The Budget

nick1988 said:
Why should it be the rich that have to bail everyone else out ... the society we live in today passes the blame and responsibilty onto everyone else but ourselves. It is disgusting that people that have worked hard all their lives from school age and tried to better themselves so that they can live a good life have to pay for the majority of low lifes who have always been looking for the next hand out. Why should we be helping people that have put nothing into this country?

Retarded question now, I know that VAT is being put up to 20% however is this for a set peirod of time like the drop to 15 % or is this for the forseable future?
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i agree - and the vat is permanent - i doubt it will ever go down again.
 
Missing.String said:
Yes, in some perfect world where class doesn't exist and we have a real meritocracy. :P
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Surely meritocracy would still have people being unequal, as some people have no innate abilities/skills of a particularly good level. Someone who struggles with numbers, lacks social empathy and therefore struggles to communicate effectively is not likely to land a well paying job in any industry.
 
The Mad Rapper said:
I think that's probably right. It's been increased on the basis of dealing with fiscal issues, but I really can't see the Government reducing it again once those issues have been resolved.
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Quite right too because it isn't a case of reducing the deficit to zero, and then continuing as we did previously. We are spending around £150bn a year more than we can afford, so we need to spend that much less per year, every year.

Even when the deficit is zero (if it ever is again), we still have the small matter of a trillion plus national debt to start paying off. Even if people don't care about being in huge debt (I know many take that attitude), the interest on that debt is massive and is money we can't spend on public services or cutting taxes.
 
dirtydog said:
Quite right too because it isn't a case of reducing the deficit to zero, and then continuing as we did previously. We are spending around £150bn a year more than we can afford, so we need to spend that much less per year, every year.

Even when the deficit is zero (if it ever is again), we still have the small matter of a trillion plus national debt to start paying off. Even if people don't care about being in huge debt (I know many take that attitude), the interest on that debt is massive and is money we can't spend on public services or cutting taxes.
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I did read that Osborne was predicting the deficit to have been dealt with by 2015. Obviously the National Debt will take a lot longer. I was surprised to learn that it is fairly common in Western countries for their economies to run a National debt in the order of 69% GDP!
 
The Mad Rapper said:
I did read that Osborne was predicting the deficit to have been dealt with by 2015. Obviously the National Debt will take a lot longer. I was surprised to learn that it is fairly common in Western countries for their economies to run a National debt in the order of 69% GDP!
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Indeed. Also Japan's new prime minister recently admitted his country is close to collapse due to the weight of its massive debts.

The whole world economy is in trouble and I personally have my doubts that we are going to come out of it without a few, or all, currencies crashing to zero.
 
Most people don't understand quite how serious things are, I don't think. There is lots of anger at this budget and people blaming the Tories, or the banks, and not Labour. All too sadly predictable.

What's the betting that the Tories will get the economy in shape by the time of the next election, and Labour will swoop in and win with a landslide by promising another spending splurge, paid for with borrowed money.
 
dirtydog said:
Most people don't understand quite how serious things are, I don't think. There is lots of anger at this budget and people blaming the Tories, or the banks, and not Labour. All too sadly predictable.

What's the betting that the Tories will get the economy in shape by the time of the next election, and Labour will swoop in and win with a landslide by promising another spending splurge, paid for with borrowed money.
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After the pain we have to go through, I'd hope that won't happen for a generation at least, if ever.
 
The whole situation is so intertwined with foreign economies that no matter how much we curtail spending and behave it only takes a few others to mess it all up again.

The world needs a massive fundamental shift in its attitude.

Sounds like im a communist now.
 
Japan like the rest of us is relying on 'growth' to improve its situation.

Yet we are all cutting spending which is going to cut demand for goods and services.

Where is this growth going to come from. China also needs growth yet its customers, the developed world, are cutting back and won't be able to buy as much of their stuff as we used to. So they are in trouble too.

And all the optimistic forecasts by 'experts' are predicated on the implicit assumption of abundant cheap energy, particularly oil, which is far from guaranteed to continue into the future.

Yet against this gloomy backdrop we have some people in this country, and unions, bleating that they might have to make a few relatively minor sacrifices.
 
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