Rachel from accounts has crashed the economy

[Almn0etd]

So borrowing costs are now even higher than when Liz Truss was around.

The economy is well and truly cooked and in a far worse shape now that Rachel accounts is in charge.

Why isn’t this dominating the news cycle? Because it’s Labour.

The Tories were atrocious. Labour are an indescribable disaster for this country, surpassing the lowest of the low bars. Cue Labour apologists who don’t mind being made poorer and having the country destroyed, as long it’s Labour doing it to them.

It funded lots of holidays, new cars, extensions, etc for those lucky enough to qualify, whether they "needed" it or not. Shame there wasn't the same safety net for the freelancers, temps, casuals and self employed who needed it but were excluded. Hey ho!

Then of course, all the loans given out with barely any checks because Rishi thought it was "too hard" to check lending criteria and eligibility, so loads of people (many in organised gangs) fraudulently pretending to be running a limited company business (bought from Ebay for £50), claimed tens of thousands in loans and beggared off abroad never to be seen again.

Nice one Rishi!

Re Covid I thought the costs high at the time and that went down as well on mn as you’d think. Ie not. People demanded never ending expense

As for first half 2024 I’d say Reeves would love that same figure for growth rn

There are many sources @Blossomtoes that say that billions ended up in the pockets (or rather bought assets) of the super rich during Covid, trillions if we're talking globally, so I'd be interested to know what sources you're referring to that contradicts that.

The Rowntree foundation also has a good but depressing article on growing wealth inequality.

I assumed she must be a fan of Otto von Bismark!

Please explain how the furlough funding ended up in the hands of the ‘super rich’?

Also, kindly define said rich.

*The Rowntree foundation also has a good but depressing article on growing wealth inequality.

Well of course they do! Not exactly an unbiased source, that.

I agree that there needed to be some kind of furlough if lockdown was necessary, but - as per 🙄 - it was ballsed up by the government (and successive generations of our children will pay for it). The amount of money spaffed was eye-watering.

@MyNameIsX when I say super rich I mean people with assets of £10million upwards - in the UK the 350 wealthiest individuals assets amounts to more than £795bn. according to last years ST Rich list.

Wealth inequality growing is shown by less ownership of assets e.g. the difficulty for younger people to get on the property ladder house prices having gone up far more than earnings and far higher levels of debt including mortgage compared to previous generations.

I'll post later about how the Covid spending just increased the wealth of the super rich.

I was a fairly lone voice in the pandemic against lock downs and particularly furlough payments as I said then and say now it would damage people for a generation given the debt we had to take on. However we are where we are and cannot change it now. It meant the middle class could sit at home whilst the poor made deliveries to their houses and the very rich got PPE contracts.

If the Chancellor makes cuts I am very much behind her on that as there is so much waste and incentives to people not to work.

Under the Tories those of us on £70k or more before tax (about £4200 a month net before student loan is taken off) (top 10%) paid a lot more tax - highest in 70 years, huge burden and a massive narrowing of the position between rich and poor whilst for the other 90% tax went down including NI down from about 13% to about 8% and minimum wage and personal tax allowance rose and rose (no personal allowance at all however for the well off). So I am not very keen on the Tory very high tax policies either.

and yet @Xenia Richi Sunak paid tax last year at an effective rate of 23%, the tory and labour tax policies are great if you're worth hundreds of millions.

Yeah we should have just not paid people and told them to suck it up. That would have worked really well for the economy.

Amd you weren’t exactly alone voice. There were plenty of people very vocally as wrong as you were.

I also think welfare cuts are coming and that it will hurt the poorest and cuts won't encourage growth because people will have less money to spend.

If we taxed Mr Sunak and friends at 40% instead of 20-23% there would be more in the spending pot but none of the political parties seem interested in increasing the taxation on the super rich.

Respectfully, that’s GCSE economics. Look at the Laffer curve.

Behavioural economics will show you that if tax people excessively, they will simply seek ways to mitigate their tax liability - I speak from experience. My tax bill this year and most years, is several hundred K from worked/earned income - I do not fib. I feel despised by this Govt and so do my cohort. Some have left, some have retired early, some have cut their income, some have liquidated assets. I will not pay this Govt one penny more than I am compelled to. Neither do I trust them to administer my current contribution efficiently (and nor should you).

Reeves is simply reaping what she has sown. And yes, austerity 2.0 is coming, however Labour might try to spin it.

NoWordForFluffy
the public voted for a 'soft' Brexit. Vote Leave literature said we wouldn't leave the single market (or something similar; it's been a while since I saw it to remember verbatim).

April 2016

Thanks to Michael Gove we know that Britain's future outside the EU would also be outside the single market.

So we can rule out our future looking like Norway or Iceland...

Vote Leave's future plan for the UK would be outside the EU and outside the EEA.

https://www.itv.com/news/2016-04-19/michael-gove-says-britains-future-outside-the-eu-would-also-be-outside-the-single-market-but-what-does-that-mean

June 2016

David Cameron confirmed that he will pull Britain out of the single market if there is a vote to leave the European Union at the upcoming referendum...

The prime minister said: “What the British public will be voting for is to leave the EU and leave the single market.”

https://www.politico.eu/article/david-cameron-bbc-andrew-marr-ill-pull-uk-out-of-the-single-market-after-brexit-eu-referendum-vote-june-23-consequences-news/

@MyNameIsX if your annual tax bill from earned income is several hundred thousand pounds, then its reasonable to assume that you are very wealthy compared to 99% of the rest of the country and I can see why you are not in favour of taxing the super rich any more.

The majority of the additional £400+ billion created by the BOE and borrowed by the Gov in Covid was handed out for furlough / salary support at 80% of an employees wage, who still had to pay essential rent/food/bills - 1/3rd of UK adults (22.8 million) have no money or less than 1k saved.

So where is this extra £400 billion now? excluding the 200 million that went to Michelle Mone's husband. Who profits from rent/bills/food? Say you shop at Tesco whose current boss gets paid £4 million a year, or the billionaire Asda owning Issa brothers, they increase their wealth by people buying food.

Then there's billionaires who manage and increase their wealth through asset companies owning shares in banks who make money from lending to ordinary people on consumer debt and mortgages, similarly for utility companies.

The number of UK billionaires increased by 20% during Covid - its a free market economy I know but at least try and fix some of the economic problems caused by Covid borrowing by taxing billionaires more or at the same % that the middle earners are taxed, Richi Sunak paying 23% tax seems unfair to me paying 40%.

But what was in the actual Vote Leave literature posted to everyone? That's what I was referring to.

Pretty sure it said that we wouldn't leave without some kind of deal on trade.

I don’t recall that I thought FOM was the main thing people wanted who voted for Brexit - not having it that is

Maybe someone has info as it’s a long time ago

As for the super rich leaving the UK.

I was referring to increasing tax for people with tens/hundreds/millions in UK based assets rather than high wage earners, currently these people are taxed on which country they reside in even if all their wealth is generated in the UK.

So if Mr Sunak departs for America (he may have done so already) but is still making millions every year from his UK assets, change the tax system - you make millions in the UK but live abroad, you still get taxed or you don't get to withdraw your UK generated wealth, other countries manage this.

I am pretty sure it did say we wouldn't leave without a trade deal. I can see it in my mind's eye. But almost 9 years on, I could be very wrong!

I've just tried to find the leaflet, but can't. I'm going to keep looking though as I've seen info to suggest we'd be able to pick and choose the elements of the single market we wanted, which is along a similar theme!

I think maybe a deal but not FOM which means no SM

Hazy here too, I was just fed up with the wrangling for ages after

Oh Dear! Please stop trying to re run that election. It is over it is finished.
We cannot renegotiate because the EU wants too much from us as a condition for opening the debate. They want our FISH. Only after we have handed the seas over will they talk about other things.
That is how understood the response before Christmas. I would like to be wrong on this point. If you know better please explain.

I don't remember a Vote Leave leaflet - the government sent a leaflet to every home backing Remain. Did you not watch any of the TV debates?

Dunno. I had a non-sleeping toddler and was working full time, so it's all rather blurry, tbh. I was probably sparko for most of them!

There were definitely leaflets. I've found a whole archive online. Not sure I have the appetite to go through them though!

Who's trying to re-run it? Whatever the leaflets said it was a clusterfuck!

Did you vote Leave in the referendum?

No. But I read all the leaflets which came through the door. Clearly didn't commit them to memory though! 😬🤣