There's very little I can add. Osborne's 2013 budget is austerity-as-usual. The points I made on the occasion of the Autumn State in December(!) largely still stand, though I note his home equity scheme looks like yet another attempt to jumpstart a housing bubble. I wonder what part of the world and what kind of constituencies would benefit the most from it? Still, it will probably come to nought - this scheme's predecessor, 'New Buy' had the target of helping sell on 100,000 new homes in its first nine months. It managed a measly 1,500.
Allow me recommend you Boffy's take, The Third Estate, and three pieces from ToUChstone.
And here's a reminder of the time before Osborne became the tax dodger's worst nightmare:
Oh come on Phil, don't be so mean and socialist.
ReplyDeleteit's a budget that puts money into pockets.
What about the good news for Tristram's mention? How did that come about?
The BCC and the FSB have been calling for a cut in CCL and Tristram gets the laughs?
How did that happen?
Tnkering at the edges of nothingness, it was Tris that Georgey lovingly pinpoints.
Apart from George and Mandy (Tristrams 'friend')holidaying together, I wonder how the link is made?
Phil, any chance of an apology for my-once again- getting it right on the economy, in your blog?
All night the TV economists ranted about the debt going up and, apparently, 'will not recede until 2018'.
Gary says: 'But we all knew the debt will go up until 2020. It is the defecit reduction of 25% that is targeted by the Tories and will step into 2015 on the back of that success'.
Telling the story as it really is doesn't mean that I agree with it Phil. It's just that truth is better than spin.
Money in people's pockets? Not in those who need them most. Go and have a look at those ToUChstone pieces and spend some time over at Left Foot Forward.
ReplyDeleteRegards you economic predictions, forgive me if I take you less seriously than Nostradamus. I recall you predicting after the 2010 Spending Review that the economy would recover by 2015 and the Tories would sail to electoral success. Now, all of a sudden, you perform a volte face and claim you've long been arguing a different point. Well Gary, you can pretend Eurasia's always been at war with Oceania, but you can't cook the internet's books to pretend different.
It was only a couple of your blogs ago that I made these claims.
ReplyDeleteGeorge appears to be offloading a bit of responsibility to the next Government post 2015 and yes, i did also say that the Tories would begin to spend as 2014 approached on their way to a 2015 run in.
Anyone can predict typical Tory reponses.
"We have brought forward the £10,000 tax free allowance a year early"
George Osborne, Chancellor of the predictable party.
Now go listen to Ed balls doing his nut over the debt not paid off.
What a ******* clown.
His bollocking was good yesteday though by the speaker.
A pre-planned bollocking for tipping off the London standard on the budget (allegedly)
Osborne has already indicated he wants to give away free shares in the part-nationalised banks to everyone. As for the tax rate, as those graphs show the poor do not benefit from the raised thresholds as much as the better off.
ReplyDeleteWe live in a system controlled by fraudsters and con men. The idea of giving away free shares reminds me of how Abramovich got rich. The Russians sold off vouchers to workers of the utility companies. Then came the con men who bought up all the vouchers and made themselves fabulously wealthy and powerful. This is the inevitable affect of Chicago school libertarian economics, though you won't find it in their textbooks!
ReplyDeleteBut we don't have a lack of money problem in this country, they have just opened a new shopping centre in Leeds and kids were queuing in the snow to buy One Direction t-shirts and other crap. These kids were spending from their pocket money. If you have enough money that you can give it to your kids to spend on shit like that then you don't know the meaning of the word austerity.
We do not have a debt problem or a lack of money problem but a problem of twisted priorities and consumerist idiocy.
It is no wonder that the con men who run this system see the potential to make a quick killing, there is plenty of money to be had!