Be Excellent To Each Other

So far the important stuff seems to be:



I'm not sure why cider has got such a crappy deal.

Is cider the new alcopops, perhaps?

I'm surprised the tobacco duty increase is so low.

Yes. Well, alcopops was the new cider, so they've done a switchbackeroony. All the young'uns seem to be drinking toffee apple flavoured Brothers cider and other filth* like that.





* I really like it, annoyingly.

Gerrorf me zoiderr!

To be fair it is cheaper than water, in supermarkets.

I think they could have stood to double the price of petrol and cigarettes for a laugh, but I suppose there's an election to get beaten in anyway win.

BBC News was reporting it as an increase in duty on 'strong cider'. Is tehre a cut-off point, as I have a vague hope that it means stuff like White Lightning and Ace and other such horrific 10% abominations...

I think "strong" is "4% or over". It is for lager, anyway.

Darling to apparently "Offer some new help to the computer games industry", whatever that means.

Magners, Bulmers, Gaymers - there's been a huge rise in the popularity of premium cider over the last couple of years, especially with the recent pear cider push. This is a tax grab on that action which, purely coincidentally I'm sure, allows the government to play it as recognising the British Real Ale Crisis and helping out.

He is giving them Julie Peasgood as a mascot.

When he announced the cider thing I heard (through my tears) him say that there has been a discrepancy in cider taxation,as if it has been missed a few times or hasn't increased in line with other drink. Bit of a bummer, I'll just need to stock up this weekend

Bugger. No cider under 4% is worth drinking anyway (that I've come across).

Must stock up on Aspall's before the pubs and retailers up their prices by 20% and blame the Budget...

'important' stuff eh?

I'd hate to see the unimportant stuff. Deck chairs and Titanic spring instantly to mind; if this is the budget to get us out of the shit rather than try to lull a (justly) scared electorate into a false (very short term) sense of security just prior to a General Election, I'm a banana. 'Disingenuous' doesn't really cover it.

As for 'no changes to VAT or income tax planned', methinks I'll be calling bullshit on that one.

Cider is my main tipple, and I get through quite a lot of it. I am also poor. Is this going to be A Bad Year?

Stuff that's important (directly) to us, aye. As in, stuff we'll "see", if you like. Ah fuck it, you know what I mean.

Of course that's true - he's not planned anything mainly because he's out of a job in a few months, thank the fucking Lord.

I agree with Cavey

Still, there was some stuff about banks and things in there too, wasn't there?

Why can't they just scrap stamp duty below 250K altogether? Why should first-time buyers get preferential treatment?

I could see the case for keeping stamp duty for buy-to-let mortgages, but surely anyone looking to buy a house to actually live in is essentially in the same position as a "first time buyer".

I done explaining! Look!

Feex.
If you're buying your only house, I can see no reason to pay the fucking government for it too.

He'll be doing box quotes for Codemasters games.

Well, he'll need something to occupy his time in the latter half of this year

So that it doesn't actually cost them, obvl.

Only a handful of tories are first-time-buying quarter-million-quid houses.

Sorry Grim..., I was dissing the Govt, not you mate!!

It's what they deem to be 'important stuff' that's got my goat here - what a bunch of knobs IMO.

Actually, I deemed it to be important stuff.

/cries in the corner

Nice one mate, thanks.

That's just it, this is clearly going to be a "labour" budget (funny how they've suddenly remembered their roots, isn't it?). Shame it couldn't be one that's good for the country instead, but there you go - votes are more important.

We really are in a staggering amount of debt, too

Er... soz mate!

(Seriously though, what I'm trying to say, very badly as usual, was that I expected some Big New Ideas in this budget to get us through the next year or two; stimulus for new industries, targeted tax breaks for R&D, meaningful tax rises which must surely come, that kind of stuff )

Well, me might get them yet.

I think it's terribly unfair that I have to pay stamp duty despite not owning a house for 4 years. But that's only because if I don't blame the government I'll have to admit I was terribly stupid to sell my house instead of renting it out, despite that the profit kept me in comfort during my protracted unemployment.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/multimedia ... 84127a.swf



[edit]Wait a minute, that's fifteen million pounds per person - that can't be right, can it?

*Panic buys deck chairs*

I had to cry the other day when I heard people talking about the fact we had underspent by 40 billion so we had an extra 40 billion pounds to play with. Erm, so we were only 140 billion in debt cf 180billion. Well done, round of a-fucking-pplause. Not really having 40billion to play with, is it?

I actually think what they've turned out so far is decent, as budgets go. It's clearly a pre-election budget, because they've not (in my view) explored the cutting of expenditure as much as they need to, but there's a decent amount of stimulus items in there.

Taking the total UK population as 55 million, the net govt debt currently stands at £17,000 for every man, woman and child and is set to rise much further by 2015, even allowing for Darling's fantastical growth forecasts (which won't actually transpire). Newsnight quoted £23,000 per person the other night.

Of course, only a small proportion of this total population is both of working age, and working - there are apparently 8 million people of working age in this country who are 'economically inactive' for instance - the highest ever - and they aren't included within the 2.5 million on JSA.

I don't know what the total UK 'working workforce' is (excluding retired, economically inactive/on the sick, students and children), but I'd be surprised if it's 10 million? If that's true, the level of debt per capita among the working would be more like £100,000 each, under Labour. And even then, vast swathes of this working population are employed within the Public Sector anyway (far more than ever before), which can't generate any wealth at all and is also funded by the working population anyway.

And of course, levels of actual, personal debt have also never been higher, and the banks have started to mailshot me with cheap, no questions asked loan offers yet again (as funded by me, the taxpayer). The cunts.

Then of course there's the demographic timebomb - loads of working people in their late 50s will be wanting to retire within the next 10 years or less, disproprotionately so in fact, many of them in the Public Sector expecting unfinanced, massively generous final salary pensions at the gross expense to the ever dwindling working minority. We's fooked.

I reckon Brown is on the blower to Ocean Finance about now...

Given that they need to cut expenditure and pay off the defecit, why the fuck is he giving money away in a tax cut by abolishing stamp duty for the 125-250k houses for first time buyers?

Sitll, in the current market that's probably only costing him £50k a year.

There are more potential voting first-time buyers than there are voting economists who understand macroeconomics.

Mind you, for most of Labour's time in power, it's been lower than it was when the Tories left in 97.



It's only since the world economy went down the crapper and the Government started propping shit up that it's increased so sharply. And that was the first time Labour owed more than your beloved Tories.

Edit -- and a lot of coutries owe a lot more.

That graph is %GDP note, not absolute figures. In theory, increase in GDP should mean you are more able to service the debt, but that's not always the case.

True enough, but I think overall proportion of GDP is a fairer measure than absolute. I can't find any inflation-adjusted absolute figures for comparison.

I thought debt, as a percentage of GDP was as low as 25% under the last Tory adminstrations, and more typically 40%? I'm sure Peter St. John posted some stuff about this a while back.

Besides, I've no doubt that GDP itself massively increased between 1997 and now, which would of course significantly lower the apparent % debt (the absolute debt amount would increase though, despite little or no increase in population).

Besides, I'm not surprised the going was good between 1997 and 2001, as Labour were basically doing exactly what the Tories would've done anyway (this was the only way they could get elected), and they inherited a repaired, vibrant, low tax economic legacy from the Tories, in stark contrast to the tragic mess that they had to sort out in 1979. (Strange how history repeats itself).

Anyway, are you seriously suggesting that the level of public debt is better under Labour than the Tories? If you honestly think that Labour have managed the UK economy well during their term, then frankly I am speechless.

Interesting:



EDIT - re: Stamp duty.

Fuck no. I have no idea either way.

I've never seen any statement from any professional economist (who isn't a snake oil salesman anyway) that claims they can understand anything as complex as a nation's economy. So if they can't hold a definite opinion on whether a given set of choices were right or wrong, how the hell am I supposed to?

With increasing age, I am more and more convinced that any strongly held opinion about politics, economics, or any other Big Issues are mostly a sign that you haven't looked at it very closer. The closer I look at any given issue, the more confused I inevitably become about which option is right and wrong.

I don't believe there is any right or wrong for 90% of issues. There's just differences in approach.

I tend to agree; my political views, such as they are, are a real mish-mash, positively left wing in some respects (abolish Trident, ID cards, private schools and hospitals), Liberal in others (part decriminalise drugs and sex industries, limit powers of police and State, foreign policy) and Tory in all matters economics.

I guess I'm a fervent anti-Keynesian, above all. You get owt for nowt.

I'm also convinced I add nothing to any election process that couldn't be replaced with a random number generator.

Still say that South Park ep with the margherita maker machine and headless chicken decision making device was best. 'And... it's gone!' LOL...

I've gone looking for this. Can't find anything concrete, which past history and personal experience with Film industry support means:

1) Consultation followed by consultation, followed by watered down scheme that does anything but help the industry, but creates a huge opportunity for tax avoidance due to eminently foreseeable loopholes being exploited.

or

2) We never hear of it again.

Well, my brother's just rang his solicitor, and he'll be getting the £1,700 currently being processed as his stamp duty refunded. Excellent. Just in the nick of time, there.

Abolishing hospitals seems pretty drastic.

Or he's just buying a 360.