Budget 2009

[Darren Wheeler]

Rather than seeing the subject pop up in lots of different threads, here's one for the whole subject.

Nothing like Politics to get everyone hot under the collar, so play nice.

[RichardMannion]

Shame on you Darren! Reminds me of a quote from Big Ron Atkinson a long time ago about referees 'I never comment on referees and I'm not going to break the habit of a lifetime for that prat.'

Utter mess and disgrace - I've been looking through the full report (268 page PDF) and some of the figures are truly astounding.

It's all rather arbitrary if the Sun is dimming. Who's to say it won't go out for some unknown reason.[:?]

As for the budget, I was worried about the loss of higher rate tax relief on my Pension contributions, but fortunately that's well above my pay grade!
Other than that its the usual shite, especially the smoke and mirrors of deferred tax rises on fuel which will come bite us in September when the budget is long forgotten.

Just remember, work harder--people on welfare depend on & demand it!

quote:Originally posted by northernhenry
Just remember, work harder--people on welfare depend on & demand it!


That's rather cynical.

My favourite reaction to the budget, was from Thomson Holidays managing director Dermot Blastland, who said : 'Many holidaymakers will not now be able to afford a few inches of extra legroom on their holiday flight. A family travelling to the Caribbean will have to fork out an extra 600 a ludicrous amount by anyones standards.' Those poor families having to travel to the Caribbean in the small seats... [:#]

It's the mind-numbing, frankly astronomical levels of borrowing that should be the real headline. 340 billion over just 2 years? It beggars belief! If this government were a limited company, they'd be calling the receivers in about now.

No more boom and bust my arse...

quote:Originally posted by mdvipond
It's the mind-numbing, frankly astronomical levels of borrowing that should be the real headline. 340 billion over just 2 years? It beggars belief! If this government were a limited company, they'd be calling the receivers in about now.

No more boom and bust my arse...




Which all goes to show, global economics is a load of piffle that no one understands at all. You're right, if we were a company we'd be being liquidated by now, but liquidate what exactly?
You can't asset strip a country, most things tend to be bolted down and pretty difficult to move, and the soft squishy stuff (us) might not take too kindly to being shipped out to a new owner - Though that obviously depends on where our new owner wants to put us.

Which all really means that you can't apply business debt logic to country debt. The rules just aren't the same, so in the long run, why bother worrying about it? It's just numbers afterall, true, very big numbers, but so were the profits being made a few short years ago, and where did they suddenly disappear to?

quote:Originally posted by PVGSLF
quote:Originally posted by mdvipond
It's the mind-numbing, frankly astronomical levels of borrowing that should be the real headline. 340 billion over just 2 years? It beggars belief! If this government were a limited company, they'd be calling the receivers in about now.

No more boom and bust my arse...




Which all goes to show, global economics is a load of piffle that no one understands at all. You're right, if we were a company we'd be being liquidated by now, but liquidate what exactly?
You can't asset strip a country, most things tend to be bolted down and pretty difficult to move, and the soft squishy stuff (us) might not take too kindly to being shipped out to a new owner - Though that obviously depends on where our new owner wants to put us.



So, countries can't go bankrupt? One word: Zimbabwe.

As for the soft, squishy stuff, I imagine an awful lot of it would opt to pack up and ship out if given the chance...