news & politics:discussion

[Neil]

41 minutes ago, squirrelarmy said:

If I wanted to stay at home all day and claim full disability benefits I could. 

me too, instead i claim nonthing, in addition to the pip i get. 

Edited March 15, 2023 by Neil

[Neil]

5 hours ago, Neil said:

the gnomes aren't going to let that happen.

they're not, have said they''ll prop the bank up.

[Guest]

Ouch. 

[Neil]

16 minutes ago, Ozanne said:

Ouch. 

I think everyone has already realised, even radio four gave a revealing version of things. 

[Neil]

"managed decline" says starmer, wrong wrong wrong, it implies that the tories can manage something except robbing us and destroying things. 

Edited March 15, 2023 by Neil

[Neil]

8 hours ago, Neil said:

the gnomes aren't going to let that happen.

The gnomes are coughing up fifty four billion dollars to keep things ticking along. Don't panic and don't get suckered by the stories of iminent collapse, that's someone's play to take everyone's money. 

[cellar]

4 hours ago, Neil said:

The gnomes are coughing up fifty four billion dollars to keep things ticking along. Don't panic and don't get suckered by the stories of iminent collapse, that's someone's play to take everyone's money. 

It will be interesting to see how markets react to this today, hopefully it does help shore up confidence, but it is essentially an admission that CS has failed (which has been true for a long time). I think I would have preferred a buy out by UBS, although that would have spooked markets more (short term pain, long term gain).

Also, doesnt mean we have avoided a recession. FTSE lost a lot of of value in the last week, hard to see how that doesn't alter the growth forecasts (although you would have thought something like this would have been priced in).

[Guest]

Labour have said they’ll reverse the abolition of £1m tax-free pension savings cap. Good, it’s a tax break for the rich. 

[pink_triangle]

51 minutes ago, Ozanne said:

Labour have said they’ll reverse the abolition of £1m tax-free pension savings cap. Good, it’s a tax break for the rich. 

While I generally agree. I know from following some doctors I respect on twitter the pension rules were not making it worthwhile for them to work and many retired early. How can we incentivise these to stop working without doing something on pensions?

[steviewevie]

3 minutes ago, pink_triangle said:

While I generally agree. I know from following some doctors I respect on twitter the pension rules were not making it worthwhile for them to work and many retired early. How can we incentivise these to stop working without doing something on pensions?

Carrot or stick

[Neil]

8 minutes ago, pink_triangle said:

While I generally agree. I know from following some doctors I respect on twitter the pension rules were not making it worthwhile for them to work and many retired early. How can we incentivise these to stop working without doing something on pensions?

to keep working, you surely mean.

could have introduced special pension rules for doctors as special pension rules exist for others (judges i think it i read about earlier)

[Neil]

6 minutes ago, steviewevie said:

Carrot or stick

beat the doctors with a carrot. 😛 

[steviewevie]

thread about why budget makes things harder for next parliament (i.e. labour)

 

[Neil]

tories are going to end the non-dom thing to give joe public something nice, to steal labour's policy and to make it difficult for labour to produce costed policies for the election. (see also a windfall tax on energy companies).

[Neil]

6 hours ago, Neil said:

The gnomes are coughing up fifty four billion dollars to keep things ticking along. Don't panic and don't get suckered by the stories of iminent collapse, that's someone's play to take everyone's money. 

gone down well, shares are surging.

[cellar]

24 minutes ago, pink_triangle said:

While I generally agree. I know from following some doctors I respect on twitter the pension rules were not making it worthwhile for them to work and many retired early. How can we incentivise these to stop working without doing something on pensions?

As Neil said, having special pensions for doctors - actually, NHS pensions are a thing, and whilst I don't know too much about them, I know they were considered to be gold dust (basically defined benefit schemes backed by government, so not reliant on share value as with a SIPP).

The problems of yearly allowances and LTA were still a thing, but then it would have been easy to implement specific legislation with regards to the existing NHS pensions, rather than allow all of the extremely wealthy people to have an even easier time of saving for retirement. It was already skewed in their favour (see: how its cheaper for Higher and Additional Rate tax payers to use up their £40k allowance than a Basic Rate tax payer).

[steviewevie]

8 minutes ago, Neil said:

gone down well, shares are surging.

must be nice to know if they fuck up they get bailed out.

[pink_triangle]

3 minutes ago, cellar said:

As Neil said, having special pensions for doctors - actually, NHS pensions are a thing, and whilst I don't know too much about them, I know they were considered to be gold dust (basically defined benefit schemes backed by government, so not reliant on share value as with a SIPP).

The problems of yearly allowances and LTA were still a thing, but then it would have been easy to implement specific legislation with regards to the existing NHS pensions, rather than allow all of the extremely wealthy people to have an even easier time of saving for retirement. It was already skewed in their favour (see: how its cheaper for Higher and Additional Rate tax payers to use up their £40k allowance than a Basic Rate tax payer).

I have no doubt they could have done something more targeted. I am not clever enough to know what that is! People talk about the gold plated pensions (although they are constantly becoming less gold) but I suspect only doctors and senior management go above that limit.

[pink_triangle]

25 minutes ago, Neil said:

to keep working, you surely mean.

could have introduced special pension rules for doctors as special pension rules exist for others (judges i think it i read about earlier)

Yes meant keep working 

[cellar]

Just now, pink_triangle said:

I have no doubt they could have done something more targeted. I am not clever enough to know what that is! People talk about the gold plated pensions (although they are constantly becoming less gold) but I suspect only doctors and senior management go above that limit.

It would just be as simple as a specific form... They already had rounds of "protecting" previous LTAs, so some people have higher LTAs than you or I would have because they froze them. If they can do that, they can have a form that correlates an NHS pension contribution to an LTA. HMRC deal with much more complicated forms, believe me!

[steviewevie]

Nurse and ambulance driver strikes to end as unions have agreed to a pay deal.

[mattiloy]

2 hours ago, pink_triangle said:

While I generally agree. I know from following some doctors I respect on twitter the pension rules were not making it worthwhile for them to work and many retired early. How can we incentivise these to stop working without doing something on pensions?

Its also difficult for retired doctors to rejoin the profession part time. GPs have to complete months of training and supervised consultations to regain their licence, even if they’ve been away for just a year and only want to do a few locums a week.

The reason many doctors have gone early is not financial, its that the working conditions have been intolerable for so long. The same reason many junior doctors up sticks and move to australia.

Its a mess that this pensions change won’t fix. Needs more docs and nurses trained now and then maybe in 10 years time, things will be better.

[steviewevie]

 

[hodgey123]

Given the huge focus of this Budget on keeping people in work for longer or incentivising people to rejoin the workforce, it beggars belief why asylum seekers are not allowed to work in the UK whilst their applications are processed. Would not expect the Tories to introduce any policies along these lines given very recent history but it would be refreshing if Labour had the balls to do so (again, think it is very unlikely).

[Neil]

2 minutes ago, hodgey123 said:

Labour had the balls to do so (again, think it is very unlikely).

labour need to keep their heads down all the while the tories are fucking up immigration,, if the tories can get a rep of not being reliable on immigration, then labour can turn attacks back onto the tories..