Wednesday 21 March 2007

Budget thoughts...

It's late, been working all day since sunrise and more tomorrow so only a few snippets. I see Dale has a good view on the budget and plenty of stuff. More on Doughty Street too which I have on at the moment. Chris Dillow makes some good points, as ever does Wat Tyler.

So my few musings...

1 - In the small part of the speech that I heard today Brown said that this budget was broadly fiscally neutral. So in English that means taxes have gone up a bit overall.

2 - So clearly, all this nonsense about tax cuts is just that. It is noticeable too that some of the proposed 'cuts' or changes are for 2009 or even 2010. Beyond the life of this parliament and hopefully his government. This really is disingenuous politics of the first order.

3 - I am worried though if the media let Broon get away with this sort of lying rubbish (and robbing the poor too!) then the Tories are in for a tough time. Serves them right for being so weak-kneed on tax cuts themselves.

4 - The spending taps to the NHS and Education are still on. This worries me as it is not investment. All the money goes on salaries, pensions and perhaps some failed IT projects. This is money thrown away, all the while the public debt of the country is rising and not being paid off. A sensible government would have a huge surplus now to help come with the coming downturn.

5 - Finally, it is clear to most economists, the bond markets and equity buyers that the world economy, led by the US is going to slow. But not the UK according to magic Gordon?

10 comments:

Welshcakes Limoncello said...

C/u, I don't understand high finance - or any finance - as you know. But I love the way you write about it! Also love the way you call the dour soul "Broon". Like your "translation" of the Broon-speak in point no. 1. Here there is much interest in it all [ in his possibly following Tone rather than the budget details] and he is being called "Brown lo Stalinista".

Newmania said...

So in English that means taxes have gone up a bit overall.



ho ho CU that hits the spot . I think you may be a little early to despiar iof the Press they had little time and the \stabndards wa already weighing in by the evening . It took our office about a minute to work out it was all bollocks .

Can anyone explain to me why we call some tax national insurance by the way ?

Anonymous said...

I'm still getting my head round the small print and it will be a week or more before it is fully established, but I think this is a budget that did raise tax and was designed for May election headlines, and it stinks.

The NIC issue is going to bite some as is the scrapping of the 10p start, but from different ends of the spectrum.

This is a stinging budget with pain to come..and there's pain to come from the last budget yet.

The markets weren't impressed at all and were almost blase in their disdain, which I found funny.

Two massive problems Brown has, and I think they are going to make things wrose for him; firstly he continues to be overly optimistic in a position where pessimism would be prudent, and secondly...even the thick twats out there are on to him and don't now believe his propoganda.

Anonymous said...

I agree with all your points, CU. Of course the media will let Brown get away with this, many journalists are too lazy to do any proper work. For example, I was shocked to see the BBC trumpeting yesterday that Brown had 'doubled' the capital gains tax exemption for married couples, when it was clear he had done nothing of the sort. Every individual gets an exemption, and if you are a married couple holding property jointly, you get two exemptions to play with. Simple common sense. But Brown announced it in the Budget as if he had 'doubled' it, and the BBC fell for it.

As to your point about the spending taps still being on, definitely. Brown knows no other way.

CityUnslicker said...

WL - Thank you for the comments. My despise of Brown grows by the day.

N - The national insurance thing should go now, i agree it is completely meaningless now that it has been totally merged with income tax.

B - The spending taps worries me. At city events last night and this most people who talked about the budget just noted that our comptetitiveness is plummeting. These things take time to feed through; but I fear for where we will be with this macro-economic approach in the next 5 years.

50% GDP spent by the Government is quite likely....

Anonymous said...

PFI and the dishonest few billions sloshing around will keep the spending taps open and ensure the money isn't flushed down a public sector hole, so maybe that is why he wants it and cxan afford to let them run open a while longer.

Anonymous said...

You forgot to mention Gordon's encouragement for the 'enterprise culture' - a tax increase on start-up businesses.

CityUnslicker said...

Shot - PFI is so dangerous. We will be paying for decades to overcome its costs. It is like a sub-prime mortgage on the whole country.

Rick - yes, a nice touch, rob small business in favour of big business!

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