The Murdoch Dividend and the UK Government Spending Cuts

[Furunculus]

i'm pleased to say, that in real terms, the defence budget cut is only 7.3% rather than the 8.0% figure quoted, thank you beeb.

[gaelic cowboy]

Did anyone see that CH4 Dispatches programme on those tax havens and there connection to the Tories through the hedge fund guys donating to the election.

I couldnt stop laughing the Tories are only in and there up to there old trick again.

[Furunculus]

colour me concerned.

[gaelic cowboy]

colour me concerned.

The FCO was gonna make them pay more tax in return for being allowed to increase sovereign debt.

Suddenly the Tories are in and the FCO drops the plan behind the couch after they got millions in donations.

[rory_20_uk]

Did anyone see that CH4 Dispatches programme on those tax havens and there connection to the Tories through the hedge fund guys donating to the election.

I couldnt stop laughing the Tories are only in and there up to there old trick again.

Politicians self-serving and corrupt? Who'd've thought it?

In the Lord's a few have been suspended for acts that us mere mortals would have been forced to repay, fined, charged interest and possibly even a suspended sentence. There it was 1 Tory and 2 Labour, but probably many others were just as guilty.

All parties have had soft loans, "interesting" interpretation over campaign expenditure - you name it, a politician has done it.

These elite will spend on whoever they think is in power as they want influence. Most have no morals or loyalties that can't be bought and sold.

[gaelic cowboy]

Politicians self-serving and corrupt? Who'd've thought it?

Yea except this is brazen cheek at a time of cuts in the UK the hedge fund industry centered in a caymans etc etc donates to Tories and the plan only on the table weeks before gets dropped.

The Caymans had to ask the FCO permission to buy sovereign debt so Labour said fine buy debt but bring in some kind of tax on financial services they refused and waited for the Tories to back there mates and got approval to buy debt.



By the way what is it with you and the smoking smilies those things will kill you man

[Strike For The South]

Idahos a ginger?

[gaelic cowboy]

There's a few of us about Strike

[Rhyfelwyr]

There's a few of us about Strike

I'm not alone! There are far too many gingers in the Backroom it would seem, proportionally speaking.

[Idaho]

Idahos a ginger?

I am most certainly not! I've had some insults over the years in this forum, but that's well OTT.

[Idaho]

These elite will spend on whoever they think is in power as they want influence. Most have no morals or loyalties that can't be bought and sold.

I just don't understand right-wingers. Someone on a council estate scams a few grand a year on benefits and it's the end of the world. Someone scams a few million in tax dodging or sharp practice and it's fair enough.

[Furunculus]

I just don't understand right-wingers. Someone on a council estate scams a few grand a year on benefits and it's the end of the world. Someone scams a few million in tax dodging or sharp practice and it's fair enough.

perhaps it is harder to be outraged about money that you never had, and would never be spent on you anyway, than money you paid in the hope that it might help someone else, only for it to disappear in fraud.............. :D

besides which, i have sympathy towards anyone trying to dodge the 50% income tax rate, it is never moral for the state to tithe half or more of your income.

[Louis VI the Fat]

Murdoch will do anything he can to destroy the sanitary influence of serious journalism on Britain.

Outside the UK, all his media outlets have been bitterly anti-EU ever since Brussels' anti-trust measures prevented him from doing to the European media what he's done to the Anglo press.

~~o~~o~~<<oOo>>~~o~~o~~

Meanwhile, get with the times, Cons! In a timely article earlier today, one of the world's foremost economists, Krugman totally rubbishes the British austerity measures:

In the spring of 2010, fiscal austerity became fashionable. I use the term advisedly: the sudden consensus among Very Serious People that everyone must balance budgets now now now wasn’t based on any kind of careful analysis. It was more like a fad, something everyone professed to believe because that was what the in-crowd was saying.

And it’s a fad that has been fading lately, as evidence has accumulated that the lessons of the past remain relevant, that trying to balance budgets in the face of high unemployment and falling inflation is still a really bad idea. Most notably, the confidence fairy has been exposed as a myth. There have been widespread claims that deficit-cutting actually reduces unemployment because it reassures consumers and businesses; but multiple studies of historical record, including one by the International Monetary Fund, have shown that this claim has no basis in reality.

No widespread fad ever passes, however, without leaving some fashion victims in its wake. In this case, the victims are the people of Britain, who have the misfortune to be ruled by a government that took office at the height of the austerity fad and won’t admit that it was wrong.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Britain, like America, is suffering from the aftermath of a housing and debt bubble. Its problems are compounded by London’s role as an international financial center: Britain came to rely too much on profits from wheeling and dealing to drive its economy — and on financial-industry tax payments to pay for government programs.

Over-reliance on the financial industry largely explains why Britain, which came into the crisis with relatively low public debt, has seen its budget deficit soar to 11 percent of G.D.P. — slightly worse than the U.S. deficit. And there’s no question that Britain will eventually need to balance its books with spending cuts and tax increases.

The operative word here should, however, be “eventually.” Fiscal austerity will depress the economy further unless it can be offset by a fall in interest rates. Right now, interest rates in Britain, as in America, are already very low, with little room to fall further. The sensible thing, then, is to devise a plan for putting the nation’s fiscal house in order, while waiting until a solid economic recovery is under way before wielding the ax.
But trendy fashion, almost by definition, isn’t sensible — and the British government seems determined to ignore the lessons of history.

Both the new British budget announced on Wednesday and the rhetoric that accompanied the announcement might have come straight from the desk of Andrew Mellon, the Treasury secretary who told President Herbert Hoover to fight the Depression by liquidating the farmers, liquidating the workers, and driving down wages. Or if you prefer more British precedents, it echoes the Snowden budget of 1931, which tried to restore confidence but ended up deepening the economic crisis.

The British government’s plan is bold, say the pundits — and so it is. But it boldly goes in exactly the wrong direction. It would cut government employment by 490,000 workers — the equivalent of almost three million layoffs in the United States — at a time when the private sector is in no position to provide alternative employment. It would slash spending at a time when private demand isn’t at all ready to take up the slack.
Why is the British government doing this? The real reason has a lot to do with ideology: the Tories are using the deficit as an excuse to downsize the welfare state. But the official rationale is that there is no alternative.
Indeed, there has been a noticeable change in the rhetoric of the government of Prime Minister David Cameron over the past few weeks — a shift from hope to fear. In his speech announcing the budget plan, George Osborne, the chancellor of the Exchequer, seemed to have given up on the confidence fairy — that is, on claims that the plan would have positive effects on employment and growth.

Instead, it was all about the apocalypse looming if Britain failed to go down this route. Never mind that British debt as a percentage of national income is actually below its historical average; never mind that British interest rates stayed low even as the nation’s budget deficit soared, reflecting the belief of investors that the country can and will get its finances under control. Britain, declared Mr. Osborne, was on the “brink of bankruptcy.”
What happens now? Maybe Britain will get lucky, and something will come along to rescue the economy. But the best guess is that Britain in 2011 will look like Britain in 1931, or the United States in 1937, or Japan in 1997. That is, premature fiscal austerity will lead to a renewed economic slump. As always, those who refuse to learn from the past are doomed to repeat it.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/22/op...me&ref=general

Ouch!

[Brenus]

In the mean time, as the Tories were cheering at the announcement of the cuts, some of my colleagues started their redundancy procedure.
To see the face of the 50 something years old, having to go home to tell the family that at the end of November, no more job. X-mass will be nice.
In the mean time, the Mayor of London Boris Johnson will increase the Railways Fair around just 70%. Taxes will go up soon. The Social Benefit will give more than the Banks. But we are all together and all is fair…

This demolition Coalition succeeded in making Maggie looking as a Social Democrat. The poor woman is actually in a hospital, but she would be proud, as soon she will recover.

I am not in this charette… Perhaps next time, but it will be fair, of course…

[Crazed Rabbit]

Meanwhile, get with the times, Cons! In a timely article earlier today, one of the world's foremost economists, Krugman totally rubbishes the British austerity measures:
Ouch!

So not spending huge amounts of money you don't have, and don't plan to have except from decades of borrowing, is a 'fad'?

The only way to protect the long term of a nation is do not trust private sector for the simple reason private sector has to make profit. So Private Sector don’t give a whatever to what can’t give money immediately…

You're right; the private sector has to provide a service people will willingly pay for and can't operate for decades by spending more than they make.

CR