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Listed below are comments made by croydo between Thursday, 11th June 2009 and Sunday, 6th December 2009 (6 Hours Ago) .

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Flattening, not falling? 5:58pm on 06 Dec 2009 #72 bill

So are you saying that the average family has saved £1000 this year from the VAT reduction?

What is the relevance of your 0.025% figure? Show me the money!
Flattening, not falling? 3:51pm on 06 Dec 2009 #66 - Andrew Measor: "...the average household has benefited to the tune of around a thousand pounds."

I find this figure hard to believe. Surely, don't you have to buy £40,000 of VAT liable items to make £1000 saving?

40,000 x 1.175 = 47,000
40,000 x 1.15 = 46,000.

Also, many items are not liable to the reduction such as energy bills with 5% VAT. Most food is 0% rated. Also, I think they have increased the fuel duty to compensate for the VAT reduction, so you don't make any saving when you fill your car up. The average family will have made nothing like the saving you suggest.

Looking at it another way - the cut is said to have cost the Government about 12.8 billion. If you divide that by roughly 20 million households, you get £640 per household. But the VAT is paid by businesses as well, so the household figure will be less than £640.

Your idea about the stockpiling of steel is also a bit questionable - different steels are made for different purposes. So if the steel was for making a building, or a bridge or a ship, that would be different from what you would need to make a car. How would you know what your next customer was going to want?

Sorry to be negative, but we need to get a true picture in order to know the right thing to do.
A hung parliament and the City 5:31pm on 03 Dec 2009 The recent opinion polls show just what a short memory the voting public has. They really think we're on the road to recovery.

Actually what has happened is that Gordon (or Darling) has managed to reinflate the bursting bubbles (and you have to give them credit for this - I didn't think it was even remotely possible). But what it has taken is simply astronomical amounts of money, part borrowed from the future and part conjured up out of thin air.

The current political situation is a bit like having gangrene in your foot. Three doctors turn up. The one in the red tie says "We just need to get you back on your feet again and with a bit of exercise things will pick up". The one in the blue tie says "I'm sorry but amputation is the only answer, but you'll probably lose only one or two toes". The one in the yellow tie says "It will mean amputation - if you've got any money, it's going to cost you, but if not we can do it for free". Only trouble is you know he's going to cut the wrong foot off.

Which would you choose?

I think my choice is the one in the red tie - even though I'm pretty sure he's being too optimistic. On the one hand there's just an outside chance he's right, but on the other hand, it will soon be obvious to everyone that he was wrong and we'll get a proper doctor in from the IMF who will dispassionately do what needs to be done.
If you thought it was all over... 6:54pm on 19 Nov 2009 145. At 5:59pm on 19 Nov 2009, pdavies65 wrote:
136
Yes, Mrs Thatcher did win three elections for the Conservatives. And then they dumped her.

Nice bunch, eh?

============================

Although I think Mrs Thatcher did a lot of good for this country, the Poll Tax (Community Charge) was a huge mistake. So the Conservatives were absolutely right to say enough's enough.

Although several in the Labour Party are aware of the shambles Gordon has made, they seem content to just muddle on till 2010.
If you thought it was all over... 6:22pm on 19 Nov 2009 The only reason Tony was in with a chance was because he didn't scupper the Lisbon treaty by holding a referendum in the UK. So Gordon Brown kept our end of the deal.

But when it actually came to it, Sarkosy and Merkle just couldn't bring themselves to go through with their part.

It is just too much to expect the Europeans to forget a thousand years of history, for much of which we were sworn enemies.
When and how to squeeze the budget 8:43pm on 17 Nov 2009 Isn't it a pity when democracy turns into people voting for other people's tax rises - you should all be queuing up for the privelege of paying more tax to get us all out of this situation!

But seriously, I would cut the taxes on employing people.

I would cut the pay of anyone earning more than £30,000 in the public sector by 25%.

Public sector pensions schemes should be wound up immediately and replaced by private sector equivalents (fully contributory).

Bonuses should be made illegal - if you do well you get your pay, if you don't do well you are looking for another job.

When someone goes on holiday, the rest of the people should really notice they are not there - if they don't, then maybe they don't need to come back to work.

Nobody should pay any income tax below what is needed to live, about £10,000 a year. Above that, the tax goes up progressively, say 1% for the first £1000, 2% for the second £1000, and so on.

All the rest should be taken as VAT - whatever is needed to balance the books. If they don't balance and the VAT percentage is too high, then you have to cut public expenditure to suit. A first step would be to cut the number of Government ministries and quangos.

Will it happen? - No, bring back the IMF.
Why them and not us? 08:56am on 24 Oct 2009 #27 ishkandar - "Actually, it was the "Winter of Discontent" that caused Old Bushy-brows Healey to go to the IMF, not the other way round !!"

Really? I thought: IMF 1976, Winter of Discontent 1978/9.

From the BBC on the subject: "Jim Callaghan moved into 10 Downing Street in 1976, and was immediately told the economy was facing huge problems, according to documents just released at the National Archives. The world's financial markets were losing confidence in Sterling as the British economy stumbled. The Treasury could not balance the books. At the same time, Labour's strategy emphasised high public spending which it appeared could no longer be paid for."

Deja vu, anyone?

Certainly there was plenty of discontent around all through the Seventies. And the Eighties for that matter, but that's another story!
Rock: Crumbling less 09:04am on 04 Aug 2009 So much for the suggestion that the taxpayer was going to make a big profit by taking over these failing banks! We always knew that was going to be the case didn't we?
A note of caution 4:39pm on 30 Jun 2009 "That note of caution about the recovery is the main message of today's news. But there is, I suppose, a bright side. If the economy is that much smaller than we thought, the amount of slack - or spare capacity - ought to be that much greater, and the chances of a rapid pick-up in inflation that much smaller."

I accept the note of caution about recovery, but sadly, that's not where the inflation is going to come from. It will partly have been stoked by holding interest rates too low, flooding the cash (that would otherwise have gone on mortgage interest) into the economy.

Maintaining the low base rate situation for so long is madness. Because I have a flexible tracker mortgage, I am paying 1.45% and I can take money out of the mortgage account and invest it for 4.25%. Even taking tax into account, that leaves me with a substantial margin for profit - so it is clearly an unsustainable, lunatic scenario and even now, the real interest rates out there are on the rise.

But no, the real source of inflation will be when other parts of the world start coming out of the recession, demand picks up and the pound tanks, causing food, power and petrol prices in the UK to leap. Interest rates will rise to try and support the pound and the UK debt mountain will become unserviceable. Also consumer spending will disappear on everything but essentials because people have to go back to higher mortgage payments. Then we will get to the real 2009 UK recession - this is just the phoney war so far.

A bright side for the UK? - I don't think so.
The public spending debate 9:07pm on 11 Jun 2009 #81 ExcellenceFirst

You put it very well, excellently in fact.

Nevertheless, today's Golden Soundbite Award goes to #72 Tony Dolphin for trying to stay on-message with an almost plausible argument in very difficult circumstances.

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