2 percent increase?
Can't you see we need addictive substances to numb the pain?
Darling points at silver lining, floats investment in broadband
Chancellor of the Exchequer Alistair Darling today used what is likely to be his last Budget to paint an optimistic view of the UK economy and the path out of the world recession. Darling said: "We will work to support green industries of the future as well as re-building our financial services." He claimed Britain's economy …
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Wednesday 22nd April 2009 13:53 GMT Elmer Phud
Chicken feed
"Darling said there would be £435m investment in energy efficiency products for homes and businesses" - at about 25 million homes in the U.K. that means we're all getting a small box of light bulbs (again).
The two grand for scrapping old cars will only run for a year -- maybe enough time to defibrillate the car industry but nothing else - well, maybe folks are going to be convinced to go and get loans for new cars so the loan firms can get propped up (again). What makes them think I'll be able to afford another motor in less than a year? Especially when there are important things like a big telly and a new PC to go with Windows 7.
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Wednesday 22nd April 2009 13:53 GMT Christopher Rogers
Labour Out
Once again, we are paying the price for shitpile they call government. Even the most optimistic finance experts seem to say the Darling has been puffin the weed and selling us dreams of a utopia that will never exist under Labour.
Fags and booze gettin more expensive has utterly depressed the shit outta me.
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Wednesday 22nd April 2009 13:53 GMT Anonymous Coward
My Favourite Bit
There's a load of nonsense in there (I love the way he provides his predicition on future debt as fact) but my favourite bit is this.
"There will be £500m available to kickstart housing projects frozen by the credit crunch. This includes £100m for local authorities to build low energy homes."
The housing market is depressed, there are more properties on the market than there are buyers so what does Darling see as the solution? Spend half a billion quid on putting more houses onto the market. After all everybody knows that the way to sort out a market where supply outstrips demand is to increase the supply, don't they?
Nice to know our economy is safe in the hands of a man with such a firm understanding of a simple financial system.
Paris because she probably has more clue than Darling.
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Wednesday 22nd April 2009 13:53 GMT Anonymous Coward
Two Banks One Cup
"We will work to support green industries of the future as well as re-building our financial services." He claimed Britain's economy was better placed to recover than those of Germany, Japan and the euro zone as a whole."
I'm sure he didn't say that. That would be idiotic.
Look, the Financial services sectors bubble has burst, people are wise to it, no point in trying to sell each other fake assets now. Green has potential, but if you can't make cars (you don't have a car industry), how can you make *green* cars? And I think the wind farm companies are Spanish and German (?), as is a lot of the heavy engineering. Nuclear expertise is French. You don't make computers or TVs, so making energy saving ones doesn't seem plausible etc. It's going to be difficult for the UK to do the green thing. You make software. but then you did kind of piss off your IT people with IR35, to the extent that you're even an importer of IT services now.
IMHO, you have to identify what new thing you can plausibly do, or slash taxes, lower barriers/border/Euro etc. and let the private sector find that plausible something.
The fake bubble trick won't work either. i.e. the trick Geithner is trying in the US:
Bank#1: "What is this plastic coffee cup worth?"
Bank#2: "Why I think it is worth $1 million"
Bank#1: "Here then, using that valuation, I sell it to the Federal Reserve at $930,000 and you pay me $70000"
Bank#2: "OK, now tell me how much do you think *MY* plastic cup is worth?"
Bank#1: "Why I think it's also worth $1 million!"
Bank#2: "Well based on that valuation I will also this cup to the Federal Reserve at $930,000 and I want $70000 from you".
Bank#1, Bank #2: "We are all so rich, now we have $930000 each, and the Federal Reserve has 93% stake in these incredibly valuable plastic coffee cups! Foreign countries are sure to buy $$ backed by these authentic high value plastic coffee cups.... ".
So forget the printing money strategy too. Sterling hardly qualifies are a reserve currency!
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Wednesday 22nd April 2009 13:58 GMT Anonymous Coward
BOOZE TAX IS GOING UP?!
Christ, how are we supposed to afford to cope with the rest of this crap?
And all so we can fund absolutely no work in defending our shores against the repercussions of when the rest of the world don't cripple their economy in order to save the planet, while remaining under near-constant surveilance in both the real and virtual realms.
Seriously, for that £90Bn anyone else could have built a 1m high wall 'round the bits of the UK that need it- saving us from Global Warming's impending tide rises for another 50 years. Could have made it look pretty good too. Make it £100Bn and it could be designed to be expandable through a lego-like system.
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Wednesday 22nd April 2009 14:47 GMT Anonymous Coward
The man really is a fuckwit
His big solution to the recession is to get people spending money isn't it? So what's the best way to achieve this? Well if your name is Darling then it's to tax people even more so they have less money in their pockets to spend. Genius! Or not.
After all we're already paying out more pence in tax from every pound we earn than ever before, a little more won't hurt will it.
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Wednesday 22nd April 2009 14:47 GMT Anonymous Coward
Car scrapping (@Alexis Vallance)
Actually, you'll have to plump for a new car, and only if you've owned the car for more than a year - thems the rules.
Although it officially lasts until the end of Feb 2010, it'll end sooner if the funds run out before then.
Darling's only pledged £300m for the car scrappage (is that a word?) scheme, to be matched by the industry. So that's around 300,000 subsidies. Not a lot when you consider there are in excess of 25 million cars (ref. What Car), especially when you consider that half that number are older than 14 years old (ref. Prof. Glaister of RAC)
Also, as previously mentioned relating to the EV subsidies, what's to stop sales people putting up the prices to cover this added cost?
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Wednesday 22nd April 2009 14:47 GMT Ian
Errors
"Most of the "big ideas" were pre-leaked in order not to spook the markets. These include finding £15bn in savings from government budgets , subsidies for new cars if an old vehicle is scrapped, help for the housing market and £90bn in public borrowing."
It's just a shame leaks were wrong. It was leaked that government borrowing was £160bn, and £15bn efficiency costs would be made. The actual figures were borrowing of £175bn and only £9bn in efficiency costs to be made. That means we're £18bn worse off as a nation than the leaks suggested. That's no small amount, although it could be made up easily by say, scrapping the ID card scheme and ContactPoint databases, unfortunately Labour actually wants more of these illegal databases which is probably why there's an extra £25bn of borrowing expected.
"The limit for ISAs has also been increased from £7,200 to £10,200."
Yes, if you're over 50 (i.e. those who are already well off because they're old enough to have paid off their mortgage and already acquired large savings). The rest of us have to wait until next year.
Darling's communications investment is £10million, the proposed Fibre to the home rollout would cost £25bn. Let's just put those figures next to each other to see how far out and how utterly useless Darling's Broadband investments are shall we?:
Amount given for broadband:
£10,000,000
Amount required:
£25,000,000,000
See that? Let's just seem them again, this time next to each other shall we?:
£10,000,000
£25,000,000,000
Yes, Darling's offer for broadband help is around 2500 times too small, or about 530 times to small for fibre to the cabinet. The offered amount may just be enough to get fibre to Gordon Brown's house, but that's about it.
This budget, like the Labour government in general can only be described in one way
EPIC MOTHERFUCKING FAIL!
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Wednesday 22nd April 2009 15:14 GMT Anonymous Coward
Neologisms and nonsense
1) 'scrappage" - I don't think so!
2) So people driving 10 year old cars can afford a new car as long as it has £2k knocked off the price. Really? (I'm prepared to concede on this point if anyone can find a definitive statement that the discount is on a NEWER car rather than NEW. Correct use of English is such a helpful thing!)
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Wednesday 22nd April 2009 15:14 GMT Anonymous Coward
Savings?
>These include finding £15bn in savings from government budgets
I can save you £12 billion based on your own estimates of the cost of ID cards. Or the Olympics.
To make up the rest of the £3 billion by the simple trick of waiting for 6 months, because the budgets for those two will go up by at least that much in that time. I'm sure other Reg readers can spot a few more billion we could save by scrapping other worthless government schemes.
Maybe rendering Jacqui Smith down for glue would be a start?
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Wednesday 22nd April 2009 15:15 GMT Anonymous Coward
@Alexis Vallance
"if I can get a loan for £5k I'll be looking at getting a £7k 1 year old car in Jan or Feb"
The scheme is a £2000 'money off' thingy that is available on NEW cars only...not nearly new. So either you pay the over inflated new car prices and get £2k from the govn't or buy a 1month old car and save more than £2k on the new price any way. It's completely and utterly pointless.
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Wednesday 22nd April 2009 15:51 GMT Anonymous Coward
Car Scrapping Con
The car scrappage allowance is a real con.
No I'm not bothered that you have to have owned the car for a year, makes sense as it will stop those who don't need the money buying a banger for £200 and getting paid £2000 to scrap it. I'm not bothered that you have to spend the money on a brand new car, it is after all supposed to get people to spend money on new cars to help the car industry.
The real con is this: If you are driving around in a ten year old car you probably can't afford a new one anyway. I've bought two perfectly good ten year old cars in the last couple of years for £500 each, but you would probably get at least a grand to trade it in against a new car and plenty of ten year old cars are worth at least two grand. So if you have a car of that age and you wanted to get a brand new one then this isn't really putting you in a much stronger position than you already were. If we say the finance on a new £10K car will cost £200pcm with a £2000 deposit ove three years, then this will pay your deposit, but you still have to find £200 a month. Is the sort of person who drives a ten year old car the sort of person who can fine £200 a month spare in their pay packet?
Given that Darling expects 50% of the cash to come from the motor industry anyway that's effectively imaginary money anyway, since the industry will probably have to raise prices to cover it. So the tabloid headlines he's hoping for of "Darling Gives You 2 Grand To Buy A Car" will only make him popular until the readers turn up at the dealers.
He also claims this is a green solution because old cars polute more. OK but how many miles to you have to do in your new car in order to offset the damage done to the environment by scrapping your old car and manufacturing the new one?
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Wednesday 22nd April 2009 20:33 GMT amanfromMars
Snake Oil ..... Going Cheap.
"Thumbs up for the scrappage scheme.
I have a ten year old car, so if I can get a loan for £5k I'll be looking at getting a £7k 1 year old car in Jan or Feb!" ... By Alexis Vallance Posted Wednesday 22nd April 2009 13:41 GMT
Yeah, that's the idiot plan, Alexis, to suck you into further debt with your application for credit ..... and targetted at the lower end of the market and intelligence chain [well most with ten year old car drivers are not rocket scientists, are they?] they will create another sub-prime captive market? And that is how perverse and subversive the System is and how desperate it has become ...... because can you tell me what has changed, to make anything different whenever everything is basically as it was before?
And so will things continue as they are going ..... but even more rapidly?
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Thursday 23rd April 2009 13:45 GMT John Smith
£12bn saving should be a piece of cake.
Dump the Government Interception Modernisation Programme ASAP.
People have said 50% top rate will get in an extra £100m when they are in the hole for £175bn. This has got to be one of the biggest single projects ever. It's 6.85% of that lump on its own. That's £12bn of gilts which the Treasury won't have to find buyers for and we won't have to find the money to back.
Wasn't the bulk of ID cards and the NIR in running costs about £500m PA. Which is about how long this Scotsman reckons it will be before the budget has a chance of being balanced.
But on topic. Remember the head of BT doesn't think we need fibre to the home.
This topic is closed for new posts.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
