Are we all Trussed up...

[Psamathe]

re Rees-Mogg, I've been saying for a long while, to anyone who cares to listen, that the primary motive for his enthusism for Brexit was greed. His considerable unearned income benefits hugely from tax free offshore investments, under arrangements that were the target of planned EU reforms.
Likewise, Somerset Captial Managment, of which he is a sleeping partner ie he gets the dividends but doesn't do anything to "earn" them, invests heavily in coal, oil and other fossil fuels, as well as in Russian and Chinese companies with dubious ethics...
And now, this is the untrustworthy and hypocritcal individual is in charge of our energy policy... something is very wrong here.

Apparently domestically extracted gas is green.

The business secretary has been filmed trying to convince staff at the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy that ‘domestically’ produced gas is green, adding that this is why ‘we must get every cubic inch of gas out of the North Sea’. Jacob Rees-Mogg made the comments on Thursday at an internal meeting in which he gave his first address to BEIS staff since taking on the role

Either a particularly stupid personal another MP who has no concept of "truth".

Ian

[thirdcrank]

With reported salaries of £142000 its no wonder so many GPs choose to work part time. Thus adversely affecting the NHS.

Your opinion that the shortage of GPs is down to their being paid too much is a fascinating inversion of every tenet of economic theory.

I don't think it's correct to describe it in the way I've highlighted. Without wanting to get into a discussion about whether it applies here, statisficing isn't a new theory.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satisficing

Achieving a work-life balance in the lingo

[Mike Sales]

Rees Mogg accuses the anti fracking campaign of taking Russian money.
Johnson's Government tried to block the parliamentary report on whether the Brexit campaign was helped by Russia. He knows something about Russian help in campaigning.

Did Russia Influence Brexit?

According to the UK Parliament’s Intelligence and Security Committee, the UK government does not know and—incredibly—did not try to find out.

This was the question at the heart of the long-awaited “Russia Report,” the 9-month delayed, 55-page assessment of Russia’s malign interference in UK politics. Produced by an independent committee of nine members of parliament from several political parties, including the ruling Conservatives, the report became highly controversial because Boris Johnson’s government tried to block its publication.

The report is damning. It says that the government, along with its intelligence and security services, “underestimated the response required to the Russian threat and are still playing catch up.” It asserts that “Russian influence in the UK is the new normal […] the UK is clearly a target for Russian disinformation.”

If Russia did have a role in tipping the 2016 Brexit referendum, the report asserts that it was not through direct involvement in the voting process, which, in the United Kingdom, is done entirely with paper and considered very hard to corrupt.

But the report leaves open the possibility that Moscow-based information operations, especially through social media and Russian state-funded broadcasters like Sputnik and RT—and backed up by targeted support to influential voices within UK politics—may well have been a significant factor.

https://www.csis.org/blogs/brexit-bits- ... nce-brexit

American money was also involved.

[Psamathe]

Re: Tax Cut For The Highest Earners:

Kwasi Kwarteng’s mini-Budget abolished the 45p rate of income tax paid by those earning more than £150,000 a year. That’s a tax bung for just 629,000 people. It will cost – by my calculation, because Kwarteng refused to present one – £7.4 billion over the next five years. That’s money that could have been spent on services or reducing people’s gas bills.

That's a lot of public money going into the personal pockets of a very few already very wealthy people.

Ian

[Cugel]

I actually find the scraping the top income tax rate quite immoral.

I read that adherance to the core principles of neoliberalism (Truss, her chancellor, JR-M et al are firmly wedded to this ideology, although you'd be forgiven for not knowing that - it's not much talked about...) is all about morality. The theory goes that the market is amoral (as opposed to immoral) and so, treats everybody the same. To each goes their just deserts. Neoliberalism tells us that articificially making allowances for the poor and the weak spoils everything and makes a mess of it all. Which is fine if you're well off and a bit rubbish if you need help.
Ask a thousand folk on zero hour contracts if they think neoliberalism is a good idea and to tell you how well they are doing under the scheme, and I imagine you'll get hundreds of unprintable responses - - but that's OK 'cos the markets wil have treated everybody with blind equality...

The great myth of the "free" market. Nothing about it is free, in the sense of it being the natural and primal force the neolibs parp on about. The "free" market is highly structured by humans using reams & reams of law concerning all sorts of financial mechanisms, property rights and much else. The freedom involved is for the owners of large amounts of capital wealth to use it in any way they like to make more of it. Naturally (!) this is highly restrictive to any kind of opportunity for those who have little or no capital to enjoy all sorts of freedoms, including those such as the freedom to eat, stay warm & sheltered, breath clean air and drink clean water; and to do so without an ever-increasing risk that the weather will kill them.

Cugel

[Mike Sales]

The great myth of the "free" market. Nothing about it is free, in the sense of it being the natural and primal force the neolibs parp on about. The "free" market is highly structured by humans using reams & reams of law concerning all sorts of financial mechanisms, property rights and much else. The freedom involved is for the owners of large amounts of capital wealth to use it in any way they like to make more of it. Naturally (!) this is highly restrictive to any kind of opportunity for those who have little or no capital to enjoy all sorts of freedoms, including those such as the freedom to eat, stay warm & sheltered, breath clean air and drink clean water; and to do so without an ever-increasing risk that the weather will kill them.

Cugel

And of course taxes are needed to create the environment in which capital can profit.
Companies need an educated, healthy work force and solvent consumers, roads to move their goods, a police force to protect them from the resentment of the impoverished, etc. etc. Without regulation the market will enforce pressure to produce goods in the dirtiest fashion.
A "libertarian" friend of mine would only admit the police and the army ( agents of force against people !) as legitimate reasons for taxation.

[Psamathe]

Just a few hours after the budget announcements and ...

Kwasi Kwarteng’s tax-cutting mini-budget has sent financial markets into a tailspin, with UK government borrowing costs soaring and the pound slumping to a 37-year low against the dollar.

The pound fell by almost 2% after Kwarteng announced £45bn of tax cuts directed at higher earners, trading close to a symbolic $1.10 against the US dollar for the first time since 1985.

The FTSE 100 fell more than 2% ...

Two-year UK government bond yields – which are inversely related to the value of bonds and rise as they fall – jumped by as much as 0.4 percentage points to come close to 4%, reaching the highest level since the 2008 financial crisis.
...
Borrowing costs on 10-year bonds rose by more than 0.2 percentage points to trade close to 3.8%, continuing a dramatic climb under way since Liz Truss took over as prime minister earlier this month.
...

So not only are we borrowing loads and loads more, additionally the interest payments of past borrowing has started "soaring" (also making the borrowing we'll be needing to do even more expensive).

Ian

[roubaixtuesday]

With reported salaries of £142000 its no wonder so many GPs choose to work part time. Thus adversely affecting the NHS.

Your opinion that the shortage of GPs is down to their being paid too much is a fascinating inversion of every tenet of economic theory.

I don't think it's correct to describe it in the way I've highlighted. Without wanting to get into a discussion about whether it applies here, statisficing isn't a new theory.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satisficing

Achieving a work-life balance in the lingo

Sure, that's a thing, but are you *seriously* suggesting that paying a job *more* results in *less* people wanting to do it?

Seriously?

[thirdcrank]

Your opinion that the shortage of GPs is down to their being paid too much is a fascinating inversion of every tenet of economic theory.

I don't think it's correct to describe it in the way I've highlighted. Without wanting to get into a discussion about whether it applies here, statisficing isn't a new theory.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satisficing

Achieving a work-life balance in the lingo

Sure, that's a thing, but are you *seriously* suggesting that paying a job *more* results in *less* people wanting to do it?

Seriously?

No, I'm not. I am saying that the subject is a bit more complicated than you implied.

[roubaixtuesday]

I don't think it's correct to describe it in the way I've highlighted. Without wanting to get into a discussion about whether it applies here, statisficing isn't a new theory.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satisficing

Achieving a work-life balance in the lingo

Sure, that's a thing, but are you *seriously* suggesting that paying a job *more* results in *less* people wanting to do it?

Seriously?

No, I'm not. I am saying that the subject is a bit more complicated than you implied.

Unless you think paying people more results in net less people wanting to do the job, it's really not any more complicated.

[reohn2]

Since the arrival of this unelected government, I've been reading as much as I can about the individuals concerned and their underpinning philosphies and I've found out two things: first that hardly any of the reasons they quote for their policies seem to be supported by any data or evidence (eg 'trickle down economics / tax cuts for the well-off promotes economic growth) and second, most of the key players seem to have close links with some very opaque lobbyists - the word 'thinktank' is used to try to suggest they engage in serious & responsible research, but the facts show instead, that they are funded by some very dubious sources, including foreign agents!...

That'll be about right!

[reohn2]

This lot really are taking the proverbial... I imagine they're gonna swing the wrecking ball for the time they've got left.

Like bulls in an economic china shop.....

[al_yrpal]

Well, if the reported salary figure is true a GP could do 20 hours a week and have earnings of £70 grand and have more time with the family. Its hard to establish an average salary for GPs but I am pretty sure its £90 grand upwards from what I have read. So, even £45 grand for 20 hours is pretty good.

I am suggesting that possibly if more GPs worked more time in the NHS perhaps there wouldnt be this problem with appointment shortages. The same applies to Consultants many of whom do substantial amounts of work in private hospitals there would be more prompt care and less need for many people to feel they have to go private to get faster treatment.

The private public setup doesnt work too well IMO. But, freedom to choose....?

Al

PS...for Thinktank substitute Pressure Group!

[Jdsk]

Well, if the reported salary figure is true a GP could do 20 hours a week and have earnings of £70 grand and have more time with the family. Its hard to establish an average salary for GPs but I am pretty sure its £90 grand upwards from what I have read. So, even £45 grand for 20 hours is pretty good.
...

If that's a reference to your reported "£142000" it probably comes from this report:`
https://digital.nhs.uk/data-and-informa ... es/2020-21

It isn't a salary (as above), it's a cherrypicked top subgroup from all of the styles of contract and all of the countries of the UK, and it isn't restricted to their income from the NHS.

Jonathan

[mjr]

Just a few hours after the budget announcements and ...

Kwasi Kwarteng’s tax-cutting mini-budget has sent financial markets into a tailspin, with UK government borrowing costs soaring and the pound slumping to a 37-year low against the dollar.
[...]

So not only are we borrowing loads and loads more, additionally the interest payments of past borrowing has started "soaring" (also making the borrowing we'll be needing to do even more expensive).

I'd expect the Guardian not to like it, but I am seeing a lot of comments from a lot of politically-different places like "worst policy changes since the 1972 budget".

Somewhat amazingly, the Tories had tried to spin it as "the biggest tax cuts since 1972", as if somehow people would have forgotten that "that [1972] budget resulted in spiraling inflation and debt that took a decade and an bailout from the International Monetary Fund to clear up." Comparing your financial policy to the early 1970s is not a way to reassure markets and investors!

The 1972-1974 slump was worse for the UK than even the Great Depression, wiping 70% off the FTSE in about 30 months. I really hope we're not heading that way again, because I doubt that we will rejoin the EU to help stabilise the economy again!