Is the Chancellor about to crash the economy?

The real world outside of your public sector echo chamber.

I’m not RRs biggest fan but in her defence this is not a localised issue. It is worse here but things are looking bad all over. Bond prices for the US, Germany etc at all increasing too.

I will get a lot of hate here for saying this but going forward, the reality is that the uk has a tax system that disproportionately taxes the highest earners more than other countries do. This creates an economy where we rely on them more than other countries. Probably as a result of high taxes, these people are leaving in droves and for anyone saying good riddance, you really do need them. Only China lost more millionaires than the UK last year, and their population is like a billion people - per capita the UK was by far the highest looser of wealthy folks.

For example, someone on 200k pays 8x more tax than someone on 50k despite earning 4x as much. Thats quite an aggressive increase. The tax system is also so lumpy that at certain salaries it feels totally unfair, 100-125 is ridiculous with >60% marginal tax plus losing all childcare benefits so it can actually end up more than 100% where you have to put it all into your pension or end up poorer than if you earned 99k.

The top rate of tax in the U.S. (37%) doesn’t kick in until you are earning over $600k!

My husbands employer recently opened an Abu Dhabi office and gave an open invite to any staff who wanted to move there. Loads did (we didn’t) for the 0% income tax. Rent is high but it’s just as high in London 🤷‍♀️

Thanks for sharing that video. It was a very interesting watch.

Some people think this is about trashing the economy on purpose

Kwasi Kwarteng was drinking champagne with the hedge fund managers that made a massive profit out of the disastrous mini budget, just as the crash happened…

Go figure

news.sky.com/story/kwasi-kwarteng-faces-calls-for-inquiry-after-attending-champagne-do-with-hedge-fund-managers-hours-after-delivering-mini-budget-12710039

@Coolasfeck you are absolutely right but the trouble is half her party didn't support her as they are closet liberals brought in by Cameron as she has said. And the establishment basically got rid of her as they don't want a small state, low spending etc. Some people think this is about trashing the economy on purpose so we can have a one world govt (eg wef) I have got to the stage where I think anything is possible after the last few years.

I voted Labour and don’t think Reeves has what it takes. I knew that as soon as she focused on VAT for schools and winter fuel allowance in a borderline obsessed way that she wasn’t a strategic thinker.

Funnily enough I think although Liz Truss is bonkers, her a Kwazi Kwarteng had a strategy which could have worked had they executed it properly. They were right in thinking we need a bold and ambitious plan, not tinkering around the edges. If they had done proper stakeholder engagement, they wouldn’t have spooked the market. We could have been seeing the fruits now.

You do realise that UK economics don't operate in a void don't you.

Do you really think the Tories will wave a magic wand and put it all right? They had umpteen years to do it and didn't and couldn't do it now even if they wanted (which they don't as they have Labour doing their scut work for them).

This, in spades ^

Reeves is sending the country to bankruptcy. Inflation was creeping lower under the tories and now it's going higher again . The government are planning growth but with what , more borrowing , higher debt repayments, the markets are spooked .
Employers are not taking on or replacing leavers . Businesses are not investing . House building won't happen anything like they're suggesting .
The very worst thing is their complete indifference to the rape gang scandals and why could that be , very probably because starmer will be implicated . He chose not to prosecute most cases as the children would not make credible witnesses , presumably because they were working class , uneducated, poor communication skills etc .
Everyone liberal who voted labour is responsible for this imploding mess of a government.

Careful, that champion of free speech is threatening to sue people who say that!

So far Labour have managed to alienate business owners, farmers and pensioners and this is supposed to be the honeymoon period!

On the first point, both parties have said that. Brown/Blair spent 12 years blaming Thatcher!

On the last point, Reeves has virtually admitted that public spending will be cut because she's ruled out tax rises or increased borrowings - there are no other options! Miliband also admitted austerity would be imposed when he was Labour leader over a decade ago.

There is no magic bullet. Most Western economies are stuffed! We're looking at managed decline of Britain and several other previously major Western economies.

Tories blamed labour for their chaos for 14 years. I think Labour deserve more than 8 months to try and improve things before being written off. Things were worse than they expected when they took over as well.
I've not noticed interest rates shooting up yet like they did when Truss/Kwarteng did their damage.
It's not a great situation but at least they are trying to improve public services rather than pretending that you can keep cutting them and not completely mess up the country.

We have one of highest energy costs in world

Strange that countries in the EU seem to have an awful lot lower energy costs than we do🤔

Plus the added bonus that their rivers and seas aren’t full of, literally, shit.

The problem is we have been running a big deficit for years and getting more and more into debt. Tories increased it from just under a trillion (I think) to 2.7 trillion. They spent over 500 billion on covid with nothing to show for it (cost millions for each life mostly over 80 saved with no discussion). We are importing a million net more people each year most of whom are a net cost while 5 million are on out of work benefits. We need a DOGE like America. Reeves answer is to put a tax on jobs so more businesses go bust and more benefits have to be paid. I'm convinced she did this so she wouldn't break her pledge to increase income tax and is too stupid to think it through. We have one of highest energy costs in world because of mad eds net zero so cant compete with china etc. So alot of entrepreneurs or high skilled youth are going abroad )meaning net migration is even worse as losing these people and gaining low skilled. That is before you get to all the cultural issues these fools gave created.

I’ve listened to at least 4 interviews today about the current state of the economy, which shows things are pretty bad.
None of them said that Lettuce crashed the economy ( though they all said the delivery was terrible ), but they all said the situation today is worse than the Truss/Kwarteng ‘event’.
Personally I think rates are going up, up, up, because the UK is obviously not a safe bet.
The US will get stronger under Trump because he is pro business and growth.
US stronger = UK weaker.

Yes

It's definitely about to crash, no matter who was in charge, it would be crashing!
Whoever has the pot of money, there's more going out of it, than there is going in to it.
I've no confidence in any political party sorting it out, stick or twist, it's the same mess sadly.

They have generated tax revenue. Have they set the breakpoints correctly? Probably not, but these things need to be paid for somehow.

Are they trying something different than the Conservative government? Yes. Is it the right thing? Not necessarily, but the money needs to come from somewhere.

Will what they have done lead to growth? Not necessarily, but the Conservatives have led us into massive decline. As I said, there is no fix that is going to come within a few months for something that has been buggered up over 14 years. Brexshit alone will take decades to sort out.

You are absolutely right. My only excuse is that I am still so traumatised by it that I have tried to erase it from my mind.

Never sure who to blame though. It was Cameron who called the referendum -but he supported Remain. Corbyn supported a referendum but refused to support Remain. Only 53 MPs actually voted against the Referendum Bill in 2015, with over 500 supporting it. So although many are now trying to reinvent history, they can all share the responsibility.

No.

It also makes me laugh when the BBC reports on the uptick in the use of cash and puts it down to people using it so they can ‘budget better’
Are they really that naive? It’s fully down to the tax take being too high and people doing more work for cash. And an out of control criminal economy.

Not "will she":she has. It's just going to take maybe 6-18 months to fully see how awful it is.

@Badbadbunny agreed.
Sometimes feel like the only idiot in the middle and fantasise about how I can engineer a move to somewhere crime and tax free 😂