Well, one part of the Budget seems to be working at least :P

 

To be fair, I don't blame them at all. Smoking is probably one of the most looked down at things in the UK, and the consumers are addicts, therefore, they will pay anything, within reason, to get their fix, thus more tax.

But, there is a limit, and when you're paying £3.90 for 12 and a half grams, its a bit of a piss take. I've managed to cut down enough so I don't get agitated, but enough to keep me happy and I get through about one pouch a week, which is nothing compared to most people.

To be fair, I don't blame them at all. Smoking is probably one of the most looked down at things in the UK, and the consumers are addicts, therefore, they will pay anything, within reason, to get their fix, thus more tax.

But, there is a limit, and when you're paying £3.90 for 12 and a half grams, its a bit of a piss take. I've managed to cut down enough so I don't get agitated, but enough to keep me happy and I get through about one pouch a week, which is nothing compared to most people.

 

I'm an occasional social smoker, I maybe get through a pack of 10 over the course of two or three club nights, depending on how many of my mates are outside smoking themselves.. TBH, I couldn't honestly care less about the price of fags, the way I look at it is, it's costing the NHS billions each year to treat smoking related illnesses, so I think that there should be fairly punitive taxes on it.. Mind you, if the bloody NHS "reforms" end up destroying the NHS, then it's going to be hard to justify the punitive taxes on fags....

 

Tax cuts for the rich at the expense of pensioners.... Really, really nasty...... <_>

 

If they actually wanted to do something for the economy, they should have brought back the 10p rate of tax for low paid workers, it's not as if the top earners are exactly the ones who are going to revitalise the High Streets and spend in local economies.. They'll be taking skiing holidays, buying Italian fashions and sports cars, and buying expensive imported goods.... -_-

Surely it's better to do what they are doing and increase the amount that can be earned before paying any tax (one of the few good things in the Budget).

To be fair, I don't blame them at all. Smoking is probably one of the most looked down at things in the UK, and the consumers are addicts, therefore, they will pay anything, within reason, to get their fix, thus more tax.

But, there is a limit, and when you're paying £3.90 for 12 and a half grams, its a bit of a piss take. I've managed to cut down enough so I don't get agitated, but enough to keep me happy and I get through about one pouch a week, which is nothing compared to most people.

 

This is the thing, in principle I like to see tobacco taxed to high heaven but on any other product it'd be economic suicide to raise the duty so high because people would just stop buying it. There will be positive effects for the NHS down the line I guess but it'll be very hard to measure.

Tax cuts for the rich at the expense of pensioners.... Really, really nasty...... <_<

 

 

Its more than nasty, its f***ing disgusting.

I used to think it was terrible that 50% of your money turned to tax, but then It thought, you still have 75k a year to live on... Reducing their tax by 45% is just so typical of the tories, help their own.

Its just... so furious about that. And its a touching issue for EVERYONE because the majority of us have grand parents.

 

And also think its disgusting that the minimum wage for Under 21s has been frozen. Luckily, Im above the +21 minimum wage anyway but I know that £5 an hour is NOT enough, especially with the mad amount of inflation recently.

 

If they want taxes, tax things like McDonalds, Burger King, KFC etc. Yes its food, but it is a luxury and theres a huge amount of money to be paid there.

 

Surely it's better to do what they are doing and increase the amount that can be earned before paying any tax (one of the few good things in the Budget).

 

Not really if they claw it back elsewhere though... It just seems to me like giving with one hand and grabbing even more with the other....

 

And also think its disgusting that the minimum wage for Under 21s has been frozen. Luckily, Im above the +21 minimum wage anyway but I know that £5 an hour is NOT enough, especially with the mad amount of inflation recently.

 

If they want taxes, tax things like McDonalds, Burger King, KFC etc. Yes its food, but it is a luxury and theres a huge amount of money to be paid there.

The intention is to keep it as cheap to employ as many yongsters as possible (youth unemployment is at record levels at present).

 

If you want to tax fast foods then from a health point of view and an NHS point of view yes it's win win but don't forget as the foods are the cheapest they are the ones that tend to be bought by poorer families who tradionally have a worse diet so you'll only be hitting the poor which I thought was the opposite of what you wanted??

The intention is to keep it as cheap to employ as many yongsters as possible (youth unemployment is at record levels at present).

 

And that's meant to be a justification..? Sorry, I dont follow that line of thought at all.. How do you incentivise a work-force by paying them peanuts... I rather think that if you pay peanuts you get monkeys..... -_-

And by making it more expensive to employ then why would they hire? Even a minimum wage is better than getting benefits (if you were to compare hourly rates). Paying someone more does not improve efficiency or output automatically , everyone can see that in their own workplace.

And by making it more expensive to employ then why would they hire? Even a minimum wage is better than getting benefits (if you were to compare hourly rates). Paying someone more does not improve efficiency or output automatically , everyone can see that in their own workplace.

 

No, it just creates exploitation.. The facts are when you look at what's been going on over the past 30 years, wages in real terms have been flatlining dramatically, while the cost of living has been increasing exponentially... It's not good enough to create a working poor under-class, while at the same time having an elite class who hoard all the wealth for no other reason that to just have it.... The Capitalist model has failed but refuses to die, the Communist model at least had the decency to die. We need a new model, that's the bottom line...

No, it just creates exploitation.. The facts are when you look at what's been going on over the past 30 years, wages in real terms have been flatlining dramatically, while the cost of living has been increasing exponentially... It's not good enough to create a working poor under-class, while at the same time having an elite class who hoard all the wealth for no other reason that to just have it.... The Capitalist model has failed but refuses to die, the Communist model at least had the decency to die. We need a new model, that's the bottom line...

It's not just about wages though it's also about taxation and how much of that wage you keep. You'll note here UK Taxation haul that the % of income generated by the UK and taken by the government in tax to spend on various bits and bobs has been slashed from over 45% in 1982 (the 30 yr period you refer to) to 36% in 2009 because low taxes are election winners (from the 80s through to new labour.

 

Truth is, as has always been, we want the government to provide x and y but we don't want to pay for it, and we agree with tax hikes provided the taxe hikes don't hit us but that goes for everyone, and where do you draw the line and say you have "enough"? You don't want to make the UK inhospitable to the rich because, quite frankly if they leave (as they did in the 70s) then we are all up s**t creek because those of us who are left will have to foot an even bigger proportion of the tax bill just to keep what services we have already have, let alone get more services.

 

Trouble is no-one is coming up with a new way of doing things, communism failed because it ended up smothering personal freedom as it always does, capitalism hasn't died because we simply haven't found anything better yet.

It's not just about wages though it's also about taxation and how much of that wage you keep. You'll note here UK Taxation haul that the % of income generated by the UK and taken by the government in tax to spend on various bits and bobs has been slashed from over 45% in 1982 (the 30 yr period you refer to) to 36% in 2009 because low taxes are election winners (from the 80s through to new labour.

 

Truth is, as has always been, we want the government to provide x and y but we don't want to pay for it, and we agree with tax hikes provided the taxe hikes don't hit us but that goes for everyone, and where do you draw the line and say you have "enough"? You don't want to make the UK inhospitable to the rich because, quite frankly if they leave (as they did in the 70s) then we are all up s**t creek because those of us who are left will have to foot an even bigger proportion of the tax bill just to keep what services we have already have, let alone get more services.

 

Trouble is no-one is coming up with a new way of doing things, communism failed because it ended up smothering personal freedom as it always does, capitalism hasn't died because we simply haven't found anything better yet.

 

If you ask me, the country's up shit creek because of a lot of these rich w*n**rs who avoid taxes, and particularly these rich w*n**rs in the financial sector who crashed the system which the likes of you and me then had to bail out.... And they're still bleating and whining like a bunch of babies for more "intervention" when it suits them, but god forbid that we actually try and regulate their behaviour. I hate these rent-seeking parasites. Frankly, I'd let them all leave, they can f*** off to China and screw up their economy.... -_- Get some hungry young kids in those jobs who have a genuine entrepreneurial spirit and maybe some innovative ideas....

 

It used to be that all the democratic countries in the world taxed the rich at FAR higher levels than 50%... Now, gee, when did all that change... When Neo-Libera$t ideas started to dominate in the USA, Milton Friedman, Alan Greenspan, all these tossers.... The pendulum has swung way too far in favour of the 1%

I understand the logic in freezing minimum wage for under 21s to get more of them into employment but it's still incredibly flawed, a bit of money being pumped into the system would create jobs far more effectively but the Government is too obsessed with cutting spending. IMO the high unemployment figure is the critical factor - it's a point that has been made a lot but someone who's unemployed is doubly costly to the government because they have to be given benefits while not paying any income tax back. Throw a bit of money in to create more jobs and it'll see the economic situation improve far more quickly.

Interesting article from the Torygraph of all places:

Budget 2012: How Ed Miliband became the big surprise

 

Short of jumping out of a cake while singing Pennies From Heaven, there was not much George Osborne could do to spring any surprises as he delivered his pre-digested Budget. That did not make it any easier for Ed Miliband. Mr Osborne had the figleaf of increased personal allowances to offer, courtesy of Nick Clegg. In cutting the top tax rate, as expected, he had dug a Miliband-shaped trap for an Opposition reluctant to commit itself to reinstating 50p.

 

So the Chancellor must have hoped for an easy win. Just to add to Mr Miliband's discomfiture. he threw in a joke about Wallace and Gromit. Mr Osborne was to be disappointed. Mr Miliband was good. He was better than good to judge by the squirms of government front-benchers invited to say whether they would personally profit from a "Millionaires' Budget."

 

A low blow, perhaps, but Mr Miliband at least avoided the charge of haplessness. He also managed to puncture the grandiosity of a Chancellor claiming, with scant evidence, to be honouring Adam Smith's four economic canons. In a series of crisp putdowns, he nailed the crux of the unfairness in this Budget. Can it be right that the poor will only work harder if you make them poorer, while the reverse applies to the very rich?

 

Labour will be mightily relieved. The Miliband team had expected the Osborne Budget to be full of the traps once set by Gordon Brown, but there were few unexpected twists. The low return from the 50p rate might have stymied Mr Miliband: instead he turned it to his advantage. The government's decision to claw back money from the elderly, which Labour had not anticipated, is sure to play to the Eds' advantage.

 

The Opposition still has plenty to worry about; not least its internal tensions. Some senior figures inclined to see Ed Balls as a liability will have to compel themselves to treat him as a major asset. If Labour as a whole does not learn to love its brilliant, if abrasive, shadow chancellor, it can hardly expect the nation to do so.

 

But even before voters' verdict is in on the Osborne Budget, Labour can afford to breathe again. This may turn out to be the day when Ed Miliband proved himself fit to lead the country.

I watched a good portion of Ed's rebuttal and it was FANTASTIC. A proper parliamentary moment.

I watched a good portion of Ed's rebuttal and it was FANTASTIC. A proper parliamentary moment.

 

Well, come on, given how much of this budget was "leaked", if he hadn't been able to prepare a good rebuttal, I'd've been surprised.... :lol: :lol:

 

Still, it's good to finally see Millipede showing a bit of backbone.. But he seriously needs to do this more often, and be able to think on his feet a lot more... Like I say, he had ample opportunity to prepare most of that...

Another hidden little "gem" here....

 

Osborne's pasty tax hidden in the budget

http://robscornishblog.blogspot.co.uk/2012...-in-budget.html

 

Some hours now after people are looking into the fine details of George Osborne's budget it has been revealed that VAT will be added to hot takeaway goods. That means pasties! So if and when this legislation is introduced your £2.50 medium steak pasty will now be £3 and your £3 large steak pasty will be £3.60. So that's money out of ordinary decent Cornish folks pockets, a blow to our bakers and hardly great news for tourism. The government is undertaking a consultation and it will be the test of Cornwall's MPs if for once they put Cornwall and our national cuisine before the desires of their parties. As far as I am aware this is the nearest to Cornwall getting a specific mention in the budget, how hollow the words "MPs at the heart of the government" now sound.

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Yay! A "Pasty Tax"... Well, a "Hot Takeaway foods Tax" really.. So, buying your take-out lunch at the local Cafe or Canteen just got more expensive.... Well done George, just make things even more difficult for the Working Classes and the people trying to run small cafes and eateries... You utter COCK..... <_< So, Cornish Pasties and the like are now considered a "luxury food"..? And here was me thinking they were a working class staple. Mind you, I guess to someone brought up on Caviar, Frois Grois and Sauteed Wood Pigeon, I suppose a Cornish Pasty or a Cheese and ham toastie might seem a bit "exotic".... -_-

 

"A budget for business", yeah...? PMSL..... :rolleyes:

Wait, WHAT? No wonder his tax breaks for his chums are so revenue neutral! The elderly and the hard working folk of this country are paying for every single penny of it.

 

 

I swear if I hear one more word about this being a 'fair' budget or a budget for 'growth' imma actually cause ABH to one of these assholes.

Wait, WHAT? No wonder his tax breaks for his chums are so revenue neutral! The elderly and the hard working folk of this country are paying for every single penny of it.

I swear if I hear one more word about this being a 'fair' budget or a budget for 'growth' imma actually cause ABH to one of these assholes.

 

I'll bring the baseball bats, you bring the bike chains..... :lol: :lol:

 

I'll bring the baseball bats, you bring the bike chains..... :lol: :lol:

I have a feeling there might be a fair queue for those items.