The UK economy – broken, kaput, fucked and royally screwed by Labour

On a personal level, the Budget yesterday did me no favours at all – tobacco, alcohol and petrol will cost me more, I don’t claim any sort of tax credits, I’m too young to qualify for any winter fuel allowance, etc, etc.

On a national level it failed too.

Oh, it tried to appeal to a certain demographic with the tax rate hike to 50% for those earning over £150K a year, but that will net very little more than bugger all in revenue and scare away some people we could do with in the UK to get us through this unholy mess.

It was a low rent budget by a low rent Chancellor on behalf of a low rent government.

What there is little doubt about is that this country is effectively fucked for about the next decade – higher taxes and reduced public spending are inevitable.

Fuck – we can’t even be sure that, as a nation, we’ll be able to keep our current AAA credit rating.

Meanwhile, crime figures are higher, our schools examination system is in crisis, our MPs continue to jostle at the overflowing troughs of taxpayers’ money, our anti-terrorist squads continue to harass innocent people and now some cock end is planning to stage a musical about the life of Jade Goody.

Sometimes I think that you couldn’t make this shit up if you tried.

Someone who saw it all coming…

Why the fuck wasn’t this guy in our government back in 2007?

One of his comments on one of his own blog entries:

Mountjoy wrote @ 7 September, 2007 at 8:39 am

Well, I have to admit that part of my motivation is that, as an economist, I can see where the housing market is going … sub prime mortgage crisis in the US … Bank of England buffoons tinkering with the interest rates (still on hold yesterday … swines) … Gordon’s tax and grab economic policies haven’t yet come home to roost.

I well remember being clobbered when Brown raised tax – i.e. National Insurance – some years back, so I don’t intend to get clobbered again when the bubble bursts.

At any rate, I need to move in the next 6-9 months and I might as well get it on the market now. I’m not going to be able buy again immediately where I’m llikely to move to, which will give me some time to see what exactly is going on in the market.

So, why wasn’t he advising the government on financial matters?

Ah…he’s a Tory…er, Lib Dem…er, UKIP, er…

Oops.

Dangerous curves ahead

A friend on twitter has just shown me this.

OK, it shows the job losses situation in the US – not in the UK – but that’s a frightening downward curve whichever country is suffering.

If you extrapolate that curve so it has the same vague shape as the other two then that comes out as something like a ten year period for job losses to reach a trough and then come back to pre-recession levels.

Surely that’s a depression?

If that’s the case and it’s similar here in the UK, all I can say is fucking ouch…