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So far the polling’s not looking bad for LizT – politicalbetting.com

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  • MISTYMISTY Posts: 1,594
    edited September 2022
    HYUFD said:

    kle4 said:

    Mr. Sandpit, Starmer isn't that.

    But the Conservatives are facing numerous significant problems.
    1) They've been in for a long time, so time for a change becomes a powerful mantra.
    2) Cost of living is a problem for many people.
    3) The former clownish PM's antics lost the party a lot of support which has not returned.

    Against that, they do have incumbency and the boundary changes should help, but I'd not be surprised if we see a lot of changes next time.

    This is about where I am. Labour winning outright from so far back should be very hard, but 2019 was unusual and there are a lot of time and stored up problems for the Tories. I think itll be close - if the Truss gambles pay off its a 1992 result.
    Most likely the result will be 2010 in reverse, a hung parliament but Starmer like Cameron wins most seats
    Looking at the economic numbers, I have no idea why any tory still thinks Sunak would have been a better option than Truss, as you manifestly do.

    With Truss we might get some growth with a ballooning deficit. With Sunak we would get a depression with a ballooning deficit, followed by huge public spending cuts or going to the IMF. As shown by recent borrowing numbers. These are happening on Sunak and Johnson's watch, not Truss's.

  • CookieCookie Posts: 11,182
    Leon said:

    Dynamo said:

    Here is the official translation of Putin's address.

    Those who don't know how to read will say that reading it was a waste of time and that all it does is show that everything they believed beforehand was so true. (That's how an idiot's mind works.) Perhaps they might then make a 1970s comedy reference.

    I would have posted the whole thing but it's too long. Here are some extracts. I've put some bits in bold.

    "Kiev representatives voiced quite a positive response to our proposals. (...) But a peaceful settlement obviously did not suit the West, which is why, after certain compromises were coordinated, Kiev was actually ordered to wreck all these agreements.

    More weapons were pumped into Ukraine. The Kiev regime brought into play new groups of foreign mercenaries and nationalists, military units trained according to NATO standards and receiving orders from Western advisers.

    At the same time, the regime of reprisals throughout Ukraine against their own citizens, established immediately after the armed coup in 2014, was harshly intensified (...)
    "

    "The West has gone too far in its aggressive anti-Russia policy, making endless threats to our country and people. Some irresponsible Western politicians are doing more than just speak about their plans to organise the delivery of long-range offensive weapons to Ukraine, which could be used to deliver strikes at Crimea and other Russian regions.

    Such terrorist attacks, including with the use of Western weapons, are being delivered at border areas in the Belgorod and Kursk regions. NATO is conducting reconnaissance through Russia’s southern regions in real time and with the use of modern systems, aircraft, vessels, satellites and strategic drones.

    Washington, London and Brussels are openly encouraging Kiev to move the hostilities to our territory. They openly say that Russia must be defeated on the battlefield by any means, and subsequently deprived of political, economic, cultural and any other sovereignty and ransacked.

    They have even resorted to the nuclear blackmail. I am referring not only to the Western-encouraged shelling of the Zaporozhye Nuclear Power Plant, which poses a threat of a nuclear disaster, but also to the statements made by some high-ranking representatives of the leading NATO countries on the possibility and admissibility of using weapons of mass destruction – nuclear weapons – against Russia.

    I would like to remind those who make such statements regarding Russia that our country has different types of weapons as well, and some of them are more modern than the weapons NATO countries have. In the event of a threat to the territorial integrity of our country and to defend Russia and our people, we will certainly make use of all weapon systems available to us. This is not a bluff.

    The citizens of Russia can rest assured that the territorial integrity of our Motherland, our independence and freedom will be defended – I repeat – by all the systems available to us.
    "

    Seeing as Russia is mainly relying on tanks made out of wood, drawn by lowing bullocks, I am now quite skeptical about all these "super secret brilliant super-miracle hyper-weapons" claimed by Moscow

    Or maybe that is their description of a rifle that post-dates World War 1
    Genuinely laughed.

    The military might of Russia has become the feedline for a joke in the way that the Italian military was for the post WW2 generation.
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 49,614
    Leon said:

    Talking of economic forecasts


    "The euro area is facing a deeper recession than previously forecast after Russia halted natural gas deliveries through the Nord Stream 1 pipeline, according to Deutsche Bank economists.

    Output will shrink 2.2% next year, compared with an earlier projection for a 0.3% contraction, the analysts said Wednesday in a report to clients. Gross domestic product in Germany, which is most exposed to lower energy shipments, will drop as much as 4%. "


    https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-09-21/euro-zone-faces-deeper-recession-on-gas-cuts-deutsche-bank-says?cmpid=socialflow-twitter-business&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter&utm_campaign=socialflow-organic&utm_content=business&leadSource=uverify wall


    A 4% drop of GDP for Germany. Ouch. And that's presuming the war does not get worse

    Brace

    Herr Sholz had better get those weapons heading to Ukraine then. The longer it takes, the worse it will end up being for Germany.
  • DavidLDavidL Posts: 50,759

    DavidL said:

    Leon said:



    Job done

    OK. Lets play the scenario. We're not concerned by the slaughter of missions we're about to do for "peace", we're only interested in making this first strike work. Some options:

    1. Strategic strike using ICBMs. Whilst this will absolutely destroy the targets, it will almost certainly provoke a reaction from Russia, especially as their computers show the strike to be largely counter-value (population centres). Result: You destroy Moscow and St Petersburg. And Washington, London, LA etc


    In summary, we would be as uninhabitable for 3,000 years as them. Do you dislike
    Camden that much that you want it melted?
    Hmm melting Islington….
    So long as these first strikers can guarantee the safety of both Lords and the Oval. Otherwise the potential price is too high.

    Let them take out Lords, we'll have better chance of having the Ashes then.

    Headingley and Trent Bridge, now they
    need to be protected.
    I did hesitate over Lords, I will admit.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 46,206

    Oxford Street's US-themed sweet shops to face stricter rules

    Measures proposed include increasing the fee to register a company at Companies House from £12 to £50,

    https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-london-62972510

    Yeah that will deter multi-million quid money laundering....

    There's a bunch of them around Leicester Sq as well. I also saw one or two in Seville, it's not an entirely London thing

    They are really odd. Garish and vulgar, and seldom full of customers

    Speculation that they are money launderers?
  • bondegezoubondegezou Posts: 7,159
    MISTY said:

    HYUFD said:

    kle4 said:

    Mr. Sandpit, Starmer isn't that.

    But the Conservatives are facing numerous significant problems.
    1) They've been in for a long time, so time for a change becomes a powerful mantra.
    2) Cost of living is a problem for many people.
    3) The former clownish PM's antics lost the party a lot of support which has not returned.

    Against that, they do have incumbency and the boundary changes should help, but I'd not be surprised if we see a lot of changes next time.

    This is about where I am. Labour winning outright from so far back should be very hard, but 2019 was unusual and there are a lot of time and stored up problems for the Tories. I think itll be close - if the Truss gambles pay off its a 1992 result.
    Most likely the result will be 2010 in reverse, a hung parliament but Starmer like Cameron wins most seats
    Looking at the economic numbers, I have no idea why any tory still thinks Sunak would have been a better option than Truss, as you manifestly do.

    With Truss we might get some growth with a ballooning deficit. With Sunak we would get a depression with a ballooning deficit, followed by huge public spending cuts or going to the IMF. As shown by recent borrowing numbers. These are happening on Sunak and Johnson's watch, not Truss's.

    If only there was an option not involving Sunak or Truss!
  • eekeek Posts: 24,797

    Oxford Street's US-themed sweet shops to face stricter rules

    Measures proposed include increasing the fee to register a company at Companies House from £12 to £50,

    https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-london-62972510

    Yeah that will deter multi-million quid money laundering....

    I'm trying to work out what a change of incorporation rules (which are needed and are supposedly in progress) has to do with a local council..
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 49,614
    Leon said:

    Oxford Street's US-themed sweet shops to face stricter rules

    Measures proposed include increasing the fee to register a company at Companies House from £12 to £50,

    https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-london-62972510

    Yeah that will deter multi-million quid money laundering....

    There's a bunch of them around Leicester Sq as well. I also saw one or two in Seville, it's not an entirely London thing

    They are really odd. Garish and vulgar, and seldom full of customers

    Speculation that they are money launderers?
    The suggestion is that they’re about as legitimate as Walter White’s car wash.
  • PulpstarPulpstar Posts: 75,841
    edited September 2022

    Oxford Street's US-themed sweet shops to face stricter rules

    Measures proposed include increasing the fee to register a company at Companies House from £12 to £50,

    https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-london-62972510

    Yeah that will deter multi-million quid money laundering....

    https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2021/nov/13/how-johnson-pledged-help-for-my-business-to-win-my-love

    Innotech network: 20 grand of fixed assets, 376k of creditors.
  • MISTY said:

    HYUFD said:

    kle4 said:

    Mr. Sandpit, Starmer isn't that.

    But the Conservatives are facing numerous significant problems.
    1) They've been in for a long time, so time for a change becomes a powerful mantra.
    2) Cost of living is a problem for many people.
    3) The former clownish PM's antics lost the party a lot of support which has not returned.

    Against that, they do have incumbency and the boundary changes should help, but I'd not be surprised if we see a lot of changes next time.

    This is about where I am. Labour winning outright from so far back should be very hard, but 2019 was unusual and there are a lot of time and stored up problems for the Tories. I think itll be close - if the Truss gambles pay off its a 1992 result.
    Most likely the result will be 2010 in reverse, a hung parliament but Starmer like Cameron wins most seats
    Looking at the economic numbers, I have no idea why any tory still thinks Sunak would have been a better option than Truss, as you manifestly do.

    With Truss we might get some growth with a ballooning deficit. With Sunak we would get a depression with a ballooning deficit, followed by huge public spending cuts or going to the IMF. As shown by recent borrowing numbers.

    Well said, the idea you can tax your way to growth has never been true and never will be true. Brownism failed under Brown, and its failed under Sunak too.

    The simple reality is that the Government taxes us every which way it can, so any money taken out of circulation due to higher taxes must immediately lower tax receipts in other taxes, because its no longer being spent and taxed in other ways.

    But those advocating tax rises never factor this in at all. Which is why tax rises never raise as much as their adherents expect, and why tax cuts don't cost as much as their critics claim either, as any extra money circulating in the economy due to tax cuts then gets itself taxed as it circulates minimising the cost of the tax cut.
  • MoonRabbitMoonRabbit Posts: 12,415
    edited September 2022

    Sandpit said:

    Mr. Sandpit, Starmer isn't that.

    But the Conservatives are facing numerous significant problems.
    1) They've been in for a long time, so time for a change becomes a powerful mantra.
    2) Cost of living is a problem for many people.
    3) The former clownish PM's antics lost the party a lot of support which has not returned.

    Against that, they do have incumbency and the boundary changes should help, but I'd not be surprised if we see a lot of changes next time.

    I’m sure there will be a lot of changes next time too, but Starmer still needs to win about 130 seats for a majority of just one.

    Even if he does the full Blair, he ends up with only the same majority Cameron got in 2015.

    There’s a very large hung parliament landing zone, which is by far the most likely outcome of the next election.
    Or, a Conservative majority.....
    I'm very pessimistic about people (voters) and changing their votes. Bootle gives you a viewpoint not many on here get. People DON'T change their votes, even when they say they do or will, anywhere near as often as we might all like to think.

    A majority of voters (yep, based on no data whatsoever) don't think about their vote. They vote Labour because they vote Labour and they'll vote Labour unless the ballot paper doesn't say Labour on it. Then they'll have a nervous breakdown and ask the Labour Party who to vote for......

    I'm quite sure there are Conservative voters who are the same.

    The Conservatives need to lose 40 seats to lose their technical majority (and boundary changes will help them reduce that loss a bit); 44 seats to actually lose it (once Sinn Fein and the speaker weigh in) and probably 54 once the DUP (who won't support anyone but the Conservatives really) are thrown in.

    54 seats is a BIG ask, let alone 140 or whatever. Sure, those are 54 loses to anyone (not just Labour) but to stake a claim, Labour needs to take at least most of those 54. If the Lib Dems take 47 and the SNP the 7 in Scotland, then whilst its a technical Lab-LD-SNP-Green-Plaid-SDLP-Alliance majority of 1, that'll last five minutes in the Commons before another GE.

    The Conservatives need to lose 60 seats to put them out the game. And Labour need them (and the LD) to win enough to put more than a two party coalition out the window.
    Absolutely brilliant post in my opinion. I can only give it 1 like. 😕

    Going from large working majority for one side to any majority for other side in just 5 years is so rare!

    There’s a chance Tories could lose 60 seats to put them out the game, probably the greater chance than just holding a majority or coalition with DUP - but A Tory remaining PM has to be the value bet for our money looking at it today, even before swingback as election nears.
  • DavidLDavidL Posts: 50,759
    MISTY said:

    .

    eek said:

    Cyclefree said:

    Nigelb said:

    Why ?

    Treasury refuses to publish UK economic forecast
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-62970803

    Probably because it is either bloody awful or does not support what the government intends saying later this week.

    Possibly they have not done one. That might be another reason.
    Can't imagine the Treasury hasn't done a forecast - it's very much plug figures in see the output.

    The more likely figure is that it both looks bloody awful AND it doesn't support the government intentions - anyone with a clue knows that reducing Corporation Tax is going to do nothing at all about productivity regardless of what Professor Minford believes....

    Most companies operate on the basis of take money today because they may not be there tomorrow...
    Here's the thing though.

    The government can decide not to publish a forecast this week, and it's hard to imagine an alternative to the "things are bad and Trussonimics will make things worse" theory of non-publication.

    But not publishing will make people suspicious (i.e. it comes at a government credibility cost that will become a money cost), and it doesn't stop events happening.

    Unless we really are in a "only thing to fear is fear" scenario, which seems unlikely.
    If they publish the forecast now, and it's not good news - ballooning deficit, slow growth, persistent inflation - then it overshadowed the good news story of the tax cuts.

    If they release the forecast later, it will be much less noticed, and the positive news of the tax cuts will have had time to bed in.

    It's a cynical piece of news management and Parliament shouldn't stand for it.

    But, it does show that when Truss undermines Parliament she does so for political advantage, rather than in an ill-judged attempt to save a mate from embarrassment over a lobbying scandal. This sort of ruthlessness and focus might work to her advantage for the election, if Parliament let's her get away with it.
    Ballooning deficit, slow growth and persistent inflation is what we have now, after almost three years of Sunak's Brownism. And that's being generous to what we have now.

    This truth is underlined by today's PSBR numbers, with borrowing yet again way ahead of what was forecast, yet another fail for Sunak's high tax policies.

    Truss's go for growth isn't just driven by ideology, it's driven by necessity. Under Sunak, we would be manifestly headed for depression and bankruptcy. The numbers show it.
    What is really impoverishing us is nearly 30 years of trade deficit. Not completely sure that a massive increase in domestic demand is the answer to that one.
  • MISTYMISTY Posts: 1,594
    edited September 2022
    Sandpit said:

    Leon said:

    Talking of economic forecasts


    "The euro area is facing a deeper recession than previously forecast after Russia halted natural gas deliveries through the Nord Stream 1 pipeline, according to Deutsche Bank economists.

    Output will shrink 2.2% next year, compared with an earlier projection for a 0.3% contraction, the analysts said Wednesday in a report to clients. Gross domestic product in Germany, which is most exposed to lower energy shipments, will drop as much as 4%. "


    https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-09-21/euro-zone-faces-deeper-recession-on-gas-cuts-deutsche-bank-says?cmpid=socialflow-twitter-business&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter&utm_campaign=socialflow-organic&utm_content=business&leadSource=uverify wall


    A 4% drop of GDP for Germany. Ouch. And that's presuming the war does not get worse

    Brace

    Herr Sholz had better get those weapons heading to Ukraine then. The longer it takes, the worse it will end up being for Germany.
    Of course, what is really screwing the Eurozone economy is the ECB's rate increases, which are already too hard to bear for some member states, and more is coming down the line.

    The periphery are being sacrificed once again it seems, what else is new.

    I reckon even a 2.2% shrinkage looks optimistic.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 46,206
    Sandpit said:

    Leon said:

    Talking of economic forecasts


    "The euro area is facing a deeper recession than previously forecast after Russia halted natural gas deliveries through the Nord Stream 1 pipeline, according to Deutsche Bank economists.

    Output will shrink 2.2% next year, compared with an earlier projection for a 0.3% contraction, the analysts said Wednesday in a report to clients. Gross domestic product in Germany, which is most exposed to lower energy shipments, will drop as much as 4%. "


    https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-09-21/euro-zone-faces-deeper-recession-on-gas-cuts-deutsche-bank-says?cmpid=socialflow-twitter-business&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter&utm_campaign=socialflow-organic&utm_content=business&leadSource=uverify wall


    A 4% drop of GDP for Germany. Ouch. And that's presuming the war does not get worse

    Brace

    Herr Sholz had better get those weapons heading to Ukraine then. The longer it takes, the worse it will end up being for Germany.
    For comparison, German GDP shrank by 5% during 2020

    So for Germany the expected drop from the war/Putin is almost as bad as The Plague, when the entire world closed down. And the war has the chance to get a lot lot worse

    Grim
  • wooliedyedwooliedyed Posts: 6,815
    MISTY said:

    Sandpit said:

    Leon said:

    Talking of economic forecasts


    "The euro area is facing a deeper recession than previously forecast after Russia halted natural gas deliveries through the Nord Stream 1 pipeline, according to Deutsche Bank economists.

    Output will shrink 2.2% next year, compared with an earlier projection for a 0.3% contraction, the analysts said Wednesday in a report to clients. Gross domestic product in Germany, which is most exposed to lower energy shipments, will drop as much as 4%. "


    https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-09-21/euro-zone-faces-deeper-recession-on-gas-cuts-deutsche-bank-says?cmpid=socialflow-twitter-business&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter&utm_campaign=socialflow-organic&utm_content=business&leadSource=uverify wall


    A 4% drop of GDP for Germany. Ouch. And that's presuming the war does not get worse

    Brace

    Herr Sholz had better get those weapons heading to Ukraine then. The longer it takes, the worse it will end up being for Germany.
    Of course, what is really screwing the Eurozone economy is the ECB's rate increases, which are already too hard to bear for some member states, and more is coming down the line.

    The periphery are being sacrificed once again it seems, what else is new.

    I reckon even a 2.2% shrinkage looks optimistic to me.
    The EU are proposing compulsory 5% energy use reductions in peak time as their opening salvo, -2.2% my arse. -5% and up
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 49,614
    edited September 2022
    DavidL said:

    MISTY said:

    .

    eek said:

    Cyclefree said:

    Nigelb said:

    Why ?

    Treasury refuses to publish UK economic forecast
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-62970803

    Probably because it is either bloody awful or does not support what the government intends saying later this week.

    Possibly they have not done one. That might be another reason.
    Can't imagine the Treasury hasn't done a forecast - it's very much plug figures in see the output.

    The more likely figure is that it both looks bloody awful AND it doesn't support the government intentions - anyone with a clue knows that reducing Corporation Tax is going to do nothing at all about productivity regardless of what Professor Minford believes....

    Most companies operate on the basis of take money today because they may not be there tomorrow...
    Here's the thing though.

    The government can decide not to publish a forecast this week, and it's hard to imagine an alternative to the "things are bad and Trussonimics will make things worse" theory of non-publication.

    But not publishing will make people suspicious (i.e. it comes at a government credibility cost that will become a money cost), and it doesn't stop events happening.

    Unless we really are in a "only thing to fear is fear" scenario, which seems unlikely.
    If they publish the forecast now, and it's not good news - ballooning deficit, slow growth, persistent inflation - then it overshadowed the good news story of the tax cuts.

    If they release the forecast later, it will be much less noticed, and the positive news of the tax cuts will have had time to bed in.

    It's a cynical piece of news management and Parliament shouldn't stand for it.

    But, it does show that when Truss undermines Parliament she does so for political advantage, rather than in an ill-judged attempt to save a mate from embarrassment over a lobbying scandal. This sort of ruthlessness and focus might work to her advantage for the election, if Parliament let's her get away with it.
    Ballooning deficit, slow growth and persistent inflation is what we have now, after almost three years of Sunak's Brownism. And that's being generous to what we have now.

    This truth is underlined by today's PSBR numbers, with borrowing yet again way ahead of what was forecast, yet another fail for Sunak's high tax policies.

    Truss's go for growth isn't just driven by ideology, it's driven by necessity. Under Sunak, we would be manifestly headed for depression and bankruptcy. The numbers show it.
    What is really impoverishing us is nearly 30 years of trade deficit. Not completely sure that a massive increase in domestic demand is the answer to that one.
    When was the last time anyone on the news talked about the Balance of Payments figures? It used to lead the Six not so long ago.

    If I were to take I guess, I’d go for 1st November 1993 as being the point at which it stopped being discussed.
  • Big_G_NorthWalesBig_G_NorthWales Posts: 60,001
    edited September 2022
    MISTY said:

    HYUFD said:

    kle4 said:

    Mr. Sandpit, Starmer isn't that.

    But the Conservatives are facing numerous significant problems.
    1) They've been in for a long time, so time for a change becomes a powerful mantra.
    2) Cost of living is a problem for many people.
    3) The former clownish PM's antics lost the party a lot of support which has not returned.

    Against that, they do have incumbency and the boundary changes should help, but I'd not be surprised if we see a lot of changes next time.

    This is about where I am. Labour winning outright from so far back should be very hard, but 2019 was unusual and there are a lot of time and stored up problems for the Tories. I think itll be close - if the Truss gambles pay off its a 1992 result.
    Most likely the result will be 2010 in reverse, a hung parliament but Starmer like Cameron wins most seats
    Looking at the economic numbers, I have no idea why any tory still thinks Sunak would have been a better option than Truss, as you manifestly do.

    With Truss we might get some growth with a ballooning deficit. With Sunak we would get a depression with a ballooning deficit, followed by huge public spending cuts or going to the IMF. As shown by recent borrowing numbers. These are happening on Sunak and Johnson's watch, not Truss's.

    @HYUFD only worships one God, Boris Johnson who is sacrosanct and above all others to the point he will actively attempt to belittle anyone who comes before his idol, sadly

    Fortunately most of the rest of us have moved on
  • FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 76,274
    edited September 2022
    Leon said:

    Oxford Street's US-themed sweet shops to face stricter rules

    Measures proposed include increasing the fee to register a company at Companies House from £12 to £50,

    https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-london-62972510

    Yeah that will deter multi-million quid money laundering....

    There's a bunch of them around Leicester Sq as well. I also saw one or two in Seville, it's not an entirely London thing

    They are really odd. Garish and vulgar, and seldom full of customers

    Speculation that they are money launderers?
    Private Eye have been on this for 3+ years now. Everything about them is as bent as a nine bob note. Run by Afghani nationals, constantly dissolving companies and reforming. The suggestion is flushing dirty money from Afghanistan. Been at it for 15 years now, but with COVID etc, seen number of outlets skyrocket.
  • AlistairMAlistairM Posts: 2,004
    The biggest impact of the mobilisation announcement is on the Russian soldiers who thought they were on short fixed-term contracts. They have all had their contracts forcibly extended indefinitely. They were in it for the money. Now there is no end in sight for their deployment. That won't make for a happy fighting force. The Ukrainians on the other hand are fighting for their country.
  • WhisperingOracleWhisperingOracle Posts: 8,480
    edited September 2022
    The algorithms and automations of social media can throw up amusing contrasts and a touch of surreality, like google translate, and..if nothing else.

    "Trending in United Kingdom

    Nuclear War"
  • FishingFishing Posts: 4,555
    edited September 2022


    If you can cremate over 50,000 of your own troops lost in combat, but call it just 5,000 on TV then who cares if a tens of thousands more from the East don't make it home?

    There were some days in which Russia said 2000 Ukrainians had been killed when a couple of hundred had, and similar.

    Evidently the 10:1 ratio has some mystical attraction to someone in the Kremlin.
  • MISTYMISTY Posts: 1,594
    DavidL said:

    MISTY said:

    .

    eek said:

    Cyclefree said:

    Nigelb said:

    Why ?

    Treasury refuses to publish UK economic forecast
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-62970803

    Probably because it is either bloody awful or does not support what the government intends saying later this week.

    Possibly they have not done one. That might be another reason.
    Can't imagine the Treasury hasn't done a forecast - it's very much plug figures in see the output.

    The more likely figure is that it both looks bloody awful AND it doesn't support the government intentions - anyone with a clue knows that reducing Corporation Tax is going to do nothing at all about productivity regardless of what Professor Minford believes....

    Most companies operate on the basis of take money today because they may not be there tomorrow...
    Here's the thing though.

    The government can decide not to publish a forecast this week, and it's hard to imagine an alternative to the "things are bad and Trussonimics will make things worse" theory of non-publication.

    But not publishing will make people suspicious (i.e. it comes at a government credibility cost that will become a money cost), and it doesn't stop events happening.

    Unless we really are in a "only thing to fear is fear" scenario, which seems unlikely.
    If they publish the forecast now, and it's not good news - ballooning deficit, slow growth, persistent inflation - then it overshadowed the good news story of the tax cuts.

    If they release the forecast later, it will be much less noticed, and the positive news of the tax cuts will have had time to bed in.

    It's a cynical piece of news management and Parliament shouldn't stand for it.

    But, it does show that when Truss undermines Parliament she does so for political advantage, rather than in an ill-judged attempt to save a mate from embarrassment over a lobbying scandal. This sort of ruthlessness and focus might work to her advantage for the election, if Parliament let's her get away with it.
    Ballooning deficit, slow growth and persistent inflation is what we have now, after almost three years of Sunak's Brownism. And that's being generous to what we have now.

    This truth is underlined by today's PSBR numbers, with borrowing yet again way ahead of what was forecast, yet another fail for Sunak's high tax policies.

    Truss's go for growth isn't just driven by ideology, it's driven by necessity. Under Sunak, we would be manifestly headed for depression and bankruptcy. The numbers show it.
    What is really impoverishing us is nearly 30 years of trade deficit. Not completely sure that a massive increase in domestic demand is the answer to that one.
    Hardly surprising when offshoring energy production, food production and manufacturing is government policy.
  • EabhalEabhal Posts: 5,781
    So, with the new rates cap + the £400 relief, my energy bill will be cut by 65% from October 1st for 6 months (from what I'm currently on).

    A huge saving for me, which I don't really need. Deeply unfair.
  • bondegezoubondegezou Posts: 7,159

    MISTY said:

    HYUFD said:

    kle4 said:

    Mr. Sandpit, Starmer isn't that.

    But the Conservatives are facing numerous significant problems.
    1) They've been in for a long time, so time for a change becomes a powerful mantra.
    2) Cost of living is a problem for many people.
    3) The former clownish PM's antics lost the party a lot of support which has not returned.

    Against that, they do have incumbency and the boundary changes should help, but I'd not be surprised if we see a lot of changes next time.

    This is about where I am. Labour winning outright from so far back should be very hard, but 2019 was unusual and there are a lot of time and stored up problems for the Tories. I think itll be close - if the Truss gambles pay off its a 1992 result.
    Most likely the result will be 2010 in reverse, a hung parliament but Starmer like Cameron wins most seats
    Looking at the economic numbers, I have no idea why any tory still thinks Sunak would have been a better option than Truss, as you manifestly do.

    With Truss we might get some growth with a ballooning deficit. With Sunak we would get a depression with a ballooning deficit, followed by huge public spending cuts or going to the IMF. As shown by recent borrowing numbers.

    Well said, the idea you can tax your way to growth has never been true and never will be true. Brownism failed under Brown, and its failed under Sunak too.

    The simple reality is that the Government taxes us every which way it can, so any money taken out of circulation due to higher taxes must immediately lower tax receipts in other taxes, because its no longer being spent and taxed in other ways.

    But those advocating tax rises never factor this in at all. Which is why tax rises never raise as much as their adherents expect, and why tax cuts don't cost as much as their critics claim either, as any extra money circulating in the economy due to tax cuts then gets itself taxed as it circulates minimising the cost of the tax cut.
    I’m trying to work out some funny way to pun Truss and Kansas. Kantruss? Hmmm… not funny enough… The point being that this fantasy that you can cut taxes and everything will work out has been tried, and it doesn’t work. The classic, and very tragic, example of this is known as the Kansas Experiment: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kansas_experiment
  • MISTYMISTY Posts: 1,594

    MISTY said:

    Sandpit said:

    Leon said:

    Talking of economic forecasts


    "The euro area is facing a deeper recession than previously forecast after Russia halted natural gas deliveries through the Nord Stream 1 pipeline, according to Deutsche Bank economists.

    Output will shrink 2.2% next year, compared with an earlier projection for a 0.3% contraction, the analysts said Wednesday in a report to clients. Gross domestic product in Germany, which is most exposed to lower energy shipments, will drop as much as 4%. "


    https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-09-21/euro-zone-faces-deeper-recession-on-gas-cuts-deutsche-bank-says?cmpid=socialflow-twitter-business&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter&utm_campaign=socialflow-organic&utm_content=business&leadSource=uverify wall


    A 4% drop of GDP for Germany. Ouch. And that's presuming the war does not get worse

    Brace

    Herr Sholz had better get those weapons heading to Ukraine then. The longer it takes, the worse it will end up being for Germany.
    Of course, what is really screwing the Eurozone economy is the ECB's rate increases, which are already too hard to bear for some member states, and more is coming down the line.

    The periphery are being sacrificed once again it seems, what else is new.

    I reckon even a 2.2% shrinkage looks optimistic to me.
    The EU are proposing compulsory 5% energy use reductions in peak time as their opening salvo, -2.2% my arse. -5% and up

    Indeed.
  • eekeek Posts: 24,797

    MISTY said:

    HYUFD said:

    kle4 said:

    Mr. Sandpit, Starmer isn't that.

    But the Conservatives are facing numerous significant problems.
    1) They've been in for a long time, so time for a change becomes a powerful mantra.
    2) Cost of living is a problem for many people.
    3) The former clownish PM's antics lost the party a lot of support which has not returned.

    Against that, they do have incumbency and the boundary changes should help, but I'd not be surprised if we see a lot of changes next time.

    This is about where I am. Labour winning outright from so far back should be very hard, but 2019 was unusual and there are a lot of time and stored up problems for the Tories. I think itll be close - if the Truss gambles pay off its a 1992 result.
    Most likely the result will be 2010 in reverse, a hung parliament but Starmer like Cameron wins most seats
    Looking at the economic numbers, I have no idea why any tory still thinks Sunak would have been a better option than Truss, as you manifestly do.

    With Truss we might get some growth with a ballooning deficit. With Sunak we would get a depression with a ballooning deficit, followed by huge public spending cuts or going to the IMF. As shown by recent borrowing numbers.

    Well said, the idea you can tax your way to growth has never been true and never will be true. Brownism failed under Brown, and its failed under Sunak too.

    The simple reality is that the Government taxes us every which way it can, so any money taken out of circulation due to higher taxes must immediately lower tax receipts in other taxes, because its no longer being spent and taxed in other ways.

    But those advocating tax rises never factor this in at all. Which is why tax rises never raise as much as their adherents expect, and why tax cuts don't cost as much as their critics claim either, as any extra money circulating in the economy due to tax cuts then gets itself taxed as it circulates minimising the cost of the tax cut.
    How does that work with Corporation Tax which is merely the money left at the end of a year after a company has spent every penny it wants to spend...
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 49,614
    edited September 2022

    Leon said:

    Oxford Street's US-themed sweet shops to face stricter rules

    Measures proposed include increasing the fee to register a company at Companies House from £12 to £50,

    https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-london-62972510

    Yeah that will deter multi-million quid money laundering....

    There's a bunch of them around Leicester Sq as well. I also saw one or two in Seville, it's not an entirely London thing

    They are really odd. Garish and vulgar, and seldom full of customers

    Speculation that they are money launderers?
    Private Eye have been on this for 3+ years now. Everything about them is as bent as a nine bob note. Run by Afghani nationals, constantly dissolving companies and reforming. The suggestion is flushing dirty money from Afghanistan. Been at it for 15 years now, but with COVID etc, seen number of outlets skyrocket.
    It started with the souvenir shops:
    https://www.reddit.com/r/london/comments/cnkcaz/private_eye_on_west_end_souvenir_shops/

    Hundreds of companies, most of whom are controlled by a handful of people, and are dissolved before they file accounts.
  • eek said:

    Oxford Street's US-themed sweet shops to face stricter rules

    Measures proposed include increasing the fee to register a company at Companies House from £12 to £50,

    https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-london-62972510

    Yeah that will deter multi-million quid money laundering....

    I'm trying to work out what a change of incorporation rules (which are needed and are supposedly in progress) has to do with a local council..
    Nothing whatsoever. The whole piece is a reminder of why I almost never look at BBC news articles. It's so badly written that it borders on total incoherence.
  • Eabhal said:

    So, with the new rates cap + the £400 relief, my energy bill will be cut by 65% from October 1st for 6 months (from what I'm currently on).

    A huge saving for me, which I don't really need. Deeply unfair.

    I would make the point I took a 2 year fix a year ago so with the rebate from October and my balance EDF will be paying me. !!

    It seems a bit strange but maybe I had the luck to fix early enough
  • LeonLeon Posts: 46,206
    This whole thread is desolating: when American capitalist medicine meets a crazy new ideology


    American clinics are pushing radical trans surgery and puberty blockers on kids "because they make so much m money for us". Here they are ADMITTING it

    "Vanderbilt opened its trans clinic in 2018. During a lecture the same year, Dr. Shayne Taylor explained how she convinced Nashville to get into the gender transition game. She emphasized that it's a "big money maker," especially because the surgeries require a lot of "follow ups""


    "Just a few vaginoplasties can finance the whole clinic"

    https://twitter.com/MattWalshBlog/status/1572313523232931840?s=20&t=KWigxdGdSfnRBOqe_Fu_Zg


    How have we allowed this madness to prosper?
  • FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 76,274
    edited September 2022

    eek said:

    Oxford Street's US-themed sweet shops to face stricter rules

    Measures proposed include increasing the fee to register a company at Companies House from £12 to £50,

    https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-london-62972510

    Yeah that will deter multi-million quid money laundering....

    I'm trying to work out what a change of incorporation rules (which are needed and are supposedly in progress) has to do with a local council..
    Nothing whatsoever. The whole piece is a reminder of why I almost never look at BBC news articles. It's so badly written that it borders on total incoherence.
    Really it is just a puff piece on Westminster council saying they are going to do something....but most of the suggestions aren't anything to do with them.
  • MISTY said:

    HYUFD said:

    kle4 said:

    Mr. Sandpit, Starmer isn't that.

    But the Conservatives are facing numerous significant problems.
    1) They've been in for a long time, so time for a change becomes a powerful mantra.
    2) Cost of living is a problem for many people.
    3) The former clownish PM's antics lost the party a lot of support which has not returned.

    Against that, they do have incumbency and the boundary changes should help, but I'd not be surprised if we see a lot of changes next time.

    This is about where I am. Labour winning outright from so far back should be very hard, but 2019 was unusual and there are a lot of time and stored up problems for the Tories. I think itll be close - if the Truss gambles pay off its a 1992 result.
    Most likely the result will be 2010 in reverse, a hung parliament but Starmer like Cameron wins most seats
    Looking at the economic numbers, I have no idea why any tory still thinks Sunak would have been a better option than Truss, as you manifestly do.

    With Truss we might get some growth with a ballooning deficit. With Sunak we would get a depression with a ballooning deficit, followed by huge public spending cuts or going to the IMF. As shown by recent borrowing numbers.

    Well said, the idea you can tax your way to growth has never been true and never will be true. Brownism failed under Brown, and its failed under Sunak too.

    The simple reality is that the Government taxes us every which way it can, so any money taken out of circulation due to higher taxes must immediately lower tax receipts in other taxes, because its no longer being spent and taxed in other ways.

    But those advocating tax rises never factor this in at all. Which is why tax rises never raise as much as their adherents expect, and why tax cuts don't cost as much as their critics claim either, as any extra money circulating in the economy due to tax cuts then gets itself taxed as it circulates minimising the cost of the tax cut.
    I’m trying to work out some funny way to pun Truss and Kansas. Kantruss? Hmmm… not funny enough… The point being that this fantasy that you can cut taxes and everything will work out has been tried, and it doesn’t work. The classic, and very tragic, example of this is known as the Kansas Experiment: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kansas_experiment
    The Kansas experiment was deeply, deeply flawed and not remotely comparable to the UK whatsoever. The UK is reversing tax rates back to what they were a few months ago, from a record high base in the past 74 years.

    As opposed to Kansas where tax loopholes were introduced allowed many people to cut their tax rate to literally zero. Zero percent tax rate is not something I'm advocating or anyone sane is. Oh and the Kansas bill also increased many other people's tax rates, it didn't reduce it, so increasing their tax rates would of course harm the economy while eliminating tax from others does nothing to raise revenues.
  • PhilPhil Posts: 1,919
    Leon said:

    This whole thread is desolating: when American capitalist medicine meets a crazy new ideology


    American clinics are pushing radical trans surgery and puberty blockers on kids "because they make so much m money for us". Here they are ADMITTING it

    "Vanderbilt opened its trans clinic in 2018. During a lecture the same year, Dr. Shayne Taylor explained how she convinced Nashville to get into the gender transition game. She emphasized that it's a "big money maker," especially because the surgeries require a lot of "follow ups""


    "Just a few vaginoplasties can finance the whole clinic"

    https://twitter.com/MattWalshBlog/status/1572313523232931840?s=20&t=KWigxdGdSfnRBOqe_Fu_Zg


    How have we allowed this madness to prosper?

    I have some bad news for you about the rest of the medical industry in the USA Leon.
  • MexicanpeteMexicanpete Posts: 24,583
    ...

    MISTY said:

    HYUFD said:

    kle4 said:

    Mr. Sandpit, Starmer isn't that.

    But the Conservatives are facing numerous significant problems.
    1) They've been in for a long time, so time for a change becomes a powerful mantra.
    2) Cost of living is a problem for many people.
    3) The former clownish PM's antics lost the party a lot of support which has not returned.

    Against that, they do have incumbency and the boundary changes should help, but I'd not be surprised if we see a lot of changes next time.

    This is about where I am. Labour winning outright from so far back should be very hard, but 2019 was unusual and there are a lot of time and stored up problems for the Tories. I think itll be close - if the Truss gambles pay off its a 1992 result.
    Most likely the result will be 2010 in reverse, a hung parliament but Starmer like Cameron wins most seats
    Looking at the economic numbers, I have no idea why any tory still thinks Sunak would have been a better option than Truss, as you manifestly do.

    With Truss we might get some growth with a ballooning deficit. With Sunak we would get a depression with a ballooning deficit, followed by huge public spending cuts or going to the IMF. As shown by recent borrowing numbers. These are happening on Sunak and Johnson's watch, not Truss's.

    @HYUFD only worships one God, Boris Johnson who is sacrosanct and above all others to the point he will actively attempt to belittle anyone who comes before his idol, sadly

    Fortunately most of the rest of us have moved on
    I am not sure Johnson has either. He could well be a thorn in Truss's a***, before he believes he can return, faster, stronger, better for his magnificent landslide victory at GE2024.
  • DynamoDynamo Posts: 651
    edited September 2022
    WillG said:

    Dynamo said:

    WillG said:

    Dynamo said:

    Here is the official translation of Putin's address.

    Those who don't know how to read will say that reading it was a waste of time and that all it does is show that everything they believed beforehand was so true. (That's how an idiot's mind works.) Perhaps they might then make a 1970s comedy reference.

    I would have posted the whole thing but it's too long. Here are some extracts. I've put some bits in bold.

    "Kiev representatives voiced quite a positive response to our proposals. (...) But a peaceful settlement obviously did not suit the West, which is why, after certain compromises were coordinated, Kiev was actually ordered to wreck all these agreements.

    More weapons were pumped into Ukraine. The Kiev regime brought into play new groups of foreign mercenaries and nationalists, military units trained according to NATO standards and receiving orders from Western advisers.

    At the same time, the regime of reprisals throughout Ukraine against their own citizens, established immediately after the armed coup in 2014, was harshly intensified (...)
    "

    "The West has gone too far in its aggressive anti-Russia policy, making endless threats to our country and people. Some irresponsible Western politicians are doing more than just speak about their plans to organise the delivery of long-range offensive weapons to Ukraine, which could be used to deliver strikes at Crimea and other Russian regions.

    Such terrorist attacks, including with the use of Western weapons, are being delivered at border areas in the Belgorod and Kursk regions. NATO is conducting reconnaissance through Russia’s southern regions in real time and with the use of modern systems, aircraft, vessels, satellites and strategic drones.

    Washington, London and Brussels are openly encouraging Kiev to move the hostilities to our territory. They openly say that Russia must be defeated on the battlefield by any means, and subsequently deprived of political, economic, cultural and any other sovereignty and ransacked.

    They have even resorted to the nuclear blackmail. I am referring not only to the Western-encouraged shelling of the Zaporozhye Nuclear Power Plant, which poses a threat of a nuclear disaster, but also to the statements made by some high-ranking representatives of the leading NATO countries on the possibility and admissibility of using weapons of mass destruction – nuclear weapons – against Russia.

    I would like to remind those who make such statements regarding Russia that our country has different types of weapons as well, and some of them are more modern than the weapons NATO countries have. In the event of a threat to the territorial integrity of our country and to defend Russia and our people, we will certainly make use of all weapon systems available to us. This is not a bluff.

    The citizens of Russia can rest assured that the territorial integrity of our Motherland, our independence and freedom will be defended – I repeat – by all the systems available to us.
    "

    Oh do fuck off you pathetic little man. Do you believe anything that you have posted here?
    This is all a face saving measure by Putin. He wanted to deckare war and a full mobilization to bring Belarus into the war and call up the population of the big cities. But he was blocked last night so had to announce this "partial mobilization" with regional governors deciding who to call up. I.e. it is a deal so that the Westernized educated cities will be protected from mobilization. The elite blocked Putin from calling up their kids and their friends' kids. That in turn means Belarus cannot be forced in. He has ramped up the rhetoric to cover this up.
    Source for the regional governors thing?

    Executive Order:

    http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/69391

    "The Government of the Russian Federation shall define the categories of citizens of the Russian Federation who have the right to draft exemptions and the manner in which these exemptions shall be provided."
    "Looking at Vladimir Putin’s actual order for a partial mobilisation, Russian commentators have begun casting serious doubts on the promises of the president and his defence minister that the call-up will be limited.

    They point out that the actual decree signed is very vague. It says nothing about any cap on numbers or about any exceptions, like not recruiting students or conscripts.

    It's left to regional heads to decide who to call, to meet quotas."

    https://www.bbc.com/news/live/world-62970683
    Thanks. I've now looked at this some more.

    The order in the original Russian is here:

    http://static.kremlin.ru/media/events/files/ru/QdJ0ybmN7Kocwc8eyTGosdyuylM6qXpj.pdf

    It says (point 8) that regional heads will have to provide citizens for callup according to numbers and length of time determined by the defence ministry.

    So yes, there is something here.

    They defence ministry may not issue the same quotas everywhere. They may prefer to send guys from far-flung parts of Russia rather than from parts of southern Russia near the Ukraine. There have been several precedents for that, including Hungary 1956 and the war in Afghanistan 1979-89.
  • eek said:

    MISTY said:

    HYUFD said:

    kle4 said:

    Mr. Sandpit, Starmer isn't that.

    But the Conservatives are facing numerous significant problems.
    1) They've been in for a long time, so time for a change becomes a powerful mantra.
    2) Cost of living is a problem for many people.
    3) The former clownish PM's antics lost the party a lot of support which has not returned.

    Against that, they do have incumbency and the boundary changes should help, but I'd not be surprised if we see a lot of changes next time.

    This is about where I am. Labour winning outright from so far back should be very hard, but 2019 was unusual and there are a lot of time and stored up problems for the Tories. I think itll be close - if the Truss gambles pay off its a 1992 result.
    Most likely the result will be 2010 in reverse, a hung parliament but Starmer like Cameron wins most seats
    Looking at the economic numbers, I have no idea why any tory still thinks Sunak would have been a better option than Truss, as you manifestly do.

    With Truss we might get some growth with a ballooning deficit. With Sunak we would get a depression with a ballooning deficit, followed by huge public spending cuts or going to the IMF. As shown by recent borrowing numbers.

    Well said, the idea you can tax your way to growth has never been true and never will be true. Brownism failed under Brown, and its failed under Sunak too.

    The simple reality is that the Government taxes us every which way it can, so any money taken out of circulation due to higher taxes must immediately lower tax receipts in other taxes, because its no longer being spent and taxed in other ways.

    But those advocating tax rises never factor this in at all. Which is why tax rises never raise as much as their adherents expect, and why tax cuts don't cost as much as their critics claim either, as any extra money circulating in the economy due to tax cuts then gets itself taxed as it circulates minimising the cost of the tax cut.
    How does that work with Corporation Tax which is merely the money left at the end of a year after a company has spent every penny it wants to spend...
    Because people will spend or invest less or more depending upon Corporation Tax rates as they will budget CT into their planned fiscal year or expected return on investment. They don't just operate as if CT doesn't exist and then suddenly pay it despite that.
  • RazedabodeRazedabode Posts: 2,973
    It’s odd with Putin - before the Ukraine invasion, I’d have believed in a lot of his threats. However since then his army looks utterly crap and his country hopelessly weak.

    That doesn’t mean we can ignore his threats cos of those nukes, but I do wonder if the west will feel more emboldened with support for Ukraine
  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 47,080
    It’s a beautiful morning here on the sleepy James river, having breakfast in the sunshine while watching the herons on the far shore and turtles nosing around the boat waiting for any scraps. A shame we have to leave this morning bound for Carolina, with two must-stops on the way, Isle of Wight County, Virginia, followed by the Great Dismal Swamp.
  • AlistairMAlistairM Posts: 2,004
    I don't know why this is being "denied" like it is a bad thing. They should be doing this. If not for energy prices then for helping fight climate change.

    No.10 denies it is planning a public information campaign on how people can cut down their energy consumption
    https://twitter.com/politicshome/status/1572562285805338625
  • Eabhal said:

    So, with the new rates cap + the £400 relief, my energy bill will be cut by 65% from October 1st for 6 months (from what I'm currently on).

    A huge saving for me, which I don't really need. Deeply unfair.

    You will vote Conservative in gratitude won't you...?
  • FlatlanderFlatlander Posts: 3,853
    edited September 2022
    Sandpit said:

    Leon said:

    Oxford Street's US-themed sweet shops to face stricter rules

    Measures proposed include increasing the fee to register a company at Companies House from £12 to £50,

    https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-london-62972510

    Yeah that will deter multi-million quid money laundering....

    There's a bunch of them around Leicester Sq as well. I also saw one or two in Seville, it's not an entirely London thing

    They are really odd. Garish and vulgar, and seldom full of customers

    Speculation that they are money launderers?
    Private Eye have been on this for 3+ years now. Everything about them is as bent as a nine bob note. Run by Afghani nationals, constantly dissolving companies and reforming. The suggestion is flushing dirty money from Afghanistan. Been at it for 15 years now, but with COVID etc, seen number of outlets skyrocket.
    It started with the souvenir shops:
    https://www.reddit.com/r/london/comments/cnkcaz/private_eye_on_west_end_souvenir_shops/

    Hundreds of companies, most of whom are controlled by a handful of people, and are dissolved before they file accounts.
    My favourite piece of alleged money laundering:

    https://www.thecourier.co.uk/fp/news/perth-kinross/699447/former-gaddafi-insider-accused-of-offloading-stolen-cash-into-taymouth-castle/

    A perfectly maintained golf course with the greens cut daily. No golfers. At all.


    There's something that smells very similar here in the Flatlands but on a smaller scale.
  • eekeek Posts: 24,797
    Dynamo said:

    WillG said:

    Dynamo said:

    WillG said:

    Dynamo said:

    Here is the official translation of Putin's address.

    Those who don't know how to read will say that reading it was a waste of time and that all it does is show that everything they believed beforehand was so true. (That's how an idiot's mind works.) Perhaps they might then make a 1970s comedy reference.

    I would have posted the whole thing but it's too long. Here are some extracts. I've put some bits in bold.

    "Kiev representatives voiced quite a positive response to our proposals. (...) But a peaceful settlement obviously did not suit the West, which is why, after certain compromises were coordinated, Kiev was actually ordered to wreck all these agreements.

    More weapons were pumped into Ukraine. The Kiev regime brought into play new groups of foreign mercenaries and nationalists, military units trained according to NATO standards and receiving orders from Western advisers.

    At the same time, the regime of reprisals throughout Ukraine against their own citizens, established immediately after the armed coup in 2014, was harshly intensified (...)
    "

    "The West has gone too far in its aggressive anti-Russia policy, making endless threats to our country and people. Some irresponsible Western politicians are doing more than just speak about their plans to organise the delivery of long-range offensive weapons to Ukraine, which could be used to deliver strikes at Crimea and other Russian regions.

    Such terrorist attacks, including with the use of Western weapons, are being delivered at border areas in the Belgorod and Kursk regions. NATO is conducting reconnaissance through Russia’s southern regions in real time and with the use of modern systems, aircraft, vessels, satellites and strategic drones.

    Washington, London and Brussels are openly encouraging Kiev to move the hostilities to our territory. They openly say that Russia must be defeated on the battlefield by any means, and subsequently deprived of political, economic, cultural and any other sovereignty and ransacked.

    They have even resorted to the nuclear blackmail. I am referring not only to the Western-encouraged shelling of the Zaporozhye Nuclear Power Plant, which poses a threat of a nuclear disaster, but also to the statements made by some high-ranking representatives of the leading NATO countries on the possibility and admissibility of using weapons of mass destruction – nuclear weapons – against Russia.

    I would like to remind those who make such statements regarding Russia that our country has different types of weapons as well, and some of them are more modern than the weapons NATO countries have. In the event of a threat to the territorial integrity of our country and to defend Russia and our people, we will certainly make use of all weapon systems available to us. This is not a bluff.

    The citizens of Russia can rest assured that the territorial integrity of our Motherland, our independence and freedom will be defended – I repeat – by all the systems available to us.
    "

    Oh do fuck off you pathetic little man. Do you believe anything that you have posted here?
    This is all a face saving measure by Putin. He wanted to deckare war and a full mobilization to bring Belarus into the war and call up the population of the big cities. But he was blocked last night so had to announce this "partial mobilization" with regional governors deciding who to call up. I.e. it is a deal so that the Westernized educated cities will be protected from mobilization. The elite blocked Putin from calling up their kids and their friends' kids. That in turn means Belarus cannot be forced in. He has ramped up the rhetoric to cover this up.
    Source for the regional governors thing?

    Executive Order:

    http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/69391

    "The Government of the Russian Federation shall define the categories of citizens of the Russian Federation who have the right to draft exemptions and the manner in which these exemptions shall be provided."
    "Looking at Vladimir Putin’s actual order for a partial mobilisation, Russian commentators have begun casting serious doubts on the promises of the president and his defence minister that the call-up will be limited.

    They point out that the actual decree signed is very vague. It says nothing about any cap on numbers or about any exceptions, like not recruiting students or conscripts.

    It's left to regional heads to decide who to call, to meet quotas."

    https://www.bbc.com/news/live/world-62970683
    Thanks. I've now looked at this some more.

    The order in the original Russian is here:

    http://static.kremlin.ru/media/events/files/ru/QdJ0ybmN7Kocwc8eyTGosdyuylM6qXpj.pdf

    It says (point 8) that regional heads will have to provide citizens for callup according to numbers and length of time determined by the defence ministry.

    So yes, there is something here.

    They defence ministry may prefer to send guys from far-flung parts of Russia rather than from parts of southern Russia near the Ukraine. There have been several precedents for that, including Hungary 1956 and the war in Afghanistan 1979-89.
    Everyone in Moscow will prefer to fill the numbers from anywhere which isn't Moscow. So I suspect that's the plan..

  • TimSTimS Posts: 9,145

    eek said:

    MISTY said:

    HYUFD said:

    kle4 said:

    Mr. Sandpit, Starmer isn't that.

    But the Conservatives are facing numerous significant problems.
    1) They've been in for a long time, so time for a change becomes a powerful mantra.
    2) Cost of living is a problem for many people.
    3) The former clownish PM's antics lost the party a lot of support which has not returned.

    Against that, they do have incumbency and the boundary changes should help, but I'd not be surprised if we see a lot of changes next time.

    This is about where I am. Labour winning outright from so far back should be very hard, but 2019 was unusual and there are a lot of time and stored up problems for the Tories. I think itll be close - if the Truss gambles pay off its a 1992 result.
    Most likely the result will be 2010 in reverse, a hung parliament but Starmer like Cameron wins most seats
    Looking at the economic numbers, I have no idea why any tory still thinks Sunak would have been a better option than Truss, as you manifestly do.

    With Truss we might get some growth with a ballooning deficit. With Sunak we would get a depression with a ballooning deficit, followed by huge public spending cuts or going to the IMF. As shown by recent borrowing numbers.

    Well said, the idea you can tax your way to growth has never been true and never will be true. Brownism failed under Brown, and its failed under Sunak too.

    The simple reality is that the Government taxes us every which way it can, so any money taken out of circulation due to higher taxes must immediately lower tax receipts in other taxes, because its no longer being spent and taxed in other ways.

    But those advocating tax rises never factor this in at all. Which is why tax rises never raise as much as their adherents expect, and why tax cuts don't cost as much as their critics claim either, as any extra money circulating in the economy due to tax cuts then gets itself taxed as it circulates minimising the cost of the tax cut.
    How does that work with Corporation Tax which is merely the money left at the end of a year after a company has spent every penny it wants to spend...
    Because people will spend or invest less or more depending upon Corporation Tax rates as they will budget CT into their planned fiscal year or expected return on investment. They don't just operate as if CT doesn't exist and then suddenly pay it despite that.
    A frustrating number of them do exactly that. Post-tax budgeting is a reserve of only a very select enlightened few.
  • ...

    MISTY said:

    HYUFD said:

    kle4 said:

    Mr. Sandpit, Starmer isn't that.

    But the Conservatives are facing numerous significant problems.
    1) They've been in for a long time, so time for a change becomes a powerful mantra.
    2) Cost of living is a problem for many people.
    3) The former clownish PM's antics lost the party a lot of support which has not returned.

    Against that, they do have incumbency and the boundary changes should help, but I'd not be surprised if we see a lot of changes next time.

    This is about where I am. Labour winning outright from so far back should be very hard, but 2019 was unusual and there are a lot of time and stored up problems for the Tories. I think itll be close - if the Truss gambles pay off its a 1992 result.
    Most likely the result will be 2010 in reverse, a hung parliament but Starmer like Cameron wins most seats
    Looking at the economic numbers, I have no idea why any tory still thinks Sunak would have been a better option than Truss, as you manifestly do.

    With Truss we might get some growth with a ballooning deficit. With Sunak we would get a depression with a ballooning deficit, followed by huge public spending cuts or going to the IMF. As shown by recent borrowing numbers. These are happening on Sunak and Johnson's watch, not Truss's.

    @HYUFD only worships one God, Boris Johnson who is sacrosanct and above all others to the point he will actively attempt to belittle anyone who comes before his idol, sadly

    Fortunately most of the rest of us have moved on
    I am not sure Johnson has either. He could well be a thorn in Truss's a***, before he believes he can return, faster, stronger, better for his magnificent landslide victory at GE2024.
    Like Corbyn let's not go there
  • LeonLeon Posts: 46,206
    Phil said:

    Leon said:

    This whole thread is desolating: when American capitalist medicine meets a crazy new ideology


    American clinics are pushing radical trans surgery and puberty blockers on kids "because they make so much m money for us". Here they are ADMITTING it

    "Vanderbilt opened its trans clinic in 2018. During a lecture the same year, Dr. Shayne Taylor explained how she convinced Nashville to get into the gender transition game. She emphasized that it's a "big money maker," especially because the surgeries require a lot of "follow ups""


    "Just a few vaginoplasties can finance the whole clinic"

    https://twitter.com/MattWalshBlog/status/1572313523232931840?s=20&t=KWigxdGdSfnRBOqe_Fu_Zg


    How have we allowed this madness to prosper?

    I have some bad news for you about the rest of the medical industry in the USA Leon.
    I know that American medicine is greedy and evil. Look at the opioid scandal. Horrendous

    But this seems, arguably, a new level of evil. Mutilating healthy kids so they can "make big profits"

    OMFG
  • AlistairMAlistairM Posts: 2,004
    edited September 2022
    IanB2 said:

    It’s a beautiful morning here on the sleepy James river, having breakfast in the sunshine while watching the herons on the far shore and turtles nosing around the boat waiting for any scraps. A shame we have to leave this morning bound for Carolina, with two must-stops on the way, Isle of Wight County, Virginia, followed by the Great Dismal Swamp.

    Is that a genuine place? Is it even an "Isle"?! Americans really were very bad at inventing names for places.
  • bondegezoubondegezou Posts: 7,159

    MISTY said:

    HYUFD said:

    kle4 said:

    Mr. Sandpit, Starmer isn't that.

    But the Conservatives are facing numerous significant problems.
    1) They've been in for a long time, so time for a change becomes a powerful mantra.
    2) Cost of living is a problem for many people.
    3) The former clownish PM's antics lost the party a lot of support which has not returned.

    Against that, they do have incumbency and the boundary changes should help, but I'd not be surprised if we see a lot of changes next time.

    This is about where I am. Labour winning outright from so far back should be very hard, but 2019 was unusual and there are a lot of time and stored up problems for the Tories. I think itll be close - if the Truss gambles pay off its a 1992 result.
    Most likely the result will be 2010 in reverse, a hung parliament but Starmer like Cameron wins most seats
    Looking at the economic numbers, I have no idea why any tory still thinks Sunak would have been a better option than Truss, as you manifestly do.

    With Truss we might get some growth with a ballooning deficit. With Sunak we would get a depression with a ballooning deficit, followed by huge public spending cuts or going to the IMF. As shown by recent borrowing numbers.

    Well said, the idea you can tax your way to growth has never been true and never will be true. Brownism failed under Brown, and its failed under Sunak too.

    The simple reality is that the Government taxes us every which way it can, so any money taken out of circulation due to higher taxes must immediately lower tax receipts in other taxes, because its no longer being spent and taxed in other ways.

    But those advocating tax rises never factor this in at all. Which is why tax rises never raise as much as their adherents expect, and why tax cuts don't cost as much as their critics claim either, as any extra money circulating in the economy due to tax cuts then gets itself taxed as it circulates minimising the cost of the tax cut.
    I’m trying to work out some funny way to pun Truss and Kansas. Kantruss? Hmmm… not funny enough… The point being that this fantasy that you can cut taxes and everything will work out has been tried, and it doesn’t work. The classic, and very tragic, example of this is known as the Kansas Experiment: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kansas_experiment
    The Kansas experiment was deeply, deeply flawed and not remotely comparable to the UK whatsoever. The UK is reversing tax rates back to what they were a few months ago, from a record high base in the past 74 years.

    As opposed to Kansas where tax loopholes were introduced allowed many people to cut their tax rate to literally zero. Zero percent tax rate is not something I'm advocating or anyone sane is. Oh and the Kansas bill also increased many other people's tax rates, it didn't reduce it, so increasing their tax rates would of course harm the economy while eliminating tax from others does nothing to raise revenues.
    While I’m here, here’s a nice FT article: https://www.ft.com/content/a9be9db6-a91e-48e4-8d69-4bbfff7e0f5f

    You say the UK is reversing tax rates back to what they were a few months ago. Are the stamp duty changes taking us back to where we were a few months ago? Indeed, I think there had already been 7 cuts in stamp duty since 2008.

    The idea that the Kansas Experiment failed because it increased people’s taxes is a novel one.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 46,206
    The famous American transgender clinic exposed in that video has just taken down its entire website. The whole damn thing

    https://www.vanderbilthealth.com/clinic/clinic-transgender-health

    Vanished

  • eekeek Posts: 24,797

    eek said:

    MISTY said:

    HYUFD said:

    kle4 said:

    Mr. Sandpit, Starmer isn't that.

    But the Conservatives are facing numerous significant problems.
    1) They've been in for a long time, so time for a change becomes a powerful mantra.
    2) Cost of living is a problem for many people.
    3) The former clownish PM's antics lost the party a lot of support which has not returned.

    Against that, they do have incumbency and the boundary changes should help, but I'd not be surprised if we see a lot of changes next time.

    This is about where I am. Labour winning outright from so far back should be very hard, but 2019 was unusual and there are a lot of time and stored up problems for the Tories. I think itll be close - if the Truss gambles pay off its a 1992 result.
    Most likely the result will be 2010 in reverse, a hung parliament but Starmer like Cameron wins most seats
    Looking at the economic numbers, I have no idea why any tory still thinks Sunak would have been a better option than Truss, as you manifestly do.

    With Truss we might get some growth with a ballooning deficit. With Sunak we would get a depression with a ballooning deficit, followed by huge public spending cuts or going to the IMF. As shown by recent borrowing numbers.

    Well said, the idea you can tax your way to growth has never been true and never will be true. Brownism failed under Brown, and its failed under Sunak too.

    The simple reality is that the Government taxes us every which way it can, so any money taken out of circulation due to higher taxes must immediately lower tax receipts in other taxes, because its no longer being spent and taxed in other ways.

    But those advocating tax rises never factor this in at all. Which is why tax rises never raise as much as their adherents expect, and why tax cuts don't cost as much as their critics claim either, as any extra money circulating in the economy due to tax cuts then gets itself taxed as it circulates minimising the cost of the tax cut.
    How does that work with Corporation Tax which is merely the money left at the end of a year after a company has spent every penny it wants to spend...
    Because people will spend or invest less or more depending upon Corporation Tax rates as they will budget CT into their planned fiscal year or expected return on investment. They don't just operate as if CT doesn't exist and then suddenly pay it despite that.
    Which is why investment allowances work better than a lower rate of tax.

    We are paying 25% on that £1m profit or we could invest £200,000 of it on new equipment and pay £180,000 in tax (utterly made up figures). So the cost of the new machinery works out as £130,000 with the tax saved...
  • CyclefreeCyclefree Posts: 25,074
    Leon said:

    This whole thread is desolating: when American capitalist medicine meets a crazy new ideology


    American clinics are pushing radical trans surgery and puberty blockers on kids "because they make so much m money for us". Here they are ADMITTING it

    "Vanderbilt opened its trans clinic in 2018. During a lecture the same year, Dr. Shayne Taylor explained how she convinced Nashville to get into the gender transition game. She emphasized that it's a "big money maker," especially because the surgeries require a lot of "follow ups""


    "Just a few vaginoplasties can finance the whole clinic"

    https://twitter.com/MattWalshBlog/status/1572313523232931840?s=20&t=KWigxdGdSfnRBOqe_Fu_Zg


    How have we allowed this madness to prosper?

    They had better have some bloody good insurance in place for the inevitable lawsuits, which have already started.
  • MISTY said:

    HYUFD said:

    kle4 said:

    Mr. Sandpit, Starmer isn't that.

    But the Conservatives are facing numerous significant problems.
    1) They've been in for a long time, so time for a change becomes a powerful mantra.
    2) Cost of living is a problem for many people.
    3) The former clownish PM's antics lost the party a lot of support which has not returned.

    Against that, they do have incumbency and the boundary changes should help, but I'd not be surprised if we see a lot of changes next time.

    This is about where I am. Labour winning outright from so far back should be very hard, but 2019 was unusual and there are a lot of time and stored up problems for the Tories. I think itll be close - if the Truss gambles pay off its a 1992 result.
    Most likely the result will be 2010 in reverse, a hung parliament but Starmer like Cameron wins most seats
    Looking at the economic numbers, I have no idea why any tory still thinks Sunak would have been a better option than Truss, as you manifestly do.

    With Truss we might get some growth with a ballooning deficit. With Sunak we would get a depression with a ballooning deficit, followed by huge public spending cuts or going to the IMF. As shown by recent borrowing numbers.

    Well said, the idea you can tax your way to growth has never been true and never will be true. Brownism failed under Brown, and its failed under Sunak too.

    The simple reality is that the Government taxes us every which way it can, so any money taken out of circulation due to higher taxes must immediately lower tax receipts in other taxes, because its no longer being spent and taxed in other ways.

    But those advocating tax rises never factor this in at all. Which is why tax rises never raise as much as their adherents expect, and why tax cuts don't cost as much as their critics claim either, as any extra money circulating in the economy due to tax cuts then gets itself taxed as it circulates minimising the cost of the tax cut.
    I’m trying to work out some funny way to pun Truss and Kansas. Kantruss? Hmmm… not funny enough… The point being that this fantasy that you can cut taxes and everything will work out has been tried, and it doesn’t work. The classic, and very tragic, example of this is known as the Kansas Experiment: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kansas_experiment
    The Kansas experiment was deeply, deeply flawed and not remotely comparable to the UK whatsoever. The UK is reversing tax rates back to what they were a few months ago, from a record high base in the past 74 years.

    As opposed to Kansas where tax loopholes were introduced allowed many people to cut their tax rate to literally zero. Zero percent tax rate is not something I'm advocating or anyone sane is. Oh and the Kansas bill also increased many other people's tax rates, it didn't reduce it, so increasing their tax rates would of course harm the economy while eliminating tax from others does nothing to raise revenues.
    While I’m here, here’s a nice FT article: https://www.ft.com/content/a9be9db6-a91e-48e4-8d69-4bbfff7e0f5f

    You say the UK is reversing tax rates back to what they were a few months ago. Are the stamp duty changes taking us back to where we were a few months ago? Indeed, I think there had already been 7 cuts in stamp duty since 2008.

    The idea that the Kansas Experiment failed because it increased people’s taxes is a novel one.
    Not that novel, its actually explicitly mentioned in your own link.

    Direct benefits for the affluent
    The act received criticism for shifting the tax burden from wealthy Kansans to low- and moderate-income workers.[81][40]

    According to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, the bill cut the taxes of "the wealthiest 1% of Kansans by 2.2%," while it projected that the poorest 20% of Kansans would see "their taxes increase by 1.3%".[82]

    Bryan Lowry of The Wichita Eagle estimated that almost 70% of Kansas lawmakers, as well as Governor Brownback and his wife, benefited personally from the tax cuts through business or property that they owned, which being non-wage income, was exempt from taxes under the 2012 law.[83]


    I 100% wholeheartedly recognise that raising taxes on working income and eliminating taxes on non-earned incomes is a terrible, terrible idea. What tax is it in the UK that is most similar to the Kansas experiment, whereby those working see their taxes go up, while those not working see their taxes go down? Oh yes, its National Insurance, isn't it.

    Sunak's plans of slashing Income Tax by 4p while raising National Insurance to pay for it is what was more like the Kansas Experiment, not Truss reversing tax rises on earnt incomes.
  • eek said:

    eek said:

    MISTY said:

    HYUFD said:

    kle4 said:

    Mr. Sandpit, Starmer isn't that.

    But the Conservatives are facing numerous significant problems.
    1) They've been in for a long time, so time for a change becomes a powerful mantra.
    2) Cost of living is a problem for many people.
    3) The former clownish PM's antics lost the party a lot of support which has not returned.

    Against that, they do have incumbency and the boundary changes should help, but I'd not be surprised if we see a lot of changes next time.

    This is about where I am. Labour winning outright from so far back should be very hard, but 2019 was unusual and there are a lot of time and stored up problems for the Tories. I think itll be close - if the Truss gambles pay off its a 1992 result.
    Most likely the result will be 2010 in reverse, a hung parliament but Starmer like Cameron wins most seats
    Looking at the economic numbers, I have no idea why any tory still thinks Sunak would have been a better option than Truss, as you manifestly do.

    With Truss we might get some growth with a ballooning deficit. With Sunak we would get a depression with a ballooning deficit, followed by huge public spending cuts or going to the IMF. As shown by recent borrowing numbers.

    Well said, the idea you can tax your way to growth has never been true and never will be true. Brownism failed under Brown, and its failed under Sunak too.

    The simple reality is that the Government taxes us every which way it can, so any money taken out of circulation due to higher taxes must immediately lower tax receipts in other taxes, because its no longer being spent and taxed in other ways.

    But those advocating tax rises never factor this in at all. Which is why tax rises never raise as much as their adherents expect, and why tax cuts don't cost as much as their critics claim either, as any extra money circulating in the economy due to tax cuts then gets itself taxed as it circulates minimising the cost of the tax cut.
    How does that work with Corporation Tax which is merely the money left at the end of a year after a company has spent every penny it wants to spend...
    Because people will spend or invest less or more depending upon Corporation Tax rates as they will budget CT into their planned fiscal year or expected return on investment. They don't just operate as if CT doesn't exist and then suddenly pay it despite that.
    Which is why investment allowances work better than a lower rate of tax.

    We are paying 25% on that £1m profit or we could invest £200,000 of it on new equipment and pay £180,000 in tax (utterly made up figures). So the cost of the new machinery works out as £130,000 with the tax saved...
    I disagree completely, tax loopholes just encourage people to be creative in their accounting to maximise their savings from those loopholes.

    Eliminate the loopholes, and tax people fairly, consistently but lowly.
  • TheValiantTheValiant Posts: 1,678



    Going from large working majority for one side to any majority for other side in just 5 years is so rare!

    As TSE would point out, post war at least, it's 1970 and only 1970.
    Heath turned a decent Labour majority (of nearly 100 it looks like) into a Conservative majority of 30.

    But back in 1970, there were only two parties in the game. Now there really aren't.
  • MISTYMISTY Posts: 1,594

    MISTY said:

    HYUFD said:

    kle4 said:

    Mr. Sandpit, Starmer isn't that.

    But the Conservatives are facing numerous significant problems.
    1) They've been in for a long time, so time for a change becomes a powerful mantra.
    2) Cost of living is a problem for many people.
    3) The former clownish PM's antics lost the party a lot of support which has not returned.

    Against that, they do have incumbency and the boundary changes should help, but I'd not be surprised if we see a lot of changes next time.

    This is about where I am. Labour winning outright from so far back should be very hard, but 2019 was unusual and there are a lot of time and stored up problems for the Tories. I think itll be close - if the Truss gambles pay off its a 1992 result.
    Most likely the result will be 2010 in reverse, a hung parliament but Starmer like Cameron wins most seats
    Looking at the economic numbers, I have no idea why any tory still thinks Sunak would have been a better option than Truss, as you manifestly do.

    With Truss we might get some growth with a ballooning deficit. With Sunak we would get a depression with a ballooning deficit, followed by huge public spending cuts or going to the IMF. As shown by recent borrowing numbers.

    Well said, the idea you can tax your way to growth has never been true and never will be true. Brownism failed under Brown, and its failed under Sunak too.

    The simple reality is that the Government taxes us every which way it can, so any money taken out of circulation due to higher taxes must immediately lower tax receipts in other taxes, because its no longer being spent and taxed in other ways.

    But those advocating tax rises never factor this in at all. Which is why tax rises never raise as much as their adherents expect, and why tax cuts don't cost as much as their critics claim either, as any extra money circulating in the economy due to tax cuts then gets itself taxed as it circulates minimising the cost of the tax cut.
    I’m trying to work out some funny way to pun Truss and Kansas. Kantruss? Hmmm… not funny enough… The point being that this fantasy that you can cut taxes and everything will work out has been tried, and it doesn’t work. The classic, and very tragic, example of this is known as the Kansas Experiment: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kansas_experiment
    The Kansas experiment was deeply, deeply flawed and not remotely comparable to the UK whatsoever. The UK is reversing tax rates back to what they were a few months ago, from a record high base in the past 74 years.

    As opposed to Kansas where tax loopholes were introduced allowed many people to cut their tax rate to literally zero. Zero percent tax rate is not something I'm advocating or anyone sane is. Oh and the Kansas bill also increased many other people's tax rates, it didn't reduce it, so increasing their tax rates would of course harm the economy while eliminating tax from others does nothing to raise revenues.
    While I’m here, here’s a nice FT article: https://www.ft.com/content/a9be9db6-a91e-48e4-8d69-4bbfff7e0f5f

    You say the UK is reversing tax rates back to what they were a few months ago. Are the stamp duty changes taking us back to where we were a few months ago? Indeed, I think there had already been 7 cuts in stamp duty since 2008.

    The idea that the Kansas Experiment failed because it increased people’s taxes is a novel one.
    You seem to assume that Truss's measures will throw a spanner into the works of a thriving, healthy economy.

    That is far, far from the case. The economy is in very bad trouble under policies you advocate and support. This is a basic demonstrable fact that all Sunak rampers ignore. They are backdating Truss's measures by 18 months.
  • Sandpit said:

    Leon said:

    Oxford Street's US-themed sweet shops to face stricter rules

    Measures proposed include increasing the fee to register a company at Companies House from £12 to £50,

    https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-london-62972510

    Yeah that will deter multi-million quid money laundering....

    There's a bunch of them around Leicester Sq as well. I also saw one or two in Seville, it's not an entirely London thing

    They are really odd. Garish and vulgar, and seldom full of customers

    Speculation that they are money launderers?
    Private Eye have been on this for 3+ years now. Everything about them is as bent as a nine bob note. Run by Afghani nationals, constantly dissolving companies and reforming. The suggestion is flushing dirty money from Afghanistan. Been at it for 15 years now, but with COVID etc, seen number of outlets skyrocket.
    It started with the souvenir shops:
    https://www.reddit.com/r/london/comments/cnkcaz/private_eye_on_west_end_souvenir_shops/

    Hundreds of companies, most of whom are controlled by a handful of people, and are dissolved before they file accounts.
    My favourite piece of alleged money laundering:

    https://www.thecourier.co.uk/fp/news/perth-kinross/699447/former-gaddafi-insider-accused-of-offloading-stolen-cash-into-taymouth-castle/

    A perfectly maintained golf course with the greens cut daily. No golfers. At all.


    There's something that smells very similar here in the Flatlands but on a smaller scale.
    Vape shops are another. One or two in every shopping street, stacked to the rafters, never any customers.
  • bondegezoubondegezou Posts: 7,159

    MISTY said:

    HYUFD said:

    kle4 said:

    Mr. Sandpit, Starmer isn't that.

    But the Conservatives are facing numerous significant problems.
    1) They've been in for a long time, so time for a change becomes a powerful mantra.
    2) Cost of living is a problem for many people.
    3) The former clownish PM's antics lost the party a lot of support which has not returned.

    Against that, they do have incumbency and the boundary changes should help, but I'd not be surprised if we see a lot of changes next time.

    This is about where I am. Labour winning outright from so far back should be very hard, but 2019 was unusual and there are a lot of time and stored up problems for the Tories. I think itll be close - if the Truss gambles pay off its a 1992 result.
    Most likely the result will be 2010 in reverse, a hung parliament but Starmer like Cameron wins most seats
    Looking at the economic numbers, I have no idea why any tory still thinks Sunak would have been a better option than Truss, as you manifestly do.

    With Truss we might get some growth with a ballooning deficit. With Sunak we would get a depression with a ballooning deficit, followed by huge public spending cuts or going to the IMF. As shown by recent borrowing numbers.

    Well said, the idea you can tax your way to growth has never been true and never will be true. Brownism failed under Brown, and its failed under Sunak too.

    The simple reality is that the Government taxes us every which way it can, so any money taken out of circulation due to higher taxes must immediately lower tax receipts in other taxes, because its no longer being spent and taxed in other ways.

    But those advocating tax rises never factor this in at all. Which is why tax rises never raise as much as their adherents expect, and why tax cuts don't cost as much as their critics claim either, as any extra money circulating in the economy due to tax cuts then gets itself taxed as it circulates minimising the cost of the tax cut.
    I’m trying to work out some funny way to pun Truss and Kansas. Kantruss? Hmmm… not funny enough… The point being that this fantasy that you can cut taxes and everything will work out has been tried, and it doesn’t work. The classic, and very tragic, example of this is known as the Kansas Experiment: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kansas_experiment
    The Kansas experiment was deeply, deeply flawed and not remotely comparable to the UK whatsoever. The UK is reversing tax rates back to what they were a few months ago, from a record high base in the past 74 years.

    As opposed to Kansas where tax loopholes were introduced allowed many people to cut their tax rate to literally zero. Zero percent tax rate is not something I'm advocating or anyone sane is. Oh and the Kansas bill also increased many other people's tax rates, it didn't reduce it, so increasing their tax rates would of course harm the economy while eliminating tax from others does nothing to raise revenues.
    While I’m here, here’s a nice FT article: https://www.ft.com/content/a9be9db6-a91e-48e4-8d69-4bbfff7e0f5f

    You say the UK is reversing tax rates back to what they were a few months ago. Are the stamp duty changes taking us back to where we were a few months ago? Indeed, I think there had already been 7 cuts in stamp duty since 2008.

    The idea that the Kansas Experiment failed because it increased people’s taxes is a novel one.
    Not that novel, its actually explicitly mentioned in your own link.

    Direct benefits for the affluent
    The act received criticism for shifting the tax burden from wealthy Kansans to low- and moderate-income workers.[81][40]

    According to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, the bill cut the taxes of "the wealthiest 1% of Kansans by 2.2%," while it projected that the poorest 20% of Kansans would see "their taxes increase by 1.3%".[82]

    Bryan Lowry of The Wichita Eagle estimated that almost 70% of Kansas lawmakers, as well as Governor Brownback and his wife, benefited personally from the tax cuts through business or property that they owned, which being non-wage income, was exempt from taxes under the 2012 law.[83]


    I 100% wholeheartedly recognise that raising taxes on working income and eliminating taxes on non-earned incomes is a terrible, terrible idea. What tax is it in the UK that is most similar to the Kansas experiment, whereby those working see their taxes go up, while those not working see their taxes go down? Oh yes, its National Insurance, isn't it.

    Sunak's plans of slashing Income Tax by 4p while raising National Insurance to pay for it is what was more like the Kansas Experiment, not Truss reversing tax rises on earnt incomes.
    Sunak was seeking to balance the budget. Truss, like Kansas, is relying on future growth to pay for hers. That’s where the similarity is.

    There are times when it’s appropriate to cut taxes, and times when it’s appropriate to borrow money. What’s particularly dangerous, however, is pretending that you can cut taxes because you’re sure future growth will be along any day now to fill the Treasury’s coffers.
  • WhisperingOracleWhisperingOracle Posts: 8,480
    edited September 2022
    It strikes me that the riots in Birmingham and Leicester are an above-politics situation where the new king could immediately get involved to plead for unity and calm, and also set the tone of his reign. Inter-faith understanding has been one of his main obsessions and passions for forty or maybe fifty years.

    There would have to be some sort of statement or governmental stance by Truss and/or one of her ministers first, obviously and clearly.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 46,206
    Cyclefree said:

    Leon said:

    This whole thread is desolating: when American capitalist medicine meets a crazy new ideology


    American clinics are pushing radical trans surgery and puberty blockers on kids "because they make so much m money for us". Here they are ADMITTING it

    "Vanderbilt opened its trans clinic in 2018. During a lecture the same year, Dr. Shayne Taylor explained how she convinced Nashville to get into the gender transition game. She emphasized that it's a "big money maker," especially because the surgeries require a lot of "follow ups""


    "Just a few vaginoplasties can finance the whole clinic"

    https://twitter.com/MattWalshBlog/status/1572313523232931840?s=20&t=KWigxdGdSfnRBOqe_Fu_Zg


    How have we allowed this madness to prosper?

    They had better have some bloody good insurance in place for the inevitable lawsuits, which have already started.
    It will be worse than that, the hospital will sadly and wrongly get death threats, bomb threats, perhaps attacks, that's what happened to Boston, and these videos are in a way worse than Boston. The sheer greed, the utter heartless rapacity - "vaginoplasties make loadsaaaamoney yay! Do as many as you can!"

    And they were giving puberty blockers to 13 year olds

    But we need to see these blood-boiling videos, however upsetting. The tide is turning, one hopes, against this cruel insanity
  • eekeek Posts: 24,797

    eek said:

    eek said:

    MISTY said:

    HYUFD said:

    kle4 said:

    Mr. Sandpit, Starmer isn't that.

    But the Conservatives are facing numerous significant problems.
    1) They've been in for a long time, so time for a change becomes a powerful mantra.
    2) Cost of living is a problem for many people.
    3) The former clownish PM's antics lost the party a lot of support which has not returned.

    Against that, they do have incumbency and the boundary changes should help, but I'd not be surprised if we see a lot of changes next time.

    This is about where I am. Labour winning outright from so far back should be very hard, but 2019 was unusual and there are a lot of time and stored up problems for the Tories. I think itll be close - if the Truss gambles pay off its a 1992 result.
    Most likely the result will be 2010 in reverse, a hung parliament but Starmer like Cameron wins most seats
    Looking at the economic numbers, I have no idea why any tory still thinks Sunak would have been a better option than Truss, as you manifestly do.

    With Truss we might get some growth with a ballooning deficit. With Sunak we would get a depression with a ballooning deficit, followed by huge public spending cuts or going to the IMF. As shown by recent borrowing numbers.

    Well said, the idea you can tax your way to growth has never been true and never will be true. Brownism failed under Brown, and its failed under Sunak too.

    The simple reality is that the Government taxes us every which way it can, so any money taken out of circulation due to higher taxes must immediately lower tax receipts in other taxes, because its no longer being spent and taxed in other ways.

    But those advocating tax rises never factor this in at all. Which is why tax rises never raise as much as their adherents expect, and why tax cuts don't cost as much as their critics claim either, as any extra money circulating in the economy due to tax cuts then gets itself taxed as it circulates minimising the cost of the tax cut.
    How does that work with Corporation Tax which is merely the money left at the end of a year after a company has spent every penny it wants to spend...
    Because people will spend or invest less or more depending upon Corporation Tax rates as they will budget CT into their planned fiscal year or expected return on investment. They don't just operate as if CT doesn't exist and then suddenly pay it despite that.
    Which is why investment allowances work better than a lower rate of tax.

    We are paying 25% on that £1m profit or we could invest £200,000 of it on new equipment and pay £180,000 in tax (utterly made up figures). So the cost of the new machinery works out as £130,000 with the tax saved...
    I disagree completely, tax loopholes just encourage people to be creative in their accounting to maximise their savings from those loopholes.

    Eliminate the loopholes, and tax people fairly, consistently but lowly.
    And investment will remain none existent with companies operating on the basis of that will do let's take the profit while we can until foreign competition drives them to bankruptcy.
  • PhilPhil Posts: 1,919
    Leon said:

    Phil said:

    Leon said:

    This whole thread is desolating: when American capitalist medicine meets a crazy new ideology


    American clinics are pushing radical trans surgery and puberty blockers on kids "because they make so much m money for us". Here they are ADMITTING it

    "Vanderbilt opened its trans clinic in 2018. During a lecture the same year, Dr. Shayne Taylor explained how she convinced Nashville to get into the gender transition game. She emphasized that it's a "big money maker," especially because the surgeries require a lot of "follow ups""


    "Just a few vaginoplasties can finance the whole clinic"

    https://twitter.com/MattWalshBlog/status/1572313523232931840?s=20&t=KWigxdGdSfnRBOqe_Fu_Zg


    How have we allowed this madness to prosper?

    I have some bad news for you about the rest of the medical industry in the USA Leon.
    I know that American medicine is greedy and evil. Look at the opioid scandal. Horrendous

    But this seems, arguably, a new level of evil. Mutilating healthy kids so they can "make big profits"

    OMFG
    If we’re going on “levels of terribleness” then the opiod scandal wipes out everything else by an order of magnitude at least. This is small beer by comparison, even if it’s exactly as bad as you believe.

    (There was that SA research scientist in the 80s who falsified his research & caused the US medical industry to spend $1billion+ on cancer treatments that were a) incredibly painful and b) didn’t work. After the Sackler family he might be the worst single individual in terms of deliberate harm done inside the medical industry. Any other candidates?)
  • bondegezoubondegezou Posts: 7,159
    MISTY said:

    MISTY said:

    HYUFD said:

    kle4 said:

    Mr. Sandpit, Starmer isn't that.

    But the Conservatives are facing numerous significant problems.
    1) They've been in for a long time, so time for a change becomes a powerful mantra.
    2) Cost of living is a problem for many people.
    3) The former clownish PM's antics lost the party a lot of support which has not returned.

    Against that, they do have incumbency and the boundary changes should help, but I'd not be surprised if we see a lot of changes next time.

    This is about where I am. Labour winning outright from so far back should be very hard, but 2019 was unusual and there are a lot of time and stored up problems for the Tories. I think itll be close - if the Truss gambles pay off its a 1992 result.
    Most likely the result will be 2010 in reverse, a hung parliament but Starmer like Cameron wins most seats
    Looking at the economic numbers, I have no idea why any tory still thinks Sunak would have been a better option than Truss, as you manifestly do.

    With Truss we might get some growth with a ballooning deficit. With Sunak we would get a depression with a ballooning deficit, followed by huge public spending cuts or going to the IMF. As shown by recent borrowing numbers.

    Well said, the idea you can tax your way to growth has never been true and never will be true. Brownism failed under Brown, and its failed under Sunak too.

    The simple reality is that the Government taxes us every which way it can, so any money taken out of circulation due to higher taxes must immediately lower tax receipts in other taxes, because its no longer being spent and taxed in other ways.

    But those advocating tax rises never factor this in at all. Which is why tax rises never raise as much as their adherents expect, and why tax cuts don't cost as much as their critics claim either, as any extra money circulating in the economy due to tax cuts then gets itself taxed as it circulates minimising the cost of the tax cut.
    I’m trying to work out some funny way to pun Truss and Kansas. Kantruss? Hmmm… not funny enough… The point being that this fantasy that you can cut taxes and everything will work out has been tried, and it doesn’t work. The classic, and very tragic, example of this is known as the Kansas Experiment: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kansas_experiment
    The Kansas experiment was deeply, deeply flawed and not remotely comparable to the UK whatsoever. The UK is reversing tax rates back to what they were a few months ago, from a record high base in the past 74 years.

    As opposed to Kansas where tax loopholes were introduced allowed many people to cut their tax rate to literally zero. Zero percent tax rate is not something I'm advocating or anyone sane is. Oh and the Kansas bill also increased many other people's tax rates, it didn't reduce it, so increasing their tax rates would of course harm the economy while eliminating tax from others does nothing to raise revenues.
    While I’m here, here’s a nice FT article: https://www.ft.com/content/a9be9db6-a91e-48e4-8d69-4bbfff7e0f5f

    You say the UK is reversing tax rates back to what they were a few months ago. Are the stamp duty changes taking us back to where we were a few months ago? Indeed, I think there had already been 7 cuts in stamp duty since 2008.

    The idea that the Kansas Experiment failed because it increased people’s taxes is a novel one.
    You seem to assume that Truss's measures will throw a spanner into the works of a thriving, healthy economy.

    That is far, far from the case. The economy is in very bad trouble under policies you advocate and support. This is a basic demonstrable fact that all Sunak rampers ignore. They are backdating Truss's measures by 18 months.
    I agree the economy is in trouble. That’s because the Conservative Party’s policies haven’t worked. I do not advocate or support the failed policies of the Conservative Governments we’ve had since 2015. It is, of course, Truss who advocated and supported all those policies.
  • Leon said:

    Oxford Street's US-themed sweet shops to face stricter rules

    Measures proposed include increasing the fee to register a company at Companies House from £12 to £50,

    https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-london-62972510

    Yeah that will deter multi-million quid money laundering....

    There's a bunch of them around Leicester Sq as well. I also saw one or two in Seville, it's not an entirely London thing

    They are really odd. Garish and vulgar, and seldom full of customers

    Speculation that they are money launderers?
    Private Eye have been on this for 3+ years now. Everything about them is as bent as a nine bob note. Run by Afghani nationals, constantly dissolving companies and reforming. The suggestion is flushing dirty money from Afghanistan. Been at it for 15 years now, but with COVID etc, seen number of outlets skyrocket.
    Talking of Private Eye, nice cover this week. King Charles is glad-handing people in The Queue:

    Charles: How long did you have to wait?
    Queuer: Not as long as you.
  • Tories can't run an economy
  • PhilPhil Posts: 1,919
    Cyclefree said:

    Leon said:

    This whole thread is desolating: when American capitalist medicine meets a crazy new ideology


    American clinics are pushing radical trans surgery and puberty blockers on kids "because they make so much m money for us". Here they are ADMITTING it

    "Vanderbilt opened its trans clinic in 2018. During a lecture the same year, Dr. Shayne Taylor explained how she convinced Nashville to get into the gender transition game. She emphasized that it's a "big money maker," especially because the surgeries require a lot of "follow ups""


    "Just a few vaginoplasties can finance the whole clinic"

    https://twitter.com/MattWalshBlog/status/1572313523232931840?s=20&t=KWigxdGdSfnRBOqe_Fu_Zg


    How have we allowed this madness to prosper?

    They had better have some bloody good insurance in place for the inevitable lawsuits, which have already started.
    There’s an ambulance chasing law firm running around the UK trying to drum up business. Have they actually managed to find more than a single digit numbers of clients?
  • Regarding money-laundering, remember that the major banks and many of the fintech online banks are utterly paranoid about it. Getting an account for anything that isn't small and simple is very difficult. Despite this, there does appear to be large number of front businesses operating in plain sight with the tax authorities and police uninterested.

    Question - is that because the UK has a long record making a lot of money as a tax haven? We take oceans of dodgy money from dodgy people - even letting some of them buy passports and dinner with the PM...
  • LeonLeon Posts: 46,206
    Phil said:

    Leon said:

    Phil said:

    Leon said:

    This whole thread is desolating: when American capitalist medicine meets a crazy new ideology


    American clinics are pushing radical trans surgery and puberty blockers on kids "because they make so much m money for us". Here they are ADMITTING it

    "Vanderbilt opened its trans clinic in 2018. During a lecture the same year, Dr. Shayne Taylor explained how she convinced Nashville to get into the gender transition game. She emphasized that it's a "big money maker," especially because the surgeries require a lot of "follow ups""


    "Just a few vaginoplasties can finance the whole clinic"

    https://twitter.com/MattWalshBlog/status/1572313523232931840?s=20&t=KWigxdGdSfnRBOqe_Fu_Zg


    How have we allowed this madness to prosper?

    I have some bad news for you about the rest of the medical industry in the USA Leon.
    I know that American medicine is greedy and evil. Look at the opioid scandal. Horrendous

    But this seems, arguably, a new level of evil. Mutilating healthy kids so they can "make big profits"

    OMFG
    If we’re going on “levels of terribleness” then the opiod scandal wipes out everything else by an order of magnitude at least. This is small beer by comparison, even if it’s exactly as bad as you believe.

    (There was that SA research scientist in the 80s who falsified his research & caused the US medical industry to spend $1billion+ on cancer treatments that were a) incredibly painful and b) didn’t work. After the Sackler family he might be the worst single individual in terms of deliberate harm done inside the medical industry. Any other candidates?)
    I agree the Sackler scandal is mind boggling in scale, and dwarfs this (so far)

    But there is something even more disturbing, on a human level, about mutilating confused children for profit. And as we now see, profit is REALLY REALLY REALLY important to them

    It is one of the few areas where I am happy to say Thank God for the NHS, despite the Tavistock
  • bondegezoubondegezou Posts: 7,159
    RobD said:

    Tories can't run an economy

    Thankfully we don't have a planned economy.
    From the FT article I posted earlier:

    “On Friday, Kwasi Kwarteng, chancellor of the exchequer, will follow up his emergency energy package with a mini-Budget. The latter is expected to reverse the rise in national insurance contributions and stop a planned increase in corporation tax. It will also set a target of annual growth at 2.5 per cent. Should we take that seriously? No and yes. No, because the idea that the government of a market economy can meet a growth target is ridiculous. Yes, because it will guide policy. The question is whether it will guide it for good or bad. My bet is on the latter.

    “Neither Hayek nor Friedman would have thought a growth target at all sensible. That is planning. Hayek would rightly insist we have neither the knowledge nor tools to deliver one. In Britannia Unchained, published in 2012 (two of whose authors were Kwarteng and Truss), Brazil was proposed as a model. Ten years later, that looks silly.

    “A growth target is not just unworkable, but a danger. Suppose Kwarteng tells the Treasury and Office for Budget Responsibility they must assume this target in their forecasts (if they are allowed to make any.) If he is wrong, deteriorating public finances could generate a crisis of confidence, as happened in the 1970s. He seems to dismiss such worries as mere “managerialism”.”
  • RobDRobD Posts: 58,941

    Regarding money-laundering, remember that the major banks and many of the fintech online banks are utterly paranoid about it. Getting an account for anything that isn't small and simple is very difficult. Despite this, there does appear to be large number of front businesses operating in plain sight with the tax authorities and police uninterested.

    Question - is that because the UK has a long record making a lot of money as a tax haven? We take oceans of dodgy money from dodgy people - even letting some of them buy passports and dinner with the PM...

    What I don't understand is if they are so obviously dodgy to us, why haven't they been investigated yet?
  • PhilPhil Posts: 1,919
    Leon said:

    The famous American transgender clinic exposed in that video has just taken down its entire website. The whole damn thing

    https://www.vanderbilthealth.com/clinic/clinic-transgender-health

    Vanished

    Given that Tucker Carlson is calling on his viewers to commit acts of terrorism against gender identity clinics, can you blame them?

    This is the same playbook used against abortion clinics: make outrageous claims & then leave the rest to stochastic terrorism.
  • MISTY said:

    HYUFD said:

    kle4 said:

    Mr. Sandpit, Starmer isn't that.

    But the Conservatives are facing numerous significant problems.
    1) They've been in for a long time, so time for a change becomes a powerful mantra.
    2) Cost of living is a problem for many people.
    3) The former clownish PM's antics lost the party a lot of support which has not returned.

    Against that, they do have incumbency and the boundary changes should help, but I'd not be surprised if we see a lot of changes next time.

    This is about where I am. Labour winning outright from so far back should be very hard, but 2019 was unusual and there are a lot of time and stored up problems for the Tories. I think itll be close - if the Truss gambles pay off its a 1992 result.
    Most likely the result will be 2010 in reverse, a hung parliament but Starmer like Cameron wins most seats
    Looking at the economic numbers, I have no idea why any tory still thinks Sunak would have been a better option than Truss, as you manifestly do.

    With Truss we might get some growth with a ballooning deficit. With Sunak we would get a depression with a ballooning deficit, followed by huge public spending cuts or going to the IMF. As shown by recent borrowing numbers.

    Well said, the idea you can tax your way to growth has never been true and never will be true. Brownism failed under Brown, and its failed under Sunak too.

    The simple reality is that the Government taxes us every which way it can, so any money taken out of circulation due to higher taxes must immediately lower tax receipts in other taxes, because its no longer being spent and taxed in other ways.

    But those advocating tax rises never factor this in at all. Which is why tax rises never raise as much as their adherents expect, and why tax cuts don't cost as much as their critics claim either, as any extra money circulating in the economy due to tax cuts then gets itself taxed as it circulates minimising the cost of the tax cut.
    I’m trying to work out some funny way to pun Truss and Kansas. Kantruss? Hmmm… not funny enough… The point being that this fantasy that you can cut taxes and everything will work out has been tried, and it doesn’t work. The classic, and very tragic, example of this is known as the Kansas Experiment: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kansas_experiment
    The Kansas experiment was deeply, deeply flawed and not remotely comparable to the UK whatsoever. The UK is reversing tax rates back to what they were a few months ago, from a record high base in the past 74 years.

    As opposed to Kansas where tax loopholes were introduced allowed many people to cut their tax rate to literally zero. Zero percent tax rate is not something I'm advocating or anyone sane is. Oh and the Kansas bill also increased many other people's tax rates, it didn't reduce it, so increasing their tax rates would of course harm the economy while eliminating tax from others does nothing to raise revenues.
    While I’m here, here’s a nice FT article: https://www.ft.com/content/a9be9db6-a91e-48e4-8d69-4bbfff7e0f5f

    You say the UK is reversing tax rates back to what they were a few months ago. Are the stamp duty changes taking us back to where we were a few months ago? Indeed, I think there had already been 7 cuts in stamp duty since 2008.

    The idea that the Kansas Experiment failed because it increased people’s taxes is a novel one.
    Not that novel, its actually explicitly mentioned in your own link.

    Direct benefits for the affluent
    The act received criticism for shifting the tax burden from wealthy Kansans to low- and moderate-income workers.[81][40]

    According to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, the bill cut the taxes of "the wealthiest 1% of Kansans by 2.2%," while it projected that the poorest 20% of Kansans would see "their taxes increase by 1.3%".[82]

    Bryan Lowry of The Wichita Eagle estimated that almost 70% of Kansas lawmakers, as well as Governor Brownback and his wife, benefited personally from the tax cuts through business or property that they owned, which being non-wage income, was exempt from taxes under the 2012 law.[83]


    I 100% wholeheartedly recognise that raising taxes on working income and eliminating taxes on non-earned incomes is a terrible, terrible idea. What tax is it in the UK that is most similar to the Kansas experiment, whereby those working see their taxes go up, while those not working see their taxes go down? Oh yes, its National Insurance, isn't it.

    Sunak's plans of slashing Income Tax by 4p while raising National Insurance to pay for it is what was more like the Kansas Experiment, not Truss reversing tax rises on earnt incomes.
    Sunak was seeking to balance the budget. Truss, like Kansas, is relying on future growth to pay for hers. That’s where the similarity is.

    There are times when it’s appropriate to cut taxes, and times when it’s appropriate to borrow money. What’s particularly dangerous, however, is pretending that you can cut taxes because you’re sure future growth will be along any day now to fill the Treasury’s coffers.
    Saying you're balancing the budget and actually doing so are two completely different things. How does cutting Income Tax by 4p while increasing National Insurance, thus completely distorting taxation away from unearned incomes and towards earned ones, do anything whatsoever to balance the budget.

    Yes there are times when its appropriate to borrow money. During a supply shock recession is one of them, which is right now.
  • MoonRabbitMoonRabbit Posts: 12,415



    Going from large working majority for one side to any majority for other side in just 5 years is so rare!

    As TSE would point out, post war at least, it's 1970 and only 1970.
    Heath turned a decent Labour majority (of nearly 100 it looks like) into a Conservative majority of 30.

    But back in 1970, there were only two parties in the game. Now there really aren't.
    In 1970 Labour didn’t even need to call that election. They misread the Runes 😄
  • This will be interesting, although the OBR are not publishing public finances forecasts, the IFS is - later today:

    https://twitter.com/pjtheeconomist/status/1572565773557858305
  • It strikes me that the riots in Birmingham and Leicester are an above-politics situation where the new king could immediately get involved to plead for unity and calm, and also set the tone of his reign. Inter-faith understanding has been one of his main obsessions and passions for forty or maybe fifty years.

    There would have to be some sort of statement or governmental stance by Truss and/or one of her ministers first, obviously and clearly.

    Send peace-keeping troops to keep them apart. See Belfast, 1969, for more details.
  • bondegezoubondegezou Posts: 7,159

    MISTY said:

    HYUFD said:

    kle4 said:

    Mr. Sandpit, Starmer isn't that.

    But the Conservatives are facing numerous significant problems.
    1) They've been in for a long time, so time for a change becomes a powerful mantra.
    2) Cost of living is a problem for many people.
    3) The former clownish PM's antics lost the party a lot of support which has not returned.

    Against that, they do have incumbency and the boundary changes should help, but I'd not be surprised if we see a lot of changes next time.

    This is about where I am. Labour winning outright from so far back should be very hard, but 2019 was unusual and there are a lot of time and stored up problems for the Tories. I think itll be close - if the Truss gambles pay off its a 1992 result.
    Most likely the result will be 2010 in reverse, a hung parliament but Starmer like Cameron wins most seats
    Looking at the economic numbers, I have no idea why any tory still thinks Sunak would have been a better option than Truss, as you manifestly do.

    With Truss we might get some growth with a ballooning deficit. With Sunak we would get a depression with a ballooning deficit, followed by huge public spending cuts or going to the IMF. As shown by recent borrowing numbers.

    Well said, the idea you can tax your way to growth has never been true and never will be true. Brownism failed under Brown, and its failed under Sunak too.

    The simple reality is that the Government taxes us every which way it can, so any money taken out of circulation due to higher taxes must immediately lower tax receipts in other taxes, because its no longer being spent and taxed in other ways.

    But those advocating tax rises never factor this in at all. Which is why tax rises never raise as much as their adherents expect, and why tax cuts don't cost as much as their critics claim either, as any extra money circulating in the economy due to tax cuts then gets itself taxed as it circulates minimising the cost of the tax cut.
    I’m trying to work out some funny way to pun Truss and Kansas. Kantruss? Hmmm… not funny enough… The point being that this fantasy that you can cut taxes and everything will work out has been tried, and it doesn’t work. The classic, and very tragic, example of this is known as the Kansas Experiment: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kansas_experiment
    The Kansas experiment was deeply, deeply flawed and not remotely comparable to the UK whatsoever. The UK is reversing tax rates back to what they were a few months ago, from a record high base in the past 74 years.

    As opposed to Kansas where tax loopholes were introduced allowed many people to cut their tax rate to literally zero. Zero percent tax rate is not something I'm advocating or anyone sane is. Oh and the Kansas bill also increased many other people's tax rates, it didn't reduce it, so increasing their tax rates would of course harm the economy while eliminating tax from others does nothing to raise revenues.
    While I’m here, here’s a nice FT article: https://www.ft.com/content/a9be9db6-a91e-48e4-8d69-4bbfff7e0f5f

    You say the UK is reversing tax rates back to what they were a few months ago. Are the stamp duty changes taking us back to where we were a few months ago? Indeed, I think there had already been 7 cuts in stamp duty since 2008.

    The idea that the Kansas Experiment failed because it increased people’s taxes is a novel one.
    Not that novel, its actually explicitly mentioned in your own link.

    Direct benefits for the affluent
    The act received criticism for shifting the tax burden from wealthy Kansans to low- and moderate-income workers.[81][40]

    According to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, the bill cut the taxes of "the wealthiest 1% of Kansans by 2.2%," while it projected that the poorest 20% of Kansans would see "their taxes increase by 1.3%".[82]

    Bryan Lowry of The Wichita Eagle estimated that almost 70% of Kansas lawmakers, as well as Governor Brownback and his wife, benefited personally from the tax cuts through business or property that they owned, which being non-wage income, was exempt from taxes under the 2012 law.[83]


    I 100% wholeheartedly recognise that raising taxes on working income and eliminating taxes on non-earned incomes is a terrible, terrible idea. What tax is it in the UK that is most similar to the Kansas experiment, whereby those working see their taxes go up, while those not working see their taxes go down? Oh yes, its National Insurance, isn't it.

    Sunak's plans of slashing Income Tax by 4p while raising National Insurance to pay for it is what was more like the Kansas Experiment, not Truss reversing tax rises on earnt incomes.
    Sunak was seeking to balance the budget. Truss, like Kansas, is relying on future growth to pay for hers. That’s where the similarity is.

    There are times when it’s appropriate to cut taxes, and times when it’s appropriate to borrow money. What’s particularly dangerous, however, is pretending that you can cut taxes because you’re sure future growth will be along any day now to fill the Treasury’s coffers.
    Saying you're balancing the budget and actually doing so are two completely different things. How does cutting Income Tax by 4p while increasing National Insurance, thus completely distorting taxation away from unearned incomes and towards earned ones, do anything whatsoever to balance the budget.

    Yes there are times when its appropriate to borrow money. During a supply shock recession is one of them, which is right now.
    I agree that saying you’re balancing the budget and actually doing so are two different things. The Truss government isn’t even saying they’re balancing the budget!

    Do you think it is sensible to rely on future growth projections?
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 66,732
    Dynamo said:

    Dynamo said:

    Here is the official translation of Putin's address.

    Those who don't know how to read will say that reading it was a waste of time and that all it does is show that everything they believed beforehand was so true. (That's how an idiot's mind works.) Perhaps they might then make a 1970s comedy reference.

    I would have posted the whole thing but it's too long. Here are some extracts. I've put some bits in bold.

    "Kiev representatives voiced quite a positive response to our proposals. (...) But a peaceful settlement obviously did not suit the West, which is why, after certain compromises were coordinated, Kiev was actually ordered to wreck all these agreements.

    More weapons were pumped into Ukraine. The Kiev regime brought into play new groups of foreign mercenaries and nationalists, military units trained according to NATO standards and receiving orders from Western advisers.

    At the same time, the regime of reprisals throughout Ukraine against their own citizens, established immediately after the armed coup in 2014, was harshly intensified (...)
    "

    "The West has gone too far in its aggressive anti-Russia policy, making endless threats to our country and people. Some irresponsible Western politicians are doing more than just speak about their plans to organise the delivery of long-range offensive weapons to Ukraine, which could be used to deliver strikes at Crimea and other Russian regions.

    Such terrorist attacks, including with the use of Western weapons, are being delivered at border areas in the Belgorod and Kursk regions. NATO is conducting reconnaissance through Russia’s southern regions in real time and with the use of modern systems, aircraft, vessels, satellites and strategic drones.

    Washington, London and Brussels are openly encouraging Kiev to move the hostilities to our territory. They openly say that Russia must be defeated on the battlefield by any means, and subsequently deprived of political, economic, cultural and any other sovereignty and ransacked.

    They have even resorted to the nuclear blackmail. I am referring not only to the Western-encouraged shelling of the Zaporozhye Nuclear Power Plant, which poses a threat of a nuclear disaster, but also to the statements made by some high-ranking representatives of the leading NATO countries on the possibility and admissibility of using weapons of mass destruction – nuclear weapons – against Russia.

    I would like to remind those who make such statements regarding Russia that our country has different types of weapons as well, and some of them are more modern than the weapons NATO countries have. In the event of a threat to the territorial integrity of our country and to defend Russia and our people, we will certainly make use of all weapon systems available to us. This is not a bluff.

    The citizens of Russia can rest assured that the territorial integrity of our Motherland, our independence and freedom will be defended – I repeat – by all the systems available to us.
    "

    Oh do fuck off you pathetic little man. Do you believe anything that you have posted here?
    Who is more pathetic, an internet 'tard with a small vocabulary who posts a one-liner insult more suitable for a toilet wall like Twitter and who thinks that posting what Putin said (rather than mentioning Frank Muir after noticing the word "bluff" in a newspaper headline) means a person must necessarily adore Putin, or a cretin who hits a "Like" button?
    Don't worry, it's definitely the former.

    You are therefore the best at something, even if it's only being pathetic.
  • MexicanpeteMexicanpete Posts: 24,583
    ...
    RobD said:

    Tories can't run an economy

    Thankfully we don't have a planned economy.
    Hmm.

    There is no socialist style state intervention on energy pricing, no siree!
  • carnforthcarnforth Posts: 3,054
    Some detail on the business energy plan:

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-62969427
  • PhilPhil Posts: 1,919
    Leon said:

    Phil said:

    Leon said:

    Phil said:

    Leon said:

    This whole thread is desolating: when American capitalist medicine meets a crazy new ideology


    American clinics are pushing radical trans surgery and puberty blockers on kids "because they make so much m money for us". Here they are ADMITTING it

    "Vanderbilt opened its trans clinic in 2018. During a lecture the same year, Dr. Shayne Taylor explained how she convinced Nashville to get into the gender transition game. She emphasized that it's a "big money maker," especially because the surgeries require a lot of "follow ups""


    "Just a few vaginoplasties can finance the whole clinic"

    https://twitter.com/MattWalshBlog/status/1572313523232931840?s=20&t=KWigxdGdSfnRBOqe_Fu_Zg


    How have we allowed this madness to prosper?

    I have some bad news for you about the rest of the medical industry in the USA Leon.
    I know that American medicine is greedy and evil. Look at the opioid scandal. Horrendous

    But this seems, arguably, a new level of evil. Mutilating healthy kids so they can "make big profits"

    OMFG
    If we’re going on “levels of terribleness” then the opiod scandal wipes out everything else by an order of magnitude at least. This is small beer by comparison, even if it’s exactly as bad as you believe.

    (There was that SA research scientist in the 80s who falsified his research & caused the US medical industry to spend $1billion+ on cancer treatments that were a) incredibly painful and b) didn’t work. After the Sackler family he might be the worst single individual in terms of deliberate harm done inside the medical industry. Any other candidates?)
    I agree the Sackler scandal is mind boggling in scale, and dwarfs this (so far)

    But there is something even more disturbing, on a human level, about mutilating confused children for profit. And as we now see, profit is REALLY REALLY REALLY important to them

    It is one of the few areas where I am happy to say Thank God for the NHS, despite the Tavistock
    Even given some of the shit pulled by plastic surgery clinics, I find the idea that they’re carrying out vaginoplasty on U18s extremely unlikely. The liability alone would surely give their insurers conniptions?

    Adults generally get to do what they want with their bodies, whether we disapprove of it or not. That’s one of the things I happen to like about living in a liberal democracy.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 66,732
    edited September 2022

    It's almost physically painful listening to JRM talking about the caps in terms of pounds per megawatt. There's a bit of me itching to yell, "It's a megawatt-hour, you humanities-educated fool! What do you think the h stands for in MWh? Don't you understand the difference between energy and power? No, of course you don't, yet here you are making critical decisions about issues that you barely comprehend."

    Oi, do you mind? He wasn't educated in the Humanities. He read History at Oxford, which isn't the same thing.

    Edit - incidentally, 'barely' comprehend? You clearly have a higher opinion of him than the rest of us.
  • FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 76,274
    edited September 2022

    It's almost physically painful listening to JRM talking about the caps in terms of pounds per megawatt. There's a bit of me itching to yell, "It's a megawatt-hour, you humanities-educated fool! What do you think the h stands for in MWh? Don't you understand the difference between energy and power? No, of course you don't, yet here you are making critical decisions about issues that you barely comprehend."

    We need to shut down these second rate institutions and stop the mickey mouse degrees....
  • MISTYMISTY Posts: 1,594

    MISTY said:

    MISTY said:

    HYUFD said:

    kle4 said:

    Mr. Sandpit, Starmer isn't that.

    But the Conservatives are facing numerous significant problems.
    1) They've been in for a long time, so time for a change becomes a powerful mantra.
    2) Cost of living is a problem for many people.
    3) The former clownish PM's antics lost the party a lot of support which has not returned.

    Against that, they do have incumbency and the boundary changes should help, but I'd not be surprised if we see a lot of changes next time.

    This is about where I am. Labour winning outright from so far back should be very hard, but 2019 was unusual and there are a lot of time and stored up problems for the Tories. I think itll be close - if the Truss gambles pay off its a 1992 result.
    Most likely the result will be 2010 in reverse, a hung parliament but Starmer like Cameron wins most seats
    Looking at the economic numbers, I have no idea why any tory still thinks Sunak would have been a better option than Truss, as you manifestly do.

    With Truss we might get some growth with a ballooning deficit. With Sunak we would get a depression with a ballooning deficit, followed by huge public spending cuts or going to the IMF. As shown by recent borrowing numbers.

    Well said, the idea you can tax your way to growth has never been true and never will be true. Brownism failed under Brown, and its failed under Sunak too.

    The simple reality is that the Government taxes us every which way it can, so any money taken out of circulation due to higher taxes must immediately lower tax receipts in other taxes, because its no longer being spent and taxed in other ways.

    But those advocating tax rises never factor this in at all. Which is why tax rises never raise as much as their adherents expect, and why tax cuts don't cost as much as their critics claim either, as any extra money circulating in the economy due to tax cuts then gets itself taxed as it circulates minimising the cost of the tax cut.
    I’m trying to work out some funny way to pun Truss and Kansas. Kantruss? Hmmm… not funny enough… The point being that this fantasy that you can cut taxes and everything will work out has been tried, and it doesn’t work. The classic, and very tragic, example of this is known as the Kansas Experiment: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kansas_experiment
    The Kansas experiment was deeply, deeply flawed and not remotely comparable to the UK whatsoever. The UK is reversing tax rates back to what they were a few months ago, from a record high base in the past 74 years.

    As opposed to Kansas where tax loopholes were introduced allowed many people to cut their tax rate to literally zero. Zero percent tax rate is not something I'm advocating or anyone sane is. Oh and the Kansas bill also increased many other people's tax rates, it didn't reduce it, so increasing their tax rates would of course harm the economy while eliminating tax from others does nothing to raise revenues.
    While I’m here, here’s a nice FT article: https://www.ft.com/content/a9be9db6-a91e-48e4-8d69-4bbfff7e0f5f

    You say the UK is reversing tax rates back to what they were a few months ago. Are the stamp duty changes taking us back to where we were a few months ago? Indeed, I think there had already been 7 cuts in stamp duty since 2008.

    The idea that the Kansas Experiment failed because it increased people’s taxes is a novel one.
    You seem to assume that Truss's measures will throw a spanner into the works of a thriving, healthy economy.

    That is far, far from the case. The economy is in very bad trouble under policies you advocate and support. This is a basic demonstrable fact that all Sunak rampers ignore. They are backdating Truss's measures by 18 months.
    I agree the economy is in trouble. That’s because the Conservative Party’s policies haven’t worked. I do not advocate or support the failed policies of the Conservative Governments we’ve had since 2015. It is, of course, Truss who advocated and supported all those policies.
    Up until recently the government's policies have been more or less rubber stamped by labour. I don't hear too much grumbling about the highest taxes in 70 years from the opposition benches. What I hear is envy.

    The FT is one of the central supporters of what is turning out to be a failed orthodoxy in economic policy. They cannot abide the fact Brownism is being summarily dumped as it reaches the bankruptcy it was always destined for.That is the agenda here.
  • AnabobazinaAnabobazina Posts: 19,598
    edited September 2022
    Leon said:

    Oxford Street's US-themed sweet shops to face stricter rules

    Measures proposed include increasing the fee to register a company at Companies House from £12 to £50,

    https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-london-62972510

    Yeah that will deter multi-million quid money laundering....

    There's a bunch of them around Leicester Sq as well. I also saw one or two in Seville, it's not an entirely London thing

    They are really odd. Garish and vulgar, and seldom full of customers

    Speculation that they are money launderers?
    I'm told that many have their registered address on the Finchley Road...
  • LeonLeon Posts: 46,206
    Phil said:

    Leon said:

    The famous American transgender clinic exposed in that video has just taken down its entire website. The whole damn thing

    https://www.vanderbilthealth.com/clinic/clinic-transgender-health

    Vanished

    Given that Tucker Carlson is calling on his viewers to commit acts of terrorism against gender identity clinics, can you blame them?

    This is the same playbook used against abortion clinics: make outrageous claims & then leave the rest to stochastic terrorism.
    What is this fashionable new word on the Victim Left. "Stochastic". You see it everywhere


    Just look at the videos from Vanderbilt. IF you're completely comfortable with them, fair enough

    https://twitter.com/MattWalshBlog/status/1572313523232931840?s=20&t=HHYSma79jOQX9QHJXgS-hQ


    https://twitter.com/MattWalshBlog/status/1572313566589468672?s=20&t=HHYSma79jOQX9QHJXgS-hQ


    https://twitter.com/MattWalshBlog/status/1572313670075518978?s=20&t=HHYSma79jOQX9QHJXgS-hQ


    https://twitter.com/MattWalshBlog/status/1572313712413003777?s=20&t=HHYSma79jOQX9QHJXgS-hQ


    And now, a haircut
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 49,614

    Sandpit said:

    Leon said:

    Oxford Street's US-themed sweet shops to face stricter rules

    Measures proposed include increasing the fee to register a company at Companies House from £12 to £50,

    https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-london-62972510

    Yeah that will deter multi-million quid money laundering....

    There's a bunch of them around Leicester Sq as well. I also saw one or two in Seville, it's not an entirely London thing

    They are really odd. Garish and vulgar, and seldom full of customers

    Speculation that they are money launderers?
    Private Eye have been on this for 3+ years now. Everything about them is as bent as a nine bob note. Run by Afghani nationals, constantly dissolving companies and reforming. The suggestion is flushing dirty money from Afghanistan. Been at it for 15 years now, but with COVID etc, seen number of outlets skyrocket.
    It started with the souvenir shops:
    https://www.reddit.com/r/london/comments/cnkcaz/private_eye_on_west_end_souvenir_shops/

    Hundreds of companies, most of whom are controlled by a handful of people, and are dissolved before they file accounts.
    My favourite piece of alleged money laundering:

    https://www.thecourier.co.uk/fp/news/perth-kinross/699447/former-gaddafi-insider-accused-of-offloading-stolen-cash-into-taymouth-castle/

    A perfectly maintained golf course with the greens cut daily. No golfers. At all.


    There's something that smells very similar here in the Flatlands but on a smaller scale.
    A golf course is actually quite a smart one. They can say that they’re selling ‘memberships’ to people mostly based overseas, and the lack of day-to-day business means they can sell an awful lot of them before the course gets so busy they complain they can’t book a tee time!

    Needs a fair amount of money spent on it though, a full team of green keepers and their equipment doesn’t come cheap.
  • BartholomewRobertsBartholomewRoberts Posts: 18,154
    edited September 2022

    MISTY said:

    HYUFD said:

    kle4 said:

    Mr. Sandpit, Starmer isn't that.

    But the Conservatives are facing numerous significant problems.
    1) They've been in for a long time, so time for a change becomes a powerful mantra.
    2) Cost of living is a problem for many people.
    3) The former clownish PM's antics lost the party a lot of support which has not returned.

    Against that, they do have incumbency and the boundary changes should help, but I'd not be surprised if we see a lot of changes next time.

    This is about where I am. Labour winning outright from so far back should be very hard, but 2019 was unusual and there are a lot of time and stored up problems for the Tories. I think itll be close - if the Truss gambles pay off its a 1992 result.
    Most likely the result will be 2010 in reverse, a hung parliament but Starmer like Cameron wins most seats
    Looking at the economic numbers, I have no idea why any tory still thinks Sunak would have been a better option than Truss, as you manifestly do.

    With Truss we might get some growth with a ballooning deficit. With Sunak we would get a depression with a ballooning deficit, followed by huge public spending cuts or going to the IMF. As shown by recent borrowing numbers.

    Well said, the idea you can tax your way to growth has never been true and never will be true. Brownism failed under Brown, and its failed under Sunak too.

    The simple reality is that the Government taxes us every which way it can, so any money taken out of circulation due to higher taxes must immediately lower tax receipts in other taxes, because its no longer being spent and taxed in other ways.

    But those advocating tax rises never factor this in at all. Which is why tax rises never raise as much as their adherents expect, and why tax cuts don't cost as much as their critics claim either, as any extra money circulating in the economy due to tax cuts then gets itself taxed as it circulates minimising the cost of the tax cut.
    I’m trying to work out some funny way to pun Truss and Kansas. Kantruss? Hmmm… not funny enough… The point being that this fantasy that you can cut taxes and everything will work out has been tried, and it doesn’t work. The classic, and very tragic, example of this is known as the Kansas Experiment: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kansas_experiment
    The Kansas experiment was deeply, deeply flawed and not remotely comparable to the UK whatsoever. The UK is reversing tax rates back to what they were a few months ago, from a record high base in the past 74 years.

    As opposed to Kansas where tax loopholes were introduced allowed many people to cut their tax rate to literally zero. Zero percent tax rate is not something I'm advocating or anyone sane is. Oh and the Kansas bill also increased many other people's tax rates, it didn't reduce it, so increasing their tax rates would of course harm the economy while eliminating tax from others does nothing to raise revenues.
    While I’m here, here’s a nice FT article: https://www.ft.com/content/a9be9db6-a91e-48e4-8d69-4bbfff7e0f5f

    You say the UK is reversing tax rates back to what they were a few months ago. Are the stamp duty changes taking us back to where we were a few months ago? Indeed, I think there had already been 7 cuts in stamp duty since 2008.

    The idea that the Kansas Experiment failed because it increased people’s taxes is a novel one.
    Not that novel, its actually explicitly mentioned in your own link.

    Direct benefits for the affluent
    The act received criticism for shifting the tax burden from wealthy Kansans to low- and moderate-income workers.[81][40]

    According to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, the bill cut the taxes of "the wealthiest 1% of Kansans by 2.2%," while it projected that the poorest 20% of Kansans would see "their taxes increase by 1.3%".[82]

    Bryan Lowry of The Wichita Eagle estimated that almost 70% of Kansas lawmakers, as well as Governor Brownback and his wife, benefited personally from the tax cuts through business or property that they owned, which being non-wage income, was exempt from taxes under the 2012 law.[83]


    I 100% wholeheartedly recognise that raising taxes on working income and eliminating taxes on non-earned incomes is a terrible, terrible idea. What tax is it in the UK that is most similar to the Kansas experiment, whereby those working see their taxes go up, while those not working see their taxes go down? Oh yes, its National Insurance, isn't it.

    Sunak's plans of slashing Income Tax by 4p while raising National Insurance to pay for it is what was more like the Kansas Experiment, not Truss reversing tax rises on earnt incomes.
    Sunak was seeking to balance the budget. Truss, like Kansas, is relying on future growth to pay for hers. That’s where the similarity is.

    There are times when it’s appropriate to cut taxes, and times when it’s appropriate to borrow money. What’s particularly dangerous, however, is pretending that you can cut taxes because you’re sure future growth will be along any day now to fill the Treasury’s coffers.
    Saying you're balancing the budget and actually doing so are two completely different things. How does cutting Income Tax by 4p while increasing National Insurance, thus completely distorting taxation away from unearned incomes and towards earned ones, do anything whatsoever to balance the budget.

    Yes there are times when its appropriate to borrow money. During a supply shock recession is one of them, which is right now.
    I agree that saying you’re balancing the budget and actually doing so are two different things. The Truss government isn’t even saying they’re balancing the budget!

    Do you think it is sensible to rely on future growth projections?
    During a recession? Yes, absolutely, of course.

    Before or after a recession? No, not necessarily.

    During a recession getting the economy growing again will automatically correct and eliminate much of the deficit. You can then tackle what is remaining and get the budget to a balanced budget where it should be kept until the next recession inevitably strikes.

    Truss has said the time to balance the budget is in three years time, post-shock. That's the equivalent of balancing the budget in 2011 rather than 2008.
  • RobD said:

    Regarding money-laundering, remember that the major banks and many of the fintech online banks are utterly paranoid about it. Getting an account for anything that isn't small and simple is very difficult. Despite this, there does appear to be large number of front businesses operating in plain sight with the tax authorities and police uninterested.

    Question - is that because the UK has a long record making a lot of money as a tax haven? We take oceans of dodgy money from dodgy people - even letting some of them buy passports and dinner with the PM...

    What I don't understand is if they are so obviously dodgy to us, why haven't they been investigated yet?
    Like I said, dodgy money flooding through the UK is something that makes Tory friends and donors a lot of money. For a long long time we have turned a blind eye, why start behaving differently now?
  • WillGWillG Posts: 1,993

    It strikes me that the riots in Birmingham and Leicester are an above-politics situation where the new king could immediately get involved to plead for unity and calm, and also set the tone of his reign. Inter-faith understanding has been one of his main obsessions and passions for forty or maybe fifty years.

    There would have to be some sort of statement or governmental stance by Truss and/or one of her ministers first, obviously and clearly.

    A bigger question is why we have sectarian hostility and violence in mainland Britain in 2022. This is the sort of thing you expect from the nutters in Northern Ireland. We had long moved past this sort of thing but our immigration policy has brought it back. Of course there will be a conspiracy of silence about the origins of this among the media and there will be accountability.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 66,732
    edited September 2022
    RobD said:

    Tories can't run an economy

    Thankfully we don't have a planned economy.
    I dunno. If the DfE had been asked to plan a successful, prosperous economy including low energy bills what we've got is about what we'd end up with.
  • MISTYMISTY Posts: 1,594
    edited September 2022

    MISTY said:

    HYUFD said:

    kle4 said:

    Mr. Sandpit, Starmer isn't that.

    But the Conservatives are facing numerous significant problems.
    1) They've been in for a long time, so time for a change becomes a powerful mantra.
    2) Cost of living is a problem for many people.
    3) The former clownish PM's antics lost the party a lot of support which has not returned.

    Against that, they do have incumbency and the boundary changes should help, but I'd not be surprised if we see a lot of changes next time.

    This is about where I am. Labour winning outright from so far back should be very hard, but 2019 was unusual and there are a lot of time and stored up problems for the Tories. I think itll be close - if the Truss gambles pay off its a 1992 result.
    Most likely the result will be 2010 in reverse, a hung parliament but Starmer like Cameron wins most seats
    Looking at the economic numbers, I have no idea why any tory still thinks Sunak would have been a better option than Truss, as you manifestly do.

    With Truss we might get some growth with a ballooning deficit. With Sunak we would get a depression with a ballooning deficit, followed by huge public spending cuts or going to the IMF. As shown by recent borrowing numbers.

    Well said, the idea you can tax your way to growth has never been true and never will be true. Brownism failed under Brown, and its failed under Sunak too.

    The simple reality is that the Government taxes us every which way it can, so any money taken out of circulation due to higher taxes must immediately lower tax receipts in other taxes, because its no longer being spent and taxed in other ways.

    But those advocating tax rises never factor this in at all. Which is why tax rises never raise as much as their adherents expect, and why tax cuts don't cost as much as their critics claim either, as any extra money circulating in the economy due to tax cuts then gets itself taxed as it circulates minimising the cost of the tax cut.
    I’m trying to work out some funny way to pun Truss and Kansas. Kantruss? Hmmm… not funny enough… The point being that this fantasy that you can cut taxes and everything will work out has been tried, and it doesn’t work. The classic, and very tragic, example of this is known as the Kansas Experiment: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kansas_experiment
    The Kansas experiment was deeply, deeply flawed and not remotely comparable to the UK whatsoever. The UK is reversing tax rates back to what they were a few months ago, from a record high base in the past 74 years.

    As opposed to Kansas where tax loopholes were introduced allowed many people to cut their tax rate to literally zero. Zero percent tax rate is not something I'm advocating or anyone sane is. Oh and the Kansas bill also increased many other people's tax rates, it didn't reduce it, so increasing their tax rates would of course harm the economy while eliminating tax from others does nothing to raise revenues.
    While I’m here, here’s a nice FT article: https://www.ft.com/content/a9be9db6-a91e-48e4-8d69-4bbfff7e0f5f

    You say the UK is reversing tax rates back to what they were a few months ago. Are the stamp duty changes taking us back to where we were a few months ago? Indeed, I think there had already been 7 cuts in stamp duty since 2008.

    The idea that the Kansas Experiment failed because it increased people’s taxes is a novel one.
    Not that novel, its actually explicitly mentioned in your own link.

    Direct benefits for the affluent
    The act received criticism for shifting the tax burden from wealthy Kansans to low- and moderate-income workers.[81][40]

    According to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, the bill cut the taxes of "the wealthiest 1% of Kansans by 2.2%," while it projected that the poorest 20% of Kansans would see "their taxes increase by 1.3%".[82]

    Bryan Lowry of The Wichita Eagle estimated that almost 70% of Kansas lawmakers, as well as Governor Brownback and his wife, benefited personally from the tax cuts through business or property that they owned, which being non-wage income, was exempt from taxes under the 2012 law.[83]


    I 100% wholeheartedly recognise that raising taxes on working income and eliminating taxes on non-earned incomes is a terrible, terrible idea. What tax is it in the UK that is most similar to the Kansas experiment, whereby those working see their taxes go up, while those not working see their taxes go down? Oh yes, its National Insurance, isn't it.

    Sunak's plans of slashing Income Tax by 4p while raising National Insurance to pay for it is what was more like the Kansas Experiment, not Truss reversing tax rises on earnt incomes.
    Sunak was seeking to balance the budget. Truss, like Kansas, is relying on future growth to pay for hers. That’s where the similarity is.

    There are times when it’s appropriate to cut taxes, and times when it’s appropriate to borrow money. What’s particularly dangerous, however, is pretending that you can cut taxes because you’re sure future growth will be along any day now to fill the Treasury’s coffers.
    Saying you're balancing the budget and actually doing so are two completely different things. How does cutting Income Tax by 4p while increasing National Insurance, thus completely distorting taxation away from unearned incomes and towards earned ones, do anything whatsoever to balance the budget.

    Yes there are times when its appropriate to borrow money. During a supply shock recession is one of them, which is right now.
    I agree that saying you’re balancing the budget and actually doing so are two different things. The Truss government isn’t even saying they’re balancing the budget!

    Do you think it is sensible to rely on future growth projections?
    Let's look at what we know, and what we know is that Sunakism is failing. That isn't conjecture any more, it is fact. Look at the PSBR numbers now, before higher interest rates and higher corporation taxes hit home. The UK under Sunak was manifestly heading for a depression. A depression that would have blown his 'balanced budget' fantasy even more off course than it is now.

    Where would he have gone after the financial meltdown he was creating became undeniable? massive public spending cuts would have been his only option.
  • bigjohnowlsbigjohnowls Posts: 21,715
    Perfect time for tax cuts (not)

    "Soaring inflation led interest costs on UK government debt to hit a new record for August.

    Interest due reached £8.2bn during the month, £1.5bn more than last year and the highest August figure since records began"
  • bondegezoubondegezou Posts: 7,159
    MISTY said:

    MISTY said:

    MISTY said:

    HYUFD said:

    kle4 said:

    Mr. Sandpit, Starmer isn't that.

    But the Conservatives are facing numerous significant problems.
    1) They've been in for a long time, so time for a change becomes a powerful mantra.
    2) Cost of living is a problem for many people.
    3) The former clownish PM's antics lost the party a lot of support which has not returned.

    Against that, they do have incumbency and the boundary changes should help, but I'd not be surprised if we see a lot of changes next time.

    This is about where I am. Labour winning outright from so far back should be very hard, but 2019 was unusual and there are a lot of time and stored up problems for the Tories. I think itll be close - if the Truss gambles pay off its a 1992 result.
    Most likely the result will be 2010 in reverse, a hung parliament but Starmer like Cameron wins most seats
    Looking at the economic numbers, I have no idea why any tory still thinks Sunak would have been a better option than Truss, as you manifestly do.

    With Truss we might get some growth with a ballooning deficit. With Sunak we would get a depression with a ballooning deficit, followed by huge public spending cuts or going to the IMF. As shown by recent borrowing numbers.

    Well said, the idea you can tax your way to growth has never been true and never will be true. Brownism failed under Brown, and its failed under Sunak too.

    The simple reality is that the Government taxes us every which way it can, so any money taken out of circulation due to higher taxes must immediately lower tax receipts in other taxes, because its no longer being spent and taxed in other ways.

    But those advocating tax rises never factor this in at all. Which is why tax rises never raise as much as their adherents expect, and why tax cuts don't cost as much as their critics claim either, as any extra money circulating in the economy due to tax cuts then gets itself taxed as it circulates minimising the cost of the tax cut.
    I’m trying to work out some funny way to pun Truss and Kansas. Kantruss? Hmmm… not funny enough… The point being that this fantasy that you can cut taxes and everything will work out has been tried, and it doesn’t work. The classic, and very tragic, example of this is known as the Kansas Experiment: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kansas_experiment
    The Kansas experiment was deeply, deeply flawed and not remotely comparable to the UK whatsoever. The UK is reversing tax rates back to what they were a few months ago, from a record high base in the past 74 years.

    As opposed to Kansas where tax loopholes were introduced allowed many people to cut their tax rate to literally zero. Zero percent tax rate is not something I'm advocating or anyone sane is. Oh and the Kansas bill also increased many other people's tax rates, it didn't reduce it, so increasing their tax rates would of course harm the economy while eliminating tax from others does nothing to raise revenues.
    While I’m here, here’s a nice FT article: https://www.ft.com/content/a9be9db6-a91e-48e4-8d69-4bbfff7e0f5f

    You say the UK is reversing tax rates back to what they were a few months ago. Are the stamp duty changes taking us back to where we were a few months ago? Indeed, I think there had already been 7 cuts in stamp duty since 2008.

    The idea that the Kansas Experiment failed because it increased people’s taxes is a novel one.
    You seem to assume that Truss's measures will throw a spanner into the works of a thriving, healthy economy.

    That is far, far from the case. The economy is in very bad trouble under policies you advocate and support. This is a basic demonstrable fact that all Sunak rampers ignore. They are backdating Truss's measures by 18 months.
    I agree the economy is in trouble. That’s because the Conservative Party’s policies haven’t worked. I do not advocate or support the failed policies of the Conservative Governments we’ve had since 2015. It is, of course, Truss who advocated and supported all those policies.
    Up until recently the government's policies have been more or less rubber stamped by labour. I don't hear too much grumbling about the highest taxes in 70 years from the opposition benches. What I hear is envy.

    The FT is one of the central supporters of what is turning out to be a failed orthodoxy in economic policy. They cannot abide the fact Brownism is being summarily dumped as it reaches the bankruptcy it was always destined for.That is the agenda here.
    Labour have definitely not been “rubber stamping” the Government’s economic policies, although the Government has been adopting Labour’s (originally the LibDems’) policy when it came to the windfall tax.

    We both agree that recent economic policy has failed. It’s just that I blame the party that was in charge whereas you seem to think that the Conservative Government’s economic policies since 2015 are nothing to do with the Conservative Party, but somehow Brown’s fault…?
  • Perfect time for tax cuts (not)

    "Soaring inflation led interest costs on UK government debt to hit a new record for August.

    Interest due reached £8.2bn during the month, £1.5bn more than last year and the highest August figure since records began"

    Yes it is the perfect time. Tax rises in April didn't stop the UK from borrowing, did they?
  • MexicanpeteMexicanpete Posts: 24,583
    MISTY said:

    MISTY said:

    MISTY said:

    HYUFD said:

    kle4 said:

    Mr. Sandpit, Starmer isn't that.

    But the Conservatives are facing numerous significant problems.
    1) They've been in for a long time, so time for a change becomes a powerful mantra.
    2) Cost of living is a problem for many people.
    3) The former clownish PM's antics lost the party a lot of support which has not returned.

    Against that, they do have incumbency and the boundary changes should help, but I'd not be surprised if we see a lot of changes next time.

    This is about where I am. Labour winning outright from so far back should be very hard, but 2019 was unusual and there are a lot of time and stored up problems for the Tories. I think itll be close - if the Truss gambles pay off its a 1992 result.
    Most likely the result will be 2010 in reverse, a hung parliament but Starmer like Cameron wins most seats
    Looking at the economic numbers, I have no idea why any tory still thinks Sunak would have been a better option than Truss, as you manifestly do.

    With Truss we might get some growth with a ballooning deficit. With Sunak we would get a depression with a ballooning deficit, followed by huge public spending cuts or going to the IMF. As shown by recent borrowing numbers.

    Well said, the idea you can tax your way to growth has never been true and never will be true. Brownism failed under Brown, and its failed under Sunak too.

    The simple reality is that the Government taxes us every which way it can, so any money taken out of circulation due to higher taxes must immediately lower tax receipts in other taxes, because its no longer being spent and taxed in other ways.

    But those advocating tax rises never factor this in at all. Which is why tax rises never raise as much as their adherents expect, and why tax cuts don't cost as much as their critics claim either, as any extra money circulating in the economy due to tax cuts then gets itself taxed as it circulates minimising the cost of the tax cut.
    I’m trying to work out some funny way to pun Truss and Kansas. Kantruss? Hmmm… not funny enough… The point being that this fantasy that you can cut taxes and everything will work out has been tried, and it doesn’t work. The classic, and very tragic, example of this is known as the Kansas Experiment: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kansas_experiment
    The Kansas experiment was deeply, deeply flawed and not remotely comparable to the UK whatsoever. The UK is reversing tax rates back to what they were a few months ago, from a record high base in the past 74 years.

    As opposed to Kansas where tax loopholes were introduced allowed many people to cut their tax rate to literally zero. Zero percent tax rate is not something I'm advocating or anyone sane is. Oh and the Kansas bill also increased many other people's tax rates, it didn't reduce it, so increasing their tax rates would of course harm the economy while eliminating tax from others does nothing to raise revenues.
    While I’m here, here’s a nice FT article: https://www.ft.com/content/a9be9db6-a91e-48e4-8d69-4bbfff7e0f5f

    You say the UK is reversing tax rates back to what they were a few months ago. Are the stamp duty changes taking us back to where we were a few months ago? Indeed, I think there had already been 7 cuts in stamp duty since 2008.

    The idea that the Kansas Experiment failed because it increased people’s taxes is a novel one.
    You seem to assume that Truss's measures will throw a spanner into the works of a thriving, healthy economy.

    That is far, far from the case. The economy is in very bad trouble under policies you advocate and support. This is a basic demonstrable fact that all Sunak rampers ignore. They are backdating Truss's measures by 18 months.
    I agree the economy is in trouble. That’s because the Conservative Party’s policies haven’t worked. I do not advocate or support the failed policies of the Conservative Governments we’ve had since 2015. It is, of course, Truss who advocated and supported all those policies.
    Up until recently the government's policies have been more or less rubber stamped by labour. I don't hear too much grumbling about the highest taxes in 70 years from the opposition benches. What I hear is envy.

    The FT is one of the central supporters of what is turning out to be a failed orthodoxy in economic policy. They cannot abide the fact Brownism is being summarily dumped as it reaches the bankruptcy it was always destined for.That is the agenda here.
    What a peculiar post after the last 12 years of Conservative Governments and a mere 46 years out of the last seventy.
  • AnabobazinaAnabobazina Posts: 19,598

    Perfect time for tax cuts (not)

    "Soaring inflation led interest costs on UK government debt to hit a new record for August.

    Interest due reached £8.2bn during the month, £1.5bn more than last year and the highest August figure since records began"

    Are you still a PB Tory, Owls?
  • MISTY said:

    MISTY said:

    MISTY said:

    HYUFD said:

    kle4 said:

    Mr. Sandpit, Starmer isn't that.

    But the Conservatives are facing numerous significant problems.
    1) They've been in for a long time, so time for a change becomes a powerful mantra.
    2) Cost of living is a problem for many people.
    3) The former clownish PM's antics lost the party a lot of support which has not returned.

    Against that, they do have incumbency and the boundary changes should help, but I'd not be surprised if we see a lot of changes next time.

    This is about where I am. Labour winning outright from so far back should be very hard, but 2019 was unusual and there are a lot of time and stored up problems for the Tories. I think itll be close - if the Truss gambles pay off its a 1992 result.
    Most likely the result will be 2010 in reverse, a hung parliament but Starmer like Cameron wins most seats
    Looking at the economic numbers, I have no idea why any tory still thinks Sunak would have been a better option than Truss, as you manifestly do.

    With Truss we might get some growth with a ballooning deficit. With Sunak we would get a depression with a ballooning deficit, followed by huge public spending cuts or going to the IMF. As shown by recent borrowing numbers.

    Well said, the idea you can tax your way to growth has never been true and never will be true. Brownism failed under Brown, and its failed under Sunak too.

    The simple reality is that the Government taxes us every which way it can, so any money taken out of circulation due to higher taxes must immediately lower tax receipts in other taxes, because its no longer being spent and taxed in other ways.

    But those advocating tax rises never factor this in at all. Which is why tax rises never raise as much as their adherents expect, and why tax cuts don't cost as much as their critics claim either, as any extra money circulating in the economy due to tax cuts then gets itself taxed as it circulates minimising the cost of the tax cut.
    I’m trying to work out some funny way to pun Truss and Kansas. Kantruss? Hmmm… not funny enough… The point being that this fantasy that you can cut taxes and everything will work out has been tried, and it doesn’t work. The classic, and very tragic, example of this is known as the Kansas Experiment: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kansas_experiment
    The Kansas experiment was deeply, deeply flawed and not remotely comparable to the UK whatsoever. The UK is reversing tax rates back to what they were a few months ago, from a record high base in the past 74 years.

    As opposed to Kansas where tax loopholes were introduced allowed many people to cut their tax rate to literally zero. Zero percent tax rate is not something I'm advocating or anyone sane is. Oh and the Kansas bill also increased many other people's tax rates, it didn't reduce it, so increasing their tax rates would of course harm the economy while eliminating tax from others does nothing to raise revenues.
    While I’m here, here’s a nice FT article: https://www.ft.com/content/a9be9db6-a91e-48e4-8d69-4bbfff7e0f5f

    You say the UK is reversing tax rates back to what they were a few months ago. Are the stamp duty changes taking us back to where we were a few months ago? Indeed, I think there had already been 7 cuts in stamp duty since 2008.

    The idea that the Kansas Experiment failed because it increased people’s taxes is a novel one.
    You seem to assume that Truss's measures will throw a spanner into the works of a thriving, healthy economy.

    That is far, far from the case. The economy is in very bad trouble under policies you advocate and support. This is a basic demonstrable fact that all Sunak rampers ignore. They are backdating Truss's measures by 18 months.
    I agree the economy is in trouble. That’s because the Conservative Party’s policies haven’t worked. I do not advocate or support the failed policies of the Conservative Governments we’ve had since 2015. It is, of course, Truss who advocated and supported all those policies.
    Up until recently the government's policies have been more or less rubber stamped by labour. I don't hear too much grumbling about the highest taxes in 70 years from the opposition benches. What I hear is envy.

    The FT is one of the central supporters of what is turning out to be a failed orthodoxy in economic policy. They cannot abide the fact Brownism is being summarily dumped as it reaches the bankruptcy it was always destined for.That is the agenda here.
    Labour have definitely not been “rubber stamping” the Government’s economic policies, although the Government has been adopting Labour’s (originally the LibDems’) policy when it came to the windfall tax.

    We both agree that recent economic policy has failed. It’s just that I blame the party that was in charge whereas you seem to think that the Conservative Government’s economic policies since 2015 are nothing to do with the Conservative Party, but somehow Brown’s fault…?
    Sunak's tax rises aren't since 2015.

    I objected to Sunak's tax rises vociferously from the moment they were announced. Prior to Sunak jacking up taxes the Tories were doing the opposite policy which was successfully closing Brown's deficit, that was prudent and responsible economics, it was Sunak's lurch towards Brownism that was inappropriate, not what happened before Sunak.
  • bondegezoubondegezou Posts: 7,159
    MISTY said:

    MISTY said:

    HYUFD said:

    kle4 said:

    Mr. Sandpit, Starmer isn't that.

    But the Conservatives are facing numerous significant problems.
    1) They've been in for a long time, so time for a change becomes a powerful mantra.
    2) Cost of living is a problem for many people.
    3) The former clownish PM's antics lost the party a lot of support which has not returned.

    Against that, they do have incumbency and the boundary changes should help, but I'd not be surprised if we see a lot of changes next time.

    This is about where I am. Labour winning outright from so far back should be very hard, but 2019 was unusual and there are a lot of time and stored up problems for the Tories. I think itll be close - if the Truss gambles pay off its a 1992 result.
    Most likely the result will be 2010 in reverse, a hung parliament but Starmer like Cameron wins most seats
    Looking at the economic numbers, I have no idea why any tory still thinks Sunak would have been a better option than Truss, as you manifestly do.

    With Truss we might get some growth with a ballooning deficit. With Sunak we would get a depression with a ballooning deficit, followed by huge public spending cuts or going to the IMF. As shown by recent borrowing numbers.

    Well said, the idea you can tax your way to growth has never been true and never will be true. Brownism failed under Brown, and its failed under Sunak too.

    The simple reality is that the Government taxes us every which way it can, so any money taken out of circulation due to higher taxes must immediately lower tax receipts in other taxes, because its no longer being spent and taxed in other ways.

    But those advocating tax rises never factor this in at all. Which is why tax rises never raise as much as their adherents expect, and why tax cuts don't cost as much as their critics claim either, as any extra money circulating in the economy due to tax cuts then gets itself taxed as it circulates minimising the cost of the tax cut.
    I’m trying to work out some funny way to pun Truss and Kansas. Kantruss? Hmmm… not funny enough… The point being that this fantasy that you can cut taxes and everything will work out has been tried, and it doesn’t work. The classic, and very tragic, example of this is known as the Kansas Experiment: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kansas_experiment
    The Kansas experiment was deeply, deeply flawed and not remotely comparable to the UK whatsoever. The UK is reversing tax rates back to what they were a few months ago, from a record high base in the past 74 years.

    As opposed to Kansas where tax loopholes were introduced allowed many people to cut their tax rate to literally zero. Zero percent tax rate is not something I'm advocating or anyone sane is. Oh and the Kansas bill also increased many other people's tax rates, it didn't reduce it, so increasing their tax rates would of course harm the economy while eliminating tax from others does nothing to raise revenues.
    While I’m here, here’s a nice FT article: https://www.ft.com/content/a9be9db6-a91e-48e4-8d69-4bbfff7e0f5f

    You say the UK is reversing tax rates back to what they were a few months ago. Are the stamp duty changes taking us back to where we were a few months ago? Indeed, I think there had already been 7 cuts in stamp duty since 2008.

    The idea that the Kansas Experiment failed because it increased people’s taxes is a novel one.
    Not that novel, its actually explicitly mentioned in your own link.

    Direct benefits for the affluent
    The act received criticism for shifting the tax burden from wealthy Kansans to low- and moderate-income workers.[81][40]

    According to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, the bill cut the taxes of "the wealthiest 1% of Kansans by 2.2%," while it projected that the poorest 20% of Kansans would see "their taxes increase by 1.3%".[82]

    Bryan Lowry of The Wichita Eagle estimated that almost 70% of Kansas lawmakers, as well as Governor Brownback and his wife, benefited personally from the tax cuts through business or property that they owned, which being non-wage income, was exempt from taxes under the 2012 law.[83]


    I 100% wholeheartedly recognise that raising taxes on working income and eliminating taxes on non-earned incomes is a terrible, terrible idea. What tax is it in the UK that is most similar to the Kansas experiment, whereby those working see their taxes go up, while those not working see their taxes go down? Oh yes, its National Insurance, isn't it.

    Sunak's plans of slashing Income Tax by 4p while raising National Insurance to pay for it is what was more like the Kansas Experiment, not Truss reversing tax rises on earnt incomes.
    Sunak was seeking to balance the budget. Truss, like Kansas, is relying on future growth to pay for hers. That’s where the similarity is.

    There are times when it’s appropriate to cut taxes, and times when it’s appropriate to borrow money. What’s particularly dangerous, however, is pretending that you can cut taxes because you’re sure future growth will be along any day now to fill the Treasury’s coffers.
    Saying you're balancing the budget and actually doing so are two completely different things. How does cutting Income Tax by 4p while increasing National Insurance, thus completely distorting taxation away from unearned incomes and towards earned ones, do anything whatsoever to balance the budget.

    Yes there are times when its appropriate to borrow money. During a supply shock recession is one of them, which is right now.
    I agree that saying you’re balancing the budget and actually doing so are two different things. The Truss government isn’t even saying they’re balancing the budget!

    Do you think it is sensible to rely on future growth projections?
    Let's look at what we know, and what we know is that Sunakism is failing. That isn't conjecture any more, it is fact. Look at the PSBR numbers now, before higher interest rates and higher corporation taxes hit home. The UK under Sunak was manifestly heading for a depression. A depression that would have blown his 'balanced budget' fantasy even more off course than it is now.

    Where would he have gone after the financial meltdown he was creating became undeniable? massive public spending cuts would have been his only option.
    Then let’s get rid of every MP who supported Sunakism… or at least the Cabinet members who did.
  • eekeek Posts: 24,797

    MISTY said:

    HYUFD said:

    kle4 said:

    Mr. Sandpit, Starmer isn't that.

    But the Conservatives are facing numerous significant problems.
    1) They've been in for a long time, so time for a change becomes a powerful mantra.
    2) Cost of living is a problem for many people.
    3) The former clownish PM's antics lost the party a lot of support which has not returned.

    Against that, they do have incumbency and the boundary changes should help, but I'd not be surprised if we see a lot of changes next time.

    This is about where I am. Labour winning outright from so far back should be very hard, but 2019 was unusual and there are a lot of time and stored up problems for the Tories. I think itll be close - if the Truss gambles pay off its a 1992 result.
    Most likely the result will be 2010 in reverse, a hung parliament but Starmer like Cameron wins most seats
    Looking at the economic numbers, I have no idea why any tory still thinks Sunak would have been a better option than Truss, as you manifestly do.

    With Truss we might get some growth with a ballooning deficit. With Sunak we would get a depression with a ballooning deficit, followed by huge public spending cuts or going to the IMF. As shown by recent borrowing numbers.

    Well said, the idea you can tax your way to growth has never been true and never will be true. Brownism failed under Brown, and its failed under Sunak too.

    The simple reality is that the Government taxes us every which way it can, so any money taken out of circulation due to higher taxes must immediately lower tax receipts in other taxes, because its no longer being spent and taxed in other ways.

    But those advocating tax rises never factor this in at all. Which is why tax rises never raise as much as their adherents expect, and why tax cuts don't cost as much as their critics claim either, as any extra money circulating in the economy due to tax cuts then gets itself taxed as it circulates minimising the cost of the tax cut.
    I’m trying to work out some funny way to pun Truss and Kansas. Kantruss? Hmmm… not funny enough… The point being that this fantasy that you can cut taxes and everything will work out has been tried, and it doesn’t work. The classic, and very tragic, example of this is known as the Kansas Experiment: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kansas_experiment
    The Kansas experiment was deeply, deeply flawed and not remotely comparable to the UK whatsoever. The UK is reversing tax rates back to what they were a few months ago, from a record high base in the past 74 years.

    As opposed to Kansas where tax loopholes were introduced allowed many people to cut their tax rate to literally zero. Zero percent tax rate is not something I'm advocating or anyone sane is. Oh and the Kansas bill also increased many other people's tax rates, it didn't reduce it, so increasing their tax rates would of course harm the economy while eliminating tax from others does nothing to raise revenues.
    While I’m here, here’s a nice FT article: https://www.ft.com/content/a9be9db6-a91e-48e4-8d69-4bbfff7e0f5f

    You say the UK is reversing tax rates back to what they were a few months ago. Are the stamp duty changes taking us back to where we were a few months ago? Indeed, I think there had already been 7 cuts in stamp duty since 2008.

    The idea that the Kansas Experiment failed because it increased people’s taxes is a novel one.
    Not that novel, its actually explicitly mentioned in your own link.

    Direct benefits for the affluent
    The act received criticism for shifting the tax burden from wealthy Kansans to low- and moderate-income workers.[81][40]

    According to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, the bill cut the taxes of "the wealthiest 1% of Kansans by 2.2%," while it projected that the poorest 20% of Kansans would see "their taxes increase by 1.3%".[82]

    Bryan Lowry of The Wichita Eagle estimated that almost 70% of Kansas lawmakers, as well as Governor Brownback and his wife, benefited personally from the tax cuts through business or property that they owned, which being non-wage income, was exempt from taxes under the 2012 law.[83]


    I 100% wholeheartedly recognise that raising taxes on working income and eliminating taxes on non-earned incomes is a terrible, terrible idea. What tax is it in the UK that is most similar to the Kansas experiment, whereby those working see their taxes go up, while those not working see their taxes go down? Oh yes, its National Insurance, isn't it.

    Sunak's plans of slashing Income Tax by 4p while raising National Insurance to pay for it is what was more like the Kansas Experiment, not Truss reversing tax rises on earnt incomes.
    Sunak was seeking to balance the budget. Truss, like Kansas, is relying on future growth to pay for hers. That’s where the similarity is.

    There are times when it’s appropriate to cut taxes, and times when it’s appropriate to borrow money. What’s particularly dangerous, however, is pretending that you can cut taxes because you’re sure future growth will be along any day now to fill the Treasury’s coffers.
    Saying you're balancing the budget and actually doing so are two completely different things. How does cutting Income Tax by 4p while increasing National Insurance, thus completely distorting taxation away from unearned incomes and towards earned ones, do anything whatsoever to balance the budget.

    Yes there are times when its appropriate to borrow money. During a supply shock recession is one of them, which is right now.
    I agree that saying you’re balancing the budget and actually doing so are two different things. The Truss government isn’t even saying they’re balancing the budget!

    Do you think it is sensible to rely on future growth projections?
    Given that future growth projections are always 3%+ when reality says it's been (at best) 1.1% a year since 2000
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 49,614

    It strikes me that the riots in Birmingham and Leicester are an above-politics situation where the new king could immediately get involved to plead for unity and calm, and also set the tone of his reign. Inter-faith understanding has been one of his main obsessions and passions for forty or maybe fifty years.

    There would have to be some sort of statement or governmental stance by Truss and/or one of her ministers first, obviously and clearly.

    Send peace-keeping troops to keep them apart. See Belfast, 1969, for more details.
    What’s actually going on in Leicester?

    From trying to read accounts of it, it appears that ‘recollections may vary’.
This discussion has been closed.