to think that you need to stop what you're doing right now and read this article. And I mean need.

[granted]

I posted this on the Politics section but it deserves a much wider audience:

www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/feb/07/tax-city-heist-of-century?commentpage=last#end-of-comments

Quite possibly the best newspaper article I've ever read.

The people paid for the Dome. Who now owns the O2, is it the government? I don't know.

AEG, which owns 02 telefonica. It's not actually owned, it's leased. The country is still the freeholder.

have we made our money back. It was always referred to as a White Elephant. This is what wikipedia says

"Anschutz Entertainment Group have constantly stated that they wish to abolish its name as 'The Dome' due to its bad reputation as a failed project, being tagged as 'The White Elephant"

Instead of Prescott's plans for setting up casinos at the Dome and elsewhere, this government wants to encourage large corporations to headquarter in London. That is a real benefit to the country and really helps to "build a progressive future".

are we Europe's manhattan?

blackletterday "I cannot believe the amount of people (judging by my fb only) who are totally and utterly oblivious to world events. They seem to live in some kind of bubble."

It's not a coincidence, keep the population stupid and they're easy to control

And sorry, have I read this right.. privatisation of forests !
That can't be right, no I must have read it wrong...

IN Russia a few months ago, a journalist loudly protested a joint government and corporate venture to build a motorway because it involved cutting down hundreds of miles of mature forest for a huge profit. He was beaten up so severely he is now brain damaged and can't talk. I only mention it because I just think about his mother, raising him to do the right thing and oppose environmental destruction and government corruption (thieving the forests) only to be rewarded with brain damage. We might as well all raise our sons to be evil, ammoral bastards because those are the only types of people who win.

Some of the bigger multinationals have been quietly moving staff out of the UK for a couple of years now. DH is one of the much hated bankers and this week he has a meeting in Mumbai, the 6 other people in the meeting were previously also in the London office, we have been relocated as have the families of these other people. They were not replaced in London, the jobs were just moved to different countries. Their support staff were let go and the company has reduced the office size in London as well. It is also now company policy to not fly BA because of its unreliability.

I know this post is going to attract a bit of 'don't let the door hit you etc...' but that is 7 families who all had life set up in London paying tax, paying for childcare, employing slumbers and cleaners etc. Our flat is still empty, has been on the market for 4 months. A posh flat near the financial district that wasn't hideously expensive, simply because the 'replacement' Expat haven't arrived.

I have no idea what is going to happen in the UK but I have a very bad feeling about it all.

Morloth - your post made me laugh. London vies with New York City as the financial capital of the world.

'are we Europe's manhattan?'

Yes, we are.

Unlike Europe's Las Vegas, which is what Prescott was working towards with his super-casino plans, and Labour's lax financial regulation which allowed the casino capitalists to rule the roost.

For now kissandcuddle been to Sau Paulo recently or Mumbai? They are coming up fast as are some of the small eastern European countries.

Don't get me wrong I love the UK I was on an ancestry visa and am only second generation Aussie.

Empires rise and fall.

What (apart from a handy time zone) makes London important?

One issue is that currently the law is not consistent between branches (not a legal separate entity) and subsidiaries (separate legal entity) which was long overdue for a review, one way or the other.

The other issue is why companies want to bring profits generated elsewhere back into the UK. Two main reasons

• they need capital to invest in the UK part of the business or to repay/service debt taken out by the UK business.
• the UK company is the holding company and they need to bring cash in to pay the dividends. This would be true of companies which are listed in the UK but are only notionally British - i.e are listed in London but carry on most of their activities elsewhere.

I guess the issue is whether we want to penalise companies for doing either of these activities.

What a crock of shit...and what a (sadly, rather predictable) pathetic display of ignorance and prejudice displayed by many on here!!

This article is run through with the left-wing belief of "tax = good", "profits = bad". If you genuinely believe that all property rightly belongs to the State, then yes, you must see this as a wicked transfer of funds from the poor to the rich.

But then, if you do genuinely believe that, you are economically illiterate and have nothing of value to add to this discussion.

I pity the Left, I really do. How angry they must be the whole time - seeing someone succeed and hating them for it, because their success only reinforces their own inadequacies and, more to the point, those of their children.

Beneath contempt.

"What a crock of shit...and what a (sadly, rather predictable) pathetic display of ignorance and prejudice displayed by many on here!!"

ROFL talk about the pot and the fucking kettle.

the substances leftwing activists choose to smoke and police demonstration containment tactics have nothing whatsoever to do with Monbiot's misunderstanding of Coalition tax policy

Pascoe
Some of us on this thread are trying to understand this and educate ourselves further.

Nasty posts such as yours do nothing to further debate.

If you are so clever, then explain this to us.

As to the comparison with Germany earlier - the reason that Germany has weathered the recession much better is because their government invested instead of cutting services.

They also have a healthy Middlestand - small and medium sized businesses the like of which you hardly find in UK these days.

Germany has a more balanced economy and a much better industrial sector. There are a couple of reasons why

• They got to start again after WW2 so all their plant was new and shiny and cost effective
• They've got better (some) natural resources
• They continue to invest heavily in technical education and have a more stratified secondary education system

Also, Germany had nowhere like the levels of consumer debt that the UK had going into the recession.

The increasing imbalance in the UK in favour of financial services is a great concern but I'm yet to find anyone on one of these threads who has the solution to rebalancing beyond some vague thing about investing in green technology (why is it always green technology?)

It's 'green technology' because the progressive peddlers know that that pushes the buttons of naive Guardianistas. 'Green technology' is not intended to work or to create wealth for the people of this country, it is only used as the step ladder for progressives to gain power.

Germany is a great technological and industrial nation, because it never followed laissez-faire capitalism and was never run by casino capitalists. They don't rely on the 'City', they engineer high technology, quality products which they export the world over. They invest in their country and people and build for the future. As Sarkozy said, France and Germany were not fans of Anglo-Saxon capitalism, which brought the collapse of the banks.

er and Germany has a system where a) Unions and more equally at the table and in government and have rights more firmly in law and b) an economic model that relies less on share ownership and vulnerability to take-over, and more on investment - largely because of the pressure exerted because of point a).

While on the face of it this looks shocking, I urge people to ask 3 questions:

1. Does the Guardian have a historic interest in supporting or opposing Conservative party policy?

1. If this tax law is so complex can you be sure that it has been explained fully in this article or are the issues raised by *timetomove @23:04:20 closer to the mark?

1. Why did Guardian Media Group (GMG) apparently make £308 million in pre tax profit in the year to March 2008 yet pay no tax and receive £800k tax rebate More to the point is this blogger correct in stating that GMG make "the use of an equity owning trust and a Caymans Islands offshore corporation to avoid stamp duty,.."?

All corporations have a legitimate right to tax planning within the law.

btw 'green' technology is worth investing in - 'step ladder for progressives to gain power' is a dumb response. Green technology is what will help BOTH the largest economies in the world AND the emergent economies reduce their dependence on oil whilst simultaneously either maintaining or raising their living standards ie getting ahead in 'green' technologies would allow us to tap into the US, Russian, Chinese, Indian Eastern European and African markets - the biggest markets in the world. Being against that because you equate oil with agressive american republicanism and green with hippies is breathtakingly naive. (and what the oil companies want you to think as if demand for oil increases whilst supply decreases, they will make more returns if we are stil dependent on it in the way we are now).

The biggest new research areas in america are food security and green technology - do you think we should ignore this cash because some people think 'green' means dreadlocks and smoking cannabis?? Fool.

Heroine- I dont disagree, but will the UK have a competitive edge in being the country to "do" green technology? It's always the stock answer without anyone really giving thought about whether it should be us that's doing it. I've never heard a compelling case.

I also don't understand what you say about "tapping" into the US , Russian markets etc. You mean selling them green technology? Good luck with that. The Chinese will just buy one, rip it off and sell them back to you at half price.

beenbeta not ad hominim then ad paperim? what does attacking the newspaper have to do with the change in the law highlighted in the argument?

Have you heard of Climategate? Monbiot has. The greens are anti-technology, anti-industry and anti-progress, just like communists were. They are on the decline, people have wised up. Guardian readers will eventually catch up.

oh god people are ignorant - green technology is very knowledge led efficiencies, technology new chemicals, new processes, tight engineering, genetic modification, etc etc and we have some of the best research institutions in the world AND the possibility of managing them much better to achieve greater outputs too (as some are managed quite badly whilst still getting these outstanding results).