Autumn Statement 2013 - your thoughts

This is the start of the reception campaign it will be only "good" news from now on in, take all of these 2015 policy proposals with a massive pinch of salt. They've already deleted their pre election promises from the website from the last election so that doesn't install much confidence in any of this Autumn Statment...

Autumn Statement -

Green deal still a bad deal. Chucking extra cash at councils for their buildings, and landlords for theirs is not helping the millions that need this deal. The interest rate for a Green Deal loan is at 7% when a home improvement mortgage can be got for 3%. In Europe green deal rates were BELOW mortgage rates. I'm sitting here shivering while the Germans have free umweltfreundliches underfloor heating and pleasing town centres with buildings that aren't damp and dilapidated.

Pension age - so what? The poor won't live that long or will be disabled by the age of 70 and the wealthy work as consultants as long as they can anyway - as a result of a healthy lifestyle due to only working part time from their middle age due to their high incomes. It just means higher childcare costs for the government as grandparents are too busy.

Wages have hardly gone up for 25 years. This needs to change and the government should NOT be subsidising tightwad tescos with working tax credits while TTs invest their enormous profits in taking over the universe and all its convenience stores.

Small businesses - there aren't any able to survive once the creditors and contractors get the scent of blood. The bigger businesses bring them down because they can - and this budget hasn't made them any more capable of surviving against this ruthless pack.

I think Osbourne made Ed Balls look very foolish.

Labour didn't hurl us down any pit, public spending was not the cause of the financial crisis.

Sorry, go back to home and start again.

Anyone who thinks Gideon is doing good job at economic recovery needs to read the IFS response to the growth forecast today..

This will be overshadowed (understandably) by the news of Mandelas death to Gideon's relief.

Osborne said something like council tax had doubled over New Labour's rule, but that he had capped the rise over the Tory five years.

That's good. Keep it up Gideon. Let people keep what little money they earn instead of siphoning it off to be wasted by bureaucrats and government fat cats.

Shame Osborne was defeated in his attempts to get more tax from this proliferation of what are called "charities" all over the land. Maybe if they get in next time, they'll be able to stop all these "expenses" claimed by the progressives who seem to be all over those "charities".

And Labour are not much different. Everybody is being screwed - young and old - on the big, global, macro scale.

However, on the micro scale, which is the only scale the politicians have any power over, I thought the budget was not so bad.

Rate freezes and cuts for business and new businesses, free school meals and an attempt to let hardworking people keep more of their money. All good and all attempts to reward enterprise and growth. Better than what New Labour would offer - more irresponsible spending and waste which would only create a bigger mess in years to come.

This budget was an attempt to climb out of the pit that Labour hurled us down. It's going to be a struggle, there is no easy ride, but at least Osborne has given us a ladder to start our climb.

Just to explain further why it is not a good ride for the old.

Cost of living is going up, prices are going up and their savings of a lifetime are declining because interests rates have been held down in order to try and get some recovery and growth. Old people getting worse care in care homes and in hospitals, some even dying of dehydration on wards.

How many 70 year olds do you ever see on TV or as politicians?

The Tory party is full of trendy "modernisers", young progressive A-listers straight out of Oxbridge, never done a job except for in a think tank, PR, spin or aa a speech writer. And Tory party membership has declined by half as older members who have believed in them for years and worked for them for years have abandoned them because the "modernisers" with their "hug a hoodie" policies don't represent their views.

Why do you thnk I'm voting UKIP?

ophelia27, that's not far off the truth, some good points there.
But it's not about old vs young, that is what they want us to believe with their think tank inspired "intergenerational divide" and "intergenerational injustice" that they talk about on our TVs.

It's a giant ponzi scheme. The young are being sacrificed in every way possible so that the older generation can "have it all" because they are the ones that vote.

So the younger generation can look forward to;

No pension until they reach 70 (if they live that long),
Never owning their own home and having to pay perpetually to rent a hovel from a slum landlord, taking up most of their pay (if they have a job),
Huge university debts (if they bother to educate themselves),
No jobs and low pay for the jobs there are
Competition from foreign workers who will work for a pittance and live in squalid conditions, courtesy of slum landlord,
High cost of food, energy, travel whilst the older generation get multiple subsidies (free bus passes, winter allowance, warm home grants etc).
Basically a return to Dickensian times for the young or renter scum.

Basically the Tories hate the young (and they are all multimillionaires so have no need to worry how their own young will cope).

I have no idea. Labour will be too chicken shit to reverse many of the Tories' policies, and too beholden to corporate interests in any case. We don't really have a functioning democracy.

It might not be quite as nasty as the Tories... maybe a bit less racism and hatred of the poor, disabled, and unemployed, but it will most likely be a continuation of the same neo-liberal policies we'd have for the past 30+ years which has given us such gross wealth inequality, suppressed wages, huge personal debt, privitization, etc.

Who knows what the Lib Dems stand for - treacherous bastards.

So what would a lib/lab gov be like?

It will probably be a Lab/Lib coalition.

Agree with everything Orphelia said. It was rubbish and why wait till 2015 to bring in this capital gains tax on foreign property owners? Perhaps Osborne's worried about crashing the London property market before he finally gets booted out (can't wait and counting down the days).

Unlikely, Lib Dem share predicted to plummet. UKIP are a worry in some areas so could be interesting.

I'm prepared to emigrate if UKIP manage to do anything significant.

So what Condems all over again?

The Tory scum? There's no way they'll get a majority in 2015. It'll be another hung Parliament.

Somebody reassure me they won't get back in.

What is the actual likelihood?

Maybe not in the longer term utreas, but in the short to medium term the lack of turnover must have an impact on the younger workforce.

A small example - my MIL works full time in a traditionally 'young persons industry' but at the age of 64 still feels she needs to continue working in order to be secure financially before retirement.

Well put ttosca - exactly my thoughts.

Why does the number of older people working affect the number of younger people, the labour market is not a zero sum game.

That's misleading. At any one point, it is a zero sum game, as there are only so many jobs available. Having people work for longer means that jobs are occupied which would otherwise be taking up by the staggering numbers of unemployed young people who can't find work.

We work so hard and I feel like we will be working until we die to finance an increasingly mean existence.

That's exactly what is going on, and it will continue to get worse until we fight back.

Why does the number of older people working affect the number of younger people, the labour market is not a zero sum game.

More people working longer surely isn't good news for young people and the million or so NEET that cannot find a job?

ophelia - you have summed it up perfectly there..

Very positive and the OBRs projections going into the future also look good particularly in comparison to our competitors.