Autumn Statement

[coldel]

Few things car related:

 

Fuel Duty rise cancelled, again

£220m on reducing traffic pinch points

£1.1bn on local transport networks

 

I wonder how much longer the fuel rate will stay as is...been something like 5-10 years now it hasnt gone up.

[Ekona]

IPT up 2% though, so higher premiums for all next year. Again.

 

Fuel duty will never go up again until we're a good 5 years clear of money issues, it's an absolute vote-loser for the working and middle classes, and we all know what voting power they've got these days

[Ekona]

Love the ban on letting agent fees to renters though, like the landlords are just going to suck it up and not increase rents to cover it

[coldel]

IPT up, whiplash reduction to create a downward pressure on premiums, experts reckon a zero sum game there.

 

Yes agree on the rent costs, like when banks were told they couldnt charge for using an ATM, they just charge us more to have the account in the first place.

[Ekona]

The whiplash thing was a purple pilchard in the first place, companies were never going to reduce premiums because of that. The market seems to be quite content with insurance prices as they are, so might as well leave them that way.

[Stutopia]

Love the ban on letting agent fees to renters though, like the landlords are just going to suck it up and not increase rents to cover it

 

Having been ripped off by agents a few times, I'm totally for doing something, but why don't they just do something sensible like set a fixed price?!? Every single "fee" I've been charged by a letting thief has covered a phone call to an employer to do a job check and a credit search, total costs of about £3.50 per applicant, they could have capped the fee at £50 and still let greedy agents wet their beaks.

[Ekona]

Takes too much government involvement to regulate, I guess. Easier to ban it all than have people in London saying it's too cheap and people in Liverpool complaining it's too expensive.

[coldel]

You could cap it, just say £50. Sure companies could just charge £50 anyway, but some might try to be a bit more tactical to win an advantage over others. Certainly estate agents shouldn't be charging £150 to renew a rental for instance which I have been charged in the past, which is just printing out a pre-prepared page and getting two people to sign it. I have a friend who inspects houses for energy efficiency for estate agents, he says they all laugh about these fees as being the best way to pay for office parties.

[nowhereboy]

capitalism is alive and well.

 

I work in the insurance industry and to be frank what goes on behind the scenes (commision etc) should be illegal.

[coldel]

Notice that the balance of payments surplus for 2020 has been scrapped. Amount of cash this country owes is just scary, something like £1.5 trillion now isn't it, and now its going to only get bigger.

[Stutopia]

Turns out FREEDOM isn't free. It's a snip at just £122 bn.

[Ekona]

Gotta do something to balance the post-Brexit books.

[gangzoom]

Notice that the balance of payments surplus for 2020 has been scrapped. Amount of cash this country owes is just scary, something like £1.5 trillion now isn't it, and now its going to only get bigger.

 

That's nothing compared to US debt.

 

http://www.usdebtclock.org/

 

The whole world economy is basically based on lies, in the old days if the gold run out you couldn't do bugger all. These days you just print more fake money. Every one is in debt to each other, but its ok as long as no one think about it too hard none of it matters.

[-G-]

Fiat currencies and crap banking regulation go hand in hand. The whole Fractional System is nothing short of an inverse ponzi scheme designed to line the pockets of glorified money shufflers and make no mistake, that's exactly what they are.

 

[coldel]

Thing is 8 years ago national debt was £80bn, but then we decided borrowing was the way forwards until we were borrowing £180bn a year, austerity has been awful but that got down to around £40bn a year forecast for this year, but brexit has meant the forecast shot up to around £60bn borrowed so already £20bn down. I think now more than anytime previously the people in this country need to take note of money moving around and what it means for us.

[-G-]

The established fact is that the Tories want small government, it's their raison d'etre and the perverted reason they have doubled the national debt but lauded that they have "cut the deficit" - but Brexit has completely undermined that position.

 

The govt are now looking at increasing the civil service by about 40,000 heads - that goes further than any Labour government before it in terms of expanding state apparatus.

 

So, doubled the debt and that deficit reduction they were so proud of will be out the window next year. 6 years of austerity - for nothing.

[Stutopia]

6 years of austerity - for nothing.

 

Woah woah woah -G- !!! It's not 6 years of austerity for nothing...

 

By using austerity to drive down income of the poorest, it makes people ever more desperate to stay in work and furthers the doctrine of driving down the price of labour. This dovetails nicely with the benefit cap and the benefit freeze, both helping to reduce income and make people fearful of job losses.

 

The best thing is (and it is soooo very clever) if they keep repeating "Brexit means Brexit" like it actually means something, they can dress up this fiasco as "the will of the people". Who will soak it up thanks to promises of some Freedom Tea Towels, £350m a week more NHS money [now redacted] and removal of the pesky EU Laws [also redacted].

 

Invoice: 001

1 off, pretending to stop migration

Total Payable: £122bn

 

Fortunately, the government is still able to afford cuts to corporation tax, to help those who "need it most".

[Ponsonby]

6 years of austerity - for nothing.

 

 

 

Fortunately, the government is still able to afford cuts to corporation tax, to help those who "need it most".

 

Corporation Tax is a tax on profits, not a tax on money leaving a company and going into someone's pocket. Reducing CT means that more money can be retained in a Company and used for growth - or just for keeping a company going while times are tough.

Some of us set up our own companies, worked 80 to 100 hours per week for several years, put our houses on the line to finance it. You will not hear any objections from me to paying tax on my income but CT has always been frustrating.

I hear so much on the news deriding company owners but the majority of us play fair and pay sensible salaries. For those that are lucky enough to have enough left over to pay themselves a good salary, why not, they probably put the hours in and took the risks - risks that not many others would dare to take.

We have been royally stuffed by Brexit and had we not been paying much CT over the last few years would have been in a much better financial position to ride it out.

[coldel]

Yes CT is a farce, its all come to light now but 5 years ago I worked for a company of 8 people where we paid something like £100k CT which was more than Starbucks paid over the previous 5 years thanks to their accountants playing the game. So small businesses were funding this country whilst huge conglomerates were flaunting the system.

[Stutopia]

6 years of austerity - for nothing.

 

 

 

Fortunately, the government is still able to afford cuts to corporation tax, to help those who "need it most".

 

Corporation Tax is a tax on profits, not a tax on money leaving a company and going into someone's pocket. Reducing CT means that more money can be retained in a Company and used for growth - or just for keeping a company going while times are tough.

Some of us set up our own companies, worked 80 to 100 hours per week for several years, put our houses on the line to finance it. You will not hear any objections from me to paying tax on my income but CT has always been frustrating.

I hear so much on the news deriding company owners but the majority of us play fair and pay sensible salaries. For those that are lucky enough to have enough left over to pay themselves a good salary, why not, they probably put the hours in and took the risks - risks that not many others would dare to take.

We have been royally stuffed by Brexit and had we not been paying much CT over the last few years would have been in a much better financial position to ride it out.

 

It's only a couple of years since I paid more Corporation Tax than Facebook. Weirdly I wasn't able to also pay the same £35m in bonuses during that period. Maybe my "profits" were lower than those of the internet monolith? Maybe I wasn't working enough hours growing my own business?

[Ponsonby]

6 years of austerity - for nothing.

 

 

 

Fortunately, the government is still able to afford cuts to corporation tax, to help those who "need it most".

 

Corporation Tax is a tax on profits, not a tax on money leaving a company and going into someone's pocket. Reducing CT means that more money can be retained in a Company and used for growth - or just for keeping a company going while times are tough.

Some of us set up our own companies, worked 80 to 100 hours per week for several years, put our houses on the line to finance it. You will not hear any objections from me to paying tax on my income but CT has always been frustrating.

I hear so much on the news deriding company owners but the majority of us play fair and pay sensible salaries. For those that are lucky enough to have enough left over to pay themselves a good salary, why not, they probably put the hours in and took the risks - risks that not many others would dare to take.

We have been royally stuffed by Brexit and had we not been paying much CT over the last few years would have been in a much better financial position to ride it out.

 

It's only a couple of years since I paid more Corporation Tax than Facebook. Weirdly I wasn't able to also pay the same £35m in bonuses during that period. Maybe my "profits" were lower than those of the internet monolith? Maybe I wasn't working enough hours growing my own business?

 

It is where the tax is paid that is important. Had the £35M in bonus been paid in the UK then tax would have been paid on it. However, in the case of these 'giants' they move the money out of the UK and will (should) pay tax on it wherever the bonus is paid. So they make the money in the UK and pay tax to some other government which is clearly not right. They also avoid paying CT whatever level it is set at.

Do you set a CT rate to 'try' to extract more from the tax avoiding 'giants' or do you set a CT rate that helps honest large businesses and small businesses.

[-G-]

lol - fair point Stu, what I was driving at was that austerity was judged to be in the national interest of "fixing" the cost of government that had become too inflated.

 

Driving down wages, living standards & the welfare payments to societies poorest & most vulnerable might have been the aim all along - some of us with longer memories remember the speech David Cameron wrote for Norman Lamont in which he said recession & unemployment was a price worth paying for low inflation. It's not without irony that the same speech-writer would 20 years later lament the fact that families on the bottom wrung of the economic ladder had become accustomed to not working to support themselves.

 

Its an indictment of modern libertarian politics that neither Labour nor the conservatives saw bankrolling welfare instead of employment as counterproductive & even when the proverbial chickens came home to roost in 2008, we still managed to blame foreigners & by extension the EU for the fact people haven't worked for 20 years.

 

Pathetic.

Edited November 24, 2016 by -G-

[Ekona]

Would the alternative have been any better? No austerity, borrow a shitload more and end up in a worse position than we are now? We're so governed by foreign markets that it's unlikely anything would be massively different anyway, except we'd have a bigger hole in our pockets.

 

Do I think Osborne was too strict in his planning? Yes, I do, which is why I think Hammond taking a much more flexible approach is a good thing and will only benefit the country. I do believe that getting the welfare cost lower is a good thing though, and whilst the odd deserving case will slip through the gap it's still the right way to go. I'd like to see more tax breaks given to large companies who are prepared to set up HQs in the north of the country, try and spread the wealth rather than keep it all in the capital. Corporation tax desperately needs to come down, it's a vile tax that stunts growth massively.

[Stutopia]

I'm not against reducing the deficit but the bill for welfare is just a drop.

 

I simply see CT as the bill a business pays the country for access to one of the world's largest markets. We're doing them a favour letting them have access, not the other way around.

 

[gangzoom]

Would the alternative have been any better? No austerity, borrow a shitload more and end up in a worse position than we are now?

 

But its all made up in the first place so why worry about a debt no one can enforce?? Trump clearly is just about to go on a spending spree in the US regardless of their national debt. Greece got single out but the reality is everyone is in the same boat, but no one wants to face the facts so its always easier just to bully the small guys.

 

Every government in the world is in debt, the world 'bank' is just numbers in a computer, realistically what on earth is going to happen if every government defaults and stops paying back their national debt. Just about every country in the world have spent the last 6 years printing more money that's not backed by any real substance and everyone is happy with that idea,but at some stage someone is going to have to call the whole thing off.

 

Maybe Trump might actually have the balls to do something about the whole charade.

Edited November 24, 2016 by gangzoom