but instead you rather selfishly have decided to balance your work and life to suit the needs of your family?
I think it’s perfectly fair and correct that you and Mrs J have chosen your residence to suit your priorities over the needs of a country as a whole.
She had reasons other than money and payment of taxes to come over here: in many ways she would (probably) be earning more over there. And hopefully she has been more than a net benefit to her adopted country.
And yes, you have a point: we are all selfish to a certain degree. I bet, if you dig deep into your soul, you what see selfishness in your good self.
So hopefully you'd agree with my original proposition, that these people are being selfish?
Oh I’m very selfish, I have chosen not to have children as too much effort, I have loose relationships for a few years or friends with benefits so I don’t have to work my life around other people, I’ve prioritised work and it’s rewards and mindless fun - that’s properly selfish.
People arranging their finances and choosing where to live is just being human and sensible not selfish.
Do you say the same about economic migrants coming to the UK? Are they just being human and sensible?
Jessop give your head a wobble. I fear you are turning into a centrist dad.
Centrist Dad isn't a Centrist Dad.
Centrist Dad means someone who's firmly on the centre-left who wants their politics to be seen as entirely middle of the road.
I've always thought it was just a vague insult with no real set morning. People seem to use it in different ways.
But I am a dad, and I do think I'm generally in the centre of politics, so I am probably a 'centrist dad'...
Economically, your arguments demonstrate you to be on the centre-left.
If so, then only because the discourse has shifted. I believe I've generally been centre-right economically, and centre-left socially. Though that varies: look at my support for your position on the ill-considered and ill-meant VAT on school fees.
I'd *love* there to be lower taxes for everyone. But the country is nowhere near a state to allow that, and in fact, quite the opposite. People want more spending - e.g. on defence - but are not willing to spend more on it.
I'm just being realistic.
I'm arguing that taxes on wealth creation need to be reduced to give us growth.
I know that's unfashionable. But I think it's essential to keep us competitive, encourage investment and for people to innovate and take risks that grow the size of the pie.
I'd go further. We need to offer tax incentives for companies to invest. Not fiddling around the edges allowances, actual hard cash if they invest here and that investment stays here.
We have a decades-long aversion to investment, having decided that a quick profit now is better than slower profits over a longer period. That needs to be reversed.
But paid after the fact. Subsidy on actual batteries produced and installed in cars, for example, rather than tax breaks on building factories.
In answer to the question posed in the header, I think it highly unlikely Starmer will sack Reeves.
The proximate reason for high bond yield prices now is the same as for Liz Truss: the market doesn't believe future tax revenues will cover future expenditure requirements.
There's a huge political difference between the two however. In Truss case she didn't see why revenues need to cover expenditure. In Reeves case it's because the market believes it will be politically difficult to either increase taxes or reduce expenditure to balance the books, and both will negatively affect growth. Replacing Reeves doesn't remove that dilemma.
Your last sentence hits the nail on the head
It doesn't matter who is COE we have run out of money, room to tax or borrow, so austerity is inevitable
The problem for Labour is it goes against everything they stand for and is politically toxic
If I'd been Labour CoE - I'd have gone for merging NI and Income Tax, simplifying the bands, getting rid of the silly withdrawal of the personal allowance stuff. While doing that, put up tax as part of the redo - given the NI gains from everyone paying NI (in effect), that wouldn't have to be vast.
Sell it as "We need to do this now to save the NHS etc. When things are on an even keel, we can look at reductions. Simpler taxes are easier to collect and cheaper."
I think this would have gone down better, politically, than the budget we had. With the markets (tax in order to spend, save money on a simplified tax system), with the Labour Party (raise taxes for the NHS) and the country at large (brave, upfront about what we need to do).
A massive simplification of tax would be most welcome. Hey, we're the government, and we're raping you. However we've looked at what you do to us - it's about even.
And of course it is.
All income should be flat taxed.
CGT is a problem but could largely be circumvented by a simple declaration framework. (Any time you sell anything you simply have to say what it cost you)
Lots of talk on TwiX now about the millionaires and non Doms fleeing the UK. At a time of great impoverishment the Labour government has contrived to frighten away the most important part of our tax base, and told them btw private schools will be slowly abolished via taxes
It’s all adding up. All these allegedly small things are adding up to a looming and desperate collision with reality. Even as we allow in millions of migrants who will be a net drain on the treasury, house thousands of asylum seekers in the savoy at billions a year, and pay Tanzania forty trillion quid to take control of Cornwall
It’s coming. A crash
Brace
As always 'More or Less' is your friend. When you were spouting this awhile ago More or Less debunked it. Who to believe, some nutters on twitter or people who analyse the data properly. It appears the definition of millionaire and sample selection were, how can we put it, bollocks.
Are you seriously disputing that rich people are leaving the UK? Every metric shows they are and in number
COUTTS LONDON PRIME PROPERTY INDEX Q3 2024: PRICES DROP AND BUYERS GET BIGGER DISCOUNTS
Our latest research on luxury London property shows prices falling, average discounts close to 9% and almost 80% of sales coming in below asking price.
Nope I'm not. Just pointing out that last time you did this by quoting a survey you saw somewhere it turned out to be complete bollocks. I know you think you are always right, but you seem to have a very short memory and a very poor source of your data.
If it helps I can give you personal experience instead of surveys - over the pre Christmas drinks party rounds I met (and I noted the number for work reasons) 22 couples who have already or are in the process of moving here from the UK as an absolute direct result of Labour winning the election last year.
All of these people, all 22 couples were people who had set up successful businesses - not inherited money. They are selling or have sold their UK properties, stopped paying staff, stopped buying luxury goods and cars in the UK. Will not be setting up new business or employing people in the UK for the foreseeable future, not paying any more taxes to the UK.
This is one small place - just think how many are going to larger places such as Switzerland, Dubai etc.
I’m sure there will be people who say “good riddance” but remember the new car they bought each year covered an essential salary from the VAT. The shops they shopped in need fewer staff with fewer customers. Their gardeners and housekeepers will find fewer hours to work.
I’ve said it before - I do not rejoice in this, it’s not necessarily good for where I live but it’s worse for the UK which I love.
So ideologically sticking it to the rich will prove to be a stupid act of self harm.
It is a shame they're going. But I also fear there's very little we can do to help people who are so utterly selfish.
Or perhaps you/we are?
I'd certainly think so if someone demanded all my money whilst I took all the risk and did all the work.
Nah. I've not demanded all your money. Far from. But from what I see, you live a good life. Others, who work harder than you, and take many more risks, are much less rewarded.
I want to reward those who work hard, and also those who take risks (e.g. in starting up businesses). But that has to be tempered by the fact you also live in society. If you take risks and fail - as can happen if it is a genuine risk - then you should not be left destitute.
And an awful lot of people earn money with very little risk - in both the private and public sector.
If, heaven forfend, you are taken ill, then you would want the doctors and nurses who look after you not to be overworked and to have access to all the equipment you need? Why should the binmen who are out collecting our bins this morning not get paid well for work I wouldn't want to do? How about a careworker I know who just told me he got threatened by an elderly patient, and the police had to be called?
We live in a society, and that society needs to work as a whole. We are not islands.
Yeah, but this is motherhood and apple pie stuff and you could use it to defend any level of tax. In fact, you just have. Because you're using it as an argument to pay tax - period - and not acknowledging there's a limit. What it comes down to is resentment that some people earn more than you, and you want some of it.
When you tax people at 60%+ for stressful jobs, that involve a lot of stress, professional and personal risk (no-one gets paid a good salary for a simple job just about anyone can do) then at some point they will say, fuck it.
You will have no recourse to criticise them.
No, is it resentment. I'm perfectly happy with people earning more than we do as a family. Incredibly relaxed. I've said so many times in the past. I want work rewarded - at the low as well as the top end. And there's big problems with both of these at the moment.
But I also understand that we live in a society, and are part of that society. Without money, that society falls apart - including the bits you rely on. So it becomes a question of where to balance that. And sadly, that balance is currently set so the country is in debt.
If you want stress, I might suggest you try not having enough money to get food on the table for your family, or not enough to pay rent to keep the roof over your head. To have two kids, one of whom has Down's Syndrome. to have a spouse with cancer, and finding it hard to get the bus fare to the hospital (only to find the appointment has been cancelled...)
Yeah, fuck off JJ. I have plenty of my stress in my life, including a brother in law who died of cancer. And my wife nearly died during childbirth.
I don't need twats like you telling me we have it easy, nor that we don't know what hard times in life are like - both my wife and I started with nothing.
Twat.
I'm sorry to hear about those problems. But you do have it easier than others, as you have money. Money helps massively, as we ourselves know from experience.
If you started with nothing, you would understand what it is like not being able to food on the table. What it is like having to live day-by-day, rather than being able to have the luxury of saving. And you might contemplate what minor issue - illness, accident, a failed relationship, whatever - would have changed you from the success you are today to a failure.
A friend of mine was from a coal-mining family and was the first in her family to go to university. She is as bright as a button. Whilst she was there, she got struck down with ME and another complication. Getting her degree nearly killed her, and she has been bedridden ever since. Living off the state. That could have been me. It could have been you.
There would be no safety net in Casinoworld. Now that is fair enough if one is so inclined, but not for me. I think it an outrage that after six months of a LABOUR government ex servicemen with PTSD are still living in tents under Westminster Bridge.
Er, no. I haven't argued for that, so please don't put words in my mouth. False binaries are a stupid way of conducting political debate.
Several things can be true at once: yes, "there but for the grace of God go I", is one and it also the case that we are spending far too much money on welfare and have reached the limits of taxation, which is now suppressing growth and public funds, not growing it.
We can all find powerful personal stories that illicit empathy and sympathy, as we can the other way, and these can and will fall either side of whatever line is drawn, but we are spending far too much on incapacity benefits, pensions and, I think, health and that is where I'd look to make major savings. I'd spend more on education and defence. And I'd create a competitive tax regime that encourages growth.
The comments on this thread and the likes they've got just go to show how politically difficult that will be but that's got to be done. Some seem to think that those that are earning more than them must be undeserving of it, and are on the take at their expense, and give the impression they'd far rather cut them down to size than actually tax them at a rate that would maximise growth - which must be done to afford any of the things you care about.
There will be no safety net if the country goes insolvent.
How can the country go insolvent? Our debt is issued in a currency which we control. We cannot run out of pounds as we can print them to repay the debt. And don't say "we can't" because we can and already do.
We can run out of people willing to lend us more money at a price we want to pay, but that is a long way from insolvency.
And there we have the economic literacy of the Liberal Democrats, ladies and gentlemen.
Whose government vastly inflated the national debt with nothing concrete to show for it?
It was yours wasn't it?
And even then, our vast debts are minimal on the scale of previous debts held by this country or debts vs GDP of other countries. We're not about to go bust no matter how many times Tories accuse Labour of making it imminent. Our borrowing costs remain very low by global standards.
Besides, a third of our debt is owed to the Bank of England. Which we own. We're paying a lot of interest payments to ourselves. Its paper dollars. The proper debate should be how we are so wasteful with what we spend and how we spend it. What is the point in simultaneously tipping record amounts of cash into an NHS which is starved of cash at the point of delivery? We're spending money on all the wrong things.
I'll let the cavalier attitude to debt and inflation pass for now.
We are trying to have that debate.
What, pray, do you think are the wrong things we are spending money on ?
The list under the Johnson regime was f*****' enormous, not least the eye watering cost of imposing economic sanctions on ourselves after a faulty plebiscite in 2016.
"A faulty plebiscite".
Jesus.
Well, obviously it was faulty. The People got the answer wrong.
In answer to the question posed in the header, I think it highly unlikely Starmer will sack Reeves.
The proximate reason for high bond yield prices now is the same as for Liz Truss: the market doesn't believe future tax revenues will cover future expenditure requirements.
There's a huge political difference between the two however. In Truss case she didn't see why revenues need to cover expenditure. In Reeves case it's because the market believes it will be politically difficult to either increase taxes or reduce expenditure to balance the books, and both will negatively affect growth. Replacing Reeves doesn't remove that dilemma.
Your last sentence hits the nail on the head
It doesn't matter who is COE we have run out of money, room to tax or borrow, so austerity is inevitable
The problem for Labour is it goes against everything they stand for and is politically toxic
Austerity isn't inevitable, and there's plenty of room to raise taxes, even without going yet again to the well of earned incomes (which they so stupidly did with the NI hike, which will be paid for yet again by employees in the form of redundancies and wage suppression and not by the shareholders, of course.)
They should, for example, clobber asset wealth (especially residential property,) shore up the social care sector and local government finances now rather than dicking about with the millionth long-winded review, and reduce future liabilities by abolishing the Triple Lock immediately and pegging the state pension to wages. These things are perfectly possible. To soldier on with, very largely, the same old attitudes is a choice, not an obligation.
Lots of talk on TwiX now about the millionaires and non Doms fleeing the UK. At a time of great impoverishment the Labour government has contrived to frighten away the most important part of our tax base, and told them btw private schools will be slowly abolished via taxes
It’s all adding up. All these allegedly small things are adding up to a looming and desperate collision with reality. Even as we allow in millions of migrants who will be a net drain on the treasury, house thousands of asylum seekers in the savoy at billions a year, and pay Tanzania forty trillion quid to take control of Cornwall
It’s coming. A crash
Brace
As always 'More or Less' is your friend. When you were spouting this awhile ago More or Less debunked it. Who to believe, some nutters on twitter or people who analyse the data properly. It appears the definition of millionaire and sample selection were, how can we put it, bollocks.
Are you seriously disputing that rich people are leaving the UK? Every metric shows they are and in number
COUTTS LONDON PRIME PROPERTY INDEX Q3 2024: PRICES DROP AND BUYERS GET BIGGER DISCOUNTS
Our latest research on luxury London property shows prices falling, average discounts close to 9% and almost 80% of sales coming in below asking price.
Nope I'm not. Just pointing out that last time you did this by quoting a survey you saw somewhere it turned out to be complete bollocks. I know you think you are always right, but you seem to have a very short memory and a very poor source of your data.
If it helps I can give you personal experience instead of surveys - over the pre Christmas drinks party rounds I met (and I noted the number for work reasons) 22 couples who have already or are in the process of moving here from the UK as an absolute direct result of Labour winning the election last year.
All of these people, all 22 couples were people who had set up successful businesses - not inherited money. They are selling or have sold their UK properties, stopped paying staff, stopped buying luxury goods and cars in the UK. Will not be setting up new business or employing people in the UK for the foreseeable future, not paying any more taxes to the UK.
This is one small place - just think how many are going to larger places such as Switzerland, Dubai etc.
I’m sure there will be people who say “good riddance” but remember the new car they bought each year covered an essential salary from the VAT. The shops they shopped in need fewer staff with fewer customers. Their gardeners and housekeepers will find fewer hours to work.
I’ve said it before - I do not rejoice in this, it’s not necessarily good for where I live but it’s worse for the UK which I love.
So ideologically sticking it to the rich will prove to be a stupid act of self harm.
It is a shame they're going. But I also fear there's very little we can do to help people who are so utterly selfish.
Or perhaps you/we are?
I'd certainly think so if someone demanded all my money whilst I took all the risk and did all the work.
Nah. I've not demanded all your money. Far from. But from what I see, you live a good life. Others, who work harder than you, and take many more risks, are much less rewarded.
I want to reward those who work hard, and also those who take risks (e.g. in starting up businesses). But that has to be tempered by the fact you also live in society. If you take risks and fail - as can happen if it is a genuine risk - then you should not be left destitute.
And an awful lot of people earn money with very little risk - in both the private and public sector.
If, heaven forfend, you are taken ill, then you would want the doctors and nurses who look after you not to be overworked and to have access to all the equipment you need? Why should the binmen who are out collecting our bins this morning not get paid well for work I wouldn't want to do? How about a careworker I know who just told me he got threatened by an elderly patient, and the police had to be called?
We live in a society, and that society needs to work as a whole. We are not islands.
Yeah, but this is motherhood and apple pie stuff and you could use it to defend any level of tax. In fact, you just have. Because you're using it as an argument to pay tax - period - and not acknowledging there's a limit. What it comes down to is resentment that some people earn more than you, and you want some of it.
When you tax people at 60%+ for stressful jobs, that involve a lot of stress, professional and personal risk (no-one gets paid a good salary for a simple job just about anyone can do) then at some point they will say, fuck it.
You will have no recourse to criticise them.
No, is it resentment. I'm perfectly happy with people earning more than we do as a family. Incredibly relaxed. I've said so many times in the past. I want work rewarded - at the low as well as the top end. And there's big problems with both of these at the moment.
But I also understand that we live in a society, and are part of that society. Without money, that society falls apart - including the bits you rely on. So it becomes a question of where to balance that. And sadly, that balance is currently set so the country is in debt.
If you want stress, I might suggest you try not having enough money to get food on the table for your family, or not enough to pay rent to keep the roof over your head. To have two kids, one of whom has Down's Syndrome. to have a spouse with cancer, and finding it hard to get the bus fare to the hospital (only to find the appointment has been cancelled...)
Yeah, fuck off JJ. I have plenty of my stress in my life, including a brother in law who died of cancer. And my wife nearly died during childbirth.
I don't need twats like you telling me we have it easy, nor that we don't know what hard times in life are like - both my wife and I started with nothing.
Twat.
I'm sorry to hear about those problems. But you do have it easier than others, as you have money. Money helps massively, as we ourselves know from experience.
If you started with nothing, you would understand what it is like not being able to food on the table. What it is like having to live day-by-day, rather than being able to have the luxury of saving. And you might contemplate what minor issue - illness, accident, a failed relationship, whatever - would have changed you from the success you are today to a failure.
A friend of mine was from a coal-mining family and was the first in her family to go to university. She is as bright as a button. Whilst she was there, she got struck down with ME and another complication. Getting her degree nearly killed her, and she has been bedridden ever since. Living off the state. That could have been me. It could have been you.
There would be no safety net in Casinoworld. Now that is fair enough if one is so inclined, but not for me. I think it an outrage that after six months of a LABOUR government ex servicemen with PTSD are still living in tents under Westminster Bridge.
Er, no. I haven't argued for that, so please don't put words in my mouth. False binaries are a stupid way of conducting political debate.
Several things can be true at once: yes, "there but for the grace of God go I", is one and it also the case that we are spending far too much money on welfare and have reached the limits of taxation, which is now suppressing growth and public funds, not growing it.
We can all find powerful personal stories that illicit empathy and sympathy, as we can the other way, and these can and will fall either side of whatever line is drawn, but we are spending far too much on incapacity benefits, pensions and, I think, health and that is where I'd look to make major savings. I'd spend more on education and defence. And I'd create a competitive tax regime that encourages growth.
The comments on this thread and the likes they've got just go to show how politically difficult that will be but that's got to be done. Some seem to think that those that are earning more than them must be undeserving of it, and are on the take at their expense, and give the impression they'd far rather cut them down to size than actually tax them at a rate that would maximise growth - which must be done to afford any of the things you care about.
There will be no safety net if the country goes insolvent.
How can the country go insolvent? Our debt is issued in a currency which we control. We cannot run out of pounds as we can print them to repay the debt. And don't say "we can't" because we can and already do.
We can run out of people willing to lend us more money at a price we want to pay, but that is a long way from insolvency.
Funnily enough, I'm just reading a book on MMT, called the Deficit Myth, which argues exactly this. I though it'd be useful to understand MMT before criticising it.
Blimey, it's superficial. It runs to 260 pages but can be summed up as 'free lunches all round. And then dinner, breakfast, supper and tea too'.
Yes, we can print our own money. Yes, the government can oblige its creditors to take it. None of this stops inflation from happening when more money chases the same amount of goods and services. And inflation is the inevitable consequence of such a policy, as has been demonstrated many times through history, as well as in the famous identity MV≡PY (which the author doesn't even bother to reference, never mind refute).
In reality, many currencies across time have been depreciated into worthlessness by excessive printing, which is why some countries either peg their currency to another or use that other one outright - because that gave the only acceptable assurance that the money in people's hands meant anything.
Money is simply a means of exchange. Printing more of it does not make us richer overall; it just dilutes what's already there.
The better MMT economists are very keen on pointing out that the limit on government expenditure in a fiat economy is not taxes or bond sales but /inflation/. You can (and possibly should) print as much as you like /until/ inflation starts kicking in.
The reality is that an awful lot of the time, that means you can’t print at all - this obstinate fact often seems to be glossed over by the more naïve MMT types & their hangers on. There’s no economic benefit to printing if all that happens is an immediate countervailing inflation in the price level, which may well be the condition the UK economy is in right now.
Inflation is bad because it penalises thrifty savers who store their savings in cash. But in cases like we have now, with many wealthy elderly retired savers and many poor younger working people, inflation acts as a transfer of wealth from elderly to younger as the younger wage goes up and the older savings are worth less. This achieves a rebalancing. It also reduces Government debt by inflating it away.
OTOH that's how the present retired elderly managed to afford their nice houses in the first place! Because of the inflation of the 1970s onwards.
Lots of talk on TwiX now about the millionaires and non Doms fleeing the UK. At a time of great impoverishment the Labour government has contrived to frighten away the most important part of our tax base, and told them btw private schools will be slowly abolished via taxes
It’s all adding up. All these allegedly small things are adding up to a looming and desperate collision with reality. Even as we allow in millions of migrants who will be a net drain on the treasury, house thousands of asylum seekers in the savoy at billions a year, and pay Tanzania forty trillion quid to take control of Cornwall
It’s coming. A crash
Brace
As always 'More or Less' is your friend. When you were spouting this awhile ago More or Less debunked it. Who to believe, some nutters on twitter or people who analyse the data properly. It appears the definition of millionaire and sample selection were, how can we put it, bollocks.
Are you seriously disputing that rich people are leaving the UK? Every metric shows they are and in number
COUTTS LONDON PRIME PROPERTY INDEX Q3 2024: PRICES DROP AND BUYERS GET BIGGER DISCOUNTS
Our latest research on luxury London property shows prices falling, average discounts close to 9% and almost 80% of sales coming in below asking price.
Nope I'm not. Just pointing out that last time you did this by quoting a survey you saw somewhere it turned out to be complete bollocks. I know you think you are always right, but you seem to have a very short memory and a very poor source of your data.
If it helps I can give you personal experience instead of surveys - over the pre Christmas drinks party rounds I met (and I noted the number for work reasons) 22 couples who have already or are in the process of moving here from the UK as an absolute direct result of Labour winning the election last year.
All of these people, all 22 couples were people who had set up successful businesses - not inherited money. They are selling or have sold their UK properties, stopped paying staff, stopped buying luxury goods and cars in the UK. Will not be setting up new business or employing people in the UK for the foreseeable future, not paying any more taxes to the UK.
This is one small place - just think how many are going to larger places such as Switzerland, Dubai etc.
I’m sure there will be people who say “good riddance” but remember the new car they bought each year covered an essential salary from the VAT. The shops they shopped in need fewer staff with fewer customers. Their gardeners and housekeepers will find fewer hours to work.
I’ve said it before - I do not rejoice in this, it’s not necessarily good for where I live but it’s worse for the UK which I love.
So ideologically sticking it to the rich will prove to be a stupid act of self harm.
It is a shame they're going. But I also fear there's very little we can do to help people who are so utterly selfish.
Or perhaps you/we are?
I'd certainly think so if someone demanded all my money whilst I took all the risk and did all the work.
Nah. I've not demanded all your money. Far from. But from what I see, you live a good life. Others, who work harder than you, and take many more risks, are much less rewarded.
I want to reward those who work hard, and also those who take risks (e.g. in starting up businesses). But that has to be tempered by the fact you also live in society. If you take risks and fail - as can happen if it is a genuine risk - then you should not be left destitute.
And an awful lot of people earn money with very little risk - in both the private and public sector.
If, heaven forfend, you are taken ill, then you would want the doctors and nurses who look after you not to be overworked and to have access to all the equipment you need? Why should the binmen who are out collecting our bins this morning not get paid well for work I wouldn't want to do? How about a careworker I know who just told me he got threatened by an elderly patient, and the police had to be called?
We live in a society, and that society needs to work as a whole. We are not islands.
Yeah, but this is motherhood and apple pie stuff and you could use it to defend any level of tax. In fact, you just have. Because you're using it as an argument to pay tax - period - and not acknowledging there's a limit. What it comes down to is resentment that some people earn more than you, and you want some of it.
When you tax people at 60%+ for stressful jobs, that involve a lot of stress, professional and personal risk (no-one gets paid a good salary for a simple job just about anyone can do) then at some point they will say, fuck it.
You will have no recourse to criticise them.
No, is it resentment. I'm perfectly happy with people earning more than we do as a family. Incredibly relaxed. I've said so many times in the past. I want work rewarded - at the low as well as the top end. And there's big problems with both of these at the moment.
But I also understand that we live in a society, and are part of that society. Without money, that society falls apart - including the bits you rely on. So it becomes a question of where to balance that. And sadly, that balance is currently set so the country is in debt.
If you want stress, I might suggest you try not having enough money to get food on the table for your family, or not enough to pay rent to keep the roof over your head. To have two kids, one of whom has Down's Syndrome. to have a spouse with cancer, and finding it hard to get the bus fare to the hospital (only to find the appointment has been cancelled...)
Yeah, fuck off JJ. I have plenty of my stress in my life, including a brother in law who died of cancer. And my wife nearly died during childbirth.
I don't need twats like you telling me we have it easy, nor that we don't know what hard times in life are like - both my wife and I started with nothing.
Twat.
I'm sorry to hear about those problems. But you do have it easier than others, as you have money. Money helps massively, as we ourselves know from experience.
If you started with nothing, you would understand what it is like not being able to food on the table. What it is like having to live day-by-day, rather than being able to have the luxury of saving. And you might contemplate what minor issue - illness, accident, a failed relationship, whatever - would have changed you from the success you are today to a failure.
A friend of mine was from a coal-mining family and was the first in her family to go to university. She is as bright as a button. Whilst she was there, she got struck down with ME and another complication. Getting her degree nearly killed her, and she has been bedridden ever since. Living off the state. That could have been me. It could have been you.
There would be no safety net in Casinoworld. Now that is fair enough if one is so inclined, but not for me. I think it an outrage that after six months of a LABOUR government ex servicemen with PTSD are still living in tents under Westminster Bridge.
Er, no. I haven't argued for that, so please don't put words in my mouth. False binaries are a stupid way of conducting political debate.
Several things can be true at once: yes, "there but for the grace of God go I", is one and it also the case that we are spending far too much money on welfare and have reached the limits of taxation, which is now suppressing growth and public funds, not growing it.
We can all find powerful personal stories that illicit empathy and sympathy, as we can the other way, and these can and will fall either side of whatever line is drawn, but we are spending far too much on incapacity benefits, pensions and, I think, health and that is where I'd look to make major savings. I'd spend more on education and defence. And I'd create a competitive tax regime that encourages growth.
The comments on this thread and the likes they've got just go to show how politically difficult that will be but that's got to be done. Some seem to think that those that are earning more than them must be undeserving of it, and are on the take at their expense, and give the impression they'd far rather cut them down to size than actually tax them at a rate that would maximise growth - which must be done to afford any of the things you care about.
There will be no safety net if the country goes insolvent.
How can the country go insolvent? Our debt is issued in a currency which we control. We cannot run out of pounds as we can print them to repay the debt. And don't say "we can't" because we can and already do.
We can run out of people willing to lend us more money at a price we want to pay, but that is a long way from insolvency.
And there we have the economic literacy of the Liberal Democrats, ladies and gentlemen.
Whose government vastly inflated the national debt with nothing concrete to show for it?
It was yours wasn't it?
And even then, our vast debts are minimal on the scale of previous debts held by this country or debts vs GDP of other countries. We're not about to go bust no matter how many times Tories accuse Labour of making it imminent. Our borrowing costs remain very low by global standards.
Besides, a third of our debt is owed to the Bank of England. Which we own. We're paying a lot of interest payments to ourselves. Its paper dollars. The proper debate should be how we are so wasteful with what we spend and how we spend it. What is the point in simultaneously tipping record amounts of cash into an NHS which is starved of cash at the point of delivery? We're spending money on all the wrong things.
I'll let the cavalier attitude to debt and inflation pass for now.
We are trying to have that debate.
What, pray, do you think are the wrong things we are spending money on ?
The list under the Johnson regime was f*****' enormous, not least the eye watering cost of imposing economic sanctions on ourselves after a faulty plebiscite in 2016.
"A faulty plebiscite".
Jesus.
No, Brexit!
If Brexit were all that were required to balance the books (it isn't, and it's a distraction) then I'm stumped as to why Alastair Darling and George Osborne had to do so much tax raising and cutting of spending between 2008 to 2016.
I think Byrne and Osborne just did it, for shit and giggles.
The big economies of the EU seem to me, to have similar problems with low economic growth, to ours.
The late Gerald Ford's son is reading out his eulogy to Carter he would have given had he still been alive, quite touching about unity across the partisan divide, needed more than ever now in the USA
You are going to have to wait awhile after Orange Diapers won the election.
Indeed, albeit Trump is also in the congregation though seems to be taking the opportunity to have a nap (as indeed does Biden)
Lots of talk on TwiX now about the millionaires and non Doms fleeing the UK. At a time of great impoverishment the Labour government has contrived to frighten away the most important part of our tax base, and told them btw private schools will be slowly abolished via taxes
It’s all adding up. All these allegedly small things are adding up to a looming and desperate collision with reality. Even as we allow in millions of migrants who will be a net drain on the treasury, house thousands of asylum seekers in the savoy at billions a year, and pay Tanzania forty trillion quid to take control of Cornwall
It’s coming. A crash
Brace
As always 'More or Less' is your friend. When you were spouting this awhile ago More or Less debunked it. Who to believe, some nutters on twitter or people who analyse the data properly. It appears the definition of millionaire and sample selection were, how can we put it, bollocks.
Are you seriously disputing that rich people are leaving the UK? Every metric shows they are and in number
COUTTS LONDON PRIME PROPERTY INDEX Q3 2024: PRICES DROP AND BUYERS GET BIGGER DISCOUNTS
Our latest research on luxury London property shows prices falling, average discounts close to 9% and almost 80% of sales coming in below asking price.
Nope I'm not. Just pointing out that last time you did this by quoting a survey you saw somewhere it turned out to be complete bollocks. I know you think you are always right, but you seem to have a very short memory and a very poor source of your data.
If it helps I can give you personal experience instead of surveys - over the pre Christmas drinks party rounds I met (and I noted the number for work reasons) 22 couples who have already or are in the process of moving here from the UK as an absolute direct result of Labour winning the election last year.
All of these people, all 22 couples were people who had set up successful businesses - not inherited money. They are selling or have sold their UK properties, stopped paying staff, stopped buying luxury goods and cars in the UK. Will not be setting up new business or employing people in the UK for the foreseeable future, not paying any more taxes to the UK.
This is one small place - just think how many are going to larger places such as Switzerland, Dubai etc.
I’m sure there will be people who say “good riddance” but remember the new car they bought each year covered an essential salary from the VAT. The shops they shopped in need fewer staff with fewer customers. Their gardeners and housekeepers will find fewer hours to work.
I’ve said it before - I do not rejoice in this, it’s not necessarily good for where I live but it’s worse for the UK which I love.
So ideologically sticking it to the rich will prove to be a stupid act of self harm.
It is a shame they're going. But I also fear there's very little we can do to help people who are so utterly selfish.
Or perhaps you/we are?
I'd certainly think so if someone demanded all my money whilst I took all the risk and did all the work.
Nah. I've not demanded all your money. Far from. But from what I see, you live a good life. Others, who work harder than you, and take many more risks, are much less rewarded.
I want to reward those who work hard, and also those who take risks (e.g. in starting up businesses). But that has to be tempered by the fact you also live in society. If you take risks and fail - as can happen if it is a genuine risk - then you should not be left destitute.
And an awful lot of people earn money with very little risk - in both the private and public sector.
If, heaven forfend, you are taken ill, then you would want the doctors and nurses who look after you not to be overworked and to have access to all the equipment you need? Why should the binmen who are out collecting our bins this morning not get paid well for work I wouldn't want to do? How about a careworker I know who just told me he got threatened by an elderly patient, and the police had to be called?
We live in a society, and that society needs to work as a whole. We are not islands.
Yeah, but this is motherhood and apple pie stuff and you could use it to defend any level of tax. In fact, you just have. Because you're using it as an argument to pay tax - period - and not acknowledging there's a limit. What it comes down to is resentment that some people earn more than you, and you want some of it.
When you tax people at 60%+ for stressful jobs, that involve a lot of stress, professional and personal risk (no-one gets paid a good salary for a simple job just about anyone can do) then at some point they will say, fuck it.
You will have no recourse to criticise them.
No, is it resentment. I'm perfectly happy with people earning more than we do as a family. Incredibly relaxed. I've said so many times in the past. I want work rewarded - at the low as well as the top end. And there's big problems with both of these at the moment.
But I also understand that we live in a society, and are part of that society. Without money, that society falls apart - including the bits you rely on. So it becomes a question of where to balance that. And sadly, that balance is currently set so the country is in debt.
If you want stress, I might suggest you try not having enough money to get food on the table for your family, or not enough to pay rent to keep the roof over your head. To have two kids, one of whom has Down's Syndrome. to have a spouse with cancer, and finding it hard to get the bus fare to the hospital (only to find the appointment has been cancelled...)
Yeah, fuck off JJ. I have plenty of my stress in my life, including a brother in law who died of cancer. And my wife nearly died during childbirth.
I don't need twats like you telling me we have it easy, nor that we don't know what hard times in life are like - both my wife and I started with nothing.
Twat.
I'm sorry to hear about those problems. But you do have it easier than others, as you have money. Money helps massively, as we ourselves know from experience.
If you started with nothing, you would understand what it is like not being able to food on the table. What it is like having to live day-by-day, rather than being able to have the luxury of saving. And you might contemplate what minor issue - illness, accident, a failed relationship, whatever - would have changed you from the success you are today to a failure.
A friend of mine was from a coal-mining family and was the first in her family to go to university. She is as bright as a button. Whilst she was there, she got struck down with ME and another complication. Getting her degree nearly killed her, and she has been bedridden ever since. Living off the state. That could have been me. It could have been you.
There would be no safety net in Casinoworld. Now that is fair enough if one is so inclined, but not for me. I think it an outrage that after six months of a LABOUR government ex servicemen with PTSD are still living in tents under Westminster Bridge.
Er, no. I haven't argued for that, so please don't put words in my mouth. False binaries are a stupid way of conducting political debate.
Several things can be true at once: yes, "there but for the grace of God go I", is one and it also the case that we are spending far too much money on welfare and have reached the limits of taxation, which is now suppressing growth and public funds, not growing it.
We can all find powerful personal stories that illicit empathy and sympathy, as we can the other way, and these can and will fall either side of whatever line is drawn, but we are spending far too much on incapacity benefits, pensions and, I think, health and that is where I'd look to make major savings. I'd spend more on education and defence. And I'd create a competitive tax regime that encourages growth.
The comments on this thread and the likes they've got just go to show how politically difficult that will be but that's got to be done. Some seem to think that those that are earning more than them must be undeserving of it, and are on the take at their expense, and give the impression they'd far rather cut them down to size than actually tax them at a rate that would maximise growth - which must be done to afford any of the things you care about.
There will be no safety net if the country goes insolvent.
How can the country go insolvent? Our debt is issued in a currency which we control. We cannot run out of pounds as we can print them to repay the debt. And don't say "we can't" because we can and already do.
We can run out of people willing to lend us more money at a price we want to pay, but that is a long way from insolvency.
And there we have the economic literacy of the Liberal Democrats, ladies and gentlemen.
Whose government vastly inflated the national debt with nothing concrete to show for it?
It was yours wasn't it?
And even then, our vast debts are minimal on the scale of previous debts held by this country or debts vs GDP of other countries. We're not about to go bust no matter how many times Tories accuse Labour of making it imminent. Our borrowing costs remain very low by global standards.
Besides, a third of our debt is owed to the Bank of England. Which we own. We're paying a lot of interest payments to ourselves. Its paper dollars. The proper debate should be how we are so wasteful with what we spend and how we spend it. What is the point in simultaneously tipping record amounts of cash into an NHS which is starved of cash at the point of delivery? We're spending money on all the wrong things.
I'll let the cavalier attitude to debt and inflation pass for now.
We are trying to have that debate.
What, pray, do you think are the wrong things we are spending money on ?
The list under the Johnson regime was f*****' enormous, not least the eye watering cost of imposing economic sanctions on ourselves after a faulty plebiscite in 2016.
"A faulty plebiscite".
Jesus.
Well, obviously it was faulty. The People got the answer wrong.
Indeed. Glad to have you aboard.
Good to see that some people haven't learnt The Lesson of Democracy.
Lots of talk on TwiX now about the millionaires and non Doms fleeing the UK. At a time of great impoverishment the Labour government has contrived to frighten away the most important part of our tax base, and told them btw private schools will be slowly abolished via taxes
It’s all adding up. All these allegedly small things are adding up to a looming and desperate collision with reality. Even as we allow in millions of migrants who will be a net drain on the treasury, house thousands of asylum seekers in the savoy at billions a year, and pay Tanzania forty trillion quid to take control of Cornwall
It’s coming. A crash
Brace
As always 'More or Less' is your friend. When you were spouting this awhile ago More or Less debunked it. Who to believe, some nutters on twitter or people who analyse the data properly. It appears the definition of millionaire and sample selection were, how can we put it, bollocks.
Are you seriously disputing that rich people are leaving the UK? Every metric shows they are and in number
COUTTS LONDON PRIME PROPERTY INDEX Q3 2024: PRICES DROP AND BUYERS GET BIGGER DISCOUNTS
Our latest research on luxury London property shows prices falling, average discounts close to 9% and almost 80% of sales coming in below asking price.
Nope I'm not. Just pointing out that last time you did this by quoting a survey you saw somewhere it turned out to be complete bollocks. I know you think you are always right, but you seem to have a very short memory and a very poor source of your data.
If it helps I can give you personal experience instead of surveys - over the pre Christmas drinks party rounds I met (and I noted the number for work reasons) 22 couples who have already or are in the process of moving here from the UK as an absolute direct result of Labour winning the election last year.
All of these people, all 22 couples were people who had set up successful businesses - not inherited money. They are selling or have sold their UK properties, stopped paying staff, stopped buying luxury goods and cars in the UK. Will not be setting up new business or employing people in the UK for the foreseeable future, not paying any more taxes to the UK.
This is one small place - just think how many are going to larger places such as Switzerland, Dubai etc.
I’m sure there will be people who say “good riddance” but remember the new car they bought each year covered an essential salary from the VAT. The shops they shopped in need fewer staff with fewer customers. Their gardeners and housekeepers will find fewer hours to work.
I’ve said it before - I do not rejoice in this, it’s not necessarily good for where I live but it’s worse for the UK which I love.
So ideologically sticking it to the rich will prove to be a stupid act of self harm.
It is a shame they're going. But I also fear there's very little we can do to help people who are so utterly selfish.
It's interesting that some people like the half the idea of Global Britain - easy to come here and work. But the corollary to that is that people find it easier to leave.
Take one bloke in my team. Indian, first generation immigrant. Got wife and baby, no school as yet. Been in the country about 6 years. Why shouldn't he move to Berlin, or wherever?
He looks at what he is paying in taxes and what he gets for it. And is not impressed. Transactional, maybe. But why should he think differently?
I agree. Mrs J is in that situation. She could be earning more in Turkey - or the USA - than here. But we don't move. Why? Partly the reasons she moved to this country in the first place, and partly because the UK is still a good place to live on a moderate income.
Others disagree. But the country needs more money to fix problems it has. Austerity - which I was in favour of - has been tried, and probably went too far. So how else do we get the money? There is no magic money tree.
Isn’t this attitude from you and Mrs J selfish? Mrs J could earn more and contribute more in taxes to the country that nurtured her but instead she has upped sticks to another country for reasons she has decided are better for her rather than society in general?
And frankly if you worked a bit harder you could contribute more in taxes to the UK but instead you rather selfishly have decided to balance your work and life to suit the needs of your family?
I think it’s perfectly fair and correct that you and Mrs J have chosen your residence to suit your priorities over the needs of a country as a whole.
Lots of talk on TwiX now about the millionaires and non Doms fleeing the UK. At a time of great impoverishment the Labour government has contrived to frighten away the most important part of our tax base, and told them btw private schools will be slowly abolished via taxes
It’s all adding up. All these allegedly small things are adding up to a looming and desperate collision with reality. Even as we allow in millions of migrants who will be a net drain on the treasury, house thousands of asylum seekers in the savoy at billions a year, and pay Tanzania forty trillion quid to take control of Cornwall
It’s coming. A crash
Brace
As always 'More or Less' is your friend. When you were spouting this awhile ago More or Less debunked it. Who to believe, some nutters on twitter or people who analyse the data properly. It appears the definition of millionaire and sample selection were, how can we put it, bollocks.
Are you seriously disputing that rich people are leaving the UK? Every metric shows they are and in number
COUTTS LONDON PRIME PROPERTY INDEX Q3 2024: PRICES DROP AND BUYERS GET BIGGER DISCOUNTS
Our latest research on luxury London property shows prices falling, average discounts close to 9% and almost 80% of sales coming in below asking price.
Nope I'm not. Just pointing out that last time you did this by quoting a survey you saw somewhere it turned out to be complete bollocks. I know you think you are always right, but you seem to have a very short memory and a very poor source of your data.
If it helps I can give you personal experience instead of surveys - over the pre Christmas drinks party rounds I met (and I noted the number for work reasons) 22 couples who have already or are in the process of moving here from the UK as an absolute direct result of Labour winning the election last year.
All of these people, all 22 couples were people who had set up successful businesses - not inherited money. They are selling or have sold their UK properties, stopped paying staff, stopped buying luxury goods and cars in the UK. Will not be setting up new business or employing people in the UK for the foreseeable future, not paying any more taxes to the UK.
This is one small place - just think how many are going to larger places such as Switzerland, Dubai etc.
I’m sure there will be people who say “good riddance” but remember the new car they bought each year covered an essential salary from the VAT. The shops they shopped in need fewer staff with fewer customers. Their gardeners and housekeepers will find fewer hours to work.
I’ve said it before - I do not rejoice in this, it’s not necessarily good for where I live but it’s worse for the UK which I love.
So ideologically sticking it to the rich will prove to be a stupid act of self harm.
It is a shame they're going. But I also fear there's very little we can do to help people who are so utterly selfish.
It's interesting that some people like the half the idea of Global Britain - easy to come here and work. But the corollary to that is that people find it easier to leave.
Take one bloke in my team. Indian, first generation immigrant. Got wife and baby, no school as yet. Been in the country about 6 years. Why shouldn't he move to Berlin, or wherever?
He looks at what he is paying in taxes and what he gets for it. And is not impressed. Transactional, maybe. But why should he think differently?
I agree. Mrs J is in that situation. She could be earning more in Turkey - or the USA - than here. But we don't move. Why? Partly the reasons she moved to this country in the first place, and partly because the UK is still a good place to live on a moderate income.
Others disagree. But the country needs more money to fix problems it has. Austerity - which I was in favour of - has been tried, and probably went too far. So how else do we get the money? There is no magic money tree.
Isn’t this attitude from you and Mrs J selfish? Mrs J could earn more and contribute more in taxes to the country that nurtured her but instead she has upped sticks to another country for reasons she has decided are better for her rather than society in general?
And frankly if you worked a bit harder you could contribute more in taxes to the UK but instead you rather selfishly have decided to balance your work and life to suit the needs of your family?
I think it’s perfectly fair and correct that you and Mrs J have chosen your residence to suit your priorities over the needs of a country as a whole.
She had reasons other than money and payment of taxes to come over here: in many ways she would (probably) be earning more over there. And hopefully she has been more than a net benefit to her adopted country.
And yes, you have a point: we are all selfish to a certain degree. I bet, if you dig deep into your soul, you what see selfishness in your good self.
So hopefully you'd agree with my original proposition, that these people are being selfish?
Oh I’m very selfish, I have chosen not to have children as too much effort, I have loose relationships for a few years or friends with benefits so I don’t have to work my life around other people, I’ve prioritised work and it’s rewards and mindless fun - that’s properly selfish.
People arranging their finances and choosing where to live is just being human and sensible not selfish.
Do you say the same about economic migrants coming to the UK? Are they just being human and sensible?
Jessop give your head a wobble. I fear you are turning into a centrist dad.
Centrist Dad isn't a Centrist Dad.
Centrist Dad means someone who's firmly on the centre-left who wants their politics to be seen as entirely middle of the road.
I've always thought it was just a vague insult with no real set morning. People seem to use it in different ways.
But I am a dad, and I do think I'm generally in the centre of politics, so I am probably a 'centrist dad'...
Economically, your arguments demonstrate you to be on the centre-left.
If so, then only because the discourse has shifted. I believe I've generally been centre-right economically, and centre-left socially. Though that varies: look at my support for your position on the ill-considered and ill-meant VAT on school fees.
I'd *love* there to be lower taxes for everyone. But the country is nowhere near a state to allow that, and in fact, quite the opposite. People want more spending - e.g. on defence - but are not willing to spend more on it.
I'm just being realistic.
I'm arguing that taxes on wealth creation need to be reduced to give us growth.
I know that's unfashionable. But I think it's essential to keep us competitive, encourage investment and for people to innovate and take risks that grow the size of the pie.
All very good in theory, but the Duke of Westminster isn't going to finance a battery plant in Cumbernauld. He'll just buy more posh houses in Mayfair.
The Duke of Westminster. Or more likely the trustees who control the estate, might well buy more posh houses in Mayfair if they are a sound investment for the future. They might however choose to finance a battery plant in Cumbernauld if it’s a good investment.
The Duke of Westminster doesn’t sit there buying houses for jollies, the family money is buying things that will benefit generations of the family.
Lots of talk on TwiX now about the millionaires and non Doms fleeing the UK. At a time of great impoverishment the Labour government has contrived to frighten away the most important part of our tax base, and told them btw private schools will be slowly abolished via taxes
It’s all adding up. All these allegedly small things are adding up to a looming and desperate collision with reality. Even as we allow in millions of migrants who will be a net drain on the treasury, house thousands of asylum seekers in the savoy at billions a year, and pay Tanzania forty trillion quid to take control of Cornwall
It’s coming. A crash
Brace
As always 'More or Less' is your friend. When you were spouting this awhile ago More or Less debunked it. Who to believe, some nutters on twitter or people who analyse the data properly. It appears the definition of millionaire and sample selection were, how can we put it, bollocks.
Are you seriously disputing that rich people are leaving the UK? Every metric shows they are and in number
COUTTS LONDON PRIME PROPERTY INDEX Q3 2024: PRICES DROP AND BUYERS GET BIGGER DISCOUNTS
Our latest research on luxury London property shows prices falling, average discounts close to 9% and almost 80% of sales coming in below asking price.
Nope I'm not. Just pointing out that last time you did this by quoting a survey you saw somewhere it turned out to be complete bollocks. I know you think you are always right, but you seem to have a very short memory and a very poor source of your data.
If it helps I can give you personal experience instead of surveys - over the pre Christmas drinks party rounds I met (and I noted the number for work reasons) 22 couples who have already or are in the process of moving here from the UK as an absolute direct result of Labour winning the election last year.
All of these people, all 22 couples were people who had set up successful businesses - not inherited money. They are selling or have sold their UK properties, stopped paying staff, stopped buying luxury goods and cars in the UK. Will not be setting up new business or employing people in the UK for the foreseeable future, not paying any more taxes to the UK.
This is one small place - just think how many are going to larger places such as Switzerland, Dubai etc.
I’m sure there will be people who say “good riddance” but remember the new car they bought each year covered an essential salary from the VAT. The shops they shopped in need fewer staff with fewer customers. Their gardeners and housekeepers will find fewer hours to work.
I’ve said it before - I do not rejoice in this, it’s not necessarily good for where I live but it’s worse for the UK which I love.
So ideologically sticking it to the rich will prove to be a stupid act of self harm.
It is a shame they're going. But I also fear there's very little we can do to help people who are so utterly selfish.
Or perhaps you/we are?
I'd certainly think so if someone demanded all my money whilst I took all the risk and did all the work.
Nah. I've not demanded all your money. Far from. But from what I see, you live a good life. Others, who work harder than you, and take many more risks, are much less rewarded.
I want to reward those who work hard, and also those who take risks (e.g. in starting up businesses). But that has to be tempered by the fact you also live in society. If you take risks and fail - as can happen if it is a genuine risk - then you should not be left destitute.
And an awful lot of people earn money with very little risk - in both the private and public sector.
If, heaven forfend, you are taken ill, then you would want the doctors and nurses who look after you not to be overworked and to have access to all the equipment you need? Why should the binmen who are out collecting our bins this morning not get paid well for work I wouldn't want to do? How about a careworker I know who just told me he got threatened by an elderly patient, and the police had to be called?
We live in a society, and that society needs to work as a whole. We are not islands.
Yeah, but this is motherhood and apple pie stuff and you could use it to defend any level of tax. In fact, you just have. Because you're using it as an argument to pay tax - period - and not acknowledging there's a limit. What it comes down to is resentment that some people earn more than you, and you want some of it.
When you tax people at 60%+ for stressful jobs, that involve a lot of stress, professional and personal risk (no-one gets paid a good salary for a simple job just about anyone can do) then at some point they will say, fuck it.
You will have no recourse to criticise them.
No, is it resentment. I'm perfectly happy with people earning more than we do as a family. Incredibly relaxed. I've said so many times in the past. I want work rewarded - at the low as well as the top end. And there's big problems with both of these at the moment.
But I also understand that we live in a society, and are part of that society. Without money, that society falls apart - including the bits you rely on. So it becomes a question of where to balance that. And sadly, that balance is currently set so the country is in debt.
If you want stress, I might suggest you try not having enough money to get food on the table for your family, or not enough to pay rent to keep the roof over your head. To have two kids, one of whom has Down's Syndrome. to have a spouse with cancer, and finding it hard to get the bus fare to the hospital (only to find the appointment has been cancelled...)
Yeah, fuck off JJ. I have plenty of my stress in my life, including a brother in law who died of cancer. And my wife nearly died during childbirth.
I don't need twats like you telling me we have it easy, nor that we don't know what hard times in life are like - both my wife and I started with nothing.
Twat.
I'm sorry to hear about those problems. But you do have it easier than others, as you have money. Money helps massively, as we ourselves know from experience.
If you started with nothing, you would understand what it is like not being able to food on the table. What it is like having to live day-by-day, rather than being able to have the luxury of saving. And you might contemplate what minor issue - illness, accident, a failed relationship, whatever - would have changed you from the success you are today to a failure.
A friend of mine was from a coal-mining family and was the first in her family to go to university. She is as bright as a button. Whilst she was there, she got struck down with ME and another complication. Getting her degree nearly killed her, and she has been bedridden ever since. Living off the state. That could have been me. It could have been you.
There would be no safety net in Casinoworld. Now that is fair enough if one is so inclined, but not for me. I think it an outrage that after six months of a LABOUR government ex servicemen with PTSD are still living in tents under Westminster Bridge.
Er, no. I haven't argued for that, so please don't put words in my mouth. False binaries are a stupid way of conducting political debate.
Several things can be true at once: yes, "there but for the grace of God go I", is one and it also the case that we are spending far too much money on welfare and have reached the limits of taxation, which is now suppressing growth and public funds, not growing it.
We can all find powerful personal stories that illicit empathy and sympathy, as we can the other way, and these can and will fall either side of whatever line is drawn, but we are spending far too much on incapacity benefits, pensions and, I think, health and that is where I'd look to make major savings. I'd spend more on education and defence. And I'd create a competitive tax regime that encourages growth.
The comments on this thread and the likes they've got just go to show how politically difficult that will be but that's got to be done. Some seem to think that those that are earning more than them must be undeserving of it, and are on the take at their expense, and give the impression they'd far rather cut them down to size than actually tax them at a rate that would maximise growth - which must be done to afford any of the things you care about.
There will be no safety net if the country goes insolvent.
How can the country go insolvent? Our debt is issued in a currency which we control. We cannot run out of pounds as we can print them to repay the debt. And don't say "we can't" because we can and already do.
We can run out of people willing to lend us more money at a price we want to pay, but that is a long way from insolvency.
And there we have the economic literacy of the Liberal Democrats, ladies and gentlemen.
Whose government vastly inflated the national debt with nothing concrete to show for it?
It was yours wasn't it?
And even then, our vast debts are minimal on the scale of previous debts held by this country or debts vs GDP of other countries. We're not about to go bust no matter how many times Tories accuse Labour of making it imminent. Our borrowing costs remain very low by global standards.
Besides, a third of our debt is owed to the Bank of England. Which we own. We're paying a lot of interest payments to ourselves. Its paper dollars. The proper debate should be how we are so wasteful with what we spend and how we spend it. What is the point in simultaneously tipping record amounts of cash into an NHS which is starved of cash at the point of delivery? We're spending money on all the wrong things.
I'll let the cavalier attitude to debt and inflation pass for now.
We are trying to have that debate.
What, pray, do you think are the wrong things we are spending money on ?
The list under the Johnson regime was f*****' enormous, not least the eye watering cost of imposing economic sanctions on ourselves after a faulty plebiscite in 2016.
"A faulty plebiscite".
Jesus.
Well, obviously it was faulty. The People got the answer wrong.
Indeed. Glad to have you aboard.
Good to see that some people haven't learnt The Lesson of Democracy.
Lots of talk on TwiX now about the millionaires and non Doms fleeing the UK. At a time of great impoverishment the Labour government has contrived to frighten away the most important part of our tax base, and told them btw private schools will be slowly abolished via taxes
It’s all adding up. All these allegedly small things are adding up to a looming and desperate collision with reality. Even as we allow in millions of migrants who will be a net drain on the treasury, house thousands of asylum seekers in the savoy at billions a year, and pay Tanzania forty trillion quid to take control of Cornwall
It’s coming. A crash
Brace
As always 'More or Less' is your friend. When you were spouting this awhile ago More or Less debunked it. Who to believe, some nutters on twitter or people who analyse the data properly. It appears the definition of millionaire and sample selection were, how can we put it, bollocks.
Are you seriously disputing that rich people are leaving the UK? Every metric shows they are and in number
COUTTS LONDON PRIME PROPERTY INDEX Q3 2024: PRICES DROP AND BUYERS GET BIGGER DISCOUNTS
Our latest research on luxury London property shows prices falling, average discounts close to 9% and almost 80% of sales coming in below asking price.
Nope I'm not. Just pointing out that last time you did this by quoting a survey you saw somewhere it turned out to be complete bollocks. I know you think you are always right, but you seem to have a very short memory and a very poor source of your data.
If it helps I can give you personal experience instead of surveys - over the pre Christmas drinks party rounds I met (and I noted the number for work reasons) 22 couples who have already or are in the process of moving here from the UK as an absolute direct result of Labour winning the election last year.
All of these people, all 22 couples were people who had set up successful businesses - not inherited money. They are selling or have sold their UK properties, stopped paying staff, stopped buying luxury goods and cars in the UK. Will not be setting up new business or employing people in the UK for the foreseeable future, not paying any more taxes to the UK.
This is one small place - just think how many are going to larger places such as Switzerland, Dubai etc.
I’m sure there will be people who say “good riddance” but remember the new car they bought each year covered an essential salary from the VAT. The shops they shopped in need fewer staff with fewer customers. Their gardeners and housekeepers will find fewer hours to work.
I’ve said it before - I do not rejoice in this, it’s not necessarily good for where I live but it’s worse for the UK which I love.
So ideologically sticking it to the rich will prove to be a stupid act of self harm.
It is a shame they're going. But I also fear there's very little we can do to help people who are so utterly selfish.
Or perhaps you/we are?
I'd certainly think so if someone demanded all my money whilst I took all the risk and did all the work.
Nah. I've not demanded all your money. Far from. But from what I see, you live a good life. Others, who work harder than you, and take many more risks, are much less rewarded.
I want to reward those who work hard, and also those who take risks (e.g. in starting up businesses). But that has to be tempered by the fact you also live in society. If you take risks and fail - as can happen if it is a genuine risk - then you should not be left destitute.
And an awful lot of people earn money with very little risk - in both the private and public sector.
If, heaven forfend, you are taken ill, then you would want the doctors and nurses who look after you not to be overworked and to have access to all the equipment you need? Why should the binmen who are out collecting our bins this morning not get paid well for work I wouldn't want to do? How about a careworker I know who just told me he got threatened by an elderly patient, and the police had to be called?
We live in a society, and that society needs to work as a whole. We are not islands.
Yeah, but this is motherhood and apple pie stuff and you could use it to defend any level of tax. In fact, you just have. Because you're using it as an argument to pay tax - period - and not acknowledging there's a limit. What it comes down to is resentment that some people earn more than you, and you want some of it.
When you tax people at 60%+ for stressful jobs, that involve a lot of stress, professional and personal risk (no-one gets paid a good salary for a simple job just about anyone can do) then at some point they will say, fuck it.
You will have no recourse to criticise them.
No, is it resentment. I'm perfectly happy with people earning more than we do as a family. Incredibly relaxed. I've said so many times in the past. I want work rewarded - at the low as well as the top end. And there's big problems with both of these at the moment.
But I also understand that we live in a society, and are part of that society. Without money, that society falls apart - including the bits you rely on. So it becomes a question of where to balance that. And sadly, that balance is currently set so the country is in debt.
If you want stress, I might suggest you try not having enough money to get food on the table for your family, or not enough to pay rent to keep the roof over your head. To have two kids, one of whom has Down's Syndrome. to have a spouse with cancer, and finding it hard to get the bus fare to the hospital (only to find the appointment has been cancelled...)
Yeah, fuck off JJ. I have plenty of my stress in my life, including a brother in law who died of cancer. And my wife nearly died during childbirth.
I don't need twats like you telling me we have it easy, nor that we don't know what hard times in life are like - both my wife and I started with nothing.
Twat.
I'm sorry to hear about those problems. But you do have it easier than others, as you have money. Money helps massively, as we ourselves know from experience.
If you started with nothing, you would understand what it is like not being able to food on the table. What it is like having to live day-by-day, rather than being able to have the luxury of saving. And you might contemplate what minor issue - illness, accident, a failed relationship, whatever - would have changed you from the success you are today to a failure.
A friend of mine was from a coal-mining family and was the first in her family to go to university. She is as bright as a button. Whilst she was there, she got struck down with ME and another complication. Getting her degree nearly killed her, and she has been bedridden ever since. Living off the state. That could have been me. It could have been you.
There would be no safety net in Casinoworld. Now that is fair enough if one is so inclined, but not for me. I think it an outrage that after six months of a LABOUR government ex servicemen with PTSD are still living in tents under Westminster Bridge.
Er, no. I haven't argued for that, so please don't put words in my mouth. False binaries are a stupid way of conducting political debate.
Several things can be true at once: yes, "there but for the grace of God go I", is one and it also the case that we are spending far too much money on welfare and have reached the limits of taxation, which is now suppressing growth and public funds, not growing it.
We can all find powerful personal stories that illicit empathy and sympathy, as we can the other way, and these can and will fall either side of whatever line is drawn, but we are spending far too much on incapacity benefits, pensions and, I think, health and that is where I'd look to make major savings. I'd spend more on education and defence. And I'd create a competitive tax regime that encourages growth.
The comments on this thread and the likes they've got just go to show how politically difficult that will be but that's got to be done. Some seem to think that those that are earning more than them must be undeserving of it, and are on the take at their expense, and give the impression they'd far rather cut them down to size than actually tax them at a rate that would maximise growth - which must be done to afford any of the things you care about.
There will be no safety net if the country goes insolvent.
How can the country go insolvent? Our debt is issued in a currency which we control. We cannot run out of pounds as we can print them to repay the debt. And don't say "we can't" because we can and already do.
We can run out of people willing to lend us more money at a price we want to pay, but that is a long way from insolvency.
And there we have the economic literacy of the Liberal Democrats, ladies and gentlemen.
Whose government vastly inflated the national debt with nothing concrete to show for it?
It was yours wasn't it?
And even then, our vast debts are minimal on the scale of previous debts held by this country or debts vs GDP of other countries. We're not about to go bust no matter how many times Tories accuse Labour of making it imminent. Our borrowing costs remain very low by global standards.
Besides, a third of our debt is owed to the Bank of England. Which we own. We're paying a lot of interest payments to ourselves. Its paper dollars. The proper debate should be how we are so wasteful with what we spend and how we spend it. What is the point in simultaneously tipping record amounts of cash into an NHS which is starved of cash at the point of delivery? We're spending money on all the wrong things.
I'll let the cavalier attitude to debt and inflation pass for now.
We are trying to have that debate.
What, pray, do you think are the wrong things we are spending money on ?
The list under the Johnson regime was f*****' enormous, not least the eye watering cost of imposing economic sanctions on ourselves after a faulty plebiscite in 2016.
"A faulty plebiscite".
Jesus.
No, Brexit!
If Brexit were all that were required to balance the books (it isn't, and it's a distraction) then I'm stumped as to why Alastair Darling and George Osborne had to do so much tax raising and cutting of spending between 2008 to 2016.
I think Byrne and Osborne just did it, for shit and giggles.
The big economies of the EU seem to me, to have similar problems with low economic growth, to ours.
Byrne was of course #3 in these matters. Brown and Balls were the villains in chief.
In answer to the question posed in the header, I think it highly unlikely Starmer will sack Reeves.
The proximate reason for high bond yield prices now is the same as for Liz Truss: the market doesn't believe future tax revenues will cover future expenditure requirements.
There's a huge political difference between the two however. In Truss case she didn't see why revenues need to cover expenditure. In Reeves case it's because the market believes it will be politically difficult to either increase taxes or reduce expenditure to balance the books, and both will negatively affect growth. Replacing Reeves doesn't remove that dilemma.
Your last sentence hits the nail on the head
It doesn't matter who is COE we have run out of money, room to tax or borrow, so austerity is inevitable
The problem for Labour is it goes against everything they stand for and is politically toxic
If I'd been Labour CoE - I'd have gone for merging NI and Income Tax, simplifying the bands, getting rid of the silly withdrawal of the personal allowance stuff. While doing that, put up tax as part of the redo - given the NI gains from everyone paying NI (in effect), that wouldn't have to be vast.
Sell it as "We need to do this now to save the NHS etc. When things are on an even keel, we can look at reductions. Simpler taxes are easier to collect and cheaper."
I think this would have gone down better, politically, than the budget we had. With the markets (tax in order to spend, save money on a simplified tax system), with the Labour Party (raise taxes for the NHS) and the country at large (brave, upfront about what we need to do).
A massive simplification of tax would be most welcome. Hey, we're the government, and we're raping you. However we've looked at what you do to us - it's about even.
And of course it is.
All income should be flat taxed.
CGT is a problem but could largely be circumvented by a simple declaration framework. (Any time you sell anything you simply have to say what it cost you)
Er.
CGT *starts* with "How much did this cost you originally" and "How much did you sell it for".
The complexity is in the allowances and exclusions.
Lots of talk on TwiX now about the millionaires and non Doms fleeing the UK. At a time of great impoverishment the Labour government has contrived to frighten away the most important part of our tax base, and told them btw private schools will be slowly abolished via taxes
It’s all adding up. All these allegedly small things are adding up to a looming and desperate collision with reality. Even as we allow in millions of migrants who will be a net drain on the treasury, house thousands of asylum seekers in the savoy at billions a year, and pay Tanzania forty trillion quid to take control of Cornwall
It’s coming. A crash
Brace
As always 'More or Less' is your friend. When you were spouting this awhile ago More or Less debunked it. Who to believe, some nutters on twitter or people who analyse the data properly. It appears the definition of millionaire and sample selection were, how can we put it, bollocks.
Are you seriously disputing that rich people are leaving the UK? Every metric shows they are and in number
COUTTS LONDON PRIME PROPERTY INDEX Q3 2024: PRICES DROP AND BUYERS GET BIGGER DISCOUNTS
Our latest research on luxury London property shows prices falling, average discounts close to 9% and almost 80% of sales coming in below asking price.
Nope I'm not. Just pointing out that last time you did this by quoting a survey you saw somewhere it turned out to be complete bollocks. I know you think you are always right, but you seem to have a very short memory and a very poor source of your data.
If it helps I can give you personal experience instead of surveys - over the pre Christmas drinks party rounds I met (and I noted the number for work reasons) 22 couples who have already or are in the process of moving here from the UK as an absolute direct result of Labour winning the election last year.
All of these people, all 22 couples were people who had set up successful businesses - not inherited money. They are selling or have sold their UK properties, stopped paying staff, stopped buying luxury goods and cars in the UK. Will not be setting up new business or employing people in the UK for the foreseeable future, not paying any more taxes to the UK.
This is one small place - just think how many are going to larger places such as Switzerland, Dubai etc.
I’m sure there will be people who say “good riddance” but remember the new car they bought each year covered an essential salary from the VAT. The shops they shopped in need fewer staff with fewer customers. Their gardeners and housekeepers will find fewer hours to work.
I’ve said it before - I do not rejoice in this, it’s not necessarily good for where I live but it’s worse for the UK which I love.
So ideologically sticking it to the rich will prove to be a stupid act of self harm.
It is a shame they're going. But I also fear there's very little we can do to help people who are so utterly selfish.
Or perhaps you/we are?
I'd certainly think so if someone demanded all my money whilst I took all the risk and did all the work.
Nah. I've not demanded all your money. Far from. But from what I see, you live a good life. Others, who work harder than you, and take many more risks, are much less rewarded.
I want to reward those who work hard, and also those who take risks (e.g. in starting up businesses). But that has to be tempered by the fact you also live in society. If you take risks and fail - as can happen if it is a genuine risk - then you should not be left destitute.
And an awful lot of people earn money with very little risk - in both the private and public sector.
If, heaven forfend, you are taken ill, then you would want the doctors and nurses who look after you not to be overworked and to have access to all the equipment you need? Why should the binmen who are out collecting our bins this morning not get paid well for work I wouldn't want to do? How about a careworker I know who just told me he got threatened by an elderly patient, and the police had to be called?
We live in a society, and that society needs to work as a whole. We are not islands.
Yeah, but this is motherhood and apple pie stuff and you could use it to defend any level of tax. In fact, you just have. Because you're using it as an argument to pay tax - period - and not acknowledging there's a limit. What it comes down to is resentment that some people earn more than you, and you want some of it.
When you tax people at 60%+ for stressful jobs, that involve a lot of stress, professional and personal risk (no-one gets paid a good salary for a simple job just about anyone can do) then at some point they will say, fuck it.
You will have no recourse to criticise them.
No, is it resentment. I'm perfectly happy with people earning more than we do as a family. Incredibly relaxed. I've said so many times in the past. I want work rewarded - at the low as well as the top end. And there's big problems with both of these at the moment.
But I also understand that we live in a society, and are part of that society. Without money, that society falls apart - including the bits you rely on. So it becomes a question of where to balance that. And sadly, that balance is currently set so the country is in debt.
If you want stress, I might suggest you try not having enough money to get food on the table for your family, or not enough to pay rent to keep the roof over your head. To have two kids, one of whom has Down's Syndrome. to have a spouse with cancer, and finding it hard to get the bus fare to the hospital (only to find the appointment has been cancelled...)
Yeah, fuck off JJ. I have plenty of my stress in my life, including a brother in law who died of cancer. And my wife nearly died during childbirth.
I don't need twats like you telling me we have it easy, nor that we don't know what hard times in life are like - both my wife and I started with nothing.
Twat.
I'm sorry to hear about those problems. But you do have it easier than others, as you have money. Money helps massively, as we ourselves know from experience.
If you started with nothing, you would understand what it is like not being able to food on the table. What it is like having to live day-by-day, rather than being able to have the luxury of saving. And you might contemplate what minor issue - illness, accident, a failed relationship, whatever - would have changed you from the success you are today to a failure.
A friend of mine was from a coal-mining family and was the first in her family to go to university. She is as bright as a button. Whilst she was there, she got struck down with ME and another complication. Getting her degree nearly killed her, and she has been bedridden ever since. Living off the state. That could have been me. It could have been you.
There would be no safety net in Casinoworld. Now that is fair enough if one is so inclined, but not for me. I think it an outrage that after six months of a LABOUR government ex servicemen with PTSD are still living in tents under Westminster Bridge.
Er, no. I haven't argued for that, so please don't put words in my mouth. False binaries are a stupid way of conducting political debate.
Several things can be true at once: yes, "there but for the grace of God go I", is one and it also the case that we are spending far too much money on welfare and have reached the limits of taxation, which is now suppressing growth and public funds, not growing it.
We can all find powerful personal stories that illicit empathy and sympathy, as we can the other way, and these can and will fall either side of whatever line is drawn, but we are spending far too much on incapacity benefits, pensions and, I think, health and that is where I'd look to make major savings. I'd spend more on education and defence. And I'd create a competitive tax regime that encourages growth.
The comments on this thread and the likes they've got just go to show how politically difficult that will be but that's got to be done. Some seem to think that those that are earning more than them must be undeserving of it, and are on the take at their expense, and give the impression they'd far rather cut them down to size than actually tax them at a rate that would maximise growth - which must be done to afford any of the things you care about.
There will be no safety net if the country goes insolvent.
How can the country go insolvent? Our debt is issued in a currency which we control. We cannot run out of pounds as we can print them to repay the debt. And don't say "we can't" because we can and already do.
We can run out of people willing to lend us more money at a price we want to pay, but that is a long way from insolvency.
Funnily enough, I'm just reading a book on MMT, called the Deficit Myth, which argues exactly this. I though it'd be useful to understand MMT before criticising it.
Blimey, it's superficial. It runs to 260 pages but can be summed up as 'free lunches all round. And then dinner, breakfast, supper and tea too'.
Yes, we can print our own money. Yes, the government can oblige its creditors to take it. None of this stops inflation from happening when more money chases the same amount of goods and services. And inflation is the inevitable consequence of such a policy, as has been demonstrated many times through history, as well as in the famous identity MV≡PY (which the author doesn't even bother to reference, never mind refute).
In reality, many currencies across time have been depreciated into worthlessness by excessive printing, which is why some countries either peg their currency to another or use that other one outright - because that gave the only acceptable assurance that the money in people's hands meant anything.
Money is simply a means of exchange. Printing more of it does not make us richer overall; it just dilutes what's already there.
Lots of talk on TwiX now about the millionaires and non Doms fleeing the UK. At a time of great impoverishment the Labour government has contrived to frighten away the most important part of our tax base, and told them btw private schools will be slowly abolished via taxes
It’s all adding up. All these allegedly small things are adding up to a looming and desperate collision with reality. Even as we allow in millions of migrants who will be a net drain on the treasury, house thousands of asylum seekers in the savoy at billions a year, and pay Tanzania forty trillion quid to take control of Cornwall
It’s coming. A crash
Brace
As always 'More or Less' is your friend. When you were spouting this awhile ago More or Less debunked it. Who to believe, some nutters on twitter or people who analyse the data properly. It appears the definition of millionaire and sample selection were, how can we put it, bollocks.
Are you seriously disputing that rich people are leaving the UK? Every metric shows they are and in number
COUTTS LONDON PRIME PROPERTY INDEX Q3 2024: PRICES DROP AND BUYERS GET BIGGER DISCOUNTS
Our latest research on luxury London property shows prices falling, average discounts close to 9% and almost 80% of sales coming in below asking price.
Nope I'm not. Just pointing out that last time you did this by quoting a survey you saw somewhere it turned out to be complete bollocks. I know you think you are always right, but you seem to have a very short memory and a very poor source of your data.
If it helps I can give you personal experience instead of surveys - over the pre Christmas drinks party rounds I met (and I noted the number for work reasons) 22 couples who have already or are in the process of moving here from the UK as an absolute direct result of Labour winning the election last year.
All of these people, all 22 couples were people who had set up successful businesses - not inherited money. They are selling or have sold their UK properties, stopped paying staff, stopped buying luxury goods and cars in the UK. Will not be setting up new business or employing people in the UK for the foreseeable future, not paying any more taxes to the UK.
This is one small place - just think how many are going to larger places such as Switzerland, Dubai etc.
I’m sure there will be people who say “good riddance” but remember the new car they bought each year covered an essential salary from the VAT. The shops they shopped in need fewer staff with fewer customers. Their gardeners and housekeepers will find fewer hours to work.
I’ve said it before - I do not rejoice in this, it’s not necessarily good for where I live but it’s worse for the UK which I love.
So ideologically sticking it to the rich will prove to be a stupid act of self harm.
It is a shame they're going. But I also fear there's very little we can do to help people who are so utterly selfish.
Or perhaps you/we are?
I'd certainly think so if someone demanded all my money whilst I took all the risk and did all the work.
Nah. I've not demanded all your money. Far from. But from what I see, you live a good life. Others, who work harder than you, and take many more risks, are much less rewarded.
I want to reward those who work hard, and also those who take risks (e.g. in starting up businesses). But that has to be tempered by the fact you also live in society. If you take risks and fail - as can happen if it is a genuine risk - then you should not be left destitute.
And an awful lot of people earn money with very little risk - in both the private and public sector.
If, heaven forfend, you are taken ill, then you would want the doctors and nurses who look after you not to be overworked and to have access to all the equipment you need? Why should the binmen who are out collecting our bins this morning not get paid well for work I wouldn't want to do? How about a careworker I know who just told me he got threatened by an elderly patient, and the police had to be called?
We live in a society, and that society needs to work as a whole. We are not islands.
Yeah, but this is motherhood and apple pie stuff and you could use it to defend any level of tax. In fact, you just have. Because you're using it as an argument to pay tax - period - and not acknowledging there's a limit. What it comes down to is resentment that some people earn more than you, and you want some of it.
When you tax people at 60%+ for stressful jobs, that involve a lot of stress, professional and personal risk (no-one gets paid a good salary for a simple job just about anyone can do) then at some point they will say, fuck it.
You will have no recourse to criticise them.
No, is it resentment. I'm perfectly happy with people earning more than we do as a family. Incredibly relaxed. I've said so many times in the past. I want work rewarded - at the low as well as the top end. And there's big problems with both of these at the moment.
But I also understand that we live in a society, and are part of that society. Without money, that society falls apart - including the bits you rely on. So it becomes a question of where to balance that. And sadly, that balance is currently set so the country is in debt.
If you want stress, I might suggest you try not having enough money to get food on the table for your family, or not enough to pay rent to keep the roof over your head. To have two kids, one of whom has Down's Syndrome. to have a spouse with cancer, and finding it hard to get the bus fare to the hospital (only to find the appointment has been cancelled...)
Yeah, fuck off JJ. I have plenty of my stress in my life, including a brother in law who died of cancer. And my wife nearly died during childbirth.
I don't need twats like you telling me we have it easy, nor that we don't know what hard times in life are like - both my wife and I started with nothing.
Twat.
I'm sorry to hear about those problems. But you do have it easier than others, as you have money. Money helps massively, as we ourselves know from experience.
If you started with nothing, you would understand what it is like not being able to food on the table. What it is like having to live day-by-day, rather than being able to have the luxury of saving. And you might contemplate what minor issue - illness, accident, a failed relationship, whatever - would have changed you from the success you are today to a failure.
A friend of mine was from a coal-mining family and was the first in her family to go to university. She is as bright as a button. Whilst she was there, she got struck down with ME and another complication. Getting her degree nearly killed her, and she has been bedridden ever since. Living off the state. That could have been me. It could have been you.
There would be no safety net in Casinoworld. Now that is fair enough if one is so inclined, but not for me. I think it an outrage that after six months of a LABOUR government ex servicemen with PTSD are still living in tents under Westminster Bridge.
Er, no. I haven't argued for that, so please don't put words in my mouth. False binaries are a stupid way of conducting political debate.
Several things can be true at once: yes, "there but for the grace of God go I", is one and it also the case that we are spending far too much money on welfare and have reached the limits of taxation, which is now suppressing growth and public funds, not growing it.
We can all find powerful personal stories that illicit empathy and sympathy, as we can the other way, and these can and will fall either side of whatever line is drawn, but we are spending far too much on incapacity benefits, pensions and, I think, health and that is where I'd look to make major savings. I'd spend more on education and defence. And I'd create a competitive tax regime that encourages growth.
The comments on this thread and the likes they've got just go to show how politically difficult that will be but that's got to be done. Some seem to think that those that are earning more than them must be undeserving of it, and are on the take at their expense, and give the impression they'd far rather cut them down to size than actually tax them at a rate that would maximise growth - which must be done to afford any of the things you care about.
There will be no safety net if the country goes insolvent.
How can the country go insolvent? Our debt is issued in a currency which we control. We cannot run out of pounds as we can print them to repay the debt. And don't say "we can't" because we can and already do.
We can run out of people willing to lend us more money at a price we want to pay, but that is a long way from insolvency.
And there we have the economic literacy of the Liberal Democrats, ladies and gentlemen.
Whose government vastly inflated the national debt with nothing concrete to show for it?
It was yours wasn't it?
And even then, our vast debts are minimal on the scale of previous debts held by this country or debts vs GDP of other countries. We're not about to go bust no matter how many times Tories accuse Labour of making it imminent. Our borrowing costs remain very low by global standards.
Besides, a third of our debt is owed to the Bank of England. Which we own. We're paying a lot of interest payments to ourselves. Its paper dollars. The proper debate should be how we are so wasteful with what we spend and how we spend it. What is the point in simultaneously tipping record amounts of cash into an NHS which is starved of cash at the point of delivery? We're spending money on all the wrong things.
I'll let the cavalier attitude to debt and inflation pass for now.
We are trying to have that debate.
What, pray, do you think are the wrong things we are spending money on ?
The list under the Johnson regime was f*****' enormous, not least the eye watering cost of imposing economic sanctions on ourselves after a faulty plebiscite in 2016.
"A faulty plebiscite".
Jesus.
Well, obviously it was faulty. The People got the answer wrong.
Indeed. Glad to have you aboard.
The cost of Brexit was negligible compared to the cost of covid and Ukraine. I'm not saying we went about dealing with covid the right way, but the Lab solution of 'spend more/restrict more' was definitely the wrong way. And again, I'm not saying the solution to the sudden increase in gas prices was the right one, but it's surely more cost-effective than anything Ed Miliband would have come up with.
Personally, the main reason I'm averse to being part of the EU is that I think in the medium and long term it would be economically disastrous. I'm just as frustrated with ardent Remainers for my perception that they are trying to imperil the country's economic future as they are for their perception that Leavers are doing the same. (I'm just nicer about it.)
The late Gerald Ford's son is reading out his eulogy to Carter he would have given had he still been alive, quite touching about unity across the partisan divide, needed more than ever now in the USA
You are going to have to wait awhile after Orange Diapers won the election.
Indeed, albeit Trump is also in the congregation though seems to be taking the opportunity to have a nap (as indeed does Biden)
In answer to the question posed in the header, I think it highly unlikely Starmer will sack Reeves.
The proximate reason for high bond yield prices now is the same as for Liz Truss: the market doesn't believe future tax revenues will cover future expenditure requirements.
There's a huge political difference between the two however. In Truss case she didn't see why revenues need to cover expenditure. In Reeves case it's because the market believes it will be politically difficult to either increase taxes or reduce expenditure to balance the books, and both will negatively affect growth. Replacing Reeves doesn't remove that dilemma.
Your last sentence hits the nail on the head
It doesn't matter who is COE we have run out of money, room to tax or borrow, so austerity is inevitable
The problem for Labour is it goes against everything they stand for and is politically toxic
If I'd been Labour CoE - I'd have gone for merging NI and Income Tax, simplifying the bands, getting rid of the silly withdrawal of the personal allowance stuff. While doing that, put up tax as part of the redo - given the NI gains from everyone paying NI (in effect), that wouldn't have to be vast.
Sell it as "We need to do this now to save the NHS etc. When things are on an even keel, we can look at reductions. Simpler taxes are easier to collect and cheaper."
I think this would have gone down better, politically, than the budget we had. With the markets (tax in order to spend, save money on a simplified tax system), with the Labour Party (raise taxes for the NHS) and the country at large (brave, upfront about what we need to do).
A massive simplification of tax would be most welcome. Hey, we're the government, and we're raping you. However we've looked at what you do to us - it's about even.
And of course it is.
All income should be flat taxed.
CGT is a problem but could largely be circumvented by a simple declaration framework. (Any time you sell anything you simply have to say what it cost you)
Er.
CGT *starts* with "How much did this cost you originally" and "How much did you sell it for".
The complexity is in the allowances and exclusions.
Lots of talk on TwiX now about the millionaires and non Doms fleeing the UK. At a time of great impoverishment the Labour government has contrived to frighten away the most important part of our tax base, and told them btw private schools will be slowly abolished via taxes
It’s all adding up. All these allegedly small things are adding up to a looming and desperate collision with reality. Even as we allow in millions of migrants who will be a net drain on the treasury, house thousands of asylum seekers in the savoy at billions a year, and pay Tanzania forty trillion quid to take control of Cornwall
It’s coming. A crash
Brace
As always 'More or Less' is your friend. When you were spouting this awhile ago More or Less debunked it. Who to believe, some nutters on twitter or people who analyse the data properly. It appears the definition of millionaire and sample selection were, how can we put it, bollocks.
Are you seriously disputing that rich people are leaving the UK? Every metric shows they are and in number
COUTTS LONDON PRIME PROPERTY INDEX Q3 2024: PRICES DROP AND BUYERS GET BIGGER DISCOUNTS
Our latest research on luxury London property shows prices falling, average discounts close to 9% and almost 80% of sales coming in below asking price.
Nope I'm not. Just pointing out that last time you did this by quoting a survey you saw somewhere it turned out to be complete bollocks. I know you think you are always right, but you seem to have a very short memory and a very poor source of your data.
If it helps I can give you personal experience instead of surveys - over the pre Christmas drinks party rounds I met (and I noted the number for work reasons) 22 couples who have already or are in the process of moving here from the UK as an absolute direct result of Labour winning the election last year.
All of these people, all 22 couples were people who had set up successful businesses - not inherited money. They are selling or have sold their UK properties, stopped paying staff, stopped buying luxury goods and cars in the UK. Will not be setting up new business or employing people in the UK for the foreseeable future, not paying any more taxes to the UK.
This is one small place - just think how many are going to larger places such as Switzerland, Dubai etc.
I’m sure there will be people who say “good riddance” but remember the new car they bought each year covered an essential salary from the VAT. The shops they shopped in need fewer staff with fewer customers. Their gardeners and housekeepers will find fewer hours to work.
I’ve said it before - I do not rejoice in this, it’s not necessarily good for where I live but it’s worse for the UK which I love.
So ideologically sticking it to the rich will prove to be a stupid act of self harm.
It is a shame they're going. But I also fear there's very little we can do to help people who are so utterly selfish.
It's interesting that some people like the half the idea of Global Britain - easy to come here and work. But the corollary to that is that people find it easier to leave.
Take one bloke in my team. Indian, first generation immigrant. Got wife and baby, no school as yet. Been in the country about 6 years. Why shouldn't he move to Berlin, or wherever?
He looks at what he is paying in taxes and what he gets for it. And is not impressed. Transactional, maybe. But why should he think differently?
I agree. Mrs J is in that situation. She could be earning more in Turkey - or the USA - than here. But we don't move. Why? Partly the reasons she moved to this country in the first place, and partly because the UK is still a good place to live on a moderate income.
Others disagree. But the country needs more money to fix problems it has. Austerity - which I was in favour of - has been tried, and probably went too far. So how else do we get the money? There is no magic money tree.
Isn’t this attitude from you and Mrs J selfish? Mrs J could earn more and contribute more in taxes to the country that nurtured her but instead she has upped sticks to another country for reasons she has decided are better for her rather than society in general?
And frankly if you worked a bit harder you could contribute more in taxes to the UK but instead you rather selfishly have decided to balance your work and life to suit the needs of your family?
I think it’s perfectly fair and correct that you and Mrs J have chosen your residence to suit your priorities over the needs of a country as a whole.
Lots of talk on TwiX now about the millionaires and non Doms fleeing the UK. At a time of great impoverishment the Labour government has contrived to frighten away the most important part of our tax base, and told them btw private schools will be slowly abolished via taxes
It’s all adding up. All these allegedly small things are adding up to a looming and desperate collision with reality. Even as we allow in millions of migrants who will be a net drain on the treasury, house thousands of asylum seekers in the savoy at billions a year, and pay Tanzania forty trillion quid to take control of Cornwall
It’s coming. A crash
Brace
As always 'More or Less' is your friend. When you were spouting this awhile ago More or Less debunked it. Who to believe, some nutters on twitter or people who analyse the data properly. It appears the definition of millionaire and sample selection were, how can we put it, bollocks.
Are you seriously disputing that rich people are leaving the UK? Every metric shows they are and in number
COUTTS LONDON PRIME PROPERTY INDEX Q3 2024: PRICES DROP AND BUYERS GET BIGGER DISCOUNTS
Our latest research on luxury London property shows prices falling, average discounts close to 9% and almost 80% of sales coming in below asking price.
Nope I'm not. Just pointing out that last time you did this by quoting a survey you saw somewhere it turned out to be complete bollocks. I know you think you are always right, but you seem to have a very short memory and a very poor source of your data.
If it helps I can give you personal experience instead of surveys - over the pre Christmas drinks party rounds I met (and I noted the number for work reasons) 22 couples who have already or are in the process of moving here from the UK as an absolute direct result of Labour winning the election last year.
All of these people, all 22 couples were people who had set up successful businesses - not inherited money. They are selling or have sold their UK properties, stopped paying staff, stopped buying luxury goods and cars in the UK. Will not be setting up new business or employing people in the UK for the foreseeable future, not paying any more taxes to the UK.
This is one small place - just think how many are going to larger places such as Switzerland, Dubai etc.
I’m sure there will be people who say “good riddance” but remember the new car they bought each year covered an essential salary from the VAT. The shops they shopped in need fewer staff with fewer customers. Their gardeners and housekeepers will find fewer hours to work.
I’ve said it before - I do not rejoice in this, it’s not necessarily good for where I live but it’s worse for the UK which I love.
So ideologically sticking it to the rich will prove to be a stupid act of self harm.
It is a shame they're going. But I also fear there's very little we can do to help people who are so utterly selfish.
It's interesting that some people like the half the idea of Global Britain - easy to come here and work. But the corollary to that is that people find it easier to leave.
Take one bloke in my team. Indian, first generation immigrant. Got wife and baby, no school as yet. Been in the country about 6 years. Why shouldn't he move to Berlin, or wherever?
He looks at what he is paying in taxes and what he gets for it. And is not impressed. Transactional, maybe. But why should he think differently?
I agree. Mrs J is in that situation. She could be earning more in Turkey - or the USA - than here. But we don't move. Why? Partly the reasons she moved to this country in the first place, and partly because the UK is still a good place to live on a moderate income.
Others disagree. But the country needs more money to fix problems it has. Austerity - which I was in favour of - has been tried, and probably went too far. So how else do we get the money? There is no magic money tree.
Isn’t this attitude from you and Mrs J selfish? Mrs J could earn more and contribute more in taxes to the country that nurtured her but instead she has upped sticks to another country for reasons she has decided are better for her rather than society in general?
And frankly if you worked a bit harder you could contribute more in taxes to the UK but instead you rather selfishly have decided to balance your work and life to suit the needs of your family?
I think it’s perfectly fair and correct that you and Mrs J have chosen your residence to suit your priorities over the needs of a country as a whole.
She had reasons other than money and payment of taxes to come over here: in many ways she would (probably) be earning more over there. And hopefully she has been more than a net benefit to her adopted country.
And yes, you have a point: we are all selfish to a certain degree. I bet, if you dig deep into your soul, you what see selfishness in your good self.
So hopefully you'd agree with my original proposition, that these people are being selfish?
Oh I’m very selfish, I have chosen not to have children as too much effort, I have loose relationships for a few years or friends with benefits so I don’t have to work my life around other people, I’ve prioritised work and it’s rewards and mindless fun - that’s properly selfish.
People arranging their finances and choosing where to live is just being human and sensible not selfish.
Do you say the same about economic migrants coming to the UK? Are they just being human and sensible?
Jessop give your head a wobble. I fear you are turning into a centrist dad.
Centrist Dad isn't a Centrist Dad.
Centrist Dad means someone who's firmly on the centre-left who wants their politics to be seen as entirely middle of the road.
I've always thought it was just a vague insult with no real set morning. People seem to use it in different ways.
But I am a dad, and I do think I'm generally in the centre of politics, so I am probably a 'centrist dad'...
Economically, your arguments demonstrate you to be on the centre-left.
If so, then only because the discourse has shifted. I believe I've generally been centre-right economically, and centre-left socially. Though that varies: look at my support for your position on the ill-considered and ill-meant VAT on school fees.
I'd *love* there to be lower taxes for everyone. But the country is nowhere near a state to allow that, and in fact, quite the opposite. People want more spending - e.g. on defence - but are not willing to spend more on it.
I'm just being realistic.
I'm arguing that taxes on wealth creation need to be reduced to give us growth.
I know that's unfashionable. But I think it's essential to keep us competitive, encourage investment and for people to innovate and take risks that grow the size of the pie.
And I can see that view. The question is whether that growth is enough to offset, or hopefully more than offset, the reduction in taxes. I doubt it.
I suspect that there are far bigger barriers to growth, including a short-termism in investment and business generally, and a very British aversion to risk.
In answer to the question posed in the header, I think it highly unlikely Starmer will sack Reeves.
The proximate reason for high bond yield prices now is the same as for Liz Truss: the market doesn't believe future tax revenues will cover future expenditure requirements.
There's a huge political difference between the two however. In Truss case she didn't see why revenues need to cover expenditure. In Reeves case it's because the market believes it will be politically difficult to either increase taxes or reduce expenditure to balance the books, and both will negatively affect growth. Replacing Reeves doesn't remove that dilemma.
Your last sentence hits the nail on the head
It doesn't matter who is COE we have run out of money, room to tax or borrow, so austerity is inevitable
The problem for Labour is it goes against everything they stand for and is politically toxic
Quite likely they will end up raising taxes AND impose cuts, at least compared with the programme. The fact is the fiscal gap is a lot bigger than the $22 billion Labour claimed and the Tories denied. These are politically convenient numbers. The figure I saw, which will be similar to the one bond dealers are using was closer to $80 billion, just to maintain public services in the previous degraded state.
In answer to the question posed in the header, I think it highly unlikely Starmer will sack Reeves.
The proximate reason for high bond yield prices now is the same as for Liz Truss: the market doesn't believe future tax revenues will cover future expenditure requirements.
There's a huge political difference between the two however. In Truss case she didn't see why revenues need to cover expenditure. In Reeves case it's because the market believes it will be politically difficult to either increase taxes or reduce expenditure to balance the books, and both will negatively affect growth. Replacing Reeves doesn't remove that dilemma.
Your last sentence hits the nail on the head
It doesn't matter who is COE we have run out of money, room to tax or borrow, so austerity is inevitable
The problem for Labour is it goes against everything they stand for and is politically toxic
Austerity isn't inevitable, and there's plenty of room to raise taxes, even without going yet again to the well of earned incomes (which they so stupidly did with the NI hike, which will be paid for yet again by employees in the form of redundancies and wage suppression and not by the shareholders, of course.)
They should, for example, clobber asset wealth (especially residential property,) shore up the social care sector and local government finances now rather than dicking about with the millionth long-winded review, and reduce future liabilities by abolishing the Triple Lock immediately and pegging the state pension to wages. These things are perfectly possible. To soldier on with, very largely, the same old attitudes is a choice, not an obligation.
Good luck proposing taxing people's homes and it is Labour who have committed to the triple lock for all this parliament with, Starmer making quite a thing of it at a recent PMQs, following the conservatives saying it is not sustainable
Also please explain how you shore up social care and local government finances
Lots of talk on TwiX now about the millionaires and non Doms fleeing the UK. At a time of great impoverishment the Labour government has contrived to frighten away the most important part of our tax base, and told them btw private schools will be slowly abolished via taxes
It’s all adding up. All these allegedly small things are adding up to a looming and desperate collision with reality. Even as we allow in millions of migrants who will be a net drain on the treasury, house thousands of asylum seekers in the savoy at billions a year, and pay Tanzania forty trillion quid to take control of Cornwall
It’s coming. A crash
Brace
As always 'More or Less' is your friend. When you were spouting this awhile ago More or Less debunked it. Who to believe, some nutters on twitter or people who analyse the data properly. It appears the definition of millionaire and sample selection were, how can we put it, bollocks.
Are you seriously disputing that rich people are leaving the UK? Every metric shows they are and in number
COUTTS LONDON PRIME PROPERTY INDEX Q3 2024: PRICES DROP AND BUYERS GET BIGGER DISCOUNTS
Our latest research on luxury London property shows prices falling, average discounts close to 9% and almost 80% of sales coming in below asking price.
Nope I'm not. Just pointing out that last time you did this by quoting a survey you saw somewhere it turned out to be complete bollocks. I know you think you are always right, but you seem to have a very short memory and a very poor source of your data.
If it helps I can give you personal experience instead of surveys - over the pre Christmas drinks party rounds I met (and I noted the number for work reasons) 22 couples who have already or are in the process of moving here from the UK as an absolute direct result of Labour winning the election last year.
All of these people, all 22 couples were people who had set up successful businesses - not inherited money. They are selling or have sold their UK properties, stopped paying staff, stopped buying luxury goods and cars in the UK. Will not be setting up new business or employing people in the UK for the foreseeable future, not paying any more taxes to the UK.
This is one small place - just think how many are going to larger places such as Switzerland, Dubai etc.
I’m sure there will be people who say “good riddance” but remember the new car they bought each year covered an essential salary from the VAT. The shops they shopped in need fewer staff with fewer customers. Their gardeners and housekeepers will find fewer hours to work.
I’ve said it before - I do not rejoice in this, it’s not necessarily good for where I live but it’s worse for the UK which I love.
So ideologically sticking it to the rich will prove to be a stupid act of self harm.
It is a shame they're going. But I also fear there's very little we can do to help people who are so utterly selfish.
Or perhaps you/we are?
I'd certainly think so if someone demanded all my money whilst I took all the risk and did all the work.
Nah. I've not demanded all your money. Far from. But from what I see, you live a good life. Others, who work harder than you, and take many more risks, are much less rewarded.
I want to reward those who work hard, and also those who take risks (e.g. in starting up businesses). But that has to be tempered by the fact you also live in society. If you take risks and fail - as can happen if it is a genuine risk - then you should not be left destitute.
And an awful lot of people earn money with very little risk - in both the private and public sector.
If, heaven forfend, you are taken ill, then you would want the doctors and nurses who look after you not to be overworked and to have access to all the equipment you need? Why should the binmen who are out collecting our bins this morning not get paid well for work I wouldn't want to do? How about a careworker I know who just told me he got threatened by an elderly patient, and the police had to be called?
We live in a society, and that society needs to work as a whole. We are not islands.
Yeah, but this is motherhood and apple pie stuff and you could use it to defend any level of tax. In fact, you just have. Because you're using it as an argument to pay tax - period - and not acknowledging there's a limit. What it comes down to is resentment that some people earn more than you, and you want some of it.
When you tax people at 60%+ for stressful jobs, that involve a lot of stress, professional and personal risk (no-one gets paid a good salary for a simple job just about anyone can do) then at some point they will say, fuck it.
You will have no recourse to criticise them.
No, is it resentment. I'm perfectly happy with people earning more than we do as a family. Incredibly relaxed. I've said so many times in the past. I want work rewarded - at the low as well as the top end. And there's big problems with both of these at the moment.
But I also understand that we live in a society, and are part of that society. Without money, that society falls apart - including the bits you rely on. So it becomes a question of where to balance that. And sadly, that balance is currently set so the country is in debt.
If you want stress, I might suggest you try not having enough money to get food on the table for your family, or not enough to pay rent to keep the roof over your head. To have two kids, one of whom has Down's Syndrome. to have a spouse with cancer, and finding it hard to get the bus fare to the hospital (only to find the appointment has been cancelled...)
Yeah, fuck off JJ. I have plenty of my stress in my life, including a brother in law who died of cancer. And my wife nearly died during childbirth.
I don't need twats like you telling me we have it easy, nor that we don't know what hard times in life are like - both my wife and I started with nothing.
Twat.
I'm sorry to hear about those problems. But you do have it easier than others, as you have money. Money helps massively, as we ourselves know from experience.
If you started with nothing, you would understand what it is like not being able to food on the table. What it is like having to live day-by-day, rather than being able to have the luxury of saving. And you might contemplate what minor issue - illness, accident, a failed relationship, whatever - would have changed you from the success you are today to a failure.
A friend of mine was from a coal-mining family and was the first in her family to go to university. She is as bright as a button. Whilst she was there, she got struck down with ME and another complication. Getting her degree nearly killed her, and she has been bedridden ever since. Living off the state. That could have been me. It could have been you.
There would be no safety net in Casinoworld. Now that is fair enough if one is so inclined, but not for me. I think it an outrage that after six months of a LABOUR government ex servicemen with PTSD are still living in tents under Westminster Bridge.
Er, no. I haven't argued for that, so please don't put words in my mouth. False binaries are a stupid way of conducting political debate.
Several things can be true at once: yes, "there but for the grace of God go I", is one and it also the case that we are spending far too much money on welfare and have reached the limits of taxation, which is now suppressing growth and public funds, not growing it.
We can all find powerful personal stories that illicit empathy and sympathy, as we can the other way, and these can and will fall either side of whatever line is drawn, but we are spending far too much on incapacity benefits, pensions and, I think, health and that is where I'd look to make major savings. I'd spend more on education and defence. And I'd create a competitive tax regime that encourages growth.
The comments on this thread and the likes they've got just go to show how politically difficult that will be but that's got to be done. Some seem to think that those that are earning more than them must be undeserving of it, and are on the take at their expense, and give the impression they'd far rather cut them down to size than actually tax them at a rate that would maximise growth - which must be done to afford any of the things you care about.
There will be no safety net if the country goes insolvent.
How can the country go insolvent? Our debt is issued in a currency which we control. We cannot run out of pounds as we can print them to repay the debt. And don't say "we can't" because we can and already do.
We can run out of people willing to lend us more money at a price we want to pay, but that is a long way from insolvency.
And there we have the economic literacy of the Liberal Democrats, ladies and gentlemen.
Whose government vastly inflated the national debt with nothing concrete to show for it?
It was yours wasn't it?
And even then, our vast debts are minimal on the scale of previous debts held by this country or debts vs GDP of other countries. We're not about to go bust no matter how many times Tories accuse Labour of making it imminent. Our borrowing costs remain very low by global standards.
Besides, a third of our debt is owed to the Bank of England. Which we own. We're paying a lot of interest payments to ourselves. Its paper dollars. The proper debate should be how we are so wasteful with what we spend and how we spend it. What is the point in simultaneously tipping record amounts of cash into an NHS which is starved of cash at the point of delivery? We're spending money on all the wrong things.
I'll let the cavalier attitude to debt and inflation pass for now.
We are trying to have that debate.
What, pray, do you think are the wrong things we are spending money on ?
The list under the Johnson regime was f*****' enormous, not least the eye watering cost of imposing economic sanctions on ourselves after a faulty plebiscite in 2016.
"A faulty plebiscite".
Jesus.
No, Brexit!
If Brexit were all that were required to balance the books (it isn't, and it's a distraction) then I'm stumped as to why Alastair Darling and George Osborne had to do so much tax raising and cutting of spending between 2008 to 2016.
I think Byrne and Osborne just did it, for shit and giggles.
The big economies of the EU seem to me, to have similar problems with low economic growth, to ours.
Surely not! That would imply it isn't much to do with Rachel Reeves.
Lots of talk on TwiX now about the millionaires and non Doms fleeing the UK. At a time of great impoverishment the Labour government has contrived to frighten away the most important part of our tax base, and told them btw private schools will be slowly abolished via taxes
It’s all adding up. All these allegedly small things are adding up to a looming and desperate collision with reality. Even as we allow in millions of migrants who will be a net drain on the treasury, house thousands of asylum seekers in the savoy at billions a year, and pay Tanzania forty trillion quid to take control of Cornwall
It’s coming. A crash
Brace
As always 'More or Less' is your friend. When you were spouting this awhile ago More or Less debunked it. Who to believe, some nutters on twitter or people who analyse the data properly. It appears the definition of millionaire and sample selection were, how can we put it, bollocks.
Are you seriously disputing that rich people are leaving the UK? Every metric shows they are and in number
COUTTS LONDON PRIME PROPERTY INDEX Q3 2024: PRICES DROP AND BUYERS GET BIGGER DISCOUNTS
Our latest research on luxury London property shows prices falling, average discounts close to 9% and almost 80% of sales coming in below asking price.
Nope I'm not. Just pointing out that last time you did this by quoting a survey you saw somewhere it turned out to be complete bollocks. I know you think you are always right, but you seem to have a very short memory and a very poor source of your data.
If it helps I can give you personal experience instead of surveys - over the pre Christmas drinks party rounds I met (and I noted the number for work reasons) 22 couples who have already or are in the process of moving here from the UK as an absolute direct result of Labour winning the election last year.
All of these people, all 22 couples were people who had set up successful businesses - not inherited money. They are selling or have sold their UK properties, stopped paying staff, stopped buying luxury goods and cars in the UK. Will not be setting up new business or employing people in the UK for the foreseeable future, not paying any more taxes to the UK.
This is one small place - just think how many are going to larger places such as Switzerland, Dubai etc.
I’m sure there will be people who say “good riddance” but remember the new car they bought each year covered an essential salary from the VAT. The shops they shopped in need fewer staff with fewer customers. Their gardeners and housekeepers will find fewer hours to work.
I’ve said it before - I do not rejoice in this, it’s not necessarily good for where I live but it’s worse for the UK which I love.
So ideologically sticking it to the rich will prove to be a stupid act of self harm.
It is a shame they're going. But I also fear there's very little we can do to help people who are so utterly selfish.
It's interesting that some people like the half the idea of Global Britain - easy to come here and work. But the corollary to that is that people find it easier to leave.
Take one bloke in my team. Indian, first generation immigrant. Got wife and baby, no school as yet. Been in the country about 6 years. Why shouldn't he move to Berlin, or wherever?
He looks at what he is paying in taxes and what he gets for it. And is not impressed. Transactional, maybe. But why should he think differently?
I agree. Mrs J is in that situation. She could be earning more in Turkey - or the USA - than here. But we don't move. Why? Partly the reasons she moved to this country in the first place, and partly because the UK is still a good place to live on a moderate income.
Others disagree. But the country needs more money to fix problems it has. Austerity - which I was in favour of - has been tried, and probably went too far. So how else do we get the money? There is no magic money tree.
Isn’t this attitude from you and Mrs J selfish? Mrs J could earn more and contribute more in taxes to the country that nurtured her but instead she has upped sticks to another country for reasons she has decided are better for her rather than society in general?
And frankly if you worked a bit harder you could contribute more in taxes to the UK but instead you rather selfishly have decided to balance your work and life to suit the needs of your family?
I think it’s perfectly fair and correct that you and Mrs J have chosen your residence to suit your priorities over the needs of a country as a whole.
Lots of talk on TwiX now about the millionaires and non Doms fleeing the UK. At a time of great impoverishment the Labour government has contrived to frighten away the most important part of our tax base, and told them btw private schools will be slowly abolished via taxes
It’s all adding up. All these allegedly small things are adding up to a looming and desperate collision with reality. Even as we allow in millions of migrants who will be a net drain on the treasury, house thousands of asylum seekers in the savoy at billions a year, and pay Tanzania forty trillion quid to take control of Cornwall
It’s coming. A crash
Brace
As always 'More or Less' is your friend. When you were spouting this awhile ago More or Less debunked it. Who to believe, some nutters on twitter or people who analyse the data properly. It appears the definition of millionaire and sample selection were, how can we put it, bollocks.
Are you seriously disputing that rich people are leaving the UK? Every metric shows they are and in number
COUTTS LONDON PRIME PROPERTY INDEX Q3 2024: PRICES DROP AND BUYERS GET BIGGER DISCOUNTS
Our latest research on luxury London property shows prices falling, average discounts close to 9% and almost 80% of sales coming in below asking price.
Nope I'm not. Just pointing out that last time you did this by quoting a survey you saw somewhere it turned out to be complete bollocks. I know you think you are always right, but you seem to have a very short memory and a very poor source of your data.
If it helps I can give you personal experience instead of surveys - over the pre Christmas drinks party rounds I met (and I noted the number for work reasons) 22 couples who have already or are in the process of moving here from the UK as an absolute direct result of Labour winning the election last year.
All of these people, all 22 couples were people who had set up successful businesses - not inherited money. They are selling or have sold their UK properties, stopped paying staff, stopped buying luxury goods and cars in the UK. Will not be setting up new business or employing people in the UK for the foreseeable future, not paying any more taxes to the UK.
This is one small place - just think how many are going to larger places such as Switzerland, Dubai etc.
I’m sure there will be people who say “good riddance” but remember the new car they bought each year covered an essential salary from the VAT. The shops they shopped in need fewer staff with fewer customers. Their gardeners and housekeepers will find fewer hours to work.
I’ve said it before - I do not rejoice in this, it’s not necessarily good for where I live but it’s worse for the UK which I love.
So ideologically sticking it to the rich will prove to be a stupid act of self harm.
It is a shame they're going. But I also fear there's very little we can do to help people who are so utterly selfish.
It's interesting that some people like the half the idea of Global Britain - easy to come here and work. But the corollary to that is that people find it easier to leave.
Take one bloke in my team. Indian, first generation immigrant. Got wife and baby, no school as yet. Been in the country about 6 years. Why shouldn't he move to Berlin, or wherever?
He looks at what he is paying in taxes and what he gets for it. And is not impressed. Transactional, maybe. But why should he think differently?
I agree. Mrs J is in that situation. She could be earning more in Turkey - or the USA - than here. But we don't move. Why? Partly the reasons she moved to this country in the first place, and partly because the UK is still a good place to live on a moderate income.
Others disagree. But the country needs more money to fix problems it has. Austerity - which I was in favour of - has been tried, and probably went too far. So how else do we get the money? There is no magic money tree.
Isn’t this attitude from you and Mrs J selfish? Mrs J could earn more and contribute more in taxes to the country that nurtured her but instead she has upped sticks to another country for reasons she has decided are better for her rather than society in general?
And frankly if you worked a bit harder you could contribute more in taxes to the UK but instead you rather selfishly have decided to balance your work and life to suit the needs of your family?
I think it’s perfectly fair and correct that you and Mrs J have chosen your residence to suit your priorities over the needs of a country as a whole.
She had reasons other than money and payment of taxes to come over here: in many ways she would (probably) be earning more over there. And hopefully she has been more than a net benefit to her adopted country.
And yes, you have a point: we are all selfish to a certain degree. I bet, if you dig deep into your soul, you what see selfishness in your good self.
So hopefully you'd agree with my original proposition, that these people are being selfish?
Oh I’m very selfish, I have chosen not to have children as too much effort, I have loose relationships for a few years or friends with benefits so I don’t have to work my life around other people, I’ve prioritised work and it’s rewards and mindless fun - that’s properly selfish.
People arranging their finances and choosing where to live is just being human and sensible not selfish.
Do you say the same about economic migrants coming to the UK? Are they just being human and sensible?
Jessop give your head a wobble. I fear you are turning into a centrist dad.
Centrist Dad isn't a Centrist Dad.
Centrist Dad means someone who's firmly on the centre-left who wants their politics to be seen as entirely middle of the road.
I've always thought it was just a vague insult with no real set morning. People seem to use it in different ways.
But I am a dad, and I do think I'm generally in the centre of politics, so I am probably a 'centrist dad'...
Economically, your arguments demonstrate you to be on the centre-left.
If so, then only because the discourse has shifted. I believe I've generally been centre-right economically, and centre-left socially. Though that varies: look at my support for your position on the ill-considered and ill-meant VAT on school fees.
I'd *love* there to be lower taxes for everyone. But the country is nowhere near a state to allow that, and in fact, quite the opposite. People want more spending - e.g. on defence - but are not willing to spend more on it.
I'm just being realistic.
I'm arguing that taxes on wealth creation need to be reduced to give us growth.
I know that's unfashionable. But I think it's essential to keep us competitive, encourage investment and for people to innovate and take risks that grow the size of the pie.
All very good in theory, but the Duke of Westminster isn't going to finance a battery plant in Cumbernauld. He'll just buy more posh houses in Mayfair.
The Duke of Westminster. Or more likely the trustees who control the estate, might well buy more posh houses in Mayfair if they are a sound investment for the future. They might however choose to finance a battery plant in Cumbernauld if it’s a good investment.
The Duke of Westminster doesn’t sit there buying houses for jollies, the family money is buying things that will benefit generations of the family.
Which would seem to be predominantly old houses in Mayfair.
Lots of talk on TwiX now about the millionaires and non Doms fleeing the UK. At a time of great impoverishment the Labour government has contrived to frighten away the most important part of our tax base, and told them btw private schools will be slowly abolished via taxes
It’s all adding up. All these allegedly small things are adding up to a looming and desperate collision with reality. Even as we allow in millions of migrants who will be a net drain on the treasury, house thousands of asylum seekers in the savoy at billions a year, and pay Tanzania forty trillion quid to take control of Cornwall
It’s coming. A crash
Brace
As always 'More or Less' is your friend. When you were spouting this awhile ago More or Less debunked it. Who to believe, some nutters on twitter or people who analyse the data properly. It appears the definition of millionaire and sample selection were, how can we put it, bollocks.
Are you seriously disputing that rich people are leaving the UK? Every metric shows they are and in number
COUTTS LONDON PRIME PROPERTY INDEX Q3 2024: PRICES DROP AND BUYERS GET BIGGER DISCOUNTS
Our latest research on luxury London property shows prices falling, average discounts close to 9% and almost 80% of sales coming in below asking price.
Nope I'm not. Just pointing out that last time you did this by quoting a survey you saw somewhere it turned out to be complete bollocks. I know you think you are always right, but you seem to have a very short memory and a very poor source of your data.
If it helps I can give you personal experience instead of surveys - over the pre Christmas drinks party rounds I met (and I noted the number for work reasons) 22 couples who have already or are in the process of moving here from the UK as an absolute direct result of Labour winning the election last year.
All of these people, all 22 couples were people who had set up successful businesses - not inherited money. They are selling or have sold their UK properties, stopped paying staff, stopped buying luxury goods and cars in the UK. Will not be setting up new business or employing people in the UK for the foreseeable future, not paying any more taxes to the UK.
This is one small place - just think how many are going to larger places such as Switzerland, Dubai etc.
I’m sure there will be people who say “good riddance” but remember the new car they bought each year covered an essential salary from the VAT. The shops they shopped in need fewer staff with fewer customers. Their gardeners and housekeepers will find fewer hours to work.
I’ve said it before - I do not rejoice in this, it’s not necessarily good for where I live but it’s worse for the UK which I love.
So ideologically sticking it to the rich will prove to be a stupid act of self harm.
It is a shame they're going. But I also fear there's very little we can do to help people who are so utterly selfish.
Or perhaps you/we are?
I'd certainly think so if someone demanded all my money whilst I took all the risk and did all the work.
Nah. I've not demanded all your money. Far from. But from what I see, you live a good life. Others, who work harder than you, and take many more risks, are much less rewarded.
I want to reward those who work hard, and also those who take risks (e.g. in starting up businesses). But that has to be tempered by the fact you also live in society. If you take risks and fail - as can happen if it is a genuine risk - then you should not be left destitute.
And an awful lot of people earn money with very little risk - in both the private and public sector.
If, heaven forfend, you are taken ill, then you would want the doctors and nurses who look after you not to be overworked and to have access to all the equipment you need? Why should the binmen who are out collecting our bins this morning not get paid well for work I wouldn't want to do? How about a careworker I know who just told me he got threatened by an elderly patient, and the police had to be called?
We live in a society, and that society needs to work as a whole. We are not islands.
Yeah, but this is motherhood and apple pie stuff and you could use it to defend any level of tax. In fact, you just have. Because you're using it as an argument to pay tax - period - and not acknowledging there's a limit. What it comes down to is resentment that some people earn more than you, and you want some of it.
When you tax people at 60%+ for stressful jobs, that involve a lot of stress, professional and personal risk (no-one gets paid a good salary for a simple job just about anyone can do) then at some point they will say, fuck it.
You will have no recourse to criticise them.
No, is it resentment. I'm perfectly happy with people earning more than we do as a family. Incredibly relaxed. I've said so many times in the past. I want work rewarded - at the low as well as the top end. And there's big problems with both of these at the moment.
But I also understand that we live in a society, and are part of that society. Without money, that society falls apart - including the bits you rely on. So it becomes a question of where to balance that. And sadly, that balance is currently set so the country is in debt.
If you want stress, I might suggest you try not having enough money to get food on the table for your family, or not enough to pay rent to keep the roof over your head. To have two kids, one of whom has Down's Syndrome. to have a spouse with cancer, and finding it hard to get the bus fare to the hospital (only to find the appointment has been cancelled...)
Yeah, fuck off JJ. I have plenty of my stress in my life, including a brother in law who died of cancer. And my wife nearly died during childbirth.
I don't need twats like you telling me we have it easy, nor that we don't know what hard times in life are like - both my wife and I started with nothing.
Twat.
I'm sorry to hear about those problems. But you do have it easier than others, as you have money. Money helps massively, as we ourselves know from experience.
If you started with nothing, you would understand what it is like not being able to food on the table. What it is like having to live day-by-day, rather than being able to have the luxury of saving. And you might contemplate what minor issue - illness, accident, a failed relationship, whatever - would have changed you from the success you are today to a failure.
A friend of mine was from a coal-mining family and was the first in her family to go to university. She is as bright as a button. Whilst she was there, she got struck down with ME and another complication. Getting her degree nearly killed her, and she has been bedridden ever since. Living off the state. That could have been me. It could have been you.
There would be no safety net in Casinoworld. Now that is fair enough if one is so inclined, but not for me. I think it an outrage that after six months of a LABOUR government ex servicemen with PTSD are still living in tents under Westminster Bridge.
Er, no. I haven't argued for that, so please don't put words in my mouth. False binaries are a stupid way of conducting political debate.
Several things can be true at once: yes, "there but for the grace of God go I", is one and it also the case that we are spending far too much money on welfare and have reached the limits of taxation, which is now suppressing growth and public funds, not growing it.
We can all find powerful personal stories that illicit empathy and sympathy, as we can the other way, and these can and will fall either side of whatever line is drawn, but we are spending far too much on incapacity benefits, pensions and, I think, health and that is where I'd look to make major savings. I'd spend more on education and defence. And I'd create a competitive tax regime that encourages growth.
The comments on this thread and the likes they've got just go to show how politically difficult that will be but that's got to be done. Some seem to think that those that are earning more than them must be undeserving of it, and are on the take at their expense, and give the impression they'd far rather cut them down to size than actually tax them at a rate that would maximise growth - which must be done to afford any of the things you care about.
There will be no safety net if the country goes insolvent.
How can the country go insolvent? Our debt is issued in a currency which we control. We cannot run out of pounds as we can print them to repay the debt. And don't say "we can't" because we can and already do.
We can run out of people willing to lend us more money at a price we want to pay, but that is a long way from insolvency.
Funnily enough, I'm just reading a book on MMT, called the Deficit Myth, which argues exactly this. I though it'd be useful to understand MMT before criticising it.
Blimey, it's superficial. It runs to 260 pages but can be summed up as 'free lunches all round. And then dinner, breakfast, supper and tea too'.
Yes, we can print our own money. Yes, the government can oblige its creditors to take it. None of this stops inflation from happening when more money chases the same amount of goods and services. And inflation is the inevitable consequence of such a policy, as has been demonstrated many times through history, as well as in the famous identity MV≡PY (which the author doesn't even bother to reference, never mind refute).
In reality, many currencies across time have been depreciated into worthlessness by excessive printing, which is why some countries either peg their currency to another or use that other one outright - because that gave the only acceptable assurance that the money in people's hands meant anything.
Money is simply a means of exchange. Printing more of it does not make us richer overall; it just dilutes what's already there.
In answer to the question posed in the header, I think it highly unlikely Starmer will sack Reeves.
The proximate reason for high bond yield prices now is the same as for Liz Truss: the market doesn't believe future tax revenues will cover future expenditure requirements.
There's a huge political difference between the two however. In Truss case she didn't see why revenues need to cover expenditure. In Reeves case it's because the market believes it will be politically difficult to either increase taxes or reduce expenditure to balance the books, and both will negatively affect growth. Replacing Reeves doesn't remove that dilemma.
Your last sentence hits the nail on the head
It doesn't matter who is COE we have run out of money, room to tax or borrow, so austerity is inevitable
The problem for Labour is it goes against everything they stand for and is politically toxic
Quite likely they will end up raising taxes AND impose cuts, at least compared with the programme. The fact is the fiscal gap is a lot bigger than the $22 billion Labour claimed and the Tories denied. These are politically convenient numbers. The figure I saw, which will be similar to the one bond dealers are using was closer to $80 billion, just to maintain public services in the previous degraded state.
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Lots of talk on TwiX now about the millionaires and non Doms fleeing the UK. At a time of great impoverishment the Labour government has contrived to frighten away the most important part of our tax base, and told them btw private schools will be slowly abolished via taxes
It’s all adding up. All these allegedly small things are adding up to a looming and desperate collision with reality. Even as we allow in millions of migrants who will be a net drain on the treasury, house thousands of asylum seekers in the savoy at billions a year, and pay Tanzania forty trillion quid to take control of Cornwall
It’s coming. A crash
Brace
As always 'More or Less' is your friend. When you were spouting this awhile ago More or Less debunked it. Who to believe, some nutters on twitter or people who analyse the data properly. It appears the definition of millionaire and sample selection were, how can we put it, bollocks.
Are you seriously disputing that rich people are leaving the UK? Every metric shows they are and in number
COUTTS LONDON PRIME PROPERTY INDEX Q3 2024: PRICES DROP AND BUYERS GET BIGGER DISCOUNTS
Our latest research on luxury London property shows prices falling, average discounts close to 9% and almost 80% of sales coming in below asking price.
Nope I'm not. Just pointing out that last time you did this by quoting a survey you saw somewhere it turned out to be complete bollocks. I know you think you are always right, but you seem to have a very short memory and a very poor source of your data.
If it helps I can give you personal experience instead of surveys - over the pre Christmas drinks party rounds I met (and I noted the number for work reasons) 22 couples who have already or are in the process of moving here from the UK as an absolute direct result of Labour winning the election last year.
All of these people, all 22 couples were people who had set up successful businesses - not inherited money. They are selling or have sold their UK properties, stopped paying staff, stopped buying luxury goods and cars in the UK. Will not be setting up new business or employing people in the UK for the foreseeable future, not paying any more taxes to the UK.
This is one small place - just think how many are going to larger places such as Switzerland, Dubai etc.
I’m sure there will be people who say “good riddance” but remember the new car they bought each year covered an essential salary from the VAT. The shops they shopped in need fewer staff with fewer customers. Their gardeners and housekeepers will find fewer hours to work.
I’ve said it before - I do not rejoice in this, it’s not necessarily good for where I live but it’s worse for the UK which I love.
So ideologically sticking it to the rich will prove to be a stupid act of self harm.
It is a shame they're going. But I also fear there's very little we can do to help people who are so utterly selfish.
Or perhaps you/we are?
I'd certainly think so if someone demanded all my money whilst I took all the risk and did all the work.
Nah. I've not demanded all your money. Far from. But from what I see, you live a good life. Others, who work harder than you, and take many more risks, are much less rewarded.
I want to reward those who work hard, and also those who take risks (e.g. in starting up businesses). But that has to be tempered by the fact you also live in society. If you take risks and fail - as can happen if it is a genuine risk - then you should not be left destitute.
And an awful lot of people earn money with very little risk - in both the private and public sector.
If, heaven forfend, you are taken ill, then you would want the doctors and nurses who look after you not to be overworked and to have access to all the equipment you need? Why should the binmen who are out collecting our bins this morning not get paid well for work I wouldn't want to do? How about a careworker I know who just told me he got threatened by an elderly patient, and the police had to be called?
We live in a society, and that society needs to work as a whole. We are not islands.
Yeah, but this is motherhood and apple pie stuff and you could use it to defend any level of tax. In fact, you just have. Because you're using it as an argument to pay tax - period - and not acknowledging there's a limit. What it comes down to is resentment that some people earn more than you, and you want some of it.
When you tax people at 60%+ for stressful jobs, that involve a lot of stress, professional and personal risk (no-one gets paid a good salary for a simple job just about anyone can do) then at some point they will say, fuck it.
You will have no recourse to criticise them.
No, is it resentment. I'm perfectly happy with people earning more than we do as a family. Incredibly relaxed. I've said so many times in the past. I want work rewarded - at the low as well as the top end. And there's big problems with both of these at the moment.
But I also understand that we live in a society, and are part of that society. Without money, that society falls apart - including the bits you rely on. So it becomes a question of where to balance that. And sadly, that balance is currently set so the country is in debt.
If you want stress, I might suggest you try not having enough money to get food on the table for your family, or not enough to pay rent to keep the roof over your head. To have two kids, one of whom has Down's Syndrome. to have a spouse with cancer, and finding it hard to get the bus fare to the hospital (only to find the appointment has been cancelled...)
Yeah, fuck off JJ. I have plenty of my stress in my life, including a brother in law who died of cancer. And my wife nearly died during childbirth.
I don't need twats like you telling me we have it easy, nor that we don't know what hard times in life are like - both my wife and I started with nothing.
Twat.
I'm sorry to hear about those problems. But you do have it easier than others, as you have money. Money helps massively, as we ourselves know from experience.
If you started with nothing, you would understand what it is like not being able to food on the table. What it is like having to live day-by-day, rather than being able to have the luxury of saving. And you might contemplate what minor issue - illness, accident, a failed relationship, whatever - would have changed you from the success you are today to a failure.
A friend of mine was from a coal-mining family and was the first in her family to go to university. She is as bright as a button. Whilst she was there, she got struck down with ME and another complication. Getting her degree nearly killed her, and she has been bedridden ever since. Living off the state. That could have been me. It could have been you.
There would be no safety net in Casinoworld. Now that is fair enough if one is so inclined, but not for me. I think it an outrage that after six months of a LABOUR government ex servicemen with PTSD are still living in tents under Westminster Bridge.
Er, no. I haven't argued for that, so please don't put words in my mouth. False binaries are a stupid way of conducting political debate.
Several things can be true at once: yes, "there but for the grace of God go I", is one and it also the case that we are spending far too much money on welfare and have reached the limits of taxation, which is now suppressing growth and public funds, not growing it.
We can all find powerful personal stories that illicit empathy and sympathy, as we can the other way, and these can and will fall either side of whatever line is drawn, but we are spending far too much on incapacity benefits, pensions and, I think, health and that is where I'd look to make major savings. I'd spend more on education and defence. And I'd create a competitive tax regime that encourages growth.
The comments on this thread and the likes they've got just go to show how politically difficult that will be but that's got to be done. Some seem to think that those that are earning more than them must be undeserving of it, and are on the take at their expense, and give the impression they'd far rather cut them down to size than actually tax them at a rate that would maximise growth - which must be done to afford any of the things you care about.
There will be no safety net if the country goes insolvent.
How can the country go insolvent? Our debt is issued in a currency which we control. We cannot run out of pounds as we can print them to repay the debt. And don't say "we can't" because we can and already do.
We can run out of people willing to lend us more money at a price we want to pay, but that is a long way from insolvency.
And there we have the economic literacy of the Liberal Democrats, ladies and gentlemen.
Whose government vastly inflated the national debt with nothing concrete to show for it?
It was yours wasn't it?
And even then, our vast debts are minimal on the scale of previous debts held by this country or debts vs GDP of other countries. We're not about to go bust no matter how many times Tories accuse Labour of making it imminent. Our borrowing costs remain very low by global standards.
Besides, a third of our debt is owed to the Bank of England. Which we own. We're paying a lot of interest payments to ourselves. Its paper dollars. The proper debate should be how we are so wasteful with what we spend and how we spend it. What is the point in simultaneously tipping record amounts of cash into an NHS which is starved of cash at the point of delivery? We're spending money on all the wrong things.
I'll let the cavalier attitude to debt and inflation pass for now.
We are trying to have that debate.
What, pray, do you think are the wrong things we are spending money on ?
The list under the Johnson regime was f*****' enormous, not least the eye watering cost of imposing economic sanctions on ourselves after a faulty plebiscite in 2016.
"A faulty plebiscite".
Jesus.
Well, obviously it was faulty. The People got the answer wrong.
Indeed. Glad to have you aboard.
Good to see that some people haven't learnt The Lesson of Democracy.
I can't think of anything much more democratic than a confirmatory ten years on EU Referendum now we have all the facts to hand.
In answer to the question posed in the header, I think it highly unlikely Starmer will sack Reeves.
The proximate reason for high bond yield prices now is the same as for Liz Truss: the market doesn't believe future tax revenues will cover future expenditure requirements.
There's a huge political difference between the two however. In Truss case she didn't see why revenues need to cover expenditure. In Reeves case it's because the market believes it will be politically difficult to either increase taxes or reduce expenditure to balance the books, and both will negatively affect growth. Replacing Reeves doesn't remove that dilemma.
Your last sentence hits the nail on the head
It doesn't matter who is COE we have run out of money, room to tax or borrow, so austerity is inevitable
The problem for Labour is it goes against everything they stand for and is politically toxic
Austerity isn't inevitable, and there's plenty of room to raise taxes, even without going yet again to the well of earned incomes (which they so stupidly did with the NI hike, which will be paid for yet again by employees in the form of redundancies and wage suppression and not by the shareholders, of course.)
They should, for example, clobber asset wealth (especially residential property,) shore up the social care sector and local government finances now rather than dicking about with the millionth long-winded review, and reduce future liabilities by abolishing the Triple Lock immediately and pegging the state pension to wages. These things are perfectly possible. To soldier on with, very largely, the same old attitudes is a choice, not an obligation.
Good luck proposing taxing people's homes and it is Labour who have committed to the triple lock for all this parliament with, Starmer making quite a thing of it at a recent PMQs, following the conservatives saying it is not sustainable
Also please explain how you shore up social care and local government finances
The Conservatives were taxing people's homes to the tune of £45 billion a year, often on a grossly unfair basis.
Japanese newspaper reports on Yoon's heavy drinking habits, mentions of martial law
https://m.koreatimes.co.kr/pages/article.asp?newsIdx=389972 ...Citing a former cabinet minister under the Yoon administration who dined with the president several times, Asahi reported, "Yoon began bringing up the term ‘martial law' more frequently in gatherings after the ruling party's crushing defeat in the April elections last year. His stress levels and alcohol consumption increased as well."
According to the report, Yoon often drank at venues such as a government residence in Samcheong-dong, Seoul. These gatherings typically included samgyeopsal (grilled pork belly), paired with rounds of "somaek" — a shot of soju mixed with beer. Apparently, Yoon drank up to 20 glasses of somaek in a single sitting.
The former minister said, "Most people fill their somaek glasses halfway, but the president filled his to the brim. While drinking, the president would criticize opposition politicians, though he sometimes directed criticism at ruling party members as well."
The report speculated that this habit may stem from Yoon's days as a prosecutor when he drank a mix of whiskey and beer called "Ten-Ten." This potent drink, designed for quick intoxication, was said to be popular among prosecutors.
A former foreign affairs aide from Yoon's administration revealed that these drinking sessions frequently lasted until dawn.
Asahi also reported that Yoon became heavily influenced by far-right YouTube channels amid declining approval ratings and criticism of his unilateral governance style...
I mean, 20 is a lot, but they're not huge:
Looks like it depends how much Soju you add and how strong the Soju is - it can vary hugely.
Lots of talk on TwiX now about the millionaires and non Doms fleeing the UK. At a time of great impoverishment the Labour government has contrived to frighten away the most important part of our tax base, and told them btw private schools will be slowly abolished via taxes
It’s all adding up. All these allegedly small things are adding up to a looming and desperate collision with reality. Even as we allow in millions of migrants who will be a net drain on the treasury, house thousands of asylum seekers in the savoy at billions a year, and pay Tanzania forty trillion quid to take control of Cornwall
It’s coming. A crash
Brace
As always 'More or Less' is your friend. When you were spouting this awhile ago More or Less debunked it. Who to believe, some nutters on twitter or people who analyse the data properly. It appears the definition of millionaire and sample selection were, how can we put it, bollocks.
Are you seriously disputing that rich people are leaving the UK? Every metric shows they are and in number
COUTTS LONDON PRIME PROPERTY INDEX Q3 2024: PRICES DROP AND BUYERS GET BIGGER DISCOUNTS
Our latest research on luxury London property shows prices falling, average discounts close to 9% and almost 80% of sales coming in below asking price.
Nope I'm not. Just pointing out that last time you did this by quoting a survey you saw somewhere it turned out to be complete bollocks. I know you think you are always right, but you seem to have a very short memory and a very poor source of your data.
If it helps I can give you personal experience instead of surveys - over the pre Christmas drinks party rounds I met (and I noted the number for work reasons) 22 couples who have already or are in the process of moving here from the UK as an absolute direct result of Labour winning the election last year.
All of these people, all 22 couples were people who had set up successful businesses - not inherited money. They are selling or have sold their UK properties, stopped paying staff, stopped buying luxury goods and cars in the UK. Will not be setting up new business or employing people in the UK for the foreseeable future, not paying any more taxes to the UK.
This is one small place - just think how many are going to larger places such as Switzerland, Dubai etc.
I’m sure there will be people who say “good riddance” but remember the new car they bought each year covered an essential salary from the VAT. The shops they shopped in need fewer staff with fewer customers. Their gardeners and housekeepers will find fewer hours to work.
I’ve said it before - I do not rejoice in this, it’s not necessarily good for where I live but it’s worse for the UK which I love.
So ideologically sticking it to the rich will prove to be a stupid act of self harm.
It is a shame they're going. But I also fear there's very little we can do to help people who are so utterly selfish.
Or perhaps you/we are?
I'd certainly think so if someone demanded all my money whilst I took all the risk and did all the work.
Nah. I've not demanded all your money. Far from. But from what I see, you live a good life. Others, who work harder than you, and take many more risks, are much less rewarded.
I want to reward those who work hard, and also those who take risks (e.g. in starting up businesses). But that has to be tempered by the fact you also live in society. If you take risks and fail - as can happen if it is a genuine risk - then you should not be left destitute.
And an awful lot of people earn money with very little risk - in both the private and public sector.
If, heaven forfend, you are taken ill, then you would want the doctors and nurses who look after you not to be overworked and to have access to all the equipment you need? Why should the binmen who are out collecting our bins this morning not get paid well for work I wouldn't want to do? How about a careworker I know who just told me he got threatened by an elderly patient, and the police had to be called?
We live in a society, and that society needs to work as a whole. We are not islands.
Yeah, but this is motherhood and apple pie stuff and you could use it to defend any level of tax. In fact, you just have. Because you're using it as an argument to pay tax - period - and not acknowledging there's a limit. What it comes down to is resentment that some people earn more than you, and you want some of it.
When you tax people at 60%+ for stressful jobs, that involve a lot of stress, professional and personal risk (no-one gets paid a good salary for a simple job just about anyone can do) then at some point they will say, fuck it.
You will have no recourse to criticise them.
No, is it resentment. I'm perfectly happy with people earning more than we do as a family. Incredibly relaxed. I've said so many times in the past. I want work rewarded - at the low as well as the top end. And there's big problems with both of these at the moment.
But I also understand that we live in a society, and are part of that society. Without money, that society falls apart - including the bits you rely on. So it becomes a question of where to balance that. And sadly, that balance is currently set so the country is in debt.
If you want stress, I might suggest you try not having enough money to get food on the table for your family, or not enough to pay rent to keep the roof over your head. To have two kids, one of whom has Down's Syndrome. to have a spouse with cancer, and finding it hard to get the bus fare to the hospital (only to find the appointment has been cancelled...)
Yeah, fuck off JJ. I have plenty of my stress in my life, including a brother in law who died of cancer. And my wife nearly died during childbirth.
I don't need twats like you telling me we have it easy, nor that we don't know what hard times in life are like - both my wife and I started with nothing.
Twat.
I'm sorry to hear about those problems. But you do have it easier than others, as you have money. Money helps massively, as we ourselves know from experience.
If you started with nothing, you would understand what it is like not being able to food on the table. What it is like having to live day-by-day, rather than being able to have the luxury of saving. And you might contemplate what minor issue - illness, accident, a failed relationship, whatever - would have changed you from the success you are today to a failure.
A friend of mine was from a coal-mining family and was the first in her family to go to university. She is as bright as a button. Whilst she was there, she got struck down with ME and another complication. Getting her degree nearly killed her, and she has been bedridden ever since. Living off the state. That could have been me. It could have been you.
There would be no safety net in Casinoworld. Now that is fair enough if one is so inclined, but not for me. I think it an outrage that after six months of a LABOUR government ex servicemen with PTSD are still living in tents under Westminster Bridge.
Er, no. I haven't argued for that, so please don't put words in my mouth. False binaries are a stupid way of conducting political debate.
Several things can be true at once: yes, "there but for the grace of God go I", is one and it also the case that we are spending far too much money on welfare and have reached the limits of taxation, which is now suppressing growth and public funds, not growing it.
We can all find powerful personal stories that illicit empathy and sympathy, as we can the other way, and these can and will fall either side of whatever line is drawn, but we are spending far too much on incapacity benefits, pensions and, I think, health and that is where I'd look to make major savings. I'd spend more on education and defence. And I'd create a competitive tax regime that encourages growth.
The comments on this thread and the likes they've got just go to show how politically difficult that will be but that's got to be done. Some seem to think that those that are earning more than them must be undeserving of it, and are on the take at their expense, and give the impression they'd far rather cut them down to size than actually tax them at a rate that would maximise growth - which must be done to afford any of the things you care about.
There will be no safety net if the country goes insolvent.
How can the country go insolvent? Our debt is issued in a currency which we control. We cannot run out of pounds as we can print them to repay the debt. And don't say "we can't" because we can and already do.
We can run out of people willing to lend us more money at a price we want to pay, but that is a long way from insolvency.
And there we have the economic literacy of the Liberal Democrats, ladies and gentlemen.
Whose government vastly inflated the national debt with nothing concrete to show for it?
It was yours wasn't it?
And even then, our vast debts are minimal on the scale of previous debts held by this country or debts vs GDP of other countries. We're not about to go bust no matter how many times Tories accuse Labour of making it imminent. Our borrowing costs remain very low by global standards.
Besides, a third of our debt is owed to the Bank of England. Which we own. We're paying a lot of interest payments to ourselves. Its paper dollars. The proper debate should be how we are so wasteful with what we spend and how we spend it. What is the point in simultaneously tipping record amounts of cash into an NHS which is starved of cash at the point of delivery? We're spending money on all the wrong things.
I'll let the cavalier attitude to debt and inflation pass for now.
We are trying to have that debate.
What, pray, do you think are the wrong things we are spending money on ?
The list under the Johnson regime was f*****' enormous, not least the eye watering cost of imposing economic sanctions on ourselves after a faulty plebiscite in 2016.
"A faulty plebiscite".
Jesus.
Well, obviously it was faulty. The People got the answer wrong.
Indeed. Glad to have you aboard.
The cost of Brexit was negligible compared to the cost of covid and Ukraine. I'm not saying we went about dealing with covid the right way, but the Lab solution of 'spend more/restrict more' was definitely the wrong way. And again, I'm not saying the solution to the sudden increase in gas prices was the right one, but it's surely more cost-effective than anything Ed Miliband would have come up with.
Personally, the main reason I'm averse to being part of the EU is that I think in the medium and long term it would be economically disastrous. I'm just as frustrated with ardent Remainers for my perception that they are trying to imperil the country's economic future as they are for their perception that Leavers are doing the same. (I'm just nicer about it.)
That's the fairest of comments. It's Cookie vs the Experts and there's only one winner there if you're Cookie.
In answer to the question posed in the header, I think it highly unlikely Starmer will sack Reeves.
The proximate reason for high bond yield prices now is the same as for Liz Truss: the market doesn't believe future tax revenues will cover future expenditure requirements.
There's a huge political difference between the two however. In Truss case she didn't see why revenues need to cover expenditure. In Reeves case it's because the market believes it will be politically difficult to either increase taxes or reduce expenditure to balance the books, and both will negatively affect growth. Replacing Reeves doesn't remove that dilemma.
Your last sentence hits the nail on the head
It doesn't matter who is COE we have run out of money, room to tax or borrow, so austerity is inevitable
The problem for Labour is it goes against everything they stand for and is politically toxic
Quite likely they will end up raising taxes AND impose cuts, at least compared with the programme. The fact is the fiscal gap is a lot bigger than the $22 billion Labour claimed and the Tories denied. These are politically convenient numbers. The figure I saw, which will be similar to the one bond dealers are using was closer to $80 billion, just to maintain public services in the previous degraded state.
The 80 billion may be understated once future public sector pay and pensions are added
Lots of talk on TwiX now about the millionaires and non Doms fleeing the UK. At a time of great impoverishment the Labour government has contrived to frighten away the most important part of our tax base, and told them btw private schools will be slowly abolished via taxes
It’s all adding up. All these allegedly small things are adding up to a looming and desperate collision with reality. Even as we allow in millions of migrants who will be a net drain on the treasury, house thousands of asylum seekers in the savoy at billions a year, and pay Tanzania forty trillion quid to take control of Cornwall
It’s coming. A crash
Brace
As always 'More or Less' is your friend. When you were spouting this awhile ago More or Less debunked it. Who to believe, some nutters on twitter or people who analyse the data properly. It appears the definition of millionaire and sample selection were, how can we put it, bollocks.
Are you seriously disputing that rich people are leaving the UK? Every metric shows they are and in number
COUTTS LONDON PRIME PROPERTY INDEX Q3 2024: PRICES DROP AND BUYERS GET BIGGER DISCOUNTS
Our latest research on luxury London property shows prices falling, average discounts close to 9% and almost 80% of sales coming in below asking price.
Nope I'm not. Just pointing out that last time you did this by quoting a survey you saw somewhere it turned out to be complete bollocks. I know you think you are always right, but you seem to have a very short memory and a very poor source of your data.
If it helps I can give you personal experience instead of surveys - over the pre Christmas drinks party rounds I met (and I noted the number for work reasons) 22 couples who have already or are in the process of moving here from the UK as an absolute direct result of Labour winning the election last year.
All of these people, all 22 couples were people who had set up successful businesses - not inherited money. They are selling or have sold their UK properties, stopped paying staff, stopped buying luxury goods and cars in the UK. Will not be setting up new business or employing people in the UK for the foreseeable future, not paying any more taxes to the UK.
This is one small place - just think how many are going to larger places such as Switzerland, Dubai etc.
I’m sure there will be people who say “good riddance” but remember the new car they bought each year covered an essential salary from the VAT. The shops they shopped in need fewer staff with fewer customers. Their gardeners and housekeepers will find fewer hours to work.
I’ve said it before - I do not rejoice in this, it’s not necessarily good for where I live but it’s worse for the UK which I love.
So ideologically sticking it to the rich will prove to be a stupid act of self harm.
It is a shame they're going. But I also fear there's very little we can do to help people who are so utterly selfish.
Or perhaps you/we are?
I'd certainly think so if someone demanded all my money whilst I took all the risk and did all the work.
Nah. I've not demanded all your money. Far from. But from what I see, you live a good life. Others, who work harder than you, and take many more risks, are much less rewarded.
I want to reward those who work hard, and also those who take risks (e.g. in starting up businesses). But that has to be tempered by the fact you also live in society. If you take risks and fail - as can happen if it is a genuine risk - then you should not be left destitute.
And an awful lot of people earn money with very little risk - in both the private and public sector.
If, heaven forfend, you are taken ill, then you would want the doctors and nurses who look after you not to be overworked and to have access to all the equipment you need? Why should the binmen who are out collecting our bins this morning not get paid well for work I wouldn't want to do? How about a careworker I know who just told me he got threatened by an elderly patient, and the police had to be called?
We live in a society, and that society needs to work as a whole. We are not islands.
Yeah, but this is motherhood and apple pie stuff and you could use it to defend any level of tax. In fact, you just have. Because you're using it as an argument to pay tax - period - and not acknowledging there's a limit. What it comes down to is resentment that some people earn more than you, and you want some of it.
When you tax people at 60%+ for stressful jobs, that involve a lot of stress, professional and personal risk (no-one gets paid a good salary for a simple job just about anyone can do) then at some point they will say, fuck it.
You will have no recourse to criticise them.
No, is it resentment. I'm perfectly happy with people earning more than we do as a family. Incredibly relaxed. I've said so many times in the past. I want work rewarded - at the low as well as the top end. And there's big problems with both of these at the moment.
But I also understand that we live in a society, and are part of that society. Without money, that society falls apart - including the bits you rely on. So it becomes a question of where to balance that. And sadly, that balance is currently set so the country is in debt.
If you want stress, I might suggest you try not having enough money to get food on the table for your family, or not enough to pay rent to keep the roof over your head. To have two kids, one of whom has Down's Syndrome. to have a spouse with cancer, and finding it hard to get the bus fare to the hospital (only to find the appointment has been cancelled...)
Yeah, fuck off JJ. I have plenty of my stress in my life, including a brother in law who died of cancer. And my wife nearly died during childbirth.
I don't need twats like you telling me we have it easy, nor that we don't know what hard times in life are like - both my wife and I started with nothing.
Twat.
I'm sorry to hear about those problems. But you do have it easier than others, as you have money. Money helps massively, as we ourselves know from experience.
If you started with nothing, you would understand what it is like not being able to food on the table. What it is like having to live day-by-day, rather than being able to have the luxury of saving. And you might contemplate what minor issue - illness, accident, a failed relationship, whatever - would have changed you from the success you are today to a failure.
A friend of mine was from a coal-mining family and was the first in her family to go to university. She is as bright as a button. Whilst she was there, she got struck down with ME and another complication. Getting her degree nearly killed her, and she has been bedridden ever since. Living off the state. That could have been me. It could have been you.
There would be no safety net in Casinoworld. Now that is fair enough if one is so inclined, but not for me. I think it an outrage that after six months of a LABOUR government ex servicemen with PTSD are still living in tents under Westminster Bridge.
Er, no. I haven't argued for that, so please don't put words in my mouth. False binaries are a stupid way of conducting political debate.
Several things can be true at once: yes, "there but for the grace of God go I", is one and it also the case that we are spending far too much money on welfare and have reached the limits of taxation, which is now suppressing growth and public funds, not growing it.
We can all find powerful personal stories that illicit empathy and sympathy, as we can the other way, and these can and will fall either side of whatever line is drawn, but we are spending far too much on incapacity benefits, pensions and, I think, health and that is where I'd look to make major savings. I'd spend more on education and defence. And I'd create a competitive tax regime that encourages growth.
The comments on this thread and the likes they've got just go to show how politically difficult that will be but that's got to be done. Some seem to think that those that are earning more than them must be undeserving of it, and are on the take at their expense, and give the impression they'd far rather cut them down to size than actually tax them at a rate that would maximise growth - which must be done to afford any of the things you care about.
There will be no safety net if the country goes insolvent.
How can the country go insolvent? Our debt is issued in a currency which we control. We cannot run out of pounds as we can print them to repay the debt. And don't say "we can't" because we can and already do.
We can run out of people willing to lend us more money at a price we want to pay, but that is a long way from insolvency.
Funnily enough, I'm just reading a book on MMT, called the Deficit Myth, which argues exactly this. I though it'd be useful to understand MMT before criticising it.
Blimey, it's superficial. It runs to 260 pages but can be summed up as 'free lunches all round. And then dinner, breakfast, supper and tea too'.
Yes, we can print our own money. Yes, the government can oblige its creditors to take it. None of this stops inflation from happening when more money chases the same amount of goods and services. And inflation is the inevitable consequence of such a policy, as has been demonstrated many times through history, as well as in the famous identity MV≡PY (which the author doesn't even bother to reference, never mind refute).
In reality, many currencies across time have been depreciated into worthlessness by excessive printing, which is why some countries either peg their currency to another or use that other one outright - because that gave the only acceptable assurance that the money in people's hands meant anything.
Money is simply a means of exchange. Printing more of it does not make us richer overall; it just dilutes what's already there.
Yes, she does advocate higher tax to remove money as an anti-inflationary measure.
So, question: which taxes, on whom? She's very up-front about what she thinks more money should be spent on, not so much about where the taxes should hit. A printed penny for your thoughts?
And in reality, are we really saying that a government would *destroy* the money taxed in, rather than recycle it as spending or pay it out in debt servicing / repayment? Because unless it does remove the money taxed in *entirely*, then it's not reducing the money supply and so won't affect prices.
Japanese newspaper reports on Yoon's heavy drinking habits, mentions of martial law
https://m.koreatimes.co.kr/pages/article.asp?newsIdx=389972 ...Citing a former cabinet minister under the Yoon administration who dined with the president several times, Asahi reported, "Yoon began bringing up the term ‘martial law' more frequently in gatherings after the ruling party's crushing defeat in the April elections last year. His stress levels and alcohol consumption increased as well."
According to the report, Yoon often drank at venues such as a government residence in Samcheong-dong, Seoul. These gatherings typically included samgyeopsal (grilled pork belly), paired with rounds of "somaek" — a shot of soju mixed with beer. Apparently, Yoon drank up to 20 glasses of somaek in a single sitting.
The former minister said, "Most people fill their somaek glasses halfway, but the president filled his to the brim. While drinking, the president would criticize opposition politicians, though he sometimes directed criticism at ruling party members as well."
The report speculated that this habit may stem from Yoon's days as a prosecutor when he drank a mix of whiskey and beer called "Ten-Ten." This potent drink, designed for quick intoxication, was said to be popular among prosecutors.
A former foreign affairs aide from Yoon's administration revealed that these drinking sessions frequently lasted until dawn.
Asahi also reported that Yoon became heavily influenced by far-right YouTube channels amid declining approval ratings and criticism of his unilateral governance style...
I mean, 20 is a lot, but they're not huge:
Looks like it depends how much Soju you add and how strong the Soju is - it can vary hugely.
Lots of talk on TwiX now about the millionaires and non Doms fleeing the UK. At a time of great impoverishment the Labour government has contrived to frighten away the most important part of our tax base, and told them btw private schools will be slowly abolished via taxes
It’s all adding up. All these allegedly small things are adding up to a looming and desperate collision with reality. Even as we allow in millions of migrants who will be a net drain on the treasury, house thousands of asylum seekers in the savoy at billions a year, and pay Tanzania forty trillion quid to take control of Cornwall
It’s coming. A crash
Brace
As always 'More or Less' is your friend. When you were spouting this awhile ago More or Less debunked it. Who to believe, some nutters on twitter or people who analyse the data properly. It appears the definition of millionaire and sample selection were, how can we put it, bollocks.
Are you seriously disputing that rich people are leaving the UK? Every metric shows they are and in number
COUTTS LONDON PRIME PROPERTY INDEX Q3 2024: PRICES DROP AND BUYERS GET BIGGER DISCOUNTS
Our latest research on luxury London property shows prices falling, average discounts close to 9% and almost 80% of sales coming in below asking price.
Nope I'm not. Just pointing out that last time you did this by quoting a survey you saw somewhere it turned out to be complete bollocks. I know you think you are always right, but you seem to have a very short memory and a very poor source of your data.
If it helps I can give you personal experience instead of surveys - over the pre Christmas drinks party rounds I met (and I noted the number for work reasons) 22 couples who have already or are in the process of moving here from the UK as an absolute direct result of Labour winning the election last year.
All of these people, all 22 couples were people who had set up successful businesses - not inherited money. They are selling or have sold their UK properties, stopped paying staff, stopped buying luxury goods and cars in the UK. Will not be setting up new business or employing people in the UK for the foreseeable future, not paying any more taxes to the UK.
This is one small place - just think how many are going to larger places such as Switzerland, Dubai etc.
I’m sure there will be people who say “good riddance” but remember the new car they bought each year covered an essential salary from the VAT. The shops they shopped in need fewer staff with fewer customers. Their gardeners and housekeepers will find fewer hours to work.
I’ve said it before - I do not rejoice in this, it’s not necessarily good for where I live but it’s worse for the UK which I love.
So ideologically sticking it to the rich will prove to be a stupid act of self harm.
It is a shame they're going. But I also fear there's very little we can do to help people who are so utterly selfish.
Or perhaps you/we are?
I'd certainly think so if someone demanded all my money whilst I took all the risk and did all the work.
Nah. I've not demanded all your money. Far from. But from what I see, you live a good life. Others, who work harder than you, and take many more risks, are much less rewarded.
I want to reward those who work hard, and also those who take risks (e.g. in starting up businesses). But that has to be tempered by the fact you also live in society. If you take risks and fail - as can happen if it is a genuine risk - then you should not be left destitute.
And an awful lot of people earn money with very little risk - in both the private and public sector.
If, heaven forfend, you are taken ill, then you would want the doctors and nurses who look after you not to be overworked and to have access to all the equipment you need? Why should the binmen who are out collecting our bins this morning not get paid well for work I wouldn't want to do? How about a careworker I know who just told me he got threatened by an elderly patient, and the police had to be called?
We live in a society, and that society needs to work as a whole. We are not islands.
Yeah, but this is motherhood and apple pie stuff and you could use it to defend any level of tax. In fact, you just have. Because you're using it as an argument to pay tax - period - and not acknowledging there's a limit. What it comes down to is resentment that some people earn more than you, and you want some of it.
When you tax people at 60%+ for stressful jobs, that involve a lot of stress, professional and personal risk (no-one gets paid a good salary for a simple job just about anyone can do) then at some point they will say, fuck it.
You will have no recourse to criticise them.
No, is it resentment. I'm perfectly happy with people earning more than we do as a family. Incredibly relaxed. I've said so many times in the past. I want work rewarded - at the low as well as the top end. And there's big problems with both of these at the moment.
But I also understand that we live in a society, and are part of that society. Without money, that society falls apart - including the bits you rely on. So it becomes a question of where to balance that. And sadly, that balance is currently set so the country is in debt.
If you want stress, I might suggest you try not having enough money to get food on the table for your family, or not enough to pay rent to keep the roof over your head. To have two kids, one of whom has Down's Syndrome. to have a spouse with cancer, and finding it hard to get the bus fare to the hospital (only to find the appointment has been cancelled...)
Yeah, fuck off JJ. I have plenty of my stress in my life, including a brother in law who died of cancer. And my wife nearly died during childbirth.
I don't need twats like you telling me we have it easy, nor that we don't know what hard times in life are like - both my wife and I started with nothing.
Twat.
I'm sorry to hear about those problems. But you do have it easier than others, as you have money. Money helps massively, as we ourselves know from experience.
If you started with nothing, you would understand what it is like not being able to food on the table. What it is like having to live day-by-day, rather than being able to have the luxury of saving. And you might contemplate what minor issue - illness, accident, a failed relationship, whatever - would have changed you from the success you are today to a failure.
A friend of mine was from a coal-mining family and was the first in her family to go to university. She is as bright as a button. Whilst she was there, she got struck down with ME and another complication. Getting her degree nearly killed her, and she has been bedridden ever since. Living off the state. That could have been me. It could have been you.
There would be no safety net in Casinoworld. Now that is fair enough if one is so inclined, but not for me. I think it an outrage that after six months of a LABOUR government ex servicemen with PTSD are still living in tents under Westminster Bridge.
Er, no. I haven't argued for that, so please don't put words in my mouth. False binaries are a stupid way of conducting political debate.
Several things can be true at once: yes, "there but for the grace of God go I", is one and it also the case that we are spending far too much money on welfare and have reached the limits of taxation, which is now suppressing growth and public funds, not growing it.
We can all find powerful personal stories that illicit empathy and sympathy, as we can the other way, and these can and will fall either side of whatever line is drawn, but we are spending far too much on incapacity benefits, pensions and, I think, health and that is where I'd look to make major savings. I'd spend more on education and defence. And I'd create a competitive tax regime that encourages growth.
The comments on this thread and the likes they've got just go to show how politically difficult that will be but that's got to be done. Some seem to think that those that are earning more than them must be undeserving of it, and are on the take at their expense, and give the impression they'd far rather cut them down to size than actually tax them at a rate that would maximise growth - which must be done to afford any of the things you care about.
There will be no safety net if the country goes insolvent.
How can the country go insolvent? Our debt is issued in a currency which we control. We cannot run out of pounds as we can print them to repay the debt. And don't say "we can't" because we can and already do.
We can run out of people willing to lend us more money at a price we want to pay, but that is a long way from insolvency.
Funnily enough, I'm just reading a book on MMT, called the Deficit Myth, which argues exactly this. I though it'd be useful to understand MMT before criticising it.
Blimey, it's superficial. It runs to 260 pages but can be summed up as 'free lunches all round. And then dinner, breakfast, supper and tea too'.
Yes, we can print our own money. Yes, the government can oblige its creditors to take it. None of this stops inflation from happening when more money chases the same amount of goods and services. And inflation is the inevitable consequence of such a policy, as has been demonstrated many times through history, as well as in the famous identity MV≡PY (which the author doesn't even bother to reference, never mind refute).
In reality, many currencies across time have been depreciated into worthlessness by excessive printing, which is why some countries either peg their currency to another or use that other one outright - because that gave the only acceptable assurance that the money in people's hands meant anything.
Money is simply a means of exchange. Printing more of it does not make us richer overall; it just dilutes what's already there.
The better MMT economists are very keen on pointing out that the limit on government expenditure in a fiat economy is not taxes or bond sales but /inflation/. You can (and possibly should) print as much as you like /until/ inflation starts kicking in.
The reality is that an awful lot of the time, that means you can’t print at all - this obstinate fact often seems to be glossed over by the more naïve MMT types & their hangers on. There’s no economic benefit to printing if all that happens is an immediate countervailing inflation in the price level, which may well be the condition the UK economy is in right now.
Inflation is bad because it penalises thrifty savers who store their savings in cash. But in cases like we have now, with many wealthy elderly retired savers and many poor younger working people, inflation acts as a transfer of wealth from elderly to younger as the younger wage goes up and the older savings are worth less. This achieves a rebalancing. It also reduces Government debt by inflating it away.
Incorrect. It is the exact opposite under present economic circumstances. The wealth of most pensioners matches or exceeds headline inflation, because the Triple Lock cushions their incomes and house prices continue to escalate; meanwhile, the wages of working age people frequently fail to keep up with inflation, mortgage costs and rents both spiral, and they lose out in terms of state spending and taxation as finite resources are increasingly sucked up by pensions, health and social care.
Time once again to remind ourselves that, after allowing for housing costs, the average pensioner has more disposable income than the average worker. The crossover point was reached some years ago, and the net movement of wealth from workers to the retired can only possibly run in one direction so long as the Triple Lock exists and housing remains chronically overvalued.
In answer to the question posed in the header, I think it highly unlikely Starmer will sack Reeves.
The proximate reason for high bond yield prices now is the same as for Liz Truss: the market doesn't believe future tax revenues will cover future expenditure requirements.
There's a huge political difference between the two however. In Truss case she didn't see why revenues need to cover expenditure. In Reeves case it's because the market believes it will be politically difficult to either increase taxes or reduce expenditure to balance the books, and both will negatively affect growth. Replacing Reeves doesn't remove that dilemma.
Your last sentence hits the nail on the head
It doesn't matter who is COE we have run out of money, room to tax or borrow, so austerity is inevitable
The problem for Labour is it goes against everything they stand for and is politically toxic
Austerity isn't inevitable, and there's plenty of room to raise taxes, even without going yet again to the well of earned incomes (which they so stupidly did with the NI hike, which will be paid for yet again by employees in the form of redundancies and wage suppression and not by the shareholders, of course.)
They should, for example, clobber asset wealth (especially residential property,) shore up the social care sector and local government finances now rather than dicking about with the millionth long-winded review, and reduce future liabilities by abolishing the Triple Lock immediately and pegging the state pension to wages. These things are perfectly possible. To soldier on with, very largely, the same old attitudes is a choice, not an obligation.
Good luck proposing taxing people's homes and it is Labour who have committed to the triple lock for all this parliament with, Starmer making quite a thing of it at a recent PMQs, following the conservatives saying it is not sustainable
Also please explain how you shore up social care and local government finances
Raise NLW to sensible levels. Cut out the indirect subsidy to companies that haven't a sustainable business plan. You could ask PE companies to run the rule over the larger employers to see if they are worth saving. If you are going to be full-on capitalists then we should act like them.
Lots of talk on TwiX now about the millionaires and non Doms fleeing the UK. At a time of great impoverishment the Labour government has contrived to frighten away the most important part of our tax base, and told them btw private schools will be slowly abolished via taxes
It’s all adding up. All these allegedly small things are adding up to a looming and desperate collision with reality. Even as we allow in millions of migrants who will be a net drain on the treasury, house thousands of asylum seekers in the savoy at billions a year, and pay Tanzania forty trillion quid to take control of Cornwall
It’s coming. A crash
Brace
As always 'More or Less' is your friend. When you were spouting this awhile ago More or Less debunked it. Who to believe, some nutters on twitter or people who analyse the data properly. It appears the definition of millionaire and sample selection were, how can we put it, bollocks.
Are you seriously disputing that rich people are leaving the UK? Every metric shows they are and in number
COUTTS LONDON PRIME PROPERTY INDEX Q3 2024: PRICES DROP AND BUYERS GET BIGGER DISCOUNTS
Our latest research on luxury London property shows prices falling, average discounts close to 9% and almost 80% of sales coming in below asking price.
Nope I'm not. Just pointing out that last time you did this by quoting a survey you saw somewhere it turned out to be complete bollocks. I know you think you are always right, but you seem to have a very short memory and a very poor source of your data.
If it helps I can give you personal experience instead of surveys - over the pre Christmas drinks party rounds I met (and I noted the number for work reasons) 22 couples who have already or are in the process of moving here from the UK as an absolute direct result of Labour winning the election last year.
All of these people, all 22 couples were people who had set up successful businesses - not inherited money. They are selling or have sold their UK properties, stopped paying staff, stopped buying luxury goods and cars in the UK. Will not be setting up new business or employing people in the UK for the foreseeable future, not paying any more taxes to the UK.
This is one small place - just think how many are going to larger places such as Switzerland, Dubai etc.
I’m sure there will be people who say “good riddance” but remember the new car they bought each year covered an essential salary from the VAT. The shops they shopped in need fewer staff with fewer customers. Their gardeners and housekeepers will find fewer hours to work.
I’ve said it before - I do not rejoice in this, it’s not necessarily good for where I live but it’s worse for the UK which I love.
So ideologically sticking it to the rich will prove to be a stupid act of self harm.
It is a shame they're going. But I also fear there's very little we can do to help people who are so utterly selfish.
It's interesting that some people like the half the idea of Global Britain - easy to come here and work. But the corollary to that is that people find it easier to leave.
Take one bloke in my team. Indian, first generation immigrant. Got wife and baby, no school as yet. Been in the country about 6 years. Why shouldn't he move to Berlin, or wherever?
He looks at what he is paying in taxes and what he gets for it. And is not impressed. Transactional, maybe. But why should he think differently?
I agree. Mrs J is in that situation. She could be earning more in Turkey - or the USA - than here. But we don't move. Why? Partly the reasons she moved to this country in the first place, and partly because the UK is still a good place to live on a moderate income.
Others disagree. But the country needs more money to fix problems it has. Austerity - which I was in favour of - has been tried, and probably went too far. So how else do we get the money? There is no magic money tree.
Isn’t this attitude from you and Mrs J selfish? Mrs J could earn more and contribute more in taxes to the country that nurtured her but instead she has upped sticks to another country for reasons she has decided are better for her rather than society in general?
And frankly if you worked a bit harder you could contribute more in taxes to the UK but instead you rather selfishly have decided to balance your work and life to suit the needs of your family?
I think it’s perfectly fair and correct that you and Mrs J have chosen your residence to suit your priorities over the needs of a country as a whole.
Lots of talk on TwiX now about the millionaires and non Doms fleeing the UK. At a time of great impoverishment the Labour government has contrived to frighten away the most important part of our tax base, and told them btw private schools will be slowly abolished via taxes
It’s all adding up. All these allegedly small things are adding up to a looming and desperate collision with reality. Even as we allow in millions of migrants who will be a net drain on the treasury, house thousands of asylum seekers in the savoy at billions a year, and pay Tanzania forty trillion quid to take control of Cornwall
It’s coming. A crash
Brace
As always 'More or Less' is your friend. When you were spouting this awhile ago More or Less debunked it. Who to believe, some nutters on twitter or people who analyse the data properly. It appears the definition of millionaire and sample selection were, how can we put it, bollocks.
Are you seriously disputing that rich people are leaving the UK? Every metric shows they are and in number
COUTTS LONDON PRIME PROPERTY INDEX Q3 2024: PRICES DROP AND BUYERS GET BIGGER DISCOUNTS
Our latest research on luxury London property shows prices falling, average discounts close to 9% and almost 80% of sales coming in below asking price.
Nope I'm not. Just pointing out that last time you did this by quoting a survey you saw somewhere it turned out to be complete bollocks. I know you think you are always right, but you seem to have a very short memory and a very poor source of your data.
If it helps I can give you personal experience instead of surveys - over the pre Christmas drinks party rounds I met (and I noted the number for work reasons) 22 couples who have already or are in the process of moving here from the UK as an absolute direct result of Labour winning the election last year.
All of these people, all 22 couples were people who had set up successful businesses - not inherited money. They are selling or have sold their UK properties, stopped paying staff, stopped buying luxury goods and cars in the UK. Will not be setting up new business or employing people in the UK for the foreseeable future, not paying any more taxes to the UK.
This is one small place - just think how many are going to larger places such as Switzerland, Dubai etc.
I’m sure there will be people who say “good riddance” but remember the new car they bought each year covered an essential salary from the VAT. The shops they shopped in need fewer staff with fewer customers. Their gardeners and housekeepers will find fewer hours to work.
I’ve said it before - I do not rejoice in this, it’s not necessarily good for where I live but it’s worse for the UK which I love.
So ideologically sticking it to the rich will prove to be a stupid act of self harm.
It is a shame they're going. But I also fear there's very little we can do to help people who are so utterly selfish.
It's interesting that some people like the half the idea of Global Britain - easy to come here and work. But the corollary to that is that people find it easier to leave.
Take one bloke in my team. Indian, first generation immigrant. Got wife and baby, no school as yet. Been in the country about 6 years. Why shouldn't he move to Berlin, or wherever?
He looks at what he is paying in taxes and what he gets for it. And is not impressed. Transactional, maybe. But why should he think differently?
I agree. Mrs J is in that situation. She could be earning more in Turkey - or the USA - than here. But we don't move. Why? Partly the reasons she moved to this country in the first place, and partly because the UK is still a good place to live on a moderate income.
Others disagree. But the country needs more money to fix problems it has. Austerity - which I was in favour of - has been tried, and probably went too far. So how else do we get the money? There is no magic money tree.
Isn’t this attitude from you and Mrs J selfish? Mrs J could earn more and contribute more in taxes to the country that nurtured her but instead she has upped sticks to another country for reasons she has decided are better for her rather than society in general?
And frankly if you worked a bit harder you could contribute more in taxes to the UK but instead you rather selfishly have decided to balance your work and life to suit the needs of your family?
I think it’s perfectly fair and correct that you and Mrs J have chosen your residence to suit your priorities over the needs of a country as a whole.
She had reasons other than money and payment of taxes to come over here: in many ways she would (probably) be earning more over there. And hopefully she has been more than a net benefit to her adopted country.
And yes, you have a point: we are all selfish to a certain degree. I bet, if you dig deep into your soul, you what see selfishness in your good self.
So hopefully you'd agree with my original proposition, that these people are being selfish?
Oh I’m very selfish, I have chosen not to have children as too much effort, I have loose relationships for a few years or friends with benefits so I don’t have to work my life around other people, I’ve prioritised work and it’s rewards and mindless fun - that’s properly selfish.
People arranging their finances and choosing where to live is just being human and sensible not selfish.
Do you say the same about economic migrants coming to the UK? Are they just being human and sensible?
Jessop give your head a wobble. I fear you are turning into a centrist dad.
Centrist Dad isn't a Centrist Dad.
Centrist Dad means someone who's firmly on the centre-left who wants their politics to be seen as entirely middle of the road.
I've always thought it was just a vague insult with no real set morning. People seem to use it in different ways.
But I am a dad, and I do think I'm generally in the centre of politics, so I am probably a 'centrist dad'...
Economically, your arguments demonstrate you to be on the centre-left.
If so, then only because the discourse has shifted. I believe I've generally been centre-right economically, and centre-left socially. Though that varies: look at my support for your position on the ill-considered and ill-meant VAT on school fees.
I'd *love* there to be lower taxes for everyone. But the country is nowhere near a state to allow that, and in fact, quite the opposite. People want more spending - e.g. on defence - but are not willing to spend more on it.
I'm just being realistic.
I'm arguing that taxes on wealth creation need to be reduced to give us growth.
I know that's unfashionable. But I think it's essential to keep us competitive, encourage investment and for people to innovate and take risks that grow the size of the pie.
If you take a step back, it does seem mad that we tax capital gains, rather than just having a general capital tax.
We also need to remove all these protections for land and property which distort how people use their money.
We hugely overtax income and undertax assets.
That said, we should be careful not to overtax assets as well if it results in wealth fleeing.
I just think the balance is wrong; I don't view it as an easy gold mine.
Japanese newspaper reports on Yoon's heavy drinking habits, mentions of martial law
https://m.koreatimes.co.kr/pages/article.asp?newsIdx=389972 ...Citing a former cabinet minister under the Yoon administration who dined with the president several times, Asahi reported, "Yoon began bringing up the term ‘martial law' more frequently in gatherings after the ruling party's crushing defeat in the April elections last year. His stress levels and alcohol consumption increased as well."
According to the report, Yoon often drank at venues such as a government residence in Samcheong-dong, Seoul. These gatherings typically included samgyeopsal (grilled pork belly), paired with rounds of "somaek" — a shot of soju mixed with beer. Apparently, Yoon drank up to 20 glasses of somaek in a single sitting.
The former minister said, "Most people fill their somaek glasses halfway, but the president filled his to the brim. While drinking, the president would criticize opposition politicians, though he sometimes directed criticism at ruling party members as well."
The report speculated that this habit may stem from Yoon's days as a prosecutor when he drank a mix of whiskey and beer called "Ten-Ten." This potent drink, designed for quick intoxication, was said to be popular among prosecutors.
A former foreign affairs aide from Yoon's administration revealed that these drinking sessions frequently lasted until dawn.
Asahi also reported that Yoon became heavily influenced by far-right YouTube channels amid declining approval ratings and criticism of his unilateral governance style...
I mean, 20 is a lot, but they're not huge:
Looks like it depends how much Soju you add and how strong the Soju is - it can vary hugely.
It is a while since we've had a photo of Leon's breakfast on the site.
Japanese newspaper reports on Yoon's heavy drinking habits, mentions of martial law
https://m.koreatimes.co.kr/pages/article.asp?newsIdx=389972 ...Citing a former cabinet minister under the Yoon administration who dined with the president several times, Asahi reported, "Yoon began bringing up the term ‘martial law' more frequently in gatherings after the ruling party's crushing defeat in the April elections last year. His stress levels and alcohol consumption increased as well."
According to the report, Yoon often drank at venues such as a government residence in Samcheong-dong, Seoul. These gatherings typically included samgyeopsal (grilled pork belly), paired with rounds of "somaek" — a shot of soju mixed with beer. Apparently, Yoon drank up to 20 glasses of somaek in a single sitting.
The former minister said, "Most people fill their somaek glasses halfway, but the president filled his to the brim. While drinking, the president would criticize opposition politicians, though he sometimes directed criticism at ruling party members as well."
The report speculated that this habit may stem from Yoon's days as a prosecutor when he drank a mix of whiskey and beer called "Ten-Ten." This potent drink, designed for quick intoxication, was said to be popular among prosecutors.
A former foreign affairs aide from Yoon's administration revealed that these drinking sessions frequently lasted until dawn.
Asahi also reported that Yoon became heavily influenced by far-right YouTube channels amid declining approval ratings and criticism of his unilateral governance style...
I mean, 20 is a lot, but they're not huge:
Looks like it depends how much Soju you add and how strong the Soju is - it can vary hugely.
Glad to see you included dog for scale.
Naughty! I've referred you under the OSA. Clearly hateful :-)
In answer to the question posed in the header, I think it highly unlikely Starmer will sack Reeves.
The proximate reason for high bond yield prices now is the same as for Liz Truss: the market doesn't believe future tax revenues will cover future expenditure requirements.
There's a huge political difference between the two however. In Truss case she didn't see why revenues need to cover expenditure. In Reeves case it's because the market believes it will be politically difficult to either increase taxes or reduce expenditure to balance the books, and both will negatively affect growth. Replacing Reeves doesn't remove that dilemma.
Your last sentence hits the nail on the head
It doesn't matter who is COE we have run out of money, room to tax or borrow, so austerity is inevitable
The problem for Labour is it goes against everything they stand for and is politically toxic
Austerity isn't inevitable, and there's plenty of room to raise taxes, even without going yet again to the well of earned incomes (which they so stupidly did with the NI hike, which will be paid for yet again by employees in the form of redundancies and wage suppression and not by the shareholders, of course.)
They should, for example, clobber asset wealth (especially residential property,) shore up the social care sector and local government finances now rather than dicking about with the millionth long-winded review, and reduce future liabilities by abolishing the Triple Lock immediately and pegging the state pension to wages. These things are perfectly possible. To soldier on with, very largely, the same old attitudes is a choice, not an obligation.
Good luck proposing taxing people's homes and it is Labour who have committed to the triple lock for all this parliament with, Starmer making quite a thing of it at a recent PMQs, following the conservatives saying it is not sustainable
Also please explain how you shore up social care and local government finances
The Conservatives were taxing people's homes to the tune of £45 billion a year, often on a grossly unfair basis.
(Council tax)
That is just plainly silly
Council tax is applied on homes by all political parties and contributes to council funding
Any idea capital gains tax is applied to private home sales is political suicide
Lots of talk on TwiX now about the millionaires and non Doms fleeing the UK. At a time of great impoverishment the Labour government has contrived to frighten away the most important part of our tax base, and told them btw private schools will be slowly abolished via taxes
It’s all adding up. All these allegedly small things are adding up to a looming and desperate collision with reality. Even as we allow in millions of migrants who will be a net drain on the treasury, house thousands of asylum seekers in the savoy at billions a year, and pay Tanzania forty trillion quid to take control of Cornwall
It’s coming. A crash
Brace
As always 'More or Less' is your friend. When you were spouting this awhile ago More or Less debunked it. Who to believe, some nutters on twitter or people who analyse the data properly. It appears the definition of millionaire and sample selection were, how can we put it, bollocks.
Are you seriously disputing that rich people are leaving the UK? Every metric shows they are and in number
COUTTS LONDON PRIME PROPERTY INDEX Q3 2024: PRICES DROP AND BUYERS GET BIGGER DISCOUNTS
Our latest research on luxury London property shows prices falling, average discounts close to 9% and almost 80% of sales coming in below asking price.
Nope I'm not. Just pointing out that last time you did this by quoting a survey you saw somewhere it turned out to be complete bollocks. I know you think you are always right, but you seem to have a very short memory and a very poor source of your data.
If it helps I can give you personal experience instead of surveys - over the pre Christmas drinks party rounds I met (and I noted the number for work reasons) 22 couples who have already or are in the process of moving here from the UK as an absolute direct result of Labour winning the election last year.
All of these people, all 22 couples were people who had set up successful businesses - not inherited money. They are selling or have sold their UK properties, stopped paying staff, stopped buying luxury goods and cars in the UK. Will not be setting up new business or employing people in the UK for the foreseeable future, not paying any more taxes to the UK.
This is one small place - just think how many are going to larger places such as Switzerland, Dubai etc.
I’m sure there will be people who say “good riddance” but remember the new car they bought each year covered an essential salary from the VAT. The shops they shopped in need fewer staff with fewer customers. Their gardeners and housekeepers will find fewer hours to work.
I’ve said it before - I do not rejoice in this, it’s not necessarily good for where I live but it’s worse for the UK which I love.
So ideologically sticking it to the rich will prove to be a stupid act of self harm.
It is a shame they're going. But I also fear there's very little we can do to help people who are so utterly selfish.
It's interesting that some people like the half the idea of Global Britain - easy to come here and work. But the corollary to that is that people find it easier to leave.
Take one bloke in my team. Indian, first generation immigrant. Got wife and baby, no school as yet. Been in the country about 6 years. Why shouldn't he move to Berlin, or wherever?
He looks at what he is paying in taxes and what he gets for it. And is not impressed. Transactional, maybe. But why should he think differently?
I agree. Mrs J is in that situation. She could be earning more in Turkey - or the USA - than here. But we don't move. Why? Partly the reasons she moved to this country in the first place, and partly because the UK is still a good place to live on a moderate income.
Others disagree. But the country needs more money to fix problems it has. Austerity - which I was in favour of - has been tried, and probably went too far. So how else do we get the money? There is no magic money tree.
Isn’t this attitude from you and Mrs J selfish? Mrs J could earn more and contribute more in taxes to the country that nurtured her but instead she has upped sticks to another country for reasons she has decided are better for her rather than society in general?
And frankly if you worked a bit harder you could contribute more in taxes to the UK but instead you rather selfishly have decided to balance your work and life to suit the needs of your family?
I think it’s perfectly fair and correct that you and Mrs J have chosen your residence to suit your priorities over the needs of a country as a whole.
Lots of talk on TwiX now about the millionaires and non Doms fleeing the UK. At a time of great impoverishment the Labour government has contrived to frighten away the most important part of our tax base, and told them btw private schools will be slowly abolished via taxes
It’s all adding up. All these allegedly small things are adding up to a looming and desperate collision with reality. Even as we allow in millions of migrants who will be a net drain on the treasury, house thousands of asylum seekers in the savoy at billions a year, and pay Tanzania forty trillion quid to take control of Cornwall
It’s coming. A crash
Brace
As always 'More or Less' is your friend. When you were spouting this awhile ago More or Less debunked it. Who to believe, some nutters on twitter or people who analyse the data properly. It appears the definition of millionaire and sample selection were, how can we put it, bollocks.
Are you seriously disputing that rich people are leaving the UK? Every metric shows they are and in number
COUTTS LONDON PRIME PROPERTY INDEX Q3 2024: PRICES DROP AND BUYERS GET BIGGER DISCOUNTS
Our latest research on luxury London property shows prices falling, average discounts close to 9% and almost 80% of sales coming in below asking price.
Nope I'm not. Just pointing out that last time you did this by quoting a survey you saw somewhere it turned out to be complete bollocks. I know you think you are always right, but you seem to have a very short memory and a very poor source of your data.
If it helps I can give you personal experience instead of surveys - over the pre Christmas drinks party rounds I met (and I noted the number for work reasons) 22 couples who have already or are in the process of moving here from the UK as an absolute direct result of Labour winning the election last year.
All of these people, all 22 couples were people who had set up successful businesses - not inherited money. They are selling or have sold their UK properties, stopped paying staff, stopped buying luxury goods and cars in the UK. Will not be setting up new business or employing people in the UK for the foreseeable future, not paying any more taxes to the UK.
This is one small place - just think how many are going to larger places such as Switzerland, Dubai etc.
I’m sure there will be people who say “good riddance” but remember the new car they bought each year covered an essential salary from the VAT. The shops they shopped in need fewer staff with fewer customers. Their gardeners and housekeepers will find fewer hours to work.
I’ve said it before - I do not rejoice in this, it’s not necessarily good for where I live but it’s worse for the UK which I love.
So ideologically sticking it to the rich will prove to be a stupid act of self harm.
It is a shame they're going. But I also fear there's very little we can do to help people who are so utterly selfish.
It's interesting that some people like the half the idea of Global Britain - easy to come here and work. But the corollary to that is that people find it easier to leave.
Take one bloke in my team. Indian, first generation immigrant. Got wife and baby, no school as yet. Been in the country about 6 years. Why shouldn't he move to Berlin, or wherever?
He looks at what he is paying in taxes and what he gets for it. And is not impressed. Transactional, maybe. But why should he think differently?
I agree. Mrs J is in that situation. She could be earning more in Turkey - or the USA - than here. But we don't move. Why? Partly the reasons she moved to this country in the first place, and partly because the UK is still a good place to live on a moderate income.
Others disagree. But the country needs more money to fix problems it has. Austerity - which I was in favour of - has been tried, and probably went too far. So how else do we get the money? There is no magic money tree.
Isn’t this attitude from you and Mrs J selfish? Mrs J could earn more and contribute more in taxes to the country that nurtured her but instead she has upped sticks to another country for reasons she has decided are better for her rather than society in general?
And frankly if you worked a bit harder you could contribute more in taxes to the UK but instead you rather selfishly have decided to balance your work and life to suit the needs of your family?
I think it’s perfectly fair and correct that you and Mrs J have chosen your residence to suit your priorities over the needs of a country as a whole.
She had reasons other than money and payment of taxes to come over here: in many ways she would (probably) be earning more over there. And hopefully she has been more than a net benefit to her adopted country.
And yes, you have a point: we are all selfish to a certain degree. I bet, if you dig deep into your soul, you what see selfishness in your good self.
So hopefully you'd agree with my original proposition, that these people are being selfish?
Oh I’m very selfish, I have chosen not to have children as too much effort, I have loose relationships for a few years or friends with benefits so I don’t have to work my life around other people, I’ve prioritised work and it’s rewards and mindless fun - that’s properly selfish.
People arranging their finances and choosing where to live is just being human and sensible not selfish.
Do you say the same about economic migrants coming to the UK? Are they just being human and sensible?
Jessop give your head a wobble. I fear you are turning into a centrist dad.
Centrist Dad isn't a Centrist Dad.
Centrist Dad means someone who's firmly on the centre-left who wants their politics to be seen as entirely middle of the road.
I've always thought it was just a vague insult with no real set morning. People seem to use it in different ways.
But I am a dad, and I do think I'm generally in the centre of politics, so I am probably a 'centrist dad'...
Economically, your arguments demonstrate you to be on the centre-left.
If so, then only because the discourse has shifted. I believe I've generally been centre-right economically, and centre-left socially. Though that varies: look at my support for your position on the ill-considered and ill-meant VAT on school fees.
I'd *love* there to be lower taxes for everyone. But the country is nowhere near a state to allow that, and in fact, quite the opposite. People want more spending - e.g. on defence - but are not willing to spend more on it.
I'm just being realistic.
I'm arguing that taxes on wealth creation need to be reduced to give us growth.
I know that's unfashionable. But I think it's essential to keep us competitive, encourage investment and for people to innovate and take risks that grow the size of the pie.
And I can see that view. The question is whether that growth is enough to offset, or hopefully more than offset, the reduction in taxes. I doubt it.
I suspect that there are far bigger barriers to growth, including a short-termism in investment and business generally, and a very British aversion to risk.
Sure, and tweaking the dial on tax isn't a panacea to that, but short-termism in investment and business and aversion to risk sure isn't going to be solved if people aren't incentivised to pursue it.
In answer to the question posed in the header, I think it highly unlikely Starmer will sack Reeves.
The proximate reason for high bond yield prices now is the same as for Liz Truss: the market doesn't believe future tax revenues will cover future expenditure requirements.
There's a huge political difference between the two however. In Truss case she didn't see why revenues need to cover expenditure. In Reeves case it's because the market believes it will be politically difficult to either increase taxes or reduce expenditure to balance the books, and both will negatively affect growth. Replacing Reeves doesn't remove that dilemma.
Your last sentence hits the nail on the head
It doesn't matter who is COE we have run out of money, room to tax or borrow, so austerity is inevitable
The problem for Labour is it goes against everything they stand for and is politically toxic
Quite likely they will end up raising taxes AND impose cuts, at least compared with the programme. The fact is the fiscal gap is a lot bigger than the $22 billion Labour claimed and the Tories denied. These are politically convenient numbers. The figure I saw, which will be similar to the one bond dealers are using was closer to $80 billion, just to maintain public services in the previous degraded state.
Link?
I can't share the document because it's on a subscription. The number was how much additional revenue would the government need to raise to maintain expenditure in real terms. It doesn't consider what the government spends the money on, but makes assumptions about inflation and revenues.
I suppose it's the markets saying we don't believe the government numbers. It doesn't really care about the cause of the fiscal gap.
Lots of talk on TwiX now about the millionaires and non Doms fleeing the UK. At a time of great impoverishment the Labour government has contrived to frighten away the most important part of our tax base, and told them btw private schools will be slowly abolished via taxes
It’s all adding up. All these allegedly small things are adding up to a looming and desperate collision with reality. Even as we allow in millions of migrants who will be a net drain on the treasury, house thousands of asylum seekers in the savoy at billions a year, and pay Tanzania forty trillion quid to take control of Cornwall
It’s coming. A crash
Brace
As always 'More or Less' is your friend. When you were spouting this awhile ago More or Less debunked it. Who to believe, some nutters on twitter or people who analyse the data properly. It appears the definition of millionaire and sample selection were, how can we put it, bollocks.
Are you seriously disputing that rich people are leaving the UK? Every metric shows they are and in number
COUTTS LONDON PRIME PROPERTY INDEX Q3 2024: PRICES DROP AND BUYERS GET BIGGER DISCOUNTS
Our latest research on luxury London property shows prices falling, average discounts close to 9% and almost 80% of sales coming in below asking price.
Nope I'm not. Just pointing out that last time you did this by quoting a survey you saw somewhere it turned out to be complete bollocks. I know you think you are always right, but you seem to have a very short memory and a very poor source of your data.
If it helps I can give you personal experience instead of surveys - over the pre Christmas drinks party rounds I met (and I noted the number for work reasons) 22 couples who have already or are in the process of moving here from the UK as an absolute direct result of Labour winning the election last year.
All of these people, all 22 couples were people who had set up successful businesses - not inherited money. They are selling or have sold their UK properties, stopped paying staff, stopped buying luxury goods and cars in the UK. Will not be setting up new business or employing people in the UK for the foreseeable future, not paying any more taxes to the UK.
This is one small place - just think how many are going to larger places such as Switzerland, Dubai etc.
I’m sure there will be people who say “good riddance” but remember the new car they bought each year covered an essential salary from the VAT. The shops they shopped in need fewer staff with fewer customers. Their gardeners and housekeepers will find fewer hours to work.
I’ve said it before - I do not rejoice in this, it’s not necessarily good for where I live but it’s worse for the UK which I love.
So ideologically sticking it to the rich will prove to be a stupid act of self harm.
It is a shame they're going. But I also fear there's very little we can do to help people who are so utterly selfish.
It's interesting that some people like the half the idea of Global Britain - easy to come here and work. But the corollary to that is that people find it easier to leave.
Take one bloke in my team. Indian, first generation immigrant. Got wife and baby, no school as yet. Been in the country about 6 years. Why shouldn't he move to Berlin, or wherever?
He looks at what he is paying in taxes and what he gets for it. And is not impressed. Transactional, maybe. But why should he think differently?
I agree. Mrs J is in that situation. She could be earning more in Turkey - or the USA - than here. But we don't move. Why? Partly the reasons she moved to this country in the first place, and partly because the UK is still a good place to live on a moderate income.
Others disagree. But the country needs more money to fix problems it has. Austerity - which I was in favour of - has been tried, and probably went too far. So how else do we get the money? There is no magic money tree.
Isn’t this attitude from you and Mrs J selfish? Mrs J could earn more and contribute more in taxes to the country that nurtured her but instead she has upped sticks to another country for reasons she has decided are better for her rather than society in general?
And frankly if you worked a bit harder you could contribute more in taxes to the UK but instead you rather selfishly have decided to balance your work and life to suit the needs of your family?
I think it’s perfectly fair and correct that you and Mrs J have chosen your residence to suit your priorities over the needs of a country as a whole.
Lots of talk on TwiX now about the millionaires and non Doms fleeing the UK. At a time of great impoverishment the Labour government has contrived to frighten away the most important part of our tax base, and told them btw private schools will be slowly abolished via taxes
It’s all adding up. All these allegedly small things are adding up to a looming and desperate collision with reality. Even as we allow in millions of migrants who will be a net drain on the treasury, house thousands of asylum seekers in the savoy at billions a year, and pay Tanzania forty trillion quid to take control of Cornwall
It’s coming. A crash
Brace
As always 'More or Less' is your friend. When you were spouting this awhile ago More or Less debunked it. Who to believe, some nutters on twitter or people who analyse the data properly. It appears the definition of millionaire and sample selection were, how can we put it, bollocks.
Are you seriously disputing that rich people are leaving the UK? Every metric shows they are and in number
COUTTS LONDON PRIME PROPERTY INDEX Q3 2024: PRICES DROP AND BUYERS GET BIGGER DISCOUNTS
Our latest research on luxury London property shows prices falling, average discounts close to 9% and almost 80% of sales coming in below asking price.
Nope I'm not. Just pointing out that last time you did this by quoting a survey you saw somewhere it turned out to be complete bollocks. I know you think you are always right, but you seem to have a very short memory and a very poor source of your data.
If it helps I can give you personal experience instead of surveys - over the pre Christmas drinks party rounds I met (and I noted the number for work reasons) 22 couples who have already or are in the process of moving here from the UK as an absolute direct result of Labour winning the election last year.
All of these people, all 22 couples were people who had set up successful businesses - not inherited money. They are selling or have sold their UK properties, stopped paying staff, stopped buying luxury goods and cars in the UK. Will not be setting up new business or employing people in the UK for the foreseeable future, not paying any more taxes to the UK.
This is one small place - just think how many are going to larger places such as Switzerland, Dubai etc.
I’m sure there will be people who say “good riddance” but remember the new car they bought each year covered an essential salary from the VAT. The shops they shopped in need fewer staff with fewer customers. Their gardeners and housekeepers will find fewer hours to work.
I’ve said it before - I do not rejoice in this, it’s not necessarily good for where I live but it’s worse for the UK which I love.
So ideologically sticking it to the rich will prove to be a stupid act of self harm.
It is a shame they're going. But I also fear there's very little we can do to help people who are so utterly selfish.
It's interesting that some people like the half the idea of Global Britain - easy to come here and work. But the corollary to that is that people find it easier to leave.
Take one bloke in my team. Indian, first generation immigrant. Got wife and baby, no school as yet. Been in the country about 6 years. Why shouldn't he move to Berlin, or wherever?
He looks at what he is paying in taxes and what he gets for it. And is not impressed. Transactional, maybe. But why should he think differently?
I agree. Mrs J is in that situation. She could be earning more in Turkey - or the USA - than here. But we don't move. Why? Partly the reasons she moved to this country in the first place, and partly because the UK is still a good place to live on a moderate income.
Others disagree. But the country needs more money to fix problems it has. Austerity - which I was in favour of - has been tried, and probably went too far. So how else do we get the money? There is no magic money tree.
Isn’t this attitude from you and Mrs J selfish? Mrs J could earn more and contribute more in taxes to the country that nurtured her but instead she has upped sticks to another country for reasons she has decided are better for her rather than society in general?
And frankly if you worked a bit harder you could contribute more in taxes to the UK but instead you rather selfishly have decided to balance your work and life to suit the needs of your family?
I think it’s perfectly fair and correct that you and Mrs J have chosen your residence to suit your priorities over the needs of a country as a whole.
She had reasons other than money and payment of taxes to come over here: in many ways she would (probably) be earning more over there. And hopefully she has been more than a net benefit to her adopted country.
And yes, you have a point: we are all selfish to a certain degree. I bet, if you dig deep into your soul, you what see selfishness in your good self.
So hopefully you'd agree with my original proposition, that these people are being selfish?
Oh I’m very selfish, I have chosen not to have children as too much effort, I have loose relationships for a few years or friends with benefits so I don’t have to work my life around other people, I’ve prioritised work and it’s rewards and mindless fun - that’s properly selfish.
People arranging their finances and choosing where to live is just being human and sensible not selfish.
Do you say the same about economic migrants coming to the UK? Are they just being human and sensible?
Jessop give your head a wobble. I fear you are turning into a centrist dad.
Centrist Dad isn't a Centrist Dad.
Centrist Dad means someone who's firmly on the centre-left who wants their politics to be seen as entirely middle of the road.
I've always thought it was just a vague insult with no real set morning. People seem to use it in different ways.
But I am a dad, and I do think I'm generally in the centre of politics, so I am probably a 'centrist dad'...
Economically, your arguments demonstrate you to be on the centre-left.
If so, then only because the discourse has shifted. I believe I've generally been centre-right economically, and centre-left socially. Though that varies: look at my support for your position on the ill-considered and ill-meant VAT on school fees.
I'd *love* there to be lower taxes for everyone. But the country is nowhere near a state to allow that, and in fact, quite the opposite. People want more spending - e.g. on defence - but are not willing to spend more on it.
I'm just being realistic.
I'm arguing that taxes on wealth creation need to be reduced to give us growth.
I know that's unfashionable. But I think it's essential to keep us competitive, encourage investment and for people to innovate and take risks that grow the size of the pie.
The pie can only grow if people have the means and are minded to buy more - neither of which is as easy to acheive as you seem to think.
Lots of talk on TwiX now about the millionaires and non Doms fleeing the UK. At a time of great impoverishment the Labour government has contrived to frighten away the most important part of our tax base, and told them btw private schools will be slowly abolished via taxes
It’s all adding up. All these allegedly small things are adding up to a looming and desperate collision with reality. Even as we allow in millions of migrants who will be a net drain on the treasury, house thousands of asylum seekers in the savoy at billions a year, and pay Tanzania forty trillion quid to take control of Cornwall
It’s coming. A crash
Brace
As always 'More or Less' is your friend. When you were spouting this awhile ago More or Less debunked it. Who to believe, some nutters on twitter or people who analyse the data properly. It appears the definition of millionaire and sample selection were, how can we put it, bollocks.
Are you seriously disputing that rich people are leaving the UK? Every metric shows they are and in number
COUTTS LONDON PRIME PROPERTY INDEX Q3 2024: PRICES DROP AND BUYERS GET BIGGER DISCOUNTS
Our latest research on luxury London property shows prices falling, average discounts close to 9% and almost 80% of sales coming in below asking price.
Nope I'm not. Just pointing out that last time you did this by quoting a survey you saw somewhere it turned out to be complete bollocks. I know you think you are always right, but you seem to have a very short memory and a very poor source of your data.
If it helps I can give you personal experience instead of surveys - over the pre Christmas drinks party rounds I met (and I noted the number for work reasons) 22 couples who have already or are in the process of moving here from the UK as an absolute direct result of Labour winning the election last year.
All of these people, all 22 couples were people who had set up successful businesses - not inherited money. They are selling or have sold their UK properties, stopped paying staff, stopped buying luxury goods and cars in the UK. Will not be setting up new business or employing people in the UK for the foreseeable future, not paying any more taxes to the UK.
This is one small place - just think how many are going to larger places such as Switzerland, Dubai etc.
I’m sure there will be people who say “good riddance” but remember the new car they bought each year covered an essential salary from the VAT. The shops they shopped in need fewer staff with fewer customers. Their gardeners and housekeepers will find fewer hours to work.
I’ve said it before - I do not rejoice in this, it’s not necessarily good for where I live but it’s worse for the UK which I love.
So ideologically sticking it to the rich will prove to be a stupid act of self harm.
It is a shame they're going. But I also fear there's very little we can do to help people who are so utterly selfish.
Or perhaps you/we are?
I'd certainly think so if someone demanded all my money whilst I took all the risk and did all the work.
Nah. I've not demanded all your money. Far from. But from what I see, you live a good life. Others, who work harder than you, and take many more risks, are much less rewarded.
I want to reward those who work hard, and also those who take risks (e.g. in starting up businesses). But that has to be tempered by the fact you also live in society. If you take risks and fail - as can happen if it is a genuine risk - then you should not be left destitute.
And an awful lot of people earn money with very little risk - in both the private and public sector.
If, heaven forfend, you are taken ill, then you would want the doctors and nurses who look after you not to be overworked and to have access to all the equipment you need? Why should the binmen who are out collecting our bins this morning not get paid well for work I wouldn't want to do? How about a careworker I know who just told me he got threatened by an elderly patient, and the police had to be called?
We live in a society, and that society needs to work as a whole. We are not islands.
Yeah, but this is motherhood and apple pie stuff and you could use it to defend any level of tax. In fact, you just have. Because you're using it as an argument to pay tax - period - and not acknowledging there's a limit. What it comes down to is resentment that some people earn more than you, and you want some of it.
When you tax people at 60%+ for stressful jobs, that involve a lot of stress, professional and personal risk (no-one gets paid a good salary for a simple job just about anyone can do) then at some point they will say, fuck it.
You will have no recourse to criticise them.
No, is it resentment. I'm perfectly happy with people earning more than we do as a family. Incredibly relaxed. I've said so many times in the past. I want work rewarded - at the low as well as the top end. And there's big problems with both of these at the moment.
But I also understand that we live in a society, and are part of that society. Without money, that society falls apart - including the bits you rely on. So it becomes a question of where to balance that. And sadly, that balance is currently set so the country is in debt.
If you want stress, I might suggest you try not having enough money to get food on the table for your family, or not enough to pay rent to keep the roof over your head. To have two kids, one of whom has Down's Syndrome. to have a spouse with cancer, and finding it hard to get the bus fare to the hospital (only to find the appointment has been cancelled...)
Yeah, fuck off JJ. I have plenty of my stress in my life, including a brother in law who died of cancer. And my wife nearly died during childbirth.
I don't need twats like you telling me we have it easy, nor that we don't know what hard times in life are like - both my wife and I started with nothing.
Twat.
I'm sorry to hear about those problems. But you do have it easier than others, as you have money. Money helps massively, as we ourselves know from experience.
If you started with nothing, you would understand what it is like not being able to food on the table. What it is like having to live day-by-day, rather than being able to have the luxury of saving. And you might contemplate what minor issue - illness, accident, a failed relationship, whatever - would have changed you from the success you are today to a failure.
A friend of mine was from a coal-mining family and was the first in her family to go to university. She is as bright as a button. Whilst she was there, she got struck down with ME and another complication. Getting her degree nearly killed her, and she has been bedridden ever since. Living off the state. That could have been me. It could have been you.
There would be no safety net in Casinoworld. Now that is fair enough if one is so inclined, but not for me. I think it an outrage that after six months of a LABOUR government ex servicemen with PTSD are still living in tents under Westminster Bridge.
Er, no. I haven't argued for that, so please don't put words in my mouth. False binaries are a stupid way of conducting political debate.
Several things can be true at once: yes, "there but for the grace of God go I", is one and it also the case that we are spending far too much money on welfare and have reached the limits of taxation, which is now suppressing growth and public funds, not growing it.
We can all find powerful personal stories that illicit empathy and sympathy, as we can the other way, and these can and will fall either side of whatever line is drawn, but we are spending far too much on incapacity benefits, pensions and, I think, health and that is where I'd look to make major savings. I'd spend more on education and defence. And I'd create a competitive tax regime that encourages growth.
The comments on this thread and the likes they've got just go to show how politically difficult that will be but that's got to be done. Some seem to think that those that are earning more than them must be undeserving of it, and are on the take at their expense, and give the impression they'd far rather cut them down to size than actually tax them at a rate that would maximise growth - which must be done to afford any of the things you care about.
There will be no safety net if the country goes insolvent.
How can the country go insolvent? Our debt is issued in a currency which we control. We cannot run out of pounds as we can print them to repay the debt. And don't say "we can't" because we can and already do.
We can run out of people willing to lend us more money at a price we want to pay, but that is a long way from insolvency.
Funnily enough, I'm just reading a book on MMT, called the Deficit Myth, which argues exactly this. I though it'd be useful to understand MMT before criticising it.
Blimey, it's superficial. It runs to 260 pages but can be summed up as 'free lunches all round. And then dinner, breakfast, supper and tea too'.
Yes, we can print our own money. Yes, the government can oblige its creditors to take it. None of this stops inflation from happening when more money chases the same amount of goods and services. And inflation is the inevitable consequence of such a policy, as has been demonstrated many times through history, as well as in the famous identity MV≡PY (which the author doesn't even bother to reference, never mind refute).
In reality, many currencies across time have been depreciated into worthlessness by excessive printing, which is why some countries either peg their currency to another or use that other one outright - because that gave the only acceptable assurance that the money in people's hands meant anything.
Money is simply a means of exchange. Printing more of it does not make us richer overall; it just dilutes what's already there.
The better MMT economists are very keen on pointing out that the limit on government expenditure in a fiat economy is not taxes or bond sales but /inflation/. You can (and possibly should) print as much as you like /until/ inflation starts kicking in.
The reality is that an awful lot of the time, that means you can’t print at all - this obstinate fact often seems to be glossed over by the more naïve MMT types & their hangers on. There’s no economic benefit to printing if all that happens is an immediate countervailing inflation in the price level, which may well be the condition the UK economy is in right now.
Inflation is bad because it penalises thrifty savers who store their savings in cash. But in cases like we have now, with many wealthy elderly retired savers and many poor younger working people, inflation acts as a transfer of wealth from elderly to younger as the younger wage goes up and the older savings are worth less. This achieves a rebalancing. It also reduces Government debt by inflating it away.
Incorrect. It is the exact opposite under present economic circumstances. The wealth of most pensioners matches or exceeds headline inflation, because the Triple Lock cushions their incomes and house prices continue to escalate; meanwhile, the wages of working age people frequently fail to keep up with inflation, mortgage costs and rents both spiral, and they lose out in terms of state spending and taxation as finite resources are increasingly sucked up by pensions, health and social care.
Time once again to remind ourselves that, after allowing for housing costs, the average pensioner has more disposable income than the average worker. The crossover point was reached some years ago, and the net movement of wealth from workers to the retired can only possibly run in one direction so long as the Triple Lock exists and housing remains chronically overvalued.
Trigger alert for the retired amongst us:
An extension to this is to discourage retirement. The retirement industry is pernicious. It encourages people to believe that being idle when still fully able is something to aspire to. People should be encouraged to continue in productive paid employment (possibly part time) for as long as they are able. It would reduce labour shortages and give people meaning to their lives while adding, rather than detracting from the economy. Discuss.
Lots of talk on TwiX now about the millionaires and non Doms fleeing the UK. At a time of great impoverishment the Labour government has contrived to frighten away the most important part of our tax base, and told them btw private schools will be slowly abolished via taxes
It’s all adding up. All these allegedly small things are adding up to a looming and desperate collision with reality. Even as we allow in millions of migrants who will be a net drain on the treasury, house thousands of asylum seekers in the savoy at billions a year, and pay Tanzania forty trillion quid to take control of Cornwall
It’s coming. A crash
Brace
As always 'More or Less' is your friend. When you were spouting this awhile ago More or Less debunked it. Who to believe, some nutters on twitter or people who analyse the data properly. It appears the definition of millionaire and sample selection were, how can we put it, bollocks.
Are you seriously disputing that rich people are leaving the UK? Every metric shows they are and in number
COUTTS LONDON PRIME PROPERTY INDEX Q3 2024: PRICES DROP AND BUYERS GET BIGGER DISCOUNTS
Our latest research on luxury London property shows prices falling, average discounts close to 9% and almost 80% of sales coming in below asking price.
Nope I'm not. Just pointing out that last time you did this by quoting a survey you saw somewhere it turned out to be complete bollocks. I know you think you are always right, but you seem to have a very short memory and a very poor source of your data.
If it helps I can give you personal experience instead of surveys - over the pre Christmas drinks party rounds I met (and I noted the number for work reasons) 22 couples who have already or are in the process of moving here from the UK as an absolute direct result of Labour winning the election last year.
All of these people, all 22 couples were people who had set up successful businesses - not inherited money. They are selling or have sold their UK properties, stopped paying staff, stopped buying luxury goods and cars in the UK. Will not be setting up new business or employing people in the UK for the foreseeable future, not paying any more taxes to the UK.
This is one small place - just think how many are going to larger places such as Switzerland, Dubai etc.
I’m sure there will be people who say “good riddance” but remember the new car they bought each year covered an essential salary from the VAT. The shops they shopped in need fewer staff with fewer customers. Their gardeners and housekeepers will find fewer hours to work.
I’ve said it before - I do not rejoice in this, it’s not necessarily good for where I live but it’s worse for the UK which I love.
So ideologically sticking it to the rich will prove to be a stupid act of self harm.
It is a shame they're going. But I also fear there's very little we can do to help people who are so utterly selfish.
It's interesting that some people like the half the idea of Global Britain - easy to come here and work. But the corollary to that is that people find it easier to leave.
Take one bloke in my team. Indian, first generation immigrant. Got wife and baby, no school as yet. Been in the country about 6 years. Why shouldn't he move to Berlin, or wherever?
He looks at what he is paying in taxes and what he gets for it. And is not impressed. Transactional, maybe. But why should he think differently?
I agree. Mrs J is in that situation. She could be earning more in Turkey - or the USA - than here. But we don't move. Why? Partly the reasons she moved to this country in the first place, and partly because the UK is still a good place to live on a moderate income.
Others disagree. But the country needs more money to fix problems it has. Austerity - which I was in favour of - has been tried, and probably went too far. So how else do we get the money? There is no magic money tree.
Isn’t this attitude from you and Mrs J selfish? Mrs J could earn more and contribute more in taxes to the country that nurtured her but instead she has upped sticks to another country for reasons she has decided are better for her rather than society in general?
And frankly if you worked a bit harder you could contribute more in taxes to the UK but instead you rather selfishly have decided to balance your work and life to suit the needs of your family?
I think it’s perfectly fair and correct that you and Mrs J have chosen your residence to suit your priorities over the needs of a country as a whole.
Lots of talk on TwiX now about the millionaires and non Doms fleeing the UK. At a time of great impoverishment the Labour government has contrived to frighten away the most important part of our tax base, and told them btw private schools will be slowly abolished via taxes
It’s all adding up. All these allegedly small things are adding up to a looming and desperate collision with reality. Even as we allow in millions of migrants who will be a net drain on the treasury, house thousands of asylum seekers in the savoy at billions a year, and pay Tanzania forty trillion quid to take control of Cornwall
It’s coming. A crash
Brace
As always 'More or Less' is your friend. When you were spouting this awhile ago More or Less debunked it. Who to believe, some nutters on twitter or people who analyse the data properly. It appears the definition of millionaire and sample selection were, how can we put it, bollocks.
Are you seriously disputing that rich people are leaving the UK? Every metric shows they are and in number
COUTTS LONDON PRIME PROPERTY INDEX Q3 2024: PRICES DROP AND BUYERS GET BIGGER DISCOUNTS
Our latest research on luxury London property shows prices falling, average discounts close to 9% and almost 80% of sales coming in below asking price.
Nope I'm not. Just pointing out that last time you did this by quoting a survey you saw somewhere it turned out to be complete bollocks. I know you think you are always right, but you seem to have a very short memory and a very poor source of your data.
If it helps I can give you personal experience instead of surveys - over the pre Christmas drinks party rounds I met (and I noted the number for work reasons) 22 couples who have already or are in the process of moving here from the UK as an absolute direct result of Labour winning the election last year.
All of these people, all 22 couples were people who had set up successful businesses - not inherited money. They are selling or have sold their UK properties, stopped paying staff, stopped buying luxury goods and cars in the UK. Will not be setting up new business or employing people in the UK for the foreseeable future, not paying any more taxes to the UK.
This is one small place - just think how many are going to larger places such as Switzerland, Dubai etc.
I’m sure there will be people who say “good riddance” but remember the new car they bought each year covered an essential salary from the VAT. The shops they shopped in need fewer staff with fewer customers. Their gardeners and housekeepers will find fewer hours to work.
I’ve said it before - I do not rejoice in this, it’s not necessarily good for where I live but it’s worse for the UK which I love.
So ideologically sticking it to the rich will prove to be a stupid act of self harm.
It is a shame they're going. But I also fear there's very little we can do to help people who are so utterly selfish.
It's interesting that some people like the half the idea of Global Britain - easy to come here and work. But the corollary to that is that people find it easier to leave.
Take one bloke in my team. Indian, first generation immigrant. Got wife and baby, no school as yet. Been in the country about 6 years. Why shouldn't he move to Berlin, or wherever?
He looks at what he is paying in taxes and what he gets for it. And is not impressed. Transactional, maybe. But why should he think differently?
I agree. Mrs J is in that situation. She could be earning more in Turkey - or the USA - than here. But we don't move. Why? Partly the reasons she moved to this country in the first place, and partly because the UK is still a good place to live on a moderate income.
Others disagree. But the country needs more money to fix problems it has. Austerity - which I was in favour of - has been tried, and probably went too far. So how else do we get the money? There is no magic money tree.
Isn’t this attitude from you and Mrs J selfish? Mrs J could earn more and contribute more in taxes to the country that nurtured her but instead she has upped sticks to another country for reasons she has decided are better for her rather than society in general?
And frankly if you worked a bit harder you could contribute more in taxes to the UK but instead you rather selfishly have decided to balance your work and life to suit the needs of your family?
I think it’s perfectly fair and correct that you and Mrs J have chosen your residence to suit your priorities over the needs of a country as a whole.
She had reasons other than money and payment of taxes to come over here: in many ways she would (probably) be earning more over there. And hopefully she has been more than a net benefit to her adopted country.
And yes, you have a point: we are all selfish to a certain degree. I bet, if you dig deep into your soul, you what see selfishness in your good self.
So hopefully you'd agree with my original proposition, that these people are being selfish?
Oh I’m very selfish, I have chosen not to have children as too much effort, I have loose relationships for a few years or friends with benefits so I don’t have to work my life around other people, I’ve prioritised work and it’s rewards and mindless fun - that’s properly selfish.
People arranging their finances and choosing where to live is just being human and sensible not selfish.
Do you say the same about economic migrants coming to the UK? Are they just being human and sensible?
Jessop give your head a wobble. I fear you are turning into a centrist dad.
Centrist Dad isn't a Centrist Dad.
Centrist Dad means someone who's firmly on the centre-left who wants their politics to be seen as entirely middle of the road.
I've always thought it was just a vague insult with no real set morning. People seem to use it in different ways.
But I am a dad, and I do think I'm generally in the centre of politics, so I am probably a 'centrist dad'...
Economically, your arguments demonstrate you to be on the centre-left.
If so, then only because the discourse has shifted. I believe I've generally been centre-right economically, and centre-left socially. Though that varies: look at my support for your position on the ill-considered and ill-meant VAT on school fees.
I'd *love* there to be lower taxes for everyone. But the country is nowhere near a state to allow that, and in fact, quite the opposite. People want more spending - e.g. on defence - but are not willing to spend more on it.
I'm just being realistic.
I'm arguing that taxes on wealth creation need to be reduced to give us growth.
I know that's unfashionable. But I think it's essential to keep us competitive, encourage investment and for people to innovate and take risks that grow the size of the pie.
And I can see that view. The question is whether that growth is enough to offset, or hopefully more than offset, the reduction in taxes. I doubt it.
I suspect that there are far bigger barriers to growth, including a short-termism in investment and business generally, and a very British aversion to risk.
Sure, and tweaking the dial on tax isn't a panacea to that, but short-termism in investment and business and aversion to risk sure isn't going to be solved if people aren't incentivised to pursue it.
Most who have never run a business will never understand this. It is why Labour are fucking up so badly.
Lots of talk on TwiX now about the millionaires and non Doms fleeing the UK. At a time of great impoverishment the Labour government has contrived to frighten away the most important part of our tax base, and told them btw private schools will be slowly abolished via taxes
It’s all adding up. All these allegedly small things are adding up to a looming and desperate collision with reality. Even as we allow in millions of migrants who will be a net drain on the treasury, house thousands of asylum seekers in the savoy at billions a year, and pay Tanzania forty trillion quid to take control of Cornwall
It’s coming. A crash
Brace
As always 'More or Less' is your friend. When you were spouting this awhile ago More or Less debunked it. Who to believe, some nutters on twitter or people who analyse the data properly. It appears the definition of millionaire and sample selection were, how can we put it, bollocks.
Are you seriously disputing that rich people are leaving the UK? Every metric shows they are and in number
COUTTS LONDON PRIME PROPERTY INDEX Q3 2024: PRICES DROP AND BUYERS GET BIGGER DISCOUNTS
Our latest research on luxury London property shows prices falling, average discounts close to 9% and almost 80% of sales coming in below asking price.
Nope I'm not. Just pointing out that last time you did this by quoting a survey you saw somewhere it turned out to be complete bollocks. I know you think you are always right, but you seem to have a very short memory and a very poor source of your data.
If it helps I can give you personal experience instead of surveys - over the pre Christmas drinks party rounds I met (and I noted the number for work reasons) 22 couples who have already or are in the process of moving here from the UK as an absolute direct result of Labour winning the election last year.
All of these people, all 22 couples were people who had set up successful businesses - not inherited money. They are selling or have sold their UK properties, stopped paying staff, stopped buying luxury goods and cars in the UK. Will not be setting up new business or employing people in the UK for the foreseeable future, not paying any more taxes to the UK.
This is one small place - just think how many are going to larger places such as Switzerland, Dubai etc.
I’m sure there will be people who say “good riddance” but remember the new car they bought each year covered an essential salary from the VAT. The shops they shopped in need fewer staff with fewer customers. Their gardeners and housekeepers will find fewer hours to work.
I’ve said it before - I do not rejoice in this, it’s not necessarily good for where I live but it’s worse for the UK which I love.
So ideologically sticking it to the rich will prove to be a stupid act of self harm.
It is a shame they're going. But I also fear there's very little we can do to help people who are so utterly selfish.
It's interesting that some people like the half the idea of Global Britain - easy to come here and work. But the corollary to that is that people find it easier to leave.
Take one bloke in my team. Indian, first generation immigrant. Got wife and baby, no school as yet. Been in the country about 6 years. Why shouldn't he move to Berlin, or wherever?
He looks at what he is paying in taxes and what he gets for it. And is not impressed. Transactional, maybe. But why should he think differently?
I agree. Mrs J is in that situation. She could be earning more in Turkey - or the USA - than here. But we don't move. Why? Partly the reasons she moved to this country in the first place, and partly because the UK is still a good place to live on a moderate income.
Others disagree. But the country needs more money to fix problems it has. Austerity - which I was in favour of - has been tried, and probably went too far. So how else do we get the money? There is no magic money tree.
Isn’t this attitude from you and Mrs J selfish? Mrs J could earn more and contribute more in taxes to the country that nurtured her but instead she has upped sticks to another country for reasons she has decided are better for her rather than society in general?
And frankly if you worked a bit harder you could contribute more in taxes to the UK but instead you rather selfishly have decided to balance your work and life to suit the needs of your family?
I think it’s perfectly fair and correct that you and Mrs J have chosen your residence to suit your priorities over the needs of a country as a whole.
Lots of talk on TwiX now about the millionaires and non Doms fleeing the UK. At a time of great impoverishment the Labour government has contrived to frighten away the most important part of our tax base, and told them btw private schools will be slowly abolished via taxes
It’s all adding up. All these allegedly small things are adding up to a looming and desperate collision with reality. Even as we allow in millions of migrants who will be a net drain on the treasury, house thousands of asylum seekers in the savoy at billions a year, and pay Tanzania forty trillion quid to take control of Cornwall
It’s coming. A crash
Brace
As always 'More or Less' is your friend. When you were spouting this awhile ago More or Less debunked it. Who to believe, some nutters on twitter or people who analyse the data properly. It appears the definition of millionaire and sample selection were, how can we put it, bollocks.
Are you seriously disputing that rich people are leaving the UK? Every metric shows they are and in number
COUTTS LONDON PRIME PROPERTY INDEX Q3 2024: PRICES DROP AND BUYERS GET BIGGER DISCOUNTS
Our latest research on luxury London property shows prices falling, average discounts close to 9% and almost 80% of sales coming in below asking price.
Nope I'm not. Just pointing out that last time you did this by quoting a survey you saw somewhere it turned out to be complete bollocks. I know you think you are always right, but you seem to have a very short memory and a very poor source of your data.
If it helps I can give you personal experience instead of surveys - over the pre Christmas drinks party rounds I met (and I noted the number for work reasons) 22 couples who have already or are in the process of moving here from the UK as an absolute direct result of Labour winning the election last year.
All of these people, all 22 couples were people who had set up successful businesses - not inherited money. They are selling or have sold their UK properties, stopped paying staff, stopped buying luxury goods and cars in the UK. Will not be setting up new business or employing people in the UK for the foreseeable future, not paying any more taxes to the UK.
This is one small place - just think how many are going to larger places such as Switzerland, Dubai etc.
I’m sure there will be people who say “good riddance” but remember the new car they bought each year covered an essential salary from the VAT. The shops they shopped in need fewer staff with fewer customers. Their gardeners and housekeepers will find fewer hours to work.
I’ve said it before - I do not rejoice in this, it’s not necessarily good for where I live but it’s worse for the UK which I love.
So ideologically sticking it to the rich will prove to be a stupid act of self harm.
It is a shame they're going. But I also fear there's very little we can do to help people who are so utterly selfish.
It's interesting that some people like the half the idea of Global Britain - easy to come here and work. But the corollary to that is that people find it easier to leave.
Take one bloke in my team. Indian, first generation immigrant. Got wife and baby, no school as yet. Been in the country about 6 years. Why shouldn't he move to Berlin, or wherever?
He looks at what he is paying in taxes and what he gets for it. And is not impressed. Transactional, maybe. But why should he think differently?
I agree. Mrs J is in that situation. She could be earning more in Turkey - or the USA - than here. But we don't move. Why? Partly the reasons she moved to this country in the first place, and partly because the UK is still a good place to live on a moderate income.
Others disagree. But the country needs more money to fix problems it has. Austerity - which I was in favour of - has been tried, and probably went too far. So how else do we get the money? There is no magic money tree.
Isn’t this attitude from you and Mrs J selfish? Mrs J could earn more and contribute more in taxes to the country that nurtured her but instead she has upped sticks to another country for reasons she has decided are better for her rather than society in general?
And frankly if you worked a bit harder you could contribute more in taxes to the UK but instead you rather selfishly have decided to balance your work and life to suit the needs of your family?
I think it’s perfectly fair and correct that you and Mrs J have chosen your residence to suit your priorities over the needs of a country as a whole.
She had reasons other than money and payment of taxes to come over here: in many ways she would (probably) be earning more over there. And hopefully she has been more than a net benefit to her adopted country.
And yes, you have a point: we are all selfish to a certain degree. I bet, if you dig deep into your soul, you what see selfishness in your good self.
So hopefully you'd agree with my original proposition, that these people are being selfish?
Seriously doubt wages in Turkey are higher than UK and with inflation still at 50% even more unlikely.
It depends which bit of the economy you are in. It is a rare country that doesn't have a bit with London property prices and shops selling 4 figure priced bath taps.
In the poorer countries those bits, are just smaller. Even Peru has some bits like that.
Mrs J's education and training was, and is, much in demand by certain companies in Turkey. And she cannot work on those sorts of projects in the UK because of her background.
In answer to the question posed in the header, I think it highly unlikely Starmer will sack Reeves.
The proximate reason for high bond yield prices now is the same as for Liz Truss: the market doesn't believe future tax revenues will cover future expenditure requirements.
There's a huge political difference between the two however. In Truss case she didn't see why revenues need to cover expenditure. In Reeves case it's because the market believes it will be politically difficult to either increase taxes or reduce expenditure to balance the books, and both will negatively affect growth. Replacing Reeves doesn't remove that dilemma.
Your last sentence hits the nail on the head
It doesn't matter who is COE we have run out of money, room to tax or borrow, so austerity is inevitable
The problem for Labour is it goes against everything they stand for and is politically toxic
There is plenty of room to tax more. Labour has boosted tax revenue as a proportion of GDP to 38.5%, compared with 36.5% under Tory plans.
That compares with 46% in France, 44% in Norway, 42% in Denmark, 39% in Germany.
Tax isn't really the problem, IMO. It's what we tax and what we spend the revenue on.
Comments
MMT says: in a fiat money system the government can always be the spender of last resort, providing an alternate approach to solving this problem.
Twerps who say that MMT means that the goverment can always spend whatever they like without consequences need beating up with an economics textbook until they come to their senses. MMT doesn’t change anything about reality.
Sell it as "We need to do this now to save the NHS etc. When things are on an even keel, we can look at reductions. Simpler taxes are easier to collect and cheaper."
I think this would have gone down better, politically, than the budget we had. With the markets (tax in order to spend, save money on a simplified tax system), with the Labour Party (raise taxes for the NHS) and the country at large (brave, upfront about what we need to do).
Jesus.
Isn't the Islamic system absolutely the opposite, with no opportunity to discharge debts?
There are some useful insights that MMT brings: the world has changed since Ricardo, Marx, Keynes and Friedman, and economic thinking does need to review its core assumptions from time to time. But while you can print yourself out of debt, you cannot print yourself into prosperity.
The unknown question is how labour and the lib dems would have dealt with these 2 crisis, which has seen most every government in charge in that period fall
That compares with 46% in France, 44% in Norway, 42% in Denmark, 39% in Germany.
Tax isn't really the problem, IMO. It's what we tax and what we spend the revenue on.
I know that's unfashionable. But I think it's essential to keep us competitive, encourage investment and for people to innovate and take risks that grow the size of the pie.
I would have combined this with a small Gross Assets Levy, and removed stamp duty from people trading down (maybe even eliminating it altogether). I would also treble council tax on properties that are lived in less than 7 months a year, and add another three or four bands on top of the existing ones.
We have a decades-long aversion to investment, having decided that a quick profit now is better than slower profits over a longer period. That needs to be reversed.
The proponents of MMT are trying to beat modern economic thought into the brains of people who’s only exposure to economics is doing PPE at Oxford. Spelling things out in small words turns out to be more necessary than one would hope for this audience.
Japanese newspaper reports on Yoon's heavy drinking habits, mentions of martial law
https://m.koreatimes.co.kr/pages/article.asp?newsIdx=389972
...Citing a former cabinet minister under the Yoon administration who dined with the president several times, Asahi reported, "Yoon began bringing up the term ‘martial law' more frequently in gatherings after the ruling party's crushing defeat in the April elections last year. His stress levels and alcohol consumption increased as well."
According to the report, Yoon often drank at venues such as a government residence in Samcheong-dong, Seoul. These gatherings typically included samgyeopsal (grilled pork belly), paired with rounds of "somaek" — a shot of soju mixed with beer. Apparently, Yoon drank up to 20 glasses of somaek in a single sitting.
The former minister said, "Most people fill their somaek glasses halfway, but the president filled his to the brim. While drinking, the president would criticize opposition politicians, though he sometimes directed criticism at ruling party members as well."
The report speculated that this habit may stem from Yoon's days as a prosecutor when he drank a mix of whiskey and beer called "Ten-Ten." This potent drink, designed for quick intoxication, was said to be popular among prosecutors.
A former foreign affairs aide from Yoon's administration revealed that these drinking sessions frequently lasted until dawn.
Asahi also reported that Yoon became heavily influenced by far-right YouTube channels amid declining approval ratings and criticism of his unilateral governance style...
We also need to remove all these protections for land and property which distort how people use their money.
And of course it is.
All income should be flat taxed.
CGT is a problem but could largely be circumvented by a simple declaration framework. (Any time you sell anything you simply have to say what it cost you)
They should, for example, clobber asset wealth (especially residential property,) shore up the social care sector and local government finances now rather than dicking about with the millionth long-winded review, and reduce future liabilities by abolishing the Triple Lock immediately and pegging the state pension to wages. These things are perfectly possible. To soldier on with, very largely, the same old attitudes is a choice, not an obligation.
The big economies of the EU seem to me, to have similar problems with low economic growth, to ours.
The Duke of Westminster doesn’t sit there buying houses for jollies, the family money is buying things that will benefit generations of the family.
CGT *starts* with "How much did this cost you originally" and "How much did you sell it for".
The complexity is in the allowances and exclusions.
Personally, the main reason I'm averse to being part of the EU is that I think in the medium and long term it would be economically disastrous. I'm just as frustrated with ardent Remainers for my perception that they are trying to imperil the country's economic future as they are for their perception that Leavers are doing the same. (I'm just nicer about it.)
I suspect that there are far bigger barriers to growth, including a short-termism in investment and business generally, and a very British aversion to risk.
Also please explain how you shore up social care and local government finances
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(Council tax)
Looks like it depends how much Soju you add and how strong the Soju is - it can vary hugely.
NEW THREAD
So, question: which taxes, on whom? She's very up-front about what she thinks more money should be spent on, not so much about where the taxes should hit. A printed penny for your thoughts?
And in reality, are we really saying that a government would *destroy* the money taxed in, rather than recycle it as spending or pay it out in debt servicing / repayment? Because unless it does remove the money taxed in *entirely*, then it's not reducing the money supply and so won't affect prices.
Time once again to remind ourselves that, after allowing for housing costs, the average pensioner has more disposable income than the average worker. The crossover point was reached some years ago, and the net movement of wealth from workers to the retired can only possibly run in one direction so long as the Triple Lock exists and housing remains chronically overvalued.
That said, we should be careful not to overtax assets as well if it results in wealth fleeing.
I just think the balance is wrong; I don't view it as an easy gold mine.
Council tax is applied on homes by all political parties and contributes to council funding
Any idea capital gains tax is applied to private home sales is political suicide
I suppose it's the markets saying we don't believe the government numbers. It doesn't really care about the cause of the fiscal gap.
An extension to this is to discourage retirement. The retirement industry is pernicious. It encourages people to believe that being idle when still fully able is something to aspire to. People should be encouraged to continue in productive paid employment (possibly part time) for as long as they are able. It would reduce labour shortages and give people meaning to their lives while adding, rather than detracting from the economy. Discuss.