I thought, pile of shite.

Anyone who drinks, smokes, or drives get penalised for it, again.

The 50% tax on any wage over £150,000 per year sounds good, but whats the betting that an MP's wage is just under that figure so they wont get affected by it.

Labour governments chance to help out the working class population (such as me) who are all being hit hard by this recession thing, and they fecked it up bigtime IMO.

Discuss.......

A number of other things that the BBC News, at least, failed to mention:

Anyone under the age of 25 without a job for 12 months will be guaranteed a placement or training placement in a job, and will be paid for it somewhat.

Another few billion quid is going into JobCentre Plus.

Car scrappage scheme (£2000 when you scrap your old car and buy a new one).

Keeping and increasing some child and family benefits.

...


Actually, that's about it, as far as I remember. And I think this stuff has been announced previously, and was just re-hashed to soften the blow of the depressing numbers Eyebrows announced today.

50% tax will generate about a £billion. We're going to borrow over £600billion over 4 years, and our total debt will rise to 79% of GDP.

The Prime Mentalist must go.

UK's not alone that's gonna invest a lot of money in the hope of boosting their economy, and thus increase the debt by a truckload. Canada (or is it Quebec, I'm always confused about which gov. does what) has done the same, and the debt will rise like crazy. I think it'll erase all the reimbursement we did over the past 15 years or something like that.

I suppose we have no choice.

Quote from Mp3 Astra :

A number of other things that the BBC News, at least, failed to mention:

Anyone under the age of 25 without a job for 12 months will be guaranteed a placement or training placement in a job, and will be paid for it somewhat.

Another few billion quid is going into JobCentre Plus.

Car scrappage scheme (£2000 when you scrap your old car and buy a new one).

Keeping and increasing some child and family benefits.

...


Actually, that's about it, as far as I remember. And I think this stuff has been announced previously, and was just re-hashed to soften the blow of the depressing numbers Eyebrows announced today.

Which to me, the points you've mentioned seem like the right sort of steps to be taking! More of this please!

As as I for one don't smoke or drink, I won't be getting taxed half as much as the bingers. Another +1 for alcho and tobacco free life..

I think it's bad as usual, the idea of encouraging perfectly good cars to be scrapped and getting people to buy new ones they don't need and can't afford is creating two problems in one go. The new car industry should be allowed to fail like it naturally is at the moment, people can't afford to buy so many so there's no point in trying to artificially keep people in work producing a product that no one wants, it just doesn't make sense, the hard truth is we'd all be far better off if car workers were sat on their arses (not being paid) or found another job.

There are still plenty of jobs where I live, that are still being filled by foreigners (although numbers coming in are reducing) and a percentage of the population is still unemployed and quite happy to be unemployed (despite telling you otherwise) they won't work for minimum wage and they certainly won't do anything that involves manual labour or effort, nor can they do temporary work until they find something permanent...

I don't think giving people jobs will do much to help 'jobseekers' other than possibly making them run out of excuses and free handouts?

Quote from ajp71 :

There are still plenty of jobs where I live

Well aren't you bloody lucky..

anyone hear the comments by the torres about us Irish ??


got posted the link... what a bunch of racist cnuts they are

our recession is bad... but tbh... after hearing the tripe they had to say...


Surprised England's economy didn't collapse first...


karma was on holiday ?

trouble with the jobs around here they're very specific trades, ive got Xtrac up the road from me, there are a couple of race teams based a few miles up the road, there's a lot of things like joinery firms and building firms around here which arent doing well because of the current climate. Ive had experience in working in a factory and i quite enjoyed it and i dont want to now go work in a shop.

Good to hear that people out of work for 1 year will get a guarenteed placement. Trouble is though will you be forced to take what they give you?

I've found that there's not so much a lack of jobs, but hundreds more people applyign for them. I've been looking since January, and every application I do has silly number of people applying, like 3 or 4 hundred.

'No matter what you think you're good at, there's always like a million people who are better at it'.


That and temp agencies don't have any temp jobs you can just walk into anymore Everything you do has to go through the interview process now which takes weeks.

50% tax rate for high earners is a 'good thing'? PPPLLLEEEAASSSEE!

considering it's the high earners that create REAL jobs thus creating REAL wealth it's silly to punish them for their HARD work. For a strong economy productive peoploe need to be rewarded not punished. It's basically saying "Your just too good at your job so we want more money of you".

I actually wouldn't be surprised to see this having the completely opposite effect. What most idiots have done is done is calculate the current tex reciept if this was introduced today. WHat they don't take into account is that all these high earners, and POTENTIAL high earners are now looking at ways of leaving the country to earn money somewhere else.

And let's look at it this way. lets say for example (I wish ) I am a wealthy man and I have a few grand set by to help small business i wanna invest in. I now hav just had that money taken off me by tax! So before I could've helped a small new business grow and create jobs and now...gone! How is this a GOOD thing?

Quote from Intrepid :

...

Apparently only 1% of UK taxpayers are affected.
Even still it is these people who use 'creative accounting' to their benefit, so I imagine a lot of them will soon have salaries of £145k or similar without actually losing any money.

They need to close tax loopholes, rather than increasing tax for those who already pay, particularly big business. I can't be bothered to find it, but there was an article in the Financial Times about a year ago that said that companies owned by Rupert Murdoch didn't pay a penny in tax to the British government, and that for large companies, this is very common.

Quote from Bean0 :

who use 'creative accounting' to their benefit, so I imagine a lot of them will soon have salaries of £145k or similar without actually losing any money.

It's only earnings over £150K that are taxed at the higher level, so if you were on £155K, only £5K would have the 50% rate applied, you don't suddenly start paying more on all of it as soon as you earn £150,001, otherwise, as you said, everyone would just cap their salary just below the level.

Quote from Intrepid :

50% tax rate for high earners is a 'good thing'? PPPLLLEEEAASSSEE!

considering it's the high earners that create REAL jobs thus creating REAL wealth it's silly to punish them for their HARD work. For a strong economy productive peoploe need to be rewarded not punished. It's basically saying "Your just too good at your job so we want more money of you".

I actually wouldn't be surprised to see this having the completely opposite effect. What most idiots have done is done is calculate the current tex reciept if this was introduced today. WHat they don't take into account is that all these high earners, and POTENTIAL high earners are now looking at ways of leaving the country to earn money somewhere else.

And let's look at it this way. lets say for example (I wish ) I am a wealthy man and I have a few grand set by to help small business i wanna invest in. I now hav just had that money taken off me by tax! So before I could've helped a small new business grow and create jobs and now...gone! How is this a GOOD thing?

Alternatively we could have kept the Status Quo and allow the poor to have a higher percentage of there annual income lost to tax, therefore once again screwing over the working class and increasing the gap between poor and rich. It can be argued that this is the first ‘left’ budget policy the Labour government have ever done in the 9 years in power. Too little too late though.

Don’t worry though, the good old Tory party will soon be back in power lead by Tony Blai…..I mean What’s his face, the fella that got his bike nicked….David Cameron?

Possibly the only solution to the current situation comes from the only party no body will vote for.

Quote from Liberal Democrats :

It is clear that this recession demands a radical overhaul of the British tax
system. It remains scandalous that the richest in our country pay a lower share
of their wealth in tax than the poorest. We are demanding that both sides of
this distorted equation be changed.

We are renewing our call to close the loopholes exploit by big business and the
powerful and wealthy. And today, after working with our colleagues in
Parliament and across the Party, we are announcing that the Liberal Democrats
will fight the next general election with a pledge to cut income tax bills by
£700 for people on low and middle incomes.

We will promise to raise the income tax personal allowance to £10,000 by
closing tax loopholes exploited by big businesses and the wealthy. This will
mean 4 million of the lowest paid people not paying tax at all, including many
earning just the minimum wage.

It is a radical and progressive package that will form a key part of the
pre-manifesto document that will come to our party conference in Autumn. This
policy marks us out as the only party in British politics dedicated to changing
our tax system to make it fairer.

Quote from Mackie The Staggie :

Alternatively we could have kept the Status Quo and allow the poor to have a higher percentage of there annual income lost to tax, therefore once again screwing over the working class and increasing the gap between poor and rich. It can be argued that this is the first ‘left’ budget policy the Labour government have ever done in the 9 years in power. Too little too late though.

Don’t worry though, the good old Tory party will soon be back in power lead by Tony Blai…..I mean What’s his face, the fella that got his bike nicked….David Cameron?

Possibly the only solution to the current situation comes from the only party no body will vote for.

Sorry but punishing the rich for being productive is insane. They create the JOBS! The top 1% of the population make up 25% of the OVERALL tax receipt. They are HUGELY productive for this country in terms of value. Of course we can punish them but they will soon move abroad and the so called 'poor' won't have ANY JOBS!

Its been a HUGE misconception that rightist policies by this government have caused all this. This will be wrong and totally naive because they haven't been rightist at all. The fractional reserve banking system is one not supported by TRUE 'rightist' believers. Of course I wouldn't imagine anyone having the brains to even know what that is!

Don't get me started on the Lib Dems! They probably think the 'broken window fallacy' is some dodgy movie!

bring back maggie

What I'm about to say it probably not going to go down very well here, (considering the average age on this forum), but..

I think they've already done more than enough to help young people in to work etc. I think it's about time they started doing something for older people that find themselves in the position of being out of work with dependants to support and lots of bills. Especially now with more and more people ending up unemployed. To be blunt if you're under 25 and you loose your job chances are you're renting and could easily go back to live with your parents if you really had too. Also, young people haven't really entrenched themselves in a career and it would be far easier for them to find a job in another sector, especially with employers being youth fixated like they are.

For the likes of 30/40 year olds moving career is much harder and it's people with 10-20 years in the same sector that really need the retraining money. History has proven this, look at the coal, steel, tin, etc etc industries that went to the wall. It's the older workers that have ended up on the long term unemployment list, not the younger ones who could managed to find work in other industries.

So, where's the support for the older worker that finds themself out of a job??? Where's their retraining budget?. It's just plain wrong to assume that because you're older you have savings and money in the bank in order to retrain. Plus time factors are far more critical when you're older. The bank waits around for no man before repossessing the home that you spent 20 years building up.

It's about time this government stopped giving all it's handouts to the younger generation, who are more flexible and able to take another path. It's about time they started doing something for the people that have worked their asses off half their lives to build up this economy in the first place. Time to give something back !!

/rant

Quote from Intrepid :

Sorry but punishing the rich for being productive is insane. They create the JOBS! .......

Rubbish. The people that are being paid over £150k by and large are CEOs, Chaimen etc of large corporations. They have in no way created jobs for the people in general. The employees of those corporations create the wealth for the business through their hard work. They're the ones that put the companies in the position of growth to be able to employ more people.

The vast majority of company directors etc, (the people you're really alluding to), who start up new businesses and create new jobs that way, don't pay themselves anywhere near £150k. They simply can't afford it.

Quote from gezmoor :

It's about time this government stopped giving all it's handouts to the younger generation, who are more flexible and able to take another path. It's about time they started doing something for the people that have worked their asses off half their lives to build up this economy in the first place. Time to give something back !!

/rant

Why do you believe the Government can do anything? This time I won't rant against the government because I believe people themselves have these wholly unrealistic, and almost naive beliefs that some dudes in London can actually create real and sustainable jobs.

On a basic level if the youth are more employable then thats just a fact. but by punishing companies for not employing older people is as bad if not worse. No doubt a blanket approach would have to be proposed and that would mean companies becoming LESS efficient and thus creating LESS jobs. The more you interfer the more problems you will have.

If we allow companies to emply who ever the hell they want then you will find they will grow far larger, and quicker than imposing SILLY restrictions. And naturally people will assume older people won't be desirable... well this isn't always the case as many businesses want experienced hands.

Some of you guys frighten me with your lack of economic judgement

Quote from gezmoor :

Rubbish. The people that are being paid over £150k by and large are CEOs, Chaimen etc of large corporations. They have in no way created jobs for the people in general. The employees of those corporations create the wealth for the business through their hard work. They're the ones that put the companies in the position of growth to be able to employ more people.

oh dear!

What would happen if you sacked all the CEOs and Chairman... the company would go to pot and all the employees wouldn't have a job.

It's their direction and ideas that allow the company to expand and grow. Without these people we would still be in the dark ages!

The employees get paid for their hard work and if they don't like it.... go find another job and stop complaining about the one they have!

You'll soon start complaining when all these CEOs move themselves and their companies abroad... who will employ you then?

Quote from Intrepid :

Why do you believe the Government can do anything? This time I won't rant against the government because I believe people themselves have these wholly unrealistic, and almost naive beliefs that some dudes in London can actually create real and sustainable jobs.

On a basic level if the youth are more employable then thats just a fact. but by punishing companies for not employing older people is as bad if not worse. No doubt a blanket approach would have to be proposed and that would mean companies becoming LESS efficient and thus creating LESS jobs. The more you interfer the more problems you will have.

If we allow companies to emply who ever the hell they want then you will find they will grow far larger, and quicker than imposing SILLY restrictions. And naturally people will assume older people won't be desirable... well this isn't always the case as many businesses want experienced hands.

Some of you guys frighten me with your lack of economic judgement

I'm not talking about putting in place any punative measures to make companies employ older more experienced staff. However, I do think they should legislate against companies creating a young company "culture" artificially because of bias and biggotry against older people on the assumption they're slow or entrenched in their ways and unable to learn.

I'm talking about the government helping older unemployed people to get back in to work with retraining packages. If it's good enough for the young why not all?? Seriously, 25 isn't even that old!! what about the poor 26 year old??

Yes, we've all seen what business does when it's allowed to do what it likes completely unregulated. We're reaping the rewards of it right now. People need to learn the new reality, laissez fair capitalism doesn't work. It just mandates greed and wealth creation for a minority. Growth isn't everything, we need to get out of this cycle of profit and growth generation being the sole ambition of business. There is such a thing as too much growth being bad for the economy.

That's the problem, too much short term thinking. Too much lining their own pockets and not thinking about the long term consequences even for their own businesses let alone the economy overall.

If the banks had been far more heaviliy and actively regulated we would not be in the sh*t we're in today. That's just a fact.

Quote from gezmoor :

Yes, we've all seen what business does when it's allowed to do what it likes completely unregulated. We're reaping the rewards of it right now.

On that comment I am going to COMPLETELY disregard everything else you've written because it shows a basic lack of economics and it's history.

Do you believe a central bank setting low interest rates and a fractional reserve banking system is part of a completely unregulated system? Or do you even know what they are? This boom was NOT created by the free market at ALL....I could go on but really what's the point? It's not as if you will actually go out and try and learn about the history of economics and money!

and I will tell you this. It was the free market economists who PREDICTED and WARNED about this bust years ago! Now if the free market caused it why were their leading figures warning of this impending disaster?

Quote from Intrepid :

oh dear!

What would happen if you sacked all the CEOs and Chairman... the company would go to pot and all the employees wouldn't have a job.

It's their direction and ideas that allow the company to expand and grow. Without these people we would still be in the dark ages!

The employees get paid for their hard work and if they don't like it.... go find another job and stop complaining about the one they have!

You'll soon start complaining when all these CEOs move themselves and their companies abroad... who will employ you then?

I'll say simply this.

Go ahead, take you're wonderfull business idea and vision and see how far you get BY YOURSELF.

Without the help of experienced Sales, Marketing, Engineering, Administrative, Legal, Project Management people to help you, that "Great" business acumen of yours is worth squat.

Business is a COLLABORATION. It needs BOTH the people to give it direction and strategy AND the people to turn those things in to an ACTUAL money making enterprise.

The arrogance of the belief that it's solely the CEO's, Directors et al that deserve the credit for building the business and creating the wealth and driving forward the economy astounds me it truely does.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/8014200.stm

Quote from gezmoor :

Without the help of experienced Sales, Marketing, Engineering, Administrative, Legal, Project Management people to help you, that "Great" business acumen of yours is worth squat.

Well if I could hire the best it would be great. Instead under your vision I would have to hire people in the correct age group thus restricting my options and making the business LESS EFFICIENT!

Quote from J@tko :

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/8014200.stm

Quote :

I'm from Sweden originally but I've lived in London for 15 years. I live in the capital for tax reasons. Every year I pay £600,000 in taxes to the British government. Because of the Budget, I now want to leave the UK and so do a lot of my friends who are in similar situations. Just imagine how much lost money that is for the government.

I've booked an appointment with an estate agent and am now looking to move my family to either Jordan or Hong Kong







I have two young children who think of London as their home. I wanted them to go to school in London as well but it's not going to happen now. It's a great city to live in: It's cosmopolitan, it has a decent culture and it has a very high quality of education. I will be sad to leave but it makes no financial sense now to stay.
I've booked an appointment with an estate agent and am now looking to move my family to either Jordan or Hong Kong. Mr Darling has really under-estimated the value of non-domiciles like myself. He has made a big mistake.

point proven end of argument!