Morning music
On this day a year ago
Mini-budget of Kwasi Kwarteng and Liz Truss
https://news.sky.com/video/pound-plummets-after-mini-budget-12703855
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/sep/23/kwasi-kwarteng-mini-budget-key-points-at-a-glance
“Aubrey Allegretti, political correspondent: Kwarteng starts by pinning the blame for inflation and spiralling energy bills directly on Putin.“
[The Guardian]
Well, after all, it could not be the fault of the Boris-idiot government, which all but shut down the UK economy for 2 years for no good reason, while doling out free money like a drunken sailor…oh, wait a minute…
“Aubrey Allegretti: Kwarteng seeks to turn the last 12 years of Conservative economic wisdom on its head and present the government as new and radical – rather than hanging on the coattails of the last one.
He lays out his central point that “growth is not as high as it should be”, arguing this only leads to less money to fund public services, relying on higher taxes, and so on.
“We need a new approach for a new era” should be seen as nothing less than a bid to reinvent the Conservatives and present them as a party of change – to avoid being blamed for the mistakes of the past. (Despite, of course, Truss having served in the previous three Conservative governments.)“
[The Guardian].
This mini-budget is completely mad. The result can only be roaring inflation, higher interest rates for businesses and mortgage-payers, and before very long a huge spike in house-repossessions as people default on the mortgage commitments taken out in easier times.
Reducing tax for those earning over £140,000 —about 3x or 4x the average pay? That is just ridiculous and will be applied to purchase of hedging assets (including paying off any mortgage commitments such higher-earners may have).
Stimulation of the economy requires more money at the bottom end, where people are almost compelled by circumstances to spend on goods and services, not at the top end of the income scale.
Today, the pound sterling is down, as I write, by about 2%. Interest rates for UK government borrowing are rising steeply.
A budget of this sort does nothing for the poor (however defined), nothing for the bulk of the population, and only helps those already affluent or wealthy.
Indeed, it might be said that the “middle ranks”, meaning people without much capital, working for a modest living, paying off a mortgage, paying for children and a household, will be hit very hard.
If only there were an existing, tightly-controlled, social-national party, —even if small— and with credible policies and people. One does not exist. Somewhere soon down the road might come a “1929” moment. That was what started the NSDAP and Hitler on its path to glory (ultimately, tragic glory, but that is another question).
Hilary Mantel
The authoress, Hilary Mantel, has died.
I was struck by this, seen on her Wikipedia entry:
“In an 2013 interview with the Telegraph, Mantel stated: “I think that nowadays the Catholic Church is not an institution for respectable people.”[5] She continued in the interview to say: “When I was a child I wondered why priests and nuns were not nicer people. I thought that they were amongst the worst people I knew.” These statements, as well as the themes explored in her earlier novel Fludd, led some to question her work in Wolf Hall, with Bishop Mark O’Toole noting: “There is an anti-Catholic thread there, there is no doubt about it. Wolf Hall is not neutral.”[46].”
[Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hilary_Mantel].
I myself had no contact with Roman Catholicism as a child. Indeed, I do not think that I even knew any Roman Catholics until I was in my early 20s. All the same, the few impressions that I had then were not favourable, as when I was in Ireland aged about 21 and had left Tralee station to walk or hitch-hike to the mountains. A small car approached, the first one since Tralee. I stuck out my thumb, only for the miserable-looking bastards on board, a thin, rat-faced and bespectacled Catholic priest, and a thoroughly nasty-looking nun (who was driving), to pass me without even a glance.
After a week or so in the sea-mountains, I returned the same way. Again, a car approached. The same car. The same occupants. I thought that this time they would stop, having seen me the previous week. No. Straight on past, not sparing me a look.
Miserable bastards, whom I hope met a miserable end.
Incidentally, I did get a lift eventually, in both directions; on the journey out, from an attractive dark-haired young Irishwoman who would not accept a chocolate from me because it was Lent.
The years spin past ever-quicker. That was in early 1979, all of 43 years ago now.
Tweets seen
Re. Therese Coffey, my assessment of her from three years ago (it includes updates) has always had a lot of hits, and that continues every day: https://ianrobertmillard.org/2019/09/16/deadhead-mps-an-occasional-series-the-therese-coffey-story/.
More tweets seen
Exactly. Both above tweets are right. The income point however leaves out the main difference between the few and the many, the capital held by each group.
The average Joe has no, or virtually no, capital. In fact, if you leave aside any equity value in residential property owned (usually just one dwelling, and Average Joe himself lives in it), most British people really only have a tiny amount of capital, a few thousand pounds, or even just a few hundred.
The wealthy few however, are often not at all dependent on income as such, certainly not income from any ordinary job. Their capital, invested in real property, or shares etc, is the key to their wealth. Careful investment and accountancy can mean that Average Millionaire/Billionaire Joe has almost no taxable income at all, while in any given year, his capital might have increased by 20%, 50%, even 1,000%.
The wealthiest of all have seen their capital increase hugely since the last financial crash in 2008; The Elon Musks (from about USD $2 billion to about USD $277 billion— in just one decade), the Jeff Bezos’s etc.
People like that laugh at the very idea of income tax. It is simply irrelevant to most of them. Look at the Duke of Westminster, small compared to the mega-billionaires, but still worth £10 billion -£20 billion. Then compare that to the Average Joe, who might (or might not) own, even including his house equity, maybe £200,000 or so. £1 for every £100,000 owned by the Duke of Westminster, and maybe £1 for every £1,500,000 owned by Elon Musk.
I myself had a great many problems with HMRC long ago. Partly but not entirely self-inflicted, and all now (long ago, over a decade ago) resolved to my satisfaction. I never ever encountered a bureaucracy as shambolic (as well as, in some cases, unpleasant) as HMRC. Not in Eastern Europe, not in the former Soviet Union, not in the USA (which came close, at times).
Look at them: Charles, Anne, Edward, Andrew, Harry (formerly known as “Prince”), William. Are any of them beyond mediocre in intellect, character, or in any way other than unearned and unmerited wealth? Most of them do not even pay taxes.
Meanwhile, Kelvin McKenzie, formerly of the Sun “newspaper”, exposes his ignorance once again:
McKenzie seems unaware that there is more to tax than income tax and inheritance tax. To give the obvious example (obvious at least to anyone better-informed than McKenzie), everyone pays VAT, a tax which is a major contributor to State funds, and is paid disproportionately by the poorer part of the population.
I have to admit that I have little interest in the minutiae of it all, but from the ruthless, Ayn Rand, callous self-interest point of view, the Mulatta has, as they say, “played a blinder”.
Putin’s decision to invade, as such, was not a mistake, but the decision to invade without proper preparation, without a proper plan, without having eliminated Zelensky, and with no proper logistics in place, was more than a mistake. It was criminally negligent. The GRU and General Staff should be purged, cut to the bone. Start again, as Stalin did.
It could have been done swiftly, with minimal hurt and damage.
Where can I get one of those? Or both.
True, but remember how Blair, and Brown in particular, worshipped the banking “industry” (sometimes useful but basically parasitic service industry).
More thoughts about the “mini-Budget”
Seems that “the markets” are dropping like a stone.
I mean, a simple-minded, almost cretinous Budget, announced by a woolly-headed ****** posing as Chancellor of the Exchequer; then we have a semi-educated half-caste with a “degree” in Hospitality Management posing as Foreign Secretary, and a stupid and ridiculous woman (who only became an MP on her back), actually posing as Prime Minister….what could possibly go wrong?
Jesus Christ! Is that stupid lot the best “the great Conservative Party” (in the words of Disraeli, his sentence ending “which destroys everything“…) can do? And is that hopelessly banal package of economic measures the summation of their thoughts?
Late tweets seen
Pity. I do not like the Gulf Arab “states”.
Liz Truss. The latest clown to pose as Prime Minister of the UK.
…the key words being “in a supposed liberal democracy“…
There is a way to deal with these people, with these evils; only one way, really…
The Jew-Zionists are behind much of the attack on free speech. About 90% of it.
I remember when, in the 1980s, a load of caravan-dwelling “travellers” decided to camp on Hampstead Heath, near the opulent house of “socialist” humbug Michael Foot. Suddenly, the great champion of the “rights” of the Gypsies and “travellers” (Irish tinkers) was against them camping near his house…
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Foot]
Foot was a hypocrite of the first order; I could not stand the bastard.
Late music
Ian Robert Millard 