Black Monday anyone? The tories should be in jail

[Upthebracket22]

The pound is now at its lowest point against the dollar since decimalisation in 1971 at 1.03. It’s probably going lower and the Bank of England will likely need to step in with an emergency interest rate rise today. Black Monday possibly?

All because of the mini budget on Friday. The Tories should be in jail. Especially if their rich backers were shorting the pound as it appears to get rich.

U.K.-based hedge funds with close links to the U.K. government seem to have made out with massive paydays—and now may face investigation over whether they were leaked information the rest of the market never received.

Insider dealing carries a seven year maximum sentence
fortune.com/2022/09/26/short-the-pound-uk-government-liz-truss-kwarteng-budget-hedge-funds-george-soros

The thing I can't get over is nearly 160,000 people voted for this. Even those who didn't are still letting it go ahead. The rest of us haven't any choice or voice.

Had Truss introduced a far cheaper and targeted energy fund and not had this crazy budget, borrowing to fund tax cuts? thats something no one does, we'd not be where we are.

Its not only the borrowing the markets don't like, its the fact we have no plan on how it will be paid.
e.g France has higher borrowing to GDP but only a 2.7% yield (10yr), we are as you say over 4% France of course took drastic action and nationalised EDF/Nuclear, hence inflation low and no need for 100s of billions in borrowing.

On gilts, yields are increasing in europe and US (the UK is just higher than most) the bond market bubble, previously used to minimise investment risk is well and truly burst.

Whats even crazier is almost anyone with a gram of economic sense can see what the Govt is doing is madness but still Truss marches on :(

Almost half of those 160,000 Tory party members didn’t vote for Truss. What are the ones who didn’t supposed to do? How can they possibly stop it? Nobody’s got any choice or voice right now. We’re all fucked.

Problem is we have borrowed way too much since 1997 and we are now going to pay for it

@potniatheron

Bit of a porky about Labour there..... Borrowing under Blair up until 2008 was around 35% of GDP, indeed under Blair it went down, even after GFC, it was 67% now almost 100% of GDP.

Privilege of having the reserve currency … USD is incredibly strong against most global currencies now, very few saw that coming tbh but could very much help their inflation and debt. At the expense of European and Asian economies 😱

That's up to the Guardian's usual financially illiterate standards.

@the80sweregreat I disagree that the Tory membership voted for what the 'mini-budget' contained, apart from cancelling the NI rise.

They were lied to, just as the whole country was repeatedly lied to by Boris Johnson over the last three years.

Why are 43% of people not paying income tax?

@Coucous does this include students and pensioners or is that 43% of working age adults?

i can’t believe how many people on here seriously think Tories have done this to benefit themselves and their friends

No, I actually listened to the hustings. I watched and listened to most of them.
To be fair to the new PM, the ideas she had for growth , tax cuts and borrowing are all happening just as she told them it would. Reversing the NI rises etc as well.

Well they certainly haven't done it to benefit the population at large

Many of those working in finance seem worried about a financial collapse. The fear has never been so palpable.

That's up to the Guardian's usual financially illiterate standards.

It was published in the Guardian but the research wasn't carried out by them. The Director of the Institute for fiscal studies says it will increase taxes for many who are not the wealthiest.

Paul Johnson, director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies, said: “Certainly, in the medium term, the four-year freeze in the personal allowance and other tax thresholds is really quite a big tax rise. And that does mean that, by the end of the period, anyone who’s not earning more than £150,000 will be somewhat worse off.”

Who is paying income tax?
56% of the population are paying income tax. Of those 31million people, 300,000 actually pay in 27% of the income tax total. The top 1% of earners pay almost a third of the UK’s entire income tax.

Why are 43% of people not paying income tax?
Firstly, it is important to establish which groups of people are in this category: unemployed, stay-at-home parents, full time carers, homeless and retired. Also, those earners who make less than the Personal Allowance amount of £12,500.
www.taxrebateservices.co.uk/is-everybody-paying-income-tax/

Thank you

It’s criminal. Lowering taxes in the reckless way they have.
They’re behaving like maverick’s
Like the Essex wide boys who work in the stock market gambling our money away. They’ve been encouraged to do it.

And now interest rates will keep rising along with house prices. House prices just will increase but no one will afford to buy or even move. I couldn’t afford to buy the house that I already brought and live in!

Of those 31million people, 300,000 actually pay in 27% of the income tax total. The top 1% of earners pay almost a third of the UK’s entire income tax.

And yet nobody seems to think that its weird that 300,000 people in the UK earn enough money to pay almost a third of the UK's entire income tax. How much are these people earning ? Historically has this changed much or has this always been the case ?

I know, but he's taking an actual tax reduction, the 1 percent, which means you keep more of your money, and subtracting a theoretical 19 percent of an allowance increase.

You are getting the actual tax rate money. The other bit is not actual cash.

Classic lefty finance though eh, let's make sure nurses etc feel like they are being cheated even if we have to use theoretical losses to do it.

Keeps you all striking and paying those Union dues just for as long as they have made you unhappy.

Labour had an 84 percent tax rate in the 70s.

High earners all moved to Switzerland.

Thatcher reduced it to 60 and then 40, but of course we all have to hate her for doing this.

I suppose you’ve got to find the spot where people pay and don’t leave instead

In what way is a 40 percent tax rate reckless?

And what do you mean gambling our money away?

Reducing the tax rate means people KEEP more of their money they have earned.

Yanbu. If this were a Labour government the papers (and therefore the "people") would be screaming for a general election and they would be out for a generation.

RE attracting and retaining high earners, it’s not just about the money these days, if it ever was. People are looking for stable countries to live in with great infrastructure, natural beauty, clean air, quality of life.

Research by the High Pay Centre found that the pay of the CEOs of Britain's biggest companies surged by 39 per cent in the aftermath of the covid pandemic. Median pay for a FTSE 100 CEO increased from £2.46m in 2020 to £3.41m in 2021, the research finds.

I think a lot took a pay freeze or cut during the pandemic, which might explain the sudden rise, but still, in comparison to your average worker, so the peopple doing the actual job that makes the company money, those are huge wages, especially when you consider they are describing median pay.

"Reducing the tax rate means people KEEP more of their money they have earned."

Excellent. That might cover increased mortgage payments and additional costs linked to imports.