The Official Liz Truss no longer PM but still a Clusterfuck thread

[Dawson Park Boy]

3 minutes ago, coprolite said:

It probably is a disincentive, but it's more likely to have a marginal effect than a huge one. 

On tax, multinationals tend to prefer stability and predictability to a few percent on a headline rates. Another capricious late change of plans hot on the heels of Bojo the clown's is bad for planning, whatever way it goes. 

An investment friendly cut would have been put in a finance bill and set to come in from 2024. The current one is no more than an opportunistic giveaway so her backers can yield more from existing assets. 

Investment decisions for productive businesses are more often taken based on more commercial things like workforce and skills availability, contract law and access to other parts of the supply chain or markets. Tax will be part of the mix but not often a priority. 

The tories have been narrowing our skills base by making further education far more costly for individuals and by hugely reducing the number of people eligible to work here. 

They have absolutely destroyed supply chains and market access. 

A 6% surprise cut in CT and a 3% swing in some NICs is an ideological token, not a growth strategy. 

They've written off the car and fitting a spoiler to the wreck. 

A very good debate on this just now on the Daily Politics between Paul Mason and Mark Littlewood.

All the points on here argued out vigorously.

 

[Caledonian1]

1 hour ago, Dawson Park Boy said:

Maybe it’s because we’re about to change tack quite radically by slashing taxes and going for growth that current forecasts are obsolete?

Thatcher did it when taxes were ludicrously high and the country took off.

I recall taxes such as ‘investment income surcharge’ where it was possible to pay about 100% of parts of your income.

Top people left the country in droves.

Reduce taxes and total revenues increase as people are incentivised to earn.

As someone has mentioned, if Scotland keeps its personal taxes high it will be an interesting experiment to see how the different regimes perform.

Who left the country in their droves.....ok, name just ten of them.

We got all of this when the Scottish Government taxed some middle earners by a whole 1% more than rUK...people talking of leaving Scotland (to, in their minds, save a few pounds....yet pay for prescriptions, university fees, hospital parking etc) Incidentally, "the country took off" for some but not the majority after Thatchers  regime  - partly why we are left with little social housing and poor performing services that were sold off so that those in the City of London could make a quick buck.

[Clown Job]

1 hour ago, coprolite said:

 

They've written off the car and fitting a spoiler to the wreck. 

[Dawson Park Boy]

15 minutes ago, Caledonian1 said:

Who left the country in their droves.....ok, name just ten of them.

We got all of this when the Scottish Government taxed some middle earners by a whole 1% more than rUK...people talking of leaving Scotland (to, in their minds, save a few pounds....yet pay for prescriptions, university fees, hospital parking etc) Incidentally, "the country took off" for some but not the majority after Thatchers  regime  - partly why we are left with little social housing and poor performing services that were sold off so that those in the City of London could make a quick buck.

The Rolling Stones and other rock groups as I recall.

A bit difficult to pull out names from 50 years ago.

Its to everyone’s advantage for London, and Edinburgh to a lesser extent, to prosper as those areas produce tax that can be filtered out to the rest of the country.

Economic policy always needs to be a balancing act but I think that the main thrust should be towards growth and rewarding the productive sectors and aspirational taxpayers .

[Beans on Toast]

1 hour ago, DA Baracus said:

 Not just that, but all that a Tory government(s) entail, which will soon be the stripping away of workers rights (more hours, less pay, less holidays, less rights such a maternity and sick leave, reduced pensions, being able to be fired for nothing), increasing racism, massive inflation, wages falling increasingly further behind everything, house prices continuing to soar, destruction of the NHS and the introduction of having to pay large sums for healthcare, runaway energy prices, total rollback on environmental policies/increased damage to the environment, an increasingly isolated and insular country, everything increasing in price, and just a massively more unfair society in general. But aye, at least folk who live in the borders won't be slightly inconvenienced if they visit England.

Independence won't fix all of that, but it gives us a chance to have a fairer society and at least try to fix the issues.

 

Edit: Forgot to add, once they get the UK out of the ECHR (and I'm amazed folk don't take a second to just think that through; literally they want to remove your rights) and have dismantled workers' rights, you had better dare not not be a white, straight, cis male.

Also, the Tory ideology isn't to make anyone rich; it's to make themselves and their pals richer. These are greedy filth who don't need more money but are driven to grab it, to steal it (often quite literally when you look at the PPI contracts) from me, you and all taxpayers to increase their wealth. They delight in squashing folk to do it.

'Trickle down economics' isn't a thing. It's an utter fallacy, a made up piece of nonsense, and it's mental how many folk still swallow it. It should be treated with the same utter stunned shock as if someone instead said 'cuvier's beaked whale semen economics'.

I agree with all of that my friend, and it's put far more eloquently than I could.

Now, tell me more about your whale semen economic plan. 

[welshbairn]

2 hours ago, Dawson Park Boy said:

Maybe it’s because we’re about to change tack quite radically by slashing taxes and going for growth that current forecasts are obsolete?

Thatcher did it when taxes were ludicrously high and the country took off.

Thatcher didn't cut taxes until the deficit and inflation had been brought under control. She'd spin in her grave at the idea of borrowing to fund tax cuts, especially with inflation so high, the costs of energy bail outs and and all the money we borrowed to pay for furlough and other covid costs. 

[BFTD]

10 minutes ago, Beans on Toast said:

Now, tell me more about your whale semen economic plan. 

I think he means that we're all getting pumped, but we're unequipped to deal with the overwhelming consequences.

[Jeff Venom]

There was an article on the FT last week comparing living standards data across western 'developed' nations that demonstrated that the US and the UK were both basically shiteholes with a few really rich people at the top creaming it in. The living standards of the poorest are worse than that of the other Western nations. 

More Tories though, please.

[Dawson Park Boy]

13 minutes ago, welshbairn said:

Thatcher didn't cut taxes until the deficit and inflation had been brought under control. She'd spin in her grave at the idea of borrowing to fund tax cuts, especially with inflation so high, the costs of energy bail outs and and all the money we borrowed to pay for furlough and other covid costs. 

Borrowing has been unavoidable because of Covid and the energy crisis. Unprecedented.

What we can do is throttle back on the public sector.

[Dawson Park Boy]

Just now, Jeff Venom said:

There was an article on the FT last week comparing living standards data across western 'developed' nations that demonstrated that the US and the UK were both basically shiteholes with a few really rich people at the top creaming it in. The living standards of the poorest are worse than that of the other Western nations. 

More Tories though, please.

Maybe time to move.

[DA Baracus]

25 minutes ago, Beans on Toast said:

I agree with all of that my friend, and it's put far more eloquently than I could.

Now, tell me more about your whale semen economic plan. 

It's very simple really and guaranteed to work this time.

[BFTD]

If you don't like poverty, you can geeeert out! Tremendous work from DPB, as ever.

[scottsdad]

5 minutes ago, Dawson Park Boy said:

Borrowing has been unavoidable because of Covid and the energy crisis. Unprecedented.

What we can do is throttle back on the public sector.

Quite right. 

Now that hospital waiting times are down to 10 minutes, we can lose a few doctors and nurses. 

Now that class sizes are 1 teacher for every 5 pupils, we could lose some of those. 

Now that there is a policeman on every corner, we can lose some of those. 

Now that passports and drivers licenses take just seconds to knock up, we can lose a few of them too. 

Throttle it all back. 

[BFTD]

1 minute ago, scottsdad said:

Quite right. 

Now that hospital waiting times are down to 10 minutes, we can lose a few doctors and nurses. 

Now that class sizes are 1 teacher for every 5 pupils, we could lose some of those. 

Now that there is a policeman on every corner, we can lose some of those. 

Now that passports and drivers licenses take just seconds to knock up, we can lose a few of them too. 

Throttle it all back. 

We should consider privatising all of these things. Nothing should be left off the table. Everything should be considered.

Am I doing this right?

[scottsdad]

Just now, BFTD said:

We should consider privatising all of these things. Nothing should be left off the table. Everything should be considered.

Am I doing this right?

Quite right.

Thanks to privatisation, the trains run in time and are as cheap as chips. Energy prices are very low. Down south, where they privatised water, there are no leaks and sewage is never pumped on to beaches. 

It is the answer to all the inefficiencies. 

[Jeff Venom]

13 minutes ago, Dawson Park Boy said:

Maybe time to move.

What a bizarre reply. 

(Spoiler: I already live in a prosperous, progressive EU country )

[Beans on Toast]

29 minutes ago, BFTD said:

I think he means that we're all getting pumped, but we're unequipped to deal with the overwhelming consequences.

And I thought you'd be the type to be able to deal with such a situation. Disappointing.

[welshbairn]

4 minutes ago, Dawson Park Boy said:

Borrowing has been unavoidable because of Covid and the energy crisis. Unprecedented.

What we can do is throttle back on the public sector.

Where though? Truss hasn't mentioned anything significant, but she's prepared to borrow a massive amount to fund tax cuts. This will fuel inflation, increase the costs of government borrowing and mortgages. At the same time as we're already pushing what gilt buyers are prepared to go along with what you rightfully call unprecedented emergency borrowing requirements. Cutting a few civil servants won't pay for it. 

[Dawson Park Boy]

2 minutes ago, Jeff Venom said:

What a bizarre reply. 

(Spoiler: I already live in a prosperous, progressive EU country )

Not bizarre at all.

So many people on here constantly berate and denigrate this country that I love.

If it is so intolerable emigration is surely an option.

[BFTD]

1 minute ago, scottsdad said:

Quite right.

Thanks to privatisation, the trains run in time and are as cheap as chips. Energy prices are very low. Down south, where they privatised water, there are no leaks and sewage is never pumped on to beaches. 

It is the answer to all the inefficiencies. 

Indeed. The former council houses look so much nicer now that they're owned by private landlords charging three times the old rent.

Although, considering the state still often has to pay these rents, perhaps we could evict the paupers and get decent people on higher incomes into them instead? Only seems fair. Perhaps a policy of incentivised emigration for people earning under a certain amount could be implemented.

4 minutes ago, Beans on Toast said:

And I thought you'd be the type to be able to deal with such a situation. Disappointing.

I'd like to meet the person who could deal with a tidal wave of whale spunk.

Wait, no, I didn't think that through.