Scottish tax hike for high earners backfires with loss of £22m
A top rate of 48p for incomes above £125,140, intended as a ‘progressive’ move to raise money for public services, has instead reduced revenues, expert analysis shows
A tax hike on high earners in Scotland has cost the public purse about £22 million in a single year, new analysis indicates.
Dan Neidle, a tax policy expert who was part of the Scottish government’s recently axed tax advisory group, said its decision to impose a 48p top rate had instead reduced revenues.
Rather than injecting money into struggling public services, as intended, evidence suggests high earners are so put off by the enormous rates, they are taking steps to avoid coming into that bracket.
An investigation by Neidle’s independent think tank, Tax Policy Associates, has found that Scotland has now probably “fallen over the Laffer curve” — the point at which tax rates become so high they cost the government money, because earners are so incentivised to avoid them.
Scottish tax hike for high earners backfires with loss of £22m
A top rate of 48p for incomes above £125,140, intended as a ‘progressive’ move to raise money for public services, has instead reduced revenues, expert analysis shows
A tax hike on high earners in Scotland has cost the public purse about £22 million in a single year, new analysis indicates.
Dan Neidle, a tax policy expert who was part of the Scottish government’s recently axed tax advisory group, said its decision to impose a 48p top rate had instead reduced revenues.
Rather than injecting money into struggling public services, as intended, evidence suggests high earners are so put off by the enormous rates, they are taking steps to avoid coming into that bracket.
An investigation by Neidle’s independent think tank, Tax Policy Associates, has found that Scotland has now probably “fallen over the Laffer curve” — the point at which tax rates become so high they cost the government money, because earners are so incentivised to avoid them.
Lol. It's not called the Laffer curve for nothing. Lol again
It'd be quite interesting if they varied the rate every year or so until they found out where the maximal tax take was. (And then they should choose quite a bit below that)
Bit in brackets - why?
A less certain thought - I'm sure it's right though.
Rather illogical though - find the optimum rate and then deliberately don't use it.
(I quite like your experiment idea, although you'd never have a stable environment to test it in.)
Well, I think that the costs of choosing too high a rate are very big. And also the idea that the government should be taking as much as they possibly can.. I think not. Alas of course they are taking as much as they possibly can and that's all wrong. It won't happen, and even though I think it's the right thing to do, but turn off the welfare tap for a year - see who really needs help.
8% of total public spending is on debt interest.
One pound in twelve that we pay in taxes right now is being paid on paying back money that wasn't taken in taxes in previous years.
That's the cost of choosing too low a rate. A mountain of debt.
And we need to (a) stop adding to it and (b) ideally start reducing it.
Or to put it another way, there is a valid argument for VAT and business rates to be applied to private schools. It's that as a nation we're more skint than an investor who put everything into Truth Social stock. The fact that the smug, lazy, ignorant, arrogant, rude, stupid and openly spiteful Bridget Phillipson wittered on about 6,500 extra teachers (which we will never recruit because she has blown up what little remained of teacher training) tells us rather too much and not in a good way about political discourse in this country.
Similarly, the government should be getting every penny it can to try and sort out the mess. That means maximising tax revenue and for that they definitely should be seeking for the sweet spot.
It may well be the case that currently we need to maximise tax income, but it shouldn't be the rule.
Here again though, we come back to 'if we ever eliminate the debt, we can transition to only raising what we need to fund our spending decisions.'
(I nearly wrote 'go back to,' but then it occurred to me to wonder when the last time we did that was, and I honestly couldn't think of one.)
Actually we probably wouldn't want to eliminate the debt - even if we were cash rich we'd want to maintain a bond market. In the late 80s the government repaid a lot of debt and it caused a contraction in the gilt market. Most notably in some wildly overpaid roles.
Scottish tax hike for high earners backfires with loss of £22m
A top rate of 48p for incomes above £125,140, intended as a ‘progressive’ move to raise money for public services, has instead reduced revenues, expert analysis shows
A tax hike on high earners in Scotland has cost the public purse about £22 million in a single year, new analysis indicates.
Dan Neidle, a tax policy expert who was part of the Scottish government’s recently axed tax advisory group, said its decision to impose a 48p top rate had instead reduced revenues.
Rather than injecting money into struggling public services, as intended, evidence suggests high earners are so put off by the enormous rates, they are taking steps to avoid coming into that bracket.
An investigation by Neidle’s independent think tank, Tax Policy Associates, has found that Scotland has now probably “fallen over the Laffer curve” — the point at which tax rates become so high they cost the government money, because earners are so incentivised to avoid them.
Scottish tax hike for high earners backfires with loss of £22m
A top rate of 48p for incomes above £125,140, intended as a ‘progressive’ move to raise money for public services, has instead reduced revenues, expert analysis shows
A tax hike on high earners in Scotland has cost the public purse about £22 million in a single year, new analysis indicates.
Dan Neidle, a tax policy expert who was part of the Scottish government’s recently axed tax advisory group, said its decision to impose a 48p top rate had instead reduced revenues.
Rather than injecting money into struggling public services, as intended, evidence suggests high earners are so put off by the enormous rates, they are taking steps to avoid coming into that bracket.
An investigation by Neidle’s independent think tank, Tax Policy Associates, has found that Scotland has now probably “fallen over the Laffer curve” — the point at which tax rates become so high they cost the government money, because earners are so incentivised to avoid them.
Lol. It's not called the Laffer curve for nothing. Lol again
It'd be quite interesting if they varied the rate every year or so until they found out where the maximal tax take was. (And then they should choose quite a bit below that)
Bit in brackets - why?
A less certain thought - I'm sure it's right though.
Rather illogical though - find the optimum rate and then deliberately don't use it.
(I quite like your experiment idea, although you'd never have a stable environment to test it in.)
Well, I think that the costs of choosing too high a rate are very big. And also the idea that the government should be taking as much as they possibly can.. I think not. Alas of course they are taking as much as they possibly can and that's all wrong. It won't happen, and even though I think it's the right thing to do, but turn off the welfare tap for a year - see who really needs help.
8% of total public spending is on debt interest.
One pound in twelve that we pay in taxes right now is being paid on paying back money that wasn't taken in taxes in previous years.
That's the cost of choosing too low a rate. A mountain of debt.
And we need to (a) stop adding to it and (b) ideally start reducing it.
Or to put it another way, there is a valid argument for VAT and business rates to be applied to private schools. It's that as a nation we're more skint than an investor who put everything into Truth Social stock. The fact that the smug, lazy, ignorant, arrogant, rude, stupid and openly spiteful Bridget Phillipson wittered on about 6,500 extra teachers (which we will never recruit because she has blown up what little remained of teacher training) tells us rather too much and not in a good way about political discourse in this country.
Similarly, the government should be getting every penny it can to try and sort out the mess. That means maximising tax revenue and for that they definitely should be seeking for the sweet spot.
It may well be the case that currently we need to maximise tax income, but it shouldn't be the rule.
Here again though, we come back to 'if we ever eliminate the debt, we can transition to only raising what we need to fund our spending decisions.'
(I nearly wrote 'go back to,' but then it occurred to me to wonder when the last time we did that was, and I honestly couldn't think of one.)
Actually we probably wouldn't want to eliminate the debt - even if we were cash rich we'd want to maintain a bond market. In the late 80s the government repaid a lot of debt and it caused a contraction in the gilt market. Most notably in some wildly overpaid roles.
You mean, the bond market might not be able to intimidate everybody and a bunch of fat spivs wouldn't be able to make millions while holding us all to ransom?
Scottish tax hike for high earners backfires with loss of £22m
A top rate of 48p for incomes above £125,140, intended as a ‘progressive’ move to raise money for public services, has instead reduced revenues, expert analysis shows
A tax hike on high earners in Scotland has cost the public purse about £22 million in a single year, new analysis indicates.
Dan Neidle, a tax policy expert who was part of the Scottish government’s recently axed tax advisory group, said its decision to impose a 48p top rate had instead reduced revenues.
Rather than injecting money into struggling public services, as intended, evidence suggests high earners are so put off by the enormous rates, they are taking steps to avoid coming into that bracket.
An investigation by Neidle’s independent think tank, Tax Policy Associates, has found that Scotland has now probably “fallen over the Laffer curve” — the point at which tax rates become so high they cost the government money, because earners are so incentivised to avoid them.
At people thinking there really is a 'curve' you can consult, yes I bet he is.
There really is a curve.
Think of 0% tax. Obviously zero revenue for the exchequer. Think of 100% tax - that's going to be pretty like zero too.
So if you draw a line somehow between those two points, how do you do it?
A straight line would make tax a nonsense, and any line that dipped below a gain equally so.
Thus we have a line of unknown character that begins and end (0/100) at zero. I think its easy to see that that line must peak somewhere.
This is the Laffer curve argument and it's irrefutably true.
A line of unknown character that starts and ends at zero. Yes. That's the Laffer 'curve'. Can't believe he didn't get a Nobel.
I'm not sure that stating the blindingly obvious deserves any great prize. However the field of economics is such a great wasteland of actual thinking that I can see that perhaps he did.
Scottish tax hike for high earners backfires with loss of £22m
A top rate of 48p for incomes above £125,140, intended as a ‘progressive’ move to raise money for public services, has instead reduced revenues, expert analysis shows
A tax hike on high earners in Scotland has cost the public purse about £22 million in a single year, new analysis indicates.
Dan Neidle, a tax policy expert who was part of the Scottish government’s recently axed tax advisory group, said its decision to impose a 48p top rate had instead reduced revenues.
Rather than injecting money into struggling public services, as intended, evidence suggests high earners are so put off by the enormous rates, they are taking steps to avoid coming into that bracket.
An investigation by Neidle’s independent think tank, Tax Policy Associates, has found that Scotland has now probably “fallen over the Laffer curve” — the point at which tax rates become so high they cost the government money, because earners are so incentivised to avoid them.
Lol. It's not called the Laffer curve for nothing. Lol again
It'd be quite interesting if they varied the rate every year or so until they found out where the maximal tax take was. (And then they should choose quite a bit below that)
Bit in brackets - why?
Presumably because just because you can take it doesn't mean that in the long term it's beneficial for the economy for you to do so.
It would be highly beneficial to the economy to reduce or better yet eliminate our deficit by finding the sweet spot to maximise our tax take.
Most of the problems we face at the moment are because we are staggering under a huge mountain of debt incurred by a failure to tax to the level people wished public spending to be at, over many decades.
The interest bill is absolutely crippling.
I agree about the problem, but not how it occurred. We have overspent over decades, not undertaxed.
The one is the flip side of the other. There is nothing inherently wrong in having high spending as long as you tax enough to cover it. Or low taxes as long as you cut spending to match.
Unfortunately, we've never had a politician honest enough to say, 'Fine, you want this spending? We therefore take x in tax and you pay it and like it.'
Or, alternatively, 'you're only willing to pay y in tax? Fine, therefore this is how much we spend and what we spend it on.'
Instead we have cakeism, sorted by borrowing based on the naive belief of ever increasing prosperity sorting it out eventually.
I cannot agree with you that high and low spending are equal as long as you can fund it with tax. Too much tax undermines economic growth by eliminating incentives and driving away wealth creation. It results in a doom spiral. Yes, you cannot successfully run a state on close to zero spending either, because you have anarchy, but I am speaking about the realistic scenarios.
Credit where due: As far as I know, your prime ministers have all aided Ukraine effectively, since the start of Putin's Special Military Operation. And for that they deserve some credit.
Scottish tax hike for high earners backfires with loss of £22m
A top rate of 48p for incomes above £125,140, intended as a ‘progressive’ move to raise money for public services, has instead reduced revenues, expert analysis shows
A tax hike on high earners in Scotland has cost the public purse about £22 million in a single year, new analysis indicates.
Dan Neidle, a tax policy expert who was part of the Scottish government’s recently axed tax advisory group, said its decision to impose a 48p top rate had instead reduced revenues.
Rather than injecting money into struggling public services, as intended, evidence suggests high earners are so put off by the enormous rates, they are taking steps to avoid coming into that bracket.
An investigation by Neidle’s independent think tank, Tax Policy Associates, has found that Scotland has now probably “fallen over the Laffer curve” — the point at which tax rates become so high they cost the government money, because earners are so incentivised to avoid them.
Lol. It's not called the Laffer curve for nothing. Lol again
It'd be quite interesting if they varied the rate every year or so until they found out where the maximal tax take was. (And then they should choose quite a bit below that)
Bit in brackets - why?
A less certain thought - I'm sure it's right though.
Rather illogical though - find the optimum rate and then deliberately don't use it.
(I quite like your experiment idea, although you'd never have a stable environment to test it in.)
Well, I think that the costs of choosing too high a rate are very big. And also the idea that the government should be taking as much as they possibly can.. I think not. Alas of course they are taking as much as they possibly can and that's all wrong. It won't happen, and even though I think it's the right thing to do, but turn off the welfare tap for a year - see who really needs help.
8% of total public spending is on debt interest.
One pound in twelve that we pay in taxes right now is being paid on paying back money that wasn't taken in taxes in previous years.
That's the cost of choosing too low a rate. A mountain of debt.
And we need to (a) stop adding to it and (b) ideally start reducing it.
Or to put it another way, there is a valid argument for VAT and business rates to be applied to private schools. It's that as a nation we're more skint than an investor who put everything into Truth Social stock. The fact that the smug, lazy, ignorant, arrogant, rude, stupid and openly spiteful Bridget Phillipson wittered on about 6,500 extra teachers (which we will never recruit because she has blown up what little remained of teacher training) tells us rather too much and not in a good way about political discourse in this country.
Similarly, the government should be getting every penny it can to try and sort out the mess. That means maximising tax revenue and for that they definitely should be seeking for the sweet spot.
It may well be the case that currently we need to maximise tax income, but it shouldn't be the rule.
Here again though, we come back to 'if we ever eliminate the debt, we can transition to only raising what we need to fund our spending decisions.'
(I nearly wrote 'go back to,' but then it occurred to me to wonder when the last time we did that was, and I honestly couldn't think of one.)
Actually we probably wouldn't want to eliminate the debt - even if we were cash rich we'd want to maintain a bond market. In the late 80s the government repaid a lot of debt and it caused a contraction in the gilt market. Most notably in some wildly overpaid roles.
You mean, the bond market might not be able to intimidate everybody and a bunch of fat spivs wouldn't be able to make millions while holding us all to ransom?
Well, that really would be tragic.
Think of all the millions who would die laughing.
No I do not mean that. Can I suggest that you don't understand these issues if you post as such? I hope that I'm not being rude in saying so.
Bond markets are really important. (All they are is a gauge of long term financial stability.)
Scottish tax hike for high earners backfires with loss of £22m
A top rate of 48p for incomes above £125,140, intended as a ‘progressive’ move to raise money for public services, has instead reduced revenues, expert analysis shows
A tax hike on high earners in Scotland has cost the public purse about £22 million in a single year, new analysis indicates.
Dan Neidle, a tax policy expert who was part of the Scottish government’s recently axed tax advisory group, said its decision to impose a 48p top rate had instead reduced revenues.
Rather than injecting money into struggling public services, as intended, evidence suggests high earners are so put off by the enormous rates, they are taking steps to avoid coming into that bracket.
An investigation by Neidle’s independent think tank, Tax Policy Associates, has found that Scotland has now probably “fallen over the Laffer curve” — the point at which tax rates become so high they cost the government money, because earners are so incentivised to avoid them.
Lol. It's not called the Laffer curve for nothing. Lol again
It'd be quite interesting if they varied the rate every year or so until they found out where the maximal tax take was. (And then they should choose quite a bit below that)
Bit in brackets - why?
Presumably because just because you can take it doesn't mean that in the long term it's beneficial for the economy for you to do so.
It would be highly beneficial to the economy to reduce or better yet eliminate our deficit by finding the sweet spot to maximise our tax take.
Most of the problems we face at the moment are because we are staggering under a huge mountain of debt incurred by a failure to tax to the level people wished public spending to be at, over many decades.
The interest bill is absolutely crippling.
I agree about the problem, but not how it occurred. We have overspent over decades, not undertaxed.
The one is the flip side of the other. There is nothing inherently wrong in having high spending as long as you tax enough to cover it. Or low taxes as long as you cut spending to match.
Unfortunately, we've never had a politician honest enough to say, 'Fine, you want this spending? We therefore take x in tax and you pay it and like it.'
Or, alternatively, 'you're only willing to pay y in tax? Fine, therefore this is how much we spend and what we spend it on.'
Instead we have cakeism, sorted by borrowing based on the naive belief of ever increasing prosperity sorting it out eventually.
I cannot agree with you that high and low spending are equal as long as you can fund it with tax. Too much tax undermines economic growth by eliminating incentives and driving away wealth creation. It results in a doom spiral. Yes, you cannot successfully run a state on close to zero spending either, because you have anarchy, but I am speaking about the realistic scenarios.
That's based on the idea that all public spending is unproductive of necessity. Which isn't actually true.
For example, well-engineered and well-maintained roads are beneficial to economic growth.
And a good education system that is available to everyone is essential to it.
A health system that ensures workers are regularly vaccinated and treated quickly and effectively if they get ill so they get back to work ASAP is a net benefit, but no fully private sector has ever done that at a reasonable cost.
Police services by maintaining law and order are also essential for social stability which is a key to economic growth.
And finally, well-funded courts that mange legal and commercial frameworks are essential to a strong economy as well.
The snag is, rather too few people in this country understand this and instead see these as necessary evils to buy off revolutionary fervour, not as the way of oiling the engine of economic growth.
In other European where they do understand this they get away with higher taxes.
Scottish tax hike for high earners backfires with loss of £22m
A top rate of 48p for incomes above £125,140, intended as a ‘progressive’ move to raise money for public services, has instead reduced revenues, expert analysis shows
A tax hike on high earners in Scotland has cost the public purse about £22 million in a single year, new analysis indicates.
Dan Neidle, a tax policy expert who was part of the Scottish government’s recently axed tax advisory group, said its decision to impose a 48p top rate had instead reduced revenues.
Rather than injecting money into struggling public services, as intended, evidence suggests high earners are so put off by the enormous rates, they are taking steps to avoid coming into that bracket.
An investigation by Neidle’s independent think tank, Tax Policy Associates, has found that Scotland has now probably “fallen over the Laffer curve” — the point at which tax rates become so high they cost the government money, because earners are so incentivised to avoid them.
Lol. It's not called the Laffer curve for nothing. Lol again
It'd be quite interesting if they varied the rate every year or so until they found out where the maximal tax take was. (And then they should choose quite a bit below that)
Bit in brackets - why?
A less certain thought - I'm sure it's right though.
Rather illogical though - find the optimum rate and then deliberately don't use it.
(I quite like your experiment idea, although you'd never have a stable environment to test it in.)
Well, I think that the costs of choosing too high a rate are very big. And also the idea that the government should be taking as much as they possibly can.. I think not. Alas of course they are taking as much as they possibly can and that's all wrong. It won't happen, and even though I think it's the right thing to do, but turn off the welfare tap for a year - see who really needs help.
8% of total public spending is on debt interest.
One pound in twelve that we pay in taxes right now is being paid on paying back money that wasn't taken in taxes in previous years.
That's the cost of choosing too low a rate. A mountain of debt.
And we need to (a) stop adding to it and (b) ideally start reducing it.
Or to put it another way, there is a valid argument for VAT and business rates to be applied to private schools. It's that as a nation we're more skint than an investor who put everything into Truth Social stock. The fact that the smug, lazy, ignorant, arrogant, rude, stupid and openly spiteful Bridget Phillipson wittered on about 6,500 extra teachers (which we will never recruit because she has blown up what little remained of teacher training) tells us rather too much and not in a good way about political discourse in this country.
Similarly, the government should be getting every penny it can to try and sort out the mess. That means maximising tax revenue and for that they definitely should be seeking for the sweet spot.
It may well be the case that currently we need to maximise tax income, but it shouldn't be the rule.
Here again though, we come back to 'if we ever eliminate the debt, we can transition to only raising what we need to fund our spending decisions.'
(I nearly wrote 'go back to,' but then it occurred to me to wonder when the last time we did that was, and I honestly couldn't think of one.)
Actually we probably wouldn't want to eliminate the debt - even if we were cash rich we'd want to maintain a bond market. In the late 80s the government repaid a lot of debt and it caused a contraction in the gilt market. Most notably in some wildly overpaid roles.
You mean, the bond market might not be able to intimidate everybody and a bunch of fat spivs wouldn't be able to make millions while holding us all to ransom?
Well, that really would be tragic.
Think of all the millions who would die laughing.
No I do not mean that. Can I suggest that you don't understand these issues if you post as such? I hope that I'm not being rude in saying so.
Bond markets are really important. (All they are is a gauge of long term financial stability.)
You may not have meant that, but it's effectively what you've said. Bond markets selling long term debt are a function of government failure, not a vital part of a capitalist society.
Indeed, having pointed out that public spending is not necessarily economically unproductive, I'd go further and point out that many such private companies are in fact a drag on economic growth by sucking money out of the real economy into the pockets of dubious rentiers.
Would we be noticeably worse off if bond markets, hedge funds and Centrica disappeared overnight?
Credit where due: As far as I know, your prime ministers have all aided Ukraine effectively, since the start of Putin's Special Military Operation. And for that they deserve some credit.
Credit where due: As far as I know, your prime ministers have all aided Ukraine effectively, since the start of Putin's Special Military Operation. And for that they deserve some credit.
Scottish tax hike for high earners backfires with loss of £22m
A top rate of 48p for incomes above £125,140, intended as a ‘progressive’ move to raise money for public services, has instead reduced revenues, expert analysis shows
A tax hike on high earners in Scotland has cost the public purse about £22 million in a single year, new analysis indicates.
Dan Neidle, a tax policy expert who was part of the Scottish government’s recently axed tax advisory group, said its decision to impose a 48p top rate had instead reduced revenues.
Rather than injecting money into struggling public services, as intended, evidence suggests high earners are so put off by the enormous rates, they are taking steps to avoid coming into that bracket.
An investigation by Neidle’s independent think tank, Tax Policy Associates, has found that Scotland has now probably “fallen over the Laffer curve” — the point at which tax rates become so high they cost the government money, because earners are so incentivised to avoid them.
How ever do they manage in Denmark (60.5%); France (55.4%) Austria (55%) Portugal, Sweden, Spain, and Belgium (all >50%)?
You're forgetting that in Scotland the combined top rate (48% + 2% NI) is already at 50%+
The effects are clear, despite your frustration.
The other countries you mention are blending municipal and national taxes and in some cases social insurance, so aren't directly comparable.
Fair point about the 2% NI (NI - the tax that always gets forgotten) and I agree it's very difficult to compare countries. Scotland does however have a unique problem in that it is exceedingly easy for high income individuals to base themselves in England for tax purposes.
Scottish tax hike for high earners backfires with loss of £22m
A top rate of 48p for incomes above £125,140, intended as a ‘progressive’ move to raise money for public services, has instead reduced revenues, expert analysis shows
A tax hike on high earners in Scotland has cost the public purse about £22 million in a single year, new analysis indicates.
Dan Neidle, a tax policy expert who was part of the Scottish government’s recently axed tax advisory group, said its decision to impose a 48p top rate had instead reduced revenues.
Rather than injecting money into struggling public services, as intended, evidence suggests high earners are so put off by the enormous rates, they are taking steps to avoid coming into that bracket.
An investigation by Neidle’s independent think tank, Tax Policy Associates, has found that Scotland has now probably “fallen over the Laffer curve” — the point at which tax rates become so high they cost the government money, because earners are so incentivised to avoid them.
How ever do they manage in Denmark (60.5%); France (55.4%) Austria (55%) Portugal, Sweden, Spain, and Belgium (all >50%)?
They'd raise more revenue if they cut their tax rates.
Would they ? Different societies can have very different responses to any given headline rate of tax; that's an economic commonplace.
If there were such a thing as one optimal headline tax rate, then countries would have standardised on it by now. It's an ever moving target depending on times and circumstance.
Scottish tax hike for high earners backfires with loss of £22m
A top rate of 48p for incomes above £125,140, intended as a ‘progressive’ move to raise money for public services, has instead reduced revenues, expert analysis shows
A tax hike on high earners in Scotland has cost the public purse about £22 million in a single year, new analysis indicates.
Dan Neidle, a tax policy expert who was part of the Scottish government’s recently axed tax advisory group, said its decision to impose a 48p top rate had instead reduced revenues.
Rather than injecting money into struggling public services, as intended, evidence suggests high earners are so put off by the enormous rates, they are taking steps to avoid coming into that bracket.
An investigation by Neidle’s independent think tank, Tax Policy Associates, has found that Scotland has now probably “fallen over the Laffer curve” — the point at which tax rates become so high they cost the government money, because earners are so incentivised to avoid them.
Lol. It's not called the Laffer curve for nothing. Lol again
It'd be quite interesting if they varied the rate every year or so until they found out where the maximal tax take was. (And then they should choose quite a bit below that)
Bit in brackets - why?
A less certain thought - I'm sure it's right though.
Rather illogical though - find the optimum rate and then deliberately don't use it.
(I quite like your experiment idea, although you'd never have a stable environment to test it in.)
Well, I think that the costs of choosing too high a rate are very big. And also the idea that the government should be taking as much as they possibly can.. I think not. Alas of course they are taking as much as they possibly can and that's all wrong. It won't happen, and even though I think it's the right thing to do, but turn off the welfare tap for a year - see who really needs help.
8% of total public spending is on debt interest.
One pound in twelve that we pay in taxes right now is being paid on paying back money that wasn't taken in taxes in previous years.
That's the cost of choosing too low a rate. A mountain of debt.
And we need to (a) stop adding to it and (b) ideally start reducing it.
Or to put it another way, there is a valid argument for VAT and business rates to be applied to private schools. It's that as a nation we're more skint than an investor who put everything into Truth Social stock. The fact that the smug, lazy, ignorant, arrogant, rude, stupid and openly spiteful Bridget Phillipson wittered on about 6,500 extra teachers (which we will never recruit because she has blown up what little remained of teacher training) tells us rather too much and not in a good way about political discourse in this country.
Similarly, the government should be getting every penny it can to try and sort out the mess. That means maximising tax revenue and for that they definitely should be seeking for the sweet spot.
It may well be the case that currently we need to maximise tax income, but it shouldn't be the rule.
Here again though, we come back to 'if we ever eliminate the debt, we can transition to only raising what we need to fund our spending decisions.'
(I nearly wrote 'go back to,' but then it occurred to me to wonder when the last time we did that was, and I honestly couldn't think of one.)
Actually we probably wouldn't want to eliminate the debt - even if we were cash rich we'd want to maintain a bond market. In the late 80s the government repaid a lot of debt and it caused a contraction in the gilt market. Most notably in some wildly overpaid roles.
You mean, the bond market might not be able to intimidate everybody and a bunch of fat spivs wouldn't be able to make millions while holding us all to ransom?
Well, that really would be tragic.
Think of all the millions who would die laughing.
No I do not mean that. Can I suggest that you don't understand these issues if you post as such? I hope that I'm not being rude in saying so.
Bond markets are really important. (All they are is a gauge of long term financial stability.)
You may not have meant that, but it's effectively what you've said. Bond markets selling long term debt are a function of government failure, not a vital part of a capitalist society.
Indeed, having pointed out that public spending is not necessarily economically unproductive, I'd go further and point out that many such private companies are in fact a drag on economic growth by sucking money out of the real economy into the pockets of dubious rentiers.
Would we be noticeably worse off if bond markets, hedge funds and Centrica disappeared overnight?
Absolute poppycock. And again I really don't want to fall out with you. Long term debt is an essential tool. Money perhaps can be seen in this way. I presume you don't object to money?
Scottish tax hike for high earners backfires with loss of £22m
A top rate of 48p for incomes above £125,140, intended as a ‘progressive’ move to raise money for public services, has instead reduced revenues, expert analysis shows
A tax hike on high earners in Scotland has cost the public purse about £22 million in a single year, new analysis indicates.
Dan Neidle, a tax policy expert who was part of the Scottish government’s recently axed tax advisory group, said its decision to impose a 48p top rate had instead reduced revenues.
Rather than injecting money into struggling public services, as intended, evidence suggests high earners are so put off by the enormous rates, they are taking steps to avoid coming into that bracket.
An investigation by Neidle’s independent think tank, Tax Policy Associates, has found that Scotland has now probably “fallen over the Laffer curve” — the point at which tax rates become so high they cost the government money, because earners are so incentivised to avoid them.
How ever do they manage in Denmark (60.5%); France (55.4%) Austria (55%) Portugal, Sweden, Spain, and Belgium (all >50%)?
You're forgetting that in Scotland the combined top rate (48% + 2% NI) is already at 50%+
The effects are clear, despite your frustration.
The other countries you mention are blending municipal and national taxes and in some cases social insurance, so aren't directly comparable.
Fair point about the 2% NI (NI - the tax that always gets forgotten) and I agree it's very difficult to compare countries. Scotland does however have a unique problem in that it is exceedingly easy for high income individuals to base themselves in England for tax purposes.
It's an inadequate answer but I suspect there's something about the close knit nature of small Scandinavian countries that makes them willing to tolerate very high taxes AND fairly hostile to high levels of immigration (both probably linked) in a way that wouldn't really work here.
Scottish tax hike for high earners backfires with loss of £22m
A top rate of 48p for incomes above £125,140, intended as a ‘progressive’ move to raise money for public services, has instead reduced revenues, expert analysis shows
A tax hike on high earners in Scotland has cost the public purse about £22 million in a single year, new analysis indicates.
Dan Neidle, a tax policy expert who was part of the Scottish government’s recently axed tax advisory group, said its decision to impose a 48p top rate had instead reduced revenues.
Rather than injecting money into struggling public services, as intended, evidence suggests high earners are so put off by the enormous rates, they are taking steps to avoid coming into that bracket.
An investigation by Neidle’s independent think tank, Tax Policy Associates, has found that Scotland has now probably “fallen over the Laffer curve” — the point at which tax rates become so high they cost the government money, because earners are so incentivised to avoid them.
Scottish tax hike for high earners backfires with loss of £22m
A top rate of 48p for incomes above £125,140, intended as a ‘progressive’ move to raise money for public services, has instead reduced revenues, expert analysis shows
A tax hike on high earners in Scotland has cost the public purse about £22 million in a single year, new analysis indicates.
Dan Neidle, a tax policy expert who was part of the Scottish government’s recently axed tax advisory group, said its decision to impose a 48p top rate had instead reduced revenues.
Rather than injecting money into struggling public services, as intended, evidence suggests high earners are so put off by the enormous rates, they are taking steps to avoid coming into that bracket.
An investigation by Neidle’s independent think tank, Tax Policy Associates, has found that Scotland has now probably “fallen over the Laffer curve” — the point at which tax rates become so high they cost the government money, because earners are so incentivised to avoid them.
Lol. It's not called the Laffer curve for nothing. Lol again
It'd be quite interesting if they varied the rate every year or so until they found out where the maximal tax take was. (And then they should choose quite a bit below that)
Bit in brackets - why?
Presumably because just because you can take it doesn't mean that in the long term it's beneficial for the economy for you to do so.
It would be highly beneficial to the economy to reduce or better yet eliminate our deficit by finding the sweet spot to maximise our tax take.
Most of the problems we face at the moment are because we are staggering under a huge mountain of debt incurred by a failure to tax to the level people wished public spending to be at, over many decades.
The interest bill is absolutely crippling.
I agree about the problem, but not how it occurred. We have overspent over decades, not undertaxed.
The one is the flip side of the other. There is nothing inherently wrong in having high spending as long as you tax enough to cover it. Or low taxes as long as you cut spending to match.
Unfortunately, we've never had a politician honest enough to say, 'Fine, you want this spending? We therefore take x in tax and you pay it and like it.'
Or, alternatively, 'you're only willing to pay y in tax? Fine, therefore this is how much we spend and what we spend it on.'
Instead we have cakeism, sorted by borrowing based on the naive belief of ever increasing prosperity sorting it out eventually.
I cannot agree with you that high and low spending are equal as long as you can fund it with tax. Too much tax undermines economic growth by eliminating incentives and driving away wealth creation. It results in a doom spiral. Yes, you cannot successfully run a state on close to zero spending either, because you have anarchy, but I am speaking about the realistic scenarios.
If nothing else, high tax crowds out other economic activity.
Scottish tax hike for high earners backfires with loss of £22m
A top rate of 48p for incomes above £125,140, intended as a ‘progressive’ move to raise money for public services, has instead reduced revenues, expert analysis shows
A tax hike on high earners in Scotland has cost the public purse about £22 million in a single year, new analysis indicates.
Dan Neidle, a tax policy expert who was part of the Scottish government’s recently axed tax advisory group, said its decision to impose a 48p top rate had instead reduced revenues.
Rather than injecting money into struggling public services, as intended, evidence suggests high earners are so put off by the enormous rates, they are taking steps to avoid coming into that bracket.
An investigation by Neidle’s independent think tank, Tax Policy Associates, has found that Scotland has now probably “fallen over the Laffer curve” — the point at which tax rates become so high they cost the government money, because earners are so incentivised to avoid them.
How ever do they manage in Denmark (60.5%); France (55.4%) Austria (55%) Portugal, Sweden, Spain, and Belgium (all >50%)?
They'd raise more revenue if they cut their tax rates.
Would they ? Different societies can have very different responses to any given headline rate of tax; that's an economic commonplace.
If there were such a thing as one optimal headline tax rate, then countries would have standardised on it by now. It's an ever moving target depending on times and circumstance.
Laffer curves indisputably exist, but the problem is there are many of them: at different rates for different taxes, and at different times. Some are more predictable than others: HMT is able to estimate behavioural impacts on tax yield for CGT for example, and for some consumption taxes based on historical data, but not for say income tax thresholds or CT.
Then there’s the breadth of the tax base and the availability of reliefs, which complicates the picture further.
Scottish tax hike for high earners backfires with loss of £22m
A top rate of 48p for incomes above £125,140, intended as a ‘progressive’ move to raise money for public services, has instead reduced revenues, expert analysis shows
A tax hike on high earners in Scotland has cost the public purse about £22 million in a single year, new analysis indicates.
Dan Neidle, a tax policy expert who was part of the Scottish government’s recently axed tax advisory group, said its decision to impose a 48p top rate had instead reduced revenues.
Rather than injecting money into struggling public services, as intended, evidence suggests high earners are so put off by the enormous rates, they are taking steps to avoid coming into that bracket.
An investigation by Neidle’s independent think tank, Tax Policy Associates, has found that Scotland has now probably “fallen over the Laffer curve” — the point at which tax rates become so high they cost the government money, because earners are so incentivised to avoid them.
Lol. It's not called the Laffer curve for nothing. Lol again
It'd be quite interesting if they varied the rate every year or so until they found out where the maximal tax take was. (And then they should choose quite a bit below that)
Bit in brackets - why?
Presumably because just because you can take it doesn't mean that in the long term it's beneficial for the economy for you to do so.
It would be highly beneficial to the economy to reduce or better yet eliminate our deficit by finding the sweet spot to maximise our tax take.
Most of the problems we face at the moment are because we are staggering under a huge mountain of debt incurred by a failure to tax to the level people wished public spending to be at, over many decades.
The interest bill is absolutely crippling.
The interest is close to ONE HUNDRED BILLION A YEAR.
It's a phenomenal sum that exceeds the Defence and Education budgets combined.
Which wouldn't be so bad except that an increasing proportion of our government debt - along with our companies shares - is held overseas. We're slowly becoming debt slaves to the rest of the world, if we're unable to reverse the trend.
At which point we'll need to take some of the Greek medicine.
Scottish tax hike for high earners backfires with loss of £22m
A top rate of 48p for incomes above £125,140, intended as a ‘progressive’ move to raise money for public services, has instead reduced revenues, expert analysis shows
A tax hike on high earners in Scotland has cost the public purse about £22 million in a single year, new analysis indicates.
Dan Neidle, a tax policy expert who was part of the Scottish government’s recently axed tax advisory group, said its decision to impose a 48p top rate had instead reduced revenues.
Rather than injecting money into struggling public services, as intended, evidence suggests high earners are so put off by the enormous rates, they are taking steps to avoid coming into that bracket.
An investigation by Neidle’s independent think tank, Tax Policy Associates, has found that Scotland has now probably “fallen over the Laffer curve” — the point at which tax rates become so high they cost the government money, because earners are so incentivised to avoid them.
Lol. It's not called the Laffer curve for nothing. Lol again
It'd be quite interesting if they varied the rate every year or so until they found out where the maximal tax take was. (And then they should choose quite a bit below that)
Bit in brackets - why?
A less certain thought - I'm sure it's right though.
Rather illogical though - find the optimum rate and then deliberately don't use it.
(I quite like your experiment idea, although you'd never have a stable environment to test it in.)
Well, I think that the costs of choosing too high a rate are very big. And also the idea that the government should be taking as much as they possibly can.. I think not. Alas of course they are taking as much as they possibly can and that's all wrong. It won't happen, and even though I think it's the right thing to do, but turn off the welfare tap for a year - see who really needs help.
8% of total public spending is on debt interest.
One pound in twelve that we pay in taxes right now is being paid on paying back money that wasn't taken in taxes in previous years.
That's the cost of choosing too low a rate. A mountain of debt.
And we need to (a) stop adding to it and (b) ideally start reducing it.
Or to put it another way, there is a valid argument for VAT and business rates to be applied to private schools. It's that as a nation we're more skint than an investor who put everything into Truth Social stock. The fact that the smug, lazy, ignorant, arrogant, rude, stupid and openly spiteful Bridget Phillipson wittered on about 6,500 extra teachers (which we will never recruit because she has blown up what little remained of teacher training) tells us rather too much and not in a good way about political discourse in this country.
Similarly, the government should be getting every penny it can to try and sort out the mess. That means maximising tax revenue and for that they definitely should be seeking for the sweet spot.
It may well be the case that currently we need to maximise tax income, but it shouldn't be the rule.
Here again though, we come back to 'if we ever eliminate the debt, we can transition to only raising what we need to fund our spending decisions.'
(I nearly wrote 'go back to,' but then it occurred to me to wonder when the last time we did that was, and I honestly couldn't think of one.)
Actually we probably wouldn't want to eliminate the debt - even if we were cash rich we'd want to maintain a bond market. In the late 80s the government repaid a lot of debt and it caused a contraction in the gilt market. Most notably in some wildly overpaid roles.
You mean, the bond market might not be able to intimidate everybody and a bunch of fat spivs wouldn't be able to make millions while holding us all to ransom?
Well, that really would be tragic.
Think of all the millions who would die laughing.
No I do not mean that. Can I suggest that you don't understand these issues if you post as such? I hope that I'm not being rude in saying so.
Bond markets are really important. (All they are is a gauge of long term financial stability.)
You may not have meant that, but it's effectively what you've said. Bond markets selling long term debt are a function of government failure, not a vital part of a capitalist society.
Indeed, having pointed out that public spending is not necessarily economically unproductive, I'd go further and point out that many such private companies are in fact a drag on economic growth by sucking money out of the real economy into the pockets of dubious rentiers.
Would we be noticeably worse off if bond markets, hedge funds and Centrica disappeared overnight?
Absolute poppycock. And again I really don't want to fall out with you. Long term debt is an essential tool. Money perhaps can be seen in this way. I presume you don't object to money?
Oh, lor, we're back on cash.
Look, money borrowed in the long term can be used intelligently, particularly by developing productive assets that will aid economic growth. Building HS2 with borrowed money would make sense, for example, because it would (if Sunak wasn't an anti-train nutjob) have made a big profit and powered economic growth in the north and Midlands which would have increased tax take and reduced social expenditure.
Money borrowed on long term to pay pensions is not such money.* That's what we've been doing for decades and that's where the bond markets have our balls in a vice. When you are borrowing from them merely to survive, they can dictate terms and they are doing so.
*And I am now looking north in the expectation of an incoming ballistic turnip.
Scottish tax hike for high earners backfires with loss of £22m
A top rate of 48p for incomes above £125,140, intended as a ‘progressive’ move to raise money for public services, has instead reduced revenues, expert analysis shows
A tax hike on high earners in Scotland has cost the public purse about £22 million in a single year, new analysis indicates.
Dan Neidle, a tax policy expert who was part of the Scottish government’s recently axed tax advisory group, said its decision to impose a 48p top rate had instead reduced revenues.
Rather than injecting money into struggling public services, as intended, evidence suggests high earners are so put off by the enormous rates, they are taking steps to avoid coming into that bracket.
An investigation by Neidle’s independent think tank, Tax Policy Associates, has found that Scotland has now probably “fallen over the Laffer curve” — the point at which tax rates become so high they cost the government money, because earners are so incentivised to avoid them.
Lol. It's not called the Laffer curve for nothing. Lol again
It'd be quite interesting if they varied the rate every year or so until they found out where the maximal tax take was. (And then they should choose quite a bit below that)
Bit in brackets - why?
Presumably because just because you can take it doesn't mean that in the long term it's beneficial for the economy for you to do so.
It would be highly beneficial to the economy to reduce or better yet eliminate our deficit by finding the sweet spot to maximise our tax take.
Most of the problems we face at the moment are because we are staggering under a huge mountain of debt incurred by a failure to tax to the level people wished public spending to be at, over many decades.
The interest bill is absolutely crippling.
I agree about the problem, but not how it occurred. We have overspent over decades, not undertaxed.
The one is the flip side of the other. There is nothing inherently wrong in having high spending as long as you tax enough to cover it. Or low taxes as long as you cut spending to match.
Unfortunately, we've never had a politician honest enough to say, 'Fine, you want this spending? We therefore take x in tax and you pay it and like it.'
Or, alternatively, 'you're only willing to pay y in tax? Fine, therefore this is how much we spend and what we spend it on.'
Instead we have cakeism, sorted by borrowing based on the naive belief of ever increasing prosperity sorting it out eventually.
I cannot agree with you that high and low spending are equal as long as you can fund it with tax. Too much tax undermines economic growth by eliminating incentives and driving away wealth creation. It results in a doom spiral. Yes, you cannot successfully run a state on close to zero spending either, because you have anarchy, but I am speaking about the realistic scenarios.
That's based on the idea that all public spending is unproductive of necessity. Which isn't actually true.
For example, well-engineered and well-maintained roads are beneficial to economic growth.
And a good education system that is available to everyone is essential to it.
A health system that ensures workers are regularly vaccinated and treated quickly and effectively if they get ill so they get back to work ASAP is a net benefit, but no fully private sector has ever done that at a reasonable cost.
Police services by maintaining law and order are also essential for social stability which is a key to economic growth.
And finally, well-funded courts that mange legal and commercial frameworks are essential to a strong economy as well.
The snag is, rather too few people in this country understand this and instead see these as necessary evils to buy off revolutionary fervour, not as the way of oiling the engine of economic growth.
In other European where they do understand this they get away with higher taxes.
Two separate things.
One is the desirability of a balanced budget over the medium term. Lots of questions about what counts as balanced (what do you do with state assets?) and medium term, but there's a desirability there.
The other is whether that balance is achieved as low tax/low spend or high tax/high spend. There's a legit political debate to be had there- though comparing the US with the rest of the world, I suspect that the low tax model generates more money without making most people happier. But I'm pretty sure that's secondary to the balanced budget over the medium term thing.
As a Chancellor of the Exchequer called Healey once said, we are spending 6 per cent more than we are earning. His party lost the four subsequent elections for his pains. But that gap between what the UK actually earns and the lifestyle it thinks it deserves has never really closed. But when the government plays up the Cost Of Living Crisis, it's really giving a different, more voter-friendly, name for the same phenomenon.
Scottish tax hike for high earners backfires with loss of £22m
A top rate of 48p for incomes above £125,140, intended as a ‘progressive’ move to raise money for public services, has instead reduced revenues, expert analysis shows
A tax hike on high earners in Scotland has cost the public purse about £22 million in a single year, new analysis indicates.
Dan Neidle, a tax policy expert who was part of the Scottish government’s recently axed tax advisory group, said its decision to impose a 48p top rate had instead reduced revenues.
Rather than injecting money into struggling public services, as intended, evidence suggests high earners are so put off by the enormous rates, they are taking steps to avoid coming into that bracket.
An investigation by Neidle’s independent think tank, Tax Policy Associates, has found that Scotland has now probably “fallen over the Laffer curve” — the point at which tax rates become so high they cost the government money, because earners are so incentivised to avoid them.
How ever do they manage in Denmark (60.5%); France (55.4%) Austria (55%) Portugal, Sweden, Spain, and Belgium (all >50%)?
You're forgetting that in Scotland the combined top rate (48% + 2% NI) is already at 50%+
The effects are clear, despite your frustration.
The other countries you mention are blending municipal and national taxes and in some cases social insurance, so aren't directly comparable.
Fair point about the 2% NI (NI - the tax that always gets forgotten) and I agree it's very difficult to compare countries. Scotland does however have a unique problem in that it is exceedingly easy for high income individuals to base themselves in England for tax purposes.
It's an inadequate answer but I suspect there's something about the close knit nature of small Scandinavian countries that makes them willing to tolerate very high taxes AND fairly hostile to high levels of immigration (both probably linked) in a way that wouldn't really work here.
Scandinavian countries have their fair share of tax exiles of course, but they’ve embraced something that seems politically impossible in the UK: high and broad based taxation of the majority of the population (something Dan Neidle has pointed out - in the UK we tax the average worker less now than at almost any time in recent history even while our overall tax take is at record highs), but relatively low taxation of certain things that are considered economically important.
Corporation tax, for example, is lower in the Nordics than in most of the OECD including the USA. And Sweden has zero IHT.
Scottish tax hike for high earners backfires with loss of £22m
A top rate of 48p for incomes above £125,140, intended as a ‘progressive’ move to raise money for public services, has instead reduced revenues, expert analysis shows
A tax hike on high earners in Scotland has cost the public purse about £22 million in a single year, new analysis indicates.
Dan Neidle, a tax policy expert who was part of the Scottish government’s recently axed tax advisory group, said its decision to impose a 48p top rate had instead reduced revenues.
Rather than injecting money into struggling public services, as intended, evidence suggests high earners are so put off by the enormous rates, they are taking steps to avoid coming into that bracket.
An investigation by Neidle’s independent think tank, Tax Policy Associates, has found that Scotland has now probably “fallen over the Laffer curve” — the point at which tax rates become so high they cost the government money, because earners are so incentivised to avoid them.
Lol. It's not called the Laffer curve for nothing. Lol again
It'd be quite interesting if they varied the rate every year or so until they found out where the maximal tax take was. (And then they should choose quite a bit below that)
Bit in brackets - why?
A less certain thought - I'm sure it's right though.
Rather illogical though - find the optimum rate and then deliberately don't use it.
(I quite like your experiment idea, although you'd never have a stable environment to test it in.)
Well, I think that the costs of choosing too high a rate are very big. And also the idea that the government should be taking as much as they possibly can.. I think not. Alas of course they are taking as much as they possibly can and that's all wrong. It won't happen, and even though I think it's the right thing to do, but turn off the welfare tap for a year - see who really needs help.
8% of total public spending is on debt interest.
One pound in twelve that we pay in taxes right now is being paid on paying back money that wasn't taken in taxes in previous years.
That's the cost of choosing too low a rate. A mountain of debt.
And we need to (a) stop adding to it and (b) ideally start reducing it.
Or to put it another way, there is a valid argument for VAT and business rates to be applied to private schools. It's that as a nation we're more skint than an investor who put everything into Truth Social stock. The fact that the smug, lazy, ignorant, arrogant, rude, stupid and openly spiteful Bridget Phillipson wittered on about 6,500 extra teachers (which we will never recruit because she has blown up what little remained of teacher training) tells us rather too much and not in a good way about political discourse in this country.
Similarly, the government should be getting every penny it can to try and sort out the mess. That means maximising tax revenue and for that they definitely should be seeking for the sweet spot.
It may well be the case that currently we need to maximise tax income, but it shouldn't be the rule.
Here again though, we come back to 'if we ever eliminate the debt, we can transition to only raising what we need to fund our spending decisions.'
(I nearly wrote 'go back to,' but then it occurred to me to wonder when the last time we did that was, and I honestly couldn't think of one.)
Actually we probably wouldn't want to eliminate the debt - even if we were cash rich we'd want to maintain a bond market. In the late 80s the government repaid a lot of debt and it caused a contraction in the gilt market. Most notably in some wildly overpaid roles.
You mean, the bond market might not be able to intimidate everybody and a bunch of fat spivs wouldn't be able to make millions while holding us all to ransom?
Well, that really would be tragic.
Think of all the millions who would die laughing.
No I do not mean that. Can I suggest that you don't understand these issues if you post as such? I hope that I'm not being rude in saying so.
Bond markets are really important. (All they are is a gauge of long term financial stability.)
You may not have meant that, but it's effectively what you've said. Bond markets selling long term debt are a function of government failure, not a vital part of a capitalist society.
Indeed, having pointed out that public spending is not necessarily economically unproductive, I'd go further and point out that many such private companies are in fact a drag on economic growth by sucking money out of the real economy into the pockets of dubious rentiers.
Would we be noticeably worse off if bond markets, hedge funds and Centrica disappeared overnight?
Absolute poppycock. And again I really don't want to fall out with you. Long term debt is an essential tool. Money perhaps can be seen in this way. I presume you don't object to money?
Oh, lor, we're back on cash.
Look, money borrowed in the long term can be used intelligently, particularly by developing productive assets that will aid economic growth. Building HS2 with borrowed money would make sense, for example, because it would (if Sunak wasn't an anti-train nutjob) have made a big profit and powered economic growth in the north and Midlands which would have increased tax take and reduced social expenditure.
Money borrowed on long term to pay pensions is not such money.* That's what we've been doing for decades and that's where the bond markets have our balls in a vice. When you are borrowing from them merely to survive, they can dictate terms and they are doing so.
*And I am now looking north in the expectation of an incoming ballistic turnip.
If you have a ten pound note - what actually is it? It's a bond. You can't go wildly rambling about HS2 as a smokescreen.
A well managed company will probably have some debt. They have it because they foresee that their growth enabled by the funds will far outstrip the cost of servicing the debt.
Scottish tax hike for high earners backfires with loss of £22m
A top rate of 48p for incomes above £125,140, intended as a ‘progressive’ move to raise money for public services, has instead reduced revenues, expert analysis shows
A tax hike on high earners in Scotland has cost the public purse about £22 million in a single year, new analysis indicates.
Dan Neidle, a tax policy expert who was part of the Scottish government’s recently axed tax advisory group, said its decision to impose a 48p top rate had instead reduced revenues.
Rather than injecting money into struggling public services, as intended, evidence suggests high earners are so put off by the enormous rates, they are taking steps to avoid coming into that bracket.
An investigation by Neidle’s independent think tank, Tax Policy Associates, has found that Scotland has now probably “fallen over the Laffer curve” — the point at which tax rates become so high they cost the government money, because earners are so incentivised to avoid them.
How ever do they manage in Denmark (60.5%); France (55.4%) Austria (55%) Portugal, Sweden, Spain, and Belgium (all >50%)?
They'd raise more revenue if they cut their tax rates.
Would they ? Different societies can have very different responses to any given headline rate of tax; that's an economic commonplace.
If there were such a thing as one optimal headline tax rate, then countries would have standardised on it by now. It's an ever moving target depending on times and circumstance.
Laffer curves indisputably exist, but the problem is there are many of them: at different rates for different taxes, and at different times. Some are more predictable than others: HMT is able to estimate behavioural impacts on tax yield for CGT for example, and for some consumption taxes based on historical data, but not for say income tax thresholds or CT.
Then there’s the breadth of the tax base and the availability of reliefs, which complicates the picture further.
How go you know they are even curves ? What's the formula that defines even one of them ?
To define a curve of unknown type, you need far more data for a particular economy at a particular time than is possible to achieve in a real economy.
Scottish tax hike for high earners backfires with loss of £22m
A top rate of 48p for incomes above £125,140, intended as a ‘progressive’ move to raise money for public services, has instead reduced revenues, expert analysis shows
A tax hike on high earners in Scotland has cost the public purse about £22 million in a single year, new analysis indicates.
Dan Neidle, a tax policy expert who was part of the Scottish government’s recently axed tax advisory group, said its decision to impose a 48p top rate had instead reduced revenues.
Rather than injecting money into struggling public services, as intended, evidence suggests high earners are so put off by the enormous rates, they are taking steps to avoid coming into that bracket.
An investigation by Neidle’s independent think tank, Tax Policy Associates, has found that Scotland has now probably “fallen over the Laffer curve” — the point at which tax rates become so high they cost the government money, because earners are so incentivised to avoid them.
Lol. It's not called the Laffer curve for nothing. Lol again
It'd be quite interesting if they varied the rate every year or so until they found out where the maximal tax take was. (And then they should choose quite a bit below that)
Bit in brackets - why?
A less certain thought - I'm sure it's right though.
Rather illogical though - find the optimum rate and then deliberately don't use it.
(I quite like your experiment idea, although you'd never have a stable environment to test it in.)
Well, I think that the costs of choosing too high a rate are very big. And also the idea that the government should be taking as much as they possibly can.. I think not. Alas of course they are taking as much as they possibly can and that's all wrong. It won't happen, and even though I think it's the right thing to do, but turn off the welfare tap for a year - see who really needs help.
8% of total public spending is on debt interest.
One pound in twelve that we pay in taxes right now is being paid on paying back money that wasn't taken in taxes in previous years.
That's the cost of choosing too low a rate. A mountain of debt.
And we need to (a) stop adding to it and (b) ideally start reducing it.
Or to put it another way, there is a valid argument for VAT and business rates to be applied to private schools. It's that as a nation we're more skint than an investor who put everything into Truth Social stock. The fact that the smug, lazy, ignorant, arrogant, rude, stupid and openly spiteful Bridget Phillipson wittered on about 6,500 extra teachers (which we will never recruit because she has blown up what little remained of teacher training) tells us rather too much and not in a good way about political discourse in this country.
Similarly, the government should be getting every penny it can to try and sort out the mess. That means maximising tax revenue and for that they definitely should be seeking for the sweet spot.
It may well be the case that currently we need to maximise tax income, but it shouldn't be the rule.
Here again though, we come back to 'if we ever eliminate the debt, we can transition to only raising what we need to fund our spending decisions.'
(I nearly wrote 'go back to,' but then it occurred to me to wonder when the last time we did that was, and I honestly couldn't think of one.)
Actually we probably wouldn't want to eliminate the debt - even if we were cash rich we'd want to maintain a bond market. In the late 80s the government repaid a lot of debt and it caused a contraction in the gilt market. Most notably in some wildly overpaid roles.
You mean, the bond market might not be able to intimidate everybody and a bunch of fat spivs wouldn't be able to make millions while holding us all to ransom?
Well, that really would be tragic.
Think of all the millions who would die laughing.
No I do not mean that. Can I suggest that you don't understand these issues if you post as such? I hope that I'm not being rude in saying so.
Bond markets are really important. (All they are is a gauge of long term financial stability.)
You may not have meant that, but it's effectively what you've said. Bond markets selling long term debt are a function of government failure, not a vital part of a capitalist society.
Indeed, having pointed out that public spending is not necessarily economically unproductive, I'd go further and point out that many such private companies are in fact a drag on economic growth by sucking money out of the real economy into the pockets of dubious rentiers.
Would we be noticeably worse off if bond markets, hedge funds and Centrica disappeared overnight?
Absolute poppycock. And again I really don't want to fall out with you. Long term debt is an essential tool. Money perhaps can be seen in this way. I presume you don't object to money?
Oh, lor, we're back on cash.
Look, money borrowed in the long term can be used intelligently, particularly by developing productive assets that will aid economic growth. Building HS2 with borrowed money would make sense, for example, because it would (if Sunak wasn't an anti-train nutjob) have made a big profit and powered economic growth in the north and Midlands which would have increased tax take and reduced social expenditure.
Money borrowed on long term to pay pensions is not such money.* That's what we've been doing for decades and that's where the bond markets have our balls in a vice. When you are borrowing from them merely to survive, they can dictate terms and they are doing so.
*And I am now looking north in the expectation of an incoming ballistic turnip.
If you have a ten pound note - what actually is it? It's a bond. You can't go wildly rambling about HS2 as a smokescreen.
A well managed company will probably have some debt. They have it because they foresee that their growth enabled by the funds will far outstrip the cost of servicing the debt.
Are you suggesting that the debts we have now are analogous to those of a well managed company?
If so, will you be taking out a mortgage to buy this bridge I am offering for sale?
By the way, I would love to ramble around HS2 wildly or otherwise, but as Sunak effectively not only cancelled it but illegally salted the wells to make sure nobody else could build it that would be quite tricky.
Edit - since your example was actually agreeing with my previous point I'm not even sure what you're trying to say.
Scottish tax hike for high earners backfires with loss of £22m
A top rate of 48p for incomes above £125,140, intended as a ‘progressive’ move to raise money for public services, has instead reduced revenues, expert analysis shows
A tax hike on high earners in Scotland has cost the public purse about £22 million in a single year, new analysis indicates.
Dan Neidle, a tax policy expert who was part of the Scottish government’s recently axed tax advisory group, said its decision to impose a 48p top rate had instead reduced revenues.
Rather than injecting money into struggling public services, as intended, evidence suggests high earners are so put off by the enormous rates, they are taking steps to avoid coming into that bracket.
An investigation by Neidle’s independent think tank, Tax Policy Associates, has found that Scotland has now probably “fallen over the Laffer curve” — the point at which tax rates become so high they cost the government money, because earners are so incentivised to avoid them.
Lol. It's not called the Laffer curve for nothing. Lol again
It'd be quite interesting if they varied the rate every year or so until they found out where the maximal tax take was. (And then they should choose quite a bit below that)
Bit in brackets - why?
Presumably because just because you can take it doesn't mean that in the long term it's beneficial for the economy for you to do so.
It would be highly beneficial to the economy to reduce or better yet eliminate our deficit by finding the sweet spot to maximise our tax take.
Most of the problems we face at the moment are because we are staggering under a huge mountain of debt incurred by a failure to tax to the level people wished public spending to be at, over many decades.
The interest bill is absolutely crippling.
I agree about the problem, but not how it occurred. We have overspent over decades, not undertaxed.
The one is the flip side of the other. There is nothing inherently wrong in having high spending as long as you tax enough to cover it. Or low taxes as long as you cut spending to match.
Unfortunately, we've never had a politician honest enough to say, 'Fine, you want this spending? We therefore take x in tax and you pay it and like it.'
Or, alternatively, 'you're only willing to pay y in tax? Fine, therefore this is how much we spend and what we spend it on.'
Instead we have cakeism, sorted by borrowing based on the naive belief of ever increasing prosperity sorting it out eventually.
I cannot agree with you that high and low spending are equal as long as you can fund it with tax. Too much tax undermines economic growth by eliminating incentives and driving away wealth creation. It results in a doom spiral. Yes, you cannot successfully run a state on close to zero spending either, because you have anarchy, but I am speaking about the realistic scenarios.
If nothing else, high tax crowds out other economic activity.
That's to assume that there's value-creating economic activity that could be happening, if it weren't for taxes.
Given how much economic activity seems to consist of buying assets with borrowed money in order to extract rents from them, maybe we've reached a point where we shouldn't worry so much about the quantity of economic activty as its quality.
Scottish tax hike for high earners backfires with loss of £22m
A top rate of 48p for incomes above £125,140, intended as a ‘progressive’ move to raise money for public services, has instead reduced revenues, expert analysis shows
A tax hike on high earners in Scotland has cost the public purse about £22 million in a single year, new analysis indicates.
Dan Neidle, a tax policy expert who was part of the Scottish government’s recently axed tax advisory group, said its decision to impose a 48p top rate had instead reduced revenues.
Rather than injecting money into struggling public services, as intended, evidence suggests high earners are so put off by the enormous rates, they are taking steps to avoid coming into that bracket.
An investigation by Neidle’s independent think tank, Tax Policy Associates, has found that Scotland has now probably “fallen over the Laffer curve” — the point at which tax rates become so high they cost the government money, because earners are so incentivised to avoid them.
Lol. It's not called the Laffer curve for nothing. Lol again
It'd be quite interesting if they varied the rate every year or so until they found out where the maximal tax take was. (And then they should choose quite a bit below that)
Bit in brackets - why?
A less certain thought - I'm sure it's right though.
Rather illogical though - find the optimum rate and then deliberately don't use it.
(I quite like your experiment idea, although you'd never have a stable environment to test it in.)
Well, I think that the costs of choosing too high a rate are very big. And also the idea that the government should be taking as much as they possibly can.. I think not. Alas of course they are taking as much as they possibly can and that's all wrong. It won't happen, and even though I think it's the right thing to do, but turn off the welfare tap for a year - see who really needs help.
8% of total public spending is on debt interest.
One pound in twelve that we pay in taxes right now is being paid on paying back money that wasn't taken in taxes in previous years.
That's the cost of choosing too low a rate. A mountain of debt.
And we need to (a) stop adding to it and (b) ideally start reducing it.
Or to put it another way, there is a valid argument for VAT and business rates to be applied to private schools. It's that as a nation we're more skint than an investor who put everything into Truth Social stock. The fact that the smug, lazy, ignorant, arrogant, rude, stupid and openly spiteful Bridget Phillipson wittered on about 6,500 extra teachers (which we will never recruit because she has blown up what little remained of teacher training) tells us rather too much and not in a good way about political discourse in this country.
Similarly, the government should be getting every penny it can to try and sort out the mess. That means maximising tax revenue and for that they definitely should be seeking for the sweet spot.
It may well be the case that currently we need to maximise tax income, but it shouldn't be the rule.
Here again though, we come back to 'if we ever eliminate the debt, we can transition to only raising what we need to fund our spending decisions.'
(I nearly wrote 'go back to,' but then it occurred to me to wonder when the last time we did that was, and I honestly couldn't think of one.)
Actually we probably wouldn't want to eliminate the debt - even if we were cash rich we'd want to maintain a bond market. In the late 80s the government repaid a lot of debt and it caused a contraction in the gilt market. Most notably in some wildly overpaid roles.
You mean, the bond market might not be able to intimidate everybody and a bunch of fat spivs wouldn't be able to make millions while holding us all to ransom?
Well, that really would be tragic.
Think of all the millions who would die laughing.
No I do not mean that. Can I suggest that you don't understand these issues if you post as such? I hope that I'm not being rude in saying so.
Bond markets are really important. (All they are is a gauge of long term financial stability.)
You may not have meant that, but it's effectively what you've said. Bond markets selling long term debt are a function of government failure, not a vital part of a capitalist society.
Indeed, having pointed out that public spending is not necessarily economically unproductive, I'd go further and point out that many such private companies are in fact a drag on economic growth by sucking money out of the real economy into the pockets of dubious rentiers.
Would we be noticeably worse off if bond markets, hedge funds and Centrica disappeared overnight?
Absolute poppycock. And again I really don't want to fall out with you. Long term debt is an essential tool. Money perhaps can be seen in this way. I presume you don't object to money?
Oh, lor, we're back on cash.
Look, money borrowed in the long term can be used intelligently, particularly by developing productive assets that will aid economic growth. Building HS2 with borrowed money would make sense, for example, because it would (if Sunak wasn't an anti-train nutjob) have made a big profit and powered economic growth in the north and Midlands which would have increased tax take and reduced social expenditure.
Money borrowed on long term to pay pensions is not such money.* That's what we've been doing for decades and that's where the bond markets have our balls in a vice. When you are borrowing from them merely to survive, they can dictate terms and they are doing so.
*And I am now looking north in the expectation of an incoming ballistic turnip.
If you have a ten pound note - what actually is it? It's a bond. You can't go wildly rambling about HS2 as a smokescreen.
A well managed company will probably have some debt. They have it because they foresee that their growth enabled by the funds will far outstrip the cost of servicing the debt.
Are you suggesting that the debts we have now are analogous to those of a well managed company?
If so, will you be taking out a mortgage to buy this bridge I am offering for sale?
By the way, I would love to ramble around HS2 wildly or otherwise, but as Sunak effectively not only cancelled it but illegally salted the wells to make sure nobody else could build it that would be quite tricky.
No, obviously we have debts that look like an ill managed company.
I'm entirely sure you now realise that there is a little gap in your knowledge around these issues. Go and think about it. If your middle name is not 'thoughtful' I'd be amazed.
Scottish tax hike for high earners backfires with loss of £22m
A top rate of 48p for incomes above £125,140, intended as a ‘progressive’ move to raise money for public services, has instead reduced revenues, expert analysis shows
A tax hike on high earners in Scotland has cost the public purse about £22 million in a single year, new analysis indicates.
Dan Neidle, a tax policy expert who was part of the Scottish government’s recently axed tax advisory group, said its decision to impose a 48p top rate had instead reduced revenues.
Rather than injecting money into struggling public services, as intended, evidence suggests high earners are so put off by the enormous rates, they are taking steps to avoid coming into that bracket.
An investigation by Neidle’s independent think tank, Tax Policy Associates, has found that Scotland has now probably “fallen over the Laffer curve” — the point at which tax rates become so high they cost the government money, because earners are so incentivised to avoid them.
Lol. It's not called the Laffer curve for nothing. Lol again
It'd be quite interesting if they varied the rate every year or so until they found out where the maximal tax take was. (And then they should choose quite a bit below that)
Bit in brackets - why?
A less certain thought - I'm sure it's right though.
Rather illogical though - find the optimum rate and then deliberately don't use it.
(I quite like your experiment idea, although you'd never have a stable environment to test it in.)
Well, I think that the costs of choosing too high a rate are very big. And also the idea that the government should be taking as much as they possibly can.. I think not. Alas of course they are taking as much as they possibly can and that's all wrong. It won't happen, and even though I think it's the right thing to do, but turn off the welfare tap for a year - see who really needs help.
8% of total public spending is on debt interest.
One pound in twelve that we pay in taxes right now is being paid on paying back money that wasn't taken in taxes in previous years.
That's the cost of choosing too low a rate. A mountain of debt.
And we need to (a) stop adding to it and (b) ideally start reducing it.
Or to put it another way, there is a valid argument for VAT and business rates to be applied to private schools. It's that as a nation we're more skint than an investor who put everything into Truth Social stock. The fact that the smug, lazy, ignorant, arrogant, rude, stupid and openly spiteful Bridget Phillipson wittered on about 6,500 extra teachers (which we will never recruit because she has blown up what little remained of teacher training) tells us rather too much and not in a good way about political discourse in this country.
Similarly, the government should be getting every penny it can to try and sort out the mess. That means maximising tax revenue and for that they definitely should be seeking for the sweet spot.
It may well be the case that currently we need to maximise tax income, but it shouldn't be the rule.
Here again though, we come back to 'if we ever eliminate the debt, we can transition to only raising what we need to fund our spending decisions.'
(I nearly wrote 'go back to,' but then it occurred to me to wonder when the last time we did that was, and I honestly couldn't think of one.)
Actually we probably wouldn't want to eliminate the debt - even if we were cash rich we'd want to maintain a bond market. In the late 80s the government repaid a lot of debt and it caused a contraction in the gilt market. Most notably in some wildly overpaid roles.
You mean, the bond market might not be able to intimidate everybody and a bunch of fat spivs wouldn't be able to make millions while holding us all to ransom?
Well, that really would be tragic.
Think of all the millions who would die laughing.
No I do not mean that. Can I suggest that you don't understand these issues if you post as such? I hope that I'm not being rude in saying so.
Bond markets are really important. (All they are is a gauge of long term financial stability.)
You may not have meant that, but it's effectively what you've said. Bond markets selling long term debt are a function of government failure, not a vital part of a capitalist society.
Indeed, having pointed out that public spending is not necessarily economically unproductive, I'd go further and point out that many such private companies are in fact a drag on economic growth by sucking money out of the real economy into the pockets of dubious rentiers.
Would we be noticeably worse off if bond markets, hedge funds and Centrica disappeared overnight?
Absolute poppycock. And again I really don't want to fall out with you. Long term debt is an essential tool. Money perhaps can be seen in this way. I presume you don't object to money?
Oh, lor, we're back on cash.
Look, money borrowed in the long term can be used intelligently, particularly by developing productive assets that will aid economic growth. Building HS2 with borrowed money would make sense, for example, because it would (if Sunak wasn't an anti-train nutjob) have made a big profit and powered economic growth in the north and Midlands which would have increased tax take and reduced social expenditure.
Money borrowed on long term to pay pensions is not such money.* That's what we've been doing for decades and that's where the bond markets have our balls in a vice. When you are borrowing from them merely to survive, they can dictate terms and they are doing so.
*And I am now looking north in the expectation of an incoming ballistic turnip.
If you have a ten pound note - what actually is it? It's a bond. You can't go wildly rambling about HS2 as a smokescreen.
A well managed company will probably have some debt. They have it because they foresee that their growth enabled by the funds will far outstrip the cost of servicing the debt.
Are you suggesting that the debts we have now are analogous to those of a well managed company?
If so, will you be taking out a mortgage to buy this bridge I am offering for sale?
By the way, I would love to ramble around HS2 wildly or otherwise, but as Sunak effectively not only cancelled it but illegally salted the wells to make sure nobody else could build it that would be quite tricky.
No, obviously we have debts that look like an ill managed company.
I'm entirely sure you now realise that there is a little gap in your knowledge around these issues. Go and think about it. If your middle name is not 'thoughtful' I'd be amazed.
My middle name is 'Frank' (yes, really).
I am afraid you have not convinced me of any gaps in my knowledge. Merely that you are confusing excess bond markets, which are an example of capitalist and governmental failure, with government debt, which is issued through bond markets but would not actually have to be.
You have also not convinced me that the way they manipulate debt and the interest on it to their own advantage thereby sucking money out of the government's accounts and requiring higher tax take for worse services is advantageous to the productive economy. If you could show that it is used to fund other economic activity rather than massive salaries for people with the integrity of Mafia bosses I would be willing to change my mind on that.
Scottish tax hike for high earners backfires with loss of £22m
A top rate of 48p for incomes above £125,140, intended as a ‘progressive’ move to raise money for public services, has instead reduced revenues, expert analysis shows
A tax hike on high earners in Scotland has cost the public purse about £22 million in a single year, new analysis indicates.
Dan Neidle, a tax policy expert who was part of the Scottish government’s recently axed tax advisory group, said its decision to impose a 48p top rate had instead reduced revenues.
Rather than injecting money into struggling public services, as intended, evidence suggests high earners are so put off by the enormous rates, they are taking steps to avoid coming into that bracket.
An investigation by Neidle’s independent think tank, Tax Policy Associates, has found that Scotland has now probably “fallen over the Laffer curve” — the point at which tax rates become so high they cost the government money, because earners are so incentivised to avoid them.
Lol. It's not called the Laffer curve for nothing. Lol again
It'd be quite interesting if they varied the rate every year or so until they found out where the maximal tax take was. (And then they should choose quite a bit below that)
Bit in brackets - why?
A less certain thought - I'm sure it's right though.
Rather illogical though - find the optimum rate and then deliberately don't use it.
(I quite like your experiment idea, although you'd never have a stable environment to test it in.)
Well, I think that the costs of choosing too high a rate are very big. And also the idea that the government should be taking as much as they possibly can.. I think not. Alas of course they are taking as much as they possibly can and that's all wrong. It won't happen, and even though I think it's the right thing to do, but turn off the welfare tap for a year - see who really needs help.
8% of total public spending is on debt interest.
One pound in twelve that we pay in taxes right now is being paid on paying back money that wasn't taken in taxes in previous years.
That's the cost of choosing too low a rate. A mountain of debt.
And we need to (a) stop adding to it and (b) ideally start reducing it.
Or to put it another way, there is a valid argument for VAT and business rates to be applied to private schools. It's that as a nation we're more skint than an investor who put everything into Truth Social stock. The fact that the smug, lazy, ignorant, arrogant, rude, stupid and openly spiteful Bridget Phillipson wittered on about 6,500 extra teachers (which we will never recruit because she has blown up what little remained of teacher training) tells us rather too much and not in a good way about political discourse in this country.
Similarly, the government should be getting every penny it can to try and sort out the mess. That means maximising tax revenue and for that they definitely should be seeking for the sweet spot.
It may well be the case that currently we need to maximise tax income, but it shouldn't be the rule.
Here again though, we come back to 'if we ever eliminate the debt, we can transition to only raising what we need to fund our spending decisions.'
(I nearly wrote 'go back to,' but then it occurred to me to wonder when the last time we did that was, and I honestly couldn't think of one.)
Actually we probably wouldn't want to eliminate the debt - even if we were cash rich we'd want to maintain a bond market. In the late 80s the government repaid a lot of debt and it caused a contraction in the gilt market. Most notably in some wildly overpaid roles.
You mean, the bond market might not be able to intimidate everybody and a bunch of fat spivs wouldn't be able to make millions while holding us all to ransom?
Well, that really would be tragic.
Think of all the millions who would die laughing.
No I do not mean that. Can I suggest that you don't understand these issues if you post as such? I hope that I'm not being rude in saying so.
Bond markets are really important. (All they are is a gauge of long term financial stability.)
You may not have meant that, but it's effectively what you've said. Bond markets selling long term debt are a function of government failure, not a vital part of a capitalist society.
Indeed, having pointed out that public spending is not necessarily economically unproductive, I'd go further and point out that many such private companies are in fact a drag on economic growth by sucking money out of the real economy into the pockets of dubious rentiers.
Would we be noticeably worse off if bond markets, hedge funds and Centrica disappeared overnight?
Absolute poppycock. And again I really don't want to fall out with you. Long term debt is an essential tool. Money perhaps can be seen in this way. I presume you don't object to money?
Oh, lor, we're back on cash.
Look, money borrowed in the long term can be used intelligently, particularly by developing productive assets that will aid economic growth. Building HS2 with borrowed money would make sense, for example, because it would (if Sunak wasn't an anti-train nutjob) have made a big profit and powered economic growth in the north and Midlands which would have increased tax take and reduced social expenditure.
Money borrowed on long term to pay pensions is not such money.* That's what we've been doing for decades and that's where the bond markets have our balls in a vice. When you are borrowing from them merely to survive, they can dictate terms and they are doing so.
*And I am now looking north in the expectation of an incoming ballistic turnip.
If you have a ten pound note - what actually is it? It's a bond. You can't go wildly rambling about HS2 as a smokescreen.
A well managed company will probably have some debt. They have it because they foresee that their growth enabled by the funds will far outstrip the cost of servicing the debt.
Are you suggesting that the debts we have now are analogous to those of a well managed company?
If so, will you be taking out a mortgage to buy this bridge I am offering for sale?
By the way, I would love to ramble around HS2 wildly or otherwise, but as Sunak effectively not only cancelled it but illegally salted the wells to make sure nobody else could build it that would be quite tricky.
No, obviously we have debts that look like an ill managed company.
I'm entirely sure you now realise that there is a little gap in your knowledge around these issues. Go and think about it. If your middle name is not 'thoughtful' I'd be amazed.
My middle name is 'Frank' (yes, really).
I am afraid you have not convinced me of any gaps in my knowledge. Merely that you are confusing excess bond markets, which are an example of capitalist and governmental failure, with government debt, which is issued through bond markets but would not actually have to be.
You have also not convinced me that the way they manipulate debt and the interest on it to their own advantage thereby sucking money out of the government's accounts and requiring higher tax take for worse services is advantageous to the productive economy. If you could show that it was used to fund other economic activity rather than massive salaries for people with the integrity of Mafia bosses I would be willing to change my mind on that.
Markets are about maximising the gain for the participants. (I can't imagine we'll disagree on that)
Government debt might not be a good thing*, but if the government wants to borrow its likely that creating a market for the obligations makes it a route that can achieve the lowest cost. There is not the slightest thing about the buyers of gilts that is other than a mercenary idea.
*It's very hard to see that in the UK our borrowing for growth (or whatever) has ever been sensible,
Scottish tax hike for high earners backfires with loss of £22m
A top rate of 48p for incomes above £125,140, intended as a ‘progressive’ move to raise money for public services, has instead reduced revenues, expert analysis shows
A tax hike on high earners in Scotland has cost the public purse about £22 million in a single year, new analysis indicates.
Dan Neidle, a tax policy expert who was part of the Scottish government’s recently axed tax advisory group, said its decision to impose a 48p top rate had instead reduced revenues.
Rather than injecting money into struggling public services, as intended, evidence suggests high earners are so put off by the enormous rates, they are taking steps to avoid coming into that bracket.
An investigation by Neidle’s independent think tank, Tax Policy Associates, has found that Scotland has now probably “fallen over the Laffer curve” — the point at which tax rates become so high they cost the government money, because earners are so incentivised to avoid them.
How ever do they manage in Denmark (60.5%); France (55.4%) Austria (55%) Portugal, Sweden, Spain, and Belgium (all >50%)?
They'd raise more revenue if they cut their tax rates.
Would they ? Different societies can have very different responses to any given headline rate of tax; that's an economic commonplace.
If there were such a thing as one optimal headline tax rate, then countries would have standardised on it by now. It's an ever moving target depending on times and circumstance.
Laffer curves indisputably exist, but the problem is there are many of them: at different rates for different taxes, and at different times. Some are more predictable than others: HMT is able to estimate behavioural impacts on tax yield for CGT for example, and for some consumption taxes based on historical data, but not for say income tax thresholds or CT.
Then there’s the breadth of the tax base and the availability of reliefs, which complicates the picture further.
Furthermore, curves change over time. It's like energy demand. In the short term they are highly inelastic, in the long term they are highly elastic.
Scottish tax hike for high earners backfires with loss of £22m
A top rate of 48p for incomes above £125,140, intended as a ‘progressive’ move to raise money for public services, has instead reduced revenues, expert analysis shows
A tax hike on high earners in Scotland has cost the public purse about £22 million in a single year, new analysis indicates.
Dan Neidle, a tax policy expert who was part of the Scottish government’s recently axed tax advisory group, said its decision to impose a 48p top rate had instead reduced revenues.
Rather than injecting money into struggling public services, as intended, evidence suggests high earners are so put off by the enormous rates, they are taking steps to avoid coming into that bracket.
An investigation by Neidle’s independent think tank, Tax Policy Associates, has found that Scotland has now probably “fallen over the Laffer curve” — the point at which tax rates become so high they cost the government money, because earners are so incentivised to avoid them.
Lol. It's not called the Laffer curve for nothing. Lol again
It'd be quite interesting if they varied the rate every year or so until they found out where the maximal tax take was. (And then they should choose quite a bit below that)
Bit in brackets - why?
A less certain thought - I'm sure it's right though.
Rather illogical though - find the optimum rate and then deliberately don't use it.
(I quite like your experiment idea, although you'd never have a stable environment to test it in.)
Well, I think that the costs of choosing too high a rate are very big. And also the idea that the government should be taking as much as they possibly can.. I think not. Alas of course they are taking as much as they possibly can and that's all wrong. It won't happen, and even though I think it's the right thing to do, but turn off the welfare tap for a year - see who really needs help.
8% of total public spending is on debt interest.
One pound in twelve that we pay in taxes right now is being paid on paying back money that wasn't taken in taxes in previous years.
That's the cost of choosing too low a rate. A mountain of debt.
And we need to (a) stop adding to it and (b) ideally start reducing it.
Or to put it another way, there is a valid argument for VAT and business rates to be applied to private schools. It's that as a nation we're more skint than an investor who put everything into Truth Social stock. The fact that the smug, lazy, ignorant, arrogant, rude, stupid and openly spiteful Bridget Phillipson wittered on about 6,500 extra teachers (which we will never recruit because she has blown up what little remained of teacher training) tells us rather too much and not in a good way about political discourse in this country.
Similarly, the government should be getting every penny it can to try and sort out the mess. That means maximising tax revenue and for that they definitely should be seeking for the sweet spot.
It may well be the case that currently we need to maximise tax income, but it shouldn't be the rule.
Here again though, we come back to 'if we ever eliminate the debt, we can transition to only raising what we need to fund our spending decisions.'
(I nearly wrote 'go back to,' but then it occurred to me to wonder when the last time we did that was, and I honestly couldn't think of one.)
Actually we probably wouldn't want to eliminate the debt - even if we were cash rich we'd want to maintain a bond market. In the late 80s the government repaid a lot of debt and it caused a contraction in the gilt market. Most notably in some wildly overpaid roles.
You mean, the bond market might not be able to intimidate everybody and a bunch of fat spivs wouldn't be able to make millions while holding us all to ransom?
Well, that really would be tragic.
Think of all the millions who would die laughing.
No I do not mean that. Can I suggest that you don't understand these issues if you post as such? I hope that I'm not being rude in saying so.
Bond markets are really important. (All they are is a gauge of long term financial stability.)
You may not have meant that, but it's effectively what you've said. Bond markets selling long term debt are a function of government failure, not a vital part of a capitalist society.
Indeed, having pointed out that public spending is not necessarily economically unproductive, I'd go further and point out that many such private companies are in fact a drag on economic growth by sucking money out of the real economy into the pockets of dubious rentiers.
Would we be noticeably worse off if bond markets, hedge funds and Centrica disappeared overnight?
That is a delusion.
The value of borrowing depends on its cost compared with the benefits of the spending it enables. There's a vast range between extremely productive investment financed by very cheap borrowing, and unproductive expenditure on the back of high interest loans.
And if course it enables governments to cope with emergencies - it was our more efficient capital markets which enabled us to prevail in the Napoleonic wars.
Scottish tax hike for high earners backfires with loss of £22m
A top rate of 48p for incomes above £125,140, intended as a ‘progressive’ move to raise money for public services, has instead reduced revenues, expert analysis shows
A tax hike on high earners in Scotland has cost the public purse about £22 million in a single year, new analysis indicates.
Dan Neidle, a tax policy expert who was part of the Scottish government’s recently axed tax advisory group, said its decision to impose a 48p top rate had instead reduced revenues.
Rather than injecting money into struggling public services, as intended, evidence suggests high earners are so put off by the enormous rates, they are taking steps to avoid coming into that bracket.
An investigation by Neidle’s independent think tank, Tax Policy Associates, has found that Scotland has now probably “fallen over the Laffer curve” — the point at which tax rates become so high they cost the government money, because earners are so incentivised to avoid them.
Lol. It's not called the Laffer curve for nothing. Lol again
It'd be quite interesting if they varied the rate every year or so until they found out where the maximal tax take was. (And then they should choose quite a bit below that)
Bit in brackets - why?
A less certain thought - I'm sure it's right though.
Rather illogical though - find the optimum rate and then deliberately don't use it.
(I quite like your experiment idea, although you'd never have a stable environment to test it in.)
Well, I think that the costs of choosing too high a rate are very big. And also the idea that the government should be taking as much as they possibly can.. I think not. Alas of course they are taking as much as they possibly can and that's all wrong. It won't happen, and even though I think it's the right thing to do, but turn off the welfare tap for a year - see who really needs help.
8% of total public spending is on debt interest.
One pound in twelve that we pay in taxes right now is being paid on paying back money that wasn't taken in taxes in previous years.
That's the cost of choosing too low a rate. A mountain of debt.
And we need to (a) stop adding to it and (b) ideally start reducing it.
Or to put it another way, there is a valid argument for VAT and business rates to be applied to private schools. It's that as a nation we're more skint than an investor who put everything into Truth Social stock. The fact that the smug, lazy, ignorant, arrogant, rude, stupid and openly spiteful Bridget Phillipson wittered on about 6,500 extra teachers (which we will never recruit because she has blown up what little remained of teacher training) tells us rather too much and not in a good way about political discourse in this country.
Similarly, the government should be getting every penny it can to try and sort out the mess. That means maximising tax revenue and for that they definitely should be seeking for the sweet spot.
It may well be the case that currently we need to maximise tax income, but it shouldn't be the rule.
Here again though, we come back to 'if we ever eliminate the debt, we can transition to only raising what we need to fund our spending decisions.'
(I nearly wrote 'go back to,' but then it occurred to me to wonder when the last time we did that was, and I honestly couldn't think of one.)
Actually we probably wouldn't want to eliminate the debt - even if we were cash rich we'd want to maintain a bond market. In the late 80s the government repaid a lot of debt and it caused a contraction in the gilt market. Most notably in some wildly overpaid roles.
You mean, the bond market might not be able to intimidate everybody and a bunch of fat spivs wouldn't be able to make millions while holding us all to ransom?
Well, that really would be tragic.
Think of all the millions who would die laughing.
No I do not mean that. Can I suggest that you don't understand these issues if you post as such? I hope that I'm not being rude in saying so.
Bond markets are really important. (All they are is a gauge of long term financial stability.)
You may not have meant that, but it's effectively what you've said. Bond markets selling long term debt are a function of government failure, not a vital part of a capitalist society.
Indeed, having pointed out that public spending is not necessarily economically unproductive, I'd go further and point out that many such private companies are in fact a drag on economic growth by sucking money out of the real economy into the pockets of dubious rentiers.
Would we be noticeably worse off if bond markets, hedge funds and Centrica disappeared overnight?
Absolute poppycock. And again I really don't want to fall out with you. Long term debt is an essential tool. Money perhaps can be seen in this way. I presume you don't object to money?
Oh, lor, we're back on cash.
Look, money borrowed in the long term can be used intelligently, particularly by developing productive assets that will aid economic growth. Building HS2 with borrowed money would make sense, for example, because it would (if Sunak wasn't an anti-train nutjob) have made a big profit and powered economic growth in the north and Midlands which would have increased tax take and reduced social expenditure.
Money borrowed on long term to pay pensions is not such money.* That's what we've been doing for decades and that's where the bond markets have our balls in a vice. When you are borrowing from them merely to survive, they can dictate terms and they are doing so.
*And I am now looking north in the expectation of an incoming ballistic turnip.
I think you're wrong about HS2, and I think your error on HS2 indicates where you are wrong more broadly about investment.
HS2 will not/would not have made a particularly big profit, because it was a political project not an economic one - the Northern wing of a Great EU railway line. Its purpose was never to revive the North of England, and even if it had been, it probably wouldn't have worked, because great infrastructure projects do not cause economic growth, they are caused by economic growth. They are caused by coal, or fish, or tourists, or energy needing to get from supplier to customer.
My wider point is that large infrastructure projects funded by taxation or borrowing are not automatically a good thing. Infrastructure should at least be lead by the private sector, if not solely funded by it, if it is going to be profitable.
Scottish tax hike for high earners backfires with loss of £22m
A top rate of 48p for incomes above £125,140, intended as a ‘progressive’ move to raise money for public services, has instead reduced revenues, expert analysis shows
A tax hike on high earners in Scotland has cost the public purse about £22 million in a single year, new analysis indicates.
Dan Neidle, a tax policy expert who was part of the Scottish government’s recently axed tax advisory group, said its decision to impose a 48p top rate had instead reduced revenues.
Rather than injecting money into struggling public services, as intended, evidence suggests high earners are so put off by the enormous rates, they are taking steps to avoid coming into that bracket.
An investigation by Neidle’s independent think tank, Tax Policy Associates, has found that Scotland has now probably “fallen over the Laffer curve” — the point at which tax rates become so high they cost the government money, because earners are so incentivised to avoid them.
How ever do they manage in Denmark (60.5%); France (55.4%) Austria (55%) Portugal, Sweden, Spain, and Belgium (all >50%)?
They'd raise more revenue if they cut their tax rates.
Would they ? Different societies can have very different responses to any given headline rate of tax; that's an economic commonplace.
If there were such a thing as one optimal headline tax rate, then countries would have standardised on it by now. It's an ever moving target depending on times and circumstance.
Laffer curves indisputably exist, but the problem is there are many of them: at different rates for different taxes, and at different times. Some are more predictable than others: HMT is able to estimate behavioural impacts on tax yield for CGT for example, and for some consumption taxes based on historical data, but not for say income tax thresholds or CT.
Then there’s the breadth of the tax base and the availability of reliefs, which complicates the picture further.
Furthermore, curves change over time. It's like energy demand. In the short term they are highly inelastic, in the long term they are highly elastic.
As I've just pointed out (I hadn't seen TSE's comment) between £100,000 to £125,00 the Scottish income tax rate is 62.5%. Add on 2% Employee NI and you are only going to see 35.5% of every £1 you earn.
Putting that money into your pension is the only sane thing to do..
Scottish tax hike for high earners backfires with loss of £22m
A top rate of 48p for incomes above £125,140, intended as a ‘progressive’ move to raise money for public services, has instead reduced revenues, expert analysis shows
A tax hike on high earners in Scotland has cost the public purse about £22 million in a single year, new analysis indicates.
Dan Neidle, a tax policy expert who was part of the Scottish government’s recently axed tax advisory group, said its decision to impose a 48p top rate had instead reduced revenues.
Rather than injecting money into struggling public services, as intended, evidence suggests high earners are so put off by the enormous rates, they are taking steps to avoid coming into that bracket.
An investigation by Neidle’s independent think tank, Tax Policy Associates, has found that Scotland has now probably “fallen over the Laffer curve” — the point at which tax rates become so high they cost the government money, because earners are so incentivised to avoid them.
Lol. It's not called the Laffer curve for nothing. Lol again
It'd be quite interesting if they varied the rate every year or so until they found out where the maximal tax take was. (And then they should choose quite a bit below that)
Bit in brackets - why?
A less certain thought - I'm sure it's right though.
Rather illogical though - find the optimum rate and then deliberately don't use it.
(I quite like your experiment idea, although you'd never have a stable environment to test it in.)
Well, I think that the costs of choosing too high a rate are very big. And also the idea that the government should be taking as much as they possibly can.. I think not. Alas of course they are taking as much as they possibly can and that's all wrong. It won't happen, and even though I think it's the right thing to do, but turn off the welfare tap for a year - see who really needs help.
8% of total public spending is on debt interest.
One pound in twelve that we pay in taxes right now is being paid on paying back money that wasn't taken in taxes in previous years.
That's the cost of choosing too low a rate. A mountain of debt.
And we need to (a) stop adding to it and (b) ideally start reducing it.
Or to put it another way, there is a valid argument for VAT and business rates to be applied to private schools. It's that as a nation we're more skint than an investor who put everything into Truth Social stock. The fact that the smug, lazy, ignorant, arrogant, rude, stupid and openly spiteful Bridget Phillipson wittered on about 6,500 extra teachers (which we will never recruit because she has blown up what little remained of teacher training) tells us rather too much and not in a good way about political discourse in this country.
Similarly, the government should be getting every penny it can to try and sort out the mess. That means maximising tax revenue and for that they definitely should be seeking for the sweet spot.
It may well be the case that currently we need to maximise tax income, but it shouldn't be the rule.
Here again though, we come back to 'if we ever eliminate the debt, we can transition to only raising what we need to fund our spending decisions.'
(I nearly wrote 'go back to,' but then it occurred to me to wonder when the last time we did that was, and I honestly couldn't think of one.)
Actually we probably wouldn't want to eliminate the debt - even if we were cash rich we'd want to maintain a bond market. In the late 80s the government repaid a lot of debt and it caused a contraction in the gilt market. Most notably in some wildly overpaid roles.
You mean, the bond market might not be able to intimidate everybody and a bunch of fat spivs wouldn't be able to make millions while holding us all to ransom?
Well, that really would be tragic.
Think of all the millions who would die laughing.
No I do not mean that. Can I suggest that you don't understand these issues if you post as such? I hope that I'm not being rude in saying so.
Bond markets are really important. (All they are is a gauge of long term financial stability.)
You may not have meant that, but it's effectively what you've said. Bond markets selling long term debt are a function of government failure, not a vital part of a capitalist society.
Indeed, having pointed out that public spending is not necessarily economically unproductive, I'd go further and point out that many such private companies are in fact a drag on economic growth by sucking money out of the real economy into the pockets of dubious rentiers.
Would we be noticeably worse off if bond markets, hedge funds and Centrica disappeared overnight?
Absolute poppycock. And again I really don't want to fall out with you. Long term debt is an essential tool. Money perhaps can be seen in this way. I presume you don't object to money?
Oh, lor, we're back on cash.
Look, money borrowed in the long term can be used intelligently, particularly by developing productive assets that will aid economic growth. Building HS2 with borrowed money would make sense, for example, because it would (if Sunak wasn't an anti-train nutjob) have made a big profit and powered economic growth in the north and Midlands which would have increased tax take and reduced social expenditure.
Money borrowed on long term to pay pensions is not such money.* That's what we've been doing for decades and that's where the bond markets have our balls in a vice. When you are borrowing from them merely to survive, they can dictate terms and they are doing so.
*And I am now looking north in the expectation of an incoming ballistic turnip.
If you have a ten pound note - what actually is it? It's a bond. You can't go wildly rambling about HS2 as a smokescreen.
A well managed company will probably have some debt. They have it because they foresee that their growth enabled by the funds will far outstrip the cost of servicing the debt.
Are you suggesting that the debts we have now are analogous to those of a well managed company?
If so, will you be taking out a mortgage to buy this bridge I am offering for sale?
By the way, I would love to ramble around HS2 wildly or otherwise, but as Sunak effectively not only cancelled it but illegally salted the wells to make sure nobody else could build it that would be quite tricky.
No, obviously we have debts that look like an ill managed company.
I'm entirely sure you now realise that there is a little gap in your knowledge around these issues. Go and think about it. If your middle name is not 'thoughtful' I'd be amazed.
My middle name is 'Frank' (yes, really).
I am afraid you have not convinced me of any gaps in my knowledge. Merely that you are confusing excess bond markets, which are an example of capitalist and governmental failure, with government debt, which is issued through bond markets but would not actually have to be.
You have also not convinced me that the way they manipulate debt and the interest on it to their own advantage thereby sucking money out of the government's accounts and requiring higher tax take for worse services is advantageous to the productive economy. If you could show that it is used to fund other economic activity rather than massive salaries for people with the integrity of Mafia bosses I would be willing to change my mind on that.
The fundamental issue is one of the tax deductibility of interest, and it's one of the reasons why BP selling\ its UK solar generation assets to the Kuwaitis is less likely to be a problem for the Exchequer than you would think.
The reality is that BP today will fund its UK solar assets out of an offshore entity which lends money to the UK solar developer. And so, profits almost certainly get taken out of the UK in a tax-free manner already.
What we probably should look to do is to find some way of limiting the tax deductibility of interest payments. (Differing rules on thr tax deductibility of interest also screws up the rental market because it effectively subsidises corporate landlords and penalises personal landlords.)
Scottish tax hike for high earners backfires with loss of £22m
A top rate of 48p for incomes above £125,140, intended as a ‘progressive’ move to raise money for public services, has instead reduced revenues, expert analysis shows
A tax hike on high earners in Scotland has cost the public purse about £22 million in a single year, new analysis indicates.
Dan Neidle, a tax policy expert who was part of the Scottish government’s recently axed tax advisory group, said its decision to impose a 48p top rate had instead reduced revenues.
Rather than injecting money into struggling public services, as intended, evidence suggests high earners are so put off by the enormous rates, they are taking steps to avoid coming into that bracket.
An investigation by Neidle’s independent think tank, Tax Policy Associates, has found that Scotland has now probably “fallen over the Laffer curve” — the point at which tax rates become so high they cost the government money, because earners are so incentivised to avoid them.
Lol. It's not called the Laffer curve for nothing. Lol again
It'd be quite interesting if they varied the rate every year or so until they found out where the maximal tax take was. (And then they should choose quite a bit below that)
Bit in brackets - why?
A less certain thought - I'm sure it's right though.
Rather illogical though - find the optimum rate and then deliberately don't use it.
(I quite like your experiment idea, although you'd never have a stable environment to test it in.)
Well, I think that the costs of choosing too high a rate are very big. And also the idea that the government should be taking as much as they possibly can.. I think not. Alas of course they are taking as much as they possibly can and that's all wrong. It won't happen, and even though I think it's the right thing to do, but turn off the welfare tap for a year - see who really needs help.
8% of total public spending is on debt interest.
One pound in twelve that we pay in taxes right now is being paid on paying back money that wasn't taken in taxes in previous years.
That's the cost of choosing too low a rate. A mountain of debt.
And we need to (a) stop adding to it and (b) ideally start reducing it.
Or to put it another way, there is a valid argument for VAT and business rates to be applied to private schools. It's that as a nation we're more skint than an investor who put everything into Truth Social stock. The fact that the smug, lazy, ignorant, arrogant, rude, stupid and openly spiteful Bridget Phillipson wittered on about 6,500 extra teachers (which we will never recruit because she has blown up what little remained of teacher training) tells us rather too much and not in a good way about political discourse in this country.
Similarly, the government should be getting every penny it can to try and sort out the mess. That means maximising tax revenue and for that they definitely should be seeking for the sweet spot.
It may well be the case that currently we need to maximise tax income, but it shouldn't be the rule.
Here again though, we come back to 'if we ever eliminate the debt, we can transition to only raising what we need to fund our spending decisions.'
(I nearly wrote 'go back to,' but then it occurred to me to wonder when the last time we did that was, and I honestly couldn't think of one.)
Actually we probably wouldn't want to eliminate the debt - even if we were cash rich we'd want to maintain a bond market. In the late 80s the government repaid a lot of debt and it caused a contraction in the gilt market. Most notably in some wildly overpaid roles.
You mean, the bond market might not be able to intimidate everybody and a bunch of fat spivs wouldn't be able to make millions while holding us all to ransom?
Well, that really would be tragic.
Think of all the millions who would die laughing.
No I do not mean that. Can I suggest that you don't understand these issues if you post as such? I hope that I'm not being rude in saying so.
Bond markets are really important. (All they are is a gauge of long term financial stability.)
You may not have meant that, but it's effectively what you've said. Bond markets selling long term debt are a function of government failure, not a vital part of a capitalist society.
Indeed, having pointed out that public spending is not necessarily economically unproductive, I'd go further and point out that many such private companies are in fact a drag on economic growth by sucking money out of the real economy into the pockets of dubious rentiers.
Would we be noticeably worse off if bond markets, hedge funds and Centrica disappeared overnight?
Absolute poppycock. And again I really don't want to fall out with you. Long term debt is an essential tool. Money perhaps can be seen in this way. I presume you don't object to money?
Oh, lor, we're back on cash.
Look, money borrowed in the long term can be used intelligently, particularly by developing productive assets that will aid economic growth. Building HS2 with borrowed money would make sense, for example, because it would (if Sunak wasn't an anti-train nutjob) have made a big profit and powered economic growth in the north and Midlands which would have increased tax take and reduced social expenditure.
Money borrowed on long term to pay pensions is not such money.* That's what we've been doing for decades and that's where the bond markets have our balls in a vice. When you are borrowing from them merely to survive, they can dictate terms and they are doing so.
*And I am now looking north in the expectation of an incoming ballistic turnip.
If you have a ten pound note - what actually is it? It's a bond. You can't go wildly rambling about HS2 as a smokescreen.
A well managed company will probably have some debt. They have it because they foresee that their growth enabled by the funds will far outstrip the cost of servicing the debt.
Are you suggesting that the debts we have now are analogous to those of a well managed company?
If so, will you be taking out a mortgage to buy this bridge I am offering for sale?
By the way, I would love to ramble around HS2 wildly or otherwise, but as Sunak effectively not only cancelled it but illegally salted the wells to make sure nobody else could build it that would be quite tricky.
No, obviously we have debts that look like an ill managed company.
I'm entirely sure you now realise that there is a little gap in your knowledge around these issues. Go and think about it. If your middle name is not 'thoughtful' I'd be amazed.
My middle name is 'Frank' (yes, really).
I am afraid you have not convinced me of any gaps in my knowledge. Merely that you are confusing excess bond markets, which are an example of capitalist and governmental failure, with government debt, which is issued through bond markets but would not actually have to be.
You have also not convinced me that the way they manipulate debt and the interest on it to their own advantage thereby sucking money out of the government's accounts and requiring higher tax take for worse services is advantageous to the productive economy. If you could show that it is used to fund other economic activity rather than massive salaries for people with the integrity of Mafia bosses I would be willing to change my mind on that.
The fundamental issue is one of the tax deductibility of interest, and it's one of the reasons why BP selling\ its UK solar generation assets to the Kuwaitis is less likely to be a problem for the Exchequer than you would think.
The reality is that BP today will fund its UK solar assets out of an offshore entity which lends money to the UK solar developer. And so, profits almost certainly get taken out of the UK in a tax-free manner already.
What we probably should look to do is to find some way of limiting the tax deductibility of interest payments. (Differing rules on thr tax deductibility of interest also screws up the rental market because it effectively subsidises corporate landlords and penalises personal landlords.)
Well, jump in with big boots! The eminent @ydoethur and I were having a sensible discussion and then you skim read.
Scottish tax hike for high earners backfires with loss of £22m
A top rate of 48p for incomes above £125,140, intended as a ‘progressive’ move to raise money for public services, has instead reduced revenues, expert analysis shows
A tax hike on high earners in Scotland has cost the public purse about £22 million in a single year, new analysis indicates.
Dan Neidle, a tax policy expert who was part of the Scottish government’s recently axed tax advisory group, said its decision to impose a 48p top rate had instead reduced revenues.
Rather than injecting money into struggling public services, as intended, evidence suggests high earners are so put off by the enormous rates, they are taking steps to avoid coming into that bracket.
An investigation by Neidle’s independent think tank, Tax Policy Associates, has found that Scotland has now probably “fallen over the Laffer curve” — the point at which tax rates become so high they cost the government money, because earners are so incentivised to avoid them.
Lol. It's not called the Laffer curve for nothing. Lol again
It'd be quite interesting if they varied the rate every year or so until they found out where the maximal tax take was. (And then they should choose quite a bit below that)
Bit in brackets - why?
A less certain thought - I'm sure it's right though.
Rather illogical though - find the optimum rate and then deliberately don't use it.
(I quite like your experiment idea, although you'd never have a stable environment to test it in.)
Well, I think that the costs of choosing too high a rate are very big. And also the idea that the government should be taking as much as they possibly can.. I think not. Alas of course they are taking as much as they possibly can and that's all wrong. It won't happen, and even though I think it's the right thing to do, but turn off the welfare tap for a year - see who really needs help.
8% of total public spending is on debt interest.
One pound in twelve that we pay in taxes right now is being paid on paying back money that wasn't taken in taxes in previous years.
That's the cost of choosing too low a rate. A mountain of debt.
And we need to (a) stop adding to it and (b) ideally start reducing it.
Or to put it another way, there is a valid argument for VAT and business rates to be applied to private schools. It's that as a nation we're more skint than an investor who put everything into Truth Social stock. The fact that the smug, lazy, ignorant, arrogant, rude, stupid and openly spiteful Bridget Phillipson wittered on about 6,500 extra teachers (which we will never recruit because she has blown up what little remained of teacher training) tells us rather too much and not in a good way about political discourse in this country.
Similarly, the government should be getting every penny it can to try and sort out the mess. That means maximising tax revenue and for that they definitely should be seeking for the sweet spot.
It may well be the case that currently we need to maximise tax income, but it shouldn't be the rule.
Here again though, we come back to 'if we ever eliminate the debt, we can transition to only raising what we need to fund our spending decisions.'
(I nearly wrote 'go back to,' but then it occurred to me to wonder when the last time we did that was, and I honestly couldn't think of one.)
Actually we probably wouldn't want to eliminate the debt - even if we were cash rich we'd want to maintain a bond market. In the late 80s the government repaid a lot of debt and it caused a contraction in the gilt market. Most notably in some wildly overpaid roles.
You mean, the bond market might not be able to intimidate everybody and a bunch of fat spivs wouldn't be able to make millions while holding us all to ransom?
Well, that really would be tragic.
Think of all the millions who would die laughing.
No I do not mean that. Can I suggest that you don't understand these issues if you post as such? I hope that I'm not being rude in saying so.
Bond markets are really important. (All they are is a gauge of long term financial stability.)
You may not have meant that, but it's effectively what you've said. Bond markets selling long term debt are a function of government failure, not a vital part of a capitalist society.
Indeed, having pointed out that public spending is not necessarily economically unproductive, I'd go further and point out that many such private companies are in fact a drag on economic growth by sucking money out of the real economy into the pockets of dubious rentiers.
Would we be noticeably worse off if bond markets, hedge funds and Centrica disappeared overnight?
That is a delusion.
The value of borrowing depends on its cost compared with the benefits of the spending it enables. There's a vast range between extremely productive investment financed by very cheap borrowing, and unproductive expenditure on the back of high interest loans.
And if course it enables governments to cope with emergencies - it was our more efficient capital markets which enabled us to prevail in the Napoleonic wars.
As an aside, it's worth getting a little bit philosophical here. Saving is deferring current consumption. Borrowing is the reverse. Saving and borrowing is, at its heart, a method for the time transfer of work, because work itself is ephemeral. You can't spend the product of your work in the future (most of the time).
Scottish tax hike for high earners backfires with loss of £22m
A top rate of 48p for incomes above £125,140, intended as a ‘progressive’ move to raise money for public services, has instead reduced revenues, expert analysis shows
A tax hike on high earners in Scotland has cost the public purse about £22 million in a single year, new analysis indicates.
Dan Neidle, a tax policy expert who was part of the Scottish government’s recently axed tax advisory group, said its decision to impose a 48p top rate had instead reduced revenues.
Rather than injecting money into struggling public services, as intended, evidence suggests high earners are so put off by the enormous rates, they are taking steps to avoid coming into that bracket.
An investigation by Neidle’s independent think tank, Tax Policy Associates, has found that Scotland has now probably “fallen over the Laffer curve” — the point at which tax rates become so high they cost the government money, because earners are so incentivised to avoid them.
Lol. It's not called the Laffer curve for nothing. Lol again
It'd be quite interesting if they varied the rate every year or so until they found out where the maximal tax take was. (And then they should choose quite a bit below that)
Bit in brackets - why?
A less certain thought - I'm sure it's right though.
Rather illogical though - find the optimum rate and then deliberately don't use it.
(I quite like your experiment idea, although you'd never have a stable environment to test it in.)
Well, I think that the costs of choosing too high a rate are very big. And also the idea that the government should be taking as much as they possibly can.. I think not. Alas of course they are taking as much as they possibly can and that's all wrong. It won't happen, and even though I think it's the right thing to do, but turn off the welfare tap for a year - see who really needs help.
8% of total public spending is on debt interest.
One pound in twelve that we pay in taxes right now is being paid on paying back money that wasn't taken in taxes in previous years.
That's the cost of choosing too low a rate. A mountain of debt.
And we need to (a) stop adding to it and (b) ideally start reducing it.
Or to put it another way, there is a valid argument for VAT and business rates to be applied to private schools. It's that as a nation we're more skint than an investor who put everything into Truth Social stock. The fact that the smug, lazy, ignorant, arrogant, rude, stupid and openly spiteful Bridget Phillipson wittered on about 6,500 extra teachers (which we will never recruit because she has blown up what little remained of teacher training) tells us rather too much and not in a good way about political discourse in this country.
Similarly, the government should be getting every penny it can to try and sort out the mess. That means maximising tax revenue and for that they definitely should be seeking for the sweet spot.
It may well be the case that currently we need to maximise tax income, but it shouldn't be the rule.
Here again though, we come back to 'if we ever eliminate the debt, we can transition to only raising what we need to fund our spending decisions.'
(I nearly wrote 'go back to,' but then it occurred to me to wonder when the last time we did that was, and I honestly couldn't think of one.)
Actually we probably wouldn't want to eliminate the debt - even if we were cash rich we'd want to maintain a bond market. In the late 80s the government repaid a lot of debt and it caused a contraction in the gilt market. Most notably in some wildly overpaid roles.
You mean, the bond market might not be able to intimidate everybody and a bunch of fat spivs wouldn't be able to make millions while holding us all to ransom?
Well, that really would be tragic.
Think of all the millions who would die laughing.
No I do not mean that. Can I suggest that you don't understand these issues if you post as such? I hope that I'm not being rude in saying so.
Bond markets are really important. (All they are is a gauge of long term financial stability.)
You may not have meant that, but it's effectively what you've said. Bond markets selling long term debt are a function of government failure, not a vital part of a capitalist society.
Indeed, having pointed out that public spending is not necessarily economically unproductive, I'd go further and point out that many such private companies are in fact a drag on economic growth by sucking money out of the real economy into the pockets of dubious rentiers.
Would we be noticeably worse off if bond markets, hedge funds and Centrica disappeared overnight?
Absolute poppycock. And again I really don't want to fall out with you. Long term debt is an essential tool. Money perhaps can be seen in this way. I presume you don't object to money?
Oh, lor, we're back on cash.
Look, money borrowed in the long term can be used intelligently, particularly by developing productive assets that will aid economic growth. Building HS2 with borrowed money would make sense, for example, because it would (if Sunak wasn't an anti-train nutjob) have made a big profit and powered economic growth in the north and Midlands which would have increased tax take and reduced social expenditure.
Money borrowed on long term to pay pensions is not such money.* That's what we've been doing for decades and that's where the bond markets have our balls in a vice. When you are borrowing from them merely to survive, they can dictate terms and they are doing so.
*And I am now looking north in the expectation of an incoming ballistic turnip.
I think you're wrong about HS2, and I think your error on HS2 indicates where you are wrong more broadly about investment.
HS2 will not/would not have made a particularly big profit, because it was a political project not an economic one - the Northern wing of a Great EU railway line. Its purpose was never to revive the North of England, and even if it had been, it probably wouldn't have worked, because great infrastructure projects do not cause economic growth, they are caused by economic growth. They are caused by coal, or fish, or tourists, or energy needing to get from supplier to customer.
My wider point is that large infrastructure projects funded by taxation or borrowing are not automatically a good thing. Infrastructure should at least be lead by the private sector, if not solely funded by it, if it is going to be profitable.
The WCML has been running at capacity for decades and we've reached the point where there are no plausible improvements left to make.
Similar the ECML and Midland Mainline have similar capacity issues
Solving those capacity issues was the purpose of HS2 but it got sidetracked by a lot of people who have played on the talk about faster services without grasping it was a fix to capacity issues first with speed as a secondary advantage because we know how to build fast trains now.
Scottish tax hike for high earners backfires with loss of £22m
A top rate of 48p for incomes above £125,140, intended as a ‘progressive’ move to raise money for public services, has instead reduced revenues, expert analysis shows
A tax hike on high earners in Scotland has cost the public purse about £22 million in a single year, new analysis indicates.
Dan Neidle, a tax policy expert who was part of the Scottish government’s recently axed tax advisory group, said its decision to impose a 48p top rate had instead reduced revenues.
Rather than injecting money into struggling public services, as intended, evidence suggests high earners are so put off by the enormous rates, they are taking steps to avoid coming into that bracket.
An investigation by Neidle’s independent think tank, Tax Policy Associates, has found that Scotland has now probably “fallen over the Laffer curve” — the point at which tax rates become so high they cost the government money, because earners are so incentivised to avoid them.
Lol. It's not called the Laffer curve for nothing. Lol again
It'd be quite interesting if they varied the rate every year or so until they found out where the maximal tax take was. (And then they should choose quite a bit below that)
Bit in brackets - why?
A less certain thought - I'm sure it's right though.
Rather illogical though - find the optimum rate and then deliberately don't use it.
(I quite like your experiment idea, although you'd never have a stable environment to test it in.)
Well, I think that the costs of choosing too high a rate are very big. And also the idea that the government should be taking as much as they possibly can.. I think not. Alas of course they are taking as much as they possibly can and that's all wrong. It won't happen, and even though I think it's the right thing to do, but turn off the welfare tap for a year - see who really needs help.
8% of total public spending is on debt interest.
One pound in twelve that we pay in taxes right now is being paid on paying back money that wasn't taken in taxes in previous years.
That's the cost of choosing too low a rate. A mountain of debt.
And we need to (a) stop adding to it and (b) ideally start reducing it.
Or to put it another way, there is a valid argument for VAT and business rates to be applied to private schools. It's that as a nation we're more skint than an investor who put everything into Truth Social stock. The fact that the smug, lazy, ignorant, arrogant, rude, stupid and openly spiteful Bridget Phillipson wittered on about 6,500 extra teachers (which we will never recruit because she has blown up what little remained of teacher training) tells us rather too much and not in a good way about political discourse in this country.
Similarly, the government should be getting every penny it can to try and sort out the mess. That means maximising tax revenue and for that they definitely should be seeking for the sweet spot.
It may well be the case that currently we need to maximise tax income, but it shouldn't be the rule.
Here again though, we come back to 'if we ever eliminate the debt, we can transition to only raising what we need to fund our spending decisions.'
(I nearly wrote 'go back to,' but then it occurred to me to wonder when the last time we did that was, and I honestly couldn't think of one.)
Actually we probably wouldn't want to eliminate the debt - even if we were cash rich we'd want to maintain a bond market. In the late 80s the government repaid a lot of debt and it caused a contraction in the gilt market. Most notably in some wildly overpaid roles.
You mean, the bond market might not be able to intimidate everybody and a bunch of fat spivs wouldn't be able to make millions while holding us all to ransom?
Well, that really would be tragic.
Think of all the millions who would die laughing.
No I do not mean that. Can I suggest that you don't understand these issues if you post as such? I hope that I'm not being rude in saying so.
Bond markets are really important. (All they are is a gauge of long term financial stability.)
You may not have meant that, but it's effectively what you've said. Bond markets selling long term debt are a function of government failure, not a vital part of a capitalist society.
Indeed, having pointed out that public spending is not necessarily economically unproductive, I'd go further and point out that many such private companies are in fact a drag on economic growth by sucking money out of the real economy into the pockets of dubious rentiers.
Would we be noticeably worse off if bond markets, hedge funds and Centrica disappeared overnight?
That is a delusion.
The value of borrowing depends on its cost compared with the benefits of the spending it enables. There's a vast range between extremely productive investment financed by very cheap borrowing, and unproductive expenditure on the back of high interest loans.
And if course it enables governments to cope with emergencies - it was our more efficient capital markets which enabled us to prevail in the Napoleonic wars.
As an aside, it's worth getting a little bit philosophical here. Saving is deferring current consumption. Borrowing is the reverse. Saving and borrowing is, at its heart, a method for the time transfer of work, because work itself is ephemeral. You can't spend the product of your work in the future (most of the time).
Work is about spending the production of that work in the future. That's what work is, Clean your flat - hey it's clean in the future. Send a rocket to Mars - hey it's a rocket we have on Mars.
Andy Burnham will unveil plans next week for adult social care in the first major policy speech of his premiership as he pledges to “face it and fix it”
The prime minister has pledged to overhaul social care so that it “operates on the NHS principle” and is free at the point of need in a move that is projected to cost £18.5 billion a year
However, The Times has been told that this “universal” offer is unlikely to cover the “daily living costs” of a care home, such as laundry, food, accommodation and energy bills
It means home residents could still face bills of tens of thousands of pounds for accommodation costs under proposals for a new National Care Service
Covering these costs for everybody would add about an extra £16 billion to annual costs, according to estimates based on average care home fees
Dame Louise Casey, who is leading a commission looking at adult social care in England, is poised to launch a national conversation this month on how it should be paid for
Because if it did, it would do for Labour's reputation for the rest of time. Without 'laundry, food, accommodation and energy bills', most people are not going to notice any difference in care costs.
So its just a death tax for everyone with no benefit.
If it removes the need to sell your home to pay for residential social care costs and instead just replaces it with a 10% levy on estates that would benefit most estates. Ironically especially in London and the South. Though just the nursing care isn’t enough
WRT the putative 10% levy on estates, the devil is in some detail. Which estates? At the moment for most people to whom it is relevant there is a disregard for couples of £1million (being 325K x 2 + the main residence allowance of £175K each.)
If the 10% kicks in at nil, or £200K or something it will bring millions into tax currently outside it. There is also the question of lawful avoidance. It would not be simple.
I believe Burnham has said he wants to scrap inheritance tax and replace it with the 10% levy. So that would mean all estates over £325k, the current threshold for IHT but with no exemption of the main property from IHT for couples up to £1 million as there would be no 40% IHT to pay, just one 10% rate.
If Burnham instead said all estates should pay the 10% levy then that would go down like a lead balloon with those with total assets under £325k though it would be hugely popular with those with estates over £1 million and their heirs
A 10% dementia tax on all estates without allowances would be Burnham's poll tax
Do you want social care to exist or would you rather watch local councils to fall apart.
Which is why no-one is going to use that attack because the problem needs to be fixed and we can't kick the can down the road any longer.
Well we could but that means the only thing our council tax will be used for is social care of people and nothing else..
You think no one will object to a 10% dementia tax when their estate is free of tax within the present regime ?
I expect the children of the elderly will not be impressed
The children of the elderly are in their 60s and mostly don't need the money. And maybe they face having the value of parent's house being swallowed up in care home fees. Could be a good option.
Anyway, we have to stop being scared to raise tax to pay for the state we appear to want to live in.
More like we have to face up to cutting the amount of money showered in benefits.
Triple lock and advantageous pensioner tax regime first up then?
Not first , welfare for those who don’t have a history of contribution should be cut first but I guess if pensions have reached the level of comparable countries then there is no reason to accelerate the increase in state pension with the triple lock. I suspect we haven’t got there yet.
As far as tax regime is concerned pensioners have spent their working lives supporting pensioners who don’t pay NI why should they be the first generation disadvantaged by not enjoying the same.
Scottish tax hike for high earners backfires with loss of £22m
A top rate of 48p for incomes above £125,140, intended as a ‘progressive’ move to raise money for public services, has instead reduced revenues, expert analysis shows
A tax hike on high earners in Scotland has cost the public purse about £22 million in a single year, new analysis indicates.
Dan Neidle, a tax policy expert who was part of the Scottish government’s recently axed tax advisory group, said its decision to impose a 48p top rate had instead reduced revenues.
Rather than injecting money into struggling public services, as intended, evidence suggests high earners are so put off by the enormous rates, they are taking steps to avoid coming into that bracket.
An investigation by Neidle’s independent think tank, Tax Policy Associates, has found that Scotland has now probably “fallen over the Laffer curve” — the point at which tax rates become so high they cost the government money, because earners are so incentivised to avoid them.
Lol. It's not called the Laffer curve for nothing. Lol again
It'd be quite interesting if they varied the rate every year or so until they found out where the maximal tax take was. (And then they should choose quite a bit below that)
Bit in brackets - why?
A less certain thought - I'm sure it's right though.
Rather illogical though - find the optimum rate and then deliberately don't use it.
(I quite like your experiment idea, although you'd never have a stable environment to test it in.)
Well, I think that the costs of choosing too high a rate are very big. And also the idea that the government should be taking as much as they possibly can.. I think not. Alas of course they are taking as much as they possibly can and that's all wrong. It won't happen, and even though I think it's the right thing to do, but turn off the welfare tap for a year - see who really needs help.
8% of total public spending is on debt interest.
One pound in twelve that we pay in taxes right now is being paid on paying back money that wasn't taken in taxes in previous years.
That's the cost of choosing too low a rate. A mountain of debt.
And we need to (a) stop adding to it and (b) ideally start reducing it.
Or to put it another way, there is a valid argument for VAT and business rates to be applied to private schools. It's that as a nation we're more skint than an investor who put everything into Truth Social stock. The fact that the smug, lazy, ignorant, arrogant, rude, stupid and openly spiteful Bridget Phillipson wittered on about 6,500 extra teachers (which we will never recruit because she has blown up what little remained of teacher training) tells us rather too much and not in a good way about political discourse in this country.
Similarly, the government should be getting every penny it can to try and sort out the mess. That means maximising tax revenue and for that they definitely should be seeking for the sweet spot.
It may well be the case that currently we need to maximise tax income, but it shouldn't be the rule.
Here again though, we come back to 'if we ever eliminate the debt, we can transition to only raising what we need to fund our spending decisions.'
(I nearly wrote 'go back to,' but then it occurred to me to wonder when the last time we did that was, and I honestly couldn't think of one.)
Actually we probably wouldn't want to eliminate the debt - even if we were cash rich we'd want to maintain a bond market. In the late 80s the government repaid a lot of debt and it caused a contraction in the gilt market. Most notably in some wildly overpaid roles.
You mean, the bond market might not be able to intimidate everybody and a bunch of fat spivs wouldn't be able to make millions while holding us all to ransom?
Well, that really would be tragic.
Think of all the millions who would die laughing.
No I do not mean that. Can I suggest that you don't understand these issues if you post as such? I hope that I'm not being rude in saying so.
Bond markets are really important. (All they are is a gauge of long term financial stability.)
You may not have meant that, but it's effectively what you've said. Bond markets selling long term debt are a function of government failure, not a vital part of a capitalist society.
Indeed, having pointed out that public spending is not necessarily economically unproductive, I'd go further and point out that many such private companies are in fact a drag on economic growth by sucking money out of the real economy into the pockets of dubious rentiers.
Would we be noticeably worse off if bond markets, hedge funds and Centrica disappeared overnight?
Absolute poppycock. And again I really don't want to fall out with you. Long term debt is an essential tool. Money perhaps can be seen in this way. I presume you don't object to money?
Oh, lor, we're back on cash.
Look, money borrowed in the long term can be used intelligently, particularly by developing productive assets that will aid economic growth. Building HS2 with borrowed money would make sense, for example, because it would (if Sunak wasn't an anti-train nutjob) have made a big profit and powered economic growth in the north and Midlands which would have increased tax take and reduced social expenditure.
Money borrowed on long term to pay pensions is not such money.* That's what we've been doing for decades and that's where the bond markets have our balls in a vice. When you are borrowing from them merely to survive, they can dictate terms and they are doing so.
*And I am now looking north in the expectation of an incoming ballistic turnip.
I think you're wrong about HS2, and I think your error on HS2 indicates where you are wrong more broadly about investment.
HS2 will not/would not have made a particularly big profit, because it was a political project not an economic one - the Northern wing of a Great EU railway line. Its purpose was never to revive the North of England, and even if it had been, it probably wouldn't have worked, because great infrastructure projects do not cause economic growth, they are caused by economic growth. They are caused by coal, or fish, or tourists, or energy needing to get from supplier to customer.
My wider point is that large infrastructure projects funded by taxation or borrowing are not automatically a good thing. Infrastructure should at least be lead by the private sector, if not solely funded by it, if it is going to be profitable.
The WCML has been running at capacity for decades and we've reached the point where there are no plausible improvements left to make.
Similar the ECML and Midland Mainline have similar capacity issues
Solving those capacity issues was the purpose of HS2 but it got sidetracked by a lot of people who have played on the talk about faster services without grasping it was a fix to capacity issues first with speed as a secondary advantage because we know how to build fast trains now.
As I have mentioned before, the EU many moons ago did a study on the impact of TGV services in France on both local and national economies. They found that whilst there was a very small increase in GDP overall, the impact on the regional economies was exactly the reverse of what had been predicted. Rather than increasing the GDP of the regions, TGV sucked money out of the regions and into the centre - Paris.
Scottish tax hike for high earners backfires with loss of £22m
A top rate of 48p for incomes above £125,140, intended as a ‘progressive’ move to raise money for public services, has instead reduced revenues, expert analysis shows
A tax hike on high earners in Scotland has cost the public purse about £22 million in a single year, new analysis indicates.
Dan Neidle, a tax policy expert who was part of the Scottish government’s recently axed tax advisory group, said its decision to impose a 48p top rate had instead reduced revenues.
Rather than injecting money into struggling public services, as intended, evidence suggests high earners are so put off by the enormous rates, they are taking steps to avoid coming into that bracket.
An investigation by Neidle’s independent think tank, Tax Policy Associates, has found that Scotland has now probably “fallen over the Laffer curve” — the point at which tax rates become so high they cost the government money, because earners are so incentivised to avoid them.
Lol. It's not called the Laffer curve for nothing. Lol again
It'd be quite interesting if they varied the rate every year or so until they found out where the maximal tax take was. (And then they should choose quite a bit below that)
Bit in brackets - why?
A less certain thought - I'm sure it's right though.
Rather illogical though - find the optimum rate and then deliberately don't use it.
(I quite like your experiment idea, although you'd never have a stable environment to test it in.)
Well, I think that the costs of choosing too high a rate are very big. And also the idea that the government should be taking as much as they possibly can.. I think not. Alas of course they are taking as much as they possibly can and that's all wrong. It won't happen, and even though I think it's the right thing to do, but turn off the welfare tap for a year - see who really needs help.
8% of total public spending is on debt interest.
One pound in twelve that we pay in taxes right now is being paid on paying back money that wasn't taken in taxes in previous years.
That's the cost of choosing too low a rate. A mountain of debt.
And we need to (a) stop adding to it and (b) ideally start reducing it.
Or to put it another way, there is a valid argument for VAT and business rates to be applied to private schools. It's that as a nation we're more skint than an investor who put everything into Truth Social stock. The fact that the smug, lazy, ignorant, arrogant, rude, stupid and openly spiteful Bridget Phillipson wittered on about 6,500 extra teachers (which we will never recruit because she has blown up what little remained of teacher training) tells us rather too much and not in a good way about political discourse in this country.
Similarly, the government should be getting every penny it can to try and sort out the mess. That means maximising tax revenue and for that they definitely should be seeking for the sweet spot.
It may well be the case that currently we need to maximise tax income, but it shouldn't be the rule.
Here again though, we come back to 'if we ever eliminate the debt, we can transition to only raising what we need to fund our spending decisions.'
(I nearly wrote 'go back to,' but then it occurred to me to wonder when the last time we did that was, and I honestly couldn't think of one.)
Actually we probably wouldn't want to eliminate the debt - even if we were cash rich we'd want to maintain a bond market. In the late 80s the government repaid a lot of debt and it caused a contraction in the gilt market. Most notably in some wildly overpaid roles.
You mean, the bond market might not be able to intimidate everybody and a bunch of fat spivs wouldn't be able to make millions while holding us all to ransom?
Well, that really would be tragic.
Think of all the millions who would die laughing.
No I do not mean that. Can I suggest that you don't understand these issues if you post as such? I hope that I'm not being rude in saying so.
Bond markets are really important. (All they are is a gauge of long term financial stability.)
You may not have meant that, but it's effectively what you've said. Bond markets selling long term debt are a function of government failure, not a vital part of a capitalist society.
Indeed, having pointed out that public spending is not necessarily economically unproductive, I'd go further and point out that many such private companies are in fact a drag on economic growth by sucking money out of the real economy into the pockets of dubious rentiers.
Would we be noticeably worse off if bond markets, hedge funds and Centrica disappeared overnight?
Absolute poppycock. And again I really don't want to fall out with you. Long term debt is an essential tool. Money perhaps can be seen in this way. I presume you don't object to money?
Oh, lor, we're back on cash.
Look, money borrowed in the long term can be used intelligently, particularly by developing productive assets that will aid economic growth. Building HS2 with borrowed money would make sense, for example, because it would (if Sunak wasn't an anti-train nutjob) have made a big profit and powered economic growth in the north and Midlands which would have increased tax take and reduced social expenditure.
Money borrowed on long term to pay pensions is not such money.* That's what we've been doing for decades and that's where the bond markets have our balls in a vice. When you are borrowing from them merely to survive, they can dictate terms and they are doing so.
*And I am now looking north in the expectation of an incoming ballistic turnip.
I think you're wrong about HS2, and I think your error on HS2 indicates where you are wrong more broadly about investment.
HS2 will not/would not have made a particularly big profit, because it was a political project not an economic one - the Northern wing of a Great EU railway line. Its purpose was never to revive the North of England, and even if it had been, it probably wouldn't have worked, because great infrastructure projects do not cause economic growth, they are caused by economic growth. They are caused by coal, or fish, or tourists, or energy needing to get from supplier to customer.
My wider point is that large infrastructure projects funded by taxation or borrowing are not automatically a good thing. Infrastructure should at least be lead by the private sector, if not solely funded by it, if it is going to be profitable.
The WCML has been running at capacity for decades and we've reached the point where there are no plausible improvements left to make.
Similar the ECML and Midland Mainline have similar capacity issues
Solving those capacity issues was the purpose of HS2 but it got sidetracked by a lot of people who have played on the talk about faster services without grasping it was a fix to capacity issues first with speed as a secondary advantage because we know how to build fast trains now.
As I have mentioned before, the EU many moons ago did a study on the impact of TGV services in France on both local and national economies. They found that whilst there was a very small increase in GDP overall, the impact on the regional economies was exactly the reverse of what had been predicted. Rather than increasing the GDP of the regions, TGV sucked money out of the regions and into the centre - Paris.
That is an important point that is worth repeating. One can also look at Japan and its high-speed rail, which has led to an ever bigger Tokyo.
Presumably, however, the degree to which this happens depends on the relative size of the places linked. Is HS2 comparable to these other examples? Or would the places linked be better able to sustain themselves from the pull of London?
Scottish tax hike for high earners backfires with loss of £22m
A top rate of 48p for incomes above £125,140, intended as a ‘progressive’ move to raise money for public services, has instead reduced revenues, expert analysis shows
A tax hike on high earners in Scotland has cost the public purse about £22 million in a single year, new analysis indicates.
Dan Neidle, a tax policy expert who was part of the Scottish government’s recently axed tax advisory group, said its decision to impose a 48p top rate had instead reduced revenues.
Rather than injecting money into struggling public services, as intended, evidence suggests high earners are so put off by the enormous rates, they are taking steps to avoid coming into that bracket.
An investigation by Neidle’s independent think tank, Tax Policy Associates, has found that Scotland has now probably “fallen over the Laffer curve” — the point at which tax rates become so high they cost the government money, because earners are so incentivised to avoid them.
At people thinking there really is a 'curve' you can consult, yes I bet he is.
There really is a curve.
Think of 0% tax. Obviously zero revenue for the exchequer. Think of 100% tax - that's going to be pretty like zero too.
So if you draw a line somehow between those two points, how do you do it?
A straight line would make tax a nonsense, and any line that dipped below a gain equally so.
Thus we have a line of unknown character that begins and end (0/100) at zero. I think its easy to see that that line must peak somewhere.
This is the Laffer curve argument and it's irrefutably true.
A line of unknown character that starts and ends at zero. Yes. That's the Laffer 'curve'. Can't believe he didn't get a Nobel.
I'm not sure that stating the blindingly obvious deserves any great prize. However the field of economics is such a great wasteland of actual thinking that I can see that perhaps he did.
He did get a medal in 2019 from President Trump.
Yes it's banal and true and the only problem is how people talk about it. The false precision and scientific ambience imbued by 'curve'. That's a complete nonsense.
It's better stated as the Laffer principle that there will be a point (and maybe more than one) where increasing a particular tax rate will reduce the total revenue raised by that tax.
If you go up the learning curve on it (which I know you have) that is where you'll end up.
Scottish tax hike for high earners backfires with loss of £22m
A top rate of 48p for incomes above £125,140, intended as a ‘progressive’ move to raise money for public services, has instead reduced revenues, expert analysis shows
A tax hike on high earners in Scotland has cost the public purse about £22 million in a single year, new analysis indicates.
Dan Neidle, a tax policy expert who was part of the Scottish government’s recently axed tax advisory group, said its decision to impose a 48p top rate had instead reduced revenues.
Rather than injecting money into struggling public services, as intended, evidence suggests high earners are so put off by the enormous rates, they are taking steps to avoid coming into that bracket.
An investigation by Neidle’s independent think tank, Tax Policy Associates, has found that Scotland has now probably “fallen over the Laffer curve” — the point at which tax rates become so high they cost the government money, because earners are so incentivised to avoid them.
Lol. It's not called the Laffer curve for nothing. Lol again
It'd be quite interesting if they varied the rate every year or so until they found out where the maximal tax take was. (And then they should choose quite a bit below that)
Bit in brackets - why?
A less certain thought - I'm sure it's right though.
Rather illogical though - find the optimum rate and then deliberately don't use it.
(I quite like your experiment idea, although you'd never have a stable environment to test it in.)
Well, I think that the costs of choosing too high a rate are very big. And also the idea that the government should be taking as much as they possibly can.. I think not. Alas of course they are taking as much as they possibly can and that's all wrong. It won't happen, and even though I think it's the right thing to do, but turn off the welfare tap for a year - see who really needs help.
8% of total public spending is on debt interest.
One pound in twelve that we pay in taxes right now is being paid on paying back money that wasn't taken in taxes in previous years.
That's the cost of choosing too low a rate. A mountain of debt.
And we need to (a) stop adding to it and (b) ideally start reducing it.
Or to put it another way, there is a valid argument for VAT and business rates to be applied to private schools. It's that as a nation we're more skint than an investor who put everything into Truth Social stock. The fact that the smug, lazy, ignorant, arrogant, rude, stupid and openly spiteful Bridget Phillipson wittered on about 6,500 extra teachers (which we will never recruit because she has blown up what little remained of teacher training) tells us rather too much and not in a good way about political discourse in this country.
Similarly, the government should be getting every penny it can to try and sort out the mess. That means maximising tax revenue and for that they definitely should be seeking for the sweet spot.
It may well be the case that currently we need to maximise tax income, but it shouldn't be the rule.
Here again though, we come back to 'if we ever eliminate the debt, we can transition to only raising what we need to fund our spending decisions.'
(I nearly wrote 'go back to,' but then it occurred to me to wonder when the last time we did that was, and I honestly couldn't think of one.)
Actually we probably wouldn't want to eliminate the debt - even if we were cash rich we'd want to maintain a bond market. In the late 80s the government repaid a lot of debt and it caused a contraction in the gilt market. Most notably in some wildly overpaid roles.
You mean, the bond market might not be able to intimidate everybody and a bunch of fat spivs wouldn't be able to make millions while holding us all to ransom?
Well, that really would be tragic.
Think of all the millions who would die laughing.
No I do not mean that. Can I suggest that you don't understand these issues if you post as such? I hope that I'm not being rude in saying so.
Bond markets are really important. (All they are is a gauge of long term financial stability.)
You may not have meant that, but it's effectively what you've said. Bond markets selling long term debt are a function of government failure, not a vital part of a capitalist society.
Indeed, having pointed out that public spending is not necessarily economically unproductive, I'd go further and point out that many such private companies are in fact a drag on economic growth by sucking money out of the real economy into the pockets of dubious rentiers.
Would we be noticeably worse off if bond markets, hedge funds and Centrica disappeared overnight?
Absolute poppycock. And again I really don't want to fall out with you. Long term debt is an essential tool. Money perhaps can be seen in this way. I presume you don't object to money?
Oh, lor, we're back on cash.
Look, money borrowed in the long term can be used intelligently, particularly by developing productive assets that will aid economic growth. Building HS2 with borrowed money would make sense, for example, because it would (if Sunak wasn't an anti-train nutjob) have made a big profit and powered economic growth in the north and Midlands which would have increased tax take and reduced social expenditure.
Money borrowed on long term to pay pensions is not such money.* That's what we've been doing for decades and that's where the bond markets have our balls in a vice. When you are borrowing from them merely to survive, they can dictate terms and they are doing so.
*And I am now looking north in the expectation of an incoming ballistic turnip.
If you have a ten pound note - what actually is it? It's a bond. You can't go wildly rambling about HS2 as a smokescreen.
A well managed company will probably have some debt. They have it because they foresee that their growth enabled by the funds will far outstrip the cost of servicing the debt.
Are you suggesting that the debts we have now are analogous to those of a well managed company?
If so, will you be taking out a mortgage to buy this bridge I am offering for sale?
By the way, I would love to ramble around HS2 wildly or otherwise, but as Sunak effectively not only cancelled it but illegally salted the wells to make sure nobody else could build it that would be quite tricky.
No, obviously we have debts that look like an ill managed company.
I'm entirely sure you now realise that there is a little gap in your knowledge around these issues. Go and think about it. If your middle name is not 'thoughtful' I'd be amazed.
My middle name is 'Frank' (yes, really).
I am afraid you have not convinced me of any gaps in my knowledge. Merely that you are confusing excess bond markets, which are an example of capitalist and governmental failure, with government debt, which is issued through bond markets but would not actually have to be.
You have also not convinced me that the way they manipulate debt and the interest on it to their own advantage thereby sucking money out of the government's accounts and requiring higher tax take for worse services is advantageous to the productive economy. If you could show that it is used to fund other economic activity rather than massive salaries for people with the integrity of Mafia bosses I would be willing to change my mind on that.
The fundamental issue is one of the tax deductibility of interest, and it's one of the reasons why BP selling\ its UK solar generation assets to the Kuwaitis is less likely to be a problem for the Exchequer than you would think.
The reality is that BP today will fund its UK solar assets out of an offshore entity which lends money to the UK solar developer. And so, profits almost certainly get taken out of the UK in a tax-free manner already.
What we probably should look to do is to find some way of limiting the tax deductibility of interest payments. (Differing rules on thr tax deductibility of interest also screws up the rental market because it effectively subsidises corporate landlords and penalises personal landlords.)
Why we adopt fiscal policies which encourage the draining of assets from the country is an interesting question.
Part of it, I think, is the fetishisation of the market by every government since at least the 80s, without a corresponding understanding (or even desire to understand on the part of politicians) of how markets operate, and to whose benefit.
Scottish tax hike for high earners backfires with loss of £22m
A top rate of 48p for incomes above £125,140, intended as a ‘progressive’ move to raise money for public services, has instead reduced revenues, expert analysis shows
A tax hike on high earners in Scotland has cost the public purse about £22 million in a single year, new analysis indicates.
Dan Neidle, a tax policy expert who was part of the Scottish government’s recently axed tax advisory group, said its decision to impose a 48p top rate had instead reduced revenues.
Rather than injecting money into struggling public services, as intended, evidence suggests high earners are so put off by the enormous rates, they are taking steps to avoid coming into that bracket.
An investigation by Neidle’s independent think tank, Tax Policy Associates, has found that Scotland has now probably “fallen over the Laffer curve” — the point at which tax rates become so high they cost the government money, because earners are so incentivised to avoid them.
Lol. It's not called the Laffer curve for nothing. Lol again
It'd be quite interesting if they varied the rate every year or so until they found out where the maximal tax take was. (And then they should choose quite a bit below that)
Bit in brackets - why?
A less certain thought - I'm sure it's right though.
Rather illogical though - find the optimum rate and then deliberately don't use it.
(I quite like your experiment idea, although you'd never have a stable environment to test it in.)
Well, I think that the costs of choosing too high a rate are very big. And also the idea that the government should be taking as much as they possibly can.. I think not. Alas of course they are taking as much as they possibly can and that's all wrong. It won't happen, and even though I think it's the right thing to do, but turn off the welfare tap for a year - see who really needs help.
8% of total public spending is on debt interest.
One pound in twelve that we pay in taxes right now is being paid on paying back money that wasn't taken in taxes in previous years.
That's the cost of choosing too low a rate. A mountain of debt.
And we need to (a) stop adding to it and (b) ideally start reducing it.
Or to put it another way, there is a valid argument for VAT and business rates to be applied to private schools. It's that as a nation we're more skint than an investor who put everything into Truth Social stock. The fact that the smug, lazy, ignorant, arrogant, rude, stupid and openly spiteful Bridget Phillipson wittered on about 6,500 extra teachers (which we will never recruit because she has blown up what little remained of teacher training) tells us rather too much and not in a good way about political discourse in this country.
Similarly, the government should be getting every penny it can to try and sort out the mess. That means maximising tax revenue and for that they definitely should be seeking for the sweet spot.
It may well be the case that currently we need to maximise tax income, but it shouldn't be the rule.
Here again though, we come back to 'if we ever eliminate the debt, we can transition to only raising what we need to fund our spending decisions.'
(I nearly wrote 'go back to,' but then it occurred to me to wonder when the last time we did that was, and I honestly couldn't think of one.)
Actually we probably wouldn't want to eliminate the debt - even if we were cash rich we'd want to maintain a bond market. In the late 80s the government repaid a lot of debt and it caused a contraction in the gilt market. Most notably in some wildly overpaid roles.
You mean, the bond market might not be able to intimidate everybody and a bunch of fat spivs wouldn't be able to make millions while holding us all to ransom?
Well, that really would be tragic.
Think of all the millions who would die laughing.
No I do not mean that. Can I suggest that you don't understand these issues if you post as such? I hope that I'm not being rude in saying so.
Bond markets are really important. (All they are is a gauge of long term financial stability.)
You may not have meant that, but it's effectively what you've said. Bond markets selling long term debt are a function of government failure, not a vital part of a capitalist society.
Indeed, having pointed out that public spending is not necessarily economically unproductive, I'd go further and point out that many such private companies are in fact a drag on economic growth by sucking money out of the real economy into the pockets of dubious rentiers.
Would we be noticeably worse off if bond markets, hedge funds and Centrica disappeared overnight?
That is a delusion.
The value of borrowing depends on its cost compared with the benefits of the spending it enables. There's a vast range between extremely productive investment financed by very cheap borrowing, and unproductive expenditure on the back of high interest loans.
And if course it enables governments to cope with emergencies - it was our more efficient capital markets which enabled us to prevail in the Napoleonic wars.
As an aside, it's worth getting a little bit philosophical here. Saving is deferring current consumption. Borrowing is the reverse. Saving and borrowing is, at its heart, a method for the time transfer of work, because work itself is ephemeral. You can't spend the product of your work in the future (most of the time).
Absolutely.
War debt is a great example. Without it, we simply couldn't have paid for any of our major wars, and it took decades to pay off.
It wasn't even productive investment (wars are economically destructive), but winning the war was probably preferable to losing in economic terms (though WWII is an interesting case to argue).
Scottish tax hike for high earners backfires with loss of £22m
A top rate of 48p for incomes above £125,140, intended as a ‘progressive’ move to raise money for public services, has instead reduced revenues, expert analysis shows
A tax hike on high earners in Scotland has cost the public purse about £22 million in a single year, new analysis indicates.
Dan Neidle, a tax policy expert who was part of the Scottish government’s recently axed tax advisory group, said its decision to impose a 48p top rate had instead reduced revenues.
Rather than injecting money into struggling public services, as intended, evidence suggests high earners are so put off by the enormous rates, they are taking steps to avoid coming into that bracket.
An investigation by Neidle’s independent think tank, Tax Policy Associates, has found that Scotland has now probably “fallen over the Laffer curve” — the point at which tax rates become so high they cost the government money, because earners are so incentivised to avoid them.
At people thinking there really is a 'curve' you can consult, yes I bet he is.
There really is a curve.
Think of 0% tax. Obviously zero revenue for the exchequer. Think of 100% tax - that's going to be pretty like zero too.
So if you draw a line somehow between those two points, how do you do it?
A straight line would make tax a nonsense, and any line that dipped below a gain equally so.
Thus we have a line of unknown character that begins and end (0/100) at zero. I think its easy to see that that line must peak somewhere.
This is the Laffer curve argument and it's irrefutably true.
A line of unknown character that starts and ends at zero. Yes. That's the Laffer 'curve'. Can't believe he didn't get a Nobel.
I'm not sure that stating the blindingly obvious deserves any great prize. However the field of economics is such a great wasteland of actual thinking that I can see that perhaps he did.
He did get a medal in 2019 from President Trump.
Yes it's banal and true and the only problem is how people talk about it. The false precision and scientific ambience imbued by 'curve'. That's a complete nonsense.
It's better stated as the Laffer principle that there will be a point (and maybe more than one) where increasing a particular tax will reduce the total revenue raised by that tax.
If you go up the learning curve on it (which I know you have) that is where you'll end up.
There is a far more fundamental principle - people respond to incentives. The top rate of tax is only one of those incentives.
Scottish tax hike for high earners backfires with loss of £22m
A top rate of 48p for incomes above £125,140, intended as a ‘progressive’ move to raise money for public services, has instead reduced revenues, expert analysis shows
A tax hike on high earners in Scotland has cost the public purse about £22 million in a single year, new analysis indicates.
Dan Neidle, a tax policy expert who was part of the Scottish government’s recently axed tax advisory group, said its decision to impose a 48p top rate had instead reduced revenues.
Rather than injecting money into struggling public services, as intended, evidence suggests high earners are so put off by the enormous rates, they are taking steps to avoid coming into that bracket.
An investigation by Neidle’s independent think tank, Tax Policy Associates, has found that Scotland has now probably “fallen over the Laffer curve” — the point at which tax rates become so high they cost the government money, because earners are so incentivised to avoid them.
How ever do they manage in Denmark (60.5%); France (55.4%) Austria (55%) Portugal, Sweden, Spain, and Belgium (all >50%)?
You're forgetting that in Scotland the combined top rate (48% + 2% NI) is already at 50%+
The effects are clear, despite your frustration.
The other countries you mention are blending municipal and national taxes and in some cases social insurance, so aren't directly comparable.
Fair point about the 2% NI (NI - the tax that always gets forgotten) and I agree it's very difficult to compare countries. Scotland does however have a unique problem in that it is exceedingly easy for high income individuals to base themselves in England for tax purposes.
It's an inadequate answer but I suspect there's something about the close knit nature of small Scandinavian countries that makes them willing to tolerate very high taxes AND fairly hostile to high levels of immigration (both probably linked) in a way that wouldn't really work here.
Scandinavian countries have their fair share of tax exiles of course, but they’ve embraced something that seems politically impossible in the UK: high and broad based taxation of the majority of the population (something Dan Neidle has pointed out - in the UK we tax the average worker less now than at almost any time in recent history even while our overall tax take is at record highs), but relatively low taxation of certain things that are considered economically important.
Corporation tax, for example, is lower in the Nordics than in most of the OECD including the USA. And Sweden has zero IHT.
One of the issues with UK ideas about a wealth tax or LVT is that they look at other countries, see they have a wealth tax but don't look at the detail.
Norway has a wealth tax of 1% on everything including property. But it is only on amounts above 1.9 million NOK for an individual and 3.8 million NOK for a couple. (£150K/£300K).
But importantly all debts are taken off that including mortgages. So if you are looking to an LVT simlar to Norway to replace Council Tax and Stamp duty you are likely to end up falling far short under the Norwegian system.
Looking further afield most Australian states have LVT but it is only levied on the land value not the building value. Estonia has an LVT but houses properties with a principle residence are excluded so long as they don't exceed a very generous land allowance.
Scottish tax hike for high earners backfires with loss of £22m
A top rate of 48p for incomes above £125,140, intended as a ‘progressive’ move to raise money for public services, has instead reduced revenues, expert analysis shows
A tax hike on high earners in Scotland has cost the public purse about £22 million in a single year, new analysis indicates.
Dan Neidle, a tax policy expert who was part of the Scottish government’s recently axed tax advisory group, said its decision to impose a 48p top rate had instead reduced revenues.
Rather than injecting money into struggling public services, as intended, evidence suggests high earners are so put off by the enormous rates, they are taking steps to avoid coming into that bracket.
An investigation by Neidle’s independent think tank, Tax Policy Associates, has found that Scotland has now probably “fallen over the Laffer curve” — the point at which tax rates become so high they cost the government money, because earners are so incentivised to avoid them.
Lol. It's not called the Laffer curve for nothing. Lol again
It'd be quite interesting if they varied the rate every year or so until they found out where the maximal tax take was. (And then they should choose quite a bit below that)
Bit in brackets - why?
A less certain thought - I'm sure it's right though.
Rather illogical though - find the optimum rate and then deliberately don't use it.
(I quite like your experiment idea, although you'd never have a stable environment to test it in.)
Well, I think that the costs of choosing too high a rate are very big. And also the idea that the government should be taking as much as they possibly can.. I think not. Alas of course they are taking as much as they possibly can and that's all wrong. It won't happen, and even though I think it's the right thing to do, but turn off the welfare tap for a year - see who really needs help.
8% of total public spending is on debt interest.
One pound in twelve that we pay in taxes right now is being paid on paying back money that wasn't taken in taxes in previous years.
That's the cost of choosing too low a rate. A mountain of debt.
And we need to (a) stop adding to it and (b) ideally start reducing it.
Or to put it another way, there is a valid argument for VAT and business rates to be applied to private schools. It's that as a nation we're more skint than an investor who put everything into Truth Social stock. The fact that the smug, lazy, ignorant, arrogant, rude, stupid and openly spiteful Bridget Phillipson wittered on about 6,500 extra teachers (which we will never recruit because she has blown up what little remained of teacher training) tells us rather too much and not in a good way about political discourse in this country.
Similarly, the government should be getting every penny it can to try and sort out the mess. That means maximising tax revenue and for that they definitely should be seeking for the sweet spot.
It may well be the case that currently we need to maximise tax income, but it shouldn't be the rule.
Here again though, we come back to 'if we ever eliminate the debt, we can transition to only raising what we need to fund our spending decisions.'
(I nearly wrote 'go back to,' but then it occurred to me to wonder when the last time we did that was, and I honestly couldn't think of one.)
Actually we probably wouldn't want to eliminate the debt - even if we were cash rich we'd want to maintain a bond market. In the late 80s the government repaid a lot of debt and it caused a contraction in the gilt market. Most notably in some wildly overpaid roles.
You mean, the bond market might not be able to intimidate everybody and a bunch of fat spivs wouldn't be able to make millions while holding us all to ransom?
Well, that really would be tragic.
Think of all the millions who would die laughing.
No I do not mean that. Can I suggest that you don't understand these issues if you post as such? I hope that I'm not being rude in saying so.
Bond markets are really important. (All they are is a gauge of long term financial stability.)
You may not have meant that, but it's effectively what you've said. Bond markets selling long term debt are a function of government failure, not a vital part of a capitalist society.
Indeed, having pointed out that public spending is not necessarily economically unproductive, I'd go further and point out that many such private companies are in fact a drag on economic growth by sucking money out of the real economy into the pockets of dubious rentiers.
Would we be noticeably worse off if bond markets, hedge funds and Centrica disappeared overnight?
Absolute poppycock. And again I really don't want to fall out with you. Long term debt is an essential tool. Money perhaps can be seen in this way. I presume you don't object to money?
Oh, lor, we're back on cash.
Look, money borrowed in the long term can be used intelligently, particularly by developing productive assets that will aid economic growth. Building HS2 with borrowed money would make sense, for example, because it would (if Sunak wasn't an anti-train nutjob) have made a big profit and powered economic growth in the north and Midlands which would have increased tax take and reduced social expenditure.
Money borrowed on long term to pay pensions is not such money.* That's what we've been doing for decades and that's where the bond markets have our balls in a vice. When you are borrowing from them merely to survive, they can dictate terms and they are doing so.
*And I am now looking north in the expectation of an incoming ballistic turnip.
If you have a ten pound note - what actually is it? It's a bond. You can't go wildly rambling about HS2 as a smokescreen.
A well managed company will probably have some debt. They have it because they foresee that their growth enabled by the funds will far outstrip the cost of servicing the debt.
Are you suggesting that the debts we have now are analogous to those of a well managed company?
If so, will you be taking out a mortgage to buy this bridge I am offering for sale?
By the way, I would love to ramble around HS2 wildly or otherwise, but as Sunak effectively not only cancelled it but illegally salted the wells to make sure nobody else could build it that would be quite tricky.
No, obviously we have debts that look like an ill managed company.
I'm entirely sure you now realise that there is a little gap in your knowledge around these issues. Go and think about it. If your middle name is not 'thoughtful' I'd be amazed.
My middle name is 'Frank' (yes, really).
I am afraid you have not convinced me of any gaps in my knowledge. Merely that you are confusing excess bond markets, which are an example of capitalist and governmental failure, with government debt, which is issued through bond markets but would not actually have to be.
You have also not convinced me that the way they manipulate debt and the interest on it to their own advantage thereby sucking money out of the government's accounts and requiring higher tax take for worse services is advantageous to the productive economy. If you could show that it is used to fund other economic activity rather than massive salaries for people with the integrity of Mafia bosses I would be willing to change my mind on that.
The fundamental issue is one of the tax deductibility of interest, and it's one of the reasons why BP selling\ its UK solar generation assets to the Kuwaitis is less likely to be a problem for the Exchequer than you would think.
The reality is that BP today will fund its UK solar assets out of an offshore entity which lends money to the UK solar developer. And so, profits almost certainly get taken out of the UK in a tax-free manner already.
What we probably should look to do is to find some way of limiting the tax deductibility of interest payments. (Differing rules on thr tax deductibility of interest also screws up the rental market because it effectively subsidises corporate landlords and penalises personal landlords.)
Well, jump in with big boots! The eminent @ydoethur and I were having a sensible discussion and then you skim read.
I am deeply appalled and angry to see “Firework” used on the @WhiteHouse TikTok account as a backing track for video footage of military strikes. I did not approve this, I was not asked, and I absolutely do not condone it.
I wrote this song to be an anthem of hope, healing, and inner strength for people going through their darkest personal moments. To see a message of self-worth and upliftment weaponized to soundtrack destruction and violence is a complete violation of everything my song stands for.
My music is for bringing people together, not celebrating warfare.
Scottish tax hike for high earners backfires with loss of £22m
A top rate of 48p for incomes above £125,140, intended as a ‘progressive’ move to raise money for public services, has instead reduced revenues, expert analysis shows
A tax hike on high earners in Scotland has cost the public purse about £22 million in a single year, new analysis indicates.
Dan Neidle, a tax policy expert who was part of the Scottish government’s recently axed tax advisory group, said its decision to impose a 48p top rate had instead reduced revenues.
Rather than injecting money into struggling public services, as intended, evidence suggests high earners are so put off by the enormous rates, they are taking steps to avoid coming into that bracket.
An investigation by Neidle’s independent think tank, Tax Policy Associates, has found that Scotland has now probably “fallen over the Laffer curve” — the point at which tax rates become so high they cost the government money, because earners are so incentivised to avoid them.
Lol. It's not called the Laffer curve for nothing. Lol again
It'd be quite interesting if they varied the rate every year or so until they found out where the maximal tax take was. (And then they should choose quite a bit below that)
Bit in brackets - why?
A less certain thought - I'm sure it's right though.
Rather illogical though - find the optimum rate and then deliberately don't use it.
(I quite like your experiment idea, although you'd never have a stable environment to test it in.)
Well, I think that the costs of choosing too high a rate are very big. And also the idea that the government should be taking as much as they possibly can.. I think not. Alas of course they are taking as much as they possibly can and that's all wrong. It won't happen, and even though I think it's the right thing to do, but turn off the welfare tap for a year - see who really needs help.
8% of total public spending is on debt interest.
One pound in twelve that we pay in taxes right now is being paid on paying back money that wasn't taken in taxes in previous years.
That's the cost of choosing too low a rate. A mountain of debt.
And we need to (a) stop adding to it and (b) ideally start reducing it.
Or to put it another way, there is a valid argument for VAT and business rates to be applied to private schools. It's that as a nation we're more skint than an investor who put everything into Truth Social stock. The fact that the smug, lazy, ignorant, arrogant, rude, stupid and openly spiteful Bridget Phillipson wittered on about 6,500 extra teachers (which we will never recruit because she has blown up what little remained of teacher training) tells us rather too much and not in a good way about political discourse in this country.
Similarly, the government should be getting every penny it can to try and sort out the mess. That means maximising tax revenue and for that they definitely should be seeking for the sweet spot.
It may well be the case that currently we need to maximise tax income, but it shouldn't be the rule.
Here again though, we come back to 'if we ever eliminate the debt, we can transition to only raising what we need to fund our spending decisions.'
(I nearly wrote 'go back to,' but then it occurred to me to wonder when the last time we did that was, and I honestly couldn't think of one.)
Actually we probably wouldn't want to eliminate the debt - even if we were cash rich we'd want to maintain a bond market. In the late 80s the government repaid a lot of debt and it caused a contraction in the gilt market. Most notably in some wildly overpaid roles.
You mean, the bond market might not be able to intimidate everybody and a bunch of fat spivs wouldn't be able to make millions while holding us all to ransom?
Well, that really would be tragic.
Think of all the millions who would die laughing.
No I do not mean that. Can I suggest that you don't understand these issues if you post as such? I hope that I'm not being rude in saying so.
Bond markets are really important. (All they are is a gauge of long term financial stability.)
You may not have meant that, but it's effectively what you've said. Bond markets selling long term debt are a function of government failure, not a vital part of a capitalist society.
Indeed, having pointed out that public spending is not necessarily economically unproductive, I'd go further and point out that many such private companies are in fact a drag on economic growth by sucking money out of the real economy into the pockets of dubious rentiers.
Would we be noticeably worse off if bond markets, hedge funds and Centrica disappeared overnight?
Absolute poppycock. And again I really don't want to fall out with you. Long term debt is an essential tool. Money perhaps can be seen in this way. I presume you don't object to money?
Oh, lor, we're back on cash.
Look, money borrowed in the long term can be used intelligently, particularly by developing productive assets that will aid economic growth. Building HS2 with borrowed money would make sense, for example, because it would (if Sunak wasn't an anti-train nutjob) have made a big profit and powered economic growth in the north and Midlands which would have increased tax take and reduced social expenditure.
Money borrowed on long term to pay pensions is not such money.* That's what we've been doing for decades and that's where the bond markets have our balls in a vice. When you are borrowing from them merely to survive, they can dictate terms and they are doing so.
*And I am now looking north in the expectation of an incoming ballistic turnip.
I think you're wrong about HS2, and I think your error on HS2 indicates where you are wrong more broadly about investment.
HS2 will not/would not have made a particularly big profit, because it was a political project not an economic one - the Northern wing of a Great EU railway line. Its purpose was never to revive the North of England, and even if it had been, it probably wouldn't have worked, because great infrastructure projects do not cause economic growth, they are caused by economic growth. They are caused by coal, or fish, or tourists, or energy needing to get from supplier to customer.
My wider point is that large infrastructure projects funded by taxation or borrowing are not automatically a good thing. Infrastructure should at least be lead by the private sector, if not solely funded by it, if it is going to be profitable.
The WCML has been running at capacity for decades and we've reached the point where there are no plausible improvements left to make.
Similar the ECML and Midland Mainline have similar capacity issues
Solving those capacity issues was the purpose of HS2 but it got sidetracked by a lot of people who have played on the talk about faster services without grasping it was a fix to capacity issues first with speed as a secondary advantage because we know how to build fast trains now.
As I have mentioned before, the EU many moons ago did a study on the impact of TGV services in France on both local and national economies. They found that whilst there was a very small increase in GDP overall, the impact on the regional economies was exactly the reverse of what had been predicted. Rather than increasing the GDP of the regions, TGV sucked money out of the regions and into the centre - Paris.
That is an important point that is worth repeating. One can also look at Japan and its high-speed rail, which has led to an ever bigger Tokyo.
Presumably, however, the degree to which this happens depends on the relative size of the places linked. Is HS2 comparable to these other examples? Or would the places linked be better able to sustain themselves from the pull of London?
Not sure. I don't know whther it would be better to be closer to the centre and so perhaps reduce the pull factor or further away and make the pull factor more difficult logistically. I assume there must be an anti-sweet spot. A point at which you are just to far away to negate the effect but still close enough to make the logistics unimportant.
Scottish tax hike for high earners backfires with loss of £22m
A top rate of 48p for incomes above £125,140, intended as a ‘progressive’ move to raise money for public services, has instead reduced revenues, expert analysis shows
A tax hike on high earners in Scotland has cost the public purse about £22 million in a single year, new analysis indicates.
Dan Neidle, a tax policy expert who was part of the Scottish government’s recently axed tax advisory group, said its decision to impose a 48p top rate had instead reduced revenues.
Rather than injecting money into struggling public services, as intended, evidence suggests high earners are so put off by the enormous rates, they are taking steps to avoid coming into that bracket.
An investigation by Neidle’s independent think tank, Tax Policy Associates, has found that Scotland has now probably “fallen over the Laffer curve” — the point at which tax rates become so high they cost the government money, because earners are so incentivised to avoid them.
Lol. It's not called the Laffer curve for nothing. Lol again
It'd be quite interesting if they varied the rate every year or so until they found out where the maximal tax take was. (And then they should choose quite a bit below that)
Bit in brackets - why?
A less certain thought - I'm sure it's right though.
Rather illogical though - find the optimum rate and then deliberately don't use it.
(I quite like your experiment idea, although you'd never have a stable environment to test it in.)
Well, I think that the costs of choosing too high a rate are very big. And also the idea that the government should be taking as much as they possibly can.. I think not. Alas of course they are taking as much as they possibly can and that's all wrong. It won't happen, and even though I think it's the right thing to do, but turn off the welfare tap for a year - see who really needs help.
8% of total public spending is on debt interest.
One pound in twelve that we pay in taxes right now is being paid on paying back money that wasn't taken in taxes in previous years.
That's the cost of choosing too low a rate. A mountain of debt.
And we need to (a) stop adding to it and (b) ideally start reducing it.
Or to put it another way, there is a valid argument for VAT and business rates to be applied to private schools. It's that as a nation we're more skint than an investor who put everything into Truth Social stock. The fact that the smug, lazy, ignorant, arrogant, rude, stupid and openly spiteful Bridget Phillipson wittered on about 6,500 extra teachers (which we will never recruit because she has blown up what little remained of teacher training) tells us rather too much and not in a good way about political discourse in this country.
Similarly, the government should be getting every penny it can to try and sort out the mess. That means maximising tax revenue and for that they definitely should be seeking for the sweet spot.
It may well be the case that currently we need to maximise tax income, but it shouldn't be the rule.
Here again though, we come back to 'if we ever eliminate the debt, we can transition to only raising what we need to fund our spending decisions.'
(I nearly wrote 'go back to,' but then it occurred to me to wonder when the last time we did that was, and I honestly couldn't think of one.)
Actually we probably wouldn't want to eliminate the debt - even if we were cash rich we'd want to maintain a bond market. In the late 80s the government repaid a lot of debt and it caused a contraction in the gilt market. Most notably in some wildly overpaid roles.
You mean, the bond market might not be able to intimidate everybody and a bunch of fat spivs wouldn't be able to make millions while holding us all to ransom?
Well, that really would be tragic.
Think of all the millions who would die laughing.
No I do not mean that. Can I suggest that you don't understand these issues if you post as such? I hope that I'm not being rude in saying so.
Bond markets are really important. (All they are is a gauge of long term financial stability.)
You may not have meant that, but it's effectively what you've said. Bond markets selling long term debt are a function of government failure, not a vital part of a capitalist society.
Indeed, having pointed out that public spending is not necessarily economically unproductive, I'd go further and point out that many such private companies are in fact a drag on economic growth by sucking money out of the real economy into the pockets of dubious rentiers.
Would we be noticeably worse off if bond markets, hedge funds and Centrica disappeared overnight?
Absolute poppycock. And again I really don't want to fall out with you. Long term debt is an essential tool. Money perhaps can be seen in this way. I presume you don't object to money?
Oh, lor, we're back on cash.
Look, money borrowed in the long term can be used intelligently, particularly by developing productive assets that will aid economic growth. Building HS2 with borrowed money would make sense, for example, because it would (if Sunak wasn't an anti-train nutjob) have made a big profit and powered economic growth in the north and Midlands which would have increased tax take and reduced social expenditure.
Money borrowed on long term to pay pensions is not such money.* That's what we've been doing for decades and that's where the bond markets have our balls in a vice. When you are borrowing from them merely to survive, they can dictate terms and they are doing so.
*And I am now looking north in the expectation of an incoming ballistic turnip.
If you have a ten pound note - what actually is it? It's a bond. You can't go wildly rambling about HS2 as a smokescreen.
A well managed company will probably have some debt. They have it because they foresee that their growth enabled by the funds will far outstrip the cost of servicing the debt.
Are you suggesting that the debts we have now are analogous to those of a well managed company?
If so, will you be taking out a mortgage to buy this bridge I am offering for sale?
By the way, I would love to ramble around HS2 wildly or otherwise, but as Sunak effectively not only cancelled it but illegally salted the wells to make sure nobody else could build it that would be quite tricky.
No, obviously we have debts that look like an ill managed company.
I'm entirely sure you now realise that there is a little gap in your knowledge around these issues. Go and think about it. If your middle name is not 'thoughtful' I'd be amazed.
My middle name is 'Frank' (yes, really).
I am afraid you have not convinced me of any gaps in my knowledge. Merely that you are confusing excess bond markets, which are an example of capitalist and governmental failure, with government debt, which is issued through bond markets but would not actually have to be.
You have also not convinced me that the way they manipulate debt and the interest on it to their own advantage thereby sucking money out of the government's accounts and requiring higher tax take for worse services is advantageous to the productive economy. If you could show that it is used to fund other economic activity rather than massive salaries for people with the integrity of Mafia bosses I would be willing to change my mind on that.
The fundamental issue is one of the tax deductibility of interest, and it's one of the reasons why BP selling\ its UK solar generation assets to the Kuwaitis is less likely to be a problem for the Exchequer than you would think.
The reality is that BP today will fund its UK solar assets out of an offshore entity which lends money to the UK solar developer. And so, profits almost certainly get taken out of the UK in a tax-free manner already.
What we probably should look to do is to find some way of limiting the tax deductibility of interest payments. (Differing rules on thr tax deductibility of interest also screws up the rental market because it effectively subsidises corporate landlords and penalises personal landlords.)
Why we adopt fiscal policies which encourage the draining of assets from the country is an interesting question.
Part of it, I think, is the fetishisation of the market by every government since at least the 80s, without a corresponding understanding (or even desire to understand on the part of politicians) of how markets operate, and to whose benefit.
We have tied ourselves to the philosophy/religion of globalisation. And done so in the most extreme way. It is great in theory but often bloody awful in practice.
I am deeply appalled and angry to see “Firework” used on the @WhiteHouse TikTok account as a backing track for video footage of military strikes. I did not approve this, I was not asked, and I absolutely do not condone it.
I wrote this song to be an anthem of hope, healing, and inner strength for people going through their darkest personal moments. To see a message of self-worth and upliftment weaponized to soundtrack destruction and violence is a complete violation of everything my song stands for.
My music is for bringing people together, not celebrating warfare.
Scottish tax hike for high earners backfires with loss of £22m
A top rate of 48p for incomes above £125,140, intended as a ‘progressive’ move to raise money for public services, has instead reduced revenues, expert analysis shows
A tax hike on high earners in Scotland has cost the public purse about £22 million in a single year, new analysis indicates.
Dan Neidle, a tax policy expert who was part of the Scottish government’s recently axed tax advisory group, said its decision to impose a 48p top rate had instead reduced revenues.
Rather than injecting money into struggling public services, as intended, evidence suggests high earners are so put off by the enormous rates, they are taking steps to avoid coming into that bracket.
An investigation by Neidle’s independent think tank, Tax Policy Associates, has found that Scotland has now probably “fallen over the Laffer curve” — the point at which tax rates become so high they cost the government money, because earners are so incentivised to avoid them.
How ever do they manage in Denmark (60.5%); France (55.4%) Austria (55%) Portugal, Sweden, Spain, and Belgium (all >50%)?
They'd raise more revenue if they cut their tax rates.
Would they ? Different societies can have very different responses to any given headline rate of tax; that's an economic commonplace.
If there were such a thing as one optimal headline tax rate, then countries would have standardised on it by now. It's an ever moving target depending on times and circumstance.
Laffer curves indisputably exist, but the problem is there are many of them: at different rates for different taxes, and at different times. Some are more predictable than others: HMT is able to estimate behavioural impacts on tax yield for CGT for example, and for some consumption taxes based on historical data, but not for say income tax thresholds or CT.
Then there’s the breadth of the tax base and the availability of reliefs, which complicates the picture further.
How go you know they are even curves ? What's the formula that defines even one of them ?
To define a curve of unknown type, you need far more data for a particular economy at a particular time than is possible to achieve in a real economy.
Again, that is the nature of all economics.
There are a plethora of curves in economics, and it is typically not possible to create a clearcut formula for them. Does not make them any less real.
This absurd standard of "can you create a formula for it" is only applied to this one curve and not so mockingly applied to any others.
Scottish tax hike for high earners backfires with loss of £22m
A top rate of 48p for incomes above £125,140, intended as a ‘progressive’ move to raise money for public services, has instead reduced revenues, expert analysis shows
A tax hike on high earners in Scotland has cost the public purse about £22 million in a single year, new analysis indicates.
Dan Neidle, a tax policy expert who was part of the Scottish government’s recently axed tax advisory group, said its decision to impose a 48p top rate had instead reduced revenues.
Rather than injecting money into struggling public services, as intended, evidence suggests high earners are so put off by the enormous rates, they are taking steps to avoid coming into that bracket.
An investigation by Neidle’s independent think tank, Tax Policy Associates, has found that Scotland has now probably “fallen over the Laffer curve” — the point at which tax rates become so high they cost the government money, because earners are so incentivised to avoid them.
How ever do they manage in Denmark (60.5%); France (55.4%) Austria (55%) Portugal, Sweden, Spain, and Belgium (all >50%)?
You're forgetting that in Scotland the combined top rate (48% + 2% NI) is already at 50%+
The effects are clear, despite your frustration.
The other countries you mention are blending municipal and national taxes and in some cases social insurance, so aren't directly comparable.
Fair point about the 2% NI (NI - the tax that always gets forgotten) and I agree it's very difficult to compare countries. Scotland does however have a unique problem in that it is exceedingly easy for high income individuals to base themselves in England for tax purposes.
It's an inadequate answer but I suspect there's something about the close knit nature of small Scandinavian countries that makes them willing to tolerate very high taxes AND fairly hostile to high levels of immigration (both probably linked) in a way that wouldn't really work here.
Scandinavian countries have their fair share of tax exiles of course, but they’ve embraced something that seems politically impossible in the UK: high and broad based taxation of the majority of the population (something Dan Neidle has pointed out - in the UK we tax the average worker less now than at almost any time in recent history even while our overall tax take is at record highs), but relatively low taxation of certain things that are considered economically important.
Corporation tax, for example, is lower in the Nordics than in most of the OECD including the USA. And Sweden has zero IHT.
One of the issues with UK ideas about a wealth tax or LVT is that they look at other countries, see they have a wealth tax but don't look at the detail.
Norway has a wealth tax of 1% on everything including property. But it is only on amounts above 1.9 million NOK for an individual and 3.8 million NOK for a couple. (£150K/£300K).
But importantly all debts are taken off that including mortgages. So if you are looking to an LVT simlar to Norway to replace Council Tax and Stamp duty you are likely to end up falling far short under the Norwegian system.
Looking further afield most Australian states have LVT but it is only levied on the land value not the building value. Estonia has an LVT but houses properties with a principle residence are excluded so long as they don't exceed a very generous land allowance.
Land value is a superior system to building value, it means you can improve the land and not be penalised for doing so. Japan does the same.
plenty of countries have land or property taxes on an annual basis and do not consider them in the same basket as generalised wealth taxes - even America does.
There is little reason why it can not replace Council Tax and Stamp Duty, but it might not be a copy and paste from Norway, agreed.
Scottish tax hike for high earners backfires with loss of £22m
A top rate of 48p for incomes above £125,140, intended as a ‘progressive’ move to raise money for public services, has instead reduced revenues, expert analysis shows
A tax hike on high earners in Scotland has cost the public purse about £22 million in a single year, new analysis indicates.
Dan Neidle, a tax policy expert who was part of the Scottish government’s recently axed tax advisory group, said its decision to impose a 48p top rate had instead reduced revenues.
Rather than injecting money into struggling public services, as intended, evidence suggests high earners are so put off by the enormous rates, they are taking steps to avoid coming into that bracket.
An investigation by Neidle’s independent think tank, Tax Policy Associates, has found that Scotland has now probably “fallen over the Laffer curve” — the point at which tax rates become so high they cost the government money, because earners are so incentivised to avoid them.
Lol. It's not called the Laffer curve for nothing. Lol again
It'd be quite interesting if they varied the rate every year or so until they found out where the maximal tax take was. (And then they should choose quite a bit below that)
Bit in brackets - why?
A less certain thought - I'm sure it's right though.
Rather illogical though - find the optimum rate and then deliberately don't use it.
(I quite like your experiment idea, although you'd never have a stable environment to test it in.)
Well, I think that the costs of choosing too high a rate are very big. And also the idea that the government should be taking as much as they possibly can.. I think not. Alas of course they are taking as much as they possibly can and that's all wrong. It won't happen, and even though I think it's the right thing to do, but turn off the welfare tap for a year - see who really needs help.
8% of total public spending is on debt interest.
One pound in twelve that we pay in taxes right now is being paid on paying back money that wasn't taken in taxes in previous years.
That's the cost of choosing too low a rate. A mountain of debt.
And we need to (a) stop adding to it and (b) ideally start reducing it.
Or to put it another way, there is a valid argument for VAT and business rates to be applied to private schools. It's that as a nation we're more skint than an investor who put everything into Truth Social stock. The fact that the smug, lazy, ignorant, arrogant, rude, stupid and openly spiteful Bridget Phillipson wittered on about 6,500 extra teachers (which we will never recruit because she has blown up what little remained of teacher training) tells us rather too much and not in a good way about political discourse in this country.
Similarly, the government should be getting every penny it can to try and sort out the mess. That means maximising tax revenue and for that they definitely should be seeking for the sweet spot.
It may well be the case that currently we need to maximise tax income, but it shouldn't be the rule.
Here again though, we come back to 'if we ever eliminate the debt, we can transition to only raising what we need to fund our spending decisions.'
(I nearly wrote 'go back to,' but then it occurred to me to wonder when the last time we did that was, and I honestly couldn't think of one.)
Actually we probably wouldn't want to eliminate the debt - even if we were cash rich we'd want to maintain a bond market. In the late 80s the government repaid a lot of debt and it caused a contraction in the gilt market. Most notably in some wildly overpaid roles.
You mean, the bond market might not be able to intimidate everybody and a bunch of fat spivs wouldn't be able to make millions while holding us all to ransom?
Well, that really would be tragic.
Think of all the millions who would die laughing.
No I do not mean that. Can I suggest that you don't understand these issues if you post as such? I hope that I'm not being rude in saying so.
Bond markets are really important. (All they are is a gauge of long term financial stability.)
You may not have meant that, but it's effectively what you've said. Bond markets selling long term debt are a function of government failure, not a vital part of a capitalist society.
Indeed, having pointed out that public spending is not necessarily economically unproductive, I'd go further and point out that many such private companies are in fact a drag on economic growth by sucking money out of the real economy into the pockets of dubious rentiers.
Would we be noticeably worse off if bond markets, hedge funds and Centrica disappeared overnight?
Absolute poppycock. And again I really don't want to fall out with you. Long term debt is an essential tool. Money perhaps can be seen in this way. I presume you don't object to money?
Oh, lor, we're back on cash.
Look, money borrowed in the long term can be used intelligently, particularly by developing productive assets that will aid economic growth. Building HS2 with borrowed money would make sense, for example, because it would (if Sunak wasn't an anti-train nutjob) have made a big profit and powered economic growth in the north and Midlands which would have increased tax take and reduced social expenditure.
Money borrowed on long term to pay pensions is not such money.* That's what we've been doing for decades and that's where the bond markets have our balls in a vice. When you are borrowing from them merely to survive, they can dictate terms and they are doing so.
*And I am now looking north in the expectation of an incoming ballistic turnip.
If you have a ten pound note - what actually is it? It's a bond. You can't go wildly rambling about HS2 as a smokescreen.
A well managed company will probably have some debt. They have it because they foresee that their growth enabled by the funds will far outstrip the cost of servicing the debt.
Are you suggesting that the debts we have now are analogous to those of a well managed company?
If so, will you be taking out a mortgage to buy this bridge I am offering for sale?
By the way, I would love to ramble around HS2 wildly or otherwise, but as Sunak effectively not only cancelled it but illegally salted the wells to make sure nobody else could build it that would be quite tricky.
No, obviously we have debts that look like an ill managed company.
I'm entirely sure you now realise that there is a little gap in your knowledge around these issues. Go and think about it. If your middle name is not 'thoughtful' I'd be amazed.
My middle name is 'Frank' (yes, really).
I am afraid you have not convinced me of any gaps in my knowledge. Merely that you are confusing excess bond markets, which are an example of capitalist and governmental failure, with government debt, which is issued through bond markets but would not actually have to be.
You have also not convinced me that the way they manipulate debt and the interest on it to their own advantage thereby sucking money out of the government's accounts and requiring higher tax take for worse services is advantageous to the productive economy. If you could show that it is used to fund other economic activity rather than massive salaries for people with the integrity of Mafia bosses I would be willing to change my mind on that.
The fundamental issue is one of the tax deductibility of interest, and it's one of the reasons why BP selling\ its UK solar generation assets to the Kuwaitis is less likely to be a problem for the Exchequer than you would think.
The reality is that BP today will fund its UK solar assets out of an offshore entity which lends money to the UK solar developer. And so, profits almost certainly get taken out of the UK in a tax-free manner already.
What we probably should look to do is to find some way of limiting the tax deductibility of interest payments. (Differing rules on thr tax deductibility of interest also screws up the rental market because it effectively subsidises corporate landlords and penalises personal landlords.)
Why we adopt fiscal policies which encourage the draining of assets from the country is an interesting question.
Part of it, I think, is the fetishisation of the market by every government since at least the 80s, without a corresponding understanding (or even desire to understand on the part of politicians) of how markets operate, and to whose benefit.
We have tied ourselves to the philosophy/religion of globalisation. And done so in the most extreme way. It is great in theory but often bloody awful in practice.
Virtually everywhere serves burgers, pizza, pasta, steak and chips now.
That's one bad and unhealthy feature of globalisation.
I am deeply appalled and angry to see “Firework” used on the @WhiteHouse TikTok account as a backing track for video footage of military strikes. I did not approve this, I was not asked, and I absolutely do not condone it.
I wrote this song to be an anthem of hope, healing, and inner strength for people going through their darkest personal moments. To see a message of self-worth and upliftment weaponized to soundtrack destruction and violence is a complete violation of everything my song stands for.
My music is for bringing people together, not celebrating warfare.
I am deeply appalled and angry to see “Firework” used on the @WhiteHouse TikTok account as a backing track for video footage of military strikes. I did not approve this, I was not asked, and I absolutely do not condone it.
I wrote this song to be an anthem of hope, healing, and inner strength for people going through their darkest personal moments. To see a message of self-worth and upliftment weaponized to soundtrack destruction and violence is a complete violation of everything my song stands for.
My music is for bringing people together, not celebrating warfare.
Scottish tax hike for high earners backfires with loss of £22m
A top rate of 48p for incomes above £125,140, intended as a ‘progressive’ move to raise money for public services, has instead reduced revenues, expert analysis shows
A tax hike on high earners in Scotland has cost the public purse about £22 million in a single year, new analysis indicates.
Dan Neidle, a tax policy expert who was part of the Scottish government’s recently axed tax advisory group, said its decision to impose a 48p top rate had instead reduced revenues.
Rather than injecting money into struggling public services, as intended, evidence suggests high earners are so put off by the enormous rates, they are taking steps to avoid coming into that bracket.
An investigation by Neidle’s independent think tank, Tax Policy Associates, has found that Scotland has now probably “fallen over the Laffer curve” — the point at which tax rates become so high they cost the government money, because earners are so incentivised to avoid them.
How ever do they manage in Denmark (60.5%); France (55.4%) Austria (55%) Portugal, Sweden, Spain, and Belgium (all >50%)?
They'd raise more revenue if they cut their tax rates.
Would they ? Different societies can have very different responses to any given headline rate of tax; that's an economic commonplace.
If there were such a thing as one optimal headline tax rate, then countries would have standardised on it by now. It's an ever moving target depending on times and circumstance.
Laffer curves indisputably exist, but the problem is there are many of them: at different rates for different taxes, and at different times. Some are more predictable than others: HMT is able to estimate behavioural impacts on tax yield for CGT for example, and for some consumption taxes based on historical data, but not for say income tax thresholds or CT.
Then there’s the breadth of the tax base and the availability of reliefs, which complicates the picture further.
How go you know they are even curves ? What's the formula that defines even one of them ?
To define a curve of unknown type, you need far more data for a particular economy at a particular time than is possible to achieve in a real economy.
Again, that is the nature of all economics.
There are a plethora of curves in economics, and it is typically not possible to create a clearcut formula for them. Does not make them any less real.
This absurd standard of "can you create a formula for it" is only applied to this one curve and not so mockingly applied to any others.
That is because it's only this one 'curve' that is always cited in a totally noddy fashion (as if they can picture it) by people on the right of politics to state that whatever the tax rate on the wealthy is now it cannot be increased without reducing the overall take. It's just become a piece of chunter propaganda on behalf of the rich.
London Steam and Water Museum railway (2ft gauge) added today.
Steam loco "Thomas Wicksteed"
Is that at Wicksteed Park?
That’s a blast from the past. I spent many half terms and chunks of holidays at an estate in Northamptonshire shooting rabbits and squirrels in the 80s and 90s not far from there and that was the childhood part of the slaughter trips.
It was a working farm so not mindless killing for fun but have suitable guilt about it. Record was 64 rabbits in one 24 hour period. I await Karma.
Scottish tax hike for high earners backfires with loss of £22m
A top rate of 48p for incomes above £125,140, intended as a ‘progressive’ move to raise money for public services, has instead reduced revenues, expert analysis shows
A tax hike on high earners in Scotland has cost the public purse about £22 million in a single year, new analysis indicates.
Dan Neidle, a tax policy expert who was part of the Scottish government’s recently axed tax advisory group, said its decision to impose a 48p top rate had instead reduced revenues.
Rather than injecting money into struggling public services, as intended, evidence suggests high earners are so put off by the enormous rates, they are taking steps to avoid coming into that bracket.
An investigation by Neidle’s independent think tank, Tax Policy Associates, has found that Scotland has now probably “fallen over the Laffer curve” — the point at which tax rates become so high they cost the government money, because earners are so incentivised to avoid them.
How ever do they manage in Denmark (60.5%); France (55.4%) Austria (55%) Portugal, Sweden, Spain, and Belgium (all >50%)?
They'd raise more revenue if they cut their tax rates.
Would they ? Different societies can have very different responses to any given headline rate of tax; that's an economic commonplace.
If there were such a thing as one optimal headline tax rate, then countries would have standardised on it by now. It's an ever moving target depending on times and circumstance.
Laffer curves indisputably exist, but the problem is there are many of them: at different rates for different taxes, and at different times. Some are more predictable than others: HMT is able to estimate behavioural impacts on tax yield for CGT for example, and for some consumption taxes based on historical data, but not for say income tax thresholds or CT.
Then there’s the breadth of the tax base and the availability of reliefs, which complicates the picture further.
How go you know they are even curves ? What's the formula that defines even one of them ?
To define a curve of unknown type, you need far more data for a particular economy at a particular time than is possible to achieve in a real economy.
Again, that is the nature of all economics.
There are a plethora of curves in economics, and it is typically not possible to create a clearcut formula for them. Does not make them any less real.
This absurd standard of "can you create a formula for it" is only applied to this one curve and not so mockingly applied to any others.
That is because it's only this one 'curve' that is always cited in a totally noddy fashion (as if they can picture it) by people on the right of politics to state that whatever the tax rate on the wealthy is now it cannot be increased without reducing the overall take. It's just become a piece of chunter propaganda on behalf of the rich.
Shorter version - which other curve do right wingers more out arses off about ?
There's the yield curve, of course - but that's real and empirically observable. And not controversial politically.
Far more seriously and importantly, how would you cast a Muppet Odyssey ? (And is Michael Cane too old to star ?)
I am considering one of the most pressing questions of our era: in a Muppets Odyssey, who would Miss Piggy play? There's an argument for: the cyclops (appetite and mēnis), Circe (native empiggification), Calypso (won't let Kermie go), Penelope (loyal, vaguely spurned) https://x.com/second_sailing/status/2081036158746722781
Scottish tax hike for high earners backfires with loss of £22m
A top rate of 48p for incomes above £125,140, intended as a ‘progressive’ move to raise money for public services, has instead reduced revenues, expert analysis shows
A tax hike on high earners in Scotland has cost the public purse about £22 million in a single year, new analysis indicates.
Dan Neidle, a tax policy expert who was part of the Scottish government’s recently axed tax advisory group, said its decision to impose a 48p top rate had instead reduced revenues.
Rather than injecting money into struggling public services, as intended, evidence suggests high earners are so put off by the enormous rates, they are taking steps to avoid coming into that bracket.
An investigation by Neidle’s independent think tank, Tax Policy Associates, has found that Scotland has now probably “fallen over the Laffer curve” — the point at which tax rates become so high they cost the government money, because earners are so incentivised to avoid them.
Lol. It's not called the Laffer curve for nothing. Lol again
It'd be quite interesting if they varied the rate every year or so until they found out where the maximal tax take was. (And then they should choose quite a bit below that)
Bit in brackets - why?
A less certain thought - I'm sure it's right though.
Rather illogical though - find the optimum rate and then deliberately don't use it.
(I quite like your experiment idea, although you'd never have a stable environment to test it in.)
Well, I think that the costs of choosing too high a rate are very big. And also the idea that the government should be taking as much as they possibly can.. I think not. Alas of course they are taking as much as they possibly can and that's all wrong. It won't happen, and even though I think it's the right thing to do, but turn off the welfare tap for a year - see who really needs help.
8% of total public spending is on debt interest.
One pound in twelve that we pay in taxes right now is being paid on paying back money that wasn't taken in taxes in previous years.
That's the cost of choosing too low a rate. A mountain of debt.
And we need to (a) stop adding to it and (b) ideally start reducing it.
Or to put it another way, there is a valid argument for VAT and business rates to be applied to private schools. It's that as a nation we're more skint than an investor who put everything into Truth Social stock. The fact that the smug, lazy, ignorant, arrogant, rude, stupid and openly spiteful Bridget Phillipson wittered on about 6,500 extra teachers (which we will never recruit because she has blown up what little remained of teacher training) tells us rather too much and not in a good way about political discourse in this country.
Similarly, the government should be getting every penny it can to try and sort out the mess. That means maximising tax revenue and for that they definitely should be seeking for the sweet spot.
It may well be the case that currently we need to maximise tax income, but it shouldn't be the rule.
Here again though, we come back to 'if we ever eliminate the debt, we can transition to only raising what we need to fund our spending decisions.'
(I nearly wrote 'go back to,' but then it occurred to me to wonder when the last time we did that was, and I honestly couldn't think of one.)
Actually we probably wouldn't want to eliminate the debt - even if we were cash rich we'd want to maintain a bond market. In the late 80s the government repaid a lot of debt and it caused a contraction in the gilt market. Most notably in some wildly overpaid roles.
You mean, the bond market might not be able to intimidate everybody and a bunch of fat spivs wouldn't be able to make millions while holding us all to ransom?
Well, that really would be tragic.
Think of all the millions who would die laughing.
No I do not mean that. Can I suggest that you don't understand these issues if you post as such? I hope that I'm not being rude in saying so.
Bond markets are really important. (All they are is a gauge of long term financial stability.)
You may not have meant that, but it's effectively what you've said. Bond markets selling long term debt are a function of government failure, not a vital part of a capitalist society.
Indeed, having pointed out that public spending is not necessarily economically unproductive, I'd go further and point out that many such private companies are in fact a drag on economic growth by sucking money out of the real economy into the pockets of dubious rentiers.
Would we be noticeably worse off if bond markets, hedge funds and Centrica disappeared overnight?
Absolute poppycock. And again I really don't want to fall out with you. Long term debt is an essential tool. Money perhaps can be seen in this way. I presume you don't object to money?
Oh, lor, we're back on cash.
Look, money borrowed in the long term can be used intelligently, particularly by developing productive assets that will aid economic growth. Building HS2 with borrowed money would make sense, for example, because it would (if Sunak wasn't an anti-train nutjob) have made a big profit and powered economic growth in the north and Midlands which would have increased tax take and reduced social expenditure.
Money borrowed on long term to pay pensions is not such money.* That's what we've been doing for decades and that's where the bond markets have our balls in a vice. When you are borrowing from them merely to survive, they can dictate terms and they are doing so.
*And I am now looking north in the expectation of an incoming ballistic turnip.
If you have a ten pound note - what actually is it? It's a bond. You can't go wildly rambling about HS2 as a smokescreen.
A well managed company will probably have some debt. They have it because they foresee that their growth enabled by the funds will far outstrip the cost of servicing the debt.
Are you suggesting that the debts we have now are analogous to those of a well managed company?
If so, will you be taking out a mortgage to buy this bridge I am offering for sale?
By the way, I would love to ramble around HS2 wildly or otherwise, but as Sunak effectively not only cancelled it but illegally salted the wells to make sure nobody else could build it that would be quite tricky.
No, obviously we have debts that look like an ill managed company.
I'm entirely sure you now realise that there is a little gap in your knowledge around these issues. Go and think about it. If your middle name is not 'thoughtful' I'd be amazed.
My middle name is 'Frank' (yes, really).
I am afraid you have not convinced me of any gaps in my knowledge. Merely that you are confusing excess bond markets, which are an example of capitalist and governmental failure, with government debt, which is issued through bond markets but would not actually have to be.
You have also not convinced me that the way they manipulate debt and the interest on it to their own advantage thereby sucking money out of the government's accounts and requiring higher tax take for worse services is advantageous to the productive economy. If you could show that it is used to fund other economic activity rather than massive salaries for people with the integrity of Mafia bosses I would be willing to change my mind on that.
The fundamental issue is one of the tax deductibility of interest, and it's one of the reasons why BP selling\ its UK solar generation assets to the Kuwaitis is less likely to be a problem for the Exchequer than you would think.
The reality is that BP today will fund its UK solar assets out of an offshore entity which lends money to the UK solar developer. And so, profits almost certainly get taken out of the UK in a tax-free manner already.
What we probably should look to do is to find some way of limiting the tax deductibility of interest payments. (Differing rules on thr tax deductibility of interest also screws up the rental market because it effectively subsidises corporate landlords and penalises personal landlords.)
Why we adopt fiscal policies which encourage the draining of assets from the country is an interesting question.
Part of it, I think, is the fetishisation of the market by every government since at least the 80s, without a corresponding understanding (or even desire to understand on the part of politicians) of how markets operate, and to whose benefit.
We have tied ourselves to the philosophy/religion of globalisation. And done so in the most extreme way. It is great in theory but often bloody awful in practice.
No, it is the breakdown of globalisation which is causing the current problems.
I am deeply appalled and angry to see “Firework” used on the @WhiteHouse TikTok account as a backing track for video footage of military strikes. I did not approve this, I was not asked, and I absolutely do not condone it.
I wrote this song to be an anthem of hope, healing, and inner strength for people going through their darkest personal moments. To see a message of self-worth and upliftment weaponized to soundtrack destruction and violence is a complete violation of everything my song stands for.
My music is for bringing people together, not celebrating warfare.
Video on SpaceX explaining its business model. Understandable explanations with the tech left to one side. Recommended but it does further reinforce my feeling that the involvement of SpaceX in the US Lunar program, plus its dreams of landing on Mars, is a scam. Starship is just a vehicle for getting Starlink to orbit cheaply, and that's it. If it pulls off its orbiting AI dreams the guy says SpaceX can profit $500billion per year, and Musk will be so rich he can tell POTUS to eff the eff off.
Scottish tax hike for high earners backfires with loss of £22m
A top rate of 48p for incomes above £125,140, intended as a ‘progressive’ move to raise money for public services, has instead reduced revenues, expert analysis shows
A tax hike on high earners in Scotland has cost the public purse about £22 million in a single year, new analysis indicates.
Dan Neidle, a tax policy expert who was part of the Scottish government’s recently axed tax advisory group, said its decision to impose a 48p top rate had instead reduced revenues.
Rather than injecting money into struggling public services, as intended, evidence suggests high earners are so put off by the enormous rates, they are taking steps to avoid coming into that bracket.
An investigation by Neidle’s independent think tank, Tax Policy Associates, has found that Scotland has now probably “fallen over the Laffer curve” — the point at which tax rates become so high they cost the government money, because earners are so incentivised to avoid them.
Lol. It's not called the Laffer curve for nothing. Lol again
It'd be quite interesting if they varied the rate every year or so until they found out where the maximal tax take was. (And then they should choose quite a bit below that)
Bit in brackets - why?
A less certain thought - I'm sure it's right though.
Rather illogical though - find the optimum rate and then deliberately don't use it.
(I quite like your experiment idea, although you'd never have a stable environment to test it in.)
Well, I think that the costs of choosing too high a rate are very big. And also the idea that the government should be taking as much as they possibly can.. I think not. Alas of course they are taking as much as they possibly can and that's all wrong. It won't happen, and even though I think it's the right thing to do, but turn off the welfare tap for a year - see who really needs help.
8% of total public spending is on debt interest.
One pound in twelve that we pay in taxes right now is being paid on paying back money that wasn't taken in taxes in previous years.
That's the cost of choosing too low a rate. A mountain of debt.
And we need to (a) stop adding to it and (b) ideally start reducing it.
Or to put it another way, there is a valid argument for VAT and business rates to be applied to private schools. It's that as a nation we're more skint than an investor who put everything into Truth Social stock. The fact that the smug, lazy, ignorant, arrogant, rude, stupid and openly spiteful Bridget Phillipson wittered on about 6,500 extra teachers (which we will never recruit because she has blown up what little remained of teacher training) tells us rather too much and not in a good way about political discourse in this country.
Similarly, the government should be getting every penny it can to try and sort out the mess. That means maximising tax revenue and for that they definitely should be seeking for the sweet spot.
It may well be the case that currently we need to maximise tax income, but it shouldn't be the rule.
Here again though, we come back to 'if we ever eliminate the debt, we can transition to only raising what we need to fund our spending decisions.'
(I nearly wrote 'go back to,' but then it occurred to me to wonder when the last time we did that was, and I honestly couldn't think of one.)
Actually we probably wouldn't want to eliminate the debt - even if we were cash rich we'd want to maintain a bond market. In the late 80s the government repaid a lot of debt and it caused a contraction in the gilt market. Most notably in some wildly overpaid roles.
You mean, the bond market might not be able to intimidate everybody and a bunch of fat spivs wouldn't be able to make millions while holding us all to ransom?
Well, that really would be tragic.
Think of all the millions who would die laughing.
No I do not mean that. Can I suggest that you don't understand these issues if you post as such? I hope that I'm not being rude in saying so.
Bond markets are really important. (All they are is a gauge of long term financial stability.)
You may not have meant that, but it's effectively what you've said. Bond markets selling long term debt are a function of government failure, not a vital part of a capitalist society.
Indeed, having pointed out that public spending is not necessarily economically unproductive, I'd go further and point out that many such private companies are in fact a drag on economic growth by sucking money out of the real economy into the pockets of dubious rentiers.
Would we be noticeably worse off if bond markets, hedge funds and Centrica disappeared overnight?
Absolute poppycock. And again I really don't want to fall out with you. Long term debt is an essential tool. Money perhaps can be seen in this way. I presume you don't object to money?
Oh, lor, we're back on cash.
Look, money borrowed in the long term can be used intelligently, particularly by developing productive assets that will aid economic growth. Building HS2 with borrowed money would make sense, for example, because it would (if Sunak wasn't an anti-train nutjob) have made a big profit and powered economic growth in the north and Midlands which would have increased tax take and reduced social expenditure.
Money borrowed on long term to pay pensions is not such money.* That's what we've been doing for decades and that's where the bond markets have our balls in a vice. When you are borrowing from them merely to survive, they can dictate terms and they are doing so.
*And I am now looking north in the expectation of an incoming ballistic turnip.
If you have a ten pound note - what actually is it? It's a bond. You can't go wildly rambling about HS2 as a smokescreen.
A well managed company will probably have some debt. They have it because they foresee that their growth enabled by the funds will far outstrip the cost of servicing the debt.
Are you suggesting that the debts we have now are analogous to those of a well managed company?
If so, will you be taking out a mortgage to buy this bridge I am offering for sale?
By the way, I would love to ramble around HS2 wildly or otherwise, but as Sunak effectively not only cancelled it but illegally salted the wells to make sure nobody else could build it that would be quite tricky.
No, obviously we have debts that look like an ill managed company.
I'm entirely sure you now realise that there is a little gap in your knowledge around these issues. Go and think about it. If your middle name is not 'thoughtful' I'd be amazed.
My middle name is 'Frank' (yes, really).
I am afraid you have not convinced me of any gaps in my knowledge. Merely that you are confusing excess bond markets, which are an example of capitalist and governmental failure, with government debt, which is issued through bond markets but would not actually have to be.
You have also not convinced me that the way they manipulate debt and the interest on it to their own advantage thereby sucking money out of the government's accounts and requiring higher tax take for worse services is advantageous to the productive economy. If you could show that it is used to fund other economic activity rather than massive salaries for people with the integrity of Mafia bosses I would be willing to change my mind on that.
The fundamental issue is one of the tax deductibility of interest, and it's one of the reasons why BP selling\ its UK solar generation assets to the Kuwaitis is less likely to be a problem for the Exchequer than you would think.
The reality is that BP today will fund its UK solar assets out of an offshore entity which lends money to the UK solar developer. And so, profits almost certainly get taken out of the UK in a tax-free manner already.
What we probably should look to do is to find some way of limiting the tax deductibility of interest payments. (Differing rules on thr tax deductibility of interest also screws up the rental market because it effectively subsidises corporate landlords and penalises personal landlords.)
Why we adopt fiscal policies which encourage the draining of assets from the country is an interesting question.
Part of it, I think, is the fetishisation of the market by every government since at least the 80s, without a corresponding understanding (or even desire to understand on the part of politicians) of how markets operate, and to whose benefit.
We have tied ourselves to the philosophy/religion of globalisation. And done so in the most extreme way. It is great in theory but often bloody awful in practice.
No, it is the breakdown of globalisation which is causing the current problems.
I know what you mean, but the success of globalisation also causes the problems. When transport costs fall to a certain amount (as it did with containerisation), it becomes cheaper and more profitable to locate industries outside the UK and ship the product in. That's what globalisation is. But the state then becomes very vulnerable to external disruption or outside coercion. We can no longer build a functioning Armed Forces, we can be blackmailed by oil or gas producers like Saudi and Russia, goods can be supplied with spyware or withheld from China, the US can withdraw NATO cover on a pretext, and so on. Starmer, and possibly Burnham, failed to grasp this which is why Starmer was such a bad PM. I may have mentioned that.
Video on SpaceX explaining its business model. Understandable explanations with the tech left to one side. Recommended but it does further reinforce my feeling that the involvement of SpaceX in the US Lunar program, plus its dreams of landing on Mars, is a scam. Starship is just a vehicle for getting Starlink to orbit cheaply, and that's it. If it pulls off its orbiting AI dreams the guy says SpaceX can profit $500billion per year, and Musk will be so rich he can tell POTUS to eff the eff off.
Ridiculous. Where on earth is half a trillion of cash, let alone of profit, coming from exactly?
Combined oil and gas sales, worldwide, have a comparable or slightly smaller profit. Is SpaceX AI meant to make the same profit as one firm as the entire global oil and gas sector?
The entire global food and beverage manufacturing sector combined does not make that profit.
Global airlines combined are about 10% of that figure.
Video on SpaceX explaining its business model. Understandable explanations with the tech left to one side. Recommended but it does further reinforce my feeling that the involvement of SpaceX in the US Lunar program, plus its dreams of landing on Mars, is a scam. Starship is just a vehicle for getting Starlink to orbit cheaply, and that's it. If it pulls off its orbiting AI dreams the guy says SpaceX can profit $500billion per year, and Musk will be so rich he can tell POTUS to eff the eff off.
Scottish tax hike for high earners backfires with loss of £22m
A top rate of 48p for incomes above £125,140, intended as a ‘progressive’ move to raise money for public services, has instead reduced revenues, expert analysis shows
A tax hike on high earners in Scotland has cost the public purse about £22 million in a single year, new analysis indicates.
Dan Neidle, a tax policy expert who was part of the Scottish government’s recently axed tax advisory group, said its decision to impose a 48p top rate had instead reduced revenues.
Rather than injecting money into struggling public services, as intended, evidence suggests high earners are so put off by the enormous rates, they are taking steps to avoid coming into that bracket.
An investigation by Neidle’s independent think tank, Tax Policy Associates, has found that Scotland has now probably “fallen over the Laffer curve” — the point at which tax rates become so high they cost the government money, because earners are so incentivised to avoid them.
Lol. It's not called the Laffer curve for nothing. Lol again
It'd be quite interesting if they varied the rate every year or so until they found out where the maximal tax take was. (And then they should choose quite a bit below that)
Bit in brackets - why?
A less certain thought - I'm sure it's right though.
Rather illogical though - find the optimum rate and then deliberately don't use it.
(I quite like your experiment idea, although you'd never have a stable environment to test it in.)
Well, I think that the costs of choosing too high a rate are very big. And also the idea that the government should be taking as much as they possibly can.. I think not. Alas of course they are taking as much as they possibly can and that's all wrong. It won't happen, and even though I think it's the right thing to do, but turn off the welfare tap for a year - see who really needs help.
8% of total public spending is on debt interest.
One pound in twelve that we pay in taxes right now is being paid on paying back money that wasn't taken in taxes in previous years.
That's the cost of choosing too low a rate. A mountain of debt.
And we need to (a) stop adding to it and (b) ideally start reducing it.
Or to put it another way, there is a valid argument for VAT and business rates to be applied to private schools. It's that as a nation we're more skint than an investor who put everything into Truth Social stock. The fact that the smug, lazy, ignorant, arrogant, rude, stupid and openly spiteful Bridget Phillipson wittered on about 6,500 extra teachers (which we will never recruit because she has blown up what little remained of teacher training) tells us rather too much and not in a good way about political discourse in this country.
Similarly, the government should be getting every penny it can to try and sort out the mess. That means maximising tax revenue and for that they definitely should be seeking for the sweet spot.
It may well be the case that currently we need to maximise tax income, but it shouldn't be the rule.
Here again though, we come back to 'if we ever eliminate the debt, we can transition to only raising what we need to fund our spending decisions.'
(I nearly wrote 'go back to,' but then it occurred to me to wonder when the last time we did that was, and I honestly couldn't think of one.)
Actually we probably wouldn't want to eliminate the debt - even if we were cash rich we'd want to maintain a bond market. In the late 80s the government repaid a lot of debt and it caused a contraction in the gilt market. Most notably in some wildly overpaid roles.
You mean, the bond market might not be able to intimidate everybody and a bunch of fat spivs wouldn't be able to make millions while holding us all to ransom?
Well, that really would be tragic.
Think of all the millions who would die laughing.
No I do not mean that. Can I suggest that you don't understand these issues if you post as such? I hope that I'm not being rude in saying so.
Bond markets are really important. (All they are is a gauge of long term financial stability.)
You may not have meant that, but it's effectively what you've said. Bond markets selling long term debt are a function of government failure, not a vital part of a capitalist society.
Indeed, having pointed out that public spending is not necessarily economically unproductive, I'd go further and point out that many such private companies are in fact a drag on economic growth by sucking money out of the real economy into the pockets of dubious rentiers.
Would we be noticeably worse off if bond markets, hedge funds and Centrica disappeared overnight?
Absolute poppycock. And again I really don't want to fall out with you. Long term debt is an essential tool. Money perhaps can be seen in this way. I presume you don't object to money?
Oh, lor, we're back on cash.
Look, money borrowed in the long term can be used intelligently, particularly by developing productive assets that will aid economic growth. Building HS2 with borrowed money would make sense, for example, because it would (if Sunak wasn't an anti-train nutjob) have made a big profit and powered economic growth in the north and Midlands which would have increased tax take and reduced social expenditure.
Money borrowed on long term to pay pensions is not such money.* That's what we've been doing for decades and that's where the bond markets have our balls in a vice. When you are borrowing from them merely to survive, they can dictate terms and they are doing so.
*And I am now looking north in the expectation of an incoming ballistic turnip.
If you have a ten pound note - what actually is it? It's a bond. You can't go wildly rambling about HS2 as a smokescreen.
A well managed company will probably have some debt. They have it because they foresee that their growth enabled by the funds will far outstrip the cost of servicing the debt.
Are you suggesting that the debts we have now are analogous to those of a well managed company?
If so, will you be taking out a mortgage to buy this bridge I am offering for sale?
By the way, I would love to ramble around HS2 wildly or otherwise, but as Sunak effectively not only cancelled it but illegally salted the wells to make sure nobody else could build it that would be quite tricky.
No, obviously we have debts that look like an ill managed company.
I'm entirely sure you now realise that there is a little gap in your knowledge around these issues. Go and think about it. If your middle name is not 'thoughtful' I'd be amazed.
My middle name is 'Frank' (yes, really).
I am afraid you have not convinced me of any gaps in my knowledge. Merely that you are confusing excess bond markets, which are an example of capitalist and governmental failure, with government debt, which is issued through bond markets but would not actually have to be.
You have also not convinced me that the way they manipulate debt and the interest on it to their own advantage thereby sucking money out of the government's accounts and requiring higher tax take for worse services is advantageous to the productive economy. If you could show that it is used to fund other economic activity rather than massive salaries for people with the integrity of Mafia bosses I would be willing to change my mind on that.
The fundamental issue is one of the tax deductibility of interest, and it's one of the reasons why BP selling\ its UK solar generation assets to the Kuwaitis is less likely to be a problem for the Exchequer than you would think.
The reality is that BP today will fund its UK solar assets out of an offshore entity which lends money to the UK solar developer. And so, profits almost certainly get taken out of the UK in a tax-free manner already.
What we probably should look to do is to find some way of limiting the tax deductibility of interest payments. (Differing rules on thr tax deductibility of interest also screws up the rental market because it effectively subsidises corporate landlords and penalises personal landlords.)
Why we adopt fiscal policies which encourage the draining of assets from the country is an interesting question.
Part of it, I think, is the fetishisation of the market by every government since at least the 80s, without a corresponding understanding (or even desire to understand on the part of politicians) of how markets operate, and to whose benefit.
We have tied ourselves to the philosophy/religion of globalisation. And done so in the most extreme way. It is great in theory but often bloody awful in practice.
Is there anyone who hasn't benefited from globalisation, if we're honest about it?
We're currently taking about 15% of our energy from France, the biggest source after wind. And this seems to be quite normal these days. How much is this costing us?
Far more seriously and importantly, how would you cast a Muppet Odyssey ? (And is Michael Cane too old to star ?)
I am considering one of the most pressing questions of our era: in a Muppets Odyssey, who would Miss Piggy play? There's an argument for: the cyclops (appetite and mēnis), Circe (native empiggification), Calypso (won't let Kermie go), Penelope (loyal, vaguely spurned) https://x.com/second_sailing/status/2081036158746722781
Statler: "That was the worst thing I’ve ever heard!"
Somebody else thinks Starmer is a [badword]. A valuable corrective to the Staggers enconium from Tom McTague from three days ago, where he was a bit wibbly.
We're currently taking about 15% of our energy from France, the biggest source after wind. And this seems to be quite normal these days. How much is this costing us?
I'd guess very little. France probably has loads of surplus nuclear energy at times of low demand, so it makes more sense for us to buy it cheaply rather than burn (expensive) gas.
We're currently taking about 15% of our energy from France, the biggest source after wind. And this seems to be quite normal these days. How much is this costing us?
I'd guess very little. France probably has loads of surplus nuclear energy at times of low demand, so it makes more sense for us to buy it cheaply rather than burn (expensive) gas.
Scottish tax hike for high earners backfires with loss of £22m
A top rate of 48p for incomes above £125,140, intended as a ‘progressive’ move to raise money for public services, has instead reduced revenues, expert analysis shows
A tax hike on high earners in Scotland has cost the public purse about £22 million in a single year, new analysis indicates.
Dan Neidle, a tax policy expert who was part of the Scottish government’s recently axed tax advisory group, said its decision to impose a 48p top rate had instead reduced revenues.
Rather than injecting money into struggling public services, as intended, evidence suggests high earners are so put off by the enormous rates, they are taking steps to avoid coming into that bracket.
An investigation by Neidle’s independent think tank, Tax Policy Associates, has found that Scotland has now probably “fallen over the Laffer curve” — the point at which tax rates become so high they cost the government money, because earners are so incentivised to avoid them.
Lol. It's not called the Laffer curve for nothing. Lol again
It'd be quite interesting if they varied the rate every year or so until they found out where the maximal tax take was. (And then they should choose quite a bit below that)
Bit in brackets - why?
A less certain thought - I'm sure it's right though.
Rather illogical though - find the optimum rate and then deliberately don't use it.
(I quite like your experiment idea, although you'd never have a stable environment to test it in.)
Well, I think that the costs of choosing too high a rate are very big. And also the idea that the government should be taking as much as they possibly can.. I think not. Alas of course they are taking as much as they possibly can and that's all wrong. It won't happen, and even though I think it's the right thing to do, but turn off the welfare tap for a year - see who really needs help.
8% of total public spending is on debt interest.
One pound in twelve that we pay in taxes right now is being paid on paying back money that wasn't taken in taxes in previous years.
That's the cost of choosing too low a rate. A mountain of debt.
And we need to (a) stop adding to it and (b) ideally start reducing it.
Or to put it another way, there is a valid argument for VAT and business rates to be applied to private schools. It's that as a nation we're more skint than an investor who put everything into Truth Social stock. The fact that the smug, lazy, ignorant, arrogant, rude, stupid and openly spiteful Bridget Phillipson wittered on about 6,500 extra teachers (which we will never recruit because she has blown up what little remained of teacher training) tells us rather too much and not in a good way about political discourse in this country.
Similarly, the government should be getting every penny it can to try and sort out the mess. That means maximising tax revenue and for that they definitely should be seeking for the sweet spot.
It may well be the case that currently we need to maximise tax income, but it shouldn't be the rule.
Here again though, we come back to 'if we ever eliminate the debt, we can transition to only raising what we need to fund our spending decisions.'
(I nearly wrote 'go back to,' but then it occurred to me to wonder when the last time we did that was, and I honestly couldn't think of one.)
Actually we probably wouldn't want to eliminate the debt - even if we were cash rich we'd want to maintain a bond market. In the late 80s the government repaid a lot of debt and it caused a contraction in the gilt market. Most notably in some wildly overpaid roles.
You mean, the bond market might not be able to intimidate everybody and a bunch of fat spivs wouldn't be able to make millions while holding us all to ransom?
Well, that really would be tragic.
Think of all the millions who would die laughing.
No I do not mean that. Can I suggest that you don't understand these issues if you post as such? I hope that I'm not being rude in saying so.
Bond markets are really important. (All they are is a gauge of long term financial stability.)
You may not have meant that, but it's effectively what you've said. Bond markets selling long term debt are a function of government failure, not a vital part of a capitalist society.
Indeed, having pointed out that public spending is not necessarily economically unproductive, I'd go further and point out that many such private companies are in fact a drag on economic growth by sucking money out of the real economy into the pockets of dubious rentiers.
Would we be noticeably worse off if bond markets, hedge funds and Centrica disappeared overnight?
Absolute poppycock. And again I really don't want to fall out with you. Long term debt is an essential tool. Money perhaps can be seen in this way. I presume you don't object to money?
Oh, lor, we're back on cash.
Look, money borrowed in the long term can be used intelligently, particularly by developing productive assets that will aid economic growth. Building HS2 with borrowed money would make sense, for example, because it would (if Sunak wasn't an anti-train nutjob) have made a big profit and powered economic growth in the north and Midlands which would have increased tax take and reduced social expenditure.
Money borrowed on long term to pay pensions is not such money.* That's what we've been doing for decades and that's where the bond markets have our balls in a vice. When you are borrowing from them merely to survive, they can dictate terms and they are doing so.
*And I am now looking north in the expectation of an incoming ballistic turnip.
If you have a ten pound note - what actually is it? It's a bond. You can't go wildly rambling about HS2 as a smokescreen.
A well managed company will probably have some debt. They have it because they foresee that their growth enabled by the funds will far outstrip the cost of servicing the debt.
Are you suggesting that the debts we have now are analogous to those of a well managed company?
If so, will you be taking out a mortgage to buy this bridge I am offering for sale?
By the way, I would love to ramble around HS2 wildly or otherwise, but as Sunak effectively not only cancelled it but illegally salted the wells to make sure nobody else could build it that would be quite tricky.
No, obviously we have debts that look like an ill managed company.
I'm entirely sure you now realise that there is a little gap in your knowledge around these issues. Go and think about it. If your middle name is not 'thoughtful' I'd be amazed.
My middle name is 'Frank' (yes, really).
I am afraid you have not convinced me of any gaps in my knowledge. Merely that you are confusing excess bond markets, which are an example of capitalist and governmental failure, with government debt, which is issued through bond markets but would not actually have to be.
You have also not convinced me that the way they manipulate debt and the interest on it to their own advantage thereby sucking money out of the government's accounts and requiring higher tax take for worse services is advantageous to the productive economy. If you could show that it is used to fund other economic activity rather than massive salaries for people with the integrity of Mafia bosses I would be willing to change my mind on that.
The fundamental issue is one of the tax deductibility of interest, and it's one of the reasons why BP selling\ its UK solar generation assets to the Kuwaitis is less likely to be a problem for the Exchequer than you would think.
The reality is that BP today will fund its UK solar assets out of an offshore entity which lends money to the UK solar developer. And so, profits almost certainly get taken out of the UK in a tax-free manner already.
What we probably should look to do is to find some way of limiting the tax deductibility of interest payments. (Differing rules on thr tax deductibility of interest also screws up the rental market because it effectively subsidises corporate landlords and penalises personal landlords.)
Why we adopt fiscal policies which encourage the draining of assets from the country is an interesting question.
Part of it, I think, is the fetishisation of the market by every government since at least the 80s, without a corresponding understanding (or even desire to understand on the part of politicians) of how markets operate, and to whose benefit.
We have tied ourselves to the philosophy/religion of globalisation. And done so in the most extreme way. It is great in theory but often bloody awful in practice.
Is there anyone who hasn't benefited from globalisation, if we're honest about it?
Scottish tax hike for high earners backfires with loss of £22m
A top rate of 48p for incomes above £125,140, intended as a ‘progressive’ move to raise money for public services, has instead reduced revenues, expert analysis shows
A tax hike on high earners in Scotland has cost the public purse about £22 million in a single year, new analysis indicates.
Dan Neidle, a tax policy expert who was part of the Scottish government’s recently axed tax advisory group, said its decision to impose a 48p top rate had instead reduced revenues.
Rather than injecting money into struggling public services, as intended, evidence suggests high earners are so put off by the enormous rates, they are taking steps to avoid coming into that bracket.
An investigation by Neidle’s independent think tank, Tax Policy Associates, has found that Scotland has now probably “fallen over the Laffer curve” — the point at which tax rates become so high they cost the government money, because earners are so incentivised to avoid them.
Lol. It's not called the Laffer curve for nothing. Lol again
It'd be quite interesting if they varied the rate every year or so until they found out where the maximal tax take was. (And then they should choose quite a bit below that)
Bit in brackets - why?
A less certain thought - I'm sure it's right though.
Rather illogical though - find the optimum rate and then deliberately don't use it.
(I quite like your experiment idea, although you'd never have a stable environment to test it in.)
Well, I think that the costs of choosing too high a rate are very big. And also the idea that the government should be taking as much as they possibly can.. I think not. Alas of course they are taking as much as they possibly can and that's all wrong. It won't happen, and even though I think it's the right thing to do, but turn off the welfare tap for a year - see who really needs help.
8% of total public spending is on debt interest.
One pound in twelve that we pay in taxes right now is being paid on paying back money that wasn't taken in taxes in previous years.
That's the cost of choosing too low a rate. A mountain of debt.
And we need to (a) stop adding to it and (b) ideally start reducing it.
Or to put it another way, there is a valid argument for VAT and business rates to be applied to private schools. It's that as a nation we're more skint than an investor who put everything into Truth Social stock. The fact that the smug, lazy, ignorant, arrogant, rude, stupid and openly spiteful Bridget Phillipson wittered on about 6,500 extra teachers (which we will never recruit because she has blown up what little remained of teacher training) tells us rather too much and not in a good way about political discourse in this country.
Similarly, the government should be getting every penny it can to try and sort out the mess. That means maximising tax revenue and for that they definitely should be seeking for the sweet spot.
It may well be the case that currently we need to maximise tax income, but it shouldn't be the rule.
Here again though, we come back to 'if we ever eliminate the debt, we can transition to only raising what we need to fund our spending decisions.'
(I nearly wrote 'go back to,' but then it occurred to me to wonder when the last time we did that was, and I honestly couldn't think of one.)
Actually we probably wouldn't want to eliminate the debt - even if we were cash rich we'd want to maintain a bond market. In the late 80s the government repaid a lot of debt and it caused a contraction in the gilt market. Most notably in some wildly overpaid roles.
You mean, the bond market might not be able to intimidate everybody and a bunch of fat spivs wouldn't be able to make millions while holding us all to ransom?
Well, that really would be tragic.
Think of all the millions who would die laughing.
No I do not mean that. Can I suggest that you don't understand these issues if you post as such? I hope that I'm not being rude in saying so.
Bond markets are really important. (All they are is a gauge of long term financial stability.)
You may not have meant that, but it's effectively what you've said. Bond markets selling long term debt are a function of government failure, not a vital part of a capitalist society.
Indeed, having pointed out that public spending is not necessarily economically unproductive, I'd go further and point out that many such private companies are in fact a drag on economic growth by sucking money out of the real economy into the pockets of dubious rentiers.
Would we be noticeably worse off if bond markets, hedge funds and Centrica disappeared overnight?
Absolute poppycock. And again I really don't want to fall out with you. Long term debt is an essential tool. Money perhaps can be seen in this way. I presume you don't object to money?
Oh, lor, we're back on cash.
Look, money borrowed in the long term can be used intelligently, particularly by developing productive assets that will aid economic growth. Building HS2 with borrowed money would make sense, for example, because it would (if Sunak wasn't an anti-train nutjob) have made a big profit and powered economic growth in the north and Midlands which would have increased tax take and reduced social expenditure.
Money borrowed on long term to pay pensions is not such money.* That's what we've been doing for decades and that's where the bond markets have our balls in a vice. When you are borrowing from them merely to survive, they can dictate terms and they are doing so.
*And I am now looking north in the expectation of an incoming ballistic turnip.
If you have a ten pound note - what actually is it? It's a bond. You can't go wildly rambling about HS2 as a smokescreen.
A well managed company will probably have some debt. They have it because they foresee that their growth enabled by the funds will far outstrip the cost of servicing the debt.
Are you suggesting that the debts we have now are analogous to those of a well managed company?
If so, will you be taking out a mortgage to buy this bridge I am offering for sale?
By the way, I would love to ramble around HS2 wildly or otherwise, but as Sunak effectively not only cancelled it but illegally salted the wells to make sure nobody else could build it that would be quite tricky.
No, obviously we have debts that look like an ill managed company.
I'm entirely sure you now realise that there is a little gap in your knowledge around these issues. Go and think about it. If your middle name is not 'thoughtful' I'd be amazed.
My middle name is 'Frank' (yes, really).
I am afraid you have not convinced me of any gaps in my knowledge. Merely that you are confusing excess bond markets, which are an example of capitalist and governmental failure, with government debt, which is issued through bond markets but would not actually have to be.
You have also not convinced me that the way they manipulate debt and the interest on it to their own advantage thereby sucking money out of the government's accounts and requiring higher tax take for worse services is advantageous to the productive economy. If you could show that it is used to fund other economic activity rather than massive salaries for people with the integrity of Mafia bosses I would be willing to change my mind on that.
The fundamental issue is one of the tax deductibility of interest, and it's one of the reasons why BP selling\ its UK solar generation assets to the Kuwaitis is less likely to be a problem for the Exchequer than you would think.
The reality is that BP today will fund its UK solar assets out of an offshore entity which lends money to the UK solar developer. And so, profits almost certainly get taken out of the UK in a tax-free manner already.
What we probably should look to do is to find some way of limiting the tax deductibility of interest payments. (Differing rules on thr tax deductibility of interest also screws up the rental market because it effectively subsidises corporate landlords and penalises personal landlords.)
Why we adopt fiscal policies which encourage the draining of assets from the country is an interesting question.
Part of it, I think, is the fetishisation of the market by every government since at least the 80s, without a corresponding understanding (or even desire to understand on the part of politicians) of how markets operate, and to whose benefit.
We have tied ourselves to the philosophy/religion of globalisation. And done so in the most extreme way. It is great in theory but often bloody awful in practice.
No, it is the breakdown of globalisation which is causing the current problems.
The 'current problems' have existed for as long as globalisation has been around.
(my apologies: it's $500bn over five years, not $500billion per year. My bad)
If you think he's wrong, tell me why.
I only watched the segment about putting AI servers is space, that's enough to convince me this guy has absolutely no idea what he's talking about. Space is a terrible place for computers of any kind.
It's late, so this is just the 10000 foot view of why it's a horrible idea:
Power - yes, you can use solar panels to generate power. But those are large, fragile and difficult to get into orbit in quality. To power one NVidia blackwell server rack you'd need a couple of hundred square meters of panels. Powering the equivalent of a ground based datacentre would need multiple square kilometres of panels. Getting those into space and installed would be terrifyingly expensive even for SpaceX.
Cooling - Ground datacentres can easily radiate heat into the air, but a vacuum makes that much harder. An orbital DC would need massive (and heavy) radiators and some kind of closed-loop cooling system. Plus, it's not just heat from the servers that needs dumped. One side of the satellite is being fried by the sun and the other is in freezing vacuum. The cooling system would need to be powerful enough to keep the internal temperature somewhat even.
Radiation - there's no atmosphere to protect against cosmic radiation, so the orbital DC would need considerable shielding. Good luck carrying hundreds of tonnes of lead plates into space. Modern chips are very vulnerable to radiation, so even with shielding there's a good chance of an increase in both hard and soft failures vs a ground facility. The most popular CPU used in space applications is a hardened version of a 1997 PowerPC chip, because modern chips are so much harder to shield effectively.
Maintenance - if something breaks, you can't fix it without enormous cost.
I could go on, but the idea is a dead duck just for the reasons above.
The new trailer for Neuromancer is out. It doesn't look that bad, to be honest, but there is a part of me that says it won't capture the feelz, that this the future and it's very exciting. I don't know what to think about it. But anyway, here it is: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g79GPZSQHBk
(my apologies: it's $500bn over five years, not $500billion per year. My bad)
If you think he's wrong, tell me why.
I only watched the segment about putting AI servers is space, that's enough to convince me this guy has absolutely no idea what he's talking about. Space is a terrible place for computers of any kind.
It's late, so this is just the 10000 foot view of why it's a horrible idea:
Power - yes, you can use solar panels to generate power. But those are large, fragile and difficult to get into orbit in quality. To power one NVidia blackwell server rack you'd need a couple of hundred square meters of panels. Powering the equivalent of a ground based datacentre would need multiple square kilometres of panels. Getting those into space and installed would be terrifyingly expensive even for SpaceX.
Cooling - Ground datacentres can easily radiate heat into the air, but a vacuum makes that much harder. An orbital DC would need massive (and heavy) radiators and some kind of closed-loop cooling system. Plus, it's not just heat from the servers that needs dumped. One side of the satellite is being fried by the sun and the other is in freezing vacuum. The cooling system would need to be powerful enough to keep the internal temperature somewhat even.
Radiation - there's no atmosphere to protect against cosmic radiation, so the orbital DC would need considerable shielding. Good luck carrying hundreds of tonnes of lead plates into space. Modern chips are very vulnerable to radiation, so even with shielding there's a good chance of an increase in both hard and soft failures vs a ground facility. The most popular CPU used in space applications is a hardened version of a 1997 PowerPC chip, because modern chips are so much harder to shield effectively.
Maintenance - if something breaks, you can't fix it without enormous cost.
I could go on, but the idea is a dead duck just for the reasons above.
"In Space" is Elon's equivalent to the 1990s "On The Internet".
And also today's "With AI", useful though it might be in some circumstances.
I still think the next General Election date most favours May 3rd 2029, though I admit, last Monday changes things a bit. The Conservatives and their media friends should plan for an election happening sooner than May 2029.
Is the Murdock Sunday Paper today just reporting an interesting ongoing police investigation, with the only added something to keep their weekly Reform bash on front page being the Party’s Bank dobbed them in to police several years ago, because it is newsworthy enough today?
Or has Murdoch and team made a firm decision to stick with the Conservatives, consciously aware the only way to stick with and help the Conservatives in FPTP system, where tactical votes can produce lopsided sided results - my recent header flagged this with evidence - meaning the focussed headspace is to KILL REFORM OFF completely - and, as Farage himself would put it - aye-sap?
I’m moving on to the next logical questions in this sequence. Will all Murdochs media take an increasingly campaigning, attack dog line to Kill Off Reform? And will they be joined by others, in fact the whole of the right wing media?
For four crazy years, the right wing media have been in a wishy washy dibblydobbly headspace, regards the two right wing parties cancelling each other out handing the centre and left unearned electoral treasure - will they all now make this same rational decision as the Sunday Times ownership appears to have done, and kill off Reform as quickly as possible, to help the Conservatives in an election which could come sooner rather than later?
(my apologies: it's $500bn over five years, not $500billion per year. My bad)
If you think he's wrong, tell me why.
I only watched the segment about putting AI servers is space, that's enough to convince me this guy has absolutely no idea what he's talking about. Space is a terrible place for computers of any kind.
It's late, so this is just the 10000 foot view of why it's a horrible idea:
Power - yes, you can use solar panels to generate power. But those are large, fragile and difficult to get into orbit in quality. To power one NVidia blackwell server rack you'd need a couple of hundred square meters of panels. Powering the equivalent of a ground based datacentre would need multiple square kilometres of panels. Getting those into space and installed would be terrifyingly expensive even for SpaceX.
Cooling - Ground datacentres can easily radiate heat into the air, but a vacuum makes that much harder. An orbital DC would need massive (and heavy) radiators and some kind of closed-loop cooling system. Plus, it's not just heat from the servers that needs dumped. One side of the satellite is being fried by the sun and the other is in freezing vacuum. The cooling system would need to be powerful enough to keep the internal temperature somewhat even.
Radiation - there's no atmosphere to protect against cosmic radiation, so the orbital DC would need considerable shielding. Good luck carrying hundreds of tonnes of lead plates into space. Modern chips are very vulnerable to radiation, so even with shielding there's a good chance of an increase in both hard and soft failures vs a ground facility. The most popular CPU used in space applications is a hardened version of a 1997 PowerPC chip, because modern chips are so much harder to shield effectively.
Maintenance - if something breaks, you can't fix it without enormous cost.
I could go on, but the idea is a dead duck just for the reasons above.
No, that was very convincing, thank you. But the video does provide a convincing reason why, despite the problems which you convincingly pointed out, Musk is still able to scam people to give him lots of money.
(my apologies: it's $500bn over five years, not $500billion per year. My bad)
If you think he's wrong, tell me why.
I only watched the segment about putting AI servers is space, that's enough to convince me this guy has absolutely no idea what he's talking about. Space is a terrible place for computers of any kind.
It's late, so this is just the 10000 foot view of why it's a horrible idea:
Power - yes, you can use solar panels to generate power. But those are large, fragile and difficult to get into orbit in quality. To power one NVidia blackwell server rack you'd need a couple of hundred square meters of panels. Powering the equivalent of a ground based datacentre would need multiple square kilometres of panels. Getting those into space and installed would be terrifyingly expensive even for SpaceX.
Cooling - Ground datacentres can easily radiate heat into the air, but a vacuum makes that much harder. An orbital DC would need massive (and heavy) radiators and some kind of closed-loop cooling system. Plus, it's not just heat from the servers that needs dumped. One side of the satellite is being fried by the sun and the other is in freezing vacuum. The cooling system would need to be powerful enough to keep the internal temperature somewhat even.
Radiation - there's no atmosphere to protect against cosmic radiation, so the orbital DC would need considerable shielding. Good luck carrying hundreds of tonnes of lead plates into space. Modern chips are very vulnerable to radiation, so even with shielding there's a good chance of an increase in both hard and soft failures vs a ground facility. The most popular CPU used in space applications is a hardened version of a 1997 PowerPC chip, because modern chips are so much harder to shield effectively.
Maintenance - if something breaks, you can't fix it without enormous cost.
I could go on, but the idea is a dead duck just for the reasons above.
Scottish tax hike for high earners backfires with loss of £22m
A top rate of 48p for incomes above £125,140, intended as a ‘progressive’ move to raise money for public services, has instead reduced revenues, expert analysis shows
A tax hike on high earners in Scotland has cost the public purse about £22 million in a single year, new analysis indicates.
Dan Neidle, a tax policy expert who was part of the Scottish government’s recently axed tax advisory group, said its decision to impose a 48p top rate had instead reduced revenues.
Rather than injecting money into struggling public services, as intended, evidence suggests high earners are so put off by the enormous rates, they are taking steps to avoid coming into that bracket.
An investigation by Neidle’s independent think tank, Tax Policy Associates, has found that Scotland has now probably “fallen over the Laffer curve” — the point at which tax rates become so high they cost the government money, because earners are so incentivised to avoid them.
Lol. It's not called the Laffer curve for nothing. Lol again
It'd be quite interesting if they varied the rate every year or so until they found out where the maximal tax take was. (And then they should choose quite a bit below that)
Bit in brackets - why?
A less certain thought - I'm sure it's right though.
Rather illogical though - find the optimum rate and then deliberately don't use it.
(I quite like your experiment idea, although you'd never have a stable environment to test it in.)
Well, I think that the costs of choosing too high a rate are very big. And also the idea that the government should be taking as much as they possibly can.. I think not. Alas of course they are taking as much as they possibly can and that's all wrong. It won't happen, and even though I think it's the right thing to do, but turn off the welfare tap for a year - see who really needs help.
8% of total public spending is on debt interest.
One pound in twelve that we pay in taxes right now is being paid on paying back money that wasn't taken in taxes in previous years.
That's the cost of choosing too low a rate. A mountain of debt.
And we need to (a) stop adding to it and (b) ideally start reducing it.
Or to put it another way, there is a valid argument for VAT and business rates to be applied to private schools. It's that as a nation we're more skint than an investor who put everything into Truth Social stock. The fact that the smug, lazy, ignorant, arrogant, rude, stupid and openly spiteful Bridget Phillipson wittered on about 6,500 extra teachers (which we will never recruit because she has blown up what little remained of teacher training) tells us rather too much and not in a good way about political discourse in this country.
Similarly, the government should be getting every penny it can to try and sort out the mess. That means maximising tax revenue and for that they definitely should be seeking for the sweet spot.
It may well be the case that currently we need to maximise tax income, but it shouldn't be the rule.
Here again though, we come back to 'if we ever eliminate the debt, we can transition to only raising what we need to fund our spending decisions.'
(I nearly wrote 'go back to,' but then it occurred to me to wonder when the last time we did that was, and I honestly couldn't think of one.)
Actually we probably wouldn't want to eliminate the debt - even if we were cash rich we'd want to maintain a bond market. In the late 80s the government repaid a lot of debt and it caused a contraction in the gilt market. Most notably in some wildly overpaid roles.
You mean, the bond market might not be able to intimidate everybody and a bunch of fat spivs wouldn't be able to make millions while holding us all to ransom?
Well, that really would be tragic.
Think of all the millions who would die laughing.
No I do not mean that. Can I suggest that you don't understand these issues if you post as such? I hope that I'm not being rude in saying so.
Bond markets are really important. (All they are is a gauge of long term financial stability.)
You may not have meant that, but it's effectively what you've said. Bond markets selling long term debt are a function of government failure, not a vital part of a capitalist society.
Indeed, having pointed out that public spending is not necessarily economically unproductive, I'd go further and point out that many such private companies are in fact a drag on economic growth by sucking money out of the real economy into the pockets of dubious rentiers.
Would we be noticeably worse off if bond markets, hedge funds and Centrica disappeared overnight?
Absolute poppycock. And again I really don't want to fall out with you. Long term debt is an essential tool. Money perhaps can be seen in this way. I presume you don't object to money?
Oh, lor, we're back on cash.
Look, money borrowed in the long term can be used intelligently, particularly by developing productive assets that will aid economic growth. Building HS2 with borrowed money would make sense, for example, because it would (if Sunak wasn't an anti-train nutjob) have made a big profit and powered economic growth in the north and Midlands which would have increased tax take and reduced social expenditure.
Money borrowed on long term to pay pensions is not such money.* That's what we've been doing for decades and that's where the bond markets have our balls in a vice. When you are borrowing from them merely to survive, they can dictate terms and they are doing so.
*And I am now looking north in the expectation of an incoming ballistic turnip.
If you have a ten pound note - what actually is it? It's a bond. You can't go wildly rambling about HS2 as a smokescreen.
A well managed company will probably have some debt. They have it because they foresee that their growth enabled by the funds will far outstrip the cost of servicing the debt.
Are you suggesting that the debts we have now are analogous to those of a well managed company?
If so, will you be taking out a mortgage to buy this bridge I am offering for sale?
By the way, I would love to ramble around HS2 wildly or otherwise, but as Sunak effectively not only cancelled it but illegally salted the wells to make sure nobody else could build it that would be quite tricky.
No, obviously we have debts that look like an ill managed company.
I'm entirely sure you now realise that there is a little gap in your knowledge around these issues. Go and think about it. If your middle name is not 'thoughtful' I'd be amazed.
My middle name is 'Frank' (yes, really).
I am afraid you have not convinced me of any gaps in my knowledge. Merely that you are confusing excess bond markets, which are an example of capitalist and governmental failure, with government debt, which is issued through bond markets but would not actually have to be.
You have also not convinced me that the way they manipulate debt and the interest on it to their own advantage thereby sucking money out of the government's accounts and requiring higher tax take for worse services is advantageous to the productive economy. If you could show that it is used to fund other economic activity rather than massive salaries for people with the integrity of Mafia bosses I would be willing to change my mind on that.
The fundamental issue is one of the tax deductibility of interest, and it's one of the reasons why BP selling\ its UK solar generation assets to the Kuwaitis is less likely to be a problem for the Exchequer than you would think.
The reality is that BP today will fund its UK solar assets out of an offshore entity which lends money to the UK solar developer. And so, profits almost certainly get taken out of the UK in a tax-free manner already.
What we probably should look to do is to find some way of limiting the tax deductibility of interest payments. (Differing rules on thr tax deductibility of interest also screws up the rental market because it effectively subsidises corporate landlords and penalises personal landlords.)
Why we adopt fiscal policies which encourage the draining of assets from the country is an interesting question.
Part of it, I think, is the fetishisation of the market by every government since at least the 80s, without a corresponding understanding (or even desire to understand on the part of politicians) of how markets operate, and to whose benefit.
We have tied ourselves to the philosophy/religion of globalisation. And done so in the most extreme way. It is great in theory but often bloody awful in practice.
No, it is the breakdown of globalisation which is causing the current problems.
I know what you mean, but the success of globalisation also causes the problems. When transport costs fall to a certain amount (as it did with containerisation), it becomes cheaper and more profitable to locate industries outside the UK and ship the product in. That's what globalisation is. But the state then becomes very vulnerable to external disruption or outside coercion. We can no longer build a functioning Armed Forces, we can be blackmailed by oil or gas producers like Saudi and Russia, goods can be supplied with spyware or withheld from China, the US can withdraw NATO cover on a pretext, and so on. Starmer, and possibly Burnham, failed to grasp this which is why Starmer was such a bad PM. I may have mentioned that.
With all due respect, those issues are not new. When Winston Churchill proposed moving the fleet from coal to oil in the early 1900s, it was recognised that the result of that was that Britain would no longer be able to provide the fuel for its fleet. But the alternative was that our fleet would not be as capable as those who had gone down the oil route.
Far more seriously and importantly, how would you cast a Muppet Odyssey ? (And is Michael Cane too old to star ?)
I am considering one of the most pressing questions of our era: in a Muppets Odyssey, who would Miss Piggy play? There's an argument for: the cyclops (appetite and mēnis), Circe (native empiggification), Calypso (won't let Kermie go), Penelope (loyal, vaguely spurned) https://x.com/second_sailing/status/2081036158746722781
Statler: "That was the worst thing I’ve ever heard!"
"Is there anyone who hasn't benefited from globalisation, if we're honest about it?"
Here's a general answer I came up with years ago: There are, net, benefits to diversity, density, and globalization. But all three of them make epidemic diseases more dangerous.
In the US, we find it even harder to come up with good strategies against "micro-parasites" than against "macro-parasites". For this reason I believe that RFK, Jr. will do even more damage to the US than the Loser.
Scottish tax hike for high earners backfires with loss of £22m
A top rate of 48p for incomes above £125,140, intended as a ‘progressive’ move to raise money for public services, has instead reduced revenues, expert analysis shows
A tax hike on high earners in Scotland has cost the public purse about £22 million in a single year, new analysis indicates.
Dan Neidle, a tax policy expert who was part of the Scottish government’s recently axed tax advisory group, said its decision to impose a 48p top rate had instead reduced revenues.
Rather than injecting money into struggling public services, as intended, evidence suggests high earners are so put off by the enormous rates, they are taking steps to avoid coming into that bracket.
An investigation by Neidle’s independent think tank, Tax Policy Associates, has found that Scotland has now probably “fallen over the Laffer curve” — the point at which tax rates become so high they cost the government money, because earners are so incentivised to avoid them.
Lol. It's not called the Laffer curve for nothing. Lol again
It'd be quite interesting if they varied the rate every year or so until they found out where the maximal tax take was. (And then they should choose quite a bit below that)
Bit in brackets - why?
A less certain thought - I'm sure it's right though.
Rather illogical though - find the optimum rate and then deliberately don't use it.
(I quite like your experiment idea, although you'd never have a stable environment to test it in.)
Well, I think that the costs of choosing too high a rate are very big. And also the idea that the government should be taking as much as they possibly can.. I think not. Alas of course they are taking as much as they possibly can and that's all wrong. It won't happen, and even though I think it's the right thing to do, but turn off the welfare tap for a year - see who really needs help.
8% of total public spending is on debt interest.
One pound in twelve that we pay in taxes right now is being paid on paying back money that wasn't taken in taxes in previous years.
That's the cost of choosing too low a rate. A mountain of debt.
And we need to (a) stop adding to it and (b) ideally start reducing it.
Or to put it another way, there is a valid argument for VAT and business rates to be applied to private schools. It's that as a nation we're more skint than an investor who put everything into Truth Social stock. The fact that the smug, lazy, ignorant, arrogant, rude, stupid and openly spiteful Bridget Phillipson wittered on about 6,500 extra teachers (which we will never recruit because she has blown up what little remained of teacher training) tells us rather too much and not in a good way about political discourse in this country.
Similarly, the government should be getting every penny it can to try and sort out the mess. That means maximising tax revenue and for that they definitely should be seeking for the sweet spot.
It may well be the case that currently we need to maximise tax income, but it shouldn't be the rule.
Here again though, we come back to 'if we ever eliminate the debt, we can transition to only raising what we need to fund our spending decisions.'
(I nearly wrote 'go back to,' but then it occurred to me to wonder when the last time we did that was, and I honestly couldn't think of one.)
Actually we probably wouldn't want to eliminate the debt - even if we were cash rich we'd want to maintain a bond market. In the late 80s the government repaid a lot of debt and it caused a contraction in the gilt market. Most notably in some wildly overpaid roles.
You mean, the bond market might not be able to intimidate everybody and a bunch of fat spivs wouldn't be able to make millions while holding us all to ransom?
Well, that really would be tragic.
Think of all the millions who would die laughing.
No I do not mean that. Can I suggest that you don't understand these issues if you post as such? I hope that I'm not being rude in saying so.
Bond markets are really important. (All they are is a gauge of long term financial stability.)
You may not have meant that, but it's effectively what you've said. Bond markets selling long term debt are a function of government failure, not a vital part of a capitalist society.
Indeed, having pointed out that public spending is not necessarily economically unproductive, I'd go further and point out that many such private companies are in fact a drag on economic growth by sucking money out of the real economy into the pockets of dubious rentiers.
Would we be noticeably worse off if bond markets, hedge funds and Centrica disappeared overnight?
Absolute poppycock. And again I really don't want to fall out with you. Long term debt is an essential tool. Money perhaps can be seen in this way. I presume you don't object to money?
Oh, lor, we're back on cash.
Look, money borrowed in the long term can be used intelligently, particularly by developing productive assets that will aid economic growth. Building HS2 with borrowed money would make sense, for example, because it would (if Sunak wasn't an anti-train nutjob) have made a big profit and powered economic growth in the north and Midlands which would have increased tax take and reduced social expenditure.
Money borrowed on long term to pay pensions is not such money.* That's what we've been doing for decades and that's where the bond markets have our balls in a vice. When you are borrowing from them merely to survive, they can dictate terms and they are doing so.
*And I am now looking north in the expectation of an incoming ballistic turnip.
If you have a ten pound note - what actually is it? It's a bond. You can't go wildly rambling about HS2 as a smokescreen.
A well managed company will probably have some debt. They have it because they foresee that their growth enabled by the funds will far outstrip the cost of servicing the debt.
Are you suggesting that the debts we have now are analogous to those of a well managed company?
If so, will you be taking out a mortgage to buy this bridge I am offering for sale?
By the way, I would love to ramble around HS2 wildly or otherwise, but as Sunak effectively not only cancelled it but illegally salted the wells to make sure nobody else could build it that would be quite tricky.
No, obviously we have debts that look like an ill managed company.
I'm entirely sure you now realise that there is a little gap in your knowledge around these issues. Go and think about it. If your middle name is not 'thoughtful' I'd be amazed.
My middle name is 'Frank' (yes, really).
I am afraid you have not convinced me of any gaps in my knowledge. Merely that you are confusing excess bond markets, which are an example of capitalist and governmental failure, with government debt, which is issued through bond markets but would not actually have to be.
You have also not convinced me that the way they manipulate debt and the interest on it to their own advantage thereby sucking money out of the government's accounts and requiring higher tax take for worse services is advantageous to the productive economy. If you could show that it is used to fund other economic activity rather than massive salaries for people with the integrity of Mafia bosses I would be willing to change my mind on that.
The fundamental issue is one of the tax deductibility of interest, and it's one of the reasons why BP selling\ its UK solar generation assets to the Kuwaitis is less likely to be a problem for the Exchequer than you would think.
The reality is that BP today will fund its UK solar assets out of an offshore entity which lends money to the UK solar developer. And so, profits almost certainly get taken out of the UK in a tax-free manner already.
What we probably should look to do is to find some way of limiting the tax deductibility of interest payments. (Differing rules on thr tax deductibility of interest also screws up the rental market because it effectively subsidises corporate landlords and penalises personal landlords.)
Why we adopt fiscal policies which encourage the draining of assets from the country is an interesting question.
Part of it, I think, is the fetishisation of the market by every government since at least the 80s, without a corresponding understanding (or even desire to understand on the part of politicians) of how markets operate, and to whose benefit.
We have tied ourselves to the philosophy/religion of globalisation. And done so in the most extreme way. It is great in theory but often bloody awful in practice.
No, it is the breakdown of globalisation which is causing the current problems.
I know what you mean, but the success of globalisation also causes the problems. When transport costs fall to a certain amount (as it did with containerisation), it becomes cheaper and more profitable to locate industries outside the UK and ship the product in. That's what globalisation is. But the state then becomes very vulnerable to external disruption or outside coercion. We can no longer build a functioning Armed Forces, we can be blackmailed by oil or gas producers like Saudi and Russia, goods can be supplied with spyware or withheld from China, the US can withdraw NATO cover on a pretext, and so on. Starmer, and possibly Burnham, failed to grasp this which is why Starmer was such a bad PM. I may have mentioned that.
With all due respect, those issues are not new. When Winston Churchill proposed moving the fleet from coal to oil in the early 1900s, it was recognised that the result of that was that Britain would no longer be able to provide the fuel for its fleet. But the alternative was that our fleet would not be as capable as those who had gone down the oil route.
Then what options do we have? Are we going to see the dissolution of the nation state, with no or wildly inadequate armed forces, an economy built on importing poorer and poorer people to plug the gap left by more and more rich people emigrating, selling more and more land to foreign pension firms so that they can build skyscraper flats to those poor people for an exorbitant rent and export the rent to foreign lands, lending more and more money so we can pay people to be unemployed and keep old people alive for thirty years, whilst anybody with a good idea fucks off, any company that makes a profit leaves, Parliament is neutered, and governments become Potemkin bodies issuing commands that won't be obeyed due to judicial reviews whilst providing just enough entertainment to keep podcasters chatting whilst the discipline of journalism crumbles into the dust and the only communication bodies listened to just plug sex and racism all day until people explode.
It's like one of those old dystopian futures where everything falls apart and I really didn't envisage my later years stuck under radio telescopes near Rngstone Round wondering how to stop it. And I am frankly out of ideas.
Comments
It was a Laffer minute.
The effects are clear, despite your frustration.
The other countries you mention are blending municipal and national taxes and in some cases social insurance, so aren't directly comparable.
Well, that really would be tragic.
Think of all the millions who would die laughing.
Will Prime Minister Burnham continue doing so?
Bond markets are really important. (All they are is a gauge of long term financial stability.)
For example, well-engineered and well-maintained roads are beneficial to economic growth.
And a good education system that is available to everyone is essential to it.
A health system that ensures workers are regularly vaccinated and treated quickly and effectively if they get ill so they get back to work ASAP is a net benefit, but no fully private sector has ever done that at a reasonable cost.
Police services by maintaining law and order are also essential for social stability which is a key to economic growth.
And finally, well-funded courts that mange legal and commercial frameworks are essential to a strong economy as well.
The snag is, rather too few people in this country understand this and instead see these as necessary evils to buy off revolutionary fervour, not as the way of oiling the engine of economic growth.
In other European where they do understand this they get away with higher taxes.
Not sure. Must be partly cultural.
Indeed, having pointed out that public spending is not necessarily economically unproductive, I'd go further and point out that many such private companies are in fact a drag on economic growth by sucking money out of the real economy into the pockets of dubious rentiers.
Would we be noticeably worse off if bond markets, hedge funds and Centrica disappeared overnight?
If only to piss off Nigel Farage.
Different societies can have very different responses to any given headline rate of tax; that's an economic commonplace.
If there were such a thing as one optimal headline tax rate, then countries would have standardised on it by now. It's an ever moving target depending on times and circumstance.
Does not make it any less real.
Then there’s the breadth of the tax base and the availability of reliefs, which complicates the picture further.
We're slowly becoming debt slaves to the rest of the world, if we're unable to reverse the trend.
At which point we'll need to take some of the Greek medicine.
Look, money borrowed in the long term can be used intelligently, particularly by developing productive assets that will aid economic growth. Building HS2 with borrowed money would make sense, for example, because it would (if Sunak wasn't an anti-train nutjob) have made a big profit and powered economic growth in the north and Midlands which would have increased tax take and reduced social expenditure.
Money borrowed on long term to pay pensions is not such money.* That's what we've been doing for decades and that's where the bond markets have our balls in a vice. When you are borrowing from them merely to survive, they can dictate terms and they are doing so.
*And I am now looking north in the expectation of an incoming ballistic turnip.
One is the desirability of a balanced budget over the medium term. Lots of questions about what counts as balanced (what do you do with state assets?) and medium term, but there's a desirability there.
The other is whether that balance is achieved as low tax/low spend or high tax/high spend. There's a legit political debate to be had there- though comparing the US with the rest of the world, I suspect that the low tax model generates more money without making most people happier. But I'm pretty sure that's secondary to the balanced budget over the medium term thing.
As a Chancellor of the Exchequer called Healey once said, we are spending 6 per cent more than we are earning. His party lost the four subsequent elections for his pains. But that gap between what the UK actually earns and the lifestyle it thinks it deserves has never really closed. But when the government plays up the Cost Of Living Crisis, it's really giving a different, more voter-friendly, name for the same phenomenon.
Doesn't help solve the problem, though.
Corporation tax, for example, is lower in the Nordics than in most of the OECD including the USA. And Sweden has zero IHT.
A well managed company will probably have some debt. They have it because they foresee that their growth enabled by the funds will far outstrip the cost of servicing the debt.
What's the formula that defines even one of them ?
To define a curve of unknown type, you need far more data for a particular economy at a particular time than is possible to achieve in a real economy.
If so, will you be taking out a mortgage to buy this bridge I am offering for sale?
By the way, I would love to ramble around HS2 wildly or otherwise, but as Sunak effectively not only cancelled it but illegally salted the wells to make sure nobody else could build it that would be quite tricky.
Edit - since your example was actually agreeing with my previous point I'm not even sure what you're trying to say.
Given how much economic activity seems to consist of buying assets with borrowed money in order to extract rents from them, maybe we've reached a point where we shouldn't worry so much about the quantity of economic activty as its quality.
I'm entirely sure you now realise that there is a little gap in your knowledge around these issues. Go and think about it. If your middle name is not 'thoughtful' I'd be amazed.
I am afraid you have not convinced me of any gaps in my knowledge. Merely that you are confusing excess bond markets, which are an example of capitalist and governmental failure, with government debt, which is issued through bond markets but would not actually have to be.
You have also not convinced me that the way they manipulate debt and the interest on it to their own advantage thereby sucking money out of the government's accounts and requiring higher tax take for worse services is advantageous to the productive economy. If you could show that it is used to fund other economic activity rather than massive salaries for people with the integrity of Mafia bosses I would be willing to change my mind on that.
Scotland’s 45% for over £75,000 (it's 62.5% over £100,000) and 48% tax amounts over £125,140 has resulted in £45m of expected tax not being paid.
Government debt might not be a good thing*, but if the government wants to borrow its likely that creating a market for the obligations makes it a route that can achieve the lowest cost. There is not the slightest thing about the buyers of gilts that is other than a mercenary idea.
*It's very hard to see that in the UK our borrowing for growth (or whatever) has ever been sensible,
The value of borrowing depends on its cost compared with the benefits of the spending it enables.
There's a vast range between extremely productive investment financed by very cheap borrowing, and unproductive expenditure on the back of high interest loans.
And if course it enables governments to cope with emergencies - it was our more efficient capital markets which enabled us to prevail in the Napoleonic wars.
It's very close to Kew Bridge.
HS2 will not/would not have made a particularly big profit, because it was a political project not an economic one - the Northern wing of a Great EU railway line. Its purpose was never to revive the North of England, and even if it had been, it probably wouldn't have worked, because great infrastructure projects do not cause economic growth, they are caused by economic growth. They are caused by coal, or fish, or tourists, or energy needing to get from supplier to customer.
My wider point is that large infrastructure projects funded by taxation or borrowing are not automatically a good thing. Infrastructure should at least be lead by the private sector, if not solely funded by it, if it is going to be profitable.
Putting that money into your pension is the only sane thing to do..
The reality is that BP today will fund its UK solar assets out of an offshore entity which lends money to the UK solar developer. And so, profits almost certainly get taken out of the UK in a tax-free manner already.
What we probably should look to do is to find some way of limiting the tax deductibility of interest payments. (Differing rules on thr tax deductibility of interest also screws up the rental market because it effectively subsidises corporate landlords and penalises personal landlords.)
Similar the ECML and Midland Mainline have similar capacity issues
Solving those capacity issues was the purpose of HS2 but it got sidetracked by a lot of people who have played on the talk about faster services without grasping it was a fix to capacity issues first with speed as a secondary advantage because we know how to build fast trains now.
As far as tax regime is concerned pensioners have spent their working lives supporting pensioners who don’t pay NI why should they be the first generation disadvantaged by not enjoying the same.
Presumably, however, the degree to which this happens depends on the relative size of the places linked. Is HS2 comparable to these other examples? Or would the places linked be better able to sustain themselves from the pull of London?
Yes it's banal and true and the only problem is how people talk about it. The false precision and scientific ambience imbued by 'curve'. That's a complete nonsense.
It's better stated as the Laffer principle that there will be a point (and maybe more than one) where increasing a particular tax rate will reduce the total revenue raised by that tax.
If you go up the learning curve on it (which I know you have) that is where you'll end up.
Part of it, I think, is the fetishisation of the market by every government since at least the 80s, without a corresponding understanding (or even desire to understand on the part of politicians) of how markets operate, and to whose benefit.
War debt is a great example. Without it, we simply couldn't have paid for any of our major wars, and it took decades to pay off.
It wasn't even productive investment (wars are economically destructive), but winning the war was probably preferable to losing in economic terms (though WWII is an interesting case to argue).
The top rate of tax is only one of those incentives.
Norway has a wealth tax of 1% on everything including property. But it is only on amounts above 1.9 million NOK for an individual and 3.8 million NOK for a couple. (£150K/£300K).
But importantly all debts are taken off that including mortgages. So if you are looking to an LVT simlar to Norway to replace Council Tax and Stamp duty you are likely to end up falling far short under the Norwegian system.
Looking further afield most Australian states have LVT but it is only levied on the land value not the building value. Estonia has an LVT but houses properties with a principle residence are excluded so long as they don't exceed a very generous land allowance.
BBC News - Several injured at Berlin Pride after reports vehicle drove into crowd, police say
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/clyqzylz3zno
@katyperry
I am deeply appalled and angry to see “Firework” used on the @WhiteHouse
TikTok account as a backing track for video footage of military strikes. I did not approve this, I was not asked, and I absolutely do not condone it.
I wrote this song to be an anthem of hope, healing, and inner strength for people going through their darkest personal moments. To see a message of self-worth and upliftment weaponized to soundtrack destruction and violence is a complete violation of everything my song stands for.
My music is for bringing people together, not celebrating warfare.
https://x.com/katyperry/status/2081032309508047136
===
Seems to be a regular thing for Trump's stormtroopers to use other people's music without permission,
There are a plethora of curves in economics, and it is typically not possible to create a clearcut formula for them. Does not make them any less real.
This absurd standard of "can you create a formula for it" is only applied to this one curve and not so mockingly applied to any others.
plenty of countries have land or property taxes on an annual basis and do not consider them in the same basket as generalised wealth taxes - even America does.
There is little reason why it can not replace Council Tax and Stamp Duty, but it might not be a copy and paste from Norway, agreed.
That's one bad and unhealthy feature of globalisation.
It was a working farm so not mindless killing for fun but have suitable guilt about it. Record was 64 rabbits in one 24 hour period. I await Karma.
There's the yield curve, of course - but that's real and empirically observable. And not controversial politically.
(And is Michael Cane too old to star ?)
I am considering one of the most pressing questions of our era: in a Muppets Odyssey, who would Miss Piggy play? There's an argument for: the cyclops (appetite and mēnis), Circe (native empiggification), Calypso (won't let Kermie go), Penelope (loyal, vaguely spurned)
https://x.com/second_sailing/status/2081036158746722781
This sort of attack seems to be getting more frequent.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DlXb3zSLdFY
Combined oil and gas sales, worldwide, have a comparable or slightly smaller profit. Is SpaceX AI meant to make the same profit as one firm as the entire global oil and gas sector?
The entire global food and beverage manufacturing sector combined does not make that profit.
Global airlines combined are about 10% of that figure.
(my apologies: it's $500bn over five years, not $500billion per year. My bad)
If you think he's wrong, tell me why.
https://www.gridwatch.templar.co.uk/
It's late, so this is just the 10000 foot view of why it's a horrible idea:
Power - yes, you can use solar panels to generate power. But those are large, fragile and difficult to get into orbit in quality. To power one NVidia blackwell server rack you'd need a couple of hundred square meters of panels. Powering the equivalent of a ground based datacentre would need multiple square kilometres of panels. Getting those into space and installed would be terrifyingly expensive even for SpaceX.
Cooling - Ground datacentres can easily radiate heat into the air, but a vacuum makes that much harder. An orbital DC would need massive (and heavy) radiators and some kind of closed-loop cooling system. Plus, it's not just heat from the servers that needs dumped. One side of the satellite is being fried by the sun and the other is in freezing vacuum. The cooling system would need to be powerful enough to keep the internal temperature somewhat even.
Radiation - there's no atmosphere to protect against cosmic radiation, so the orbital DC would need considerable shielding. Good luck carrying hundreds of tonnes of lead plates into space. Modern chips are very vulnerable to radiation, so even with shielding there's a good chance of an increase in both hard and soft failures vs a ground facility. The most popular CPU used in space applications is a hardened version of a 1997 PowerPC chip, because modern chips are so much harder to shield effectively.
Maintenance - if something breaks, you can't fix it without enormous cost.
I could go on, but the idea is a dead duck just for the reasons above.
And also today's "With AI", useful though it might be in some circumstances.
I still think the next General Election date most favours May 3rd 2029, though I admit, last Monday changes things a bit. The Conservatives and their media friends should plan for an election happening sooner than May 2029.
Is the Murdock Sunday Paper today just reporting an interesting ongoing police investigation, with the only added something to keep their weekly Reform bash on front page being the Party’s Bank dobbed them in to police several years ago, because it is newsworthy enough today?
Or has Murdoch and team made a firm decision to stick with the Conservatives, consciously aware the only way to stick with and help the Conservatives in FPTP system, where tactical votes can produce lopsided sided results - my recent header flagged this with evidence - meaning the focussed headspace is to KILL REFORM OFF completely - and, as Farage himself would put it - aye-sap?
I’m moving on to the next logical questions in this sequence. Will all Murdochs media take an increasingly campaigning, attack dog line to Kill Off Reform? And will they be joined by others, in fact the whole of the right wing media?
For four crazy years, the right wing media have been in a wishy washy dibblydobbly headspace, regards the two right wing parties cancelling each other out handing the centre and left unearned electoral treasure - will they all now make this same rational decision as the Sunday Times ownership appears to have done, and kill off Reform as quickly as possible, to help the Conservatives in an election which could come sooner rather than later?
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c2dkx01n0y1o
Here's a general answer I came up with years ago: There are, net, benefits to diversity, density, and globalization. But all three of them make epidemic diseases more dangerous.
In the US, we find it even harder to come up with good strategies against "micro-parasites" than against "macro-parasites". For this reason I believe that RFK, Jr. will do even more damage to the US than the Loser.
It's like one of those old dystopian futures where everything falls apart and I really didn't envisage my later years stuck under radio telescopes near Rngstone Round wondering how to stop it. And I am frankly out of ideas.