If Tories are so against "redistribution" why did they not complain to George about continued QE? (the flow of this "magic money" is an interesting path to follow)
I am not and never have been a fan of democracy, especially of the pseudo democracy we currently have.
But the betting opportunities!!!
Plenty of betting opportunities in an Elizabethan system, Mr Neil. Will the current Duke of Norfolk be thrown into the Tower? Odds on the Queen sacking Henry Cecil. That sort of thing.
If Tories are so against "redistribution" why did they not complain to George about continued QE? (the flow of this "magic money" is an interesting path to follow)
I am against QE, and low interest rates. Still, better the devil that can than the devils that can't.
OTOH, over the course of the past two years, Labour's lead has drifted down from about 12% to about 3% now; the government's approval rating has gone from -40-45% to -20-25%; approval of the government's handling of the economy has gone from about -30% to almost level-pegging; and the Conservatives have gone from level-pegging with Labour on economic management, to a clear and substantial lead.
If you assume the rate of change will be half again higher in the last year as the last two years combined as minds become more focussed then perhaps a Labour lead of 3 will emerge (12 -> 3 -> -3)
Sticking Con 35, Labour 32, Lib Dems 11 into EC calculator yields Con 301, Lab 299, LD 22
But Eastleigh and Sutton are in the Conservative column... and Argyll and Bute is in the Lab column - It could all be very close come GE night.
I see the first aircraft carrier will be named by the Queen tomorrow. Workers will be receiving their union benefit P45 soon no doubt. It is nice to see that they are having to use a 1950's Sea Vixen to do the flyover as it is the only carrier fighter they have left. One wonders what they will use the majestic floating hulk for.
What happened to Salmond's guarantee of future orders from the MOD?
If Westminster cannot afford boys toys there are no orders. In 1979 they said 30,000 shipbuilding jobs would go if we voted Yes. They say now the last 3000 will go if we vote Yes, do you think many believe they will be there long enough to go.
What I like about your position, Mr. G., is that you don't give a toss for the economic or social effect that independence might bring in the short term. It is the fact of independence that matters, that the Scots will be making their own decisions about their own lives. In this day and age when politics is reduced to arguing about a percentage point here or there or some economic figure that virtually nobody understands, it is good to see someone arguing for the big matters.
Hurst , thank you , I am pretty sure it will cost me money as well given my position on income scale but I am OK with that as long as it is done properly. I am interested in my grandsons futures.
With this now almost weekly change in Labour’s attack lines, it gets harder to keep up with the growing list of failed predictions. At some point they may get one right!
The policies of the coalition will increase unemployment (4m or 5m) = Unemployment dropped. The policies of the coalition will lead to double/triple dips and no growth = we have record growth. The policies of the coalition are leading to employment growth only in London = Most employment growth is outside London. The policies of the coalition are only benefitting the rich = the top 10% got hit the hardest 2011 – 2013. The policies of the coalition will…. (insert the next attack line and wait for it to backfire).
I am not and never have been a fan of democracy, especially of the pseudo democracy we currently have.
But the betting opportunities!!!
Plenty of betting opportunities in an Elizabethan system, Mr Neil. Will the current Duke of Norfolk be thrown into the Tower? Odds on the Queen sacking Henry Cecil. That sort of thing.
Not to mention the in play opportunities on number of strokes of the axe to remove heads, chance of last minute pardon etc etc That's if we don't all die of the Englysh Swete first.
If there was any doubt as to whether the fate of the referendum vote lies in Glasgow & the west, that can be dispelled. Perhaps handing out a few bribes will give Dave the courage to talk to 'ordinary' Scots.
It did in fact look remarkable static, but that is because the figures were conveniently calculated before George got down to serious business, and the new ones have not been published. This allows Cameron and his pangyrists the opportunity to state "facts" that bear no relationship to the present. (Government is choosing your "mistruths" carefully)
Oooh! So that's where Miliband got the idea for the misuse of jobs stats from ;-)
@dyedwoolie After the print button was pressed, the BOE distributed it to the banks, who then loaned it to investors, The investors then used this money to make themselves more money, paying back at low interest rates. This had the effect of inflating asset prices creating further wealth above the rate of GDP. The question that might be on the minds of the curious is, what exactly is this new wealth based on? A percentage will have come from an increase in GDP, but patently not all of it has.
"Budget airline Ryanair has confirmed it is to start flying from Glasgow Airport in October, with the launch of seven routes."
"some destinations, including Dublin, will move from Prestwick to Glasgow."
Perhaps the SNP have purchased spare capacity at Prestwick in order for it to be a landbase for servicing the aircraft carriers?
Avery , given the devastation that Tories and Labour have inflicted on Ayrshire and given the employment at the airport the SNP had to save it. Given its strategic position , length of runway and fact that it never ever gets closed down is another factor along with the aerospace industries clustered around it that will be required when independent. Given Glasgow airport does not even have a rail link it seems crazy but there you are, it will have the Labour Party whooping they would love to see more job losses in Ayrshire.
People in the higher income bracket tend to have an excess of money coming in that can be invested in assets. Those at the bottom do not have this ability, and since assets are rising faster than GDP this increases the "unearned" wealth of those at the top by comparison. You may argue that investment in assets is not "unearned", but it is the commonly used term.
It is of course impossible for the value of productive assets to grow at a rate faster than nominal GDP in the long run.
(Simple answer: the value of those assets is defined by the value of their production. And if the value of these assets is growing relative to GDP, it must mean that the production produced by said assets is increasing relative to GDP. Eventually however, the production of these assets will become GDP, and therefore it is impossible for them to grow faster - in the long-run - than nominal GDP.)
If there was any doubt as to whether the fate of the referendum vote lies in Glasgow & the west, that can be dispelled. Perhaps handing out a few bribes will give Dave the courage to talk to 'ordinary' Scots.
Peston never learns...what ever happened to fact checking and thoroughly investigating the situation, before you shout your mouth off with speculation.
If there was any doubt as to whether the fate of the referendum vote lies in Glasgow & the west, that can be dispelled. Perhaps handing out a few bribes will give Dave the courage to talk to 'ordinary' Scots.
OTOH, over the course of the past two years, Labour's lead has drifted down from about 12% to about 3% now; the government's approval rating has gone from -40-45% to -20-25%; approval of the government's handling of the economy has gone from about -30% to almost level-pegging; and the Conservatives have gone from level-pegging with Labour on economic management, to a clear and substantial lead.
If you assume the rate of change will be half again higher in the last year as the last two years combined as minds become more focussed then perhaps a Labour lead of 3 will emerge (12 -> 3 -> -3)
Sticking Con 35, Labour 32, Lib Dems 11 into EC calculator yields Con 301, Lab 299, LD 22
But Eastleigh and Sutton are in the Conservative column... and Argyll and Bute is in the Lab column - It could all be very close come GE night.
UKPR even on those percentages still has Lab ahead on seats 298/297 If swingback as high as that does happen knife edge on most seats bet. I expect about half that resulting in .................
If there was any doubt as to whether the fate of the referendum vote lies in Glasgow & the west, that can be dispelled. Perhaps handing out a few bribes will give Dave the courage to talk to 'ordinary' Scots.
As long as Labour are paying for it, they will get short shrift from Holyrood for any more pet projects, whilst we have a real Scottish government at least.
If there was any doubt as to whether the fate of the referendum vote lies in Glasgow & the west, that can be dispelled. Perhaps handing out a few bribes will give Dave the courage to talk to 'ordinary' Scots.
If there was any doubt as to whether the fate of the referendum vote lies in Glasgow & the west, that can be dispelled. Perhaps handing out a few bribes will give Dave the courage to talk to 'ordinary' Scots.
@rcs1000 Asset prices have apparently been doing the impossible for a lot of human history (with a reversal during the middle part of the century) and appear to be continuing for the moment. This should logically end in tears, but for some reason it never does.....for the rich that is.
If Tories are so against "redistribution" why did they not complain to George about continued QE? (the flow of this "magic money" is an interesting path to follow)
The last authority from George to increase QE was given in February 2012. The net amount of QE has remained stable for two years at £375 billion.
Have the gays lost the plot when it comes to naming their 'rainbow alliance' ?
An event in Canada is currently advertising itself as an "annual festival of LGBTTIQQ2SA culture and human rights", with LGBTTIQQ2SA representing "a broad array of identities such as, but not limited to, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transsexual, transgender, intersex, queer, questioning, two-spirited, and allies". Two-spirited is a term used by Native Americans to describe more than one gender identity.
Have the gays lost the plot when it comes to naming their 'rainbow alliance' ?
An event in Canada is currently advertising itself as an "annual festival of LGBTTIQQ2SA culture and human rights", with LGBTTIQQ2SA representing "a broad array of identities such as, but not limited to, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transsexual, transgender, intersex, queer, questioning, two-spirited, and allies". Two-spirited is a term used by Native Americans to describe more than one gender identity.
I cost them the price of two stamps this week in replying to their drivel. Gave them both barrels as well , would imagine I will not be getting much from them in future. Labour got same treatment.
I know that the polls show that a majority of my fellow Englishmen will vote no, but the devil is in the details, as always.
The bulk of them are professionals, and many work in the financial services sector. So their vote probably owes more to their economic interests than it does to anything else. In that sense they are in tune with the Scots who share that background.
I am disabled and live on benefits. I reckon that my life will be better if Scotland cuts its links with Tory Southern England. Most of my friends are also English, and they take the same view. I do have an Afrikaner friend who will vote yes as she thinks that with independence she won't have to jump through quite so many hoops to get citizenship.
So it isn't where you were born as such, rather it's how you see the world.
"Budget airline Ryanair has confirmed it is to start flying from Glasgow Airport in October, with the launch of seven routes."
"some destinations, including Dublin, will move from Prestwick to Glasgow."
Perhaps the SNP have purchased spare capacity at Prestwick in order for it to be a landbase for servicing the aircraft carriers?
Avery , given the devastation that Tories and Labour have inflicted on Ayrshire and given the employment at the airport the SNP had to save it. Given its strategic position , length of runway and fact that it never ever gets closed down is another factor along with the aerospace industries clustered around it that will be required when independent. Given Glasgow airport does not even have a rail link it seems crazy but there you are, it will have the Labour Party whooping they would love to see more job losses in Ayrshire.
Come on, Malc.
Prestwick was a white elephant even in the mid 1970s, long before the SNP gained power.
Can't Eck give it to Wales. I understand the Labour adminstration in Cardiff are looking for a self-aggrandising long runway?
I see the first aircraft carrier will be named by the Queen tomorrow. Workers will be receiving their union benefit P45 soon no doubt. It is nice to see that they are having to use a 1950's Sea Vixen to do the flyover as it is the only carrier fighter they have left. One wonders what they will use the majestic floating hulk for.
HMS Thatcher ?
An utterly appropriate name.
In eleven years the left never managed to land one on Maggie.
I'm sure there's a convention for naming ships, which would mean that only destroyers get named after people.
Capital ships (including carriers) have traditional & often inspirational names. Ships are named on a class basis, led by a "name ship". (e.g. Lion and Tiger are usually grouped in the same class, as are Invincible, Indefatigable, Indominatable and Inflexible)
Cruisers and destroyers are named either a letter class (B for destroyers, C and D for Cruisers and U for submarines)
Some destroyers, crusiers and sloops also have category class names:
"Budget airline Ryanair has confirmed it is to start flying from Glasgow Airport in October, with the launch of seven routes."
"some destinations, including Dublin, will move from Prestwick to Glasgow."
Perhaps the SNP have purchased spare capacity at Prestwick in order for it to be a landbase for servicing the aircraft carriers?
Avery , given the devastation that Tories and Labour have inflicted on Ayrshire and given the employment at the airport the SNP had to save it. Given its strategic position , length of runway and fact that it never ever gets closed down is another factor along with the aerospace industries clustered around it that will be required when independent. Given Glasgow airport does not even have a rail link it seems crazy but there you are, it will have the Labour Party whooping they would love to see more job losses in Ayrshire.
Come on, Malc.
Prestwick was a white elephant even in the mid 1970s, long before the SNP gained power.
Can't Eck give it to Wales? I understand the Labour administration in Cardiff are looking for a long runway to show off.
Mr. Smarmeron has made much about the top 10% becoming so much richer in recent years. How much does one need to earn to be in that top 10%. Well, it would seem not very much.
To be in the top 1% of earners in London you would need an income of about £205k, the South East it is the people earning more than £114K, but in Wales you are up there with the richest 1% if you earn just £80k.
So these rich fat cats that Mr. Smarmeron talks about turn out to be not so rich after all. Perhaps instead of talking about the top 10% he should be saying the top 0.1%
If things falter before the election, I can guarantee it will "continue" As you well know, George's "miracle" is based on keeping the "boom" going till after the election, at which point he will have another five years to do something different to New Labour. Or not? Because all he has is smoke and mirrors. No miracles, just the same old shabby conjuring tricks that he has packaged differently like a third rate Paul Daniells.
"Budget airline Ryanair has confirmed it is to start flying from Glasgow Airport in October, with the launch of seven routes."
"some destinations, including Dublin, will move from Prestwick to Glasgow."
Perhaps the SNP have purchased spare capacity at Prestwick in order for it to be a landbase for servicing the aircraft carriers?
Avery , given the devastation that Tories and Labour have inflicted on Ayrshire and given the employment at the airport the SNP had to save it. Given its strategic position , length of runway and fact that it never ever gets closed down is another factor along with the aerospace industries clustered around it that will be required when independent. Given Glasgow airport does not even have a rail link it seems crazy but there you are, it will have the Labour Party whooping they would love to see more job losses in Ayrshire.
Come on, Malc.
Prestwick was a white elephant even in the mid 1970s, long before the SNP gained power.
Can't Eck give it to Wales? I understand the Labour administration in Cardiff are looking for a long runway to show off.
The Extraordinary Rendition subsidy will keep it afloat.
I know that the polls show that a majority of my fellow Englishmen will vote no, but the devil is in the details, as always.
The bulk of them are professionals, and many work in the financial services sector. So their vote probably owes more to their economic interests than it does to anything else. In that sense they are in tune with the Scots who share that background.
I am disabled and live on benefits. I reckon that my life will be better if Scotland cuts its links with Tory Southern England. Most of my friends are also English, and they take the same view. I do have an Afrikaner friend who will vote yes as she thinks that with independence she won't have to jump through quite so many hoops to get citizenship.
So it isn't where you were born as such, rather it's how you see the world.
Ken, That about sums it up , it is either vote NO to keep the rich getting richer or vote YES to have some hope that we can have a better country. On here we get almost non stop viewpoint from comfortable people living in the south of England , only aim in life to have more money than their neighbour. They do not realise that not everybody is fixated on money or actually has lots of it, just berate the unemployed for not buying caviar and champagne with their £70 JSA or meagre benefits from being a carer , disabled , etc. They cannot get it into their heads that it is nothing to do if you were born Scottish or English , it is what type of country you want for the future , continue with bankrupt Britain or have some hope that there can be a better way to do things. I for one would like a better country than that portrayed by the majority viewpoint on PB.
But Mr Farage accused the Green of sounding like "someone from the old communist-era", and told him not to worry about his presence as: "Within five years, I won't be here [The European Parliament]."
Well, at least there's one kipper who believes in Cameron's IN/OUT referendum promise.
If only the others would learn from their College.
@rcs1000 Asset prices have apparently been doing the impossible for a lot of human history (with a reversal during the middle part of the century) and appear to be continuing for the moment. This should logically end in tears, but for some reason it never does.....for the rich that is.
I'm sorry Smarmeron, but (1) asset prices go in cycles, and (2) it remains impossible for any asset to grow faster in value than GDP into perpetuity.
People who base judgements on the future value of assets by looking at how they have performed in the recent past usually end up poor.
"Budget airline Ryanair has confirmed it is to start flying from Glasgow Airport in October, with the launch of seven routes."
"some destinations, including Dublin, will move from Prestwick to Glasgow."
Perhaps the SNP have purchased spare capacity at Prestwick in order for it to be a landbase for servicing the aircraft carriers?
Avery , given the devastation that Tories and Labour have inflicted on Ayrshire and given the employment at the airport the SNP had to save it. Given its strategic position , length of runway and fact that it never ever gets closed down is another factor along with the aerospace industries clustered around it that will be required when independent. Given Glasgow airport does not even have a rail link it seems crazy but there you are, it will have the Labour Party whooping they would love to see more job losses in Ayrshire.
Come on, Malc.
Prestwick was a white elephant even in the mid 1970s, long before the SNP gained power.
Can't Eck give it to Wales? I understand the Labour administration in Cardiff are looking for a long runway to show off.
Avery , Only because of successive Tory and Labour policies, they put all the money into Edinburgh and Glasgow airports. Their only concern is self interest. Prestwick is absolutely essential for Ayrshire and is a fantastic facility that needs investment.
Mr. Smarmeron has made much about the top 10% becoming so much richer in recent years. How much does one need to earn to be in that top 10%. Well, it would seem not very much.
To be in the top 1% of earners in London you would need an income of about £205k, the South East it is the people earning more than £114K, but in Wales you are up there with the richest 1% if you earn just £80k.
So these rich fat cats that Mr. Smarmeron talks about turn out to be not so rich after all. Perhaps instead of talking about the top 10% he should be saying the top 0.1%
This Youtube clip on wealth distribution in the USA is quite enlightening:
People in the higher income bracket tend to have an excess of money coming in that can be invested in assets. Those at the bottom do not have this ability, and since assets are rising faster than GDP this increases the "unearned" wealth of those at the top by comparison. You may argue that investment in assets is not "unearned", but it is the commonly used term.
It is of course impossible for the value of productive assets to grow at a rate faster than nominal GDP in the long run.
(Simple answer: the value of those assets is defined by the value of their production. And if the value of these assets is growing relative to GDP, it must mean that the production produced by said assets is increasing relative to GDP. Eventually however, the production of these assets will become GDP, and therefore it is impossible for them to grow faster - in the long-run - than nominal GDP.)
In the very, very long run, in which we are all dead, that may be true-ish. What you ignore is the "bubble" element in the value - people want shares because other people want shares, not just because of the value of the production of the company.
I see the first aircraft carrier will be named by the Queen tomorrow. Workers will be receiving their union benefit P45 soon no doubt. It is nice to see that they are having to use a 1950's Sea Vixen to do the flyover as it is the only carrier fighter they have left. One wonders what they will use the majestic floating hulk for.
HMS Thatcher ?
An utterly appropriate name.
In eleven years the left never managed to land one on Maggie.
I'm sure there's a convention for naming ships, which would mean that only destroyers get named after people.
Capital ships (including carriers) have traditional & often inspirational names. Ships are named on a class basis, led by a "name ship". (e.g. Lion and Tiger are usually grouped in the same class, as are Invincible, Indefatigable, Indominatable and Inflexible)
Cruisers and destroyers are named either a letter class (B for destroyers, C and D for Cruisers and U for submarines)
Some destroyers, crusiers and sloops also have category class names:
Richest 10%\poorest 10% It's the nature of capitalism, the economic system we pretend to live under, but corrupt with pseudo communist social democratic programmes. Of course, if capitalism were allowed to run free, the banks would have fallen If capitalism were allowed to run free, the top percent would be harnessing the redundant labour of the unemployed in return for clothing, food and shelter. The workhouse would be back. So, maybe a few fat cats is the price the left have to pay in return for a touchy feely society that doesn't demonise it's poor, and get the middle classes, as ever, to pick up the tab.
It's technology that eventually will set us free, if we can get off this damn rock first.
Richest 10%\poorest 10% It's the nature of capitalism, the economic system we pretend to live under, but corrupt with pseudo communist social democratic programmes. Of course, if capitalism were allowed to run free, the banks would have fallen If capitalism were allowed to run free, the top percent would be harnessing the redundant labour of the unemployed in return for clothing, food and shelter. The workhouse would be back. So, maybe a few fat cats is the price the left have to pay in return for a touchy feely society that doesn't demonise it's poor, and get the middle classes, as ever, to pick up the tab.
It's technology that eventually will set us free, if we can get off this damn rock first.
Of course you need to accept some inequality is needed for capitalism, or even mixed market capitalism to work. The question is how much inequality. The 1950s USA had much less inequality (outside the Jim Crow south), yet still worked very well.
If things falter before the election, I can guarantee it will "continue" As you well know, George's "miracle" is based on keeping the "boom" going till after the election, at which point he will have another five years to do something different to New Labour. Or not? Because all he has is smoke and mirrors. No miracles, just the same old shabby conjuring tricks that he has packaged differently like a third rate Paul Daniells.
Now look here, Smarmy, you should switch channels from the BBC for a while.
If you want to attack QE, and make the attack credible and rooted in fact, then the MPC's decisions to 'roll-over' borrowing as gilts in their portfolio mature is the target for attack.
I can understand the reasoning behind Carney's suggestion that the holdings don't need selling back into the market but can just be run out to maturity, but why keep topping up the tank?
Richest 10%\poorest 10% It's the nature of capitalism, the economic system we pretend to live under, but corrupt with pseudo communist social democratic programmes. Of course, if capitalism were allowed to run free, the banks would have fallen If capitalism were allowed to run free, the top percent would be harnessing the redundant labour of the unemployed in return for clothing, food and shelter. The workhouse would be back. So, maybe a few fat cats is the price the left have to pay in return for a touchy feely society that doesn't demonise it's poor, and get the middle classes, as ever, to pick up the tab.
It's technology that eventually will set us free, if we can get off this damn rock first.
I was very much in favour of the banks falling, it would have been the intellectually honest capitalist position.
Live by the sword, die by the sword.
Instead it seems the oft repeated lefty mantra of privatise the profits, socialise the losses was actually the truth.
"Budget airline Ryanair has confirmed it is to start flying from Glasgow Airport in October, with the launch of seven routes."
"some destinations, including Dublin, will move from Prestwick to Glasgow."
Perhaps the SNP have purchased spare capacity at Prestwick in order for it to be a landbase for servicing the aircraft carriers?
Avery , given the devastation that Tories and Labour have inflicted on Ayrshire and given the employment at the airport the SNP had to save it. Given its strategic position , length of runway and fact that it never ever gets closed down is another factor along with the aerospace industries clustered around it that will be required when independent. Given Glasgow airport does not even have a rail link it seems crazy but there you are, it will have the Labour Party whooping they would love to see more job losses in Ayrshire.
Come on, Malc.
Prestwick was a white elephant even in the mid 1970s, long before the SNP gained power.
Can't Eck give it to Wales? I understand the Labour administration in Cardiff are looking for a long runway to show off.
Avery , Only because of successive Tory and Labour policies, they put all the money into Edinburgh and Glasgow airports. Their only concern is self interest. Prestwick is absolutely essential for Ayrshire and is a fantastic facility that needs investment.
malcolm, it's a turkey. Scotland's equivalent of Manston, or Lydd.
@HurstLlama Does a rich person require 20 times the calorie intake of a poor person? does he require 30 times the room to live than his poorer neighbour? You start becoming rich very fast after the basics are met, and this increases rapidly the further from subsidence levels you go. Having choices, and disposable income, means you can turn any excess into profit (or luxuries should you choose), which gives you a basis from where "rich" starts. After that, the sky is the limit as your money then creates more money for yourself. You can work out what happens after that, but I can assure you that if it isn't controlled, it will not end well for anyone.
@rcs1000 Asset prices have apparently been doing the impossible for a lot of human history (with a reversal during the middle part of the century) and appear to be continuing for the moment. This should logically end in tears, but for some reason it never does.....for the rich that is.
I'm sorry Smarmeron, but (1) asset prices go in cycles, and (2) it remains impossible for any asset to grow faster in value than GDP into perpetuity.
People who base judgements on the future value of assets by looking at how they have performed in the recent past usually end up poor.
Why is (2) true. It's perfectly possible that there's a perpetual shift in the returns of GDP from labour to capital even as GDP grows. That would certainly make the value of that capital increase faster than GDP.
If Labour were more like the party Jon Cruddas wants I'd probably still vote for them. But the Blairite modernisers care as much about the wwc as Cameron and Osborne do about true conservatives.. Hence a large amount from both sets of old school supporters go to Ukip
Labour and Conservatives have been seduced by the mistress of the middle ground, thinking no one would fancy their old dependable wives, but Ukip have seduced them.. The old labour and con bottles are the Shirley Valentines of modern politics!
A prime candidate for Pseuds Corner...!
I think it was a quote from an Enoch speech.
I expect Sam to provide the full transcript shortly.
Too often today people are ready to tell us: ‘This is not possible, that is not possible.’ I say: whatever the true interest of our country calls for is always possible. We have nothing to fear but our own doubts. (Enoch Powell, Conservative Party conference, 1968)
When Powell made that speech, Edward Heath was sat behind him with an eyebrow raised
I wonder in six months to a year from now who will have the more favourable legacy?
Mr. Smarmeron has made much about the top 10% becoming so much richer in recent years. How much does one need to earn to be in that top 10%. Well, it would seem not very much.
To be in the top 1% of earners in London you would need an income of about £205k, the South East it is the people earning more than £114K, but in Wales you are up there with the richest 1% if you earn just £80k.
So these rich fat cats that Mr. Smarmeron talks about turn out to be not so rich after all. Perhaps instead of talking about the top 10% he should be saying the top 0.1%
I suspect when he's talking about the top 1%, he's not meaning the top 1% in each region. So that must be an income level of about £130k or so. That is certainly rich.
Richest 10%\poorest 10% It's the nature of capitalism, the economic system we pretend to live under, but corrupt with pseudo communist social democratic programmes. Of course, if capitalism were allowed to run free, the banks would have fallen If capitalism were allowed to run free, the top percent would be harnessing the redundant labour of the unemployed in return for clothing, food and shelter. The workhouse would be back. So, maybe a few fat cats is the price the left have to pay in return for a touchy feely society that doesn't demonise it's poor, and get the middle classes, as ever, to pick up the tab.
It's technology that eventually will set us free, if we can get off this damn rock first.
I was very much in favour of the banks falling, it would have been the intellectually honest capitalist position.
Live by the sword, die by the sword.
Instead it seems the oft repeated lefty mantra of privatise the profits, socialise the losses was actually the truth.
@HurstLlama Does a rich person require 20 times the calorie intake of a poor person? does he require 30 times the room to live than his poorer neighbour? You start becoming rich very fast after the basics are met, and this increases rapidly the further from subsidence levels you go. Having choices, and disposable income, means you can turn any excess into profit (or luxuries should you choose), which gives you a basis from where "rich" starts. After that, the sky is the limit as your money then creates more money for yourself. You can work out what happens after that, but I can assure you that if it isn't controlled, it will not end well for anyone.
While I sympathise with your broader argument, I'm not sure this is true. You certainly get much more comfortable very quickly after about £30k, but moving from "comfortable" to a "rich" lifestyle can get quite expensive. If you start wanting to send multiple kids to private school or flying business class regularly then you need a lot more money. Not that they deserve much sympathy from policy makers, but I just think we need to be accurate.
Unfortunately it was the only solution, because of the way regulators allowed the banking industry to become.
You can regulate all you like, but the only thing that that will make these people think again when they are speculating is losing their positions, homes, livelihoods and fortunes.
And for that, banks and other financial institutions must be allowed to fail. And dealers must have a much longer term stake in what they are doing.
Richest 10%\poorest 10% It's the nature of capitalism, the economic system we pretend to live under, but corrupt with pseudo communist social democratic programmes. Of course, if capitalism were allowed to run free, the banks would have fallen If capitalism were allowed to run free, the top percent would be harnessing the redundant labour of the unemployed in return for clothing, food and shelter. The workhouse would be back. So, maybe a few fat cats is the price the left have to pay in return for a touchy feely society that doesn't demonise it's poor, and get the middle classes, as ever, to pick up the tab.
It's technology that eventually will set us free, if we can get off this damn rock first.
I was very much in favour of the banks falling, it would have been the intellectually honest capitalist position.
Live by the sword, die by the sword.
Instead it seems the oft repeated lefty mantra of privatise the profits, socialise the losses was actually the truth.
Agreed. Poisonous solution
Letting the banks collapse would have also been a poisonous solution. The collapse of Lehman's plunged the US into a much deeper recession, so you end up hurting a lot of people and bankrupting businesses who didn't do anything wrong. The solution is to stop letting the banks set policy and control them in the first place.
If things falter before the election, I can guarantee it will "continue" As you well know, George's "miracle" is based on keeping the "boom" going till after the election, at which point he will have another five years to do something different to New Labour. Or not? Because all he has is smoke and mirrors. No miracles, just the same old shabby conjuring tricks that he has packaged differently like a third rate Paul Daniells.
Now look here, Smarmy, you should switch channels from the BBC for a while.
If you want to attack QE, and make the attack credible and rooted in fact, then the MPC's decisions to 'roll-over' borrowing as gilts in their portfolio mature is the target for attack.
I can understand the reasoning behind Carney's suggestion that the holdings don't need selling back into the market but can just be run out to maturity, but why keep topping up the tank?
The time has come for this policy to be changed.
Given we only have 2% inflation with the current level of expansion, ending it now would almost certainly cause disinflation and possibly deflation.
Mr. Smarmeron has made much about the top 10% becoming so much richer in recent years. How much does one need to earn to be in that top 10%. Well, it would seem not very much.
To be in the top 1% of earners in London you would need an income of about £205k, the South East it is the people earning more than £114K, but in Wales you are up there with the richest 1% if you earn just £80k.
So these rich fat cats that Mr. Smarmeron talks about turn out to be not so rich after all. Perhaps instead of talking about the top 10% he should be saying the top 0.1%
This Youtube clip on wealth distribution in the USA is quite enlightening:
The perceived, ideal and reality of the wealth distribution in the USA are miles apart.
We're not the USA and I'm grateful for that but its an interesting vid nonetheless.
A very interesting little video indeed, Mr. Star. I wonder what the figures would look like for the UK, possibly not as awful but probably on the same lines. What to do about it is the big question. Taxes we know don't work, so what then?
A wage cap might be a good place to start. Do these fancy CEO's with their mega salaries really earn them? Recent history would suggest otherwise, just look at the big companies that have gone to the wall despite paying their top people vast sums. So maybe limiting a director's salary to some reasonable multiple of the median pay of their employees might not be damaging (there aren't many SME's where the top bod gets 340 times the salary of the average employee). Top pay in the public sector is for sure totally out of wack with the responsibilities and risks involved.
Unfortunately it was the only solution, because of the way regulators allowed the banking industry to become.
You can regulate all you like, but the only thing that that will make these people think again when they are speculating is losing their positions, homes, livelihoods and fortunes.
And for that, banks and other financial institutions must be allowed to fail. And dealers must have a much longer term stake in what they are doing.
The problem is that most businesses and people consider there to be zero risk when they lend their money to Barclays, Lloyds, RBS, HSBC.
Without potential Gov't intervention the risk is small, but not zero. Gov't acted to close this risk to zero in 2008 with RBS in particular, outside of the normal deposit protection schemes.
@HurstLlama Does a rich person require 20 times the calorie intake of a poor person? does he require 30 times the room to live than his poorer neighbour? You start becoming rich very fast after the basics are met, and this increases rapidly the further from subsidence levels you go. Having choices, and disposable income, means you can turn any excess into profit (or luxuries should you choose), which gives you a basis from where "rich" starts. After that, the sky is the limit as your money then creates more money for yourself. You can work out what happens after that, but I can assure you that if it isn't controlled, it will not end well for anyone.
If things falter before the election, I can guarantee it will "continue" As you well know, George's "miracle" is based on keeping the "boom" going till after the election, at which point he will have another five years to do something different to New Labour. Or not? Because all he has is smoke and mirrors. No miracles, just the same old shabby conjuring tricks that he has packaged differently like a third rate Paul Daniells.
Now look here, Smarmy, you should switch channels from the BBC for a while.
If you want to attack QE, and make the attack credible and rooted in fact, then the MPC's decisions to 'roll-over' borrowing as gilts in their portfolio mature is the target for attack.
I can understand the reasoning behind Carney's suggestion that the holdings don't need selling back into the market but can just be run out to maturity, but why keep topping up the tank?
The time has come for this policy to be changed.
Given we only have 2% inflation with the current level of expansion, ending it now would almost certainly cause disinflation and possibly deflation.
Not sure you understood what I was suggesting here, Socrates.
I am not proposing that the BoE sells its existing holdings of gilts.
What I am proposing is that when these gilts mature they should not replace them with new borrowing.
I don't have the figures in front of me but we are talking about around 5% of total holdings per annum, say £20 bn max, in any one year. That amount of 'deleveraging' would not case major market issues as either the private sector would step in to buy newly issued gilts or the DMO would reduce net issuance to accommodate reduced demand from the BoE.
Mr. Smarmeron has made much about the top 10% becoming so much richer in recent years. How much does one need to earn to be in that top 10%. Well, it would seem not very much.
To be in the top 1% of earners in London you would need an income of about £205k, the South East it is the people earning more than £114K, but in Wales you are up there with the richest 1% if you earn just £80k.
So these rich fat cats that Mr. Smarmeron talks about turn out to be not so rich after all. Perhaps instead of talking about the top 10% he should be saying the top 0.1%
This Youtube clip on wealth distribution in the USA is quite enlightening:
The perceived, ideal and reality of the wealth distribution in the USA are miles apart.
We're not the USA and I'm grateful for that but its an interesting vid nonetheless.
A very interesting little video indeed, Mr. Star. I wonder what the figures would look like for the UK, possibly not as awful but probably on the same lines. What to do about it is the big question. Taxes we know don't work, so what then?
A wage cap might be a good place to start. Do these fancy CEO's with their mega salaries really earn them? Recent history would suggest otherwise, just look at the big companies that have gone to the wall despite paying their top people vast sums. So maybe limiting a director's salary to some reasonable multiple of the median pay of their employees might not be damaging (there aren't many SME's where the top bod gets 340 times the salary of the average employee). Top pay in the public sector is for sure totally out of wack with the responsibilities and risks involved.
Not so sure about private pay - its a tricky area where Gov't intervention can make a situation worse...
On the public pay, no public official should earn more than the PM - although having said that I think the office of Prime Minister is probably underpaid.
Raise the salary to £250k for the PM, base all public sector salaries off of that.
"Budget airline Ryanair has confirmed it is to start flying from Glasgow Airport in October, with the launch of seven routes."
"some destinations, including Dublin, will move from Prestwick to Glasgow."
Perhaps the SNP have purchased spare capacity at Prestwick in order for it to be a landbase for servicing the aircraft carriers?
Avery , given the devastation that Tories and Labour have inflicted on Ayrshire and given the employment at the airport the SNP had to save it. Given its strategic position , length of runway and fact that it never ever gets closed down is another factor along with the aerospace industries clustered around it that will be required when independent. Given Glasgow airport does not even have a rail link it seems crazy but there you are, it will have the Labour Party whooping they would love to see more job losses in Ayrshire.
Come on, Malc.
Prestwick was a white elephant even in the mid 1970s, long before the SNP gained power.
Can't Eck give it to Wales? I understand the Labour administration in Cardiff are looking for a long runway to show off.
Avery , Only because of successive Tory and Labour policies, they put all the money into Edinburgh and Glasgow airports. Their only concern is self interest. Prestwick is absolutely essential for Ayrshire and is a fantastic facility that needs investment.
malcolm, it's a turkey. Scotland's equivalent of Manston, or Lydd.
I expect a change in internal scottish and welsh policies after 2016 since UKIP will enter in both the scottish parliament and the welsh assembly at the expence of the LD and the local nationalists, that will change the internal debate.
Mr. Llama, what would stop the businesses putting their headquarters in countries without such a cap?
Nothing at all, Mr. D. but then that brings us to the question of how we tax companies. The situation where, say, Amazon can benefit from all the infrastructure of the UK (legal system, roads, etc. etc.) yet off-shore their profits so that they pay less than their fair share, needs to be addressed. If a company wants to do business here it should pay its taxes here on that business. I'd abolish corporation tax and return to treating companies as if they were individuals making them pay an income tax at a lowish rate but with no allowances (the system before 1964).
Mr. Eagles, that would be salt in the wound for Salmond.
....
I do hope you're right.
Whatever the result of the Indyref, I expect the SNP to have net gains in 2015.
Almost by default isn't it ?
Th Lib Dems are doing atrociously in Scotland, Labour did tremendously well in 2010 there and can almost certainly only go backwards, the Conservatives may do better than in 2010 but are heading for a top maximum of 5 seats I think.
@HurstLlama Does a rich person require 20 times the calorie intake of a poor person? does he require 30 times the room to live than his poorer neighbour? You start becoming rich very fast after the basics are met, and this increases rapidly the further from subsidence levels you go. Having choices, and disposable income, means you can turn any excess into profit (or luxuries should you choose), which gives you a basis from where "rich" starts. After that, the sky is the limit as your money then creates more money for yourself. You can work out what happens after that, but I can assure you that if it isn't controlled, it will not end well for anyone.
But without wealth, philanthrophy is not possible
If it was not so unequal and the rich were just a bit less greedy then it would not be necessary for the rich to salve their conscience by philanthropy.
Th Lib Dems are doing atrociously in Scotland, Labour did tremendously well in 2010 there and can almost certainly only go backwards, the Conservatives may do better than in 2010 but are heading for a top maximum of 5 seats I think.
If the Scottish Tories win 5 seats I'll join Dan Hodges in streaking through Whitehall with just a Nigel Farage mask to protect my modesty.
Mr. Llama, what would stop the businesses putting their headquarters in countries without such a cap?
Nothing at all, Mr. D. but then that brings us to the question of how we tax companies. The situation where, say, Amazon can benefit from all the infrastructure of the UK (legal system, roads, etc. etc.) yet off-shore their profits so that they pay less than their fair share, needs to be addressed. If a company wants to do business here it should pay its taxes here on that business. I'd abolish corporation tax and return to treating companies as if they were individuals making them pay an income tax at a lowish rate but with no allowances (the system before 1964).
What you are describing is illegal under European law. Tim Worstall at the Adam Smith Institute has done some very good articles on this. The tax affairs of the 'tax juggling' big players of the EU such as Starbucks was investigated and found to be 100% compliant. It is in fact the whole point of a single market.
The moral outrage stems form the fact that different countries in the EU dare to set different corporation tax rates!
I post this without comment, other than that there is a short advert before it starts. For those interested in making the comparison with @Pulpstar's video,
Mr. Smarmeron has made much about the top 10% becoming so much richer in recent years. How much does one need to earn to be in that top 10%. Well, it would seem not very much.
To be in the top 1% of earners in London you would need an income of about £205k, the South East it is the people earning more than £114K, but in Wales you are up there with the richest 1% if you earn just £80k.
So these rich fat cats that Mr. Smarmeron talks about turn out to be not so rich after all. Perhaps instead of talking about the top 10% he should be saying the top 0.1%
I suspect when he's talking about the top 1%, he's not meaning the top 1% in each region. So that must be an income level of about £130k or so. That is certainly rich.
This is interesting. I would not say that 130k a year is 'rich'. It is certainly 'well off'. There are not that many people who earn 130k thats true. However I would still say it is not rich. Rich is about having substantial capital not just an income which saddles you with a vast mortgage. Certainly by the time the mortgage matures your house value will have increased, but so will other house values if you want to move. You may then downsize and use the profit as a pension pot but then again this does not make you 'rich', just 'well off'. Posh and Becks are rich. How would and income of 130k compare with earnings in say 1950? Who would we see earning such money in 1950? Would we consider them rich - as opposed to say Lady Docker?
Th Lib Dems are doing atrociously in Scotland, Labour did tremendously well in 2010 there and can almost certainly only go backwards, the Conservatives may do better than in 2010 but are heading for a top maximum of 5 seats I think.
If the Scottish Tories win 5 seats I'll join Dan Hodges in streaking through Whitehall with just a Nigel Farage mask to protect my modesty.
Pigs will fly before that ever happens, unless it is in a future Scottish Conservative Party in an Independent Scotland.
Mr. Smarmeron has made much about the top 10% becoming so much richer in recent years. How much does one need to earn to be in that top 10%. Well, it would seem not very much.
To be in the top 1% of earners in London you would need an income of about £205k, the South East it is the people earning more than £114K, but in Wales you are up there with the richest 1% if you earn just £80k.
So these rich fat cats that Mr. Smarmeron talks about turn out to be not so rich after all. Perhaps instead of talking about the top 10% he should be saying the top 0.1%
This Youtube clip on wealth distribution in the USA is quite enlightening:
The perceived, ideal and reality of the wealth distribution in the USA are miles apart.
We're not the USA and I'm grateful for that but its an interesting vid nonetheless.
A very interesting little video indeed, Mr. Star. I wonder what the figures would look like for the UK, possibly not as awful but probably on the same lines. What to do about it is the big question. Taxes we know don't work, so what then?
A wage cap might be a good place to start. Do these fancy CEO's with their mega salaries really earn them? Recent history would suggest otherwise, just look at the big companies that have gone to the wall despite paying their top people vast sums. So maybe limiting a director's salary to some reasonable multiple of the median pay of their employees might not be damaging (there aren't many SME's where the top bod gets 340 times the salary of the average employee). Top pay in the public sector is for sure totally out of wack with the responsibilities and risks involved.
Funny that we are talking about distribution of wealth in the US on a day when the ONS have released a report on Wealth and Income [in the UK], 2010-12.
Co-incidence or cause?
Anyway, here is a chart from the ONS report which shows the difference in distribution of wealth and income in the UK. The pattern is similar to the US but less pronounced in its extremes.
If things falter before the election, I can guarantee it will "continue" As you well know, George's "miracle" is based on keeping the "boom" going till after the election, at which point he will have another five years to do something different to New Labour. Or not? Because all he has is smoke and mirrors. No miracles, just the same old shabby conjuring tricks that he has packaged differently like a third rate Paul Daniells.
Now look here, Smarmy, you should switch channels from the BBC for a while.
If you want to attack QE, and make the attack credible and rooted in fact, then the MPC's decisions to 'roll-over' borrowing as gilts in their portfolio mature is the target for attack.
I can understand the reasoning behind Carney's suggestion that the holdings don't need selling back into the market but can just be run out to maturity, but why keep topping up the tank?
The time has come for this policy to be changed.
Given we only have 2% inflation with the current level of expansion, ending it now would almost certainly cause disinflation and possibly deflation.
Not sure you understood what I was suggesting here, Socrates.
I am not proposing that the BoE sells its existing holdings of gilts.
What I am proposing is that when these gilts mature they should not replace them with new borrowing.
I don't have the figures in front of me but we are talking about around 5% of total holdings per annum, say £20 bn max, in any one year. That amount of 'deleveraging' would not case major market issues as either the private sector would step in to buy newly issued gilts or the DMO would reduce net issuance to accommodate reduced demand from the BoE.
I got that. What I think you're not understanding is that inflation is a rate of increase, not a stock level. Thus you need continuous expansion of the money supply to maintain inflation. Rock bottom interest rates are not doing it, so thus you need continuous increases in the money supply beyond this through ongoing asset purchases until it is going under its own steam. The fact it is only 2% with these purchases shows that it is not.
Mr. Llama, what would stop the businesses putting their headquarters in countries without such a cap?
Nothing at all, Mr. D. but then that brings us to the question of how we tax companies. The situation where, say, Amazon can benefit from all the infrastructure of the UK (legal system, roads, etc. etc.) yet off-shore their profits so that they pay less than their fair share, needs to be addressed. If a company wants to do business here it should pay its taxes here on that business. I'd abolish corporation tax and return to treating companies as if they were individuals making them pay an income tax at a lowish rate but with no allowances (the system before 1964).
What you are describing is illegal under European law. Tim Worstall at the Adam Smith Institute has done some very good articles on this. The tax affairs of the 'tax juggling' big players of the EU such as Starbucks was investigated and found to be 100% compliant. It is in fact the whole point of a single market.
The moral outrage stems form the fact that different countries in the EU dare to set different corporation tax rates!
One of my gripes about Europe is that so much of it is half baked - not allowing Mr Llama's solution but allowing differential corp tax rates simply creates the 2 ice cream sellers on a beach dilemma.
Accounting systems are being harmonised with IFRS, that provides a neat basis for perhaps a pan-Euro corp tax rate minimum of say 20% ?
@HurstLlama Does a rich person require 20 times the calorie intake of a poor person? does he require 30 times the room to live than his poorer neighbour? You start becoming rich very fast after the basics are met, and this increases rapidly the further from subsidence levels you go. Having choices, and disposable income, means you can turn any excess into profit (or luxuries should you choose), which gives you a basis from where "rich" starts. After that, the sky is the limit as your money then creates more money for yourself. You can work out what happens after that, but I can assure you that if it isn't controlled, it will not end well for anyone.
But without wealth, philanthrophy is not possible
How absurd. Plenty of poor people give money to charity. The idea that we should desire the rich to earn hundreds of times more than the poor so that they can a fraction of that money to the poor is also completely illogical.
@HurstLlama Does a rich person require 20 times the calorie intake of a poor person? does he require 30 times the room to live than his poorer neighbour?
Smarmy
If only you were a poet:
O reason not the need! Our basest beggars Are in the poorest thing superfluous. Allow not nature more than nature needs, Man's life is as cheap as beast's. Thou art a lady: If only to go warm were gorgeous, Why, nature needs not what thou gorgeous wear'st, Which scarcely keeps thee warm.
Mr. Smarmeron has made much about the top 10% becoming so much richer in recent years. How much does one need to earn to be in that top 10%. Well, it would seem not very much.
To be in the top 1% of earners in London you would need an income of about £205k, the South East it is the people earning more than £114K, but in Wales you are up there with the richest 1% if you earn just £80k.
So these rich fat cats that Mr. Smarmeron talks about turn out to be not so rich after all. Perhaps instead of talking about the top 10% he should be saying the top 0.1%
I suspect when he's talking about the top 1%, he's not meaning the top 1% in each region. So that must be an income level of about £130k or so. That is certainly rich.
This is interesting. I would not say that 130k a year is 'rich'. It is certainly 'well off'. There are not that many people who earn 130k thats true. However I would still say it is not rich. Rich is about having substantial capital not just an income which saddles you with a vast mortgage. Certainly by the time the mortgage matures your house value will have increased, but so will other house values if you want to move. You may then downsize and use the profit as a pension pot but then again this does not make you 'rich', just 'well off'. Posh and Becks are rich. How would and income of 130k compare with earnings in say 1950? Who would we see earning such money in 1950? Would we consider them rich - as opposed to say Lady Docker?
GDP per capita in 1950 was about a quarter of what it is today in real terms.
Mr. Llama, what would stop the businesses putting their headquarters in countries without such a cap?
Nothing at all, Mr. D. but then that brings us to the question of how we tax companies. The situation where, say, Amazon can benefit from all the infrastructure of the UK (legal system, roads, etc. etc.) yet off-shore their profits so that they pay less than their fair share, needs to be addressed. If a company wants to do business here it should pay its taxes here on that business. I'd abolish corporation tax and return to treating companies as if they were individuals making them pay an income tax at a lowish rate but with no allowances (the system before 1964).
What you are describing is illegal under European law. Tim Worstall at the Adam Smith Institute has done some very good articles on this. The tax affairs of the 'tax juggling' big players of the EU such as Starbucks was investigated and found to be 100% compliant. It is in fact the whole point of a single market.
The moral outrage stems form the fact that different countries in the EU dare to set different corporation tax rates!
One of my gripes about Europe is that so much of it is half baked - not allowing Mr Llama's solution but allowing differential corp tax rates simply creates the 2 ice cream sellers on a beach dilemma.
Accounting systems are being harmonised with IFRS, that provides a neat basis for perhaps a pan-Euro corp tax rate minimum of say 20% ?
Actually companies do not pay tax - they are vehicles for passing it on. The perfect corporation tax rate is zero. We should instead tax the earnings of employees or shareholders. A 'minimum tax rate' is complete BS.
Mr. Smarmeron has made much about the top 10% becoming so much richer in recent years. How much does one need to earn to be in that top 10%. Well, it would seem not very much.
To be in the top 1% of earners in London you would need an income of about £205k, the South East it is the people earning more than £114K, but in Wales you are up there with the richest 1% if you earn just £80k.
So these rich fat cats that Mr. Smarmeron talks about turn out to be not so rich after all. Perhaps instead of talking about the top 10% he should be saying the top 0.1%
This Youtube clip on wealth distribution in the USA is quite enlightening:
The perceived, ideal and reality of the wealth distribution in the USA are miles apart.
We're not the USA and I'm grateful for that but its an interesting vid nonetheless.
A very interesting little video indeed, Mr. Star. I wonder what the figures would look like for the UK, possibly not as awful but probably on the same lines. What to do about it is the big question. Taxes we know don't work, so what then?
A wage cap might be a good place to start. Do these fancy CEO's with their mega salaries really earn them? Recent history would suggest otherwise, just look at the big companies that have gone to the wall despite paying their top people vast sums. So maybe limiting a director's salary to some reasonable multiple of the median pay of their employees might not be damaging (there aren't many SME's where the top bod gets 340 times the salary of the average employee). Top pay in the public sector is for sure totally out of wack with the responsibilities and risks involved.
Funny that we are talking about distribution of wealth in the US on a day when the ONS have released a report on Wealth and Income [in the UK], 2010-12.
Co-incidence or cause?
Anyway, here is a chart from the ONS report which shows the difference in distribution of wealth and income in the UK. The pattern is similar to the US but less pronounced in its extremes.
@HurstLlama Does a rich person require 20 times the calorie intake of a poor person? does he require 30 times the room to live than his poorer neighbour? You start becoming rich very fast after the basics are met, and this increases rapidly the further from subsidence levels you go. Having choices, and disposable income, means you can turn any excess into profit (or luxuries should you choose), which gives you a basis from where "rich" starts. After that, the sky is the limit as your money then creates more money for yourself. You can work out what happens after that, but I can assure you that if it isn't controlled, it will not end well for anyone.
But without wealth, philanthrophy is not possible
Very true, Mr. Charles, and philanthropy is something I think we should encourage. Mr. Smarmeron is a self-confessed communist so inequality of income is anethema to him to start with. From my perspective I like to see lots of wealthy people who are prepared to devote some of their stash to good causes and even for their own private pleasure (I would not be sitting here typing in my garden if there were not such people, I'd still be working and with the lupine pest lolling around on the front doorstep). We need rich people to pick-up the slack on the arts, for scientific research, for advances in medicine, for thinking further forward than the next general election.
However, I think there needs to be some limit on the degree of wealth. How many billions can a man need? Once wealth gets too concentrated society suffers and if that goes on too long it tends not to end well for anyone.
@HurstLlama Does a rich person require 20 times the calorie intake of a poor person? does he require 30 times the room to live than his poorer neighbour? You start becoming rich very fast after the basics are met, and this increases rapidly the further from subsidence levels you go. Having choices, and disposable income, means you can turn any excess into profit (or luxuries should you choose), which gives you a basis from where "rich" starts. After that, the sky is the limit as your money then creates more money for yourself. You can work out what happens after that, but I can assure you that if it isn't controlled, it will not end well for anyone.
But without wealth, philanthrophy is not possible
Very true, Mr. Charles, and philanthropy is something I think we should encourage. Mr. Smarmeron is a self-confessed communist so inequality of income is anethema to him to start with. From my perspective I like to see lots of wealthy people who are prepared to devote some of their stash to good causes and even for their own private pleasure (I would not be sitting here typing in my garden if there were not such people, I'd still be working and with the lupine pest lolling around on the front doorstep). We need rich people to pick-up the slack on the arts, for scientific research, for advances in medicine, for thinking further forward than the next general election.
However, I think there needs to be some limit on the degree of wealth. How many billions can a man need? Once wealth gets too concentrated society suffers and if that goes on too long it tends not to end well for anyone.
Bill Gates seems to have come to the same conclusion.
'Response To Yesterday’s Times, YouGov Articles and YouGov’s published research about Survation’s Scottish Independence Methodology
...Peter Kellner provides no plausible hypothesis as to why the raw makeup of YouGov’s panel should be a much closer fit to reality than any panels used by Survation, ICM or Panelbase, so it is hard to draw any real conclusions on this point....
...That said, the practice of commissioning your own research solely for the purpose of criticizing another polling company’s methodology seems, in our view, to be unprecedented in the industry and not something that we would wish to repeat.'
If things falter before the election, I can guarantee it will "continue" As you well know, George's "miracle" is based on keeping the "boom" going till after the election, at which point he will have another five years to do something different to New Labour. Or not? Because all he has is smoke and mirrors. No miracles, just the same old shabby conjuring tricks that he has packaged differently like a third rate Paul Daniells.
Now look here, Smarmy, you should switch channels from the BBC for a while.
If you want to attack QE, and make the attack credible and rooted in fact, then the MPC's decisions to 'roll-over' borrowing as gilts in their portfolio mature is the target for attack.
I can understand the reasoning behind Carney's suggestion that the holdings don't need selling back into the market but can just be run out to maturity, but why keep topping up the tank?
The time has come for this policy to be changed.
Given we only have 2% inflation with the current level of expansion, ending it now would almost certainly cause disinflation and possibly deflation.
Not sure you understood what I was suggesting here, Socrates.
I am not proposing that the BoE sells its existing holdings of gilts.
What I am proposing is that when these gilts mature they should not replace them with new borrowing.
I don't have the figures in front of me but we are talking about around 5% of total holdings per annum, say £20 bn max, in any one year. That amount of 'deleveraging' would not case major market issues as either the private sector would step in to buy newly issued gilts or the DMO would reduce net issuance to accommodate reduced demand from the BoE.
I got that. What I think you're not understanding is that inflation is a rate of increase, not a stock level. Thus you need continuous expansion of the money supply to maintain inflation. Rock bottom interest rates are not doing it, so thus you need continuous increases in the money supply beyond this through ongoing asset purchases until it is going under its own steam. The fact it is only 2% with these purchases shows that it is not.
I am arguing that the BoE's exit from stock replacement would be neutral on money supply at the scale contemplated.
In current conditions the £20 bn p.a. would be substituted by foreign investment converting into sterling. As the economy normalises there would, in addition, be private sector substitution as the commercial banks expand their balance sheets.
Mr. Llama, what would stop the businesses putting their headquarters in countries without such a cap?
Nothing at all, Mr. D. but then that brings us to the question of how we tax companies. The situation where, say, Amazon can benefit from all the infrastructure of the UK (legal system, roads, etc. etc.) yet off-shore their profits so that they pay less than their fair share, needs to be addressed. If a company wants to do business here it should pay its taxes here on that business. I'd abolish corporation tax and return to treating companies as if they were individuals making them pay an income tax at a lowish rate but with no allowances (the system before 1964).
What you are describing is illegal under European law. Tim Worstall at the Adam Smith Institute has done some very good articles on this. The tax affairs of the 'tax juggling' big players of the EU such as Starbucks was investigated and found to be 100% compliant. It is in fact the whole point of a single market.
The moral outrage stems form the fact that different countries in the EU dare to set different corporation tax rates!
I am quite sure that the affairs of the likes of Amazon are fully compliant with current law. So what? I am arguing for a change in the law.
"In Scotland there’s a similar [i.e. huge] split between those born there and those born elsewhere." I believe this, but what is the evidence?
The "don't know/won't say" group are, I am sure, just very uncertain about what might follow independence, and it seems to many of us that neither side is itself clear on the matter. So the maxim "if in doubt, don't" will apply. I think the polls now understate the scale of the rejection on 18th September. I also hope that is the case because if not the SNP will follow the EU example and insist on further votes until the right answer is obtained.
I would suggest some of that difference is to do not so much with identity or birth but demographics - especially in the Borders. A fair proportion of the English incomers to Scotland are retirees. Who being elderly and house-owning and so on tend to be Tories and for No and so on. Doesn't change the final result, of course.
Mr. Owls, much as I respect your posts on here, that one was very much below par. To post a link taking us to a Daily Mirror political quiz without also posting a warning or, indeed, any sort of covering note is beyond the pale.
Mr. Llama, what would stop the businesses putting their headquarters in countries without such a cap?
Nothing at all, Mr. D. but then that brings us to the question of how we tax companies. The situation where, say, Amazon can benefit from all the infrastructure of the UK (legal system, roads, etc. etc.) yet off-shore their profits so that they pay less than their fair share, needs to be addressed. If a company wants to do business here it should pay its taxes here on that business. I'd abolish corporation tax and return to treating companies as if they were individuals making them pay an income tax at a lowish rate but with no allowances (the system before 1964).
What you are describing is illegal under European law. Tim Worstall at the Adam Smith Institute has done some very good articles on this. The tax affairs of the 'tax juggling' big players of the EU such as Starbucks was investigated and found to be 100% compliant. It is in fact the whole point of a single market.
The moral outrage stems form the fact that different countries in the EU dare to set different corporation tax rates!
I am quite sure that the affairs of the likes of Amazon are fully compliant with current law. So what? I am arguing for a change in the law.
Good luck with persuading the EU to close the single market! You could, of course, argue for us to leave the EU and then impose a minimum corporation tax rate on the UK - but since we are on the virtuous side already and heading even lower that would achieve little.
I think what you are really arguing for is that:
A. Ireland increases its corporation tax rates (which would destroy their economy). and/or B. EU countries harmonise their corporation tax rates (and destroy competitive incentives)
Oh dear. The real problem is not that Ireland has a 10% rate but that France and Germany and others do not.
(It's also very interesting to note that alot of UK companies are subject to takeover interest from the US right now as the merged entity could be UK domiciled and avoid damagingly high rates of US corporation tax. Osborne is bringing investment, business and jobs to the UK with ever more competitive tax arrangements. This, of course, does not compute with the left).
Bill Gates seems to have come to the same conclusion.
If you look at the French Revolution, the country had huge government debt from wars which the peasants and middle classes were stung into paying thru a complex tax system, whilst the very rich nobles paid nothing.
The government tried to reform the system to make the nobles pay, but they fought the reforms through the courts.
In the end, for the sake of conceding some ground, they lost everything. Something the rich of today would do well to bear in mind.
Th Lib Dems are doing atrociously in Scotland, Labour did tremendously well in 2010 there and can almost certainly only go backwards, the Conservatives may do better than in 2010 but are heading for a top maximum of 5 seats I think.
If the Scottish Tories win 5 seats I'll join Dan Hodges in streaking through Whitehall with just a Nigel Farage mask to protect my modesty.
Pigs will fly before that ever happens, unless it is in a future Scottish Conservative Party in an Independent Scotland.
Agreed it's unlikely, 3 seems a reasonable target for 2015, but let's just postulate for a moment....
Retain Dumfrieeshire etc Gain Berwickshire and Aberdeenshire West from the Lib Dems without needing to move forwards much, just on Lib Drm decline. gain Dumfries and Galloway from Labour (they held it in 2001 nominally and topped the Euros there)
Leaves one to gain - Fife NE, Edinburgh W, Banff and Buchan, Argyll and Bute, Perth and North Perthshire???
Comments
Sticking Con 35, Labour 32, Lib Dems 11 into EC calculator yields Con 301, Lab 299, LD 22
But Eastleigh and Sutton are in the Conservative column... and Argyll and Bute is in the Lab column - It could all be very close come GE night.
June 33 37 8 14 9 -4
May 33 36 9 14 8 -3
April 33 37 9 13 6 -4
March 34 38 10 12 6 -4
February 33 39 9 12 7 -6
January 33 39 9 12 7 -6
2013
December 33 39 9 12 7 -6
November 32 39 9 12 7 -7
October 33 39 9 11 7 -6
September 33 38 9 12 8 -5
Last 10 months Lab lead narrowed by 2%.
Interesting 10 months to go unless swing back speeds up a lot Lab largest party looks likely to me.
The policies of the coalition will increase unemployment (4m or 5m) = Unemployment dropped.
The policies of the coalition will lead to double/triple dips and no growth = we have record growth.
The policies of the coalition are leading to employment growth only in London = Most employment growth is outside London.
The policies of the coalition are only benefitting the rich = the top 10% got hit the hardest 2011 – 2013.
The policies of the coalition will…. (insert the next attack line and wait for it to backfire).
That's if we don't all die of the Englysh Swete first.
After the print button was pressed, the BOE distributed it to the banks, who then loaned it to investors, The investors then used this money to make themselves more money, paying back at low interest rates.
This had the effect of inflating asset prices creating further wealth above the rate of GDP.
The question that might be on the minds of the curious is, what exactly is this new wealth based on? A percentage will have come from an increase in GDP, but patently not all of it has.
(Simple answer: the value of those assets is defined by the value of their production. And if the value of these assets is growing relative to GDP, it must mean that the production produced by said assets is increasing relative to GDP. Eventually however, the production of these assets will become GDP, and therefore it is impossible for them to grow faster - in the long-run - than nominal GDP.)
Yes, they based it on convenient figures, just as Cameron bases his .
Politics 1 .01?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-28130581
SNP = devolution, Holyrood, Indy referendum, pretendy devo max and grudgingly produced carrots.
No SNP = business as usual.
Asset prices have apparently been doing the impossible for a lot of human history (with a reversal during the middle part of the century) and appear to be continuing for the moment.
This should logically end in tears, but for some reason it never does.....for the rich that is.
So where does this "continued QE" come from?
Allegra at the BBC?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-28144747#
An event in Canada is currently advertising itself as an "annual festival of LGBTTIQQ2SA culture and human rights", with LGBTTIQQ2SA representing "a broad array of identities such as, but not limited to, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transsexual, transgender, intersex, queer, questioning, two-spirited, and allies". Two-spirited is a term used by Native Americans to describe more than one gender identity.
Curious, as I usually get e-mails from them and letters from Labour. The Lib Dems, kindly, leave me alone.
The bulk of them are professionals, and many work in the financial services sector. So their vote probably owes more to their economic interests than it does to anything else. In that sense they are in tune with the Scots who share that background.
I am disabled and live on benefits. I reckon that my life will be better if Scotland cuts its links with Tory Southern England. Most of my friends are also English, and they take the same view. I do have an Afrikaner friend who will vote yes as she thinks that with independence she won't have to jump through quite so many hoops to get citizenship.
So it isn't where you were born as such, rather it's how you see the world.
Prestwick was a white elephant even in the mid 1970s, long before the SNP gained power.
Can't Eck give it to Wales. I understand the Labour adminstration in Cardiff are looking for a self-aggrandising long runway?
edit: found it!
http://everything2.com/title/ship+naming+conventions
Capital ships (including carriers) have traditional & often inspirational names. Ships are named on a class basis, led by a "name ship". (e.g. Lion and Tiger are usually grouped in the same class, as are Invincible, Indefatigable, Indominatable and Inflexible)
Cruisers and destroyers are named either a letter class (B for destroyers, C and D for Cruisers and U for submarines)
Some destroyers, crusiers and sloops also have category class names:
Destroyers - Weapons; Tribes, Towns, Hunts
Cruisers - Cathedrals, Counties,
Sloops - Flowers
Prestwick was a white elephant even in the mid 1970s, long before the SNP gained power.
Can't Eck give it to Wales? I understand the Labour administration in Cardiff are looking for a long runway to show off.
To be in the top 1% of earners in London you would need an income of about £205k, the South East it is the people earning more than £114K, but in Wales you are up there with the richest 1% if you earn just £80k.
Source: http://news.efinancialcareers.com/uk-en/177045/heres-much-need-earn-per-hour-fall-top-1-london/
For the top 10% it would seem a base income of £60 will get you in that group
http://www.theguardian.com/money/2014/mar/25/uk-incomes-how-salary-compare
So these rich fat cats that Mr. Smarmeron talks about turn out to be not so rich after all. Perhaps instead of talking about the top 10% he should be saying the top 0.1%
If things falter before the election, I can guarantee it will "continue"
As you well know, George's "miracle" is based on keeping the "boom" going till after the election, at which point he will have another five years to do something different to New Labour.
Or not? Because all he has is smoke and mirrors. No miracles, just the same old shabby conjuring tricks that he has packaged differently like a third rate Paul Daniells.
They cannot get it into their heads that it is nothing to do if you were born Scottish or English , it is what type of country you want for the future , continue with bankrupt Britain or have some hope that there can be a better way to do things.
I for one would like a better country than that portrayed by the majority viewpoint on PB.
Well, at least there's one kipper who believes in Cameron's IN/OUT referendum promise.
If only the others would learn from their College.
People who base judgements on the future value of assets by looking at how they have performed in the recent past usually end up poor.
Prestwick is absolutely essential for Ayrshire and is a fantastic facility that needs investment.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rMhvYeQPOcE
The perceived, ideal and reality of the wealth distribution in the USA are miles apart.
We're not the USA and I'm grateful for that but its an interesting vid nonetheless.
Very LGBTTIQQ2SA.
It's the nature of capitalism, the economic system we pretend to live under, but corrupt with pseudo communist social democratic programmes.
Of course, if capitalism were allowed to run free, the banks would have fallen
If capitalism were allowed to run free, the top percent would be harnessing the redundant labour of the unemployed in return for clothing, food and shelter. The workhouse would be back.
So, maybe a few fat cats is the price the left have to pay in return for a touchy feely society that doesn't demonise it's poor, and get the middle classes, as ever, to pick up the tab.
It's technology that eventually will set us free, if we can get off this damn rock first.
If you want to attack QE, and make the attack credible and rooted in fact, then the MPC's decisions to 'roll-over' borrowing as gilts in their portfolio mature is the target for attack.
I can understand the reasoning behind Carney's suggestion that the holdings don't need selling back into the market but can just be run out to maturity, but why keep topping up the tank?
The time has come for this policy to be changed.
Live by the sword, die by the sword.
Instead it seems the oft repeated lefty mantra of privatise the profits, socialise the losses was actually the truth.
Does a rich person require 20 times the calorie intake of a poor person? does he require 30 times the room to live than his poorer neighbour? You start becoming rich very fast after the basics are met, and this increases rapidly the further from subsidence levels you go.
Having choices, and disposable income, means you can turn any excess into profit (or luxuries should you choose), which gives you a basis from where "rich" starts.
After that, the sky is the limit as your money then creates more money for yourself.
You can work out what happens after that, but I can assure you that if it isn't controlled, it will not end well for anyone.
I wonder in six months to a year from now who will have the more favourable legacy?
My money's on Enoch
Unfortunately it was the only solution, because of the way regulators allowed the banking industry to become.
You can regulate all you like, but the only thing that that will make these people think again when they are speculating is losing their positions, homes, livelihoods and fortunes.
And for that, banks and other financial institutions must be allowed to fail. And dealers must have a much longer term stake in what they are doing.
A wage cap might be a good place to start. Do these fancy CEO's with their mega salaries really earn them? Recent history would suggest otherwise, just look at the big companies that have gone to the wall despite paying their top people vast sums. So maybe limiting a director's salary to some reasonable multiple of the median pay of their employees might not be damaging (there aren't many SME's where the top bod gets 340 times the salary of the average employee). Top pay in the public sector is for sure totally out of wack with the responsibilities and risks involved.
Without potential Gov't intervention the risk is small, but not zero. Gov't acted to close this risk to zero in 2008 with RBS in particular, outside of the normal deposit protection schemes.
I am not proposing that the BoE sells its existing holdings of gilts.
What I am proposing is that when these gilts mature they should not replace them with new borrowing.
I don't have the figures in front of me but we are talking about around 5% of total holdings per annum, say £20 bn max, in any one year. That amount of 'deleveraging' would not case major market issues as either the private sector would step in to buy newly issued gilts or the DMO would reduce net issuance to accommodate reduced demand from the BoE.
On the public pay, no public official should earn more than the PM - although having said that I think the office of Prime Minister is probably underpaid.
Raise the salary to £250k for the PM, base all public sector salaries off of that.
PS: also love Christmas dinner
Th Lib Dems are doing atrociously in Scotland, Labour did tremendously well in 2010 there and can almost certainly only go backwards, the Conservatives may do better than in 2010 but are heading for a top maximum of 5 seats I think.
Which leaves the SNP.
The moral outrage stems form the fact that different countries in the EU dare to set different corporation tax rates!
For those interested in making the comparison with @Pulpstar's video,
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/video/2013/oct/08/inequality-how-wealth-distributed-uk-animated-video
I need to go, but thanks for the discussion
I would not say that 130k a year is 'rich'. It is certainly 'well off'. There are not that many people who earn 130k thats true. However I would still say it is not rich. Rich is about having substantial capital not just an income which saddles you with a vast mortgage. Certainly by the time the mortgage matures your house value will have increased, but so will other house values if you want to move. You may then downsize and use the profit as a pension pot but then again this does not make you 'rich', just 'well off'.
Posh and Becks are rich.
How would and income of 130k compare with earnings in say 1950? Who would we see earning such money in 1950? Would we consider them rich - as opposed to say Lady Docker?
Co-incidence or cause?
Anyway, here is a chart from the ONS report which shows the difference in distribution of wealth and income in the UK. The pattern is similar to the US but less pronounced in its extremes.
A talking point nonetheless.
Chart: http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/resources/figure2_tcm77-369645.png
Report: http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/rel/was/wealth-in-great-britain-wave-3/wealth-and-income--2010-12/stb--wealth-and-income--2010-12.html#tab-Key-points
Accounting systems are being harmonised with IFRS, that provides a neat basis for perhaps a pan-Euro corp tax rate minimum of say 20% ?
If only you were a poet:
O reason not the need! Our basest beggars
Are in the poorest thing superfluous.
Allow not nature more than nature needs,
Man's life is as cheap as beast's. Thou art a lady:
If only to go warm were gorgeous,
Why, nature needs not what thou gorgeous wear'st,
Which scarcely keeps thee warm.
However, I think there needs to be some limit on the degree of wealth. How many billions can a man need? Once wealth gets too concentrated society suffers and if that goes on too long it tends not to end well for anyone.
'Response To Yesterday’s Times, YouGov Articles and YouGov’s published research about Survation’s Scottish Independence Methodology
...Peter Kellner provides no plausible hypothesis as to why the raw makeup of YouGov’s panel should be a much closer fit to reality than any panels used by Survation, ICM or Panelbase, so it is hard to draw any real conclusions on this point....
...That said, the practice of commissioning your own research solely for the purpose of criticizing another polling company’s methodology seems, in our view, to be unprecedented in the industry and not something that we would wish to repeat.'
http://tinyurl.com/qhrfuwv
In current conditions the £20 bn p.a. would be substituted by foreign investment converting into sterling. As the economy normalises there would, in addition, be private sector substitution as the commercial banks expand their balance sheets.
As for "as the economy normalises", well, yes, I agree. The point is we're not there, as even with the purchases, we only have 2% inflation.
I think what you are really arguing for is that:
A. Ireland increases its corporation tax rates (which would destroy their economy). and/or
B. EU countries harmonise their corporation tax rates (and destroy competitive incentives)
Oh dear. The real problem is not that Ireland has a 10% rate but that France and Germany and others do not.
(It's also very interesting to note that alot of UK companies are subject to takeover interest from the US right now as the merged entity could be UK domiciled and avoid damagingly high rates of US corporation tax. Osborne is bringing investment, business and jobs to the UK with ever more competitive tax arrangements. This, of course, does not compute with the left).
If you look at the French Revolution, the country had huge government debt from wars which the peasants and middle classes were stung into paying thru a complex tax system, whilst the very rich nobles paid nothing.
The government tried to reform the system to make the nobles pay, but they fought the reforms through the courts.
In the end, for the sake of conceding some ground, they lost everything. Something the rich of today would do well to bear in mind.
It is a binary choice with an expected turnout over 80%.
In theory far simpler than a General Election.
Retain Dumfrieeshire etc
Gain Berwickshire and Aberdeenshire West from the Lib Dems without needing to move forwards much, just on Lib Drm decline.
gain Dumfries and Galloway from Labour (they held it in 2001 nominally and topped the Euros there)
Leaves one to gain - Fife NE, Edinburgh W, Banff and Buchan, Argyll and Bute, Perth and North Perthshire???
Tall order, but possible on a share of 19-20%