A spitfire and hurricane doing a triple pass over Colonel Tom evokes so many memories for me
He and they are an utter inspiration
To think, we could have charged the Duke of Westminster a 0.3% wealth tax and raised just as much for the NHS.
There can be no doubt that the wealthy are going to have to pay much more tax
G, you are exceedingly naive, the wealthy do not pay much tax due to avoiding/evading it, you seriously think that will change or your Tory chums will close any of the loopholes/UK tax havens that facilitate it. Time to take of those blue tinted specs, the great unwashed will pay for it as usual, wealthy will not be inconvenienced one bit other than getting wealthier with the rich pickings that will be on offer at bargain basement prices.
Make it simple. Everyone should just pay (say) 30% of their gross income, maybe if you earn over 100k. No allowances, no tax breaks. I bet it's more than the super-rich currently pay. Another way would be to deem a notional income from your net wealth, and levy a tax on the notional income
So people sitting on big assets don't contribute?
No, we derive a notional income from their assets and tax it.
You can't pay tax if you don't have cash. Are you arguing for putting a charge on people's homes or do you plan to force people to sell?
There's walls of cash sitting on bank accounts at the moment, we need to get the conditions right so people invest it.
They effectively do already, by providing banks with liquidity.
That's a shitty investment.
With current interest rates, yes it is.
Given interest rates have been shitty for 12 years now, exactly how do you propose to get people to invest rather than leaving their money slowly eroding away in a bank account.
The fact is we've had 10 years of (slow) growth and that money hasn't been invested.
A spitfire and hurricane doing a triple pass over Colonel Tom evokes so many memories for me
He and they are an utter inspiration
To think, we could have charged the Duke of Westminster a 0.3% wealth tax and raised just as much for the NHS.
There can be no doubt that the wealthy are going to have to pay much more tax
G, you are exceedingly naive, the wealthy do not pay much tax due to avoiding/evading it, you seriously think that will change or your Tory chums will close any of the loopholes/UK tax havens that facilitate it. Time to take of those blue tinted specs, the great unwashed will pay for it as usual, wealthy will not be inconvenienced one bit other than getting wealthier with the rich pickings that will be on offer at bargain basement prices.
Make it simple. Everyone should just pay (say) 30% of their gross income, maybe if you earn over 100k. No allowances, no tax breaks. I bet it's more than the super-rich currently pay. Another way would be to deem a notional income from your net wealth, and levy a tax on the notional income
So people sitting on big assets don't contribute?
Assets are tough to tax unfortunately. Property, land and cars potentially - but everything else can be stashed under the bed.
Hence why income and consumption get hammered by HMRC.
I don't see why there are separate tax free allowances on dividend income and capital gains. Everyone should get the tax free allowance and then pay tax at their marginal rate on all other income.
The reason is because dividends come from corporate post-tax income while wages come from corporate pre-tax income. So they're already taxed and then getting taxed again. So for those with minimal dividends earnings its not worth chasing but for those with major earnings it is.
But there are payroll taxes. I'd say stop fannying around making things "fair" in a way that actually only benefits wealthy people. In any case, shareholders should really be taxed on retained profit as well as distributed as they are beneficial owners of the business so corporation tax is really a proxy for that
A tax free allowance for dividends doesn't benefit wealthy people. It benefits people with tiny dividend amounts who don't have to mess around filing a tax return and it helps HMRC by not wasting HMRC's resources chasing tiny, tiny sums of money. If there were no tax free allowances would you suggest that someone earning £50 in dividends should file a tax return and be taxed on that £50?
Those who are earning past the threshold are taxed on all their income past the threshold and have to file a tax return etc - its those below the threshold that are protected.
No I'd put a de minimis in, maybe £100. In any case, you used to have tax deducted at source on dividends I think, as with bank interest.
No. You never did. You had a 'nominal tax credit' added, which wasn't tax deducted at source. Bank interest yes, but it was all admin on admin.
This paper, by some modellers in Swansea, might add fuel to the fire (note the full paper is a little more nuanced than the quoted abstract)...
COVID-19 containment policies through time may cost more lives at metapopulation level https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.04.22.20075093v1.full.pdf The rapid and pandemic spread of COVID-19 has led to unprecedented containment policies in response to overloaded health care systems. Disease mitigation strategies require informed decision-making to ensure a balance between the protection of the vulnerable from disease and the maintenance of global economies. We show that temporally restricted containment efforts, that have the potential to flatten epidemic curves, can result in wider disease spread and larger epidemic sizes in metapopulations. Longer-term rewiring of metapopulation networks or the enforcement of feasible long-term measures that decrease disease transmissions appear to be more efficient than temporarily restricted intensive mitigation strategies (e.g. short-term mass quarantine). Our results may inform balanced containment strategies for short-term disease spread mitigation in response to overloaded health care systems and longer-term epidemiological sizes...
Our results may inform balanced containment strategies for short-term disease spread mitigation in response to overloaded health care systems and longer-term epidemiological sizes...
A spitfire and hurricane doing a triple pass over Colonel Tom evokes so many memories for me
He and they are an utter inspiration
To think, we could have charged the Duke of Westminster a 0.3% wealth tax and raised just as much for the NHS.
There can be no doubt that the wealthy are going to have to pay much more tax
Define wealthy.
Pensioners currently living mortgage free? Families with salaries over 80k? People with more than one property?
All of the above?
Yes, that`s the problem isn`t it. I suspect that BigG meant much more wealthy than the three examples that you cite.
To answer your question
Many mortgage free pensioners are living on their pension and not wealthy
Any family with £100,000 plus are doing very well but may not be wealthy
Anyone owning two homes may well be wealty
But my target are celebrities, footballers and highly paid CEO and others
Trouble is there aren't quite enough celebs, CEOs and footballers to dent the national finances.
If you are serious about this black hole, you will probably need to tax both the comfortable income and the mortgage free pensioner.
I am a mortgage free pensioner, I am paying huge sums to the Govt thro petrol, fuel oil, electricity, council tax and other invented charges by the council for other spurious services (bin collections car park pass etc) then you get stiffed in car parks where the pass does not work (Horsham is hugely expensive) then there's the tax on my pension and my state pension. If I take anything from mySIPP I get taxed too. Then they tax my small dividends , and its only because interest rates are zero that they don't tax my savings. I then pay inordinate amounts of VAT on things I buy. I am drowning in taxes.
What do they give me? Bins emptied and my lane resurfaced every 25yrs.
I think VAT will go up to 25% That's my guess when we start paying off our borrowings for Covid 19
A spitfire and hurricane doing a triple pass over Colonel Tom evokes so many memories for me
He and they are an utter inspiration
To think, we could have charged the Duke of Westminster a 0.3% wealth tax and raised just as much for the NHS.
There can be no doubt that the wealthy are going to have to pay much more tax
G, you are exceedingly naive, the wealthy do not pay much tax due to avoiding/evading it, you seriously think that will change or your Tory chums will close any of the loopholes/UK tax havens that facilitate it. Time to take of those blue tinted specs, the great unwashed will pay for it as usual, wealthy will not be inconvenienced one bit other than getting wealthier with the rich pickings that will be on offer at bargain basement prices.
Make it simple. Everyone should just pay (say) 30% of their gross income, maybe if you earn over 100k. No allowances, no tax breaks. I bet it's more than the super-rich currently pay. Another way would be to deem a notional income from your net wealth, and levy a tax on the notional income
So people sitting on big assets don't contribute?
Assets are tough to tax unfortunately. Property, land and cars potentially - but everything else can be stashed under the bed.
Hence why income and consumption get hammered by HMRC.
I don't see why there are separate tax free allowances on dividend income and capital gains. Everyone should get the tax free allowance and then pay tax at their marginal rate on all other income.
The reason is because dividends come from corporate post-tax income while wages come from corporate pre-tax income. So they're already taxed and then getting taxed again. So for those with minimal dividends earnings its not worth chasing but for those with major earnings it is.
But there are payroll taxes. I'd say stop fannying around making things "fair" in a way that actually only benefits wealthy people. In any case, shareholders should really be taxed on retained profit as well as distributed as they are beneficial owners of the business so corporation tax is really a proxy for that
A tax free allowance for dividends doesn't benefit wealthy people. It benefits people with tiny dividend amounts who don't have to mess around filing a tax return and it helps HMRC by not wasting HMRC's resources chasing tiny, tiny sums of money. If there were no tax free allowances would you suggest that someone earning £50 in dividends should file a tax return and be taxed on that £50?
Those who are earning past the threshold are taxed on all their income past the threshold and have to file a tax return etc - its those below the threshold that are protected.
No I'd put a de minimis in, maybe £100. In any case, you used to have tax deducted at source on dividends I think, as with bank interest.
So if you'd put a de minimis then another name for that is a threshold. You're just quibbling now over what the appropriate threshold is not the principle of it.
It makes sense to be taxing the wealthy with lots of dividends not those with small amounts, that's what the threshold is all about.
Sentiments beautifully expressed and much sympathy for those feeling this way - but IMO overwrought. A vaccine is near certain in 2021. Virus to be controlled until then by living cautiously. In a matter of a year or so back to normal except a bit poorer. Still a first world prosperous country. Mine's a pint.
"Boris":
I gather he's fronting up the presser today, explaining R0 to the nation, and his lockdown thinking, and taking questions. If true, this implies I was wrong in my series of posts yesterday where I pretty much called him a skiver. So I take that back. Feel a touch sheepish.
Lockdown:
I urge people not to get their hopes up about an imminent relaxation. I have analyzed the balance of political risk in the decision and it steers very heavily to keeping the current regime in place until R0 is down towards the 0.5 mark - and such is known by SAGE with confidence. A realistic target IMO is 28th May.
I do wonder if Tim Martin's comments yesterday about reopening in June were the results of an off the record discussion with government. So I am thinking we will get another three weeks lockdown followed by a bigger liberalisation than expected
A path out of COVID-19 quarantine: an analysis of policy scenarios https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.04.23.20077503v1 In this work we present an analysis of the two major strategies currently implemented around the world in the fight against COVID-19: Social distancing & shelter-in-place measures to protect the susceptible, and testing & contact-tracing to identify, isolate and treat the infected. The majority of countries have principally relied on the former; we consider the examples of Italy, Canada and the United States. By fitting a disease transmission model to daily case report data, we infer that in each of the three countries, the current level of national shutdown is equivalent to about half the population being under quarantine. We demonstrate that in the absence of other measures, scaling back social distancing in such a way as to prevent a second wave will take prohibitively long. In contrast, South Korea, a country that has managed to control and suppress its outbreak principally through mass testing and contact tracing, and has only instated a partial shutdown. For all four countries, we estimate the level of testing which would be required to allow a complete exit from shutdown and a full lifting of social distancing measures, without a resurgence of COVID-19. We find that a "brute-force" approach of untargeted universal testing requires an average testing rate of once every 36 to 48 hours for every individual, depending on the country. If testing is combined with contact tracing, and/or if tests are able to identify latent infection, then an average rate of once every 4 to 5 days is sufficient...
A spitfire and hurricane doing a triple pass over Colonel Tom evokes so many memories for me
He and they are an utter inspiration
To think, we could have charged the Duke of Westminster a 0.3% wealth tax and raised just as much for the NHS.
There can be no doubt that the wealthy are going to have to pay much more tax
G, you are exceedingly naive, the wealthy do not pay much tax due to avoiding/evading it, you seriously think that will change or your Tory chums will close any of the loopholes/UK tax havens that facilitate it. Time to take of those blue tinted specs, the great unwashed will pay for it as usual, wealthy will not be inconvenienced one bit other than getting wealthier with the rich pickings that will be on offer at bargain basement prices.
Make it simple. Everyone should just pay (say) 30% of their gross income, maybe if you earn over 100k. No allowances, no tax breaks. I bet it's more than the super-rich currently pay. Another way would be to deem a notional income from your net wealth, and levy a tax on the notional income
So people sitting on big assets don't contribute?
They will have bought those assets with taxed income so why pay tax on it twice
This paper, by some modellers in Swansea, might add fuel to the fire (note the full paper is a little more nuanced than the quoted abstract)...
COVID-19 containment policies through time may cost more lives at metapopulation level https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.04.22.20075093v1.full.pdf The rapid and pandemic spread of COVID-19 has led to unprecedented containment policies in response to overloaded health care systems. Disease mitigation strategies require informed decision-making to ensure a balance between the protection of the vulnerable from disease and the maintenance of global economies. We show that temporally restricted containment efforts, that have the potential to flatten epidemic curves, can result in wider disease spread and larger epidemic sizes in metapopulations. Longer-term rewiring of metapopulation networks or the enforcement of feasible long-term measures that decrease disease transmissions appear to be more efficient than temporarily restricted intensive mitigation strategies (e.g. short-term mass quarantine). Our results may inform balanced containment strategies for short-term disease spread mitigation in response to overloaded health care systems and longer-term epidemiological sizes...
I'd like to see any tax increases focussed on consumption, especially of, for example fossil fuels. Those activities that contribute towards the degradation of the environment and, ultimately, an even greater problem than Covid-19, should become expensive luxuries.
Support your point about fossil fuels but taxes on consumption are tricky:
1. They are regressive, impacting the poorest (who spend all they get) proportionally much more than the wealthy who invest what they can't spend in houses, land, stocks etc.
2. If we are trying to recover from a very deep recession (as we will be soon) we need to encourage consumption not dampen it.
Its worth noting that the tax free dividend allowance for someone on basic rate tax is worth £150. In essence a liability of £150 or less HMRC doesn't bother to chase up or make you go through the hassle of a tax return, but a liability of more than that it does.
For those already paying higher rates it scales more of course but they're also already paying higher rates and will continue to do so if they go past the threshold.
A spitfire and hurricane doing a triple pass over Colonel Tom evokes so many memories for me
He and they are an utter inspiration
To think, we could have charged the Duke of Westminster a 0.3% wealth tax and raised just as much for the NHS.
There can be no doubt that the wealthy are going to have to pay much more tax
G, you are exceedingly naive, the wealthy do not pay much tax due to avoiding/evading it, you seriously think that will change or your Tory chums will close any of the loopholes/UK tax havens that facilitate it. Time to take of those blue tinted specs, the great unwashed will pay for it as usual, wealthy will not be inconvenienced one bit other than getting wealthier with the rich pickings that will be on offer at bargain basement prices.
Make it simple. Everyone should just pay (say) 30% of their gross income, maybe if you earn over 100k. No allowances, no tax breaks. I bet it's more than the super-rich currently pay. Another way would be to deem a notional income from your net wealth, and levy a tax on the notional income
So people sitting on big assets don't contribute?
They will have bought those assets with taxed income so why pay tax on it twice
Er... did the Duke of Westminster buy his assest with taxed income Malc?
This may be a silly question, but if you have only developed one antibody test, how can you tell so precisely how accurate it is?
False negatives I guess you can work out from people who previously tested positive when they had the infection (although of course that test also has false results).
But how can you know how many false positives you have?
Yes. I've been wondering this as well.
My guess (based on almost zero knowledge) is that there's always a much more complicated/time-consuming/expensive test that is 99.9% accurate. This can be used to assess the accuracy of the test that's going to be used commercially.
That is pretty well the case (though there are several more complicated time consuming/expensive assays which are used to benchmark, as none are perfect, so you cross check against a range of standards).
The tests that are being developed target only one or two antibodies produced in response to the virus, while in reality there are several (and the more complicated assays may also be set up to identify/detect other antibodies present, too).
Also, if you're testing samples from those who you know have had the infection, a failure to detect antibodies gives you another means of checking for false negatives.
Thanks. The problem with the last point is presumably that the best test we have in this case is apparently only 75% accurate (although I can never get straight whether this refers to false positives or false negatives - I think the latter, but presumably there is a non-zero rate on the former as well) which complicates its use as a cross-check.
This paper, by some modellers in Swansea, might add fuel to the fire (note the full paper is a little more nuanced than the quoted abstract)...
COVID-19 containment policies through time may cost more lives at metapopulation level https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.04.22.20075093v1.full.pdf The rapid and pandemic spread of COVID-19 has led to unprecedented containment policies in response to overloaded health care systems. Disease mitigation strategies require informed decision-making to ensure a balance between the protection of the vulnerable from disease and the maintenance of global economies. We show that temporally restricted containment efforts, that have the potential to flatten epidemic curves, can result in wider disease spread and larger epidemic sizes in metapopulations. Longer-term rewiring of metapopulation networks or the enforcement of feasible long-term measures that decrease disease transmissions appear to be more efficient than temporarily restricted intensive mitigation strategies (e.g. short-term mass quarantine). Our results may inform balanced containment strategies for short-term disease spread mitigation in response to overloaded health care systems and longer-term epidemiological sizes...
So is this paper saying that lockdowns might not be the best way to control an epidemic?
A spitfire and hurricane doing a triple pass over Colonel Tom evokes so many memories for me
He and they are an utter inspiration
To think, we could have charged the Duke of Westminster a 0.3% wealth tax and raised just as much for the NHS.
There can be no doubt that the wealthy are going to have to pay much more tax
G, you are exceedingly naive, the wealthy do not pay much tax due to avoiding/evading it, you seriously think that will change or your Tory chums will close any of the loopholes/UK tax havens that facilitate it. Time to take of those blue tinted specs, the great unwashed will pay for it as usual, wealthy will not be inconvenienced one bit other than getting wealthier with the rich pickings that will be on offer at bargain basement prices.
Make it simple. Everyone should just pay (say) 30% of their gross income, maybe if you earn over 100k. No allowances, no tax breaks. I bet it's more than the super-rich currently pay. Another way would be to deem a notional income from your net wealth, and levy a tax on the notional income
Exactly but Tories will never do that as they and their chums are the users of the loopholes and tax havens. Just amazes me the amount of non wealthy people simple enough to be conned into voting for these rapacious arseholes.
Malc. Just watch this space.
Boris and especially Rishi are a new bread of conservative and they will seek fairness in the taxes everyone is paying, indeed they will have no choice
I will be unlikely to ever see it, supposing I live to a hundred. I am optimistic by nature but not a fantasist G.
This paper, by some modellers in Swansea, might add fuel to the fire (note the full paper is a little more nuanced than the quoted abstract)...
COVID-19 containment policies through time may cost more lives at metapopulation level https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.04.22.20075093v1.full.pdf The rapid and pandemic spread of COVID-19 has led to unprecedented containment policies in response to overloaded health care systems. Disease mitigation strategies require informed decision-making to ensure a balance between the protection of the vulnerable from disease and the maintenance of global economies. We show that temporally restricted containment efforts, that have the potential to flatten epidemic curves, can result in wider disease spread and larger epidemic sizes in metapopulations. Longer-term rewiring of metapopulation networks or the enforcement of feasible long-term measures that decrease disease transmissions appear to be more efficient than temporarily restricted intensive mitigation strategies (e.g. short-term mass quarantine). Our results may inform balanced containment strategies for short-term disease spread mitigation in response to overloaded health care systems and longer-term epidemiological sizes...
This is why the Swedish approach may be best.
The risk there is that like Lombardy, your health service gets overrun.
There is no easy answer here, the problem is that everyone seems to be after one.
A spitfire and hurricane doing a triple pass over Colonel Tom evokes so many memories for me
He and they are an utter inspiration
To think, we could have charged the Duke of Westminster a 0.3% wealth tax and raised just as much for the NHS.
There can be no doubt that the wealthy are going to have to pay much more tax
G, you are exceedingly naive, the wealthy do not pay much tax due to avoiding/evading it, you seriously think that will change or your Tory chums will close any of the loopholes/UK tax havens that facilitate it. Time to take of those blue tinted specs, the great unwashed will pay for it as usual, wealthy will not be inconvenienced one bit other than getting wealthier with the rich pickings that will be on offer at bargain basement prices.
Make it simple. Everyone should just pay (say) 30% of their gross income, maybe if you earn over 100k. No allowances, no tax breaks. I bet it's more than the super-rich currently pay. Another way would be to deem a notional income from your net wealth, and levy a tax on the notional income
So people sitting on big assets don't contribute?
They will have bought those assets with taxed income so why pay tax on it twice
Malc's a lot sounder on the money that he is on the constitution!
BTW, Malc, what do you make of the latest blast from Alex Bell?
Its worth noting that the tax free dividend allowance for someone on basic rate tax is worth £150. In essence a liability of £150 or less HMRC doesn't bother to chase up or make you go through the hassle of a tax return, but a liability of more than that it does.
For those already paying higher rates it scales more of course but they're also already paying higher rates and will continue to do so if they go past the threshold.
Surely it's 20% x 2K = £400? Or am i misunderstanding? But that doesn't change your point.
A spitfire and hurricane doing a triple pass over Colonel Tom evokes so many memories for me
He and they are an utter inspiration
To think, we could have charged the Duke of Westminster a 0.3% wealth tax and raised just as much for the NHS.
There can be no doubt that the wealthy are going to have to pay much more tax
G, you are exceedingly naive, the wealthy do not pay much tax due to avoiding/evading it, you seriously think that will change or your Tory chums will close any of the loopholes/UK tax havens that facilitate it. Time to take of those blue tinted specs, the great unwashed will pay for it as usual, wealthy will not be inconvenienced one bit other than getting wealthier with the rich pickings that will be on offer at bargain basement prices.
Make it simple. Everyone should just pay (say) 30% of their gross income, maybe if you earn over 100k. No allowances, no tax breaks. I bet it's more than the super-rich currently pay. Another way would be to deem a notional income from your net wealth, and levy a tax on the notional income
So people sitting on big assets don't contribute?
They will have bought those assets with taxed income so why pay tax on it twice
I've never bought the pay tax twice argument. We pay tax thousands of times, not twice.
If you work for an employer then the employer pays national insurance on your wages and you pay national insurance on your wages as well. That's twice. You pay income tax too, that's three times. Spend the money on something? VAT, that's 4 times. Spend on something like fuel - pay duty too, that's 5 times - oh and there's VAT on the duty too.
I'd like to see any tax increases focussed on consumption, especially of, for example fossil fuels. Those activities that contribute towards the degradation of the environment and, ultimately, an even greater problem than Covid-19, should become expensive luxuries.
Support your point about fossil fuels but taxes on consumption are tricky:
1. They are regressive, impacting the poorest (who spend all they get) proportionally much more than the wealthy who invest what they can't spend in houses, land, stocks etc.
2. If we are trying to recover from a very deep recession (as we will be soon) we need to encourage consumption not dampen it.
Exactly. If's like putting VAT or whatever on private schools. The real 'rich' toffs won't give a monkeys if prices go up 20%, but it'll be the middle classes which now couldn't afford it.
Or, my example with flying below is more apt really. The super rich in private jets will still be the super rich in private jets. IT'll be the once in every few years trip to disney land families which will suffer and no longer go.
Its worth noting that the tax free dividend allowance for someone on basic rate tax is worth £150. In essence a liability of £150 or less HMRC doesn't bother to chase up or make you go through the hassle of a tax return, but a liability of more than that it does.
For those already paying higher rates it scales more of course but they're also already paying higher rates and will continue to do so if they go past the threshold.
Surely it's 20% x 2K = £400? Or am i misunderstanding? But that doesn't change your point.
No dividend tax rates are different to take into account the fact that dividend income is from post-tax income. Basic rate dividend tax is 7.5%
Its worth noting that the tax free dividend allowance for someone on basic rate tax is worth £150. In essence a liability of £150 or less HMRC doesn't bother to chase up or make you go through the hassle of a tax return, but a liability of more than that it does.
For those already paying higher rates it scales more of course but they're also already paying higher rates and will continue to do so if they go past the threshold.
Surely it's 20% x 2K = £400? Or am i misunderstanding? But that doesn't change your point.
A spitfire and hurricane doing a triple pass over Colonel Tom evokes so many memories for me
He and they are an utter inspiration
To think, we could have charged the Duke of Westminster a 0.3% wealth tax and raised just as much for the NHS.
There can be no doubt that the wealthy are going to have to pay much more tax
Define wealthy.
Pensioners currently living mortgage free? Families with salaries over 80k? People with more than one property?
All of the above?
Yes, that`s the problem isn`t it. I suspect that BigG meant much more wealthy than the three examples that you cite.
To answer your question
Many mortgage free pensioners are living on their pension and not wealthy
Any family with £100,000 plus are doing very well but may not be wealthy
Anyone owning two homes may well be wealty
But my target are celebrities, footballers and highly paid CEO and others
Trouble is there aren't quite enough celebs, CEOs and footballers to dent the national finances.
If you are serious about this black hole, you will probably need to tax both the comfortable income and the mortgage free pensioner.
I am a mortgage free pensioner, I am paying huge sums to the Govt thro petrol, fuel oil, electricity, council tax and other invented charges by the council for other spurious services (bin collections car park pass etc) then you get stiffed in car parks where the pass does not work (Horsham is hugely expensive) then there's the tax on my pension and my state pension. If I take anything from mySIPP I get taxed too. Then they tax my small dividends , and its only because interest rates are zero that they don't tax my savings. I then pay inordinate amounts of VAT on things I buy. I am drowning in taxes.
What do they give me? Bins emptied and my lane resurfaced every 25yrs.
I think VAT will go up to 25% That's my guess when we start paying off our borrowings for Covid 19
Exactly , just how much more can they squeeze out of you, when you add it all up it must be near 90% tax already.
I'd like to see any tax increases focussed on consumption, especially of, for example fossil fuels. Those activities that contribute towards the degradation of the environment and, ultimately, an even greater problem than Covid-19, should become expensive luxuries.
The problem is that the 'super' rich will just swallow it, and its the ones which could only 'just' afford it will be the ones which won't.
If you make flying more expensive, those which can easily anyway still will. The familys which scrip and save for their one week in the sun will be the ones which will be the most effected.
The thing is, though, that flying is a luxury. Nobody needs to do it. We don't expect everyone to be able to afford, for example, a Rolls Royce, so why the communist attitude towards air travel? It really makes no sense.
Its worth noting that the tax free dividend allowance for someone on basic rate tax is worth £150. In essence a liability of £150 or less HMRC doesn't bother to chase up or make you go through the hassle of a tax return, but a liability of more than that it does.
For those already paying higher rates it scales more of course but they're also already paying higher rates and will continue to do so if they go past the threshold.
Surely it's 20% x 2K = £400? Or am i misunderstanding? But that doesn't change your point.
No dividend tax rates are different to take into account the fact that dividend income is from post-tax income. Basic rate dividend tax is 7.5%
Ah, thank you (and Slackbladder). My comparison would only be relevant if we were comparing the current situation with one in which all income was taxed equally.
A spitfire and hurricane doing a triple pass over Colonel Tom evokes so many memories for me
He and they are an utter inspiration
To think, we could have charged the Duke of Westminster a 0.3% wealth tax and raised just as much for the NHS.
There can be no doubt that the wealthy are going to have to pay much more tax
Define wealthy.
Pensioners currently living mortgage free? Families with salaries over 80k? People with more than one property?
All of the above?
Yes, that`s the problem isn`t it. I suspect that BigG meant much more wealthy than the three examples that you cite.
To answer your question
Many mortgage free pensioners are living on their pension and not wealthy
Any family with £100,000 plus are doing very well but may not be wealthy
Anyone owning two homes may well be wealty
But my target are celebrities, footballers and highly paid CEO and others
Trouble is there aren't quite enough celebs, CEOs and footballers to dent the national finances.
If you are serious about this black hole, you will probably need to tax both the comfortable income and the mortgage free pensioner.
I am a mortgage free pensioner, I am paying huge sums to the Govt thro petrol, fuel oil, electricity, council tax and other invented charges by the council for other spurious services (bin collections car park pass etc) then you get stiffed in car parks where the pass does not work (Horsham is hugely expensive) then there's the tax on my pension and my state pension. If I take anything from mySIPP I get taxed too. Then they tax my small dividends , and its only because interest rates are zero that they don't tax my savings. I then pay inordinate amounts of VAT on things I buy. I am drowning in taxes.
What do they give me? Bins emptied and my lane resurfaced every 25yrs.
I think VAT will go up to 25% That's my guess when we start paying off our borrowings for Covid 19
You poor bastard, is that all you get? No health service for you? Not protected by our defence forces at all? You never got any education? Your state pension not triple-locked like all the others? And you are on an exclusion list for support from the police, fire and other emergency services I guess?
I should vote the government out next time you get chance if I were you.
A spitfire and hurricane doing a triple pass over Colonel Tom evokes so many memories for me
He and they are an utter inspiration
To think, we could have charged the Duke of Westminster a 0.3% wealth tax and raised just as much for the NHS.
There can be no doubt that the wealthy are going to have to pay much more tax
G, you are exceedingly naive, the wealthy do not pay much tax due to avoiding/evading it, you seriously think that will change or your Tory chums will close any of the loopholes/UK tax havens that facilitate it. Time to take of those blue tinted specs, the great unwashed will pay for it as usual, wealthy will not be inconvenienced one bit other than getting wealthier with the rich pickings that will be on offer at bargain basement prices.
Make it simple. Everyone should just pay (say) 30% of their gross income, maybe if you earn over 100k. No allowances, no tax breaks. I bet it's more than the super-rich currently pay. Another way would be to deem a notional income from your net wealth, and levy a tax on the notional income
So people sitting on big assets don't contribute?
Assets are tough to tax unfortunately. Property, land and cars potentially - but everything else can be stashed under the bed.
Hence why income and consumption get hammered by HMRC.
I don't see why there are separate tax free allowances on dividend income and capital gains. Everyone should get the tax free allowance and then pay tax at their marginal rate on all other income.
The reason is because dividends come from corporate post-tax income while wages come from corporate pre-tax income. So they're already taxed and then getting taxed again. So for those with minimal dividends earnings its not worth chasing but for those with major earnings it is.
But there are payroll taxes. I'd say stop fannying around making things "fair" in a way that actually only benefits wealthy people. In any case, shareholders should really be taxed on retained profit as well as distributed as they are beneficial owners of the business so corporation tax is really a proxy for that
A tax free allowance for dividends doesn't benefit wealthy people. It benefits people with tiny dividend amounts who don't have to mess around filing a tax return and it helps HMRC by not wasting HMRC's resources chasing tiny, tiny sums of money. If there were no tax free allowances would you suggest that someone earning £50 in dividends should file a tax return and be taxed on that £50?
Those who are earning past the threshold are taxed on all their income past the threshold and have to file a tax return etc - its those below the threshold that are protected.
Agree.
In addition:
Successive Govt in recent times have really screwed up the taxation of dividends. Corporation Tax covered company taxation. ACT covered the distribution of dividends not represented by profits and the dividend tax credit prevented the double taxation of those profits for basic rate taxpayers, but with those on higher incomes paying additional income taxation on those dividends.
Gordon Brown in his way of of applying hidden taxes effectively removed that tax credit if you didn't have income tax to set it off against. This was a hidden tax on pension funds (so all of us), completely screwing up those funds in the process.
The Tories repeatedly promised to reverse this and George Osborne claimed to have done so in his changes to this. In fact he didn't. He just removed the tax credit (in effect) for everyone, albeit with a tax free element of £5000 which Philip Hammond reduced to £2000.
So the logical tax link between corporation profits and the distribution of those profits has been broken. A perfectly logical construct destroyed.
Sentiments beautifully expressed and much sympathy for those feeling this way - but IMO overwrought. A vaccine is near certain in 2021. Virus to be controlled until then by living cautiously. In a matter of a year or so back to normal except a bit poorer. Still a first world prosperous country. Mine's a pint.
"Boris":
I gather he's fronting up the presser today, explaining R0 to the nation, and his lockdown thinking, and taking questions. If true, this implies I was wrong in my series of posts yesterday where I pretty much called him a skiver. So I take that back. Feel a touch sheepish.
Lockdown:
I urge people not to get their hopes up about an imminent relaxation. I have analyzed the balance of political risk in the decision and it steers very heavily to keeping the current regime in place until R0 is down towards the 0.5 mark - and such is known by SAGE with confidence. A realistic target IMO is 28th May.
Agree with all that - and yes absolutely overwrought in my case. Then again its probably not a good sign when I'm teary at 9am on a Thursday morning. Easy to say "FFS snap out of it", less easy to do.
As for the cage, I know that we need to be at the very least encouraged to stay in them. I too expect May to largely be like April with a gentle lifting of bits of it through the summer with some pretty disruptive adaptations to the old normal for another 12 months minimum. Hateful though the idea is I know that its the Right Thing. I also hope for an evolution into the PC (post corona) era where we aren't all slaves to buzzing around from one cage to a rolling cage to an office cage and back again to do a job that can be done anywhere (BC, before Corona). WFH like this would be FINE with a day or two a week all in the same place.
BC I was in the office every Monday and Tuesday with an overnight hotel. A day of meetings on a Monday, a day of interacting with other teams on Tuesday, and the rest of the week in customers / conferences / exhibitions / wherever / whatever. A way of working that could work for a lot of previously 5 days a week businesses. Means that we cut pollution and costs of commuting and of office space without all relegating ourselves into being hamsters in our own isolation cages with a video screen to look at as we run on the wheel.
A spitfire and hurricane doing a triple pass over Colonel Tom evokes so many memories for me
He and they are an utter inspiration
To think, we could have charged the Duke of Westminster a 0.3% wealth tax and raised just as much for the NHS.
There can be no doubt that the wealthy are going to have to pay much more tax
G, you are exceedingly naive, the wealthy do not pay much tax due to avoiding/evading it, you seriously think that will change or your Tory chums will close any of the loopholes/UK tax havens that facilitate it. Time to take of those blue tinted specs, the great unwashed will pay for it as usual, wealthy will not be inconvenienced one bit other than getting wealthier with the rich pickings that will be on offer at bargain basement prices.
Make it simple. Everyone should just pay (say) 30% of their gross income, maybe if you earn over 100k. No allowances, no tax breaks. I bet it's more than the super-rich currently pay. Another way would be to deem a notional income from your net wealth, and levy a tax on the notional income
So people sitting on big assets don't contribute?
They will have bought those assets with taxed income so why pay tax on it twice
Er... did the Duke of Westminster buy his assest with taxed income Malc?
Well I would be happy at them taking everything from those mooching greedy Lords and Ladies who stole it all in the past. They could also tar and feather the lot of them , including all the other flunkeys, HOL moochers etc and run them out of town. You can throw in tax evaders , money launderers and tax haven users to boot.
This paper, by some modellers in Swansea, might add fuel to the fire (note the full paper is a little more nuanced than the quoted abstract)...
COVID-19 containment policies through time may cost more lives at metapopulation level https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.04.22.20075093v1.full.pdf The rapid and pandemic spread of COVID-19 has led to unprecedented containment policies in response to overloaded health care systems. Disease mitigation strategies require informed decision-making to ensure a balance between the protection of the vulnerable from disease and the maintenance of global economies. We show that temporally restricted containment efforts, that have the potential to flatten epidemic curves, can result in wider disease spread and larger epidemic sizes in metapopulations. Longer-term rewiring of metapopulation networks or the enforcement of feasible long-term measures that decrease disease transmissions appear to be more efficient than temporarily restricted intensive mitigation strategies (e.g. short-term mass quarantine). Our results may inform balanced containment strategies for short-term disease spread mitigation in response to overloaded health care systems and longer-term epidemiological sizes...
So is this paper saying that lockdowns might not be the best way to control an epidemic?
It's saying that lockdowns on their own are likely to be counterproductive.
Sentiments beautifully expressed and much sympathy for those feeling this way - but IMO overwrought. A vaccine is near certain in 2021. Virus to be controlled until then by living cautiously. In a matter of a year or so back to normal except a bit poorer. Still a first world prosperous country. Mine's a pint.
"Boris":
I gather he's fronting up the presser today, explaining R0 to the nation, and his lockdown thinking, and taking questions. If true, this implies I was wrong in my series of posts yesterday where I pretty much called him a skiver. So I take that back. Feel a touch sheepish.
Lockdown:
I urge people not to get their hopes up about an imminent relaxation. I have analyzed the balance of political risk in the decision and it steers very heavily to keeping the current regime in place until R0 is down towards the 0.5 mark - and such is known by SAGE with confidence. A realistic target IMO is 28th May.
Credit to you for owning a mistake, especially to a political opponent. Always nice to see people put their hands up.
Has to be done. If you don't you get tagged as unthinkingly partisan and lose cred. And cred, once lost, is very difficult to recover.
In which spirit I will also refrain from floating something I heard yesterday about the baby always being due about now rather than in the summer.
The problem is that in actuality there's two types of dividends.
1) Dividends as investment, these are your granny's shares in BT from 30 years ago or whatever.
2) Dividends as income. Especially for small business, it's always been the most tax efficient way to have a small PAYE income level (wages), and then extract profits as dividends, and pay Corporation tax. That way, tax is paid on profits at (now) 19% as corporation tax, and then the remainer paid as diviends, so there's no National Insurance. Thats been stomped on a bit, hence it being 7.5% tax.
If tax on dividends became income, then the only way small business could operate would be paid income via wages at a much higher level, and that would increase the tax burden hugely on small businesses.
A spitfire and hurricane doing a triple pass over Colonel Tom evokes so many memories for me
He and they are an utter inspiration
To think, we could have charged the Duke of Westminster a 0.3% wealth tax and raised just as much for the NHS.
There can be no doubt that the wealthy are going to have to pay much more tax
Define wealthy.
Pensioners currently living mortgage free? Families with salaries over 80k? People with more than one property?
All of the above?
Yes, that`s the problem isn`t it. I suspect that BigG meant much more wealthy than the three examples that you cite.
To answer your question
Many mortgage free pensioners are living on their pension and not wealthy
Any family with £100,000 plus are doing very well but may not be wealthy
Anyone owning two homes may well be wealty
But my target are celebrities, footballers and highly paid CEO and others
Trouble is there aren't quite enough celebs, CEOs and footballers to dent the national finances.
If you are serious about this black hole, you will probably need to tax both the comfortable income and the mortgage free pensioner.
I am a mortgage free pensioner, I am paying huge sums to the Govt thro petrol, fuel oil, electricity, council tax and other invented charges by the council for other spurious services (bin collections car park pass etc) then you get stiffed in car parks where the pass does not work (Horsham is hugely expensive) then there's the tax on my pension and my state pension. If I take anything from mySIPP I get taxed too. Then they tax my small dividends , and its only because interest rates are zero that they don't tax my savings. I then pay inordinate amounts of VAT on things I buy. I am drowning in taxes.
What do they give me? Bins emptied and my lane resurfaced every 25yrs.
I think VAT will go up to 25% That's my guess when we start paying off our borrowings for Covid 19
There is an underlying assumption many aremaking that we will pay off our borrowings for Covid 19. Why would we?
There is a difference between an ongoing structural deficit and one-off borrowing. Our borrowing this year will never be repaid. Never. Not next year, not ten years from now, never ever.
We need to get the economy moving again and seek to eliminate/minimise the deficit but we need to do that on a cyclical manner, you don't eliminate the deficit during a recession you do it afterwards.
If anything a tax cut would make more sense than a tax rise.
Yes. This might or might not be an unprecedented pandemic (not sure tbh) but the measures are taking certainly are and they need to be relaxed soon. We need to live our lives on a risk-adjusted basis. My risk is not the same as others on here. Some will be more at risk, some less.
If I am sensible in ensuring that those we come into contact with are likewise aware of the dynamics, there is no reason why people shouldn't meet.
What are the chances, for example, of my equally isolating neighbour giving me or me giving them CV-19? Vanishingly small. Ergo...
I'd like to see any tax increases focussed on consumption, especially of, for example fossil fuels. Those activities that contribute towards the degradation of the environment and, ultimately, an even greater problem than Covid-19, should become expensive luxuries.
The problem is that the 'super' rich will just swallow it, and its the ones which could only 'just' afford it will be the ones which won't.
If you make flying more expensive, those which can easily anyway still will. The familys which scrip and save for their one week in the sun will be the ones which will be the most effected.
The thing is, though, that flying is a luxury. Nobody needs to do it. We don't expect everyone to be able to afford, for example, a Rolls Royce, so why the communist attitude towards air travel? It really makes no sense.
We don't 'need' tourism, or sport, or entertainment full stop. But those things are generally liked and seen as good parts of the economy.
We could never reopen a pub or a restaurant ever again around the world. It would still keep turning. Wouldn't be much a world though.
John Pilger criticises the government both for causing excess deaths and forcing house arrest, just to ensure he can attack the government whatever the outcome
I'd like to see any tax increases focussed on consumption, especially of, for example fossil fuels. Those activities that contribute towards the degradation of the environment and, ultimately, an even greater problem than Covid-19, should become expensive luxuries.
Support your point about fossil fuels but taxes on consumption are tricky:
1. They are regressive, impacting the poorest (who spend all they get) proportionally much more than the wealthy who invest what they can't spend in houses, land, stocks etc.
2. If we are trying to recover from a very deep recession (as we will be soon) we need to encourage consumption not dampen it.
I think It's not quite as straightforward as that. Look at, for example, petrol taxation, which is much higher in Europe than the US and has been for a long time. The consequence of this is that society adapts to such conditions so that, for example, commutes are shorter and public transport (yes, I know - Covid - but speaking more generally) becomes more viable. This ultimately benefits those who are unable afford a car, thus helping the poor.
Sentiments beautifully expressed and much sympathy for those feeling this way - but IMO overwrought. A vaccine is near certain in 2021. Virus to be controlled until then by living cautiously. In a matter of a year or so back to normal except a bit poorer. Still a first world prosperous country. Mine's a pint.
"Boris":
I gather he's fronting up the presser today, explaining R0 to the nation, and his lockdown thinking, and taking questions. If true, this implies I was wrong in my series of posts yesterday where I pretty much called him a skiver. So I take that back. Feel a touch sheepish.
Lockdown:
I urge people not to get their hopes up about an imminent relaxation. I have analyzed the balance of political risk in the decision and it steers very heavily to keeping the current regime in place until R0 is down towards the 0.5 mark - and such is known by SAGE with confidence. A realistic target IMO is 28th May.
I do wonder if Tim Martin's comments yesterday about reopening in June were the results of an off the record discussion with government. So I am thinking we will get another three weeks lockdown followed by a bigger liberalisation than expected
Also the PL talks about a June Charlie Rich restart. But I'm not sure about this or about what Martin was up to there. 28 May for some changes, yes, but pubs? I would expect them to be towards the back of the queue, more like Sept. July at the absolute earliest. But it would be great to be wrong about this. I'm gasping.
Sorry everyone, my last post reads like a petulant whine. Whilst this is my day 44 in the cage I have space, health, cash, a job and there are so many people out there who don't have that. I'm lucky. Luck lucky lucky...
From a few days ago, but worth bearing in mind when some rejoice lament that we're heading for "the worst death toll in Europe." Maybe we are, but we won't know until "excess deaths" become clear:
“A comparison between [EU] member states is difficult and should be done with extreme caution,” said a spokesperson at the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control, the EU agency to tackle infectious diseases.
I'd like to see any tax increases focussed on consumption, especially of, for example fossil fuels. Those activities that contribute towards the degradation of the environment and, ultimately, an even greater problem than Covid-19, should become expensive luxuries.
The problem is that the 'super' rich will just swallow it, and its the ones which could only 'just' afford it will be the ones which won't.
If you make flying more expensive, those which can easily anyway still will. The familys which scrip and save for their one week in the sun will be the ones which will be the most effected.
The thing is, though, that flying is a luxury. Nobody needs to do it. We don't expect everyone to be able to afford, for example, a Rolls Royce, so why the communist attitude towards air travel? It really makes no sense.
We don't expect everyone to be able to afford a Rolls Royce but we do expect most people to own a car.
We don't expect everyone to be able to fly first class or business class but we do expect most people to be able to fly to the Costas once a year
The right policy now (or soon) is to ease lock down in line with a national, scaled up trace and test capability. Let’s see if the govt is in a position to deliver that in May. Omens so early have not been fantastic.
With regards to the economy, we will need to pump it back into life. Personally I would be advising tax cuts, and measures to support investment.
Longer term, the only way to go is asset wealth. 5% of housing wealth, payable on death, would raise a significant amount over time.
We have empty hospitals, surgery and other treatments being cancelled, people scared to seek help for life threatening conditions, vulnerable people left lonely and isolated, mental health problems increasing, financial problems for many.... . Just from my own experience - my dad died in a care home. We couldn't visit for a month. That alone shaved weeks off his life I believe. We have to social distance at the funeral.
One of my students with a history of mental health problems has had a relapse due to enforced isolation.
My uncles dialysis has been put on hold.
A doctor friend of the family - an ENT specialist - is spending his time rescheduling all his cancelled appointments and is otherwise idle.
And yet the lockdown still pretty much goes unquestioned. Bizarre.
A spitfire and hurricane doing a triple pass over Colonel Tom evokes so many memories for me
He and they are an utter inspiration
To think, we could have charged the Duke of Westminster a 0.3% wealth tax and raised just as much for the NHS.
There can be no doubt that the wealthy are going to have to pay much more tax
If you are so desperate to raise tax BigG you may as well join Starmer's Labour Party as he will certainly impose a wealth tax, Boris won't
The Conservatives are happily to jettison a great many principles for power - but the hill they'll die on is making rich people pay a bit more tax. But with Boris... who knows I guess.
Boris does not want to lose marginal seats like Kensington, Esher and Walton or Cheltenham as wealthy Tory voters stay home on election day so he won't
He is far more likely to lose the red wall if he protects the rich
A spitfire and hurricane doing a triple pass over Colonel Tom evokes so many memories for me
He and they are an utter inspiration
To think, we could have charged the Duke of Westminster a 0.3% wealth tax and raised just as much for the NHS.
There can be no doubt that the wealthy are going to have to pay much more tax
G, you are exceedingly naive, the wealthy do not pay much tax due to avoiding/evading it, you seriously think that will change or your Tory chums will close any of the loopholes/UK tax havens that facilitate it. Time to take of those blue tinted specs, the great unwashed will pay for it as usual, wealthy will not be inconvenienced one bit other than getting wealthier with the rich pickings that will be on offer at bargain basement prices.
Make it simple. Everyone should just pay (say) 30% of their gross income, maybe if you earn over 100k. No allowances, no tax breaks. I bet it's more than the super-rich currently pay. Another way would be to deem a notional income from your net wealth, and levy a tax on the notional income
So people sitting on big assets don't contribute?
Assets are tough to tax unfortunately. Property, land and cars potentially - but everything else can be stashed under the bed.
Hence why income and consumption get hammered by HMRC.
I don't see why there are separate tax free allowances on dividend income and capital gains. Everyone should get the tax free allowance and then pay tax at their marginal rate on all other income.
It is part of the wealth creator narrative.
Funnily enough it turns out we need a functioning society to create wealth rather than individual moxie and gumption.
Sentiments beautifully expressed and much sympathy for those feeling this way - but IMO overwrought. A vaccine is near certain in 2021. Virus to be controlled until then by living cautiously. In a matter of a year or so back to normal except a bit poorer. Still a first world prosperous country. Mine's a pint.
"Boris":
I gather he's fronting up the presser today, explaining R0 to the nation, and his lockdown thinking, and taking questions. If true, this implies I was wrong in my series of posts yesterday where I pretty much called him a skiver. So I take that back. Feel a touch sheepish.
Lockdown:
I urge people not to get their hopes up about an imminent relaxation. I have analyzed the balance of political risk in the decision and it steers very heavily to keeping the current regime in place until R0 is down towards the 0.5 mark - and such is known by SAGE with confidence. A realistic target IMO is 28th May.
Virus:
My understanding is that a vaccine for any coronavirus has never been achieved. I think you are being overly optimistic.
Even if a virus is found, it will likely not be anywhere near 100% effective. Also, administering it to the global population would be problematic to say the least. From the availability and sheer quantity of the "stuff" that makes the virus, to questions about who delivers it, which nations get it first, and which groups of people within each nation gets it first.
Geopolitically, the Chinese, Russians and Americans (at least) will try to buy up availability en masse. Cold or even hot wars could be fought over this.
My premise has always been that a vaccine is not likely to be our salvation. More likely the virus will naturally die out, or some degree of herd immunity will protect us to some extent. Therefore we mustn`t slip into the coma of trashing our economy and freedoms in the hope that a vaccine will rescue us.
A spitfire and hurricane doing a triple pass over Colonel Tom evokes so many memories for me
He and they are an utter inspiration
To think, we could have charged the Duke of Westminster a 0.3% wealth tax and raised just as much for the NHS.
There can be no doubt that the wealthy are going to have to pay much more tax
Define wealthy.
Pensioners currently living mortgage free? Families with salaries over 80k? People with more than one property?
All of the above?
Yes, that`s the problem isn`t it. I suspect that BigG meant much more wealthy than the three examples that you cite.
To answer your question
Many mortgage free pensioners are living on their pension and not wealthy
Any family with £100,000 plus are doing very well but may not be wealthy
Anyone owning two homes may well be wealty
But my target are celebrities, footballers and highly paid CEO and others
Trouble is there aren't quite enough celebs, CEOs and footballers to dent the national finances.
If you are serious about this black hole, you will probably need to tax both the comfortable income and the mortgage free pensioner.
I am a mortgage free pensioner, I am paying huge sums to the Govt thro petrol, fuel oil, electricity, council tax and other invented charges by the council for other spurious services (bin collections car park pass etc) then you get stiffed in car parks where the pass does not work (Horsham is hugely expensive) then there's the tax on my pension and my state pension. If I take anything from mySIPP I get taxed too. Then they tax my small dividends , and its only because interest rates are zero that they don't tax my savings. I then pay inordinate amounts of VAT on things I buy. I am drowning in taxes.
What do they give me? Bins emptied and my lane resurfaced every 25yrs.
I think VAT will go up to 25% That's my guess when we start paying off our borrowings for Covid 19
There is an underlying assumption many aremaking that we will pay off our borrowings for Covid 19. Why would we?
There is a difference between an ongoing structural deficit and one-off borrowing. Our borrowing this year will never be repaid. Never. Not next year, not ten years from now, never ever.
We need to get the economy moving again and seek to eliminate/minimise the deficit but we need to do that on a cyclical manner, you don't eliminate the deficit during a recession you do it afterwards.
If anything a tax cut would make more sense than a tax rise.
Don't tell lenders that we intend to never ever ever repay. They could get a bit spooked.
A spitfire and hurricane doing a triple pass over Colonel Tom evokes so many memories for me
He and they are an utter inspiration
To think, we could have charged the Duke of Westminster a 0.3% wealth tax and raised just as much for the NHS.
There can be no doubt that the wealthy are going to have to pay much more tax
If you are so desperate to raise tax BigG you may as well join Starmer's Labour Party as he will certainly impose a wealth tax, Boris won't
The Conservatives are happily to jettison a great many principles for power - but the hill they'll die on is making rich people pay a bit more tax. But with Boris... who knows I guess.
Boris does not want to lose marginal seats like Kensington, Esher and Walton or Cheltenham as wealthy Tory voters stay home on election day so he won't
He is far more likely to lose the red wall if he protects the rich
Everyone is going to have to pay more and services are going to get worse all round. This is shaping up to be Britain's worst immiseration in living memory.
Probably social distancing will be largely abandoned next year after we get a vaccine. Alternatively social distancing will more slowly be phased out as we gradually approach herd immunity over the next 1-4 years combined with improved treatments which will reduce mortality. This is in relation to COVID-19, which I think is a problem that we will be able to handle.
The big question that has been raised by this epidemic is what happens if we get another epidemic that we can't handle except by social distancing. We could, say, get a flu virus to which no good vaccine could be developed or something similar to HIV or malaria that is almost immune to any possible vaccine. If social distancing is the only tool we have to stop a full epidemic would it be worth it, and if it was how would people cope with permanent social distancing?
Society is currently being kept going by the skills of many workers, doctors, pilots, accountants, IT support workers, scientists, and many others who gained their skills in a society that had no social distancing. They could gain and perfect their skills by learning from others. If this were no longer possible, we might run out of the personnel to maintain society as we know it. Even Professors of Epidemiology and Cabinet Ministers need to be trained to gain their professional knowledge, but first they need to learn to read and write. If we shut down all schools, universities, and research and on-the job training, many of the younger generation will not be able to gain meaningful skills and will not be able to contribute to society.
I think in the end the law of nature will take over which is survival of the fittest. An almost completely hobbled society cannot survive. It will either abandon the restrictions, be displaced by another human society that has less restrictions, or simply die out as people go hungry and die of preventable or treatable conditions and the birth rate drops due to social distancing.
A spitfire and hurricane doing a triple pass over Colonel Tom evokes so many memories for me
He and they are an utter inspiration
To think, we could have charged the Duke of Westminster a 0.3% wealth tax and raised just as much for the NHS.
There can be no doubt that the wealthy are going to have to pay much more tax
G, you are exceedingly naive, the wealthy do not pay much tax due to avoiding/evading it, you seriously think that will change or your Tory chums will close any of the loopholes/UK tax havens that facilitate it. Time to take of those blue tinted specs, the great unwashed will pay for it as usual, wealthy will not be inconvenienced one bit other than getting wealthier with the rich pickings that will be on offer at bargain basement prices.
Make it simple. Everyone should just pay (say) 30% of their gross income, maybe if you earn over 100k. No allowances, no tax breaks. I bet it's more than the super-rich currently pay. Another way would be to deem a notional income from your net wealth, and levy a tax on the notional income
So people sitting on big assets don't contribute?
Assets are tough to tax unfortunately. Property, land and cars potentially - but everything else can be stashed under the bed.
Hence why income and consumption get hammered by HMRC.
I don't see why there are separate tax free allowances on dividend income and capital gains. Everyone should get the tax free allowance and then pay tax at their marginal rate on all other income.
It is part of the wealth creator narrative.
Funnily enough it turns out we need a functioning society to create wealth rather than individual moxie and gumption.
Nearly all 'wealth creators' are nothing more than wealth accumulators.
The real wealth creators are those who design and build more efficient ways of doing things. E.g. IT workers!
Mr. Enjineeya, freedom of choice, including flying, is the opposite of communism.
I'm not suggesting a ban on flying. I am suggesting that it should be considered the luxury that it is and not be effectively subsidised by ignoring its negative environmental effects. Anyone can still be free to fly, if that's what they choose to spend their money on, but nobody should have a right to flight.
A spitfire and hurricane doing a triple pass over Colonel Tom evokes so many memories for me
He and they are an utter inspiration
To think, we could have charged the Duke of Westminster a 0.3% wealth tax and raised just as much for the NHS.
There can be no doubt that the wealthy are going to have to pay much more tax
If you are so desperate to raise tax BigG you may as well join Starmer's Labour Party as he will certainly impose a wealth tax, Boris won't
The Conservatives are happily to jettison a great many principles for power - but the hill they'll die on is making rich people pay a bit more tax. But with Boris... who knows I guess.
Boris does not want to lose marginal seats like Kensington, Esher and Walton or Cheltenham as wealthy Tory voters stay home on election day so he won't
He is far more likely to lose the red wall if he protects the rich
Everyone is going to have to pay more and services are going to get worse all round. This is shaping up to be Britain's worst immiseration in living memory.
Genuine question - why not just print our way out of debt?
It has the added benefit of stealth taxing assets.
A spitfire and hurricane doing a triple pass over Colonel Tom evokes so many memories for me
He and they are an utter inspiration
To think, we could have charged the Duke of Westminster a 0.3% wealth tax and raised just as much for the NHS.
There can be no doubt that the wealthy are going to have to pay much more tax
If you are so desperate to raise tax BigG you may as well join Starmer's Labour Party as he will certainly impose a wealth tax, Boris won't
The Conservatives are happily to jettison a great many principles for power - but the hill they'll die on is making rich people pay a bit more tax. But with Boris... who knows I guess.
Boris does not want to lose marginal seats like Kensington, Esher and Walton or Cheltenham as wealthy Tory voters stay home on election day so he won't
He is far more likely to lose the red wall if he protects the rich
Everyone is going to have to pay more and services are going to get worse all round. This is shaping up to be Britain's worst immiseration in living memory.
Genuine question - why not just print our way out of debt?
It has the added benefit of stealth taxing assets.
Is it because we cannot rely on the kindness of strangers to buy our gilts?
Sentiments beautifully expressed and much sympathy for those feeling this way - but IMO overwrought. A vaccine is near certain in 2021. Virus to be controlled until then by living cautiously. In a matter of a year or so back to normal except a bit poorer. Still a first world prosperous country. Mine's a pint.
"Boris":
I gather he's fronting up the presser today, explaining R0 to the nation, and his lockdown thinking, and taking questions. If true, this implies I was wrong in my series of posts yesterday where I pretty much called him a skiver. So I take that back. Feel a touch sheepish.
Lockdown:
I urge people not to get their hopes up about an imminent relaxation. I have analyzed the balance of political risk in the decision and it steers very heavily to keeping the current regime in place until R0 is down towards the 0.5 mark - and such is known by SAGE with confidence. A realistic target IMO is 28th May.
Full marks to you on your comments on Boris
To be honest many more on here should be doing likewise. Not only was he at the delivery of his son yesterday morning, he also continued with various phone calls during the afternoon and is today fronting the 5pm briefing
Maybe I've got it good during this lockdown, but I reckon I could live like this for another couple of years. No commute and working in pyjamas are particular silver linings.
A spitfire and hurricane doing a triple pass over Colonel Tom evokes so many memories for me
He and they are an utter inspiration
To think, we could have charged the Duke of Westminster a 0.3% wealth tax and raised just as much for the NHS.
There can be no doubt that the wealthy are going to have to pay much more tax
Define wealthy.
Pensioners currently living mortgage free? Families with salaries over 80k? People with more than one property?
All of the above?
Yes, that`s the problem isn`t it. I suspect that BigG meant much more wealthy than the three examples that you cite.
To answer your question
Many mortgage free pensioners are living on their pension and not wealthy
Any family with £100,000 plus are doing very well but may not be wealthy
Anyone owning two homes may well be wealty
But my target are celebrities, footballers and highly paid CEO and others
Trouble is there aren't quite enough celebs, CEOs and footballers to dent the national finances.
If you are serious about this black hole, you will probably need to tax both the comfortable income and the mortgage free pensioner.
I am a mortgage free pensioner, I am paying huge sums to the Govt thro petrol, fuel oil, electricity, council tax and other invented charges by the council for other spurious services (bin collections car park pass etc) then you get stiffed in car parks where the pass does not work (Horsham is hugely expensive) then there's the tax on my pension and my state pension. If I take anything from mySIPP I get taxed too. Then they tax my small dividends , and its only because interest rates are zero that they don't tax my savings. I then pay inordinate amounts of VAT on things I buy. I am drowning in taxes.
What do they give me? Bins emptied and my lane resurfaced every 25yrs.
I think VAT will go up to 25% That's my guess when we start paying off our borrowings for Covid 19
There is an underlying assumption many aremaking that we will pay off our borrowings for Covid 19. Why would we?
There is a difference between an ongoing structural deficit and one-off borrowing. Our borrowing this year will never be repaid. Never. Not next year, not ten years from now, never ever.
We need to get the economy moving again and seek to eliminate/minimise the deficit but we need to do that on a cyclical manner, you don't eliminate the deficit during a recession you do it afterwards.
If anything a tax cut would make more sense than a tax rise.
Don't tell lenders that we intend to never ever ever repay. They could get a bit spooked.
Actually I think investors are wise to the fact that the government will repay its bonds by issuing new bonds, not via taxation. If investors thought the government would stop issuing new bonds and would instead run hundreds of billion pounds surpluses instead I think that would spook them more.
Deficits need to be closed, there can't be massive deficits forever but government borrowing does not need to be repaid in real net terms - it needs interest paying on it in perpetuity. There is a difference between one-off borrowing during a crisis and ongoing structural deficit spending.
What do we expect the US Q2 figures to show and how likely is it that Trump will be heading into the GE with a smaller US economy than he inherited from Obama?
A spitfire and hurricane doing a triple pass over Colonel Tom evokes so many memories for me
He and they are an utter inspiration
To think, we could have charged the Duke of Westminster a 0.3% wealth tax and raised just as much for the NHS.
There can be no doubt that the wealthy are going to have to pay much more tax
If you are so desperate to raise tax BigG you may as well join Starmer's Labour Party as he will certainly impose a wealth tax, Boris won't
The Conservatives are happily to jettison a great many principles for power - but the hill they'll die on is making rich people pay a bit more tax. But with Boris... who knows I guess.
Boris does not want to lose marginal seats like Kensington, Esher and Walton or Cheltenham as wealthy Tory voters stay home on election day so he won't
He is far more likely to lose the red wall if he protects the rich
Everyone is going to have to pay more and services are going to get worse all round. This is shaping up to be Britain's worst immiseration in living memory.
Genuine question - why not just print our way out of debt?
It has the added benefit of stealth taxing assets.
What will happen, most probably, is a mix of measures.
Given inflation was low before this, and the cost of government borrowing also extremely low, a certain amount of money printing will be possible.
A spitfire and hurricane doing a triple pass over Colonel Tom evokes so many memories for me
He and they are an utter inspiration
To think, we could have charged the Duke of Westminster a 0.3% wealth tax and raised just as much for the NHS.
There can be no doubt that the wealthy are going to have to pay much more tax
If you are so desperate to raise tax BigG you may as well join Starmer's Labour Party as he will certainly impose a wealth tax, Boris won't
The Conservatives are happily to jettison a great many principles for power - but the hill they'll die on is making rich people pay a bit more tax. But with Boris... who knows I guess.
Boris does not want to lose marginal seats like Kensington, Esher and Walton or Cheltenham as wealthy Tory voters stay home on election day so he won't
He is far more likely to lose the red wall if he protects the rich
Everyone is going to have to pay more and services are going to get worse all round. This is shaping up to be Britain's worst immiseration in living memory.
Genuine question - why not just print our way out of debt?
It has the added benefit of stealth taxing assets.
That is in practice a policy choice that I expect to be taken. There are consequences of such a decision, however: it is not cost-free.
A spitfire and hurricane doing a triple pass over Colonel Tom evokes so many memories for me
He and they are an utter inspiration
To think, we could have charged the Duke of Westminster a 0.3% wealth tax and raised just as much for the NHS.
There can be no doubt that the wealthy are going to have to pay much more tax
If you are so desperate to raise tax BigG you may as well join Starmer's Labour Party as he will certainly impose a wealth tax, Boris won't
The Conservatives are happily to jettison a great many principles for power - but the hill they'll die on is making rich people pay a bit more tax. But with Boris... who knows I guess.
Boris does not want to lose marginal seats like Kensington, Esher and Walton or Cheltenham as wealthy Tory voters stay home on election day so he won't
He is far more likely to lose the red wall if he protects the rich
Everyone is going to have to pay more and services are going to get worse all round. This is shaping up to be Britain's worst immiseration in living memory.
Genuine question - why not just print our way out of debt?
It has the added benefit of stealth taxing assets.
It damages cash assets but inflates the value of real assets surely?
This may be a silly question, but if you have only developed one antibody test, how can you tell so precisely how accurate it is?
False negatives I guess you can work out from people who previously tested positive when they had the infection (although of course that test also has false results).
But how can you know how many false positives you have?
Yes. I've been wondering this as well.
My guess (based on almost zero knowledge) is that there's always a much more complicated/time-consuming/expensive test that is 99.9% accurate. This can be used to assess the accuracy of the test that's going to be used commercially.
That is pretty well the case (though there are several more complicated time consuming/expensive assays which are used to benchmark, as none are perfect, so you cross check against a range of standards).
The tests that are being developed target only one or two antibodies produced in response to the virus, while in reality there are several (and the more complicated assays may also be set up to identify/detect other antibodies present, too).
Also, if you're testing samples from those who you know have had the infection, a failure to detect antibodies gives you another means of checking for false negatives.
Thanks. The problem with the last point is presumably that the best test we have in this case is apparently only 75% accurate (although I can never get straight whether this refers to false positives or false negatives - I think the latter, but presumably there is a non-zero rate on the former as well) which complicates its use as a cross-check.
The rate of false positives on the most accurate benchmark tests is very low indeed (and is further reduced by re-testing). And even on the rapid test kits, the better ones have a very low rate of false positives.
A spitfire and hurricane doing a triple pass over Colonel Tom evokes so many memories for me
He and they are an utter inspiration
To think, we could have charged the Duke of Westminster a 0.3% wealth tax and raised just as much for the NHS.
There can be no doubt that the wealthy are going to have to pay much more tax
If you are so desperate to raise tax BigG you may as well join Starmer's Labour Party as he will certainly impose a wealth tax, Boris won't
The Conservatives are happily to jettison a great many principles for power - but the hill they'll die on is making rich people pay a bit more tax. But with Boris... who knows I guess.
Boris does not want to lose marginal seats like Kensington, Esher and Walton or Cheltenham as wealthy Tory voters stay home on election day so he won't
He is far more likely to lose the red wall if he protects the rich
Everyone is going to have to pay more and services are going to get worse all round. This is shaping up to be Britain's worst immiseration in living memory.
Genuine question - why not just print our way out of debt?
It has the added benefit of stealth taxing assets.
It damages cash assets but inflates the value of real assets surely?
Can we start printing right away ? I've fixed for the next 5 years
Sentiments beautifully expressed and much sympathy for those feeling this way - but IMO overwrought. A vaccine is near certain in 2021. Virus to be controlled until then by living cautiously. In a matter of a year or so back to normal except a bit poorer. Still a first world prosperous country. Mine's a pint.
"Boris":
I gather he's fronting up the presser today, explaining R0 to the nation, and his lockdown thinking, and taking questions. If true, this implies I was wrong in my series of posts yesterday where I pretty much called him a skiver. So I take that back. Feel a touch sheepish.
Lockdown:
I urge people not to get their hopes up about an imminent relaxation. I have analyzed the balance of political risk in the decision and it steers very heavily to keeping the current regime in place until R0 is down towards the 0.5 mark - and such is known by SAGE with confidence. A realistic target IMO is 28th May.
Virus:
My understanding is that a vaccine for any coronavirus has never been achieved. I think you are being overly optimistic.
Even if a virus is found, it will likely not be anywhere near 100% effective. Also, administering it to the global population would be problematic to say the least. From the availability and sheer quantity of the "stuff" that makes the virus, to questions about who delivers it, which nations get it first, and which groups of people within each nation gets it first.
Geopolitically, the Chinese, Russians and Americans (at least) will try to buy up availability en masse. Cold or even hot wars could be fought over this.
My premise has always been that a vaccine is not likely to be our salvation. More likely the virus will naturally die out, or some degree of herd immunity will protect us to some extent. Therefore we mustn`t slip into the coma of trashing our economy and freedoms in the hope that a vaccine will rescue us.
We have to learn to live with it.
I'm a pessimist by nature and I have been regarding a vaccine - but it looks a very solid proposition based on what I am hearing and reading from those close to it. In the media from them, I mean, I am not lucky enough to know any of these people personally. Of course if there isn't one - or silly political games interfere with its general availability - then that is a different ballgame. I do agree that rigorous and enforced social distancing cannot go on for more than a few months at most.
A spitfire and hurricane doing a triple pass over Colonel Tom evokes so many memories for me
He and they are an utter inspiration
To think, we could have charged the Duke of Westminster a 0.3% wealth tax and raised just as much for the NHS.
There can be no doubt that the wealthy are going to have to pay much more tax
If you are so desperate to raise tax BigG you may as well join Starmer's Labour Party as he will certainly impose a wealth tax, Boris won't
The Conservatives are happily to jettison a great many principles for power - but the hill they'll die on is making rich people pay a bit more tax. But with Boris... who knows I guess.
Boris does not want to lose marginal seats like Kensington, Esher and Walton or Cheltenham as wealthy Tory voters stay home on election day so he won't
He is far more likely to lose the red wall if he protects the rich
Everyone is going to have to pay more and services are going to get worse all round. This is shaping up to be Britain's worst immiseration in living memory.
Genuine question - why not just print our way out of debt?
It has the added benefit of stealth taxing assets.
It damages cash assets but inflates the value of real assets surely?
A spitfire and hurricane doing a triple pass over Colonel Tom evokes so many memories for me
He and they are an utter inspiration
To think, we could have charged the Duke of Westminster a 0.3% wealth tax and raised just as much for the NHS.
There can be no doubt that the wealthy are going to have to pay much more tax
If you are so desperate to raise tax BigG you may as well join Starmer's Labour Party as he will certainly impose a wealth tax, Boris won't
The Conservatives are happily to jettison a great many principles for power - but the hill they'll die on is making rich people pay a bit more tax. But with Boris... who knows I guess.
Boris does not want to lose marginal seats like Kensington, Esher and Walton or Cheltenham as wealthy Tory voters stay home on election day so he won't
He is far more likely to lose the red wall if he protects the rich
Everyone is going to have to pay more and services are going to get worse all round. This is shaping up to be Britain's worst immiseration in living memory.
Genuine question - why not just print our way out of debt?
It has the added benefit of stealth taxing assets.
That is in practice a policy choice that I expect to be taken. There are consequences of such a decision, however: it is not cost-free.
Its a more logical response to the economy grinding to a halt and needing to kick start it again afterwards than ramping up taxation. When a body suffers cardiac arrest you give it a jolt and epinephrine you don't tax it more.
A temporary VAT cut or other tax cuts should be in the next budget.
Sentiments beautifully expressed and much sympathy for those feeling this way - but IMO overwrought. A vaccine is near certain in 2021. Virus to be controlled until then by living cautiously. In a matter of a year or so back to normal except a bit poorer. Still a first world prosperous country. Mine's a pint.
"Boris":
I gather he's fronting up the presser today, explaining R0 to the nation, and his lockdown thinking, and taking questions. If true, this implies I was wrong in my series of posts yesterday where I pretty much called him a skiver. So I take that back. Feel a touch sheepish.
Lockdown:
I urge people not to get their hopes up about an imminent relaxation. I have analyzed the balance of political risk in the decision and it steers very heavily to keeping the current regime in place until R0 is down towards the 0.5 mark - and such is known by SAGE with confidence. A realistic target IMO is 28th May.
I do wonder if Tim Martin's comments yesterday about reopening in June were the results of an off the record discussion with government. So I am thinking we will get another three weeks lockdown followed by a bigger liberalisation than expected
Also the PL talks about a June Charlie Rich restart. But I'm not sure about this or about what Martin was up to there. 28 May for some changes, yes, but pubs? I would expect them to be towards the back of the queue, more like Sept. July at the absolute earliest. But it would be great to be wrong about this. I'm gasping.
Wetherspoons are large premises so social distancing will be easier, and he already offers table service ordered through an app. He may also think that with little competition from others not benefiting from those advantages, he can put his prices up. He also owns most of his premises freehold so is not paying much rent and may feel that any income is better than no income. I do wonder however that a recently filled pint glass handled by a bar person might be a risk, after all it goes straight in your mouth.
The right policy now (or soon) is to ease lock down in line with a national, scaled up trace and test capability. Let’s see if the govt is in a position to deliver that in May. Omens so early have not been fantastic.
With regards to the economy, we will need to pump it back into life. Personally I would be advising tax cuts, and measures to support investment.
Longer term, the only way to go is asset wealth. 5% of housing wealth, payable on death, would raise a significant amount over time.
The government has committed to spend £lots (and through intransigence / incompetence have actually spent £less) and that will have to be funded somehow. And that was cash through to the end of June. We will need a lot more funding for a lot longer than that. Because "ah fuck it reopen the hospitality sector" won't actually make enough people resume status quo ante. "Stay home save lives" becomes ingrained.
Either the government parachutes cash and incentives to bring the hamsters from their cages to start consuming again, or large swathes of the economy and with it our way of life will close down. Which will cost even more in having to keep people from starving and rioting.
I note with bemusement the pronouncements from HYUFD who seems barely able to see beyond the end of his nose never mind see beyond what he very narrowly believes to be the interests of the Conservative Party. Does he think that the voters who gave Boris his big majority will turn out and vote Tory again if their town is destroyed by mass unemployment, shuttered businesses and rampant crime? "We can't tax the rich Tory voters won't stand for it" is a profoundly stupid read of politics - YOU might not stand for it. Normal punters care for themselves not Tory donors, they WILL stand for it if thats the difference between keeping a job and shops and bars and having uncaring gits close them so that they can keep their wealth.
A spitfire and hurricane doing a triple pass over Colonel Tom evokes so many memories for me
He and they are an utter inspiration
To think, we could have charged the Duke of Westminster a 0.3% wealth tax and raised just as much for the NHS.
There can be no doubt that the wealthy are going to have to pay much more tax
If you are so desperate to raise tax BigG you may as well join Starmer's Labour Party as he will certainly impose a wealth tax, Boris won't
The Conservatives are happily to jettison a great many principles for power - but the hill they'll die on is making rich people pay a bit more tax. But with Boris... who knows I guess.
Boris does not want to lose marginal seats like Kensington, Esher and Walton or Cheltenham as wealthy Tory voters stay home on election day so he won't
He is far more likely to lose the red wall if he protects the rich
Everyone is going to have to pay more and services are going to get worse all round. This is shaping up to be Britain's worst immiseration in living memory.
Genuine question - why not just print our way out of debt?
It has the added benefit of stealth taxing assets.
That is in practice a policy choice that I expect to be taken. There are consequences of such a decision, however: it is not cost-free.
Not my area, but I was under the impression that Trusts such as that used by the Duke of Westminster already paid more wealth tax than that, in the form of continuous IHT.
The last payment would be 6% of the value some time in the last 10 years.
A spitfire and hurricane doing a triple pass over Colonel Tom evokes so many memories for me
He and they are an utter inspiration
To think, we could have charged the Duke of Westminster a 0.3% wealth tax and raised just as much for the NHS.
There can be no doubt that the wealthy are going to have to pay much more tax
If you are so desperate to raise tax BigG you may as well join Starmer's Labour Party as he will certainly impose a wealth tax, Boris won't
The Conservatives are happily to jettison a great many principles for power - but the hill they'll die on is making rich people pay a bit more tax. But with Boris... who knows I guess.
Boris does not want to lose marginal seats like Kensington, Esher and Walton or Cheltenham as wealthy Tory voters stay home on election day so he won't
He is far more likely to lose the red wall if he protects the rich
Everyone is going to have to pay more and services are going to get worse all round. This is shaping up to be Britain's worst immiseration in living memory.
Genuine question - why not just print our way out of debt?
It has the added benefit of stealth taxing assets.
That is in practice a policy choice that I expect to be taken. There are consequences of such a decision, however: it is not cost-free.
Its a more logical response to the economy grinding to a halt and needing to kick start it again afterwards than ramping up taxation. When a body suffers cardiac arrest you give it a jolt and epinephrine you don't tax it more.
A temporary VAT cut or other tax cuts should be in the next budget.
Do both. Get people back into the shops via a VAT cut, and tax wealth in some form, so people move money and services around.
What do we expect the US Q2 figures to show and how likely is it that Trump will be heading into the GE with a smaller US economy than he inherited from Obama?
This paper, by some modellers in Swansea, might add fuel to the fire (note the full paper is a little more nuanced than the quoted abstract)...
COVID-19 containment policies through time may cost more lives at metapopulation level https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.04.22.20075093v1.full.pdf The rapid and pandemic spread of COVID-19 has led to unprecedented containment policies in response to overloaded health care systems. Disease mitigation strategies require informed decision-making to ensure a balance between the protection of the vulnerable from disease and the maintenance of global economies. We show that temporally restricted containment efforts, that have the potential to flatten epidemic curves, can result in wider disease spread and larger epidemic sizes in metapopulations. Longer-term rewiring of metapopulation networks or the enforcement of feasible long-term measures that decrease disease transmissions appear to be more efficient than temporarily restricted intensive mitigation strategies (e.g. short-term mass quarantine). Our results may inform balanced containment strategies for short-term disease spread mitigation in response to overloaded health care systems and longer-term epidemiological sizes...
This is why the Swedish approach may be best.
It's only a paper by some modellers, so it's not gospel.
And even the strongest proponents of a lockdown recognise that a way out has to be found.
I am far more concerned by the government's apparent tardiness in designed an integrated testing, contact tracing and isolation strategy (and setting up the processes and infrastructure for it) to shorten the first, and to ensure that we don't need a second lockdown, than I am interested in arguing the rights and wrongs of lockdown itself.
Sentiments beautifully expressed and much sympathy for those feeling this way - but IMO overwrought. A vaccine is near certain in 2021. Virus to be controlled until then by living cautiously. In a matter of a year or so back to normal except a bit poorer. Still a first world prosperous country. Mine's a pint.
"Boris":
I gather he's fronting up the presser today, explaining R0 to the nation, and his lockdown thinking, and taking questions. If true, this implies I was wrong in my series of posts yesterday where I pretty much called him a skiver. So I take that back. Feel a touch sheepish.
Lockdown:
I urge people not to get their hopes up about an imminent relaxation. I have analyzed the balance of political risk in the decision and it steers very heavily to keeping the current regime in place until R0 is down towards the 0.5 mark - and such is known by SAGE with confidence. A realistic target IMO is 28th May.
I do wonder if Tim Martin's comments yesterday about reopening in June were the results of an off the record discussion with government. So I am thinking we will get another three weeks lockdown followed by a bigger liberalisation than expected
Also the PL talks about a June Charlie Rich restart. But I'm not sure about this or about what Martin was up to there. 28 May for some changes, yes, but pubs? I would expect them to be towards the back of the queue, more like Sept. July at the absolute earliest. But it would be great to be wrong about this. I'm gasping.
Wetherspoons are large premises so social distancing will be easier, and he already offers table service ordered through an app. He may also think that with little competition from others not benefiting from those advantages, he can put his prices up. He also owns most of his premises freehold so is not paying much rent and may feel that any income is better than no income. I do wonder however that a recently filled pint glass handled by a bar person might be a risk, after all it goes straight in your mouth.
If the bartender is holding the glass by the rim that goes in your mouth that bartender needs better hygiene.
A spitfire and hurricane doing a triple pass over Colonel Tom evokes so many memories for me
He and they are an utter inspiration
To think, we could have charged the Duke of Westminster a 0.3% wealth tax and raised just as much for the NHS.
There can be no doubt that the wealthy are going to have to pay much more tax
Define wealthy.
Pensioners currently living mortgage free? Families with salaries over 80k? People with more than one property?
All of the above?
Yes, that`s the problem isn`t it. I suspect that BigG meant much more wealthy than the three examples that you cite.
I believe it is fairly easy to define wealth - anyone with income more than twice one's own.
Whilst all of that is true I think there is going to be much less tolerance of those with excessive wealth flaunting it. Our prima-donna footballers and the likes of Victoria Beckham will really need to tread very carefully.
This is going to be financially painful for most of us and if there remains a sense that it's only the little people who pay tax while the really wealthy stash it off shore then it could well turn ugly. Likewise companies like Amazon that really just leech off the countries they make their profits in need to be reigned in big-time
I am happy to pay my fair to get us out of this mess but if governments around the world continue to allow the big boys to get away with it and they in turn continue to rub our faces in it then there will be political consequences.
Just watched an OFAH on UK gold... Del sells Boycie a German girls baby but the deal falls through because the baby’s father was black... wouldn’t get made today, in quite surprised the repeat is shown... the punchline relies on a while couple not wanting a non white baby
Maybe I've got it good during this lockdown, but I reckon I could live like this for another couple of years. No commute and working in pyjamas are particular silver linings.
Agreed, I could manage for a long while yet if needed. But I do feel for those finding it harder.
Ultimately, I'd say if you're really at your wits end over lockdown and feel it's seriously damaging your mental health just get out and do something.
Sentiments beautifully expressed and much sympathy for those feeling this way - but IMO overwrought. A vaccine is near certain in 2021. Virus to be controlled until then by living cautiously. In a matter of a year or so back to normal except a bit poorer. Still a first world prosperous country. Mine's a pint.
"Boris":
I gather he's fronting up the presser today, explaining R0 to the nation, and his lockdown thinking, and taking questions. If true, this implies I was wrong in my series of posts yesterday where I pretty much called him a skiver. So I take that back. Feel a touch sheepish.
Lockdown:
I urge people not to get their hopes up about an imminent relaxation. I have analyzed the balance of political risk in the decision and it steers very heavily to keeping the current regime in place until R0 is down towards the 0.5 mark - and such is known by SAGE with confidence. A realistic target IMO is 28th May.
I do wonder if Tim Martin's comments yesterday about reopening in June were the results of an off the record discussion with government. So I am thinking we will get another three weeks lockdown followed by a bigger liberalisation than expected
Also the PL talks about a June Charlie Rich restart. But I'm not sure about this or about what Martin was up to there. 28 May for some changes, yes, but pubs? I would expect them to be towards the back of the queue, more like Sept. July at the absolute earliest. But it would be great to be wrong about this. I'm gasping.
Wetherspoons are large premises so social distancing will be easier, and he already offers table service ordered through an app. He may also think that with little competition from others not benefiting from those advantages, he can put his prices up. He also owns most of his premises freehold so is not paying much rent and may feel that any income is better than no income. I do wonder however that a recently filled pint glass handled by a bar person might be a risk, after all it goes straight in your mouth.
If the bartender is holding the glass by the rim that goes in your mouth that bartender needs better hygiene.
He/She is also holding the glass in the way which you handled it, and they've handled many many others like it.
Disposable glasses might be perferable, but then not very green.
Just watched an OFAH on UK gold... Del sells Boycie a German girls baby but the deal falls through because the baby’s father was black... wouldn’t get made today, in quite surprised the repeat is shown... the punchline relies on a while couple not wanting a non white baby
Amazing how rapidly attitudes have changed, for the better.
Just watched an OFAH on UK gold... Del sells Boycie a German girls baby but the deal falls through because the baby’s father was black... wouldn’t get made today, in quite surprised the repeat is shown... the punchline relies on a while couple not wanting a non white baby
I remember that episode from first time round. Even then it fell very flat in my view.
Sentiments beautifully expressed and much sympathy for those feeling this way - but IMO overwrought. A vaccine is near certain in 2021. Virus to be controlled until then by living cautiously. In a matter of a year or so back to normal except a bit poorer. Still a first world prosperous country. Mine's a pint.
"Boris":
I gather he's fronting up the presser today, explaining R0 to the nation, and his lockdown thinking, and taking questions. If true, this implies I was wrong in my series of posts yesterday where I pretty much called him a skiver. So I take that back. Feel a touch sheepish.
Lockdown:
I urge people not to get their hopes up about an imminent relaxation. I have analyzed the balance of political risk in the decision and it steers very heavily to keeping the current regime in place until R0 is down towards the 0.5 mark - and such is known by SAGE with confidence. A realistic target IMO is 28th May.
I do wonder if Tim Martin's comments yesterday about reopening in June were the results of an off the record discussion with government. So I am thinking we will get another three weeks lockdown followed by a bigger liberalisation than expected
Also the PL talks about a June Charlie Rich restart. But I'm not sure about this or about what Martin was up to there. 28 May for some changes, yes, but pubs? I would expect them to be towards the back of the queue, more like Sept. July at the absolute earliest. But it would be great to be wrong about this. I'm gasping.
Wetherspoons are large premises so social distancing will be easier, and he already offers table service ordered through an app. He may also think that with little competition from others not benefiting from those advantages, he can put his prices up. He also owns most of his premises freehold so is not paying much rent and may feel that any income is better than no income. I do wonder however that a recently filled pint glass handled by a bar person might be a risk, after all it goes straight in your mouth.
If the bartender is holding the glass by the rim that goes in your mouth that bartender needs better hygiene.
He/She is also holding the glass in the way which you handled it, and they've handled many many others like it.
Disposable glasses might be perferable, but then not very green.
Yes they've handled it in the same way a shelf stacker or cashier at a supermarket has handled your products. But not the part that goes in your mouth I hope.
A cashier is probably higher risk because they're scanning products their customers have picked up but a bartender should (I certainly hope) only be handling hygienically cleaned glasses.
Just watched an OFAH on UK gold... Del sells Boycie a German girls baby but the deal falls through because the baby’s father was black... wouldn’t get made today, in quite surprised the repeat is shown... the punchline relies on a while couple not wanting a non white baby
Amazing how rapidly attitudes have changed, for the better.
Sentiments beautifully expressed and much sympathy for those feeling this way - but IMO overwrought. A vaccine is near certain in 2021. Virus to be controlled until then by living cautiously. In a matter of a year or so back to normal except a bit poorer. Still a first world prosperous country. Mine's a pint.
"Boris":
I gather he's fronting up the presser today, explaining R0 to the nation, and his lockdown thinking, and taking questions. If true, this implies I was wrong in my series of posts yesterday where I pretty much called him a skiver. So I take that back. Feel a touch sheepish.
Lockdown:
I urge people not to get their hopes up about an imminent relaxation. I have analyzed the balance of political risk in the decision and it steers very heavily to keeping the current regime in place until R0 is down towards the 0.5 mark - and such is known by SAGE with confidence. A realistic target IMO is 28th May.
I do wonder if Tim Martin's comments yesterday about reopening in June were the results of an off the record discussion with government. So I am thinking we will get another three weeks lockdown followed by a bigger liberalisation than expected
Also the PL talks about a June Charlie Rich restart. But I'm not sure about this or about what Martin was up to there. 28 May for some changes, yes, but pubs? I would expect them to be towards the back of the queue, more like Sept. July at the absolute earliest. But it would be great to be wrong about this. I'm gasping.
Wetherspoons are large premises so social distancing will be easier, and he already offers table service ordered through an app. He may also think that with little competition from others not benefiting from those advantages, he can put his prices up. He also owns most of his premises freehold so is not paying much rent and may feel that any income is better than no income. I do wonder however that a recently filled pint glass handled by a bar person might be a risk, after all it goes straight in your mouth.
If the bartender is holding the glass by the rim that goes in your mouth that bartender needs better hygiene.
You're quite right of course, you should hold the glass by the bottom half. Still a bit close for comfort and in the past I have never really paid close attention to how the bar staff are holding the glass. In the future we probably will.
On the lockdown, growing up as an only child might have helped me I reckon. It just feels like the long, boring six weeks holidays when I had no one to play with until my Dad came home from work. Listen to music, play on the computer, read a book, daydream about the future... these are ways to pass the time!
Also I lived alone and worked from home for best part of a decade until 2019, so being in lockdown with my girlfriend and baby is more company than I’m used to. Sounds quite sad when I write it down... maybe Southam Observer was right about me! #sad
Sentiments beautifully expressed and much sympathy for those feeling this way - but IMO overwrought. A vaccine is near certain in 2021. Virus to be controlled until then by living cautiously. In a matter of a year or so back to normal except a bit poorer. Still a first world prosperous country. Mine's a pint.
"Boris":
I gather he's fronting up the presser today, explaining R0 to the nation, and his lockdown thinking, and taking questions. If true, this implies I was wrong in my series of posts yesterday where I pretty much called him a skiver. So I take that back. Feel a touch sheepish.
Lockdown:
I urge people not to get their hopes up about an imminent relaxation. I have analyzed the balance of political risk in the decision and it steers very heavily to keeping the current regime in place until R0 is down towards the 0.5 mark - and such is known by SAGE with confidence. A realistic target IMO is 28th May.
Virus:
My understanding is that a vaccine for any coronavirus has never been achieved. I think you are being overly optimistic.
Even if a virus is found, it will likely not be anywhere near 100% effective. Also, administering it to the global population would be problematic to say the least. From the availability and sheer quantity of the "stuff" that makes the virus, to questions about who delivers it, which nations get it first, and which groups of people within each nation gets it first.
Geopolitically, the Chinese, Russians and Americans (at least) will try to buy up availability en masse. Cold or even hot wars could be fought over this.
My premise has always been that a vaccine is not likely to be our salvation. More likely the virus will naturally die out, or some degree of herd immunity will protect us to some extent. Therefore we mustn`t slip into the coma of trashing our economy and freedoms in the hope that a vaccine will rescue us.
We have to learn to live with it.
No vaccine for a human coronavirus has ever been seriously pursued for long enough to get one. We discovered them in the Sixties, and for a long time, only the four that pop up in the suite of 200+ viruses that we call "the common cold" were known to affect us. (As I understand it). Not really worth the effort and cost to develop a vaccine that, if successful, would... still leave us wide open to all the rhinoviruses, adenoviruses, RSVs, etc, of all the other common colds.
We have achieved vaccines against coronaviruses in other animals.
When SARS came along, serious efforts against it started, but work was pulled after it was tamed without a vaccine (in fact, the work towards SARS vaccination was a big head start for covid-19).
Comments
The fact is we've had 10 years of (slow) growth and that money hasn't been invested.
COVID-19 containment policies through time may cost more lives at metapopulation level
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.04.22.20075093v1.full.pdf
The rapid and pandemic spread of COVID-19 has led to unprecedented containment policies in response to overloaded health care systems. Disease mitigation strategies require informed decision-making to ensure a balance between the protection of the vulnerable from disease and the maintenance of global economies. We show that temporally restricted containment efforts, that have the potential to flatten epidemic curves, can result in wider disease spread and larger epidemic sizes in metapopulations. Longer-term rewiring of metapopulation networks or the enforcement of feasible long-term measures that decrease disease transmissions appear to be more efficient than temporarily restricted intensive mitigation strategies (e.g. short-term mass quarantine). Our results may inform balanced containment strategies for short-term disease spread mitigation in response to overloaded health care systems and longer-term epidemiological sizes...
I then pay inordinate amounts of VAT on things I buy. I am drowning in taxes.
What do they give me? Bins emptied and my lane resurfaced every 25yrs.
I think VAT will go up to 25% That's my guess when we start paying off our borrowings for Covid 19
It makes sense to be taxing the wealthy with lots of dividends not those with small amounts, that's what the threshold is all about.
A path out of COVID-19 quarantine: an analysis of policy scenarios
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.04.23.20077503v1
In this work we present an analysis of the two major strategies currently implemented around the world in the fight against COVID-19: Social distancing & shelter-in-place measures to protect the susceptible, and testing & contact-tracing to identify, isolate and treat the infected. The majority of countries have principally relied on the former; we consider the examples of Italy, Canada and the United States. By fitting a disease transmission model to daily case report data, we infer that in each of the three countries, the current level of national shutdown is equivalent to about half the population being under quarantine. We demonstrate that in the absence of other measures, scaling back social distancing in such a way as to prevent a second wave will take prohibitively long. In contrast, South Korea, a country that has managed to control and suppress its outbreak principally through mass testing and contact tracing, and has only instated a partial shutdown. For all four countries, we estimate the level of testing which would be required to allow a complete exit from shutdown and a full lifting of social distancing measures, without a resurgence of COVID-19. We find that a "brute-force" approach of untargeted universal testing requires an average testing rate of once every 36 to 48 hours for every individual, depending on the country. If testing is combined with contact tracing, and/or if tests are able to identify latent infection, then an average rate of once every 4 to 5 days is sufficient...
1. They are regressive, impacting the poorest (who spend all they get) proportionally much more than the wealthy who invest what they can't spend in houses, land, stocks etc.
2. If we are trying to recover from a very deep recession (as we will be soon) we need to encourage consumption not dampen it.
For those already paying higher rates it scales more of course but they're also already paying higher rates and will continue to do so if they go past the threshold.
There is no easy answer here, the problem is that everyone seems to be after one.
BTW, Malc, what do you make of the latest blast from Alex Bell?
https://www.thecourier.co.uk/fp/opinion/alex-bell/1299631/alex-bell-coronavirus-response-shows-nicola-sturgeons-more-a-follower-of-england-than-scottish-leader/
If you work for an employer then the employer pays national insurance on your wages and you pay national insurance on your wages as well. That's twice. You pay income tax too, that's three times. Spend the money on something? VAT, that's 4 times. Spend on something like fuel - pay duty too, that's 5 times - oh and there's VAT on the duty too.
Or, my example with flying below is more apt really. The super rich in private jets will still be the super rich in private jets. IT'll be the once in every few years trip to disney land families which will suffer and no longer go.
I should vote the government out next time you get chance if I were you.
In addition:
Successive Govt in recent times have really screwed up the taxation of dividends. Corporation Tax covered company taxation. ACT covered the distribution of dividends not represented by profits and the dividend tax credit prevented the double taxation of those profits for basic rate taxpayers, but with those on higher incomes paying additional income taxation on those dividends.
Gordon Brown in his way of of applying hidden taxes effectively removed that tax credit if you didn't have income tax to set it off against. This was a hidden tax on pension funds (so all of us), completely screwing up those funds in the process.
The Tories repeatedly promised to reverse this and George Osborne claimed to have done so in his changes to this. In fact he didn't. He just removed the tax credit (in effect) for everyone, albeit with a tax free element of £5000 which Philip Hammond reduced to £2000.
So the logical tax link between corporation profits and the distribution of those profits has been broken. A perfectly logical construct destroyed.
As for the cage, I know that we need to be at the very least encouraged to stay in them. I too expect May to largely be like April with a gentle lifting of bits of it through the summer with some pretty disruptive adaptations to the old normal for another 12 months minimum. Hateful though the idea is I know that its the Right Thing. I also hope for an evolution into the PC (post corona) era where we aren't all slaves to buzzing around from one cage to a rolling cage to an office cage and back again to do a job that can be done anywhere (BC, before Corona). WFH like this would be FINE with a day or two a week all in the same place.
BC I was in the office every Monday and Tuesday with an overnight hotel. A day of meetings on a Monday, a day of interacting with other teams on Tuesday, and the rest of the week in customers / conferences / exhibitions / wherever / whatever. A way of working that could work for a lot of previously 5 days a week businesses. Means that we cut pollution and costs of commuting and of office space without all relegating ourselves into being hamsters in our own isolation cages with a video screen to look at as we run on the wheel.
In which spirit I will also refrain from floating something I heard yesterday about the baby always being due about now rather than in the summer.
1) Dividends as investment, these are your granny's shares in BT from 30 years ago or whatever.
2) Dividends as income. Especially for small business, it's always been the most tax efficient way to have a small PAYE income level (wages), and then extract profits as dividends, and pay Corporation tax. That way, tax is paid on profits at (now) 19% as corporation tax, and then the remainer paid as diviends, so there's no National Insurance. Thats been stomped on a bit, hence it being 7.5% tax.
If tax on dividends became income, then the only way small business could operate would be paid income via wages at a much higher level, and that would increase the tax burden hugely on small businesses.
T
There is a difference between an ongoing structural deficit and one-off borrowing. Our borrowing this year will never be repaid. Never. Not next year, not ten years from now, never ever.
We need to get the economy moving again and seek to eliminate/minimise the deficit but we need to do that on a cyclical manner, you don't eliminate the deficit during a recession you do it afterwards.
If anything a tax cut would make more sense than a tax rise.
Yes. This might or might not be an unprecedented pandemic (not sure tbh) but the measures are taking certainly are and they need to be relaxed soon. We need to live our lives on a risk-adjusted basis. My risk is not the same as others on here. Some will be more at risk, some less.
If I am sensible in ensuring that those we come into contact with are likewise aware of the dynamics, there is no reason why people shouldn't meet.
What are the chances, for example, of my equally isolating neighbour giving me or me giving them CV-19? Vanishingly small. Ergo...
We could never reopen a pub or a restaurant ever again around the world. It would still keep turning. Wouldn't be much a world though.
https://twitter.com/johnpilger/status/1255783373202579457?s=20
“A comparison between [EU] member states is difficult and should be done with extreme caution,” said a spokesperson at the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control, the EU agency to tackle infectious diseases.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/24/is-comparing-covid-19-death-rates-across-europe-helpful-
We don't expect everyone to be able to fly first class or business class but we do expect most people to be able to fly to the Costas once a year
This is old news @HYUFD - we discussed it on here several days ago. Guido is getting sluggish these days.
The right policy now (or soon) is to ease lock down in line with a national, scaled up trace and test capability. Let’s see if the govt is in a position to deliver that in May. Omens so early have not been fantastic.
With regards to the economy, we will need to pump it back into life. Personally I would be advising tax cuts, and measures to support investment.
Longer term, the only way to go is asset wealth.
5% of housing wealth, payable on death, would raise a significant amount over time.
.
Just from my own experience - my dad died in a care home. We couldn't visit for a month. That alone shaved weeks off his life I believe. We have to social distance at the funeral.
One of my students with a history of mental health problems has had a relapse due to enforced isolation.
My uncles dialysis has been put on hold.
A doctor friend of the family - an ENT specialist - is spending his time rescheduling all his cancelled appointments and is otherwise idle.
And yet the lockdown still pretty much goes unquestioned. Bizarre.
Funnily enough it turns out we need a functioning society to create wealth rather than individual moxie and gumption.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-52482109
Lol! At least China's on the right side on that one!
My understanding is that a vaccine for any coronavirus has never been achieved. I think you are being overly optimistic.
Even if a virus is found, it will likely not be anywhere near 100% effective. Also, administering it to the global population would be problematic to say the least. From the availability and sheer quantity of the "stuff" that makes the virus, to questions about who delivers it, which nations get it first, and which groups of people within each nation gets it first.
Geopolitically, the Chinese, Russians and Americans (at least) will try to buy up availability en masse. Cold or even hot wars could be fought over this.
My premise has always been that a vaccine is not likely to be our salvation. More likely the virus will naturally die out, or some degree of herd immunity will protect us to some extent. Therefore we mustn`t slip into the coma of trashing our economy and freedoms in the hope that a vaccine will rescue us.
We have to learn to live with it.
The big question that has been raised by this epidemic is what happens if we get another epidemic that we can't handle except by social distancing. We could, say, get a flu virus to which no good vaccine could be developed or something similar to HIV or malaria that is almost immune to any possible vaccine. If social distancing is the only tool we have to stop a full epidemic would it be worth it, and if it was how would people cope with permanent social distancing?
Society is currently being kept going by the skills of many workers, doctors, pilots, accountants, IT support workers, scientists, and many others who gained their skills in a society that had no social distancing. They could gain and perfect their skills by learning from others. If this were no longer possible, we might run out of the personnel to maintain society as we know it. Even Professors of Epidemiology and Cabinet Ministers need to be trained to gain their professional knowledge, but first they need to learn to read and write. If we shut down all schools, universities, and research and on-the job training, many of the younger generation will not be able to gain meaningful skills and will not be able to contribute to society.
I think in the end the law of nature will take over which is survival of the fittest. An almost completely hobbled society cannot survive. It will either abandon the restrictions, be displaced by another human society that has less restrictions, or simply die out as people go hungry and die of preventable or treatable conditions and the birth rate drops due to social distancing.
The real wealth creators are those who design and build more efficient ways of doing things. E.g. IT workers!
Obviously that is not democratically viable, but it is the most painless measure you can think of.
It has the added benefit of stealth taxing assets.
To be honest many more on here should be doing likewise. Not only was he at the delivery of his son yesterday morning, he also continued with various phone calls during the afternoon and is today fronting the 5pm briefing
No commute and working in pyjamas are particular silver linings.
https://twitter.com/maclockdown/status/1243947127832752128?s=19
Deficits need to be closed, there can't be massive deficits forever but government borrowing does not need to be repaid in real net terms - it needs interest paying on it in perpetuity. There is a difference between one-off borrowing during a crisis and ongoing structural deficit spending.
What do we expect the US Q2 figures to show and how likely is it that Trump will be heading into the GE with a smaller US economy than he inherited from Obama?
Given inflation was low before this, and the cost of government borrowing also extremely low, a certain amount of money printing will be possible.
And even on the rapid test kits, the better ones have a very low rate of false positives.
Thanks for posting the pics.
I've fixed for the next 5 years
A temporary VAT cut or other tax cuts should be in the next budget.
Either the government parachutes cash and incentives to bring the hamsters from their cages to start consuming again, or large swathes of the economy and with it our way of life will close down. Which will cost even more in having to keep people from starving and rioting.
I note with bemusement the pronouncements from HYUFD who seems barely able to see beyond the end of his nose never mind see beyond what he very narrowly believes to be the interests of the Conservative Party. Does he think that the voters who gave Boris his big majority will turn out and vote Tory again if their town is destroyed by mass unemployment, shuttered businesses and rampant crime? "We can't tax the rich Tory voters won't stand for it" is a profoundly stupid read of politics - YOU might not stand for it. Normal punters care for themselves not Tory donors, they WILL stand for it if thats the difference between keeping a job and shops and bars and having uncaring gits close them so that they can keep their wealth.
The last payment would be 6% of the value some time in the last 10 years.
And even the strongest proponents of a lockdown recognise that a way out has to be found.
I am far more concerned by the government's apparent tardiness in designed an integrated testing, contact tracing and isolation strategy (and setting up the processes and infrastructure for it) to shorten the first, and to ensure that we don't need a second lockdown, than I am interested in arguing the rights and wrongs of lockdown itself.
This is going to be financially painful for most of us and if there remains a sense that it's only the little people who pay tax while the really wealthy stash it off shore then it could well turn ugly. Likewise companies like Amazon that really just leech off the countries they make their profits in need to be reigned in big-time
I am happy to pay my fair to get us out of this mess but if governments around the world continue to allow the big boys to get away with it and they in turn continue to rub our faces in it then there will be political consequences.
Agreed, I could manage for a long while yet if needed. But I do feel for those finding it harder.
Ultimately, I'd say if you're really at your wits end over lockdown and feel it's seriously damaging your mental health just get out and do something.
Disposable glasses might be perferable, but then not very green.
A cashier is probably higher risk because they're scanning products their customers have picked up but a bartender should (I certainly hope) only be handling hygienically cleaned glasses.
Also I lived alone and worked from home for best part of a decade until 2019, so being in lockdown with my girlfriend and baby is more company than I’m used to. Sounds quite sad when I write it down... maybe Southam Observer was right about me! #sad
We discovered them in the Sixties, and for a long time, only the four that pop up in the suite of 200+ viruses that we call "the common cold" were known to affect us. (As I understand it).
Not really worth the effort and cost to develop a vaccine that, if successful, would... still leave us wide open to all the rhinoviruses, adenoviruses, RSVs, etc, of all the other common colds.
We have achieved vaccines against coronaviruses in other animals.
When SARS came along, serious efforts against it started, but work was pulled after it was tamed without a vaccine (in fact, the work towards SARS vaccination was a big head start for covid-19).
Similarly with MERS.