Selling my house and need somewhere to rent. As I earn my living trading on Betfair, I don't really have much of a PAYE salary. Usually I get round it by offering a years rent in advance, but the Renter Rights Act has given this the kibosh, meaning I could be on my Mum & Dad's sofa for Christmas, with my kids living 20 miles away. Super duper
Landlords are turning down a year’s rent up front, from someone selling property in an unfortunate situation getting divorced who clearly doesn’t have financial issues? What’s the regulatory issue at play, that someone is insisting on a salary certificate?
The Renter’s Rights Bill bans taking large “deposits” like this.
It’s not actually being enforced yet - IIRC the rules require the sign off of the relevant secretary of state before they are enforceable. Hence ISAM needs to get a move on & get moved in if he wants to rent somewhere for the next year.
The previous act (2023?) limited deposits to 5 weeks iirc, which amongst other things made management of pet rentals more complex.
I'm not surprised. Very few pets have enough cash to provide 5 weeks deposit.
My emotional support salt-water crocodile, Bubbles, has no problem renting. Anyone questions *anything* - he just smiles.
Selling my house and need somewhere to rent. As I earn my living trading on Betfair, I don't really have much of a PAYE salary. Usually I get round it by offering a years rent in advance, but the Renter Rights Act has given this the kibosh, meaning I could be on my Mum & Dad's sofa for Christmas, with my kids living 20 miles away. Super duper
Fellow self employed here. If your parents have a decent pension, lettings agents are generally happy to have them as a guarantor. That's what I did last time. Bit embarassing at the age of 42, but there we are. Or a sibling or friend with a job will do too.
I guarantee my son's rent of £3000 a month. Not a problem. He's 55 and has a pension but not enough to live on. He's an IT entrepreneur very experienced in AI and LLMs but not yet in the money. I think his ambition is , one day, to come round to me with a large suitcase stuffed with £50s and say "Here you are dad, with interest".
Given current practice I expect Labour to decide to ban guarantors in the next Renter’s Rights Bill. Why should people with rich parents have an advantage over those that don’t?
(Although perhaps that might be a step too far even for them? It would crucify the student lets market for a start.)
They’ve banned fixed term tenancies. What if a student wanted to stay where they are renting for the foreseeable ?
The article quoted overdoes it a little. Different terms and rights for different categories of accommodation have always been in place.
For PRS landlords this has been in place in Scotland for some years, and I am not aware that it has been a major problem. One of our North British could perhaps advise.
In England "new academic year" is a new ground for repossession, but notice of that ground existing must be given at commencement of tenancy. What that means is that professional management is important.
Shared houses owned by investment landlords (i.e. houses in multiple occupation (HMOs), typically occupied by three or more unrelated tenants). These, again, will be assured tenancies but a new Ground 4A under Schedule 2 of the Housing Act 1988 (as amended) will allow landlords to regain possession to make way for the next academic year group. This will only apply if the landlord gives notice to the tenant before the tenancy begins, if the property is let exclusively to full-time students and if the landlord gives four months' notice to the tenant, specifying a date between 1 June and 30 September for them to vacate the property.
Crime fixer caught by BBC offering to erase £60k fines on migrant workers
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/ce3kevkl3pdo A man at the centre of an organised crime network has been secretly filmed telling BBC undercover reporters how he can help to erase fines of up to £60,000 for employing illegal workers. The self-described "accountant" is among a group of Kurdish men, first exposed in a BBC investigation on Tuesday, who enable migrants to work illegally in mini-marts, by registering the businesses in their own name. The man, who goes by the name of Shaxawan, told the two journalists that he and his associates could help migrants - including asylum seekers - to set up businesses illegally and "confuse" immigration enforcement. Operating from a solicitor's office in Huddersfield, he said he had "customers in every city". In Companies House listings, Shaxawan is named as Kardos Mateen, a British resident in his 30s, and has been the director of 18 businesses across the north of England.
Shaxawan made several claims to our reporters: He could set up a company and provide bank cards and a card machine to accept payments from customers for one of our undercover reporters, believing him to be an asylum seeker His network could "confuse" Immigration Enforcement teams which "won't have the time" to check details Fake directors would be paid to register mini-marts in their own names, while illegal workers, including asylum seekers, would actually run the businesses In separate deals, other people referred to as "ghost names" would be paid to put their names to large fines for illegal working An "English woman" in the network would help reduce hefty fines to "zero" and deal with other issues like electricity, gas and bailiffs..
I think the government is hoping that the new rules around identifying the people running ltd companies at Companies House will put the brakes on this kind of thing.
The bloke above has probably added that to his his price list
27. £x for a fake director who will pass the background check.
To step back from the Reformgraph story into reality for a minute, the government has a big problem. It taxes this Bad Thing to stop people using it. Tax revenues drop. Shit, better tax people doing the thing we just encouraged you to do.
Road pricing is inevitable - always has been - as fuel duty rolls back. The furore will be how they replace it. Pence per mile on busy roads is the obvious solution - though the people whose suburban roads become rat runs to avoid motorways will be outraged. Or they go all vehicles all trips, and rural voters go mad pointing out there is little to no public transport and school is 9 miles away.
Like replacing Council Tax, its easier not to.
The tail end Tory Government proved taxes like NI can be lowered without affecting service provision (they burned services to the ground a decade ago anyway). Of course PB Tories contend NI cuts were fully funded by fiscal drag and cutting all infrastructure projects.
Fair to say he doesn’t think too much positive about Rachel.
It's interesting more nuanced take on the whole curve thing. It's not just reduce taxes and get more income. It's remove the complications, the breaks, the allowances. You pay a lower rate, but it is simplified and the disincentives are removed.
IIRC he said some controversial things, which werent really picked up on about less taxes for lower earners doesnt result in any extra revenue, its lowering taxes for people who are high earners that generates the overall improvements. That's a hard sell on the doorstep!
Lol it's the traditional view from the boss class: pay the rich more so they work harder, pay the poor less so they work harder. Laffer is a hack.
The problem with the “Laffer Curve” is that while it’s obviously true at the very low & very high end he has absolutely nothing helpful to say about the middle. Which can easily be complete chaos! A small increase in one tax might bring in more net revenue whilst the same increase in another tax might reduce overall revenue & vice versa.
We all know that 95% income taxes are a bad idea & that going from 0% to 5% raises money. Unfortunately that tells us nothing about what will happen if a UK government raises or lowers taxes today from current levels of taxation.
The word 'curve' gives it a spurious, unmerited air of science and precision.
No, it is Economics.
Economics involves curves of different types.
Economics is a social science, not a true science, and only an idiot thinks it entails precision.
You're having a larger, and his curve is essentially discredited.
The idea that its a simple curve is certainly discredited. The idea, however, that you may increase tax take by lowering tax rates or vice versa is still valid as humans very much do change behaviour when the rules of the game change. You hear it on PB all the time from the high earners complaining about cut-offs and higher rates making it not worth getting a pay rise or promotion or working more hours. You see it at the bottom with reductions in benefits if people work more than 16 hours making the extra income tiny for a lot of effort.
Assuming you agree that 0% tax raises no money, and that 100% tax would likely raise no money either (or minimal) then whatever lies in between must have a maximum value. The curve probably isn't too dissimilar to skewed a bell shape, but there may be other features - you'd need to provide evidence of those though.
To step back from the Reformgraph story into reality for a minute, the government has a big problem. It taxes this Bad Thing to stop people using it. Tax revenues drop. Shit, better tax people doing the thing we just encouraged you to do.
Road pricing is inevitable - always has been - as fuel duty rolls back. The furore will be how they replace it. Pence per mile on busy roads is the obvious solution - though the people whose suburban roads become rat runs to avoid motorways will be outraged. Or they go all vehicles all trips, and rural voters go mad pointing out there is little to no public transport and school is 9 miles away.
Like replacing Council Tax, its easier not to.
The tail end Tory Government proved taxes like NI can be lowered without affecting service provision (they burned services to the ground a decade ago anyway). Of course PB Tories contend NI cuts were fully funded by fiscal drag and cutting all infrastructure projects.
Fair to say he doesn’t think too much positive about Rachel.
It's interesting more nuanced take on the whole curve thing. It's not just reduce taxes and get more income. It's remove the complications, the breaks, the allowances. You pay a lower rate, but it is simplified and the disincentives are removed.
IIRC he said some controversial things, which werent really picked up on about less taxes for lower earners doesnt result in any extra revenue, its lowering taxes for people who are high earners that generates the overall improvements. That's a hard sell on the doorstep!
Lol it's the traditional view from the boss class: pay the rich more so they work harder, pay the poor less so they work harder. Laffer is a hack.
The problem with the “Laffer Curve” is that while it’s obviously true at the very low & very high end he has absolutely nothing helpful to say about the middle. Which can easily be complete chaos! A small increase in one tax might bring in more net revenue whilst the same increase in another tax might reduce overall revenue & vice versa.
We all know that 95% income taxes are a bad idea & that going from 0% to 5% raises money. Unfortunately that tells us nothing about what will happen if a UK government raises or lowers taxes today from current levels of taxation.
The word 'curve' gives it a spurious, unmerited air of science and precision.
No, it is Economics.
Economics involves curves of different types.
Economics is a social science, not a true science, and only an idiot thinks it entails precision.
You're having a larger, and his curve is essentially discredited.
The idea that its a simple curve is certainly discredited. The idea, however, that you may increase tax take by lowering tax rates or vice versa is still valid as humans very much do change behaviour when the rules of the game change. You hear it on PB all the time from the high earners complaining about cut-offs and higher rates making it not worth getting a pay rise or promotion or working more hours. You see it at the bottom with reductions in benefits if people work more than 16 hours making the extra income tiny for a lot of effort.
Assuming you agree that 0% tax raises no money, and that 100% tax would likely raise no money either (or minimal) then whatever lies in between must have a maximum value. The curve probably isn't too dissimilar to skewed a bell shape, but there may be other features - you'd need to provide evidence of those though.
Exactly. It is a mathematical deduction.
There must be at least one local maximum between 0% and 100%. What the function actually looks like is anyone's guess.
Selling my house and need somewhere to rent. As I earn my living trading on Betfair, I don't really have much of a PAYE salary. Usually I get round it by offering a years rent in advance, but the Renter Rights Act has given this the kibosh, meaning I could be on my Mum & Dad's sofa for Christmas, with my kids living 20 miles away. Super duper
Landlords are turning down a year’s rent up front, from someone selling property in an unfortunate situation getting divorced who clearly doesn’t have financial issues? What’s the regulatory issue at play, that someone is insisting on a salary certificate?
Renter's Act is not in force yet if i have understood. It has Royal Assent but actual stuff is being done in stages.
So the ban of upfront rent, which may be in the Act, I can't recall, may not be actually live yet so @isam will be ok.
Why are they banning upfront rent?
This is supposition, but I suspect that MPs were swayed by stories of constituents borrowing money at usurious rates in order to outbid other renters for rental properties.
It’s pretty obvious that, in a world of severe property shortages, once landlords start taking large deposits it becomes incumbent on renters to acquire those deposits by any means necessary in order to secure somewhere to live. This turns every rental negotiation into a all-vs-all PvP arena where the landlord bestows their property on the last renter standing who then gets to suffer the maximal possible levels of buyers remorse.
If you want to cut off bidding wars that end up with renters worse-off on net & in hock to who knows what entities who they’ve borrowed £ from, then you have to a) ban bidding wars and b) ban large deposits.
Of course, all this is putting sticking plasters on the gaping wound that is the UK housing market that has a good chance of ending up making things worse, not better by reducing rental supply. Be careful what you wish for!
You can't regulate away a shortage of housing. This is all displacement activity. Build housing.
To step back from the Reformgraph story into reality for a minute, the government has a big problem. It taxes this Bad Thing to stop people using it. Tax revenues drop. Shit, better tax people doing the thing we just encouraged you to do.
Road pricing is inevitable - always has been - as fuel duty rolls back. The furore will be how they replace it. Pence per mile on busy roads is the obvious solution - though the people whose suburban roads become rat runs to avoid motorways will be outraged. Or they go all vehicles all trips, and rural voters go mad pointing out there is little to no public transport and school is 9 miles away.
Like replacing Council Tax, its easier not to.
The tail end Tory Government proved taxes like NI can be lowered without affecting service provision (they burned services to the ground a decade ago anyway). Of course PB Tories contend NI cuts were fully funded by fiscal drag and cutting all infrastructure projects.
Fair to say he doesn’t think too much positive about Rachel.
It's interesting more nuanced take on the whole curve thing. It's not just reduce taxes and get more income. It's remove the complications, the breaks, the allowances. You pay a lower rate, but it is simplified and the disincentives are removed.
IIRC he said some controversial things, which werent really picked up on about less taxes for lower earners doesnt result in any extra revenue, its lowering taxes for people who are high earners that generates the overall improvements. That's a hard sell on the doorstep!
Lol it's the traditional view from the boss class: pay the rich more so they work harder, pay the poor less so they work harder. Laffer is a hack.
The problem with the “Laffer Curve” is that while it’s obviously true at the very low & very high end he has absolutely nothing helpful to say about the middle. Which can easily be complete chaos! A small increase in one tax might bring in more net revenue whilst the same increase in another tax might reduce overall revenue & vice versa.
We all know that 95% income taxes are a bad idea & that going from 0% to 5% raises money. Unfortunately that tells us nothing about what will happen if a UK government raises or lowers taxes today from current levels of taxation.
The word 'curve' gives it a spurious, unmerited air of science and precision.
No, it is Economics.
Economics involves curves of different types.
Economics is a social science, not a true science, and only an idiot thinks it entails precision.
You're having a larger, and his curve is essentially discredited.
The idea that its a simple curve is certainly discredited. The idea, however, that you may increase tax take by lowering tax rates or vice versa is still valid as humans very much do change behaviour when the rules of the game change. You hear it on PB all the time from the high earners complaining about cut-offs and higher rates making it not worth getting a pay rise or promotion or working more hours. You see it at the bottom with reductions in benefits if people work more than 16 hours making the extra income tiny for a lot of effort.
Assuming you agree that 0% tax raises no money, and that 100% tax would likely raise no money either (or minimal) then whatever lies in between must have a maximum value. The curve probably isn't too dissimilar to skewed a bell shape, but there may be other features - you'd need to provide evidence of those though.
Its unlikely to have one peak - far more likely to a complex curve with potentially lots of peaks and troughs. And many other factors will affect it too (so multi dimensional).
Selling my house and need somewhere to rent. As I earn my living trading on Betfair, I don't really have much of a PAYE salary. Usually I get round it by offering a years rent in advance, but the Renter Rights Act has given this the kibosh, meaning I could be on my Mum & Dad's sofa for Christmas, with my kids living 20 miles away. Super duper
Fellow self employed here. If your parents have a decent pension, lettings agents are generally happy to have them as a guarantor. That's what I did last time. Bit embarassing at the age of 42, but there we are. Or a sibling or friend with a job will do too.
I guarantee my son's rent of £3000 a month. Not a problem. He's 55 and has a pension but not enough to live on. He's an IT entrepreneur very experienced in AI and LLMs but not yet in the money. I think his ambition is , one day, to come round to me with a large suitcase stuffed with £50s and say "Here you are dad, with interest".
May as well be monopoly money if you try to pay gifted £50s into the bank nowadays......
I haven't seen a £50 for years! But if it is in £20s, he'll need two suitcases.
I remember the 500 euro notes - accepted without a murmur in ski resorts, not welcomed many other places though.
Passing a €50 note can be troublesome in some places. It doesn't help that if you get any amount of money out of an ATM they give it to you in 50s. Of course many places are going contactless, but of course in the ones that aren't you need more cash at least as a backup.
To step back from the Reformgraph story into reality for a minute, the government has a big problem. It taxes this Bad Thing to stop people using it. Tax revenues drop. Shit, better tax people doing the thing we just encouraged you to do.
Road pricing is inevitable - always has been - as fuel duty rolls back. The furore will be how they replace it. Pence per mile on busy roads is the obvious solution - though the people whose suburban roads become rat runs to avoid motorways will be outraged. Or they go all vehicles all trips, and rural voters go mad pointing out there is little to no public transport and school is 9 miles away.
Like replacing Council Tax, its easier not to.
The tail end Tory Government proved taxes like NI can be lowered without affecting service provision (they burned services to the ground a decade ago anyway). Of course PB Tories contend NI cuts were fully funded by fiscal drag and cutting all infrastructure projects.
Fair to say he doesn’t think too much positive about Rachel.
It's interesting more nuanced take on the whole curve thing. It's not just reduce taxes and get more income. It's remove the complications, the breaks, the allowances. You pay a lower rate, but it is simplified and the disincentives are removed.
IIRC he said some controversial things, which werent really picked up on about less taxes for lower earners doesnt result in any extra revenue, its lowering taxes for people who are high earners that generates the overall improvements. That's a hard sell on the doorstep!
Lol it's the traditional view from the boss class: pay the rich more so they work harder, pay the poor less so they work harder. Laffer is a hack.
The problem with the “Laffer Curve” is that while it’s obviously true at the very low & very high end he has absolutely nothing helpful to say about the middle. Which can easily be complete chaos! A small increase in one tax might bring in more net revenue whilst the same increase in another tax might reduce overall revenue & vice versa.
We all know that 95% income taxes are a bad idea & that going from 0% to 5% raises money. Unfortunately that tells us nothing about what will happen if a UK government raises or lowers taxes today from current levels of taxation.
The word 'curve' gives it a spurious, unmerited air of science and precision.
No, it is Economics.
Economics involves curves of different types.
Economics is a social science, not a true science, and only an idiot thinks it entails precision.
You're having a larger, and his curve is essentially discredited.
The idea that its a simple curve is certainly discredited. The idea, however, that you may increase tax take by lowering tax rates or vice versa is still valid as humans very much do change behaviour when the rules of the game change. You hear it on PB all the time from the high earners complaining about cut-offs and higher rates making it not worth getting a pay rise or promotion or working more hours. You see it at the bottom with reductions in benefits if people work more than 16 hours making the extra income tiny for a lot of effort.
Assuming you agree that 0% tax raises no money, and that 100% tax would likely raise no money either (or minimal) then whatever lies in between must have a maximum value. The curve probably isn't too dissimilar to skewed a bell shape, but there may be other features - you'd need to provide evidence of those though.
Its unlikely to have one peak - far more likely to a complex curve with potentially lots of peaks and troughs. And many other factors will affect it too (so multi dimensional).
Bit difficult to measure when it is only sampled for Planck Time on April 5th.
To step back from the Reformgraph story into reality for a minute, the government has a big problem. It taxes this Bad Thing to stop people using it. Tax revenues drop. Shit, better tax people doing the thing we just encouraged you to do.
Road pricing is inevitable - always has been - as fuel duty rolls back. The furore will be how they replace it. Pence per mile on busy roads is the obvious solution - though the people whose suburban roads become rat runs to avoid motorways will be outraged. Or they go all vehicles all trips, and rural voters go mad pointing out there is little to no public transport and school is 9 miles away.
Like replacing Council Tax, its easier not to.
The tail end Tory Government proved taxes like NI can be lowered without affecting service provision (they burned services to the ground a decade ago anyway). Of course PB Tories contend NI cuts were fully funded by fiscal drag and cutting all infrastructure projects.
Fair to say he doesn’t think too much positive about Rachel.
It's interesting more nuanced take on the whole curve thing. It's not just reduce taxes and get more income. It's remove the complications, the breaks, the allowances. You pay a lower rate, but it is simplified and the disincentives are removed.
IIRC he said some controversial things, which werent really picked up on about less taxes for lower earners doesnt result in any extra revenue, its lowering taxes for people who are high earners that generates the overall improvements. That's a hard sell on the doorstep!
Lol it's the traditional view from the boss class: pay the rich more so they work harder, pay the poor less so they work harder. Laffer is a hack.
The problem with the “Laffer Curve” is that while it’s obviously true at the very low & very high end he has absolutely nothing helpful to say about the middle. Which can easily be complete chaos! A small increase in one tax might bring in more net revenue whilst the same increase in another tax might reduce overall revenue & vice versa.
We all know that 95% income taxes are a bad idea & that going from 0% to 5% raises money. Unfortunately that tells us nothing about what will happen if a UK government raises or lowers taxes today from current levels of taxation.
The word 'curve' gives it a spurious, unmerited air of science and precision.
No, it is Economics.
Economics involves curves of different types.
Economics is a social science, not a true science, and only an idiot thinks it entails precision.
You're having a larger, and his curve is essentially discredited.
The idea that its a simple curve is certainly discredited. The idea, however, that you may increase tax take by lowering tax rates or vice versa is still valid as humans very much do change behaviour when the rules of the game change. You hear it on PB all the time from the high earners complaining about cut-offs and higher rates making it not worth getting a pay rise or promotion or working more hours. You see it at the bottom with reductions in benefits if people work more than 16 hours making the extra income tiny for a lot of effort.
The 'curve' is more like the shape of Mr. Jelly, with near-random wobbliness in the middle.
Drastically simplify the tax system and we'll see a clearer, better-defined and more informative curve, around which future tax policy can be devised.
But no fucker is gonna do this, because too many benefit from the system being unwieldy, over-complex and full of cliff edges, perverse incentives and unintended consequences...
Selling my house and need somewhere to rent. As I earn my living trading on Betfair, I don't really have much of a PAYE salary. Usually I get round it by offering a years rent in advance, but the Renter Rights Act has given this the kibosh, meaning I could be on my Mum & Dad's sofa for Christmas, with my kids living 20 miles away. Super duper
Fellow self employed here. If your parents have a decent pension, lettings agents are generally happy to have them as a guarantor. That's what I did last time. Bit embarassing at the age of 42, but there we are. Or a sibling or friend with a job will do too.
I guarantee my son's rent of £3000 a month. Not a problem. He's 55 and has a pension but not enough to live on. He's an IT entrepreneur very experienced in AI and LLMs but not yet in the money. I think his ambition is , one day, to come round to me with a large suitcase stuffed with £50s and say "Here you are dad, with interest".
May as well be monopoly money if you try to pay gifted £50s into the bank nowadays......
I haven't seen a £50 for years! But if it is in £20s, he'll need two suitcases.
I remember the 500 euro notes - accepted without a murmur in ski resorts, not welcomed many other places though.
Passing a €50 note can be troublesome in some places. It doesn't help that if you get any amount of money out of an ATM they give it to you in 50s. Of course many places are going contactless, but of course in the ones that aren't you need more cash at least as a backup.
Austria years ago. Arrived in Klagenfurt and had about €0.50 on me.
Wanted to get a bottle of drink so went to a cash point and as I do got €300 euros out (as there’s a fixed fee so minimize the number of withdrawals).
Got given 1 €100 and 1 €200 note - I wasn’t popular getting a €1.50 bottle of water
Selling my house and need somewhere to rent. As I earn my living trading on Betfair, I don't really have much of a PAYE salary. Usually I get round it by offering a years rent in advance, but the Renter Rights Act has given this the kibosh, meaning I could be on my Mum & Dad's sofa for Christmas, with my kids living 20 miles away. Super duper
Landlords are turning down a year’s rent up front, from someone selling property in an unfortunate situation getting divorced who clearly doesn’t have financial issues? What’s the regulatory issue at play, that someone is insisting on a salary certificate?
Renter's Act is not in force yet if i have understood. It has Royal Assent but actual stuff is being done in stages.
So the ban of upfront rent, which may be in the Act, I can't recall, may not be actually live yet so @isam will be ok.
Why are they banning upfront rent?
This is supposition, but I suspect that MPs were swayed by stories of constituents borrowing money at usurious rates in order to outbid other renters for rental properties.
It’s pretty obvious that, in a world of severe property shortages, once landlords start taking large deposits it becomes incumbent on renters to acquire those deposits by any means necessary in order to secure somewhere to live. This turns every rental negotiation into a all-vs-all PvP arena where the landlord bestows their property on the last renter standing who then gets to suffer the maximal possible levels of buyers remorse.
If you want to cut off bidding wars that end up with renters worse-off on net & in hock to who knows what entities who they’ve borrowed £ from, then you have to a) ban bidding wars and b) ban large deposits.
Of course, all this is putting sticking plasters on the gaping wound that is the UK housing market that has a good chance of ending up making things worse, not better by reducing rental supply. Be careful what you wish for!
You can't regulate away a shortage of housing. This is all displacement activity. Build housing.
Build. More. Houses.
It’s not difficult. Almost every problem gets resolved if housing is plentiful and affordable.
To step back from the Reformgraph story into reality for a minute, the government has a big problem. It taxes this Bad Thing to stop people using it. Tax revenues drop. Shit, better tax people doing the thing we just encouraged you to do.
Road pricing is inevitable - always has been - as fuel duty rolls back. The furore will be how they replace it. Pence per mile on busy roads is the obvious solution - though the people whose suburban roads become rat runs to avoid motorways will be outraged. Or they go all vehicles all trips, and rural voters go mad pointing out there is little to no public transport and school is 9 miles away.
Like replacing Council Tax, its easier not to.
The tail end Tory Government proved taxes like NI can be lowered without affecting service provision (they burned services to the ground a decade ago anyway). Of course PB Tories contend NI cuts were fully funded by fiscal drag and cutting all infrastructure projects.
Fair to say he doesn’t think too much positive about Rachel.
It's interesting more nuanced take on the whole curve thing. It's not just reduce taxes and get more income. It's remove the complications, the breaks, the allowances. You pay a lower rate, but it is simplified and the disincentives are removed.
IIRC he said some controversial things, which werent really picked up on about less taxes for lower earners doesnt result in any extra revenue, its lowering taxes for people who are high earners that generates the overall improvements. That's a hard sell on the doorstep!
Lol it's the traditional view from the boss class: pay the rich more so they work harder, pay the poor less so they work harder. Laffer is a hack.
The problem with the “Laffer Curve” is that while it’s obviously true at the very low & very high end he has absolutely nothing helpful to say about the middle. Which can easily be complete chaos! A small increase in one tax might bring in more net revenue whilst the same increase in another tax might reduce overall revenue & vice versa.
We all know that 95% income taxes are a bad idea & that going from 0% to 5% raises money. Unfortunately that tells us nothing about what will happen if a UK government raises or lowers taxes today from current levels of taxation.
The word 'curve' gives it a spurious, unmerited air of science and precision.
No, it is Economics.
Economics involves curves of different types.
Economics is a social science, not a true science, and only an idiot thinks it entails precision.
You're having a larger, and his curve is essentially discredited.
The idea that its a simple curve is certainly discredited. The idea, however, that you may increase tax take by lowering tax rates or vice versa is still valid as humans very much do change behaviour when the rules of the game change. You hear it on PB all the time from the high earners complaining about cut-offs and higher rates making it not worth getting a pay rise or promotion or working more hours. You see it at the bottom with reductions in benefits if people work more than 16 hours making the extra income tiny for a lot of effort.
Assuming you agree that 0% tax raises no money, and that 100% tax would likely raise no money either (or minimal) then whatever lies in between must have a maximum value. The curve probably isn't too dissimilar to skewed a bell shape, but there may be other features - you'd need to provide evidence of those though.
It also depends on the marginal utility of more cash in your pocket - and indeed the marginal utility of more status or power on promotion.
E.g. for someone in extreme poverty, an extra £10 is worth much more than someone earning £70,000, and it's a fair assumption that their curve looks a lot different - 90% EMTR is worth if it means your kids don't go hungry. OTOH, a £70k job is likely much more interesting and less arduous than a minimum wage one.
This also assumes that hours worked are far more fluid than they are, both in terms of contracts and jobs but also simple human habit. We don't usually act rationally.
FWIW, empirical studies often find an optimal tax rate far higher than you'd expect...
Selling my house and need somewhere to rent. As I earn my living trading on Betfair, I don't really have much of a PAYE salary. Usually I get round it by offering a years rent in advance, but the Renter Rights Act has given this the kibosh, meaning I could be on my Mum & Dad's sofa for Christmas, with my kids living 20 miles away. Super duper
Fellow self employed here. If your parents have a decent pension, lettings agents are generally happy to have them as a guarantor. That's what I did last time. Bit embarassing at the age of 42, but there we are. Or a sibling or friend with a job will do too.
I guarantee my son's rent of £3000 a month. Not a problem. He's 55 and has a pension but not enough to live on. He's an IT entrepreneur very experienced in AI and LLMs but not yet in the money. I think his ambition is , one day, to come round to me with a large suitcase stuffed with £50s and say "Here you are dad, with interest".
May as well be monopoly money if you try to pay gifted £50s into the bank nowadays......
I haven't seen a £50 for years! But if it is in £20s, he'll need two suitcases.
I remember the 500 euro notes - accepted without a murmur in ski resorts, not welcomed many other places though.
Passing a €50 note can be troublesome in some places. It doesn't help that if you get any amount of money out of an ATM they give it to you in 50s. Of course many places are going contactless, but of course in the ones that aren't you need more cash at least as a backup.
Austria years ago. Arrived in Klagenfurt and had about €0.50 on me.
Wanted to get a bottle of drink so went to a cash point and as I do got €300 euros out (as there’s a fixed fee so minimize the number of withdrawals).
Got given 1 €100 and 1 €200 note - I wasn’t popular getting a €1.50 bottle of water
First time I ever landed in Dubai, went to an ATM and asked for 1,000dhm, around £200, which I expected to be my pocket money for the weekend. The machine gave me one piece of paper, which the taxi driver (who charges 3dm per km), wasn’t too happy about receiving. We went to a petrol station where they gave me change.
To step back from the Reformgraph story into reality for a minute, the government has a big problem. It taxes this Bad Thing to stop people using it. Tax revenues drop. Shit, better tax people doing the thing we just encouraged you to do.
Road pricing is inevitable - always has been - as fuel duty rolls back. The furore will be how they replace it. Pence per mile on busy roads is the obvious solution - though the people whose suburban roads become rat runs to avoid motorways will be outraged. Or they go all vehicles all trips, and rural voters go mad pointing out there is little to no public transport and school is 9 miles away.
Like replacing Council Tax, its easier not to.
The tail end Tory Government proved taxes like NI can be lowered without affecting service provision (they burned services to the ground a decade ago anyway). Of course PB Tories contend NI cuts were fully funded by fiscal drag and cutting all infrastructure projects.
Fair to say he doesn’t think too much positive about Rachel.
It's interesting more nuanced take on the whole curve thing. It's not just reduce taxes and get more income. It's remove the complications, the breaks, the allowances. You pay a lower rate, but it is simplified and the disincentives are removed.
IIRC he said some controversial things, which werent really picked up on about less taxes for lower earners doesnt result in any extra revenue, its lowering taxes for people who are high earners that generates the overall improvements. That's a hard sell on the doorstep!
Lol it's the traditional view from the boss class: pay the rich more so they work harder, pay the poor less so they work harder. Laffer is a hack.
The problem with the “Laffer Curve” is that while it’s obviously true at the very low & very high end he has absolutely nothing helpful to say about the middle. Which can easily be complete chaos! A small increase in one tax might bring in more net revenue whilst the same increase in another tax might reduce overall revenue & vice versa.
We all know that 95% income taxes are a bad idea & that going from 0% to 5% raises money. Unfortunately that tells us nothing about what will happen if a UK government raises or lowers taxes today from current levels of taxation.
The word 'curve' gives it a spurious, unmerited air of science and precision.
No, it is Economics.
Economics involves curves of different types.
Economics is a social science, not a true science, and only an idiot thinks it entails precision.
You're having a larger, and his curve is essentially discredited.
The idea that its a simple curve is certainly discredited. The idea, however, that you may increase tax take by lowering tax rates or vice versa is still valid as humans very much do change behaviour when the rules of the game change. You hear it on PB all the time from the high earners complaining about cut-offs and higher rates making it not worth getting a pay rise or promotion or working more hours. You see it at the bottom with reductions in benefits if people work more than 16 hours making the extra income tiny for a lot of effort.
Assuming you agree that 0% tax raises no money, and that 100% tax would likely raise no money either (or minimal) then whatever lies in between must have a maximum value. The curve probably isn't too dissimilar to skewed a bell shape, but there may be other features - you'd need to provide evidence of those though.
The other thing is that the shape of the curve isn't fixed - there are other things that affect it.
To step back from the Reformgraph story into reality for a minute, the government has a big problem. It taxes this Bad Thing to stop people using it. Tax revenues drop. Shit, better tax people doing the thing we just encouraged you to do.
Road pricing is inevitable - always has been - as fuel duty rolls back. The furore will be how they replace it. Pence per mile on busy roads is the obvious solution - though the people whose suburban roads become rat runs to avoid motorways will be outraged. Or they go all vehicles all trips, and rural voters go mad pointing out there is little to no public transport and school is 9 miles away.
Like replacing Council Tax, its easier not to.
The tail end Tory Government proved taxes like NI can be lowered without affecting service provision (they burned services to the ground a decade ago anyway). Of course PB Tories contend NI cuts were fully funded by fiscal drag and cutting all infrastructure projects.
Fair to say he doesn’t think too much positive about Rachel.
It's interesting more nuanced take on the whole curve thing. It's not just reduce taxes and get more income. It's remove the complications, the breaks, the allowances. You pay a lower rate, but it is simplified and the disincentives are removed.
IIRC he said some controversial things, which werent really picked up on about less taxes for lower earners doesnt result in any extra revenue, its lowering taxes for people who are high earners that generates the overall improvements. That's a hard sell on the doorstep!
Lol it's the traditional view from the boss class: pay the rich more so they work harder, pay the poor less so they work harder. Laffer is a hack.
The problem with the “Laffer Curve” is that while it’s obviously true at the very low & very high end he has absolutely nothing helpful to say about the middle. Which can easily be complete chaos! A small increase in one tax might bring in more net revenue whilst the same increase in another tax might reduce overall revenue & vice versa.
We all know that 95% income taxes are a bad idea & that going from 0% to 5% raises money. Unfortunately that tells us nothing about what will happen if a UK government raises or lowers taxes today from current levels of taxation.
The word 'curve' gives it a spurious, unmerited air of science and precision.
No, it is Economics.
Economics involves curves of different types.
Economics is a social science, not a true science, and only an idiot thinks it entails precision.
You're having a larger, and his curve is essentially discredited.
The idea that its a simple curve is certainly discredited. The idea, however, that you may increase tax take by lowering tax rates or vice versa is still valid as humans very much do change behaviour when the rules of the game change. You hear it on PB all the time from the high earners complaining about cut-offs and higher rates making it not worth getting a pay rise or promotion or working more hours. You see it at the bottom with reductions in benefits if people work more than 16 hours making the extra income tiny for a lot of effort.
The 'curve' is more like the shape of Mr. Jelly, with near-random wobbliness in the middle.
Drastically simplify the tax system and we'll see a clearer, better-defined and more informative curve, around which future tax policy can be devised.
But no fucker is gonna do this, because too many benefit from the system being unwieldy, over-complex and full of cliff edges, perverse incentives and unintended consequences...
Well quite. I'd have a flat tax of 20%. No higher rates, no reliefs. No schemes for hiding income in trusts. Just 20% on all income.
To step back from the Reformgraph story into reality for a minute, the government has a big problem. It taxes this Bad Thing to stop people using it. Tax revenues drop. Shit, better tax people doing the thing we just encouraged you to do.
Road pricing is inevitable - always has been - as fuel duty rolls back. The furore will be how they replace it. Pence per mile on busy roads is the obvious solution - though the people whose suburban roads become rat runs to avoid motorways will be outraged. Or they go all vehicles all trips, and rural voters go mad pointing out there is little to no public transport and school is 9 miles away.
Like replacing Council Tax, its easier not to.
The tail end Tory Government proved taxes like NI can be lowered without affecting service provision (they burned services to the ground a decade ago anyway). Of course PB Tories contend NI cuts were fully funded by fiscal drag and cutting all infrastructure projects.
Fair to say he doesn’t think too much positive about Rachel.
It's interesting more nuanced take on the whole curve thing. It's not just reduce taxes and get more income. It's remove the complications, the breaks, the allowances. You pay a lower rate, but it is simplified and the disincentives are removed.
IIRC he said some controversial things, which werent really picked up on about less taxes for lower earners doesnt result in any extra revenue, its lowering taxes for people who are high earners that generates the overall improvements. That's a hard sell on the doorstep!
Lol it's the traditional view from the boss class: pay the rich more so they work harder, pay the poor less so they work harder. Laffer is a hack.
The problem with the “Laffer Curve” is that while it’s obviously true at the very low & very high end he has absolutely nothing helpful to say about the middle. Which can easily be complete chaos! A small increase in one tax might bring in more net revenue whilst the same increase in another tax might reduce overall revenue & vice versa.
We all know that 95% income taxes are a bad idea & that going from 0% to 5% raises money. Unfortunately that tells us nothing about what will happen if a UK government raises or lowers taxes today from current levels of taxation.
The word 'curve' gives it a spurious, unmerited air of science and precision.
No, it is Economics.
Economics involves curves of different types.
Economics is a social science, not a true science, and only an idiot thinks it entails precision.
You're having a larger, and his curve is essentially discredited.
The idea that its a simple curve is certainly discredited. The idea, however, that you may increase tax take by lowering tax rates or vice versa is still valid as humans very much do change behaviour when the rules of the game change. You hear it on PB all the time from the high earners complaining about cut-offs and higher rates making it not worth getting a pay rise or promotion or working more hours. You see it at the bottom with reductions in benefits if people work more than 16 hours making the extra income tiny for a lot of effort.
The 'curve' is more like the shape of Mr. Jelly, with near-random wobbliness in the middle.
Drastically simplify the tax system and we'll see a clearer, better-defined and more informative curve, around which future tax policy can be devised.
But no fucker is gonna do this, because too many benefit from the system being unwieldy, over-complex and full of cliff edges, perverse incentives and unintended consequences...
Well quite. I'd have a flat tax of 20%. No higher rates, no reliefs. No schemes for hiding income in trusts. Just 20% on all income.
So you gonna give bankers and premier league footballers are tax cut funded by chopping the state pension by a fifth?
Selling my house and need somewhere to rent. As I earn my living trading on Betfair, I don't really have much of a PAYE salary. Usually I get round it by offering a years rent in advance, but the Renter Rights Act has given this the kibosh, meaning I could be on my Mum & Dad's sofa for Christmas, with my kids living 20 miles away. Super duper
Can you not use a solicitor to hold it in Escrow (if your bank won’t do escrow) and confirm to the landlord that they have the funds under their control and will release monthly?
When the market is tight, and there are multiple good tenants, the agent will send three or four to the landlord to choose from. The landlord will often choose the one which looks simplest. Be complicated at your peril these days. I had to offer extra rent to get this place - after rejection from five previous ones, all at the landlord stage.
Blimey. You would think a landlord would actually like someone who is in a position to lodge a year’s rent in advance with a lawyer/bank.
Not to disagree with Isam (since he's the person trying to do it) but I can't see where the act* forbids paying a lump sum rent in advance.
*If the tenant chooses to pay more than a month in advance, the landlord can accept the advance rent, but the tenancy agreement cannot require the tenant to pay this way.
The problem is that there’s no legal way for the Landlord to enforce this payment contractually, even if the renter offers it. Which makes it’s completely ineffective at reducing the risk the Landlord takes on for renting to someone with dubious credit.
The contract can only require the maximum legally permitted pre-payment of one months rent.
The entire thing looks like it’s going to be a fiasco that reduces the availability of rental accommodation by pushing out of the market all the providers who can’t take the risk that a renter isn’t completely reliable. The usual suspects will then blame landlords for the inevitable rent increases.
But if the landlord gets a years rental upfront into their bank account that surely mitigates the risk somewhat? I think if I were a landlord I'd feel that anyway.
As a renter, would you pay a years rent to a landlord with absolutely no legally enforceable contract in place? You have the same problem the landlord does - you can’t realistically risk this much money on an exchange that isn’t legally enforceable.
I'm picturing a standard tenancy agreement that says the rent is due monthly, then on signature I the tenant pay a year in advance (which is allowed) and I get a written receipt for this from my landlord.
Selling my house and need somewhere to rent. As I earn my living trading on Betfair, I don't really have much of a PAYE salary. Usually I get round it by offering a years rent in advance, but the Renter Rights Act has given this the kibosh, meaning I could be on my Mum & Dad's sofa for Christmas, with my kids living 20 miles away. Super duper
Fellow self employed here. If your parents have a decent pension, lettings agents are generally happy to have them as a guarantor. That's what I did last time. Bit embarassing at the age of 42, but there we are. Or a sibling or friend with a job will do too.
I guarantee my son's rent of £3000 a month. Not a problem. He's 55 and has a pension but not enough to live on. He's an IT entrepreneur very experienced in AI and LLMs but not yet in the money. I think his ambition is , one day, to come round to me with a large suitcase stuffed with £50s and say "Here you are dad, with interest".
We are currently guaranteeing the rent of a family friend because their parents (our friends) couldn't pass the guarantor checks and we could.
That's how stupid things are already..
Doing the same for a friend of my eldest daughter - we know the family etc.
Can't help wondering about a cross-over with the discussion of crime-fixers - In separate deals, other people referred to as "ghost names" would be paid to put their names to large fines for illegal working
Sadly, I have seen some clients at Citizens Advice for whom this kind of arrangement has gone badly sour... leading to the potential bankruptcy of one guarantor of his sister's rent.
I wouldn't want to be too negative about such generosity but if you're considering acting as a guarantor, do be mindful of the potential downsides and make sure you really know the person you are supporting and get regular evidence of them paying the rent.
Crime fixer caught by BBC offering to erase £60k fines on migrant workers
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/ce3kevkl3pdo A man at the centre of an organised crime network has been secretly filmed telling BBC undercover reporters how he can help to erase fines of up to £60,000 for employing illegal workers. The self-described "accountant" is among a group of Kurdish men, first exposed in a BBC investigation on Tuesday, who enable migrants to work illegally in mini-marts, by registering the businesses in their own name. The man, who goes by the name of Shaxawan, told the two journalists that he and his associates could help migrants - including asylum seekers - to set up businesses illegally and "confuse" immigration enforcement. Operating from a solicitor's office in Huddersfield, he said he had "customers in every city". In Companies House listings, Shaxawan is named as Kardos Mateen, a British resident in his 30s, and has been the director of 18 businesses across the north of England.
Shaxawan made several claims to our reporters: He could set up a company and provide bank cards and a card machine to accept payments from customers for one of our undercover reporters, believing him to be an asylum seeker His network could "confuse" Immigration Enforcement teams which "won't have the time" to check details Fake directors would be paid to register mini-marts in their own names, while illegal workers, including asylum seekers, would actually run the businesses In separate deals, other people referred to as "ghost names" would be paid to put their names to large fines for illegal working An "English woman" in the network would help reduce hefty fines to "zero" and deal with other issues like electricity, gas and bailiffs..
I think the government is hoping that the new rules around identifying the people running ltd companies at Companies House will put the brakes on this kind of thing.
It ought to help, at the cost of more inconvenience for the law abiding (see also banking, or even dealing with a solicitor).
What's dispiriting is that it's been fairly obvious for years that this is a significant problem of criminality on high streets across the country, and even now it's the BBC rather than the police who have done anything about investigating it systematically.
And another sign that government (irrespective of party) doesn't really care about anything outside of London.
Selling my house and need somewhere to rent. As I earn my living trading on Betfair, I don't really have much of a PAYE salary. Usually I get round it by offering a years rent in advance, but the Renter Rights Act has given this the kibosh, meaning I could be on my Mum & Dad's sofa for Christmas, with my kids living 20 miles away. Super duper
Fellow self employed here. If your parents have a decent pension, lettings agents are generally happy to have them as a guarantor. That's what I did last time. Bit embarassing at the age of 42, but there we are. Or a sibling or friend with a job will do too.
I guarantee my son's rent of £3000 a month. Not a problem. He's 55 and has a pension but not enough to live on. He's an IT entrepreneur very experienced in AI and LLMs but not yet in the money. I think his ambition is , one day, to come round to me with a large suitcase stuffed with £50s and say "Here you are dad, with interest".
May as well be monopoly money if you try to pay gifted £50s into the bank nowadays......
I haven't seen a £50 for years! But if it is in £20s, he'll need two suitcases.
I remember the 500 euro notes - accepted without a murmur in ski resorts, not welcomed many other places though.
Passing a €50 note can be troublesome in some places. It doesn't help that if you get any amount of money out of an ATM they give it to you in 50s. Of course many places are going contactless, but of course in the ones that aren't you need more cash at least as a backup.
Austria years ago. Arrived in Klagenfurt and had about €0.50 on me.
Wanted to get a bottle of drink so went to a cash point and as I do got €300 euros out (as there’s a fixed fee so minimize the number of withdrawals).
Got given 1 €100 and 1 €200 note - I wasn’t popular getting a €1.50 bottle of water
First time I ever landed in Dubai, went to an ATM and asked for 1,000dhm, around £200, which I expected to be my pocket money for the weekend. The machine gave me one piece of paper, which the taxi driver (who charges 3dm per km), wasn’t too happy about receiving. We went to a petrol station where they gave me change.
I very rarely use cash, but needed some in France this year. The machine offered me different combinations of notes. Never seen that before.
Selling my house and need somewhere to rent. As I earn my living trading on Betfair, I don't really have much of a PAYE salary. Usually I get round it by offering a years rent in advance, but the Renter Rights Act has given this the kibosh, meaning I could be on my Mum & Dad's sofa for Christmas, with my kids living 20 miles away. Super duper
Landlords are turning down a year’s rent up front, from someone selling property in an unfortunate situation getting divorced who clearly doesn’t have financial issues? What’s the regulatory issue at play, that someone is insisting on a salary certificate?
Renter's Act is not in force yet if i have understood. It has Royal Assent but actual stuff is being done in stages.
So the ban of upfront rent, which may be in the Act, I can't recall, may not be actually live yet so @isam will be ok.
Why are they banning upfront rent?
This is supposition, but I suspect that MPs were swayed by stories of constituents borrowing money at usurious rates in order to outbid other renters for rental properties.
It’s pretty obvious that, in a world of severe property shortages, once landlords start taking large deposits it becomes incumbent on renters to acquire those deposits by any means necessary in order to secure somewhere to live. This turns every rental negotiation into a all-vs-all PvP arena where the landlord bestows their property on the last renter standing who then gets to suffer the maximal possible levels of buyers remorse.
If you want to cut off bidding wars that end up with renters worse-off on net & in hock to who knows what entities who they’ve borrowed £ from, then you have to a) ban bidding wars and b) ban large deposits.
Of course, all this is putting sticking plasters on the gaping wound that is the UK housing market that has a good chance of ending up making things worse, not better by reducing rental supply. Be careful what you wish for!
You can't regulate away a shortage of housing. This is all displacement activity. Build housing.
Build. More. Houses.
It’s not difficult. Almost every problem gets resolved if housing is plentiful and affordable.
Labour committed to 1.5 million more homes in this Parliament. Woefully behind. Rayner dodged a bullet there by resigning. She was doing a shit job getting homes built. Way behind her target.
Typical fucking labour. Told people what they want to hear without the ability to deliver.
Although there is evidence prices are falling in the south and London so this may help.
Selling my house and need somewhere to rent. As I earn my living trading on Betfair, I don't really have much of a PAYE salary. Usually I get round it by offering a years rent in advance, but the Renter Rights Act has given this the kibosh, meaning I could be on my Mum & Dad's sofa for Christmas, with my kids living 20 miles away. Super duper
Fellow self employed here. If your parents have a decent pension, lettings agents are generally happy to have them as a guarantor. That's what I did last time. Bit embarassing at the age of 42, but there we are. Or a sibling or friend with a job will do too.
I guarantee my son's rent of £3000 a month. Not a problem. He's 55 and has a pension but not enough to live on. He's an IT entrepreneur very experienced in AI and LLMs but not yet in the money. I think his ambition is , one day, to come round to me with a large suitcase stuffed with £50s and say "Here you are dad, with interest".
Guarantor means "will pay if they default", rather than "will sub them the money". Not clear from your description which you mean (not that it's any of my business).
Crime fixer caught by BBC offering to erase £60k fines on migrant workers
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/ce3kevkl3pdo A man at the centre of an organised crime network has been secretly filmed telling BBC undercover reporters how he can help to erase fines of up to £60,000 for employing illegal workers. The self-described "accountant" is among a group of Kurdish men, first exposed in a BBC investigation on Tuesday, who enable migrants to work illegally in mini-marts, by registering the businesses in their own name. The man, who goes by the name of Shaxawan, told the two journalists that he and his associates could help migrants - including asylum seekers - to set up businesses illegally and "confuse" immigration enforcement. Operating from a solicitor's office in Huddersfield, he said he had "customers in every city". In Companies House listings, Shaxawan is named as Kardos Mateen, a British resident in his 30s, and has been the director of 18 businesses across the north of England.
Shaxawan made several claims to our reporters: He could set up a company and provide bank cards and a card machine to accept payments from customers for one of our undercover reporters, believing him to be an asylum seeker His network could "confuse" Immigration Enforcement teams which "won't have the time" to check details Fake directors would be paid to register mini-marts in their own names, while illegal workers, including asylum seekers, would actually run the businesses In separate deals, other people referred to as "ghost names" would be paid to put their names to large fines for illegal working An "English woman" in the network would help reduce hefty fines to "zero" and deal with other issues like electricity, gas and bailiffs..
Companies House needs major reform. If someone is a director/psc of 10 or more companies, there should be a minimum of a face to face interview with them.
There is some reform already going on regarding identification of directors.
How well that deals with the determined scofflaws is TBD.
To step back from the Reformgraph story into reality for a minute, the government has a big problem. It taxes this Bad Thing to stop people using it. Tax revenues drop. Shit, better tax people doing the thing we just encouraged you to do.
Road pricing is inevitable - always has been - as fuel duty rolls back. The furore will be how they replace it. Pence per mile on busy roads is the obvious solution - though the people whose suburban roads become rat runs to avoid motorways will be outraged. Or they go all vehicles all trips, and rural voters go mad pointing out there is little to no public transport and school is 9 miles away.
Like replacing Council Tax, its easier not to.
The tail end Tory Government proved taxes like NI can be lowered without affecting service provision (they burned services to the ground a decade ago anyway). Of course PB Tories contend NI cuts were fully funded by fiscal drag and cutting all infrastructure projects.
Fair to say he doesn’t think too much positive about Rachel.
It's interesting more nuanced take on the whole curve thing. It's not just reduce taxes and get more income. It's remove the complications, the breaks, the allowances. You pay a lower rate, but it is simplified and the disincentives are removed.
IIRC he said some controversial things, which werent really picked up on about less taxes for lower earners doesnt result in any extra revenue, its lowering taxes for people who are high earners that generates the overall improvements. That's a hard sell on the doorstep!
Lol it's the traditional view from the boss class: pay the rich more so they work harder, pay the poor less so they work harder. Laffer is a hack.
The problem with the “Laffer Curve” is that while it’s obviously true at the very low & very high end he has absolutely nothing helpful to say about the middle. Which can easily be complete chaos! A small increase in one tax might bring in more net revenue whilst the same increase in another tax might reduce overall revenue & vice versa.
We all know that 95% income taxes are a bad idea & that going from 0% to 5% raises money. Unfortunately that tells us nothing about what will happen if a UK government raises or lowers taxes today from current levels of taxation.
The word 'curve' gives it a spurious, unmerited air of science and precision.
No, it is Economics.
Economics involves curves of different types.
Economics is a social science, not a true science, and only an idiot thinks it entails precision.
You're having a larger, and his curve is essentially discredited.
The idea that its a simple curve is certainly discredited. The idea, however, that you may increase tax take by lowering tax rates or vice versa is still valid as humans very much do change behaviour when the rules of the game change. You hear it on PB all the time from the high earners complaining about cut-offs and higher rates making it not worth getting a pay rise or promotion or working more hours. You see it at the bottom with reductions in benefits if people work more than 16 hours making the extra income tiny for a lot of effort.
The 'curve' is more like the shape of Mr. Jelly, with near-random wobbliness in the middle.
Drastically simplify the tax system and we'll see a clearer, better-defined and more informative curve, around which future tax policy can be devised.
But no fucker is gonna do this, because too many benefit from the system being unwieldy, over-complex and full of cliff edges, perverse incentives and unintended consequences...
Well quite. I'd have a flat tax of 20%. No higher rates, no reliefs. No schemes for hiding income in trusts. Just 20% on all income.
So you gonna give bankers and premier league footballers are tax cut funded by chopping the state pension by a fifth?
No because the high earners hide much of their income in multiple ways, hence all the highly paid accountants and schemes to invest in making fictitious films.
Fair to say he doesn’t think too much positive about Rachel.
It's interesting more nuanced take on the whole curve thing. It's not just reduce taxes and get more income. It's remove the complications, the breaks, the allowances. You pay a lower rate, but it is simplified and the disincentives are removed.
IIRC he said some controversial things, which werent really picked up on about less taxes for lower earners doesnt result in any extra revenue, its lowering taxes for people who are high earners that generates the overall improvements. That's a hard sell on the doorstep!
Lol it's the traditional view from the boss class: pay the rich more so they work harder, pay the poor less so they work harder. Laffer is a hack.
The problem with the “Laffer Curve” is that while it’s obviously true at the very low & very high end he has absolutely nothing helpful to say about the middle. Which can easily be complete chaos! A small increase in one tax might bring in more net revenue whilst the same increase in another tax might reduce overall revenue & vice versa.
We all know that 95% income taxes are a bad idea & that going from 0% to 5% raises money. Unfortunately that tells us nothing about what will happen if a UK government raises or lowers taxes today from current levels of taxation.
The word 'curve' gives it a spurious, unmerited air of science and precision.
No, it is Economics.
Economics involves curves of different types.
Economics is a social science, not a true science, and only an idiot thinks it entails precision.
To step back from the Reformgraph story into reality for a minute, the government has a big problem. It taxes this Bad Thing to stop people using it. Tax revenues drop. Shit, better tax people doing the thing we just encouraged you to do.
Road pricing is inevitable - always has been - as fuel duty rolls back. The furore will be how they replace it. Pence per mile on busy roads is the obvious solution - though the people whose suburban roads become rat runs to avoid motorways will be outraged. Or they go all vehicles all trips, and rural voters go mad pointing out there is little to no public transport and school is 9 miles away.
Like replacing Council Tax, its easier not to.
The tail end Tory Government proved taxes like NI can be lowered without affecting service provision (they burned services to the ground a decade ago anyway). Of course PB Tories contend NI cuts were fully funded by fiscal drag and cutting all infrastructure projects.
Fair to say he doesn’t think too much positive about Rachel.
It's interesting more nuanced take on the whole curve thing. It's not just reduce taxes and get more income. It's remove the complications, the breaks, the allowances. You pay a lower rate, but it is simplified and the disincentives are removed.
IIRC he said some controversial things, which werent really picked up on about less taxes for lower earners doesnt result in any extra revenue, its lowering taxes for people who are high earners that generates the overall improvements. That's a hard sell on the doorstep!
Lol it's the traditional view from the boss class: pay the rich more so they work harder, pay the poor less so they work harder. Laffer is a hack.
The problem with the “Laffer Curve” is that while it’s obviously true at the very low & very high end he has absolutely nothing helpful to say about the middle. Which can easily be complete chaos! A small increase in one tax might bring in more net revenue whilst the same increase in another tax might reduce overall revenue & vice versa.
We all know that 95% income taxes are a bad idea & that going from 0% to 5% raises money. Unfortunately that tells us nothing about what will happen if a UK government raises or lowers taxes today from current levels of taxation.
The word 'curve' gives it a spurious, unmerited air of science and precision.
No, it is Economics.
Economics involves curves of different types.
Economics is a social science, not a true science, and only an idiot thinks it entails precision.
You're having a larger, and his curve is essentially discredited.
The idea that its a simple curve is certainly discredited. The idea, however, that you may increase tax take by lowering tax rates or vice versa is still valid as humans very much do change behaviour when the rules of the game change. You hear it on PB all the time from the high earners complaining about cut-offs and higher rates making it not worth getting a pay rise or promotion or working more hours. You see it at the bottom with reductions in benefits if people work more than 16 hours making the extra income tiny for a lot of effort.
Assuming you agree that 0% tax raises no money, and that 100% tax would likely raise no money either (or minimal) then whatever lies in between must have a maximum value. The curve probably isn't too dissimilar to skewed a bell shape, but there may be other features - you'd need to provide evidence of those though.
Exactly. It is a mathematical deduction.
There must be at least one local maximum between 0% and 100%. What the function actually looks like is anyone's guess.
It could even contain several camel humps.
And that is only at a given point in time, of course. Economic conditions change all the time, and the number of confounding factors is essentially infinite.
An analogy might be trying to model turbulence using a single simple equation ?
Fair to say he doesn’t think too much positive about Rachel.
It's interesting more nuanced take on the whole curve thing. It's not just reduce taxes and get more income. It's remove the complications, the breaks, the allowances. You pay a lower rate, but it is simplified and the disincentives are removed.
IIRC he said some controversial things, which werent really picked up on about less taxes for lower earners doesnt result in any extra revenue, its lowering taxes for people who are high earners that generates the overall improvements. That's a hard sell on the doorstep!
Lol it's the traditional view from the boss class: pay the rich more so they work harder, pay the poor less so they work harder. Laffer is a hack.
The problem with the “Laffer Curve” is that while it’s obviously true at the very low & very high end he has absolutely nothing helpful to say about the middle. Which can easily be complete chaos! A small increase in one tax might bring in more net revenue whilst the same increase in another tax might reduce overall revenue & vice versa.
We all know that 95% income taxes are a bad idea & that going from 0% to 5% raises money. Unfortunately that tells us nothing about what will happen if a UK government raises or lowers taxes today from current levels of taxation.
The word 'curve' gives it a spurious, unmerited air of science and precision.
No, it is Economics.
Economics involves curves of different types.
Economics is a social science, not a true science, and only an idiot thinks it entails precision.
Selling my house and need somewhere to rent. As I earn my living trading on Betfair, I don't really have much of a PAYE salary. Usually I get round it by offering a years rent in advance, but the Renter Rights Act has given this the kibosh, meaning I could be on my Mum & Dad's sofa for Christmas, with my kids living 20 miles away. Super duper
Can you not use a solicitor to hold it in Escrow (if your bank won’t do escrow) and confirm to the landlord that they have the funds under their control and will release monthly?
When the market is tight, and there are multiple good tenants, the agent will send three or four to the landlord to choose from. The landlord will often choose the one which looks simplest. Be complicated at your peril these days. I had to offer extra rent to get this place - after rejection from five previous ones, all at the landlord stage.
Blimey. You would think a landlord would actually like someone who is in a position to lodge a year’s rent in advance with a lawyer/bank.
Not to disagree with Isam (since he's the person trying to do it) but I can't see where the act* forbids paying a lump sum rent in advance.
*If the tenant chooses to pay more than a month in advance, the landlord can accept the advance rent, but the tenancy agreement cannot require the tenant to pay this way.
The problem is that there’s no legal way for the Landlord to enforce this payment contractually, even if the renter offers it. Which makes it’s completely ineffective at reducing the risk the Landlord takes on for renting to someone with dubious credit.
The contract can only require the maximum legally permitted pre-payment of one months rent.
The entire thing looks like it’s going to be a fiasco that reduces the availability of rental accommodation by pushing out of the market all the providers who can’t take the risk that a renter isn’t completely reliable. The usual suspects will then blame landlords for the inevitable rent increases.
But if the landlord gets a years rental upfront into their bank account that surely mitigates the risk somewhat? I think if I were a landlord I'd feel that anyway.
As a renter, would you pay a years rent to a landlord with absolutely no legally enforceable contract in place? You have the same problem the landlord does - you can’t realistically risk this much money on an exchange that isn’t legally enforceable.
I'm picturing a standard tenancy agreement that says the rent is due monthly, then on signature I the tenant pay a year in advance (which is allowed) and I get a written receipt for this from my landlord.
Selling my house and need somewhere to rent. As I earn my living trading on Betfair, I don't really have much of a PAYE salary. Usually I get round it by offering a years rent in advance, but the Renter Rights Act has given this the kibosh, meaning I could be on my Mum & Dad's sofa for Christmas, with my kids living 20 miles away. Super duper
Fellow self employed here. If your parents have a decent pension, lettings agents are generally happy to have them as a guarantor. That's what I did last time. Bit embarassing at the age of 42, but there we are. Or a sibling or friend with a job will do too.
I guarantee my son's rent of £3000 a month. Not a problem. He's 55 and has a pension but not enough to live on. He's an IT entrepreneur very experienced in AI and LLMs but not yet in the money. I think his ambition is , one day, to come round to me with a large suitcase stuffed with £50s and say "Here you are dad, with interest".
We are currently guaranteeing the rent of a family friend because their parents (our friends) couldn't pass the guarantor checks and we could.
That's how stupid things are already..
Doing the same for a friend of my eldest daughter - we know the family etc.
Can't help wondering about a cross-over with the discussion of crime-fixers - In separate deals, other people referred to as "ghost names" would be paid to put their names to large fines for illegal working
Sadly, I have seen some clients at Citizens Advice for whom this kind of arrangement has gone badly sour... leading to the potential bankruptcy of one guarantor of his sister's rent.
I wouldn't want to be too negative about such generosity but if you're considering acting as a guarantor, do be mindful of the potential downsides and make sure you really know the person you are supporting and get regular evidence of them paying the rent.
It's all right, I layered it through 27 offshore companies, in partnership with the Turkish mafia.
Selling my house and need somewhere to rent. As I earn my living trading on Betfair, I don't really have much of a PAYE salary. Usually I get round it by offering a years rent in advance, but the Renter Rights Act has given this the kibosh, meaning I could be on my Mum & Dad's sofa for Christmas, with my kids living 20 miles away. Super duper
Can you not use a solicitor to hold it in Escrow (if your bank won’t do escrow) and confirm to the landlord that they have the funds under their control and will release monthly?
When the market is tight, and there are multiple good tenants, the agent will send three or four to the landlord to choose from. The landlord will often choose the one which looks simplest. Be complicated at your peril these days. I had to offer extra rent to get this place - after rejection from five previous ones, all at the landlord stage.
Blimey. You would think a landlord would actually like someone who is in a position to lodge a year’s rent in advance with a lawyer/bank.
Not to disagree with Isam (since he's the person trying to do it) but I can't see where the act* forbids paying a lump sum rent in advance.
*If the tenant chooses to pay more than a month in advance, the landlord can accept the advance rent, but the tenancy agreement cannot require the tenant to pay this way.
The problem is that there’s no legal way for the Landlord to enforce this payment contractually, even if the renter offers it. Which makes it’s completely ineffective at reducing the risk the Landlord takes on for renting to someone with dubious credit.
The contract can only require the maximum legally permitted pre-payment of one months rent.
The entire thing looks like it’s going to be a fiasco that reduces the availability of rental accommodation by pushing out of the market all the providers who can’t take the risk that a renter isn’t completely reliable. The usual suspects will then blame landlords for the inevitable rent increases.
But if the landlord gets a years rental upfront into their bank account that surely mitigates the risk somewhat? I think if I were a landlord I'd feel that anyway.
As a renter, would you pay a years rent to a landlord with absolutely no legally enforceable contract in place? You have the same problem the landlord does - you can’t realistically risk this much money on an exchange that isn’t legally enforceable.
I'm picturing a standard tenancy agreement that says the rent is due monthly, then on signature I the tenant pay a year in advance (which is allowed) and I get a written receipt for this from my landlord.
Well I hope it does work like that
I don't see why it couldn't if that's what you want. Good luck anyway. Hope you get sorted.
Crime fixer caught by BBC offering to erase £60k fines on migrant workers
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/ce3kevkl3pdo A man at the centre of an organised crime network has been secretly filmed telling BBC undercover reporters how he can help to erase fines of up to £60,000 for employing illegal workers. The self-described "accountant" is among a group of Kurdish men, first exposed in a BBC investigation on Tuesday, who enable migrants to work illegally in mini-marts, by registering the businesses in their own name. The man, who goes by the name of Shaxawan, told the two journalists that he and his associates could help migrants - including asylum seekers - to set up businesses illegally and "confuse" immigration enforcement. Operating from a solicitor's office in Huddersfield, he said he had "customers in every city". In Companies House listings, Shaxawan is named as Kardos Mateen, a British resident in his 30s, and has been the director of 18 businesses across the north of England.
Shaxawan made several claims to our reporters: He could set up a company and provide bank cards and a card machine to accept payments from customers for one of our undercover reporters, believing him to be an asylum seeker His network could "confuse" Immigration Enforcement teams which "won't have the time" to check details Fake directors would be paid to register mini-marts in their own names, while illegal workers, including asylum seekers, would actually run the businesses In separate deals, other people referred to as "ghost names" would be paid to put their names to large fines for illegal working An "English woman" in the network would help reduce hefty fines to "zero" and deal with other issues like electricity, gas and bailiffs..
I think the government is hoping that the new rules around identifying the people running ltd companies at Companies House will put the brakes on this kind of thing.
It ought to help, at the cost of more inconvenience for the law abiding (see also banking, or even dealing with a solicitor).
What's dispiriting is that it's been fairly obvious for years that this is a significant problem of criminality on high streets across the country, and even now it's the BBC rather than the police who have done anything about investigating it systematically.
And another sign that government (irrespective of party) doesn't really care about anything outside of London.
To be fair, the police have been a little busy hounding people on Twitter for misgendering.
To step back from the Reformgraph story into reality for a minute, the government has a big problem. It taxes this Bad Thing to stop people using it. Tax revenues drop. Shit, better tax people doing the thing we just encouraged you to do.
Road pricing is inevitable - always has been - as fuel duty rolls back. The furore will be how they replace it. Pence per mile on busy roads is the obvious solution - though the people whose suburban roads become rat runs to avoid motorways will be outraged. Or they go all vehicles all trips, and rural voters go mad pointing out there is little to no public transport and school is 9 miles away.
Like replacing Council Tax, its easier not to.
The tail end Tory Government proved taxes like NI can be lowered without affecting service provision (they burned services to the ground a decade ago anyway). Of course PB Tories contend NI cuts were fully funded by fiscal drag and cutting all infrastructure projects.
Fair to say he doesn’t think too much positive about Rachel.
It's interesting more nuanced take on the whole curve thing. It's not just reduce taxes and get more income. It's remove the complications, the breaks, the allowances. You pay a lower rate, but it is simplified and the disincentives are removed.
IIRC he said some controversial things, which werent really picked up on about less taxes for lower earners doesnt result in any extra revenue, its lowering taxes for people who are high earners that generates the overall improvements. That's a hard sell on the doorstep!
Lol it's the traditional view from the boss class: pay the rich more so they work harder, pay the poor less so they work harder. Laffer is a hack.
The problem with the “Laffer Curve” is that while it’s obviously true at the very low & very high end he has absolutely nothing helpful to say about the middle. Which can easily be complete chaos! A small increase in one tax might bring in more net revenue whilst the same increase in another tax might reduce overall revenue & vice versa.
We all know that 95% income taxes are a bad idea & that going from 0% to 5% raises money. Unfortunately that tells us nothing about what will happen if a UK government raises or lowers taxes today from current levels of taxation.
The word 'curve' gives it a spurious, unmerited air of science and precision.
No, it is Economics.
Economics involves curves of different types.
Economics is a social science, not a true science, and only an idiot thinks it entails precision.
You're having a laffer, and his curve is essentially discredited.
To step back from the Reformgraph story into reality for a minute, the government has a big problem. It taxes this Bad Thing to stop people using it. Tax revenues drop. Shit, better tax people doing the thing we just encouraged you to do.
Road pricing is inevitable - always has been - as fuel duty rolls back. The furore will be how they replace it. Pence per mile on busy roads is the obvious solution - though the people whose suburban roads become rat runs to avoid motorways will be outraged. Or they go all vehicles all trips, and rural voters go mad pointing out there is little to no public transport and school is 9 miles away.
Like replacing Council Tax, its easier not to.
The tail end Tory Government proved taxes like NI can be lowered without affecting service provision (they burned services to the ground a decade ago anyway). Of course PB Tories contend NI cuts were fully funded by fiscal drag and cutting all infrastructure projects.
Fair to say he doesn’t think too much positive about Rachel.
It's interesting more nuanced take on the whole curve thing. It's not just reduce taxes and get more income. It's remove the complications, the breaks, the allowances. You pay a lower rate, but it is simplified and the disincentives are removed.
IIRC he said some controversial things, which werent really picked up on about less taxes for lower earners doesnt result in any extra revenue, its lowering taxes for people who are high earners that generates the overall improvements. That's a hard sell on the doorstep!
Lol it's the traditional view from the boss class: pay the rich more so they work harder, pay the poor less so they work harder. Laffer is a hack.
The problem with the “Laffer Curve” is that while it’s obviously true at the very low & very high end he has absolutely nothing helpful to say about the middle. Which can easily be complete chaos! A small increase in one tax might bring in more net revenue whilst the same increase in another tax might reduce overall revenue & vice versa.
We all know that 95% income taxes are a bad idea & that going from 0% to 5% raises money. Unfortunately that tells us nothing about what will happen if a UK government raises or lowers taxes today from current levels of taxation.
The word 'curve' gives it a spurious, unmerited air of science and precision.
No, it is Economics.
Economics involves curves of different types.
Economics is a social science, not a true science, and only an idiot thinks it entails precision.
You're having a larger, and his curve is essentially discredited.
The idea that its a simple curve is certainly discredited. The idea, however, that you may increase tax take by lowering tax rates or vice versa is still valid as humans very much do change behaviour when the rules of the game change. You hear it on PB all the time from the high earners complaining about cut-offs and higher rates making it not worth getting a pay rise or promotion or working more hours. You see it at the bottom with reductions in benefits if people work more than 16 hours making the extra income tiny for a lot of effort.
Assuming you agree that 0% tax raises no money, and that 100% tax would likely raise no money either (or minimal) then whatever lies in between must have a maximum value. The curve probably isn't too dissimilar to skewed a bell shape, but there may be other features - you'd need to provide evidence of those though.
I don't think it's correct that 100% tax raises no money. A 'perfect' marxist state would be one where all income goes to the state and individuals receive what they need from the state.
It's not something I'm advocating of course and I think it would be a miserable society (then again, our current society is pretty miserable for many).
But my point is: 100% tax would not generate zero income for the state.
To step back from the Reformgraph story into reality for a minute, the government has a big problem. It taxes this Bad Thing to stop people using it. Tax revenues drop. Shit, better tax people doing the thing we just encouraged you to do.
Road pricing is inevitable - always has been - as fuel duty rolls back. The furore will be how they replace it. Pence per mile on busy roads is the obvious solution - though the people whose suburban roads become rat runs to avoid motorways will be outraged. Or they go all vehicles all trips, and rural voters go mad pointing out there is little to no public transport and school is 9 miles away.
Like replacing Council Tax, its easier not to.
The tail end Tory Government proved taxes like NI can be lowered without affecting service provision (they burned services to the ground a decade ago anyway). Of course PB Tories contend NI cuts were fully funded by fiscal drag and cutting all infrastructure projects.
Fair to say he doesn’t think too much positive about Rachel.
It's interesting more nuanced take on the whole curve thing. It's not just reduce taxes and get more income. It's remove the complications, the breaks, the allowances. You pay a lower rate, but it is simplified and the disincentives are removed.
IIRC he said some controversial things, which werent really picked up on about less taxes for lower earners doesnt result in any extra revenue, its lowering taxes for people who are high earners that generates the overall improvements. That's a hard sell on the doorstep!
Lol it's the traditional view from the boss class: pay the rich more so they work harder, pay the poor less so they work harder. Laffer is a hack.
The problem with the “Laffer Curve” is that while it’s obviously true at the very low & very high end he has absolutely nothing helpful to say about the middle. Which can easily be complete chaos! A small increase in one tax might bring in more net revenue whilst the same increase in another tax might reduce overall revenue & vice versa.
We all know that 95% income taxes are a bad idea & that going from 0% to 5% raises money. Unfortunately that tells us nothing about what will happen if a UK government raises or lowers taxes today from current levels of taxation.
The word 'curve' gives it a spurious, unmerited air of science and precision.
No, it is Economics.
Economics involves curves of different types.
Economics is a social science, not a true science, and only an idiot thinks it entails precision.
You're having a larger, and his curve is essentially discredited.
The idea that its a simple curve is certainly discredited. The idea, however, that you may increase tax take by lowering tax rates or vice versa is still valid as humans very much do change behaviour when the rules of the game change. You hear it on PB all the time from the high earners complaining about cut-offs and higher rates making it not worth getting a pay rise or promotion or working more hours. You see it at the bottom with reductions in benefits if people work more than 16 hours making the extra income tiny for a lot of effort.
Assuming you agree that 0% tax raises no money, and that 100% tax would likely raise no money either (or minimal) then whatever lies in between must have a maximum value. The curve probably isn't too dissimilar to skewed a bell shape, but there may be other features - you'd need to provide evidence of those though.
Exactly. It is a mathematical deduction.
There must be at least one local maximum between 0% and 100%. What the function actually looks like is anyone's guess.
It could even contain several camel humps.
And that is only at a given point in time, of course. Economic conditions change all the time, and the number of confounding factors is essentially infinite.
An analogy might be trying to model turbulence using a single simple equation ?
There are a number of equations to account for the overall pattern of turbulence but they are based on actual measurement, which is very hard to come by here.
One measurement we ought to be able to make is to compare England and Scotland, although there's a lot of confounding factors.
To step back from the Reformgraph story into reality for a minute, the government has a big problem. It taxes this Bad Thing to stop people using it. Tax revenues drop. Shit, better tax people doing the thing we just encouraged you to do.
Road pricing is inevitable - always has been - as fuel duty rolls back. The furore will be how they replace it. Pence per mile on busy roads is the obvious solution - though the people whose suburban roads become rat runs to avoid motorways will be outraged. Or they go all vehicles all trips, and rural voters go mad pointing out there is little to no public transport and school is 9 miles away.
Like replacing Council Tax, its easier not to.
The tail end Tory Government proved taxes like NI can be lowered without affecting service provision (they burned services to the ground a decade ago anyway). Of course PB Tories contend NI cuts were fully funded by fiscal drag and cutting all infrastructure projects.
Fair to say he doesn’t think too much positive about Rachel.
It's interesting more nuanced take on the whole curve thing. It's not just reduce taxes and get more income. It's remove the complications, the breaks, the allowances. You pay a lower rate, but it is simplified and the disincentives are removed.
IIRC he said some controversial things, which werent really picked up on about less taxes for lower earners doesnt result in any extra revenue, its lowering taxes for people who are high earners that generates the overall improvements. That's a hard sell on the doorstep!
Lol it's the traditional view from the boss class: pay the rich more so they work harder, pay the poor less so they work harder. Laffer is a hack.
The problem with the “Laffer Curve” is that while it’s obviously true at the very low & very high end he has absolutely nothing helpful to say about the middle. Which can easily be complete chaos! A small increase in one tax might bring in more net revenue whilst the same increase in another tax might reduce overall revenue & vice versa.
We all know that 95% income taxes are a bad idea & that going from 0% to 5% raises money. Unfortunately that tells us nothing about what will happen if a UK government raises or lowers taxes today from current levels of taxation.
The word 'curve' gives it a spurious, unmerited air of science and precision.
No, it is Economics.
Economics involves curves of different types.
Economics is a social science, not a true science, and only an idiot thinks it entails precision.
You're having a laffer, and his curve is essentially discredited.
Autocorrect.
Autocorrect certainly come's out with some Laffer than life 'corrections'.
To step back from the Reformgraph story into reality for a minute, the government has a big problem. It taxes this Bad Thing to stop people using it. Tax revenues drop. Shit, better tax people doing the thing we just encouraged you to do.
Road pricing is inevitable - always has been - as fuel duty rolls back. The furore will be how they replace it. Pence per mile on busy roads is the obvious solution - though the people whose suburban roads become rat runs to avoid motorways will be outraged. Or they go all vehicles all trips, and rural voters go mad pointing out there is little to no public transport and school is 9 miles away.
Like replacing Council Tax, its easier not to.
The tail end Tory Government proved taxes like NI can be lowered without affecting service provision (they burned services to the ground a decade ago anyway). Of course PB Tories contend NI cuts were fully funded by fiscal drag and cutting all infrastructure projects.
Fair to say he doesn’t think too much positive about Rachel.
It's interesting more nuanced take on the whole curve thing. It's not just reduce taxes and get more income. It's remove the complications, the breaks, the allowances. You pay a lower rate, but it is simplified and the disincentives are removed.
IIRC he said some controversial things, which werent really picked up on about less taxes for lower earners doesnt result in any extra revenue, its lowering taxes for people who are high earners that generates the overall improvements. That's a hard sell on the doorstep!
Lol it's the traditional view from the boss class: pay the rich more so they work harder, pay the poor less so they work harder. Laffer is a hack.
The problem with the “Laffer Curve” is that while it’s obviously true at the very low & very high end he has absolutely nothing helpful to say about the middle. Which can easily be complete chaos! A small increase in one tax might bring in more net revenue whilst the same increase in another tax might reduce overall revenue & vice versa.
We all know that 95% income taxes are a bad idea & that going from 0% to 5% raises money. Unfortunately that tells us nothing about what will happen if a UK government raises or lowers taxes today from current levels of taxation.
The word 'curve' gives it a spurious, unmerited air of science and precision.
No, it is Economics.
Economics involves curves of different types.
Economics is a social science, not a true science, and only an idiot thinks it entails precision.
You're having a larger, and his curve is essentially discredited.
The idea that its a simple curve is certainly discredited. The idea, however, that you may increase tax take by lowering tax rates or vice versa is still valid as humans very much do change behaviour when the rules of the game change. You hear it on PB all the time from the high earners complaining about cut-offs and higher rates making it not worth getting a pay rise or promotion or working more hours. You see it at the bottom with reductions in benefits if people work more than 16 hours making the extra income tiny for a lot of effort.
The 'curve' is more like the shape of Mr. Jelly, with near-random wobbliness in the middle.
Drastically simplify the tax system and we'll see a clearer, better-defined and more informative curve, around which future tax policy can be devised.
But no fucker is gonna do this, because too many benefit from the system being unwieldy, over-complex and full of cliff edges, perverse incentives and unintended consequences...
Well quite. I'd have a flat tax of 20%. No higher rates, no reliefs. No schemes for hiding income in trusts. Just 20% on all income.
So you gonna give bankers and premier league footballers are tax cut funded by chopping the state pension by a fifth?
No because the high earners hide much of their income in multiple ways, hence all the highly paid accountants and schemes to invest in making fictitious films.
Sure lots of high earners do play those sorts of games, but since 2008 footballers and bankers tend to already be in the PAYE trap.
Nancy Pelosi won't seek re-election. Good. The Democrat old guard need to step aside.
AOC is probably going to retire or primary Chuck Schumer too. He’s been NY Senator since 1999.
Pelosi is 85, so whose stock trades are we going to follow when she resigns?
There's a website that tracks all members of Congress stock trades (https://www.capitoltrades.com/trades), and it's fair to say that there's a remarkable degree of success from members of both parties. So much so, that a number of ETFs exist that simply track congressional stock purchases.
Nancy Pelosi won't seek re-election. Good. The Democrat old guard need to step aside.
AOC is probably going to retire or primary Chuck Schumer too. He’s been NY Senator since 1999.
Pelosi is 85, so whose stock trades are we going to follow when she resigns?
There's a website that tracks all members of Congress stock trades (https://www.capitoltrades.com/trades), and it's fair to say that there's a remarkable degree of success from members of both parties. So much so, that a number of ETFs exist that simply track congressional stock purchases.
Just to add: this shouldn't be that surprising. Members of Congress will hear things all the time, and US law is that what elected representatives learn about government contracts and the like does not constitute inside information.
On another note, interesting from Jenrick on Nick Ferrari.Withering about this Government's judicial policy, but equally the last Government's record on dealing with asylum seekers and foreign national prisoners. He explained that he had to leave the last Government because they were rubbish and he isn't. Nick of course softballed Jenrick throughout.
To step back from the Reformgraph story into reality for a minute, the government has a big problem. It taxes this Bad Thing to stop people using it. Tax revenues drop. Shit, better tax people doing the thing we just encouraged you to do.
Road pricing is inevitable - always has been - as fuel duty rolls back. The furore will be how they replace it. Pence per mile on busy roads is the obvious solution - though the people whose suburban roads become rat runs to avoid motorways will be outraged. Or they go all vehicles all trips, and rural voters go mad pointing out there is little to no public transport and school is 9 miles away.
Like replacing Council Tax, its easier not to.
The tail end Tory Government proved taxes like NI can be lowered without affecting service provision (they burned services to the ground a decade ago anyway). Of course PB Tories contend NI cuts were fully funded by fiscal drag and cutting all infrastructure projects.
Fair to say he doesn’t think too much positive about Rachel.
It's interesting more nuanced take on the whole curve thing. It's not just reduce taxes and get more income. It's remove the complications, the breaks, the allowances. You pay a lower rate, but it is simplified and the disincentives are removed.
IIRC he said some controversial things, which werent really picked up on about less taxes for lower earners doesnt result in any extra revenue, its lowering taxes for people who are high earners that generates the overall improvements. That's a hard sell on the doorstep!
Lol it's the traditional view from the boss class: pay the rich more so they work harder, pay the poor less so they work harder. Laffer is a hack.
The problem with the “Laffer Curve” is that while it’s obviously true at the very low & very high end he has absolutely nothing helpful to say about the middle. Which can easily be complete chaos! A small increase in one tax might bring in more net revenue whilst the same increase in another tax might reduce overall revenue & vice versa.
We all know that 95% income taxes are a bad idea & that going from 0% to 5% raises money. Unfortunately that tells us nothing about what will happen if a UK government raises or lowers taxes today from current levels of taxation.
The word 'curve' gives it a spurious, unmerited air of science and precision.
No, it is Economics.
Economics involves curves of different types.
Economics is a social science, not a true science, and only an idiot thinks it entails precision.
You're having a larger, and his curve is essentially discredited.
The idea that its a simple curve is certainly discredited. The idea, however, that you may increase tax take by lowering tax rates or vice versa is still valid as humans very much do change behaviour when the rules of the game change. You hear it on PB all the time from the high earners complaining about cut-offs and higher rates making it not worth getting a pay rise or promotion or working more hours. You see it at the bottom with reductions in benefits if people work more than 16 hours making the extra income tiny for a lot of effort.
Assuming you agree that 0% tax raises no money, and that 100% tax would likely raise no money either (or minimal) then whatever lies in between must have a maximum value. The curve probably isn't too dissimilar to skewed a bell shape, but there may be other features - you'd need to provide evidence of those though.
I don't think it's correct that 100% tax raises no money. A 'perfect' marxist state would be one where all income goes to the state and individuals receive what they need from the state.
It's not something I'm advocating of course and I think it would be a miserable society (then again, our current society is pretty miserable for many).
But my point is: 100% tax would not generate zero income for the state.
If you receive a benefit for your tax then surely it isn't actually a 100% rate?
[Admittely that makes actual rate calculations even for the UK very hard]
Selling my house and need somewhere to rent. As I earn my living trading on Betfair, I don't really have much of a PAYE salary. Usually I get round it by offering a years rent in advance, but the Renter Rights Act has given this the kibosh, meaning I could be on my Mum & Dad's sofa for Christmas, with my kids living 20 miles away. Super duper
Can you not use a solicitor to hold it in Escrow (if your bank won’t do escrow) and confirm to the landlord that they have the funds under their control and will release monthly?
When the market is tight, and there are multiple good tenants, the agent will send three or four to the landlord to choose from. The landlord will often choose the one which looks simplest. Be complicated at your peril these days. I had to offer extra rent to get this place - after rejection from five previous ones, all at the landlord stage.
Blimey. You would think a landlord would actually like someone who is in a position to lodge a year’s rent in advance with a lawyer/bank.
Not to disagree with Isam (since he's the person trying to do it) but I can't see where the act* forbids paying a lump sum rent in advance.
*If the tenant chooses to pay more than a month in advance, the landlord can accept the advance rent, but the tenancy agreement cannot require the tenant to pay this way.
The problem is that there’s no legal way for the Landlord to enforce this payment contractually, even if the renter offers it. Which makes it’s completely ineffective at reducing the risk the Landlord takes on for renting to someone with dubious credit.
The contract can only require the maximum legally permitted pre-payment of one months rent.
The entire thing looks like it’s going to be a fiasco that reduces the availability of rental accommodation by pushing out of the market all the providers who can’t take the risk that a renter isn’t completely reliable. The usual suspects will then blame landlords for the inevitable rent increases.
But if the landlord gets a years rental upfront into their bank account that surely mitigates the risk somewhat? I think if I were a landlord I'd feel that anyway.
As a renter, would you pay a years rent to a landlord with absolutely no legally enforceable contract in place? You have the same problem the landlord does - you can’t realistically risk this much money on an exchange that isn’t legally enforceable.
I'm picturing a standard tenancy agreement that says the rent is due monthly, then on signature I the tenant pay a year in advance (which is allowed) and I get a written receipt for this from my landlord.
The problem is how can that be legally sequenced?
If the landlord signs to say the rent is due monthly, then what incentive does the tenant then have to pay it a year in advance? Its already been signed as due monthly!
Whereas if the tenant does it in advance as part of the contract, that is illegal.
And if the tenant does not do it in advance as part of the contract, how can the landlord feel secure to sign it?
Most people will do what they are contractually obliged to do, and if the contract terms don't work then that is a problem.
On another note, interesting from Jenrick on Nick Ferrari.Withering about this Government's judicial policy, but equally the last Government's record on dealing with asylum seekers and foreign national prisoners. He explained that he had to leave the last Government because they were rubbish and he isn't. Nick of course softballed Jenrick throughout.
Worth a listen though.
Yes who can forget his highly principled resignation in preparation for a run at the leadership.
Selling my house and need somewhere to rent. As I earn my living trading on Betfair, I don't really have much of a PAYE salary. Usually I get round it by offering a years rent in advance, but the Renter Rights Act has given this the kibosh, meaning I could be on my Mum & Dad's sofa for Christmas, with my kids living 20 miles away. Super duper
Can you not use a solicitor to hold it in Escrow (if your bank won’t do escrow) and confirm to the landlord that they have the funds under their control and will release monthly?
When the market is tight, and there are multiple good tenants, the agent will send three or four to the landlord to choose from. The landlord will often choose the one which looks simplest. Be complicated at your peril these days. I had to offer extra rent to get this place - after rejection from five previous ones, all at the landlord stage.
Blimey. You would think a landlord would actually like someone who is in a position to lodge a year’s rent in advance with a lawyer/bank.
Not to disagree with Isam (since he's the person trying to do it) but I can't see where the act* forbids paying a lump sum rent in advance.
*If the tenant chooses to pay more than a month in advance, the landlord can accept the advance rent, but the tenancy agreement cannot require the tenant to pay this way.
The problem is that there’s no legal way for the Landlord to enforce this payment contractually, even if the renter offers it. Which makes it’s completely ineffective at reducing the risk the Landlord takes on for renting to someone with dubious credit.
The contract can only require the maximum legally permitted pre-payment of one months rent.
The entire thing looks like it’s going to be a fiasco that reduces the availability of rental accommodation by pushing out of the market all the providers who can’t take the risk that a renter isn’t completely reliable. The usual suspects will then blame landlords for the inevitable rent increases.
But if the landlord gets a years rental upfront into their bank account that surely mitigates the risk somewhat? I think if I were a landlord I'd feel that anyway.
As a renter, would you pay a years rent to a landlord with absolutely no legally enforceable contract in place? You have the same problem the landlord does - you can’t realistically risk this much money on an exchange that isn’t legally enforceable.
I'm picturing a standard tenancy agreement that says the rent is due monthly, then on signature I the tenant pay a year in advance (which is allowed) and I get a written receipt for this from my landlord.
The Landlord will not agree to this as they have no way to enforce it: Once you’ve both signed the (legal) rental contract they have to give you the keys whether you pay the year in advance or not.
To step back from the Reformgraph story into reality for a minute, the government has a big problem. It taxes this Bad Thing to stop people using it. Tax revenues drop. Shit, better tax people doing the thing we just encouraged you to do.
Road pricing is inevitable - always has been - as fuel duty rolls back. The furore will be how they replace it. Pence per mile on busy roads is the obvious solution - though the people whose suburban roads become rat runs to avoid motorways will be outraged. Or they go all vehicles all trips, and rural voters go mad pointing out there is little to no public transport and school is 9 miles away.
Like replacing Council Tax, its easier not to.
The tail end Tory Government proved taxes like NI can be lowered without affecting service provision (they burned services to the ground a decade ago anyway). Of course PB Tories contend NI cuts were fully funded by fiscal drag and cutting all infrastructure projects.
Fair to say he doesn’t think too much positive about Rachel.
It's interesting more nuanced take on the whole curve thing. It's not just reduce taxes and get more income. It's remove the complications, the breaks, the allowances. You pay a lower rate, but it is simplified and the disincentives are removed.
IIRC he said some controversial things, which werent really picked up on about less taxes for lower earners doesnt result in any extra revenue, its lowering taxes for people who are high earners that generates the overall improvements. That's a hard sell on the doorstep!
Lol it's the traditional view from the boss class: pay the rich more so they work harder, pay the poor less so they work harder. Laffer is a hack.
The problem with the “Laffer Curve” is that while it’s obviously true at the very low & very high end he has absolutely nothing helpful to say about the middle. Which can easily be complete chaos! A small increase in one tax might bring in more net revenue whilst the same increase in another tax might reduce overall revenue & vice versa.
We all know that 95% income taxes are a bad idea & that going from 0% to 5% raises money. Unfortunately that tells us nothing about what will happen if a UK government raises or lowers taxes today from current levels of taxation.
The word 'curve' gives it a spurious, unmerited air of science and precision.
No, it is Economics.
Economics involves curves of different types.
Economics is a social science, not a true science, and only an idiot thinks it entails precision.
You're having a larger, and his curve is essentially discredited.
The idea that its a simple curve is certainly discredited. The idea, however, that you may increase tax take by lowering tax rates or vice versa is still valid as humans very much do change behaviour when the rules of the game change. You hear it on PB all the time from the high earners complaining about cut-offs and higher rates making it not worth getting a pay rise or promotion or working more hours. You see it at the bottom with reductions in benefits if people work more than 16 hours making the extra income tiny for a lot of effort.
Assuming you agree that 0% tax raises no money, and that 100% tax would likely raise no money either (or minimal) then whatever lies in between must have a maximum value. The curve probably isn't too dissimilar to skewed a bell shape, but there may be other features - you'd need to provide evidence of those though.
Exactly. It is a mathematical deduction.
There must be at least one local maximum between 0% and 100%. What the function actually looks like is anyone's guess.
It could even contain several camel humps.
And that is only at a given point in time, of course. Economic conditions change all the time, and the number of confounding factors is essentially infinite.
An analogy might be trying to model turbulence using a single simple equation ?
This is a crucially important point.
Take the Laffer Curve. The "peak" (as in maximum tax take) might be 50% today. But if you implemented 50% taxes then behaviours would change. And because of those behavioral changes, the peak then might be 45% or 60%.
It's like oil: in the short term, demand is very price inelastic. In the longer term, it is highly elastic.
Nancy Pelosi won't seek re-election. Good. The Democrat old guard need to step aside.
AOC is probably going to retire or primary Chuck Schumer too. He’s been NY Senator since 1999.
Pelosi is 85, so whose stock trades are we going to follow when she resigns?
There's a website that tracks all members of Congress stock trades (https://www.capitoltrades.com/trades), and it's fair to say that there's a remarkable degree of success from members of both parties. So much so, that a number of ETFs exist that simply track congressional stock purchases.
Just to add: this shouldn't be that surprising. Members of Congress will hear things all the time, and US law is that what elected representatives learn about government contracts and the like does not constitute inside information.
The Pelosi Stock Tracker is beating the market, although I always have to laugh at the “Inverse Cramer” account.
Selling my house and need somewhere to rent. As I earn my living trading on Betfair, I don't really have much of a PAYE salary. Usually I get round it by offering a years rent in advance, but the Renter Rights Act has given this the kibosh, meaning I could be on my Mum & Dad's sofa for Christmas, with my kids living 20 miles away. Super duper
Can you not use a solicitor to hold it in Escrow (if your bank won’t do escrow) and confirm to the landlord that they have the funds under their control and will release monthly?
When the market is tight, and there are multiple good tenants, the agent will send three or four to the landlord to choose from. The landlord will often choose the one which looks simplest. Be complicated at your peril these days. I had to offer extra rent to get this place - after rejection from five previous ones, all at the landlord stage.
Blimey. You would think a landlord would actually like someone who is in a position to lodge a year’s rent in advance with a lawyer/bank.
Not to disagree with Isam (since he's the person trying to do it) but I can't see where the act* forbids paying a lump sum rent in advance.
*If the tenant chooses to pay more than a month in advance, the landlord can accept the advance rent, but the tenancy agreement cannot require the tenant to pay this way.
The problem is that there’s no legal way for the Landlord to enforce this payment contractually, even if the renter offers it. Which makes it’s completely ineffective at reducing the risk the Landlord takes on for renting to someone with dubious credit.
The contract can only require the maximum legally permitted pre-payment of one months rent.
The entire thing looks like it’s going to be a fiasco that reduces the availability of rental accommodation by pushing out of the market all the providers who can’t take the risk that a renter isn’t completely reliable. The usual suspects will then blame landlords for the inevitable rent increases.
But if the landlord gets a years rental upfront into their bank account that surely mitigates the risk somewhat? I think if I were a landlord I'd feel that anyway.
As a renter, would you pay a years rent to a landlord with absolutely no legally enforceable contract in place? You have the same problem the landlord does - you can’t realistically risk this much money on an exchange that isn’t legally enforceable.
I'm picturing a standard tenancy agreement that says the rent is due monthly, then on signature I the tenant pay a year in advance (which is allowed) and I get a written receipt for this from my landlord.
The problem is how can that be legally sequenced?
If the landlord signs to say the rent is due monthly, then what incentive does the tenant then have to pay it a year in advance? Its already been signed as due monthly!
Whereas if the tenant does it in advance as part of the contract, that is illegal.
And if the tenant does not do it in advance as part of the contract, how can the landlord feel secure to sign it?
Most people will do what they are contractually obliged to do, and if the contract terms don't work then that is a problem.
I see you've never worked with the Trump Organization.
To step back from the Reformgraph story into reality for a minute, the government has a big problem. It taxes this Bad Thing to stop people using it. Tax revenues drop. Shit, better tax people doing the thing we just encouraged you to do.
Road pricing is inevitable - always has been - as fuel duty rolls back. The furore will be how they replace it. Pence per mile on busy roads is the obvious solution - though the people whose suburban roads become rat runs to avoid motorways will be outraged. Or they go all vehicles all trips, and rural voters go mad pointing out there is little to no public transport and school is 9 miles away.
Like replacing Council Tax, its easier not to.
The tail end Tory Government proved taxes like NI can be lowered without affecting service provision (they burned services to the ground a decade ago anyway). Of course PB Tories contend NI cuts were fully funded by fiscal drag and cutting all infrastructure projects.
Fair to say he doesn’t think too much positive about Rachel.
It's interesting more nuanced take on the whole curve thing. It's not just reduce taxes and get more income. It's remove the complications, the breaks, the allowances. You pay a lower rate, but it is simplified and the disincentives are removed.
IIRC he said some controversial things, which werent really picked up on about less taxes for lower earners doesnt result in any extra revenue, its lowering taxes for people who are high earners that generates the overall improvements. That's a hard sell on the doorstep!
Lol it's the traditional view from the boss class: pay the rich more so they work harder, pay the poor less so they work harder. Laffer is a hack.
The problem with the “Laffer Curve” is that while it’s obviously true at the very low & very high end he has absolutely nothing helpful to say about the middle. Which can easily be complete chaos! A small increase in one tax might bring in more net revenue whilst the same increase in another tax might reduce overall revenue & vice versa.
We all know that 95% income taxes are a bad idea & that going from 0% to 5% raises money. Unfortunately that tells us nothing about what will happen if a UK government raises or lowers taxes today from current levels of taxation.
The word 'curve' gives it a spurious, unmerited air of science and precision.
No, it is Economics.
Economics involves curves of different types.
Economics is a social science, not a true science, and only an idiot thinks it entails precision.
You're having a larger, and his curve is essentially discredited.
The idea that its a simple curve is certainly discredited. The idea, however, that you may increase tax take by lowering tax rates or vice versa is still valid as humans very much do change behaviour when the rules of the game change. You hear it on PB all the time from the high earners complaining about cut-offs and higher rates making it not worth getting a pay rise or promotion or working more hours. You see it at the bottom with reductions in benefits if people work more than 16 hours making the extra income tiny for a lot of effort.
Assuming you agree that 0% tax raises no money, and that 100% tax would likely raise no money either (or minimal) then whatever lies in between must have a maximum value. The curve probably isn't too dissimilar to skewed a bell shape, but there may be other features - you'd need to provide evidence of those though.
Exactly. It is a mathematical deduction.
There must be at least one local maximum between 0% and 100%. What the function actually looks like is anyone's guess.
It could even contain several camel humps.
And that is only at a given point in time, of course. Economic conditions change all the time, and the number of confounding factors is essentially infinite.
An analogy might be trying to model turbulence using a single simple equation ?
It is an economic theory, not a simple equation.
Those insisting it be reduced to a simple equation with precision and certainty are insisting upon something that does not fit with Economics whatsoever.
There is plenty of evidence for the Laffer Curve as an economic theory.
As an economic theory, it lacks certainty and has many countervailing forces acting upon it - as does all Economics.
Trying to do virtually any Economics with a single simple ends up like trying to model turbulence with such a one too, because that's how Economics works.
On another note, interesting from Jenrick on Nick Ferrari.Withering about this Government's judicial policy, but equally the last Government's record on dealing with asylum seekers and foreign national prisoners. He explained that he had to leave the last Government because they were rubbish and he isn't. Nick of course softballed Jenrick throughout.
Worth a listen though.
Yes who can forget his highly principled resignation in preparation for a run at the leadership.
Don't forget it was a French guy called Jobert Renrick who trumpeted the fact that he had put several hundred hotel loads of asylum seekers into former hotels, and not Robert Jenrick who I understand was at the time doing some interior decorating.
Selling my house and need somewhere to rent. As I earn my living trading on Betfair, I don't really have much of a PAYE salary. Usually I get round it by offering a years rent in advance, but the Renter Rights Act has given this the kibosh, meaning I could be on my Mum & Dad's sofa for Christmas, with my kids living 20 miles away. Super duper
Can you not use a solicitor to hold it in Escrow (if your bank won’t do escrow) and confirm to the landlord that they have the funds under their control and will release monthly?
When the market is tight, and there are multiple good tenants, the agent will send three or four to the landlord to choose from. The landlord will often choose the one which looks simplest. Be complicated at your peril these days. I had to offer extra rent to get this place - after rejection from five previous ones, all at the landlord stage.
Blimey. You would think a landlord would actually like someone who is in a position to lodge a year’s rent in advance with a lawyer/bank.
Not to disagree with Isam (since he's the person trying to do it) but I can't see where the act* forbids paying a lump sum rent in advance.
*If the tenant chooses to pay more than a month in advance, the landlord can accept the advance rent, but the tenancy agreement cannot require the tenant to pay this way.
The problem is that there’s no legal way for the Landlord to enforce this payment contractually, even if the renter offers it. Which makes it’s completely ineffective at reducing the risk the Landlord takes on for renting to someone with dubious credit.
The contract can only require the maximum legally permitted pre-payment of one months rent.
The entire thing looks like it’s going to be a fiasco that reduces the availability of rental accommodation by pushing out of the market all the providers who can’t take the risk that a renter isn’t completely reliable. The usual suspects will then blame landlords for the inevitable rent increases.
But if the landlord gets a years rental upfront into their bank account that surely mitigates the risk somewhat? I think if I were a landlord I'd feel that anyway.
As a renter, would you pay a years rent to a landlord with absolutely no legally enforceable contract in place? You have the same problem the landlord does - you can’t realistically risk this much money on an exchange that isn’t legally enforceable.
I'm picturing a standard tenancy agreement that says the rent is due monthly, then on signature I the tenant pay a year in advance (which is allowed) and I get a written receipt for this from my landlord.
The Landlord will not agree to this as they have no way to enforce it: Once you’ve both signed the (legal) rental contract they have to give you the keys whether you pay the year in advance or not.
Nancy Pelosi won't seek re-election. Good. The Democrat old guard need to step aside.
AOC is probably going to retire or primary Chuck Schumer too. He’s been NY Senator since 1999.
Pelosi is 85, so whose stock trades are we going to follow when she resigns?
There's a website that tracks all members of Congress stock trades (https://www.capitoltrades.com/trades), and it's fair to say that there's a remarkable degree of success from members of both parties. So much so, that a number of ETFs exist that simply track congressional stock purchases.
Just to add: this shouldn't be that surprising. Members of Congress will hear things all the time, and US law is that what elected representatives learn about government contracts and the like does not constitute inside information.
The Pelosi Stock Tracker is beating the market, although I always have to laugh at the “Inverse Cramer” account.
Just follow Capitol Trades: Pelosi has been perhaps the most successful (albeit her husband is a pretty famous VC from the 80s, so she probably has the benefit of his advice too), but pretty much everyone uses their knowledge to beat the market.
Take the Trump administration plan to make GLP-1 inhibitors available to essentially all Americans at a fixed monthly price. That's sent the price of Eli Lily (maker of Zepbound) up about 10%. A remarkable number of American politicians bought in advance of that policy shift.
To step back from the Reformgraph story into reality for a minute, the government has a big problem. It taxes this Bad Thing to stop people using it. Tax revenues drop. Shit, better tax people doing the thing we just encouraged you to do.
Road pricing is inevitable - always has been - as fuel duty rolls back. The furore will be how they replace it. Pence per mile on busy roads is the obvious solution - though the people whose suburban roads become rat runs to avoid motorways will be outraged. Or they go all vehicles all trips, and rural voters go mad pointing out there is little to no public transport and school is 9 miles away.
Like replacing Council Tax, its easier not to.
The tail end Tory Government proved taxes like NI can be lowered without affecting service provision (they burned services to the ground a decade ago anyway). Of course PB Tories contend NI cuts were fully funded by fiscal drag and cutting all infrastructure projects.
Fair to say he doesn’t think too much positive about Rachel.
It's interesting more nuanced take on the whole curve thing. It's not just reduce taxes and get more income. It's remove the complications, the breaks, the allowances. You pay a lower rate, but it is simplified and the disincentives are removed.
IIRC he said some controversial things, which werent really picked up on about less taxes for lower earners doesnt result in any extra revenue, its lowering taxes for people who are high earners that generates the overall improvements. That's a hard sell on the doorstep!
Lol it's the traditional view from the boss class: pay the rich more so they work harder, pay the poor less so they work harder. Laffer is a hack.
The problem with the “Laffer Curve” is that while it’s obviously true at the very low & very high end he has absolutely nothing helpful to say about the middle. Which can easily be complete chaos! A small increase in one tax might bring in more net revenue whilst the same increase in another tax might reduce overall revenue & vice versa.
We all know that 95% income taxes are a bad idea & that going from 0% to 5% raises money. Unfortunately that tells us nothing about what will happen if a UK government raises or lowers taxes today from current levels of taxation.
The word 'curve' gives it a spurious, unmerited air of science and precision.
No, it is Economics.
Economics involves curves of different types.
Economics is a social science, not a true science, and only an idiot thinks it entails precision.
You're having a larger, and his curve is essentially discredited.
The idea that its a simple curve is certainly discredited. The idea, however, that you may increase tax take by lowering tax rates or vice versa is still valid as humans very much do change behaviour when the rules of the game change. You hear it on PB all the time from the high earners complaining about cut-offs and higher rates making it not worth getting a pay rise or promotion or working more hours. You see it at the bottom with reductions in benefits if people work more than 16 hours making the extra income tiny for a lot of effort.
Assuming you agree that 0% tax raises no money, and that 100% tax would likely raise no money either (or minimal) then whatever lies in between must have a maximum value. The curve probably isn't too dissimilar to skewed a bell shape, but there may be other features - you'd need to provide evidence of those though.
Exactly. It is a mathematical deduction.
There must be at least one local maximum between 0% and 100%. What the function actually looks like is anyone's guess.
It could even contain several camel humps.
And that is only at a given point in time, of course. Economic conditions change all the time, and the number of confounding factors is essentially infinite.
An analogy might be trying to model turbulence using a single simple equation ?
It is an economic theory, not a simple equation.
Those insisting it be reduced to a simple equation with precision and certainty are insisting upon something that does not fit with Economics whatsoever.
There is plenty of evidence for the Laffer Curve as an economic theory.
As an economic theory, it lacks certainty and has many countervailing forces acting upon it - as does all Economics.
Trying to do virtually any Economics with a single simple ends up like trying to model turbulence with such a one too, because that's how Economics works.
Cue Martin Gardner’s graph of the Laffer Curve:
Yes, this is a joke but it’s perfectly possible for the Laffer Curve to be path dependent & therefore what happens when you raise or lower taxes now might depend on past tax rates over time.
On charging places: On Tuesday morning, I visited a local "hypermarket", a Fred Meyer's. They have had, for more than a year 12 Tesla charging stations. (They have also had, for longer, a couple of standard charging stations.)
About half of the 12 stations had cars being charged, which is typical for the timing of my visits. Not all of the cars had people in them, which is also typical. From what I can tell, these stations are a reasonable solution -- for some people, in areas like this one (a Seattle suburb).
Nancy Pelosi won't seek re-election. Good. The Democrat old guard need to step aside.
AOC is probably going to retire or primary Chuck Schumer too. He’s been NY Senator since 1999.
Pelosi is 85, so whose stock trades are we going to follow when she resigns?
There's a website that tracks all members of Congress stock trades (https://www.capitoltrades.com/trades), and it's fair to say that there's a remarkable degree of success from members of both parties. So much so, that a number of ETFs exist that simply track congressional stock purchases.
Just to add: this shouldn't be that surprising. Members of Congress will hear things all the time, and US law is that what elected representatives learn about government contracts and the like does not constitute inside information.
JOSH : They gave it to both parties! This isn't free speech or political values, Mr. Vice President. I don't know how we've done it, but we've legalized bribery.
Crime fixer caught by BBC offering to erase £60k fines on migrant workers
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/ce3kevkl3pdo A man at the centre of an organised crime network has been secretly filmed telling BBC undercover reporters how he can help to erase fines of up to £60,000 for employing illegal workers. The self-described "accountant" is among a group of Kurdish men, first exposed in a BBC investigation on Tuesday, who enable migrants to work illegally in mini-marts, by registering the businesses in their own name. The man, who goes by the name of Shaxawan, told the two journalists that he and his associates could help migrants - including asylum seekers - to set up businesses illegally and "confuse" immigration enforcement. Operating from a solicitor's office in Huddersfield, he said he had "customers in every city". In Companies House listings, Shaxawan is named as Kardos Mateen, a British resident in his 30s, and has been the director of 18 businesses across the north of England.
Shaxawan made several claims to our reporters: He could set up a company and provide bank cards and a card machine to accept payments from customers for one of our undercover reporters, believing him to be an asylum seeker His network could "confuse" Immigration Enforcement teams which "won't have the time" to check details Fake directors would be paid to register mini-marts in their own names, while illegal workers, including asylum seekers, would actually run the businesses In separate deals, other people referred to as "ghost names" would be paid to put their names to large fines for illegal working An "English woman" in the network would help reduce hefty fines to "zero" and deal with other issues like electricity, gas and bailiffs..
Companies House needs major reform. If someone is a director/psc of 10 or more companies, there should be a minimum of a face to face interview with them.
An obvious use for AI, or even some old-fashioned web-scraping.
To step back from the Reformgraph story into reality for a minute, the government has a big problem. It taxes this Bad Thing to stop people using it. Tax revenues drop. Shit, better tax people doing the thing we just encouraged you to do.
Road pricing is inevitable - always has been - as fuel duty rolls back. The furore will be how they replace it. Pence per mile on busy roads is the obvious solution - though the people whose suburban roads become rat runs to avoid motorways will be outraged. Or they go all vehicles all trips, and rural voters go mad pointing out there is little to no public transport and school is 9 miles away.
Like replacing Council Tax, its easier not to.
The tail end Tory Government proved taxes like NI can be lowered without affecting service provision (they burned services to the ground a decade ago anyway). Of course PB Tories contend NI cuts were fully funded by fiscal drag and cutting all infrastructure projects.
Fair to say he doesn’t think too much positive about Rachel.
It's interesting more nuanced take on the whole curve thing. It's not just reduce taxes and get more income. It's remove the complications, the breaks, the allowances. You pay a lower rate, but it is simplified and the disincentives are removed.
IIRC he said some controversial things, which werent really picked up on about less taxes for lower earners doesnt result in any extra revenue, its lowering taxes for people who are high earners that generates the overall improvements. That's a hard sell on the doorstep!
Lol it's the traditional view from the boss class: pay the rich more so they work harder, pay the poor less so they work harder. Laffer is a hack.
The problem with the “Laffer Curve” is that while it’s obviously true at the very low & very high end he has absolutely nothing helpful to say about the middle. Which can easily be complete chaos! A small increase in one tax might bring in more net revenue whilst the same increase in another tax might reduce overall revenue & vice versa.
We all know that 95% income taxes are a bad idea & that going from 0% to 5% raises money. Unfortunately that tells us nothing about what will happen if a UK government raises or lowers taxes today from current levels of taxation.
The word 'curve' gives it a spurious, unmerited air of science and precision.
No, it is Economics.
Economics involves curves of different types.
Economics is a social science, not a true science, and only an idiot thinks it entails precision.
You're having a larger, and his curve is essentially discredited.
The idea that its a simple curve is certainly discredited. The idea, however, that you may increase tax take by lowering tax rates or vice versa is still valid as humans very much do change behaviour when the rules of the game change. You hear it on PB all the time from the high earners complaining about cut-offs and higher rates making it not worth getting a pay rise or promotion or working more hours. You see it at the bottom with reductions in benefits if people work more than 16 hours making the extra income tiny for a lot of effort.
One reason Laffer curves dropped out of favour even on the right, and I think Laffer himself alludes to this, is that sometimes the "optimal" rate for any given tax is higher, not lower, than the current one.
To step back from the Reformgraph story into reality for a minute, the government has a big problem. It taxes this Bad Thing to stop people using it. Tax revenues drop. Shit, better tax people doing the thing we just encouraged you to do.
Road pricing is inevitable - always has been - as fuel duty rolls back. The furore will be how they replace it. Pence per mile on busy roads is the obvious solution - though the people whose suburban roads become rat runs to avoid motorways will be outraged. Or they go all vehicles all trips, and rural voters go mad pointing out there is little to no public transport and school is 9 miles away.
Like replacing Council Tax, its easier not to.
The tail end Tory Government proved taxes like NI can be lowered without affecting service provision (they burned services to the ground a decade ago anyway). Of course PB Tories contend NI cuts were fully funded by fiscal drag and cutting all infrastructure projects.
Fair to say he doesn’t think too much positive about Rachel.
It's interesting more nuanced take on the whole curve thing. It's not just reduce taxes and get more income. It's remove the complications, the breaks, the allowances. You pay a lower rate, but it is simplified and the disincentives are removed.
IIRC he said some controversial things, which werent really picked up on about less taxes for lower earners doesnt result in any extra revenue, its lowering taxes for people who are high earners that generates the overall improvements. That's a hard sell on the doorstep!
Lol it's the traditional view from the boss class: pay the rich more so they work harder, pay the poor less so they work harder. Laffer is a hack.
The problem with the “Laffer Curve” is that while it’s obviously true at the very low & very high end he has absolutely nothing helpful to say about the middle. Which can easily be complete chaos! A small increase in one tax might bring in more net revenue whilst the same increase in another tax might reduce overall revenue & vice versa.
We all know that 95% income taxes are a bad idea & that going from 0% to 5% raises money. Unfortunately that tells us nothing about what will happen if a UK government raises or lowers taxes today from current levels of taxation.
The word 'curve' gives it a spurious, unmerited air of science and precision.
No, it is Economics.
Economics involves curves of different types.
Economics is a social science, not a true science, and only an idiot thinks it entails precision.
You're having a larger, and his curve is essentially discredited.
The idea that its a simple curve is certainly discredited. The idea, however, that you may increase tax take by lowering tax rates or vice versa is still valid as humans very much do change behaviour when the rules of the game change. You hear it on PB all the time from the high earners complaining about cut-offs and higher rates making it not worth getting a pay rise or promotion or working more hours. You see it at the bottom with reductions in benefits if people work more than 16 hours making the extra income tiny for a lot of effort.
Assuming you agree that 0% tax raises no money, and that 100% tax would likely raise no money either (or minimal) then whatever lies in between must have a maximum value. The curve probably isn't too dissimilar to skewed a bell shape, but there may be other features - you'd need to provide evidence of those though.
Exactly. It is a mathematical deduction.
There must be at least one local maximum between 0% and 100%. What the function actually looks like is anyone's guess.
It could even contain several camel humps.
And that is only at a given point in time, of course. Economic conditions change all the time, and the number of confounding factors is essentially infinite.
An analogy might be trying to model turbulence using a single simple equation ?
It is an economic theory, not a simple equation.
Those insisting it be reduced to a simple equation with precision and certainty are insisting upon something that does not fit with Economics whatsoever.
There is plenty of evidence for the Laffer Curve as an economic theory.
As an economic theory, it lacks certainty and has many countervailing forces acting upon it - as does all Economics.
Trying to do virtually any Economics with a single simple ends up like trying to model turbulence with such a one too, because that's how Economics works.
Cue Martin Gardner’s graph of the Laffer Curve:
Yes, this is a joke but it’s perfectly possible for the Laffer Curve to be path dependent & therefore what happens when you raise or lower taxes now might depend on past tax rates over time.
I would say not only possible, but also likely. Hysteresis in physical systems is not uncommon, and taxpayers have conscious memories in a way that physical systems do not (one assumes).
Nancy Pelosi won't seek re-election. Good. The Democrat old guard need to step aside.
AOC is probably going to retire or primary Chuck Schumer too. He’s been NY Senator since 1999.
Pelosi is 85, so whose stock trades are we going to follow when she resigns?
There's a website that tracks all members of Congress stock trades (https://www.capitoltrades.com/trades), and it's fair to say that there's a remarkable degree of success from members of both parties. So much so, that a number of ETFs exist that simply track congressional stock purchases.
Just to add: this shouldn't be that surprising. Members of Congress will hear things all the time, and US law is that what elected representatives learn about government contracts and the like does not constitute inside information.
The Pelosi Stock Tracker is beating the market, although I always have to laugh at the “Inverse Cramer” account.
Just follow Capitol Trades: Pelosi has been perhaps the most successful (albeit her husband is a pretty famous VC from the 80s, so she probably has the benefit of his advice too), but pretty much everyone uses their knowledge to beat the market.
Take the Trump administration plan to make GLP-1 inhibitors available to essentially all Americans at a fixed monthly price. That's sent the price of Eli Lily (maker of Zepbound) up about 10%. A remarkable number of American politicians bought in advance of that policy shift.
Yes, Paul Pelosi has been a VC guy forever, but it’s quite amazing just how good Nancy’s recorded trades have been over the years.
IMHO elected politicians should probably be banned from trading individual stocks and running businesses, should be required to appoint guardians as Trump does.
Selling my house and need somewhere to rent. As I earn my living trading on Betfair, I don't really have much of a PAYE salary. Usually I get round it by offering a years rent in advance, but the Renter Rights Act has given this the kibosh, meaning I could be on my Mum & Dad's sofa for Christmas, with my kids living 20 miles away. Super duper
Can you not use a solicitor to hold it in Escrow (if your bank won’t do escrow) and confirm to the landlord that they have the funds under their control and will release monthly?
When the market is tight, and there are multiple good tenants, the agent will send three or four to the landlord to choose from. The landlord will often choose the one which looks simplest. Be complicated at your peril these days. I had to offer extra rent to get this place - after rejection from five previous ones, all at the landlord stage.
Blimey. You would think a landlord would actually like someone who is in a position to lodge a year’s rent in advance with a lawyer/bank.
Not to disagree with Isam (since he's the person trying to do it) but I can't see where the act* forbids paying a lump sum rent in advance.
*If the tenant chooses to pay more than a month in advance, the landlord can accept the advance rent, but the tenancy agreement cannot require the tenant to pay this way.
The problem is that there’s no legal way for the Landlord to enforce this payment contractually, even if the renter offers it. Which makes it’s completely ineffective at reducing the risk the Landlord takes on for renting to someone with dubious credit.
The contract can only require the maximum legally permitted pre-payment of one months rent.
The entire thing looks like it’s going to be a fiasco that reduces the availability of rental accommodation by pushing out of the market all the providers who can’t take the risk that a renter isn’t completely reliable. The usual suspects will then blame landlords for the inevitable rent increases.
But if the landlord gets a years rental upfront into their bank account that surely mitigates the risk somewhat? I think if I were a landlord I'd feel that anyway.
As a renter, would you pay a years rent to a landlord with absolutely no legally enforceable contract in place? You have the same problem the landlord does - you can’t realistically risk this much money on an exchange that isn’t legally enforceable.
I'm picturing a standard tenancy agreement that says the rent is due monthly, then on signature I the tenant pay a year in advance (which is allowed) and I get a written receipt for this from my landlord.
The Landlord will not agree to this as they have no way to enforce it: Once you’ve both signed the (legal) rental contract they have to give you the keys whether you pay the year in advance or not.
To step back from the Reformgraph story into reality for a minute, the government has a big problem. It taxes this Bad Thing to stop people using it. Tax revenues drop. Shit, better tax people doing the thing we just encouraged you to do.
Road pricing is inevitable - always has been - as fuel duty rolls back. The furore will be how they replace it. Pence per mile on busy roads is the obvious solution - though the people whose suburban roads become rat runs to avoid motorways will be outraged. Or they go all vehicles all trips, and rural voters go mad pointing out there is little to no public transport and school is 9 miles away.
Like replacing Council Tax, its easier not to.
The tail end Tory Government proved taxes like NI can be lowered without affecting service provision (they burned services to the ground a decade ago anyway). Of course PB Tories contend NI cuts were fully funded by fiscal drag and cutting all infrastructure projects.
Fair to say he doesn’t think too much positive about Rachel.
It's interesting more nuanced take on the whole curve thing. It's not just reduce taxes and get more income. It's remove the complications, the breaks, the allowances. You pay a lower rate, but it is simplified and the disincentives are removed.
IIRC he said some controversial things, which werent really picked up on about less taxes for lower earners doesnt result in any extra revenue, its lowering taxes for people who are high earners that generates the overall improvements. That's a hard sell on the doorstep!
Lol it's the traditional view from the boss class: pay the rich more so they work harder, pay the poor less so they work harder. Laffer is a hack.
The problem with the “Laffer Curve” is that while it’s obviously true at the very low & very high end he has absolutely nothing helpful to say about the middle. Which can easily be complete chaos! A small increase in one tax might bring in more net revenue whilst the same increase in another tax might reduce overall revenue & vice versa.
We all know that 95% income taxes are a bad idea & that going from 0% to 5% raises money. Unfortunately that tells us nothing about what will happen if a UK government raises or lowers taxes today from current levels of taxation.
The word 'curve' gives it a spurious, unmerited air of science and precision.
No, it is Economics.
Economics involves curves of different types.
Economics is a social science, not a true science, and only an idiot thinks it entails precision.
You're having a larger, and his curve is essentially discredited.
The idea that its a simple curve is certainly discredited. The idea, however, that you may increase tax take by lowering tax rates or vice versa is still valid as humans very much do change behaviour when the rules of the game change. You hear it on PB all the time from the high earners complaining about cut-offs and higher rates making it not worth getting a pay rise or promotion or working more hours. You see it at the bottom with reductions in benefits if people work more than 16 hours making the extra income tiny for a lot of effort.
Assuming you agree that 0% tax raises no money, and that 100% tax would likely raise no money either (or minimal) then whatever lies in between must have a maximum value. The curve probably isn't too dissimilar to skewed a bell shape, but there may be other features - you'd need to provide evidence of those though.
Exactly. It is a mathematical deduction.
There must be at least one local maximum between 0% and 100%. What the function actually looks like is anyone's guess.
It could even contain several camel humps.
And that is only at a given point in time, of course. Economic conditions change all the time, and the number of confounding factors is essentially infinite.
An analogy might be trying to model turbulence using a single simple equation ?
It is an economic theory, not a simple equation.
Those insisting it be reduced to a simple equation with precision and certainty are insisting upon something that does not fit with Economics whatsoever.
There is plenty of evidence for the Laffer Curve as an economic theory.
As an economic theory, it lacks certainty and has many countervailing forces acting upon it - as does all Economics.
Trying to do virtually any Economics with a single simple ends up like trying to model turbulence with such a one too, because that's how Economics works.
The clue is in the name. Which gives it a spurious mathematical authority which it simply doesn't possess.
The Laffer Preference for Lower Taxes doesn't have quite the same ring to it, does it ?
There are plenty of useful mathematical relationships in economics. Tax is a much hairier topic.
On another note, interesting from Jenrick on Nick Ferrari.Withering about this Government's judicial policy, but equally the last Government's record on dealing with asylum seekers and foreign national prisoners. He explained that he had to leave the last Government because they were rubbish and he isn't. Nick of course softballed Jenrick throughout.
Worth a listen though.
Yes who can forget his highly principled resignation in preparation for a run at the leadership.
Don't forget it was a French guy called Jobert Renrick who trumpeted the fact that he had put several hundred hotel loads of asylum seekers into former hotels, and not Robert Jenrick who I understand was at the time doing some interior decorating.
Ghastly man. If gets the job I think I'd vote Reform to keep the Tories out!
Nancy Pelosi won't seek re-election. Good. The Democrat old guard need to step aside.
AOC is probably going to retire or primary Chuck Schumer too. He’s been NY Senator since 1999.
Pelosi is 85, so whose stock trades are we going to follow when she resigns?
There's a website that tracks all members of Congress stock trades (https://www.capitoltrades.com/trades), and it's fair to say that there's a remarkable degree of success from members of both parties. So much so, that a number of ETFs exist that simply track congressional stock purchases.
Just to add: this shouldn't be that surprising. Members of Congress will hear things all the time, and US law is that what elected representatives learn about government contracts and the like does not constitute inside information.
The Pelosi Stock Tracker is beating the market, although I always have to laugh at the “Inverse Cramer” account.
Just follow Capitol Trades: Pelosi has been perhaps the most successful (albeit her husband is a pretty famous VC from the 80s, so she probably has the benefit of his advice too), but pretty much everyone uses their knowledge to beat the market.
TBF, she was always good with practical maths. That's what made her such a formidable leader in Congress.
To step back from the Reformgraph story into reality for a minute, the government has a big problem. It taxes this Bad Thing to stop people using it. Tax revenues drop. Shit, better tax people doing the thing we just encouraged you to do.
Road pricing is inevitable - always has been - as fuel duty rolls back. The furore will be how they replace it. Pence per mile on busy roads is the obvious solution - though the people whose suburban roads become rat runs to avoid motorways will be outraged. Or they go all vehicles all trips, and rural voters go mad pointing out there is little to no public transport and school is 9 miles away.
Like replacing Council Tax, its easier not to.
The tail end Tory Government proved taxes like NI can be lowered without affecting service provision (they burned services to the ground a decade ago anyway). Of course PB Tories contend NI cuts were fully funded by fiscal drag and cutting all infrastructure projects.
Fair to say he doesn’t think too much positive about Rachel.
It's interesting more nuanced take on the whole curve thing. It's not just reduce taxes and get more income. It's remove the complications, the breaks, the allowances. You pay a lower rate, but it is simplified and the disincentives are removed.
IIRC he said some controversial things, which werent really picked up on about less taxes for lower earners doesnt result in any extra revenue, its lowering taxes for people who are high earners that generates the overall improvements. That's a hard sell on the doorstep!
Lol it's the traditional view from the boss class: pay the rich more so they work harder, pay the poor less so they work harder. Laffer is a hack.
The problem with the “Laffer Curve” is that while it’s obviously true at the very low & very high end he has absolutely nothing helpful to say about the middle. Which can easily be complete chaos! A small increase in one tax might bring in more net revenue whilst the same increase in another tax might reduce overall revenue & vice versa.
We all know that 95% income taxes are a bad idea & that going from 0% to 5% raises money. Unfortunately that tells us nothing about what will happen if a UK government raises or lowers taxes today from current levels of taxation.
The word 'curve' gives it a spurious, unmerited air of science and precision.
No, it is Economics.
Economics involves curves of different types.
Economics is a social science, not a true science, and only an idiot thinks it entails precision.
You're having a larger, and his curve is essentially discredited.
The idea that its a simple curve is certainly discredited. The idea, however, that you may increase tax take by lowering tax rates or vice versa is still valid as humans very much do change behaviour when the rules of the game change. You hear it on PB all the time from the high earners complaining about cut-offs and higher rates making it not worth getting a pay rise or promotion or working more hours. You see it at the bottom with reductions in benefits if people work more than 16 hours making the extra income tiny for a lot of effort.
Assuming you agree that 0% tax raises no money, and that 100% tax would likely raise no money either (or minimal) then whatever lies in between must have a maximum value. The curve probably isn't too dissimilar to skewed a bell shape, but there may be other features - you'd need to provide evidence of those though.
Exactly. It is a mathematical deduction.
There must be at least one local maximum between 0% and 100%. What the function actually looks like is anyone's guess.
It could even contain several camel humps.
And that is only at a given point in time, of course. Economic conditions change all the time, and the number of confounding factors is essentially infinite.
An analogy might be trying to model turbulence using a single simple equation ?
It is an economic theory, not a simple equation.
Those insisting it be reduced to a simple equation with precision and certainty are insisting upon something that does not fit with Economics whatsoever.
There is plenty of evidence for the Laffer Curve as an economic theory.
As an economic theory, it lacks certainty and has many countervailing forces acting upon it - as does all Economics.
Trying to do virtually any Economics with a single simple ends up like trying to model turbulence with such a one too, because that's how Economics works.
Cue Martin Gardner’s graph of the Laffer Curve:
Yes, this is a joke but it’s perfectly possible for the Laffer Curve to be path dependent & therefore what happens when you raise or lower taxes now might depend on past tax rates over time.
Selling my house and need somewhere to rent. As I earn my living trading on Betfair, I don't really have much of a PAYE salary. Usually I get round it by offering a years rent in advance, but the Renter Rights Act has given this the kibosh, meaning I could be on my Mum & Dad's sofa for Christmas, with my kids living 20 miles away. Super duper
Landlords are turning down a year’s rent up front, from someone selling property in an unfortunate situation getting divorced who clearly doesn’t have financial issues? What’s the regulatory issue at play, that someone is insisting on a salary certificate?
Renter's Act is not in force yet if i have understood. It has Royal Assent but actual stuff is being done in stages.
So the ban of upfront rent, which may be in the Act, I can't recall, may not be actually live yet so @isam will be ok.
Why are they banning upfront rent?
This is supposition, but I suspect that MPs were swayed by stories of constituents borrowing money at usurious rates in order to outbid other renters for rental properties.
It’s pretty obvious that, in a world of severe property shortages, once landlords start taking large deposits it becomes incumbent on renters to acquire those deposits by any means necessary in order to secure somewhere to live. This turns every rental negotiation into a all-vs-all PvP arena where the landlord bestows their property on the last renter standing who then gets to suffer the maximal possible levels of buyers remorse.
If you want to cut off bidding wars that end up with renters worse-off on net & in hock to who knows what entities who they’ve borrowed £ from, then you have to a) ban bidding wars and b) ban large deposits.
Of course, all this is putting sticking plasters on the gaping wound that is the UK housing market that has a good chance of ending up making things worse, not better by reducing rental supply. Be careful what you wish for!
You can't regulate away a shortage of housing. This is all displacement activity. Build housing.
Build. More. Houses.
It’s not difficult. Almost every problem gets resolved if housing is plentiful and affordable.
It's not quite that simple. First, there are lots of empty and cheap houses in the frozen north and at the seaside. Second, housing is seen as an investment asset, not just a utility. Third, dual income households have bid up prices out of the reach of single buyers or renters. Fourth, the British economy is weighted to London in a way unique amongst our peer nations and in our own history. Fifth, the population has rocketed, and the number of households or wannabe households even more due to family break-ups. Sixth, commuting has gone right out of fashion with even highly-paid workers wanting to be able to walk to the office or work remotely.
We need new towns, with employers and good transport links, away from the overheated economy of London.
Nancy Pelosi won't seek re-election. Good. The Democrat old guard need to step aside.
AOC is probably going to retire or primary Chuck Schumer too. He’s been NY Senator since 1999.
Pelosi is 85, so whose stock trades are we going to follow when she resigns?
There's a website that tracks all members of Congress stock trades (https://www.capitoltrades.com/trades), and it's fair to say that there's a remarkable degree of success from members of both parties. So much so, that a number of ETFs exist that simply track congressional stock purchases.
Just to add: this shouldn't be that surprising. Members of Congress will hear things all the time, and US law is that what elected representatives learn about government contracts and the like does not constitute inside information.
The Pelosi Stock Tracker is beating the market, although I always have to laugh at the “Inverse Cramer” account.
Just follow Capitol Trades: Pelosi has been perhaps the most successful (albeit her husband is a pretty famous VC from the 80s, so she probably has the benefit of his advice too), but pretty much everyone uses their knowledge to beat the market.
TBF, she was always good with practical maths. That's what made her such a formidable leader in Congress.
Much sharper than Biden at 80. I'm reading that Original Sin book atm. God what a dreadful and consequential decision that was, him not bowing to reality a year earlier.
To step back from the Reformgraph story into reality for a minute, the government has a big problem. It taxes this Bad Thing to stop people using it. Tax revenues drop. Shit, better tax people doing the thing we just encouraged you to do.
Road pricing is inevitable - always has been - as fuel duty rolls back. The furore will be how they replace it. Pence per mile on busy roads is the obvious solution - though the people whose suburban roads become rat runs to avoid motorways will be outraged. Or they go all vehicles all trips, and rural voters go mad pointing out there is little to no public transport and school is 9 miles away.
Like replacing Council Tax, its easier not to.
The tail end Tory Government proved taxes like NI can be lowered without affecting service provision (they burned services to the ground a decade ago anyway). Of course PB Tories contend NI cuts were fully funded by fiscal drag and cutting all infrastructure projects.
Fair to say he doesn’t think too much positive about Rachel.
It's interesting more nuanced take on the whole curve thing. It's not just reduce taxes and get more income. It's remove the complications, the breaks, the allowances. You pay a lower rate, but it is simplified and the disincentives are removed.
IIRC he said some controversial things, which werent really picked up on about less taxes for lower earners doesnt result in any extra revenue, its lowering taxes for people who are high earners that generates the overall improvements. That's a hard sell on the doorstep!
Lol it's the traditional view from the boss class: pay the rich more so they work harder, pay the poor less so they work harder. Laffer is a hack.
The problem with the “Laffer Curve” is that while it’s obviously true at the very low & very high end he has absolutely nothing helpful to say about the middle. Which can easily be complete chaos! A small increase in one tax might bring in more net revenue whilst the same increase in another tax might reduce overall revenue & vice versa.
We all know that 95% income taxes are a bad idea & that going from 0% to 5% raises money. Unfortunately that tells us nothing about what will happen if a UK government raises or lowers taxes today from current levels of taxation.
The word 'curve' gives it a spurious, unmerited air of science and precision.
No, it is Economics.
Economics involves curves of different types.
Economics is a social science, not a true science, and only an idiot thinks it entails precision.
You're having a larger, and his curve is essentially discredited.
The idea that its a simple curve is certainly discredited. The idea, however, that you may increase tax take by lowering tax rates or vice versa is still valid as humans very much do change behaviour when the rules of the game change. You hear it on PB all the time from the high earners complaining about cut-offs and higher rates making it not worth getting a pay rise or promotion or working more hours. You see it at the bottom with reductions in benefits if people work more than 16 hours making the extra income tiny for a lot of effort.
Assuming you agree that 0% tax raises no money, and that 100% tax would likely raise no money either (or minimal) then whatever lies in between must have a maximum value. The curve probably isn't too dissimilar to skewed a bell shape, but there may be other features - you'd need to provide evidence of those though.
I don't think it's correct that 100% tax raises no money. A 'perfect' marxist state would be one where all income goes to the state and individuals receive what they need from the state.
It's not something I'm advocating of course and I think it would be a miserable society (then again, our current society is pretty miserable for many).
But my point is: 100% tax would not generate zero income for the state.
100% income tax would be awesome to watch the entire Premier League relocate to Dubai.
We’d have Al Barsha Man City playing Al Wasl Liverpool this weekend.
On another note, interesting from Jenrick on Nick Ferrari.Withering about this Government's judicial policy, but equally the last Government's record on dealing with asylum seekers and foreign national prisoners. He explained that he had to leave the last Government because they were rubbish and he isn't. Nick of course softballed Jenrick throughout.
Worth a listen though.
Yes who can forget his highly principled resignation in preparation for a run at the leadership.
Don't forget it was a French guy called Jobert Renrick who trumpeted the fact that he had put several hundred hotel loads of asylum seekers into former hotels, and not Robert Jenrick who I understand was at the time doing some interior decorating.
‘Jobert Renrick’ sounds like he’d be Scooby Doo’s favourite politician
To step back from the Reformgraph story into reality for a minute, the government has a big problem. It taxes this Bad Thing to stop people using it. Tax revenues drop. Shit, better tax people doing the thing we just encouraged you to do.
Road pricing is inevitable - always has been - as fuel duty rolls back. The furore will be how they replace it. Pence per mile on busy roads is the obvious solution - though the people whose suburban roads become rat runs to avoid motorways will be outraged. Or they go all vehicles all trips, and rural voters go mad pointing out there is little to no public transport and school is 9 miles away.
Like replacing Council Tax, its easier not to.
The tail end Tory Government proved taxes like NI can be lowered without affecting service provision (they burned services to the ground a decade ago anyway). Of course PB Tories contend NI cuts were fully funded by fiscal drag and cutting all infrastructure projects.
Fair to say he doesn’t think too much positive about Rachel.
It's interesting more nuanced take on the whole curve thing. It's not just reduce taxes and get more income. It's remove the complications, the breaks, the allowances. You pay a lower rate, but it is simplified and the disincentives are removed.
IIRC he said some controversial things, which werent really picked up on about less taxes for lower earners doesnt result in any extra revenue, its lowering taxes for people who are high earners that generates the overall improvements. That's a hard sell on the doorstep!
Lol it's the traditional view from the boss class: pay the rich more so they work harder, pay the poor less so they work harder. Laffer is a hack.
The problem with the “Laffer Curve” is that while it’s obviously true at the very low & very high end he has absolutely nothing helpful to say about the middle. Which can easily be complete chaos! A small increase in one tax might bring in more net revenue whilst the same increase in another tax might reduce overall revenue & vice versa.
We all know that 95% income taxes are a bad idea & that going from 0% to 5% raises money. Unfortunately that tells us nothing about what will happen if a UK government raises or lowers taxes today from current levels of taxation.
The word 'curve' gives it a spurious, unmerited air of science and precision.
No, it is Economics.
Economics involves curves of different types.
Economics is a social science, not a true science, and only an idiot thinks it entails precision.
You're having a larger, and his curve is essentially discredited.
The idea that its a simple curve is certainly discredited. The idea, however, that you may increase tax take by lowering tax rates or vice versa is still valid as humans very much do change behaviour when the rules of the game change. You hear it on PB all the time from the high earners complaining about cut-offs and higher rates making it not worth getting a pay rise or promotion or working more hours. You see it at the bottom with reductions in benefits if people work more than 16 hours making the extra income tiny for a lot of effort.
Assuming you agree that 0% tax raises no money, and that 100% tax would likely raise no money either (or minimal) then whatever lies in between must have a maximum value. The curve probably isn't too dissimilar to skewed a bell shape, but there may be other features - you'd need to provide evidence of those though.
Exactly. It is a mathematical deduction.
There must be at least one local maximum between 0% and 100%. What the function actually looks like is anyone's guess.
It could even contain several camel humps.
And that is only at a given point in time, of course. Economic conditions change all the time, and the number of confounding factors is essentially infinite.
An analogy might be trying to model turbulence using a single simple equation ?
It is an economic theory, not a simple equation.
Those insisting it be reduced to a simple equation with precision and certainty are insisting upon something that does not fit with Economics whatsoever.
There is plenty of evidence for the Laffer Curve as an economic theory.
As an economic theory, it lacks certainty and has many countervailing forces acting upon it - as does all Economics.
Trying to do virtually any Economics with a single simple ends up like trying to model turbulence with such a one too, because that's how Economics works.
Cue Martin Gardner’s graph of the Laffer Curve:
Yes, this is a joke but it’s perfectly possible for the Laffer Curve to be path dependent & therefore what happens when you raise or lower taxes now might depend on past tax rates over time.
Absolutely agreed, 100%.
Which does not remotely discount or discredit the Laffer Curve, it is still a perfectly valid economic theory.
Just as with all Economics, its complicated, and the only correct answer normally is to say "on the one hand ... on the other hand ..."
Anyone who tries to be simplistic, either does not understand Economics, or is pushing an agenda, or both.
To step back from the Reformgraph story into reality for a minute, the government has a big problem. It taxes this Bad Thing to stop people using it. Tax revenues drop. Shit, better tax people doing the thing we just encouraged you to do.
Road pricing is inevitable - always has been - as fuel duty rolls back. The furore will be how they replace it. Pence per mile on busy roads is the obvious solution - though the people whose suburban roads become rat runs to avoid motorways will be outraged. Or they go all vehicles all trips, and rural voters go mad pointing out there is little to no public transport and school is 9 miles away.
Like replacing Council Tax, its easier not to.
The tail end Tory Government proved taxes like NI can be lowered without affecting service provision (they burned services to the ground a decade ago anyway). Of course PB Tories contend NI cuts were fully funded by fiscal drag and cutting all infrastructure projects.
Fair to say he doesn’t think too much positive about Rachel.
It's interesting more nuanced take on the whole curve thing. It's not just reduce taxes and get more income. It's remove the complications, the breaks, the allowances. You pay a lower rate, but it is simplified and the disincentives are removed.
IIRC he said some controversial things, which werent really picked up on about less taxes for lower earners doesnt result in any extra revenue, its lowering taxes for people who are high earners that generates the overall improvements. That's a hard sell on the doorstep!
Lol it's the traditional view from the boss class: pay the rich more so they work harder, pay the poor less so they work harder. Laffer is a hack.
The problem with the “Laffer Curve” is that while it’s obviously true at the very low & very high end he has absolutely nothing helpful to say about the middle. Which can easily be complete chaos! A small increase in one tax might bring in more net revenue whilst the same increase in another tax might reduce overall revenue & vice versa.
We all know that 95% income taxes are a bad idea & that going from 0% to 5% raises money. Unfortunately that tells us nothing about what will happen if a UK government raises or lowers taxes today from current levels of taxation.
The word 'curve' gives it a spurious, unmerited air of science and precision.
No, it is Economics.
Economics involves curves of different types.
Economics is a social science, not a true science, and only an idiot thinks it entails precision.
You're having a larger, and his curve is essentially discredited.
The idea that its a simple curve is certainly discredited. The idea, however, that you may increase tax take by lowering tax rates or vice versa is still valid as humans very much do change behaviour when the rules of the game change. You hear it on PB all the time from the high earners complaining about cut-offs and higher rates making it not worth getting a pay rise or promotion or working more hours. You see it at the bottom with reductions in benefits if people work more than 16 hours making the extra income tiny for a lot of effort.
Assuming you agree that 0% tax raises no money, and that 100% tax would likely raise no money either (or minimal) then whatever lies in between must have a maximum value. The curve probably isn't too dissimilar to skewed a bell shape, but there may be other features - you'd need to provide evidence of those though.
I don't think it's correct that 100% tax raises no money. A 'perfect' marxist state would be one where all income goes to the state and individuals receive what they need from the state.
It's not something I'm advocating of course and I think it would be a miserable society (then again, our current society is pretty miserable for many).
But my point is: 100% tax would not generate zero income for the state.
100% income tax would be awesome to watch the entire Premier League relocate to Dubai.
We’d have Al Barsha Man City playing Al Wasl Liverpool this weekend.
Selling my house and need somewhere to rent. As I earn my living trading on Betfair, I don't really have much of a PAYE salary. Usually I get round it by offering a years rent in advance, but the Renter Rights Act has given this the kibosh, meaning I could be on my Mum & Dad's sofa for Christmas, with my kids living 20 miles away. Super duper
Landlords are turning down a year’s rent up front, from someone selling property in an unfortunate situation getting divorced who clearly doesn’t have financial issues? What’s the regulatory issue at play, that someone is insisting on a salary certificate?
Renter's Act is not in force yet if i have understood. It has Royal Assent but actual stuff is being done in stages.
So the ban of upfront rent, which may be in the Act, I can't recall, may not be actually live yet so @isam will be ok.
Why are they banning upfront rent?
This is supposition, but I suspect that MPs were swayed by stories of constituents borrowing money at usurious rates in order to outbid other renters for rental properties.
It’s pretty obvious that, in a world of severe property shortages, once landlords start taking large deposits it becomes incumbent on renters to acquire those deposits by any means necessary in order to secure somewhere to live. This turns every rental negotiation into a all-vs-all PvP arena where the landlord bestows their property on the last renter standing who then gets to suffer the maximal possible levels of buyers remorse.
If you want to cut off bidding wars that end up with renters worse-off on net & in hock to who knows what entities who they’ve borrowed £ from, then you have to a) ban bidding wars and b) ban large deposits.
Of course, all this is putting sticking plasters on the gaping wound that is the UK housing market that has a good chance of ending up making things worse, not better by reducing rental supply. Be careful what you wish for!
You can't regulate away a shortage of housing. This is all displacement activity. Build housing.
Build. More. Houses.
It’s not difficult. Almost every problem gets resolved if housing is plentiful and affordable.
It's not quite that simple. First, there are lots of empty and cheap houses in the frozen north and at the seaside. Second, housing is seen as an investment asset, not just a utility. Third, dual income households have bid up prices out of the reach of single buyers or renters. Fourth, the British economy is weighted to London in a way unique amongst our peer nations and in our own history. Fifth, the population has rocketed, and the number of households or wannabe households even more due to family break-ups. Sixth, commuting has gone right out of fashion with even highly-paid workers wanting to be able to walk to the office or work remotely.
We need new towns, with employers and good transport links, away from the overheated economy of London.
First, where are these "lots" of empty and cheap houses? Living up here in the north, I don't see many. Cheaper than London, but not cheap and not lots.
Second, this is a function of the broken market. If the market wasn't broken, making housing a one-way bet, they'd no longer be such an asset.
Third, this is another function of the broken market. In a healthy market supply and demand are more in equilibrium meaning that if prices are too high others enter the market increasing supply which lowers the prices. Dual income households can only bid prices out of reach, if supply is capped.
Fourth, yes this is a major problem that needs addressing.
Fifth, yes this has greatly increased demand, but can [and should be] be balanced by an increase in supply. Also you've neglected to mention another factor here, the increase in number of households due to increased life-expectancy. Living longer means more people live, for longer, without kids in what used to be their family home they brought kids up in, but the kids and grandkids still need a home of their own after flying the nest.
Six seems contradictory to me. People working from home don't need transport links. Not sure where the evidence is that people walk to the office, certainly don't see that on my morning commute which has no shortage of vehicles on the motorway.
On another note, interesting from Jenrick on Nick Ferrari.Withering about this Government's judicial policy, but equally the last Government's record on dealing with asylum seekers and foreign national prisoners. He explained that he had to leave the last Government because they were rubbish and he isn't. Nick of course softballed Jenrick throughout.
Worth a listen though.
Yes who can forget his highly principled resignation in preparation for a run at the leadership.
Don't forget it was a French guy called Jobert Renrick who trumpeted the fact that he had put several hundred hotel loads of asylum seekers into former hotels, and not Robert Jenrick who I understand was at the time doing some interior decorating.
‘Jobert Renrick’ sounds like he’d be Scooby Doo’s favourite politician
Selling my house and need somewhere to rent. As I earn my living trading on Betfair, I don't really have much of a PAYE salary. Usually I get round it by offering a years rent in advance, but the Renter Rights Act has given this the kibosh, meaning I could be on my Mum & Dad's sofa for Christmas, with my kids living 20 miles away. Super duper
Landlords are turning down a year’s rent up front, from someone selling property in an unfortunate situation getting divorced who clearly doesn’t have financial issues? What’s the regulatory issue at play, that someone is insisting on a salary certificate?
Renter's Act is not in force yet if i have understood. It has Royal Assent but actual stuff is being done in stages.
So the ban of upfront rent, which may be in the Act, I can't recall, may not be actually live yet so @isam will be ok.
Why are they banning upfront rent?
This is supposition, but I suspect that MPs were swayed by stories of constituents borrowing money at usurious rates in order to outbid other renters for rental properties.
It’s pretty obvious that, in a world of severe property shortages, once landlords start taking large deposits it becomes incumbent on renters to acquire those deposits by any means necessary in order to secure somewhere to live. This turns every rental negotiation into a all-vs-all PvP arena where the landlord bestows their property on the last renter standing who then gets to suffer the maximal possible levels of buyers remorse.
If you want to cut off bidding wars that end up with renters worse-off on net & in hock to who knows what entities who they’ve borrowed £ from, then you have to a) ban bidding wars and b) ban large deposits.
Of course, all this is putting sticking plasters on the gaping wound that is the UK housing market that has a good chance of ending up making things worse, not better by reducing rental supply. Be careful what you wish for!
You can't regulate away a shortage of housing. This is all displacement activity. Build housing.
Build. More. Houses.
It’s not difficult. Almost every problem gets resolved if housing is plentiful and affordable.
It's not quite that simple. First, there are lots of empty and cheap houses in the frozen north and at the seaside. Second, housing is seen as an investment asset, not just a utility. Third, dual income households have bid up prices out of the reach of single buyers or renters. Fourth, the British economy is weighted to London in a way unique amongst our peer nations and in our own history. Fifth, the population has rocketed, and the number of households or wannabe households even more due to family break-ups. Sixth, commuting has gone right out of fashion with even highly-paid workers wanting to be able to walk to the office or work remotely.
We need new towns, with employers and good transport links, away from the overheated economy of London.
First, where are these "lots" of empty and cheap houses? Living up here in the north, I don't see many. Cheaper than London, but not cheap and not lots.
Second, this is a function of the broken market. If the market wasn't broken, making housing a one-way bet, they'd no longer be such an asset.
Third, this is another function of the broken market. In a healthy market supply and demand are more in equilibrium meaning that if prices are too high others enter the market increasing supply which lowers the prices. Dual income households can only bid prices out of reach, if supply is capped.
Fourth, yes this is a major problem that needs addressing.
Fifth, yes this has greatly increased demand, but can [and should be] be balanced by an increase in supply. Also you've neglected to mention another factor here, the increase in number of households due to increased life-expectancy. Living longer means more people live, for longer, without kids in what used to be their family home they brought kids up in, but the kids and grandkids still need a home of their own after flying the nest.
Six seems contradictory to me. People working from home don't need transport links. Not sure where the evidence is that people walk to the office, certainly don't see that on my morning commute which has no shortage of vehicles on the motorway.
Nancy Pelosi won't seek re-election. Good. The Democrat old guard need to step aside.
AOC is probably going to retire or primary Chuck Schumer too. He’s been NY Senator since 1999.
Pelosi is 85, so whose stock trades are we going to follow when she resigns?
There's a website that tracks all members of Congress stock trades (https://www.capitoltrades.com/trades), and it's fair to say that there's a remarkable degree of success from members of both parties. So much so, that a number of ETFs exist that simply track congressional stock purchases.
Just to add: this shouldn't be that surprising. Members of Congress will hear things all the time, and US law is that what elected representatives learn about government contracts and the like does not constitute inside information.
The Pelosi Stock Tracker is beating the market, although I always have to laugh at the “Inverse Cramer” account.
Just follow Capitol Trades: Pelosi has been perhaps the most successful (albeit her husband is a pretty famous VC from the 80s, so she probably has the benefit of his advice too), but pretty much everyone uses their knowledge to beat the market.
Take the Trump administration plan to make GLP-1 inhibitors available to essentially all Americans at a fixed monthly price. That's sent the price of Eli Lily (maker of Zepbound) up about 10%. A remarkable number of American politicians bought in advance of that policy shift.
In 18 months MTG has $8m worth of purchases and $0.18m worth of sales. In the modern world it pays to be a loud obnoxious loon! We worry here about upgraded tickets to a football match.
To step back from the Reformgraph story into reality for a minute, the government has a big problem. It taxes this Bad Thing to stop people using it. Tax revenues drop. Shit, better tax people doing the thing we just encouraged you to do.
Road pricing is inevitable - always has been - as fuel duty rolls back. The furore will be how they replace it. Pence per mile on busy roads is the obvious solution - though the people whose suburban roads become rat runs to avoid motorways will be outraged. Or they go all vehicles all trips, and rural voters go mad pointing out there is little to no public transport and school is 9 miles away.
Like replacing Council Tax, its easier not to.
The tail end Tory Government proved taxes like NI can be lowered without affecting service provision (they burned services to the ground a decade ago anyway). Of course PB Tories contend NI cuts were fully funded by fiscal drag and cutting all infrastructure projects.
Fair to say he doesn’t think too much positive about Rachel.
It's interesting more nuanced take on the whole curve thing. It's not just reduce taxes and get more income. It's remove the complications, the breaks, the allowances. You pay a lower rate, but it is simplified and the disincentives are removed.
IIRC he said some controversial things, which werent really picked up on about less taxes for lower earners doesnt result in any extra revenue, its lowering taxes for people who are high earners that generates the overall improvements. That's a hard sell on the doorstep!
Lol it's the traditional view from the boss class: pay the rich more so they work harder, pay the poor less so they work harder. Laffer is a hack.
The problem with the “Laffer Curve” is that while it’s obviously true at the very low & very high end he has absolutely nothing helpful to say about the middle. Which can easily be complete chaos! A small increase in one tax might bring in more net revenue whilst the same increase in another tax might reduce overall revenue & vice versa.
We all know that 95% income taxes are a bad idea & that going from 0% to 5% raises money. Unfortunately that tells us nothing about what will happen if a UK government raises or lowers taxes today from current levels of taxation.
The word 'curve' gives it a spurious, unmerited air of science and precision.
No, it is Economics.
Economics involves curves of different types.
Economics is a social science, not a true science, and only an idiot thinks it entails precision.
You're having a larger, and his curve is essentially discredited.
The idea that its a simple curve is certainly discredited. The idea, however, that you may increase tax take by lowering tax rates or vice versa is still valid as humans very much do change behaviour when the rules of the game change. You hear it on PB all the time from the high earners complaining about cut-offs and higher rates making it not worth getting a pay rise or promotion or working more hours. You see it at the bottom with reductions in benefits if people work more than 16 hours making the extra income tiny for a lot of effort.
Assuming you agree that 0% tax raises no money, and that 100% tax would likely raise no money either (or minimal) then whatever lies in between must have a maximum value. The curve probably isn't too dissimilar to skewed a bell shape, but there may be other features - you'd need to provide evidence of those though.
I don't think it's correct that 100% tax raises no money. A 'perfect' marxist state would be one where all income goes to the state and individuals receive what they need from the state.
It's not something I'm advocating of course and I think it would be a miserable society (then again, our current society is pretty miserable for many).
But my point is: 100% tax would not generate zero income for the state.
100% income tax would be awesome to watch the entire Premier League relocate to Dubai.
We’d have Al Barsha Man City playing Al Wasl Liverpool this weekend.
Nancy Pelosi won't seek re-election. Good. The Democrat old guard need to step aside.
AOC is probably going to retire or primary Chuck Schumer too. He’s been NY Senator since 1999.
Pelosi is 85, so whose stock trades are we going to follow when she resigns?
There's a website that tracks all members of Congress stock trades (https://www.capitoltrades.com/trades), and it's fair to say that there's a remarkable degree of success from members of both parties. So much so, that a number of ETFs exist that simply track congressional stock purchases.
Just to add: this shouldn't be that surprising. Members of Congress will hear things all the time, and US law is that what elected representatives learn about government contracts and the like does not constitute inside information.
The Pelosi Stock Tracker is beating the market, although I always have to laugh at the “Inverse Cramer” account.
Just follow Capitol Trades: Pelosi has been perhaps the most successful (albeit her husband is a pretty famous VC from the 80s, so she probably has the benefit of his advice too), but pretty much everyone uses their knowledge to beat the market.
Take the Trump administration plan to make GLP-1 inhibitors available to essentially all Americans at a fixed monthly price. That's sent the price of Eli Lily (maker of Zepbound) up about 10%. A remarkable number of American politicians bought in advance of that policy shift.
Yes, Paul Pelosi has been a VC guy forever, but it’s quite amazing just how good Nancy’s recorded trades have been over the years.
IMHO elected politicians should probably be banned from trading individual stocks and running businesses, should be required to appoint guardians as Trump does.
I agree.
However, it is hard to get politicians to legislate against themselves. Especially when so many see it as a perk of office.
To step back from the Reformgraph story into reality for a minute, the government has a big problem. It taxes this Bad Thing to stop people using it. Tax revenues drop. Shit, better tax people doing the thing we just encouraged you to do.
Road pricing is inevitable - always has been - as fuel duty rolls back. The furore will be how they replace it. Pence per mile on busy roads is the obvious solution - though the people whose suburban roads become rat runs to avoid motorways will be outraged. Or they go all vehicles all trips, and rural voters go mad pointing out there is little to no public transport and school is 9 miles away.
Like replacing Council Tax, its easier not to.
The tail end Tory Government proved taxes like NI can be lowered without affecting service provision (they burned services to the ground a decade ago anyway). Of course PB Tories contend NI cuts were fully funded by fiscal drag and cutting all infrastructure projects.
Fair to say he doesn’t think too much positive about Rachel.
It's interesting more nuanced take on the whole curve thing. It's not just reduce taxes and get more income. It's remove the complications, the breaks, the allowances. You pay a lower rate, but it is simplified and the disincentives are removed.
IIRC he said some controversial things, which werent really picked up on about less taxes for lower earners doesnt result in any extra revenue, its lowering taxes for people who are high earners that generates the overall improvements. That's a hard sell on the doorstep!
Lol it's the traditional view from the boss class: pay the rich more so they work harder, pay the poor less so they work harder. Laffer is a hack.
The problem with the “Laffer Curve” is that while it’s obviously true at the very low & very high end he has absolutely nothing helpful to say about the middle. Which can easily be complete chaos! A small increase in one tax might bring in more net revenue whilst the same increase in another tax might reduce overall revenue & vice versa.
We all know that 95% income taxes are a bad idea & that going from 0% to 5% raises money. Unfortunately that tells us nothing about what will happen if a UK government raises or lowers taxes today from current levels of taxation.
The word 'curve' gives it a spurious, unmerited air of science and precision.
No, it is Economics.
Economics involves curves of different types.
Economics is a social science, not a true science, and only an idiot thinks it entails precision.
You're having a larger, and his curve is essentially discredited.
The idea that its a simple curve is certainly discredited. The idea, however, that you may increase tax take by lowering tax rates or vice versa is still valid as humans very much do change behaviour when the rules of the game change. You hear it on PB all the time from the high earners complaining about cut-offs and higher rates making it not worth getting a pay rise or promotion or working more hours. You see it at the bottom with reductions in benefits if people work more than 16 hours making the extra income tiny for a lot of effort.
Assuming you agree that 0% tax raises no money, and that 100% tax would likely raise no money either (or minimal) then whatever lies in between must have a maximum value. The curve probably isn't too dissimilar to skewed a bell shape, but there may be other features - you'd need to provide evidence of those though.
Exactly. It is a mathematical deduction.
There must be at least one local maximum between 0% and 100%. What the function actually looks like is anyone's guess.
It could even contain several camel humps.
And that is only at a given point in time, of course. Economic conditions change all the time, and the number of confounding factors is essentially infinite.
An analogy might be trying to model turbulence using a single simple equation ?
It is an economic theory, not a simple equation.
Those insisting it be reduced to a simple equation with precision and certainty are insisting upon something that does not fit with Economics whatsoever.
There is plenty of evidence for the Laffer Curve as an economic theory.
As an economic theory, it lacks certainty and has many countervailing forces acting upon it - as does all Economics.
Trying to do virtually any Economics with a single simple ends up like trying to model turbulence with such a one too, because that's how Economics works.
Cue Martin Gardner’s graph of the Laffer Curve:
Yes, this is a joke but it’s perfectly possible for the Laffer Curve to be path dependent & therefore what happens when you raise or lower taxes now might depend on past tax rates over time.
Absolutely agreed, 100%.
Which does not remotely discount or discredit the Laffer Curve, it is still a perfectly valid economic theory.
Just as with all Economics, its complicated, and the only correct answer normally is to say "on the one hand ... on the other hand ..."
Anyone who tries to be simplistic, either does not understand Economics, or is pushing an agenda, or both.
I think this all misrepresents what the Laffer curve is saying, and that's that there are situations where lowering taxes can increase revenue from those taxes. This is an actual truth in Economics. One of very few!
Of course the 'there are situations' is rather undemanding, but I'd say that there's a further Laffer conjecture that these situations really do occur with our current arrangements.
Nancy Pelosi won't seek re-election. Good. The Democrat old guard need to step aside.
AOC is probably going to retire or primary Chuck Schumer too. He’s been NY Senator since 1999.
Pelosi is 85, so whose stock trades are we going to follow when she resigns?
There's a website that tracks all members of Congress stock trades (https://www.capitoltrades.com/trades), and it's fair to say that there's a remarkable degree of success from members of both parties. So much so, that a number of ETFs exist that simply track congressional stock purchases.
Just to add: this shouldn't be that surprising. Members of Congress will hear things all the time, and US law is that what elected representatives learn about government contracts and the like does not constitute inside information.
The Pelosi Stock Tracker is beating the market, although I always have to laugh at the “Inverse Cramer” account.
Just follow Capitol Trades: Pelosi has been perhaps the most successful (albeit her husband is a pretty famous VC from the 80s, so she probably has the benefit of his advice too), but pretty much everyone uses their knowledge to beat the market.
TBF, she was always good with practical maths. That's what made her such a formidable leader in Congress.
Much sharper than Biden at 80. I'm reading that Original Sin book atm. God what a dreadful and consequential decision that was, him not bowing to reality a year earlier.
To step back from the Reformgraph story into reality for a minute, the government has a big problem. It taxes this Bad Thing to stop people using it. Tax revenues drop. Shit, better tax people doing the thing we just encouraged you to do.
Road pricing is inevitable - always has been - as fuel duty rolls back. The furore will be how they replace it. Pence per mile on busy roads is the obvious solution - though the people whose suburban roads become rat runs to avoid motorways will be outraged. Or they go all vehicles all trips, and rural voters go mad pointing out there is little to no public transport and school is 9 miles away.
Like replacing Council Tax, its easier not to.
The tail end Tory Government proved taxes like NI can be lowered without affecting service provision (they burned services to the ground a decade ago anyway). Of course PB Tories contend NI cuts were fully funded by fiscal drag and cutting all infrastructure projects.
Fair to say he doesn’t think too much positive about Rachel.
It's interesting more nuanced take on the whole curve thing. It's not just reduce taxes and get more income. It's remove the complications, the breaks, the allowances. You pay a lower rate, but it is simplified and the disincentives are removed.
IIRC he said some controversial things, which werent really picked up on about less taxes for lower earners doesnt result in any extra revenue, its lowering taxes for people who are high earners that generates the overall improvements. That's a hard sell on the doorstep!
Lol it's the traditional view from the boss class: pay the rich more so they work harder, pay the poor less so they work harder. Laffer is a hack.
The problem with the “Laffer Curve” is that while it’s obviously true at the very low & very high end he has absolutely nothing helpful to say about the middle. Which can easily be complete chaos! A small increase in one tax might bring in more net revenue whilst the same increase in another tax might reduce overall revenue & vice versa.
We all know that 95% income taxes are a bad idea & that going from 0% to 5% raises money. Unfortunately that tells us nothing about what will happen if a UK government raises or lowers taxes today from current levels of taxation.
The word 'curve' gives it a spurious, unmerited air of science and precision.
No, it is Economics.
Economics involves curves of different types.
Economics is a social science, not a true science, and only an idiot thinks it entails precision.
You're having a larger, and his curve is essentially discredited.
The idea that its a simple curve is certainly discredited. The idea, however, that you may increase tax take by lowering tax rates or vice versa is still valid as humans very much do change behaviour when the rules of the game change. You hear it on PB all the time from the high earners complaining about cut-offs and higher rates making it not worth getting a pay rise or promotion or working more hours. You see it at the bottom with reductions in benefits if people work more than 16 hours making the extra income tiny for a lot of effort.
Assuming you agree that 0% tax raises no money, and that 100% tax would likely raise no money either (or minimal) then whatever lies in between must have a maximum value. The curve probably isn't too dissimilar to skewed a bell shape, but there may be other features - you'd need to provide evidence of those though.
Exactly. It is a mathematical deduction.
There must be at least one local maximum between 0% and 100%. What the function actually looks like is anyone's guess.
It could even contain several camel humps.
And that is only at a given point in time, of course. Economic conditions change all the time, and the number of confounding factors is essentially infinite.
An analogy might be trying to model turbulence using a single simple equation ?
It is an economic theory, not a simple equation.
Those insisting it be reduced to a simple equation with precision and certainty are insisting upon something that does not fit with Economics whatsoever.
There is plenty of evidence for the Laffer Curve as an economic theory.
As an economic theory, it lacks certainty and has many countervailing forces acting upon it - as does all Economics.
Trying to do virtually any Economics with a single simple ends up like trying to model turbulence with such a one too, because that's how Economics works.
The clue is in the name. Which gives it a spurious mathematical authority which it simply doesn't possess.
The Laffer Preference for Lower Taxes doesn't have quite the same ring to it, does it ?
There are plenty of useful mathematical relationships in economics. Tax is a much hairier topic.
Bullshit.
There are a plethora of complicated economic theories that involve the name curve, not one of which is a simple equation or pretending to a spurious mathematical authority.
Would you say the same thing about the Engel Curve? The Indifference Curve? The Phillips Curve?
None have a simple mathematical equation and all are subject to many countervailing forces and can go in counterintuitive directions depending upon factors influencing it. Because it is Economics not Mathematics.
This false criticism of the Laffer Curve is not levied against any other such theory, by holding it to a different standard, not because of a flaw in the Laffer Curve but due to not liking what it can stand for.
Nancy Pelosi won't seek re-election. Good. The Democrat old guard need to step aside.
AOC is probably going to retire or primary Chuck Schumer too. He’s been NY Senator since 1999.
Pelosi is 85, so whose stock trades are we going to follow when she resigns?
There's a website that tracks all members of Congress stock trades (https://www.capitoltrades.com/trades), and it's fair to say that there's a remarkable degree of success from members of both parties. So much so, that a number of ETFs exist that simply track congressional stock purchases.
Just to add: this shouldn't be that surprising. Members of Congress will hear things all the time, and US law is that what elected representatives learn about government contracts and the like does not constitute inside information.
The Pelosi Stock Tracker is beating the market, although I always have to laugh at the “Inverse Cramer” account.
Just follow Capitol Trades: Pelosi has been perhaps the most successful (albeit her husband is a pretty famous VC from the 80s, so she probably has the benefit of his advice too), but pretty much everyone uses their knowledge to beat the market.
Take the Trump administration plan to make GLP-1 inhibitors available to essentially all Americans at a fixed monthly price. That's sent the price of Eli Lily (maker of Zepbound) up about 10%. A remarkable number of American politicians bought in advance of that policy shift.
In 18 months MTG has $8m worth of purchases and $0.18m worth of sales. In the modern world it pays to be a loud obnoxious loon! We worry here about upgraded tickets to a football match.
Magic: The Gathering having $8m worth of purchases and $0.18m of sales is because of the fact it is a trading card game so has lots of secondary purchases?
Nancy Pelosi won't seek re-election. Good. The Democrat old guard need to step aside.
AOC is probably going to retire or primary Chuck Schumer too. He’s been NY Senator since 1999.
Pelosi is 85, so whose stock trades are we going to follow when she resigns?
There's a website that tracks all members of Congress stock trades (https://www.capitoltrades.com/trades), and it's fair to say that there's a remarkable degree of success from members of both parties. So much so, that a number of ETFs exist that simply track congressional stock purchases.
Just to add: this shouldn't be that surprising. Members of Congress will hear things all the time, and US law is that what elected representatives learn about government contracts and the like does not constitute inside information.
The Pelosi Stock Tracker is beating the market, although I always have to laugh at the “Inverse Cramer” account.
Just follow Capitol Trades: Pelosi has been perhaps the most successful (albeit her husband is a pretty famous VC from the 80s, so she probably has the benefit of his advice too), but pretty much everyone uses their knowledge to beat the market.
Take the Trump administration plan to make GLP-1 inhibitors available to essentially all Americans at a fixed monthly price. That's sent the price of Eli Lily (maker of Zepbound) up about 10%. A remarkable number of American politicians bought in advance of that policy shift.
Yes, Paul Pelosi has been a VC guy forever, but it’s quite amazing just how good Nancy’s recorded trades have been over the years.
IMHO elected politicians should probably be banned from trading individual stocks and running businesses, should be required to appoint guardians as Trump does.
I agree.
However, it is hard to get politicians to legislate against themselves. Especially when so many see it as a perk of office.
Oh it’s one of those issues that erodes trust in politics in general. If there were a referendum on politicians being allowed to make individual stocks trades, then it would be 90/10 against. But of course there never will be such a referendum.
Its a stats thing not a b365 thing. Opta won't count it so nor do the bookies.
It's indicative of the lack of nuance in the modern world. Something is obviously wrong, but if there is a way to wriggle out of it people call it right. Reminds me of Sir Keir
How can Santos have been booked for a foul but "To commit a foul" be settled as a loser? Lunacy
Its a stats thing not a b365 thing. Opta won't count it so nor do the bookies.
It's indicative of the lack of nuance in the modern world. Something is obviously wrong, but if there is a way to wriggle out of it people call it right. Reminds me of Sir Keir
How can Santos have been booked for a foul but "To commit a foul" be settled as a loser? Lunacy
I'm with the bookie on this one, so long as they aren't having their cake (i.e. if they offer "not to commit a foul", that should be settled as a win).
To step back from the Reformgraph story into reality for a minute, the government has a big problem. It taxes this Bad Thing to stop people using it. Tax revenues drop. Shit, better tax people doing the thing we just encouraged you to do.
Road pricing is inevitable - always has been - as fuel duty rolls back. The furore will be how they replace it. Pence per mile on busy roads is the obvious solution - though the people whose suburban roads become rat runs to avoid motorways will be outraged. Or they go all vehicles all trips, and rural voters go mad pointing out there is little to no public transport and school is 9 miles away.
Like replacing Council Tax, its easier not to.
The tail end Tory Government proved taxes like NI can be lowered without affecting service provision (they burned services to the ground a decade ago anyway). Of course PB Tories contend NI cuts were fully funded by fiscal drag and cutting all infrastructure projects.
Fair to say he doesn’t think too much positive about Rachel.
It's interesting more nuanced take on the whole curve thing. It's not just reduce taxes and get more income. It's remove the complications, the breaks, the allowances. You pay a lower rate, but it is simplified and the disincentives are removed.
IIRC he said some controversial things, which werent really picked up on about less taxes for lower earners doesnt result in any extra revenue, its lowering taxes for people who are high earners that generates the overall improvements. That's a hard sell on the doorstep!
Lol it's the traditional view from the boss class: pay the rich more so they work harder, pay the poor less so they work harder. Laffer is a hack.
The problem with the “Laffer Curve” is that while it’s obviously true at the very low & very high end he has absolutely nothing helpful to say about the middle. Which can easily be complete chaos! A small increase in one tax might bring in more net revenue whilst the same increase in another tax might reduce overall revenue & vice versa.
We all know that 95% income taxes are a bad idea & that going from 0% to 5% raises money. Unfortunately that tells us nothing about what will happen if a UK government raises or lowers taxes today from current levels of taxation.
The word 'curve' gives it a spurious, unmerited air of science and precision.
No, it is Economics.
Economics involves curves of different types.
Economics is a social science, not a true science, and only an idiot thinks it entails precision.
You're having a larger, and his curve is essentially discredited.
The idea that its a simple curve is certainly discredited. The idea, however, that you may increase tax take by lowering tax rates or vice versa is still valid as humans very much do change behaviour when the rules of the game change. You hear it on PB all the time from the high earners complaining about cut-offs and higher rates making it not worth getting a pay rise or promotion or working more hours. You see it at the bottom with reductions in benefits if people work more than 16 hours making the extra income tiny for a lot of effort.
Assuming you agree that 0% tax raises no money, and that 100% tax would likely raise no money either (or minimal) then whatever lies in between must have a maximum value. The curve probably isn't too dissimilar to skewed a bell shape, but there may be other features - you'd need to provide evidence of those though.
Exactly. It is a mathematical deduction.
There must be at least one local maximum between 0% and 100%. What the function actually looks like is anyone's guess.
It could even contain several camel humps.
And that is only at a given point in time, of course. Economic conditions change all the time, and the number of confounding factors is essentially infinite.
An analogy might be trying to model turbulence using a single simple equation ?
It is an economic theory, not a simple equation.
Those insisting it be reduced to a simple equation with precision and certainty are insisting upon something that does not fit with Economics whatsoever.
There is plenty of evidence for the Laffer Curve as an economic theory.
As an economic theory, it lacks certainty and has many countervailing forces acting upon it - as does all Economics.
Trying to do virtually any Economics with a single simple ends up like trying to model turbulence with such a one too, because that's how Economics works.
Cue Martin Gardner’s graph of the Laffer Curve:
Yes, this is a joke but it’s perfectly possible for the Laffer Curve to be path dependent & therefore what happens when you raise or lower taxes now might depend on past tax rates over time.
Absolutely agreed, 100%.
Which does not remotely discount or discredit the Laffer Curve, it is still a perfectly valid economic theory.
Just as with all Economics, its complicated, and the only correct answer normally is to say "on the one hand ... on the other hand ..."
Anyone who tries to be simplistic, either does not understand Economics, or is pushing an agenda, or both.
The big problem with the “laffer curve” is I’ve never seen it used to argue taxes are too low
Comments
For PRS landlords this has been in place in Scotland for some years, and I am not aware that it has been a major problem. One of our North British could perhaps advise.
In England "new academic year" is a new ground for repossession, but notice of that ground existing must be given at commencement of tenancy. What that means is that professional management is important.
Shared houses owned by investment landlords (i.e. houses in multiple occupation (HMOs), typically occupied by three or more unrelated tenants). These, again, will be assured tenancies but a new Ground 4A under Schedule 2 of the Housing Act 1988 (as amended) will allow landlords to regain possession to make way for the next academic year group. This will only apply if the landlord gives notice to the tenant before the tenancy begins, if the property is let exclusively to full-time students and if the landlord gives four months' notice to the tenant, specifying a date between 1 June and 30 September for them to vacate the property.
27. £x for a fake director who will pass the background check.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2025/nov/05/lancashires-reform-run-council-plans-to-close-care-homes-to-save-4m-a-year
You also miss the private care home operator who is pushing this through as the reform member responsible for adult social care
There must be at least one local maximum between 0% and 100%. What the function actually looks like is anyone's guess.
It could even contain several camel humps.
Makes one feel old when musicians of your formative years are dying,
Drastically simplify the tax system and we'll see a clearer, better-defined and more informative curve, around which future tax policy can be devised.
But no fucker is gonna do this, because too many benefit from the system being unwieldy, over-complex and full of cliff edges, perverse incentives and unintended consequences...
Wanted to get a bottle of drink so went to a cash point and as I do got €300 euros out (as there’s a fixed fee so minimize the number of withdrawals).
Got given 1 €100 and 1 €200 note - I wasn’t popular getting a €1.50 bottle of water
It’s not difficult. Almost every problem gets resolved if housing is plentiful and affordable.
E.g. for someone in extreme poverty, an extra £10 is worth much more than someone earning £70,000, and it's a fair assumption that their curve looks a lot different - 90% EMTR is worth if it means your kids don't go hungry. OTOH, a £70k job is likely much more interesting and less arduous than a minimum wage one.
This also assumes that hours worked are far more fluid than they are, both in terms of contracts and jobs but also simple human habit. We don't usually act rationally.
FWIW, empirical studies often find an optimal tax rate far higher than you'd expect...
I wouldn't want to be too negative about such generosity but if you're considering acting as a guarantor, do be mindful of the potential downsides and make sure you really know the person you are supporting and get regular evidence of them paying the rent.
What's dispiriting is that it's been fairly obvious for years that this is a significant problem of criminality on high streets across the country, and even now it's the BBC rather than the police who have done anything about investigating it systematically.
And another sign that government (irrespective of party) doesn't really care about anything outside of London.
Typical fucking labour. Told people what they want to hear without the ability to deliver.
Although there is evidence prices are falling in the south and London so this may help.
How well that deals with the determined scofflaws is TBD.
The Democrat old guard need to step aside.
Economic conditions change all the time, and the number of confounding factors is essentially infinite.
An analogy might be trying to model turbulence using a single simple equation ?
Villa fans are bigots.
Well I’m stunned.
SOTV
https://x.com/avl8ton/status/1986211612206792934?s=61
Villa fans can be heartless. Remember "Tracy Andrews kills noses"?
Pelosi is 85, so whose stock trades are we going to follow when she resigns?
It's not something I'm advocating of course and I think it would be a miserable society (then again, our current society is pretty miserable for many).
But my point is: 100% tax would not generate zero income for the state.
One measurement we ought to be able to make is to compare England and Scotland, although there's a lot of confounding factors.
On another note, interesting from Jenrick on Nick Ferrari.Withering about this Government's judicial policy, but equally the last Government's record on dealing with asylum seekers and foreign national prisoners. He explained that he had to leave the last Government because they were rubbish and he isn't. Nick of course softballed Jenrick throughout.
Worth a listen though.
[Admittely that makes actual rate calculations even for the UK very hard]
I'd see 100% as pure confiscation.
If the landlord signs to say the rent is due monthly, then what incentive does the tenant then have to pay it a year in advance? Its already been signed as due monthly!
Whereas if the tenant does it in advance as part of the contract, that is illegal.
And if the tenant does not do it in advance as part of the contract, how can the landlord feel secure to sign it?
Most people will do what they are contractually obliged to do, and if the contract terms don't work then that is a problem.
Take the Laffer Curve. The "peak" (as in maximum tax take) might be 50% today. But if you implemented 50% taxes then behaviours would change. And because of those behavioral changes, the peak then might be 45% or 60%.
It's like oil: in the short term, demand is very price inelastic. In the longer term, it is highly elastic.
https://www.ibtimes.co.uk/nancy-pelosis-portfolio-beats-top-hedge-funds-54-gains-2024-1729906
Those insisting it be reduced to a simple equation with precision and certainty are insisting upon something that does not fit with Economics whatsoever.
There is plenty of evidence for the Laffer Curve as an economic theory.
As an economic theory, it lacks certainty and has many countervailing forces acting upon it - as does all Economics.
Trying to do virtually any Economics with a single simple ends up like trying to model turbulence with such a one too, because that's how Economics works.
My Dad was friends with his mother and father. Same golf club. You will probably know it given your local knowledge.
Very sad for them.
She was on an episode,of ‘Snapped, women who kill’
Used to binge watch it on CI before I met my wife.
Who’d be a landlord !!
Take the Trump administration plan to make GLP-1 inhibitors available to essentially all Americans at a fixed monthly price. That's sent the price of Eli Lily (maker of Zepbound) up about 10%. A remarkable number of American politicians bought in advance of that policy shift.
'Nancy Pelosi' just doesn't sound like the name of an 85 year old. It feels like it should belong, in perpetuity, to someone in her mid-50s.
Yes, this is a joke but it’s perfectly possible for the Laffer Curve to be path dependent & therefore what happens when you raise or lower taxes now might depend on past tax rates over time.
About half of the 12 stations had cars being charged, which is typical for the timing of my visits. Not all of the cars had people in them, which is also typical. From what I can tell, these stations are a reasonable solution -- for some people, in areas like this one (a Seattle suburb).
Here's the store: https://www.fredmeyer.com/stores/grocery/wa/kirkland/fred-meyer-kirkland/701/00391
(For the record: On the first Tuesday of every month, they give 10 percent discounts on many items to us oldies.)
JOSH : They gave it to both parties! This isn't free speech or political values, Mr. Vice
President. I don't know how we've done it, but we've legalized bribery.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c3epwz08ewzo
IMHO elected politicians should probably be banned from trading individual stocks and running businesses, should be required to appoint guardians as Trump does.
Which gives it a spurious mathematical authority which it simply doesn't possess.
The Laffer Preference for Lower Taxes doesn't have quite the same ring to it, does it ?
There are plenty of useful mathematical relationships in economics.
Tax is a much hairier topic.
That's what made her such a formidable leader in Congress.
We need new towns, with employers and good transport links, away from the overheated economy of London.
We’d have Al Barsha Man City playing Al Wasl Liverpool this weekend.
Had a bet builder last night that included Andrey Santos of Chelsea to commit a foul.
It was the only leg that “lost” but I was puzzled as he was booked for a foul just before half time.
So I reached out to get clarification.
I mean, what the actual fuck.
https://x.com/pieandbov/status/1986391411097276872?s=46&t=CW4pL-mMpTqsJXCdjW0Z6Q
Which does not remotely discount or discredit the Laffer Curve, it is still a perfectly valid economic theory.
Just as with all Economics, its complicated, and the only correct answer normally is to say "on the one hand ... on the other hand ..."
Anyone who tries to be simplistic, either does not understand Economics, or is pushing an agenda, or both.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m0029hd7
Second, this is a function of the broken market. If the market wasn't broken, making housing a one-way bet, they'd no longer be such an asset.
Third, this is another function of the broken market. In a healthy market supply and demand are more in equilibrium meaning that if prices are too high others enter the market increasing supply which lowers the prices. Dual income households can only bid prices out of reach, if supply is capped.
Fourth, yes this is a major problem that needs addressing.
Fifth, yes this has greatly increased demand, but can [and should be] be balanced by an increase in supply. Also you've neglected to mention another factor here, the increase in number of households due to increased life-expectancy. Living longer means more people live, for longer, without kids in what used to be their family home they brought kids up in, but the kids and grandkids still need a home of their own after flying the nest.
Six seems contradictory to me. People working from home don't need transport links. Not sure where the evidence is that people walk to the office, certainly don't see that on my morning commute which has no shortage of vehicles on the motorway.
Whereas SKS is Big Poochie D.
https://youtu.be/8tRoIgNZ8Z8?si=Wz45d1V9S_WPmpPt
However, it is hard to get politicians to legislate against themselves. Especially when so many see it as a perk of office.
Of course the 'there are situations' is rather undemanding, but I'd say that there's a further Laffer conjecture that these situations really do occur with our current arrangements.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Original_Sin_(Tapper_and_Thompson_book)
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/223927267-original-sin
https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/books/story/2025-05-17/biden-decline-cover-up-book-original-sin-jake-tapper-alex-thompson
There are a plethora of complicated economic theories that involve the name curve, not one of which is a simple equation or pretending to a spurious mathematical authority.
Would you say the same thing about the Engel Curve? The Indifference Curve? The Phillips Curve?
None have a simple mathematical equation and all are subject to many countervailing forces and can go in counterintuitive directions depending upon factors influencing it. Because it is Economics not Mathematics.
This false criticism of the Laffer Curve is not levied against any other such theory, by holding it to a different standard, not because of a flaw in the Laffer Curve but due to not liking what it can stand for.
OpenAI Not Yet Preparing For IPO, CFO Says -- WSJ
*OpenAI Would Like Federal Backstop For Data Center Investments, CFO Says -- WSJ
*OpenAI Could Reach Breakeven on 'Very Healthy' Gross Margins, CFO Says -- WSJ
https://x.com/Top_Bloomberg/status/1986163726798717136
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_LQa28X-1AQ
How can Santos have been booked for a foul but "To commit a foul" be settled as a loser? Lunacy