Here
Headline:-
“The Blueprint for Brexit: how Britain will negotiate out of the EU and
spend for the sake of the economy”
Oh Gawd.
It gets worse:
"The treasury will borrow to invest in infrastructure"
And,
"In a boost to middle earners across the country, Mr
Hammond made clear that he hopes to avoid tax rises." No thought of actually cutting taxes then?
Corporal Fraser was right on the money:-
22 comments:
To the man with a hammer, every problem looks like a nail.
It does seem a bit of a long way round.
More to the point, Georgon Osbrown did not practice austerity (except for the already very poor), he was spending like a complete twat and ran up much more debt than Labour.
So whatever Hammond does will not be a reversal of Osbrown's policies, it will be a continuation.
Grone. "Continuity Osbrown" . We really ARE doomed.
Avoiding tax rises means different things deoending on the tax. For council tax it means that your bill will stay the same in nominal terms. For income tax, VAT, just about everything else, it means that the percentage will stay the same, so only stays the same if you don't get a pay increase or the price of goods and services doesn't increase. And for disguised taxes, e.g. benefit taper, increases of these are not 'tax rises' but 'benefit cuts'. With all this sophistry it's no wonder the gvmt can be such a big part of the economy. A single tax would focus minds on only doing the things that good government is best at:
*Securing the realm
*Personal safety
*Protecting genuine private property rights
*Preventing monopolies
M - Or, "Can be trusted to be let loose on"
income tax calculated as a percent
Yep , the total income tax collected goes up with with the level of wages,
If your window cleaner said "I heard you got a pay rise so my bill goes up" you would not be happy.
Perhaps the old idea that liberal capitalism could increase production and wages, so increasing demand and consumption, will make a comeback now, post Cameron, in place of the stupidity that production should remain the same but become more profitable through reductions in corporation tax.Or the world owes us producers a living even if we don't produce enough or pay enough wages.
DBCR " in place of the stupidity that production should remain the same but become more profitable through reductions in corporation tax. Oh, come on now. I know you know that CT is incident on some combination of suppliers, customers and employees. (I have read 2/3rds on employees).
"Perhaps the old idea that liberal capitalism could increase production and wages, so increasing demand and consumption, will make a comeback now, post Cameron,"
That would require a radical shift in the zeitgeist. The crony capitalism that we now suffer from is a result of the tailing off of the effects of the two world wars and the decline in any national moral authority as the influence of religion wanes. We are, indeed, doomed.
@B Quite likely, but a stiff dose of LVT might fix the nasty anti working class fascists who can be relied on to vote against the interests of the working class, especially if these can be labelled foreigners or outsiders.These slimy bastards might be dragged back to reality by being required to work for a living instead of being given landed wealth by the State for simply sitting on their fat arses in the classic fascist manner giving them delusions of grandeur. It is disgraceful that an MP Jo Cox can be assassinated in the street by a right-wing extremist and then the nasty right-wing electorate rushes to support the Leave campaign which this poor woman opposed entirely selflessly.
@L I mentioned corporation tax because the decadent, drippingly corrupt Times had a leader proposing relief on this tax for obvious slimy reasons.The principal reason (in some kind of idealised, functioning Britain) for stopping this whining about taxes on business which reached a peak during the Leeds Question Time televised during the last election with a selection of absolute prize cunt small businessmen standing up and squealing that they could n't stay in business without operating zero hours contracts on their employees etc and what could Labour do to lower business taxes is that clearly none of this right-wing shit works.Business has to put more money into the economy through wages before it can recoup more profits.If not, as Hammond seems aware, the State will have to increase demand (not difficult at a time of low interest rates).Osborne clued in right at the end and instituted an increased living wage.Our priceless business community responded by restructuring wages so they are now going down.
DBCR, Once again, beliefs are not responsible for those that believe in them. The murder of Jo Cox by a right wing fascist is not an argument for or against staying in the EU, and I am surprised at you that you should consider it one. I could try pointing out that the leave campaigners were no more nasty right-wingers than the remainers were left wing elitist rent-seekers, but I suspect I would be wasting my breath.
However I would agree with you that cutting corporation tax is shameless pandering to big business (as opposed to big employers). If the chancellor wanted to cut the taxes on business, he could start by reducing national insurance, but that's Not A Tax, I suppose.
@B I would have thought voting contrary to the expressed views of the slain Jo Cox, who worked tirelessly for immigrants, would have given sentient people some pause for thought when considering voting Brexit.I voted Remain , although I found the manifesto published by Kate Hoey et al as a letter in The Guardian under the heading "The Labour Case for a leave vote tomorrow" very convincing but knew its calls for an end to privatisation,and end to the EU ban on state aid etc would just enrol lefties and some centrists in the foreigner bashing and lies put out by the odious Bozo campaign.( If you deduct all the votes from such Labour Brexiters who were definitely not voting for the Bozo scheme of Nigel Farage style deportations, the Referendum result is in doubt.)
BTW from the Observer Business Leader today which is unsigned and collegiate in authority: "The message is clear. Gone are the days of laissez faire, when Conservative industry secretaries thought it was their job to get out of the way and allow free rein to market forces.Sajid Javid, an adherent to that philosophy, was shown the door in May's reshuffle after an undistinguished year in the job."
The numerous laissez faire revivalists (really Gothic revivalists) who have had it their own way on this site for so long are going to find themselves on the wrong end of the zeitgeist.
"I would have thought voting contrary to the expressed views of the slain Jo Cox, who worked tirelessly for immigrants, would have given sentient people some pause for thought when considering voting Brexit."
Why? The fact that she was killed didn't make any difference to the rightness or otherwise of her views. If a left-wing nutcase or an immigrant had murdered Farage, would that have induced you to vote Leave?
"are going to find themselves on the wrong end of the zeitgeist"
Supertankers are like London taxis compared to the zeitgeist. The Goths will be waiting a long time.
As I said I was tempted by the Labour Leave argument. If Nigel Farage had been killed by an immigrant, fearful that Farage meant to deport people, this would have confirmed my suspicions that the leave campaign was fascist-dodgy.
The zeitgeist is shifting fast. Theresa May said she would ditch Austerity even before becoming PM and Osborne followed suit the same day , ruining his hard won reputation for being an ignorant Tory tough guy keeping demand out of the economy.
NB in her one and only campaign speech, before Loony Leadsom wisely called it a day,Theresa May said she wanted money invested not in high price houses but in productive businesses.This should signal a shit storm of helpful LVT advice from us,not all this mammoth-like confusion that the ice age has retreated.
I'm not sure how you square your argument that the death of a Remainer somehow confirms her beliefs with the one that the death of a Brexiter somehow disproves his.
"The zeitgeist is shifting fast."
I think you confuse the zeitgeist with the climate in the Westminster bubble. The foremr is what the people think, the latter is political groupthink.
Theresa May said on July 11 ,before the hopeless Andrea Leadsom called it a day after her forays into issues of gender,"Because unless we deal with the housing deficit, we will see house prices keep on rising. Young people will find it even harder to afford their own home. The divide between those who inherit wealth and those who don't will become more pronounced. And more of the country's money will go into expensive houses instead of more productive investments that generate more productive growth."
I don't often write out things said by Conservative leaders ( she was n't then)but this seems to indicate a significant change of direction.
( She also included Joseph Chamberlain in her list of past Conservative greats: it is nice to see reference to a non-London business man, non Oxbridge tosser and an admirer of Henry George inching back into fashion.)
"And more of the country's money will go into expensive houses instead of more productive investments that generate more productive growth."
How pleasant to hear a senior Tory point out what the real "housing crisis" is all about. There's hope yet, so long as she doesn't just start spouting Home-ownerist claptrap, now that she is The Leader. I have been saying for years that one of the problems in this country is that the money that financed the industrial revolution, i.e the spare cash of the middle classes, is now all tied up in overpriced land.
The Spectator followed up May's reference to Joseph Chamberlain with a full dress article "She's another Chamberlain" by John o'Sullivan 16.vii.16 in which a lot of the Chamberlain influence is ascribed to her adviser Nick Timothy who also gets a write-up (next page). (I think the O'Sullivan piece is on the Net) Two things of note: Chamberlain had a thing about property and in the famous Ransom speech of 1885 said " But then I ask what ransom will property pay for the security it enjoys?" (which puts things succinctly ) and also was trying to organise some kind of British Empire Free Trade Area.
DBC, thanks, that has cheered me up no end.
I will be a big fan of our new PM until the whole embarrassing lapse is brushed under the carpet and she allows her Chancellor to ramp up Help to Buy, her Housing MInister to speed up Right To Buy, her Local Govt Minister to freeze Council Tax and the Bank of England to reduce interest rates even further.
As is inevitable.
At my age I have to seize on anything the least bit optimistic. I do appreciate that we are in the 1000 year Reich of inflated house prices
but there comes a sanity issue when all the country's institutions and political representatives insist you are mad for objecting: then , when the complete absence of democracy throws up a Prime Minister, who says something sensible , it is personally reassuring.
Actually I am as intrigued by the Chamberlain references, having at one distant, futile, moment supported a Commonwealth Common Market based on the Ottawa Accords.
DBCR If you cut CT then either ages will rise (which is what you seemingly want) or prices will fall - as long as we also get rid of all tis crony corporatism. CT is not a tax on profits at all. It is incident on some combination of employees, customers or shareholders.
In the ideal LVT world you'd have neither CT or IT (or NIC's).
But even with LVT you have to stop all this crony corporatism and bad money otherwise it still won't work.
B is also correct. We have replaced investing in productive business with rent seeking from land rents. I agree that the death of Faith has something to do with it. Mind you socialism is inimical to Faith - opium of the people and all that.
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