Taxing Issues

Boy! are MP’s in trouble now!
HM Revenue and Customs are on their case.
One item of news in particular leaped out at me from the last couple of days.
Alistair Darling (in common with several MP’s) had hired a tax and accountancy expert to guide him through the complexity of the tax system and how it applied [...]

The Budget

Blimey he’s at it again!
That’s Alistair Darling I’m talking about.
He said yesterday in his speech that the economy would shrink 3.5% this year but somehow bounce back and grow at 1.25% in 2010 and to an astonishing 3.5% in 2011.
How the MP’s on all sides laughed.
Alistair is the very man for your wild predictions you [...]

You’re so wrong Darling

(Thank you to Introducer Today)
No, not over the fact that he has been claiming thousands of pounds of taxpayers’ money for his family home in Edinburgh while living rent free at number 11 Downing Street.
And not because while he was claiming this cash he was pocketing the rent from a London flat he owns and [...]

Really Darling?

From yesterday’s Sunday Times:
David Smith and Isabel Oakeshott
The chancellor, Alistair Darling, has admitted that he and his Treasury officials got it wrong over the length and severity of the recession and that he will be forced to tear up his economic predictions.
He will slash his growth forecast in the budget and warn that there [...]

Is That a Helicopter I Hear?

The CPI (Consumer Price Index) is dropping. So a typical week’s shopping is getting cheaper.
The RPI (Retail Price Index) is also dropping. The RPI includes Mortgage and housing costs and is used as a benchmark for wage increases. When it falls, wages will fall and jobs will go.
Whilst high inflation is not good, falling prices [...]

Quantitive Easing Again

So as predicted here on several ocassions the government and the Bank of England have gone for Quantitive Easing. It’s not literally printing money but it’s the same.
The BoE simply dreams up billions of pounds out of thin air and thus devalues the currency. This imaginary money is then used to buy not only government [...]

Helicopter Scenario Getting Closer?

Previously discussed here
Also commenting here in November just after the VAT cut I said “The way that Broon and Darling are responding to it is crazy. A fact which will become abundantly clear over the coming year.”
Broon and Co really have to act now if the UK isn’t going to end up like a big [...]

Scumbag Millionaire

I  heard John Prescott having a good old rant about Fred Goodwin yesterday on Radio 4. Leaving aside for a moment the irony of JP accusing someone of being greedy, what kind of person is Goodwin?
No shame, no contrition and a big “Get it right up you” to the taxpayer who has picked up the [...]

Quantitative Easing – A Licence to Print Money?

Quantitative Easing.
No it’s not the new James Bond film.
It is the latest suggestion from the Bank of England to get the economy moving again.
Chief Banker Mervyn King has met with Alistair Darling in a move of complete desperation an attempt to get the economy going again, to discuss printing more money.
A spokesman for the Bank [...]

Headless Chickens

Paul Moore was the group head of regulatory risk at HBOS between 2002 and 2005. He warned in 2005 that the group had an “overeager sales culture”. He was rewarded with the boot and is now singing his head off to any newspaper or broadcaster who will listen. He is a man with an axe [...]