We’re fucked

! This post hasn't been updated in over a year. A lot can change in a year including my opinion and the amount of naughty words I use. There's a good chance that there's something in what's written below that someone will find objectionable. That's fine, if I tried to please everybody all of the time then I'd be a Lib Dem (remember them?) and I'm certainly not one of those. The point is, I'm not the kind of person to try and alter history in case I said something in the past that someone can use against me in the future but just remember that the person I was then isn't the person I am now nor the person I'll be in a year's time.

El Gordo had an easy time for his decade as Chancellor with the global economy booming and he still managed to fuck the economy up.

Today’s budget was a proper socialist budget – people who work for a living are going to see their tax burden go through the roof while unemployed people and the dregs of society will be getting money thrown at them.

There’s the obligatory “green” taxation of course – nearly £2.5bn on green measures and a target to reduce carbon emissions by 34% by the year 2020 at an unspecified multi-billion pound cost to businesses and taxpayers.  Like Canute commanding the tide to turn back, El Gordo and Darling will pass new laws to command billions of years of climate change to stop what it’s doing and spend billions enforcing their new laws.  The cost will no doubt be recovered by taking dragging Gaia through the courts for not reducing her carbon footprint to an acceptable level.

High earners will have to hand over half their earnings over £150k in state theft income tax to try and raise a bit of cash to pay for the glorious revolution.  In reality it’ll drive high earners abroad or into the hands of tax avoidance specialists who’ll help them legally launder their wealth through trust funds and limited companies.  Co-incidentally, a cabinet member’s salary is £141k, just shy of the new tax bracket so the only minister who might make be making the sacrifice is Comrade Brown who’s on £194k per year.
Statutory redundancy pay is being increased by £30 per week, under-25’s who’ve been out of work for over a year will be offered a job or training with extra benefits on top of the benefits they get for unemployment and training and an extra 54,000 sixth form places will be created to keep kids in education a bit longer costing the taxpayer money instead of working and paying taxes.

A £2k scrappage allowance is being introduced for people buying new cars and part exchanging a 10 year old car.  The taxpayer will contribute half of the £2k allowance and the car industry – which is asking for bailouts itself and in the case of Jaguar/Land Rover has already been given a few billion by the European Empire – will have to fund the other half.  This will, apparently, stimulate the motor industry.

There’s a 2p increase on petrol as usual, to start in September.  That’s 2p on fuel duty, plus 15% VAT plus the increased price of pretty much everything that you buy in the shops because of the increased cost of transport.

But it’s ok because Darling – whose qualification for running the economy is that he’s a marxist solicitor – says that after a 3.5% shrinkage of the economy this year, the economy will grow by 1.25% next year and 3.5% the year after.  And let’s face it, he’s done such a stirling job this last year and marxists have done a fantastic job of running ruining economies over the years that we could never doubt Comrade Darling’s wise words.

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13 comments

  1. McFeagle (9 comments) says:

    Royally !

    But the good news is that there has to be an election next year – so .. we are still fucked ‘cos either labour will get in again ( please god no ) or the tories will and I cant see them taxing us less .

    Nope we are truly shagged ..

  2. Stan (222 comments) says:

    “El Gordo had an easy time for his decade as Chancellor with the global economy booming and he still managed to fuck the economy up”
    So he did nothing to sustain the uk economy himself because the boom was global, but now there is a global down-turn its Brown’s fault that the uk is in the crapper?
    That doesn’t make sense.

    “people who work for a living are going to see their tax burden go through the roof”
    Forgive me if I’ve missed something here but I thought the only rise in income tax was for those earning more than £150,000. Just about everyone I know works for a living and none of them earn anywhere near that. Pay me £150,000 a year and I’d gladly pay 50% tax.

    “54,000 sixth form places will be created to keep kids in education a bit longer costing the taxpayer money instead of working and paying taxes”
    Firstly, what exactly is wrong with educating 54,000 children to a higher standard, and secondly, if there are no jobs around then the kids will go straight on the dole anyway. If these job vacancies do exist, why not employ those already in the jobs market while educating the kids.

    “while unemployed people and the dregs of society will be getting money thrown at them”
    I worked for the DSS for over 15 years and I can assure you that it’s sole purpose is to find any and all possible ways to exclude people from claiming benefits.
    If I understand correctly, under 25’s will be offered work or training after one years unemployment – both measures get them off the unemployment statistics. If they refuse they lose their benefit and if they agree they will get a low income.
    And who exactly are the dregs of society?

    “Today’s budget was a proper socialist budget”
    “he’s a marxist solicitor”
    “And let’s face it, he’s done such a stirling job this last year and marxists have done a fantastic job of running ruining economies over the years that we could never doubt Comrade Darling’s wise words”

    You really don’t understand socialism do you?

    We live in a capitalist country, in a global capitalist economy. We are trying to kick-start it by funding banks and selling guilt-edged securities to investment institutions.
    I don’t remember seeing anything in the budget about funding workers collectives

  3. wonkotsane (1133 comments) says:

    Gordo pissed our collective wealth up the wall for a decade while the money was rolling in without making any provision for when the gravy train stopped. The must-have commodity at the moment is gold – where’s all our gold? That’s right, the dickhead sold it all at half its value to buy euro which are worth fuck all in comparison.

    The tax burden is going up for everyone, not just people who earn over £150k. The cost of living is being driven up for everyone, not just people who earn over £150k. The only people who are getting anything out of this budget are pensioners (no problem with that) and people on benefits.

    There’s nothing wrong with providing children with further education if we can afford it but Darling is borrowing hundreds of billions of pounds over the next few years and he’s announced about as much new pre-election spending as he has spending cuts. We need people earning and paying tax to fund all the spending or we need to cut spending. Can’t have it both ways.

    If we have to – as the British government keeps telling us – let hundreds of thousands of immigrants into the country every year to satisfy the labour market then why the fuck do we have 2.1m unemployed people right now? The jobs are out there, it’s just that people won’t do them. Instead of paying them to be unemployed and then paying them to train and then paying them some more because they’ve been unemployed for a year and are training, just fucking make them work. Gordo wants to spend his way out of the recession with public works so get the long term unemployed to do it.

    I do understand socialism – it’s great in principal but defies human nature and ends up with an oppressive, bankrupt, corrupt state where anyone who achieves anyone is denounced for being an exploitative capitalist and people who are happy to plod along and rely on handouts are rewarded. It starts off as “rob from the rich and give to the poor” and ends up as “rob from everybody and drip feed it back to a few”. Show me a socialist state (in any of its oppressive, corrupt forms) that has worked. USSR, China, Zimbabwe, Yugoslavia, Albania, North Korea, Cuba, Germany – millions have died through oppression and starvation in the name of socialism.

    McFeagle, everyone is pinning their hopes on an election next year but I’m not convinced we’ll have one. Rising unemployment, recession, depression, defaulting on debt payments – invoke the civil contingencies act and cancel the election. Funnily enough, it’s how all the socialist revolutions have started out.

  4. Stan (222 comments) says:

    I’m not going to try to defend Brown, he’s not a socialist so why should I?
    I agree the sale of gold was bloody stupid, but in the scheme of things the £2 Billion was only a small part of the economic plan

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_the_United_Kingdom

    The downturn is worldwide and to be perfectly honest I don’t think the UK has much influence on it’s own economic future – certainly not as much as the US has.
    The UK isn’t the only economy that’s panicking and putting in knee-jerk, poorly thought through policies, they all are. The fact that we are part of a global economy and rely on overseas markets makes us less able to control our own finances and more reliant on foreign prosperity

    The effects of the recession have a different demographic this time around – if you live off savings or the type of mortgage you have. Quite a few people are actually better off, at least for the short term. Being unemployed doesn’t make you better off, you just have more time on your hands
    That’s not to say that in the long-term we are not all well and truly in the shit

    If there are a finite number of jobs then those places have to be filled from the pool of labour. All I was saying was that I believe it would be better to fill those places from the long-term unemployed rather than school leavers. I’d rather pay for education than unemployment

    Socialism suffers from the same thing that capitalism does – greed – as soon as people get greedy and try to grab a bigger piece of the pie the whole thing falls to pieces. You’ve only got to look at what’s happening now to see that.

    The examples you put forward are more like state-run monopolies than socialist states. Again, I’m not going to defend oppressive regimes, no matter what name it’s done in – after all the US and the UK invaded Iraq in the name of oil – aggressive capitalism. The US policies in Central America – done in the name of capitalism. The Bay of Pigs was to get the Mafia back in charge of Cuba. The Middle East oil economy is based on oppressive capitalism.
    As soon as the guns come out it all turns sour, whatever your political persuasion

    “millions have died through oppression and starvation in the name of socialism”
    To be fair, the same is true of capitalism

  5. axel (1214 comments) says:

    how much of the crisis is our fault?

    Sure the bankers lent lots of money they should’nt have on conditions they should’nt have but…..

    surely, we as debtors borrowed lots of money we should’nt have on conditions we should’nt have…..

    remember as kids? your mum would say, ‘if keef richards did it would you do it too? how stupid are you? use what brains you’ve got!’

  6. Charlie Marks (365 comments) says:

    Stan, nice try – but Wonko doesn’t understand economics. You can get more profit out of a migrant worker who doesn’t know his rights and can be made to work for minumum or below minimum wage – but for wonko the problem is to “just fucking make them work”. Never mind the oppressive, bankrupt, corrupt state that the capitalists have got us into. I pray to god the recession doesn’t get so deep that he’s forced to eat his words.

  7. axel (1214 comments) says:

    i was listening to radio 4 this morning and it either the youngest british member of the IB or the oldest and listening to him, talking about his youth and going to spain to fight the fascists, he sounded exactly like the al qaeda wannabees and fight the good fight islamic types.

    discuss

  8. Charlie Marks (365 comments) says:

    Enthusiastic and idealistic people will sound the same, yes. But what matters, of course, is the outcome.

    Hitler was passionate about winning the Second World War – but then, so was Churchill…

  9. axel (1214 comments) says:

    no the outcome does’nt matter in this case, in the 1930s, if you were a socialist, you joined the IB and went to spain to help out crush an internationally support facsist rebellion

    in the oughties, if you are a muslim you join the Islamists and go to Afghanistan to help crush an internationally supported fascist coalition

    precise details aside, is it not the same thing?

  10. Charlie Marks (365 comments) says:

    No, because not many Muslims are joining the Islamists and going to Afghanistan.

    And…

    No, because the nature of the occupation of Afghanistan isn’t “fascist”.

  11. Stan (222 comments) says:

    Hi Axel

    “no the outcome doesn’t matter in this case, in the 1930s, if you were a socialist, you joined the IB and went to Spain to help out crush an internationally support fascist rebellion”

    Fairly typical of the left here – the socialists get a few volunteers and the chance to buy supplies from Russia, whereas the fascists get soldiers, tanks and planes from Germany and Italy and supplies from Portugal….
    Us lefties are crap at organisation : )

    “in the oughties, if you are a muslim you join the Islamists and go to Afghanistan to help crush an internationally supported fascist coalition”

    Not really, a few fanatics, but not nearly as many as the Daily Mail would have you believe

    “Show me a socialist state (in any of its oppressive, corrupt forms) that has worked.”
    This had me thinking so I turned it on it’s head and tried to think of a right wing state that “worked” and couldn’t do that either, (unless you counted oppressing it’s people or those of other countries as “working”).
    Also I’m not sure how successful any socialist country is going to be if you have the might of the USA constantly trying to bring it down.

  12. Charlie Marks (365 comments) says:

    “Show me a socialist state (in any of its oppressive, corrupt forms) that has worked.”

    Say wonko, why not compare Cuba with capitalist Haiti… which third world country would you rather live in? How’s about India, or China? Would you rather be poor in America or poor in Denmark? Belarus or Poland?

    “anyone who achieves anyone is denounced for being an exploitative capitalist and people who are happy to plod along and rely on handouts are rewarded”

    This is just Cold War propaganda, I’m afraid, wonko. There have always been wage differentials in socialist countries. Why study for years to become a doctor if the pay is no better than a cleaner?

    As for handouts – socialist states have opted for full employment rather than let millions be thrown out of work and left to languish on the dole.

    The restoration of capitalism in former socialist countries resulted in millions of preventable deaths – public healthcare systems were dismantled as the economy went into rapid decline.

    As for the democratic credentials of the big business elite – in Russia, Yeltsin had to bomb the parliament to stop the democratically-elected politicians calling a halt to his mass privatisation programme which was shutting down the economy – opinion polls at the time (early nineties) suggested that a majority of citizens wanted state-owned firms to be converted into workers’ cooperatives rather than sold at knock-down prices to the oligarchs.

    Hundreds of people were killed in the process of suspending the Duma, but the capitalists were suddenly relaxed about a strongman ruling Russia… To prevent the Communists winning power in 1996 elections, foreign business interests funded Yelstin’s campaign, the US sending PR advisors to help the drunkard look good on TV. In the end, the oligarchs had to rig the election.

  13. Stan (222 comments) says:

    Just for information, I found this. It puts the economy into perspective

    http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/8037500.stm

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