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Tuesday, October 03, 2006

taxes

they have a nice tree for a logo (and it is supposed to have cost £20 thousand for the redesign… i already feel the economy is safer with them….) they want to hug hoodies; there is talk of sunshine and optimism.

cameron has even made a sensible case for why the conservatives are not going to be announcing any major policies at this conference (although i suspect the bold promise of scrapping the id cards has already won them some votes).

but you can always count on a few to rock the boat.
oh look there they are tebbit, leigh and redwood. what is the rallying cry of these great politicians? lets not forget that edward leigh (who was educated at a french school in london) and john redwood helped to cripple the government of john major with their euroscepticism.
so here they are banging on about tax cuts.
because tax cuts mean prosperity.

““lower taxes are not a desirable extra that you can add when everything is going fine. lower tax rates are the way to get everything going well.” (redwood)

leigh believes: that by abandoning traditional issues, such as low taxes and immigration, the conservative party risked acting as a recruiting agent for the uk independence party.

while gerald howarth is reported to have said: ““taxation is theft, because it is compulsorily removing money from people. it is desperately important we have this debate. this issue is travelling up the agenda.” and we can see he is looking to have a tea party. (one for my american readers.)
all quotes from the times

except for most of us the tax cut is never going to be that big as our basic wage is not that large to start off with. so a 5p cut on £30k a year equates to about £1500 more money a year or an extra £28 or so, (i admit i am not good with figures so this might not be right – i trust some of the maths whizzes out there to put me straight).
now lets not worry about the fact that £28 will probably get eaten up by other price increases. lets just assume you get to keep it all. can you buy a house in london with it? nope. can you start a business with it? probably but you will have to borrow a lot. in fact what it means is you can probably afford to have a better holiday this year or maybe get that new tv.

really when the tories talk about prosperity they mean the prosperity of the CEOs and board members who are already earning more money than they could ever spend can actually have more money. we benefit because some of that money will filter down to us, it is the trickle down effect. so fuck a decent education system – just watch how you local community is changed when someone rich spends £400 on a bottle of plonk.
trust me you will be contacting redwood and co and thanking them.

they say they don’t want businesses moving abroad, but most of the time it is tax that makes them move it is the fact that the labour force works cheaper (but not the highly skilled ceos they can only be found in the uk (or as some wankers call in gb plc) and they have to be paid the, always high, market price.
but don’t you worry while you get paid less (hey don’t complain your tax burden is less) or you don’t have a job because it has been outsourced because if you are lucky someone very rich will spend some of their money in your area and you will benefit.
see it all makes perfect sense.

now i know i have banged on about outsourcing the CEOs and you all know it makes sense, but another point i am sure i have mentioned is that as we see our wages reduced in order to be competitive – who the fuck buys the stuff that is made?
oh yeah the rich.
true labour has watched the wealth disparity get worse, but it is not like the conservatives are going to change that trend. in fact they will accelerate it.

so there is cuddly cameron trying for the feel good conference, but the stormtroopers of the right have goose-stepped in and shown that sometimes you can’t teach an old dog new tricks.

the conservatives might be a green hoodie hugging party – but they still want to cut taxes (oh and provide better services – how?), bang anyone up inside (more prisons, but not more social housing – what a smart balance) and of course they want they debate on the fuzzy wuzzies to take place.

the more things change the more they stay the same.
sadly i think they will get in.

2 comments:

ems said...

Got scared watching Cameron. Think you could be right, Pat. I met yet have to vote for the Hodge woman.

Anonymous said...

I am a european investor in the UK. Over the last 20 years my family's companies have invested £75 million. We provide employment with decent (european style) conditions to our 328 employees. In recent years (particularly when the UK didn't set a course to join the euro) we stopped our investment as we now perceive the UK economy as a lopsided bet on a japan-circa-early-90es-style property bubble.

Accordingly we have divested any real estate in the UK which we feel is "irrationally exuberant" and is very likely to crash. We feel that this is true even with the stimulus of running a very aggressively competitive tax and worker rights regime within the single market in effect taking investment which would otherwise be in other european countries to the UK.

Given this fact we are alarmed by the hysterical quality in British euroscepticism. We feel there is a public hysteria whipped up by the Murdoch press which may sell newspapers but its not in the interests of this country. The influence R Murdoch has over Britain via the Times the Sun and Sky over Britain is of Berlusconian proportions.

We have already drawn plans to reduce our exposure to the UK for purely economic reasons, we may well relocate entirely in Bratislava, Slovakia if the same nationalistic rhetoric persists in making us feel that there is a risk of withdrawal. So far we have found that new europe has much better educated and productive people and policies that are in line with reality.

The UK is becoming bureaucratic not due to Brussels, its the unresponsive overpriced and low quality services and property but also there is widespread dishonesty in Banking and insurance and business services, it is generally bad value for money. Banks in particular are a law on to themselves. The personal loan bubble is likely to burst along with the housing one.

The fact that UK employees have much less security and rights than the rest of the EU has made up for the currency risk so far, but if this overpriced and overconfident country continues its direction in pulling out of the EU project this will give us reasons to pull out our investments from the UK altogether to avoid the dangerous direction to anti-eu-populism that is now prevalent.