Wednesday 15 March 2023

Open Thread: BUDGET DAY

Any signs of an Actual Strategy that we can see?  Or is that too much to expect?

ND

19 comments:

Elby the Beserk said...

Strategy?

Tactics?

Apart from further crushing the economy with the Corporation Tax rise (most of which will of course trickle down from the pockets of we the consumers), no. None.

djm said...

Strategy.... Putting UK economy into holding pattern precurse to meltdown of world economy & mandatory introduction of CBDC.....

dearieme said...

Can we please have a policy that ensures that Dairy Toffees are always on the shelves at Waitrose, Sainsbury's, Tesco, ...

And copy Nigel Lawson and abolish a tax.

andrew said...

Abolishing the lta and upping the aa to 60k is the best thing to happen in pensions for about 20y
Genuine simplification
It will have a cost but less than you think
Sneaky that the aa is fixed at 60k - it was 50k in 2011, so considerable fiscal drag there

andrew said...

Of course devil is in details. We need to see the regs

jim said...

Having dropped Humpty Dumpty the objective is to put him/her back together again.

Gently joining a few fragments of shell together and waiting for the glue to set before working on the next bits. Dare not do more or world events and/or JRM will jog his elbow or he will get a bit wrong and the markets will laugh at him.

Tricky job and the glue tube nearly empty and well crusty. Not too bad so far, only another 9999 pieces to go.

Anonymous said...

Glad to see the LTA and AA allowances massively increased as this was looking like it might be a problem for me. It's also massively stupid to prevent highly skilled people from working as they would be caught in a massive pension tax trap.

As Elby notes, the corp tax won't be paid by 'rich companies'. You can't tax that which doesn't exist. So the tax will be higher prices for consumers, lower wages for employees, lower prices to suppliers and lower dividends to investors. If you were being honest you would just tax one (or more) of those 4 things directly and abolish corp tax.

Looks like there is some chunky investment allowances to offset the corp tax rise, but these are of limited use. How many investable projects are there out there really? Even if you were nutty enough to want to build a new factory, power plant or similar in the UK, the 'anti-growth' coalition would ensure that you spent the next ten years in 'planning' (or more accurately blocking) hell.

Anonymous said...

I think we ought to solve most of our energy needs with a bank of Russian V-509 reactors similar to those the Turks are installing near Mersin. If 4 cost $22bn, we should get 6 for $30bn, and they have a projected 60 year lifespan, by which time fusion reactors will be only 25 years away ;-) or (more likely) the Chinese will have perfected air-cooled molten salt reactors with minimal radioactive waste.

ATM we're keeping the remaining coal stations online (where are we importing the coal from btw?) in case the wind doesn't blow. With 50 billion KwH a year from these we can keep our coal from Cumbria for steelmaking.

Anonymous said...

Meanwhile we're paying EDF way way over the odds for their unproven designs..

https://www.neimagazine.com/news/newsnew-crack-detected-at-frances-penly-npp-10673349

"Corrosion problems were first detected in 2021, sparking a campaign of inspections and repair works, with 32 of France’s 56 reactors simultaneously shut down in the summer of 2022 either for maintenance or because of corrosion. An investigation found that EDF’s 16 newest units — including the two Penly reactors — were more prone to the phenomenon mostly because of the design of their emergency cooling pipes. Cracks may also be caused by welding and other defects."

I suppose you could argue that at least they've found the issues and are addressing them. But Le Creusot Forge were falsifying their test data for decades on crucial containment.

"Framatome: Tests had not been performed or recorded correctly
and there had been quality assurance failures on components
manufactured at the Le Creusot Forge in France since 1965, when
the facility was owned by Schneider. Irregular practices had
continued after 2006 when AREVA/ Framatome had purchased the
facility and were not identified until 2015."


https://www.oecd-nea.org/nsd/workshops/nscm2018/presentations/2.%201.%20KASER%20Greg_Kaser_CFSI_06-11-18.pdf

Matt said...

Loving the increase in pension annual allowance. For me it'll have the opposite effect to what the government expect - it'll allow me to leave the workplace more quickly as I can now add £20k more per annum without penalty.

Anonymous said...

… diary toffee and Nigella Lawson
Lovely

Anonymous said...

Tragic news - Bill Tidy has died.

James Higham said...

In one.

Anonymous said...

The LTA abolishment was a mistake. The poorer tax payer should not be subsidising rich people’s pensions. Agree a level at which state support stops, say £1.2 m and then simplify the law so that people can divert pension payments into their pay packet. It is simple to do, I did it.

It looks like it is going to unravel as Labour oppose it even though Wes Streeting supported it a coup,e of weeks ago.

The big problem in this country is that very few people understand pensions. As a long term pension fund trustee I speak from bitter experience.

All the best

Charles

Anonymous said...

Also as a pensions dude (not a trustee) I was surprised at the size of the increase. £1m was too low but 1.8 is a big jump, especially when interest rates are rising. 40k to 60k is a big jump too.

Inshallah a few fewer doctors should retire - but I have a story on that. When Covid vaccine emerged HMG found themselves short of vaccinators. A couple of retired doctors I know put their hands up, and discovered that the hoops they had to jump through included all the crap that full time NHS staff have to do - courses on lifting for example - fine if you're shifting patients on a ward but hopefully people will be sitting to be jabbed. Then there's all the diversity stuff. They looked at it all - about a dozen different courses - and said 'forget it'.

Some of the stull might be useful to someone just starting out, but these guys had been GPs for 30 years....

Matt said...

@ Anonymous (9:54 am)

Charles,

As a pension fund trustee, presumably you understand that taking less tax from the "rich people" is not the same as poorer tax payers subsidising them.

If you don't, then you should stay away from anything related to finance.

Sobers said...

The pension tax cap lifting is just another step on the way to making the UK a gerontocracy. Pretty much everything is done to help the elderly and wealthy, mostly at the expense of the young and poor.

Diogenese said...

The pension tax cap lifting is just another step on the way to making the UK a gerontocracy

The amount of social engineering that is going on - apparently under the radar - is amazing. We already punish families if they are on a low income and want more than 2 children.

If you want an education to better yourself, saddle yourself with debt.

If you'd like to have a home that can actually accomodate you and your family, don't hold your breath.

And never, ever get sick.

Against all of the above, is the argument that you shouldn't have children, a home or an education if you can't afford it. But how do you afford it without inheriting it from the gerontocracy?

E-K said...

In what way is it Conservative to force mums out to work ?

If their jobs are so badly paid that they can't cover child care then they can't be great careers - it seems highly socialist to subsidise child care and put young kids into state funded baby farms.