What caught my eye this week.
Nobody really needs more than a couple of articles about the Spring Budget. Alas for me, I only concluded this after reading dozens of them.
For all the noise, this wasn’t a Budget that will move the dial for most people. Even the welcome reduction in National Insurance won’t really be felt as such, given it just blunts the impact of ongoing higher taxes due to fiscal drag.
The coincident OBR figures paint a sobering picture too. What good news it has will mostly arrive next year – apparently.
Those of us who have followed every Budget and Autumn Statement for the past few years can only ask: “Are we there yet?” We’ve heard we’re close before.
The following graph from Martin Wolf in the FT [search result] doesn’t tell us anything new – but wow it’s striking:
Wolf – an economic commentator who attract critics mostly on the back of being right – warns:
To put it bluntly, the British policy process and the institutions in charge of it are broken. Yes, that is true elsewhere, too. But that is not an excuse.
Can one plausibly imagine that stagnation on this scale can continue without dire consequences for the stability of our society?
The Spring Budget didn’t – and probably couldn’t – do much about any of that. And with Labour 25% ahead in the latest polls, the man delivering it knows he almost certainly won’t be around to see the consequences.
Time will tell if the opposition can do any better – it hasn’t got much to play with. I still think Hunt could have made a good Chancellor in another era. Unfortunately for him and us, this is the one we’ve got.
Still, there are actions to take. In particular, make sure you’re paying attention to the Child Benefit threshold changes. Many more should be able to claim that. Consider making pension contributions if it helps you qualify.
Spring Budget announcement roundups
What changes did Chancellor Jeremy Hunt announce? – Which
Really nice roundup, especially re: non-doms – JP Morgan
What you need to know – Be Clever With Your Cash
What does the Budget mean for you? – BBC
Biggest budget winners revealed – This Is Money
Hardcore economic action
Five things we learned from the Spring Budget – IFS
The Office of Budget Responsibility’s latest data and forecasts – OBR
National Insurance cut by 2p
National insurance calculator [with new rates] – Which
How much will the new NI rate cuts save you? – This Is Money
What is National Insurance and should it be scrapped? – Guardian
New UK ISA and British Savings Bond
Does it pay to be patriotic with your savings? – Which
Some investors are keen to use the UK ISA – This Is Money
British ISAs are a gimmick that won’t move the dial – Guardian
Do we really need another Isa allowance? [Search result] – FT
NS&I to offer three-year fixed-rate ‘British bonds’ – NS&I
Property matters
Property tax and stamp duty changes – Which
Hunt hands buy-to-let landlords a CGT tax cut – This Is Money
Child benefit and loose ends
What the child benefit threshold rise to £60,000 means to you – This Is Money
A parent earning up to £80,000 can now still benefit – BBC
Spring Budget small print – Which
Rich non-doms ‘dismayed’ by Hunt’s decision [Search result] – FT
Verdicts
Why fix a tax trap when you can kick it down the road? – This Is Money
Pensioners and wealthy big losers from Tory government, say think-tanks [Search result] – FT
The IFS response – IFS
Hunt was hamstrung by Britain’s sickly finances – This Is Money
Have a great weekend.
From Monevator
How to read an equity fund web page – Monevator
Introducing the UK ISA: Don’t panic! – Monevator
From the archive-ator: Fund ratings and Best Buy lists are useless for passive investors – Monevator
News
Note: Some links are Google search results – in PC/desktop view click through to read the article. Try privacy/incognito mode to avoid cookies. Consider subscribing to sites you visit a lot.
Nationwide to buy Virgin Money for £2.9bn – BBC
Eight troubling omens for the London stock exchange – CityAM
Dozens of ‘major’ compliance breaches at Bank of England, NAO reports – Guardian
Swiss vote to give themselves a bigger pension – BBC
Revolut’s UK boss says London risks losing its crown as fintech leader… – Fortune
…as fintechs gets a new industry body to champion their cause – Innovate Finance
Is the gold ETF story repeating itself with Bitcoin? [Be careful…] – All Star Charts
Products and services
How to save money as rail fares rise – Which
The real cost of new build versus older homes – This Is Money
Mobile phone contracts: spring price rises – Be Clever With Your Cash
Open an ISA account with low-cost platform InvestEngine and get up to £2,500 as a cash bonus (Affiliate link, T&Cs apply. Capital at risk) – InvestEngine
Fixing the housing market with 30-year mortgages – This Is Money
Car insurance premiums jump 50% for new drivers – Which
Some Chinese electric cars ‘almost uninsurable’ in Britain – This Is Money
Homes for sale with a wine cellar, in pictures – Guardian
Comment and opinion
Households on more than £60,000 a year describe their financial struggles – Guardian
The trillion dollar equation [Black-Scholes, nerdy, great video] – YouTube
Should target-date funds allocate more to equities? – Morningstar
Can the typical person become a millionaire? – Of Dollars and Data
How UK private pension rule changes can disrupt retirement plans – Guardian
An ex-Googler retired at 40 on a Friday. By Monday she regretted it – B.I.
Retiring on your own terms – Humble Dollar
New figures puts the UK middle-of-the-pack for housing affordability – K.O.I.
Fit for retirement – Humble Dollar
Why wouldn’t your employer remove your personal allowance when you earn £100K+? – This Is Money
People who underestimate longevity save less for retirement [Research] – SSRN
Fear and investing mini-special
Why you’re scared of investing – Darius Foroux
Buy & Hold versus Fear & Greed – A Wealth of Common Sense
Yesterday’s influence – Humble Dollar
Buy the dip! Or, don’t [Search result] – FT
The fear of missing out – The Irrelevant Investor
Naughty corner: Active antics
Here’s your chance to not buy a painting [Search result] – FT
Michael Mauboussin: cost of capital and capital allocation [PDF] – Morgan Stanley
Royalties trust Hipgnosis sees portfolio value cut by 26% – Shares
Another look at how much Bitcoin to own in a portfolio [Spoiler: not much] – Quantpedia
Why now isn’t the time to sell investment trusts – Interactive Investor
The case for owning ‘safe’ equities instead of bonds in a portfolio [PDF] – SSRN
Kindle book bargains
The Success Myth by Emma Gannon – £0.99 on Kindle
Eat Shop Save by Dale Pinnock – £0.99 on Kindle
Lean In by Sheryl Sandberg – £0.99 on Kindle
The Making of a Billionaire by John Caudwell – £0.99 on Kindle
Environmental factors
Rewilding project to be awarded £100,000 for Sussex coastline – BBC
Can Europe’s trains compete with low-cost airlines? [Search result] – FT
Humpback whale spotted off Porthleven, Cornwall – BBC
Robot overlord roundup
Aggregator’s AI risk – Stratechery
Off our beat
How to survive when people are mad at you online – Will Leitch
‘My IVF years’: a male perspective – GQ
The dumber side of smart people – Morgan Housel
The Trading Game: This is how you make money… [Book extract] – NY Mag
…and an interview with The Trading Game author [Podcast] – Slate
The 100-Year-Life author on how to live well longer – Guardian
Stop playing games you can’t win – The Joint Account
US says UFO sightings were likely military tests – BBC
The joy of not wanting things – Becoming Minimalist
German guy spends £8,500 a year to live on a train – Metro
And finally…
“Acknowledgment, applause, and honour are welcome and add zest to life but they are not ends to be pursued. I felt then, as I do now, that what matters is what you do and how you do it, the quality of the time you spend, and the people you share it with.”
– Ed Thorp, A Man for All Markets
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The below tweet from Martin Lewis was interesting:
He wants to support ownership when house prices are rising and therefore becoming more unaffordable? He wants to reform LIFETIME ISAs only 7 years after their launch?
Country is fundamentally broken, with the seeds for this planted many years ago, there’s no easy solution or long term plan. Any government just comes up with sound bites, and ineffective gimmicks to attempt to paper over the cracks and appeal to short term voters.
We’ve moved from an income economy where in the past people had a chance to improve their situation, save, invest, build assets. To an asset economy where unless you’ve got a capital pile already, the majority of people have got limited chance of materially improving their lot (small gain’s undoubtedly but a material shift unlikely).
In my lived experience, income is taxed significantly but my family can’t get a doctors appointment (long waiting list), can’t get an nhs dentist, can’t get children into a comprehensive school where they would feel safe, monthly bills have increased substantially. What is the point? Rather than “levelling up” which was a recent government policy, for many, below the asset rich, we are “levelling down”.
Whilst we’ve undoubtedly shot ourselves in both feet with Brexit and the trade deal terms afterwards with the EU, the FT graph does suggest we were on the slide post 2008. So much of our countries output is tied up in London banks this is perhaps not surprising.
What’s the solution? Short of a moon shot, lottery win, long lost rich relative discovery, there isn’t one, other than recalibrating your expectations. This is a multi generational problem that no government has the long term planning horizon to fix. The majority of people are going to be poorer for longer.
Happy Saturday.
Read The Trading Game yesterday – quite an eye opener (though may be not for some subscribers on here) and a gripping read.
@Cantseethewoodforthetrees comments appear much on point about wealth inequality.
@cantseewoodfortrees. The UK isn’t fundamentally broken. It’s just fine. We’ve stagnated for 15 years but that is not unretrievable. Expectations, though, were way too high though after 50y+ of trend improvements.
The UK did well out of financial services for twenty years. It was a good place to focus on. We then had 2008, and our concentration to that industry proved an issue. Rather than double down on finance (would have worked) or attempt to pivot into a more productive area (could have worked), the voters decided that austerity, Brexit, and generally blaming everyone except themselves were a better ideas. They were wrong. When you get stuff wrong, you take your lumps.
The question now is to deal with massive demographic challenges impact the West and the impact of tech such a LLMs etc. Can the voting public make the hard political and economic trades or will they again blame someone else?
Two things that haven’t caught the news so much.
First, the latest data from Corporate Adviser shows that pension Master Trusts that have a higher allocation to UK investments have underperformed versus those with a lower or nil allocation to UK investments (I suppose not much of a surprise!)
Second, a consultation was announced into regulation of tax advisers. Some are regulated already through their professional bodies but a significant number are unaffiliated and not regulated. In some respects, tax advice in the UK can be a wild west with some undoubtedly unscrupulous advisers promoting dodgy schemes and providing non-compliant advice.
The estimates for the tax gap are huge (some £36bn) and a significant amount is thought to be due to non-compliant advice. The government’s preferred measure is for all advisers to be members of and regulated by a professional body. Other options are for HMRC/industry enforcement and for a new regulator.
Any change is likely to take some time. In the mean time, the tax code will continue to expand and be more complicated.
Perhaps some lessons from history are prescient
The Chinese empire was rejuvenated every six or seven generations by waves of immigrants and their families coming over the Great Wall and replacing the current effete,corrupt ,ineffectual and decadent ruling classes
This happened many times and was apparently a successful process
The western Roman Empire was finally taken over by the Goths and their families who replaced the failed Roman ruling classes with the same positive outcomes
What immigrants admired in the countries they “conquered”……
They admired the administration,the rule of law ,the health systems and education-the general overall high level of civilisation etc etc
They obviously had lower personal expectations than the failed crop of leaders currently in situ but then retained and rejuvenated all the structures of the civilisation /state that they had taken over
This has happened many times in many places historically -sadly not always with positive outcomes unfortunately
Could it?-is it happening here?
If so then perhaps good times will come again as our ineffectual bunch of leaders are gradually replaced by more capable types
xxd09
xxd09
@ZXspectrum48k please do not take this as disrespectful, we on monevator are all richer for the views you share and comments you make. Perhaps this is driven as we are looking at life’s climb from different levels but I disagree with your comment the UK is “just fine”.
How can a country be fine when the ability for someone to better their lot from working hard is not there? Future generations will be poorer but work for longer for less and life expectancy is reducing. The inter generational contract has snapped.
Clearly not everything was rosy in the past….. I sincerely do not want this to result into a poor me rant or generational bashing contest.
The data shows that health care, education and affordable housing was more readily available to the baby boomer generation than it is today, as was the ability to build pension wealth. The age of access to a state pension continues to increase. The triple lock has been protected. Society is poorer today because of the decisions taken in the past.
We can of course agree we bought this on ourselves, but the politician spin and media junk headline story reporting, apparent for the past 25 years at least has made it difficult for the average citizen to understand what actual choices there are to make. Brexit vote run up a good example.
I am sure plotting a course through life has always been difficult. Making a step change to one’s lot today though is significantly more difficult thanks to others pulling up the drawbridge to protect their own interests. Perhaps the UK ISA will make the difference…….
“the Goths and their families who replaced the failed Roman ruling classes with the same positive outcomes”: as long as you accept collapses in population numbers as positive, OK.
But when lots of the less attractive arable land stops being cultivated you can probably safely infer that there were many fewer people around.
This was a budget for a country that’s not going anywhere.
I expected salted earth policies and greater support in tax cuts for those who lean Tory.
But it was not to be.
Obviously, Hunt thinks that the system works and who are we to disagree when we’ve got 2p to celebrate and a new ISA allowance for the 2.7% of the population who can already fill their 20k up.
@cantseewoodfortrees. “The data shows that health care, education and affordable housing was more readily available to the baby boomer generation than it is today, as was the ability to build pension wealth. The age of access to a state pension continues to increase. The triple lock has been protected. Society is poorer today because of the decisions taken in the past.”
Yes this is indeed what has happened. (Lord) David Willetts provided an excellent breakdown of the data behind this phenomenon in his book The Pinch (2010). Sadly the problems he identified have only got worse over the 14 years since his party has been in power. Each generation after the boomers is poorer (in asset terms) than the previous.
Colour me envious but I am not wholly convinced by Gary Stevenson. Huge props for being accepted by Ilford Grammar (I wasn’t!) but the whole east end schtick doesn’t sit right. Ilford wasn’t then the dump he now makes it out to be.
I should like to know how he qualifies best trader at Citi. Was it best single trade, best return on a set amount of money etc? Because his $2m bonus doesn’t sound appropriate (though bonuses were in $).
All a bit gloomy round here now.
For us personally, the budget was great. My wife’s recent-ish promotion took her to a smidge over £60k so we were maximally hit by the child benefit claw back. Now she’s a maximum beneficiary of the rise from and we should be £2500 p.a. better off. Plus the NI cut means she was a big winner.
Still not voting C**********e.
@Azamino. I don’t get Stevenson’s claims. Earning $2mm is clearly not going to make you the best paid trader at any major bank.
Even post 2008, with bonus caps coming in and Dodd-Frank, franchise market making books typically paid around 2-7% on P&L, depending on the quality of the franchise book. With books making from $10mm to $200mm, payouts could easily reach $10mm. It’s possible he found himself running a high value client franchise book and was paid a very low percentage because most of the P&L was pure franchise and nothing to with his ability.
Prop traders, such as myself, might be paid 10-12%. I was a nobody and made $1-3m for a number of years. My colleagues were making similar numbers. My boss was making $10mm+. So $2mm is just not anything to write about.
@platformer #1 “He wants to support ownership when house prices are rising and therefore becoming more unaffordable?”
Presumably because the usual gimmicks to “support ownership” involve getting people into homes with less and less equity, so a fall in prices could be disastrous. Pump the market when it’s on the rise and hope the wind doesn’t change.
To me Gary Stevenson is like the Tommy Robinson of economics. Stirring up trouble, pushing on differences, trying to cause an uprise. I think he has a point in many aspects but as his Wikipedia says “he bet”. Kudos for getting into Citibank but it’s not an investment how he’s made his millions but a gamble.
@zxspectrum48k your non response speaks volumes. Enjoy your lofty position, I hope your children and grand children do also. Good luck to you. If you’re not part of the solution, you’re part of the problem.
I’ve watched a few Gary Stevenson YouTube videos recently and I think he’s right about inequality, why it grows and why it’s a problem, but so far I haven’t seen a solution from him. I think Piketty has more concrete proposals eg a 1% annual tax on wealth. I do think there are many on the left though who don’t help themselves, you read the comments after some of these videos and it’s fairly ill thought out, prejudiced, often extreme views that spill out on there. And I think those extreme views scare off anyone more centrist, the people you need to win over if you’re ever gonna change things. I consider myself left leaning but I also invest in property, that is, I’m a landlord, because I’m playing the game as I see it and I don’t think things will change.
Regards the budget, the reduction in CGT is interesting, it probably will convince more small landlords to sell up. It’s gonna be increasingly shit for renters though isn’t it? Already since 2016 about 300k more rental properties have been sold than bought, mainly due to the punitive tax system Osborne brought in for small landlords with houses in their own name. Combine that sell off with a glut of potential first time buyers who are finding it harder to buy a house due to high interest rates (and some who are just holding off waiting for interest rates to drop), and of course record immigration. Lower supply of rental properties and higher demand equals rapidly increasing rents. We’ve already seen a lot of that, and Hunt seems to want to make it even worse. He’ll be fine of course, his houses are all in a limited company so he doesn’t pay the same punitive tax rates, and if other landlords are selling up then hey, less competition. I do think behind the jokey exterior he is just a massive self interested @#£_&.
@Cantsee. I didn’t respond because I’ve made 2 comments from 16 and neither are pertinent to the budget. Look, I get where you are coming from. I often feel that the UK is broken but, on a global level, I’m not sure it stands up to any quantitative scrutiny.
Sterling is barometer of the harm we have done to ourselves. Around 35% weaker against the global reserve currency since 2008 is a major fall in purchasing power. It feels we’ve fallen out of bed. Plus, I wouldn’t disagree that the intergenerational contract has snapped. The boomers were the luckiest generation in human history, yet still seem to want to draw the ladder up. Demographic issues haven’t even started to ramp up yet.
Nonetheless, the UK is still a very rich country in relative terms, with a high modal standard of living. Immigration numbers tell us this. Plus, populations of most developed countries are exhibiting the same feelings. Even the US, where standards of living are superb. Voters are putting extremists into power across the world. Trump, Orban, Meloni etc. It’s not rational.
Where I find it harder to agree is that the modal individual in the UK should expect to have an improving standard of living. We don’t work harder or smarter than people in other countries. Our productivity numbers demonstrate this. I’ve said this before, but people just cannot expect a 90th percentile outcome if they are 50th percentile in terms of effort and ability. Blame technology but the moat is being drained fast.
You also say “politician spin and media… has made it difficult for the average citizen to understand what actual choices there are to make.” True but I find that when things are going wrong it’s a good first order approximation to blame myself, not others. Democracy only works when people actually think hard about the people and policies they are voting for.
Enough from me since we’re going way off topic.
The Pension rule changes article is misleading. There are onerous rules pension schemes must comply with and schemes simply can’t make retrospective rule changes.
Clearly discretionary decisions are subject to change – if a scheme has historically been able to afford to not-apply Actuarial early retirement factors that’s great for the lucky ones, but it don’t mean those decisions will apply forever. They are not part of the scheme rules.
Did we discuss this previously – possibly a different blog.
Ps
On an irrelevant positive note some scheme rules have a rule of 85 – if age and service total more than 85 then pension can be taken unreduced. Probably too old to still exist…
I see there is now chat about another “Fiscal Event” later this year prior to an election being called. Regardless of political motivations, wealth or interests, I really would encourage people to be enraged if this is effectively another budget called a “fiscal event” to avoid all the normal scrutiny and process required of a budget – this has happened once before in recent times and was a disaster. From my previous post on the UK ISA people should know I am not impressed by UK government processes, but the only thing worse than a bad process, is an underhand, shady attempt to circumvent said process to hide or obfuscate details. If they want another budget before an election, fine, but do it properly, don’t be calling it a fiscal event to avoid normal scrutiny if that is the plan. I might be wrong but my reading on the (leaked/hearsay) proposals so far indicate to me that an attempt to have a (non-)budget later in the year may be the plan. This should not be allowed outside of genuine events of national emergencies.
My employer has heroically protected me from the effects of fiscal drag by not giving me a pay rise in two years. Result!
(Sorry, couldn’t think of anything interesting to say about the budget.)
Presumably all of that wealth is going somewhere after those who hold it die. I think I read somewhere that millenials stand to be the richest generation yet.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/mar/03/millennials-will-be-the-richest-generation-ever-but-who-gets-wealth-is-up-to-luck
But, of course, that doesn’t necessarily help inequality. This inequality has been around for a long time, and starts early. I recall going to the university in the early 90s, and it was noticeable how further ahead the middle class were compared to those of my social grouping – the underclass. I reckoned it was a about a decade by university age – in terms of mindset, wealth already accumulated, quality of education, health etc. And so I spent much of the next decade, and perhaps longer building that foundation. Fortunately, I got lucky in that various opportunities were offered to me. I can well believe it’s got harder/easier since. Harder because of competition and fewer moats (knowing about the internet and keeping up with the latest developments in it wouldn’t help a younger me out so much nowadays), but for sure there are many more opportunities out there to get started from nothing (perhaps a distractingly high number).
@Boltt (#18):
Not to forget “custom and practice”!
You know things are dire when even the Guardian accepts £60k isn’t that much for a family these days.
Here’s hoping some government removes the 60% tax trap on £100k+ on single income households. Not holding my breath though, we’re too ‘rich’ not to tax!
“I recall going to the university in the early 90s, and it was noticeable how further ahead the middle class were compared to those of my social grouping – the underclass. I reckoned it was a about a decade by university age – in terms of mindset, wealth already accumulated, quality of education, health etc.”
I went up in the middle 60s. Three of my new friends were (i) the son of a butcher’s assistant, (ii) the son of a farm labourer, (iii) the son of a rural plumber. Number (i) took a first class honours degree in Engineering and a PhD and went off to work in the oil biz. Number (ii) took first class honours in Maths and went to the computer biz. Number (iii) took first class honours in Law and later pursued an academic career culminating in becoming a Regius Professor.
But all that, of course, was before the Left deliberately buggered up state education.
I find it surprising how nobody, including the Guardian, is giving the chancellor props for making a mostly fair budget. The lack of obvious targets seems to have resulted in media demonising NI cuts to fill the pages.
NI gradually heading for a flat 2% rate removes a regressive tax from the books, and if it gets merged into Income Tax, we’ll get one the of the biggest tax simplifications in history. The guides advising people to make sure their pension contributions are done via salary sacrifice would then go away, and SIPPs would be on an even footing with employer pensions, instead of forcing people to do continuous partial transfers. This also helps the self employed!
Instead of being praised, the NI improvements are being framed as short charging pensioners, which is an impressive display of how powerful a lobby the pension industry has.
Increasing the HICBC threshold and decreasing the rate has reduced the steepness of a fiscal cliff, though not eliminated it – this seems to have broken through to the public consciousness. The coverage here seems the most balanced – calculations show tangible benefits, the idea of tying it to household income is being flagged as overcomplicated, and experts rightly point out it’s a sticking plaster rather than a full fix.
Reducing the annoyance factor of the tax system, through the increase in HICBC threshold and increase in mandatory self assesment threshold from £100k to £150k is great. The fiscal cliffs remain, but it seems like they’re finally getting some legislative attention.
The british ISA seems to be getting a lot of attention despite being nothing more than an election campaign proposal. Seems like a very successful way to coopt a consulation process for electioneering so far.
I’m not qualified to evaluate the non-dom changes, but they smell fairer than the current system, which was probably the goal (alongside disarming a Labour talking point).
I can’t see myself ever voting Conservative (or any party opposed to rejoining the EU), but this was a sensibly boring budget. More of this please.
Whilst everybody on the thread appears to be strapping on their “end of days” sandwich boards, can I just say a very big thank you for putting up the link to the beautifully written IVF piece.
Thanks TI. The fear of missing out post from The irrelevant investor stood out to me. I have to admit that the rise of crypto, meme stocks and such things really annoys me. I don’t mind people who win big at the casino, cash out and never bet again and lock in their gains and millionaire status (small number no doubt). Nor do I have issue with people who stock pick and get it right when the stock goes up by 10000%, people who win the lottery etc.
I say bravo to them but I still feel most of it is luck if not sometimes that all of it is. I don’t feel FOMO in this case as much as I think I made the right choice to not invest or gamble so to speak on those things. If I were in a similar situation now, short of having time travel certainty- it would still be the right decision not to invest. It’s like someone who comes to me and says, I told you to put £25,000 of Chealsea losing 7-3 to Wolves and he ends up right. Even though he now has millions of pounds and was right, I still would feel fine for not having done it! It was the right decision at the time with all the available information even though it ended up being the wrong decision in a sense. There would be no negligence case bought up if this was framed in medical terms, the doctor made the right choice even though his treatment resulted in you dying due to have such a rare condition where the common treatment was not correct. It’s almost like when you say exercise is good for you, it can of course kill some people if they push their heart that’s got problems (unknown to them) past a certain point.
Crypto really gets to me though as I don’t mind people who speculate, know it’s a gamble and then end up winning majorly and cash out. Bravo again to them. I however dislike the idea that those who invest everything into it, not less than 5% let’s say who are also anti government, anti regulation, anti banks, think cryptocurrency will replace fiat in spite of its many problems that I won’t go into here. I am almost wanting it to collapse to show these people are in fact wrong and get rich quick is not an easy route to financial success. Who knows, maybe I will be the one that’s wrong..
TFJ
I think it’s the deep state, which is really holding this country back driving inequality and really stealing the wealth. If people aren’t part of the solution they’re part of the problem.
Laughing out loud
Anything for people not to blame what is collectively our problem. In a mature democracy you generally get the politicians you deserve. There’s now very little difference between Labour / Conservative tax and spending plans. Why? The electorate has no appetite to take a 10 – 15 year view.
Neither are offering any chance of reversing the equalisation of living standards between ourselves and other countries coming up fast. Indonesia’s average salary is $10k, Mexico $17k, Vietnam $6k. Any reason specifically why they should be so much less than the UK’s? We are still relatively wealthy compared to many many other countries with much higher living standards.
I thought it was a reasonably sensible budget. Totally ignoring any long term problems, focussing entirely on the short term! Good politics!
One has to think Labour are coming for anyone with wealth in a serious fashion over the next decade unfortunately.
@all — Thanks for all the comments and as always you’re welcome re: anything you found useful.
I was away for the weekend helping my aged mother with various aspects of the modern world that make me wonder how I’ll fair without children of my own to plug-in in the telepathic headset to the correct AI-module and recalibrate my old-age assistant exoskeleton when it jams “on” and I’m walking around the living room in circles… 😉
But as usual reading and moderating everything, and enjoyed the good-natured debate. Have a good week!
The UK is a great place to live, it is full of opportunities to make a decent living and we are relatively free and safe to live our lives as we wish. The general upward trajectory may have come off the boil a bit with the FC and Brexit, and I can often find something to moan about but I think life was still a lot harder for almost all previous generations.
The budget is just tweeking around the edges. Some longer term strategies would be welcome but short term thinking is a fundamental flaw with modern democracy.