‘Mini’ budget

[Fair Hill]

Apthorpe, what I said was exports are in decline as a direct result of Brext, a recent 7.4% increase on a hugely diminished figure doesn't change this fact.

With regard to import costs, I didn't say the present increased costs were a direct result of this mini budget I said they will increase more because of it, and they will.

 

[Apthorpe]

People who suggest that my £580k salary makes me a wealthy man simply aren't taking into account the costs associated with sending my four sons to Eton, maintaining a fleet of luxury SUVs, and living in a flying castle.

Besides which, the £25000 tax cut doesn’t even cover an extra nanny.

£580k would barely cover that even if the flying castle was a suburban flat and the fleet of SUVs was a single old Astra.

 

[Miki]

Miki, I don't bother trying to explain things to the likes of yourself, you tried to bluff that you understand economics over on that Welsh thread and had your posterior handed to you on a little platter. Like a lot of buffers do you then resorted to attacking the poster instead of the post hoping for a reaction that would distract from your publicly displayed ignorance.

You're following me around threads now craving attention, rather than humiliate you I'll just use the ignore function.

Slán.

Don't kid yourself Benny, i'm not following you anywhere but as you are posting your rhetoric in threads I am interested in, I thought i'd give you the oppertunity to expand and give us (the rest of the group/members) your positive input but I see you can't. Which is a shame as i'm sure you aren't all doom, gloom and depression, least I hope not.
I was genuinely interested in what a European citizen thought would be the best economic policy for the UK as you are veciferously disagreeing with the current affairs.

 

[User00035]

Don't forget, all the ills in the world, and I mean everything, are down to Brexit, Donald Trump and the fact that Britain is a constitutional monarchy that used to be an imperial power.

Everything bad that's happened ever, are because of those things. So since they can't change history and don't understand the real problems in the first and haven't the intellect to conceive solutions, for a few unfortunate people, there is nothing left to them but blundering round in circles on their moth-eaten hobby horse, tilting at personal windmills.

It's very boring and very repetitive. Best not to engage.

 

[Bavarianbrit]

How about diverting these tax breaks into positive reinvestment instead into the manufacturing industries where the UK once excelled. Perhaps now is too late as most of the skilled labour force are into their 70s-80s and stacking shelves at supermarkets to make up the income to keep their home warm.
Coventry in the 1970s had so many high skilled jobs from Alvis fighting vehicles, Armstrong Siddeley, Chrysler/Rootes, Jaguar, Massey Fergusson, Carbodies taxis, Herbert machine tools, Morris Engines, the Royal Ordnance factory, the Torrington Company, Coventry Radiators, Triumph cars, Triumph motorcycles just up the road in Meridan, the list just keeps going on as do I.

 

[Apthorpe]

Apthorpe, what I said was exports are in decline as a direct result of Brext, a recent 7.4% increase on a hugely diminished figure doesn't change this fact.

You are still wrong. By definition, an increase is not a decline, whatever context you put it in. As for where exports are in relation to a pre-Brexit situation, they are higher than they were on the date of Brexit and significantly higher than the date of the vote. However you want to paint it, UK exports are neither “hugely diminished” or “in decline as a direct result of Brexit”. Stop arguing a case which the data demonstrates conclusively is wrong.

With regard to import costs, I didn't say the present increased costs were a direct result of this mini budget I said they will increase more because of it, and they will.

By a microscopically insignificant degree. The next month’s weather forecast has much more effect. The underlying premise to the majority of the bilge you write about the UK is fundamentally wrong and does not stand up to reality. Why don’t you re-examine that and consider basing your outlook on reality?

 

[Sinistral]

Most of the money is directed to tax cuts for the lower earning.

The IFS and Resolution Foundation say you're wrong. Read the graph.
Anything you'd like to say to refute these figures?

Half of Kwarteng’s cuts to personal tax will go to richest 5%, say experts

Thinktank says someone earning £1m will gain £40,000 as top rate, basic rate and national insurance reduced

www.theguardian.com

 

[norcan]

£580k would barely cover that even if the flying castle was a suburban flat and the fleet of SUVs was a single old Astra.

Not much gets past you, huh?

 

[Foxyboy43]

I’m not exactly sure but perhaps …..Having an excess of money beyond what is reasonable to provide for accommodation, food, healthcare, education, retirement savings, transport, one or two leisure activities per week, and perhaps a couple of holidays per year. That doesn’t seem excessive in any way. What would you define as rich?

Hmmm. A very wise man once told me that if you have good health you are a millionaire. It took a lot of years and a few “near misses” to fully appreciate the wisdom of his words. Having rode the financial rollercoasters (e.g. mortgage rate 16% as a young man with two young kids) a few times over my life I have found that anything over which you have no control is just something you have to get through; sure it might be very, very difficult but get over it you will.

 

[Apthorpe]

The IFS and Resolution Foundation say you're wrong. Read the graph.
Anything you'd like to say to refute these figures?

Half of Kwarteng’s cuts to personal tax will go to richest 5%, say experts

Thinktank says someone earning £1m will gain £40,000 as top rate, basic rate and national insurance reduced

www.theguardian.com

Yes. I quote from the first sentence of the article “Almost half of the personal tax cuts ……will go to the richest 5%”. Two points to make from that: 1) Almost half means less than half, therefore I am correct in saying that most does not go to the rich. One wonders how you read the same words and reached the opposite conclusion. 2) The Guardian is, as usual, wrong in falsely equating wealth and income.

 

[norcan]

How about diverting these tax breaks into positive reinvestment instead into the manufacturing industries where the UK once excelled.

Or even basic functioning public infrastructure and services?

 

[Apthorpe]

How about diverting these tax breaks into positive reinvestment instead into the manufacturing industries where the UK once excelled. Perhaps now is too late as most of the skilled labour force are into their 70s-80s and stacking shelves at supermarkets to make up the income to keep their home warm.
Coventry in the 1970s had so many high skilled jobs from Alvis fighting vehicles, Armstrong Siddeley, Chrysler/Rootes, Jaguar, Massey Fergusson, Carbodies taxis, Herbert machine tools, Morris Engines, the Royal Ordnance factory, the Torrington Company, Coventry Radiators, Triumph cars, Triumph motorcycles just up the road in Meridan, the list just keeps going on as do I.

They have provided larger tax breaks for such purposes. You may have missed this from the lefty media’s rather infantile commentary. There have been large corporate tax reductions, increased allowances for investment, impending rule chnges to dismantle EU originated restrictions on investability and so on. These don’t exclusively target manufacturing, but there’s no point in favouring areas where we once excelled over those we currently excel in. I think there has also been quite a lot of apparent loss of manufacturing which is not real, but a result of reclassifying activities and breaking up the large inefficient companies. There has also been a significant amount of “onshoring“ of the supply chain and component manufacturers since Brexit and covid.
It is now abundantly clear that we need to have manufacturing and industrial capacity which has been wound down too much. Notably we need to undo regulations which have driven much of the chemical industry out of the country. It is a disgrace that we don’t have enough domestic ammonia capacity to provide for either our fertiliser or explosive needs. The difficulty and expense of getting civilian ammunition and powder is only the tip of the iceberg. There are so many other failures to ensure supply of raw materials.
There is also the issue of whether, beyond an obvious failure to provide protection for strategically important industry, it is even wise to run an industrial policy directed towards manufacturing or any other sector. Government and the Civil Service are not competent to determine that, best thing is for them to get out of the way as much as is prudent.

 

[Mungo]

I’m not exactly sure but perhaps …..Having an excess of money beyond what is reasonable to provide for accommodation, food, healthcare, education, retirement savings, transport, one or two leisure activities per week, and perhaps a couple of holidays per year. That doesn’t seem excessive in any way. What would you define as rich?

Seems reasonable.

But - that then clearly means that the threshold for ‘rich’ very much depends on:

Where you live.
Whether or not you think private education and private healthcare are necessities.
What you think constitutes a holiday (a weekend in a tent in the Highlands? Or two weeks skiing in Chamonix?).
What you think is an acceptable form of transport.
What your choice of leisure activity is (darts? Or grouse shooting?).

I think your definition is dangerously subjective…

 

[Scotty99]

And with £1=$1.03 any shooting related parts coming from the USA just got even more expensive

Cheers

Bruce

It’s back up to $1.0784 today about where it was last Thursday, before Fridays announcement. It’s a BBC lead storm in a teacup. The pound has been sliding steadily against the dollar since Putin invaded Ukraine, the money markets knew then what the energy crisis and rising inflation would do to the pound. what we are seeing and hearing from the BBC since Friday is their usual biased and opportunistic reporting.

 

[Apthorpe]

Seems reasonable.

But - that then clearly means that the threshold for ‘rich’ very much depends on:

Where you live.

Yes, this is probably the biggest factor, but the fact of the matter is that large numbers of people have to live in places where houses are expensive. To penalise those people further is stupid.

Whether or not you think private education and private healthcare are necessities.

Yes, although there are points that follow on from this to consider. On any reasonable basis, private healthcare is not an extravagance when state healthcare is in a state of failure. Yes, it’s an advantage, but it’s not either wrong or excessive to do what you can with your family’s healthcare or education. To the extent that private education confers an unfair advantage, that must mean that its outcomes are better than state education (whether that is true any more is very debatable) and therefore that the stock of the nation’s labour force is more highly-skilled than it otherwise would be. Penalising that is crazy as well as counterproductive.

What you think constitutes a holiday (a weekend in a tent in the Highlands? Or two weeks skiing in Chamonix?).

It depends if you’re working 40 hours a week with no real pressure, or 100 hours a week with everything at stake. If it’s the former, one wonders whether the Scots, indefensibly chippy already, are really ready for 50 million English campers every summer. There’s nothing wrong with a two week holiday in France.

What you think is an acceptable form of transport.

Unless you’re taking a silly attitude to this, it doesn’t really matter. The key thing I suppose is that someone needs to be able to buy the two or three million new cars the nation needs each year. I think anything short of e.g. Bentleys, Ferraris, helicopters is reasonable.

What your choice of leisure activity is (darts? Or grouse shooting?).

Grouse shooting might be a bit much, but the plebs’ sport ought to provide a guide as to the absolute minimum you couldn’t defend penalising. A football season ticket is around £800 per head. Family of four: £5500 of salary before tax. That’s one (“working class”) activity.

I think your definition is dangerously subjective…

As I asked…what’s yours? My definition was certainly subjective, but not dangerously so. I really don’t think that it included anything remotely unreasonable.

 

[tozzybum]

Yeah all the " news" with no bias or slant Not.
Bbc couldn't be impartial if it tried.
Short term money games been going on forever, knee jerk headlines.
The ruling elite whatever colour their flag will screw the working man and talk rammell whilst justifying their actions.

 

[Fair Hill]

You are still wrong. By definition, an increase is not a decline, whatever context you put it in. As for where exports are in relation to a pre-Brexit situation, they are higher than they were on the date of Brexit and significantly higher than the date of the vote. However you want to paint it, UK exports are neither “hugely diminished” or “in decline as a direct result of Brexit”. Stop arguing a case which the data demonstrates conclusively is wrong.

By a microscopically insignificant degree. The next month’s weather forecast has much more effect. The underlying premise to the majority of the bilge you write about the UK is fundamentally wrong and does not stand up to reality. Why don’t you re-examine that and consider basing your outlook on reality?

You’re quite right Apthorpe, I was totally wrong with my statement regarding U.K. exports. Your advice that I should have researched the data before putting my size 12 in my mouth was bang on the ball.

It’s not the first time I’ve been wrong and I’m sure it won’t be the last.

I bow to your superior knowledge and thank you for educating me.

 

[Miki]

You’re quite right Apthorpe, I was totally wrong with my statement regarding U.K. exports. Your advice that I should have researched the data before putting my size 12 in my mouth was bang on the ball.
It’s not the first time I’ve been wrong and I’m sure it won’t be the last.

It's not the first time at all, you do it a lot Benny, in fact, if there were a league table, you'd be pretty near the top.

I bow to your superior knowledge and thank you for educating me.

Ahh Oscar Wilde how apt Benny ... “Sarcasm is the lowest form of wit, but the highest form of intelligence.”

 

[Apthorpe]

You’re quite right Apthorpe, I was totally wrong with my statement regarding U.K. exports. Your advice that I should have researched the data before putting my size 12 in my mouth was bang on the ball.

It’s not the first time I’ve been wrong and I’m sure it won’t be the last.

I bow to your superior knowledge and thank you for educating me.

I take my hat off to you. It wasn’t superior knowledge, I just checked before I wrote.

 

[kennyc]

It’s back up to $1.0784 today about where it was last Thursday, before Fridays announcement. It’s a BBC lead storm in a teacup. The pound has been sliding steadily against the dollar since Putin invaded Ukraine, the money markets knew then what the energy crisis and rising inflation would do to the pound. what we are seeing and hearing from the BBC since Friday is their usual biased and opportunistic reporting.

just as well you have GBnews to give you unbiased honest news (the best their owners can buy anyway )