The Labour Government

[hampshireblue]

Think the problem is its an unrealised gain until you sell the shares/bonds and take it out of your pension. In which case you might as well just have a higher tax rate for pension drawdowns over a certain amount. If the pension grows and it isn't taken its clawed back by IHT anyway.

Now if we are looking at unrealised capital gain then there is a much larger prize which affects the seriously wealthy. That being art, cars, wine, whiskey, watches, Class A shares etc which are all bought as investments, held and untaxed, or in some cases (Class A shares) used as leverage to borrow money against at preferential rates using securities based lines of credit or similar lending tools for the wealthy.

You're right. But your unrealised gain is actual gain as the holder of the portfolio, could if they wished realise their gains by drawing that gain out immediately, but it either way it may persuade some, as it recently has my friend whose portfolio has done quite well, to drawdown a bit more than they otherwise would have done and spend it in the economy rather than it being saved in the pension which is effectively "dead" money as far as the economy is concerned.

 

[Kirkstall Blue]

Mass mobilisation is impossible in this country we are too divided and therefore can't even agree what we would be mobilising against.
My only hope and its a long shot is that enough supporters and politicians from the libs greens and the Labour back benches can come together to fight off this current cabinet and reform.
It can only start with Labour back benchers and members fucking off Starmer and his ilk.
I have a feeling though that come the next election we will have parties coming out with all sorts of fantasy crap to scrape a win or enough support to form a coalition.

I think we are creatures of habit once Covid and the parties in Downing Street have been forgotten then the voters will vote Conservatives or Lib Dem’s. If Starmer is replaced then Labour voters will stick with Labour or the Lib Dem’s

 

[WRicko]

Mass mobilisation is impossible in this country we are too divided and therefore can't even agree what we would be mobilising against.
My only hope and its a long shot is that enough supporters and politicians from the libs greens and the Labour back benches can come together to fight off this current cabinet and reform.
It can only start with Labour back benchers and members fucking off Starmer and his ilk.
I have a feeling though that come the next election we will have parties coming out with all sorts of fantasy crap to scrape a win or enough support to form a coalition.

What should Starmer be doing. It’s not like he isn’t spending on public services or taxing companies or the rich etc

 

[WRicko]

I fear in the wider scheme of things the budget will be irrelevant. Starmer and Reeves have always sought to position themselves as pragmatic grown ups, almost technocratic in their approach. Whether you think they are doing a decent job of that or are completely incompetent is imo totally irrelevant because to position our current issues as fixable through technical or economic policy means I think is to misunderstand where we are at this point in history.

The root of our problems are not mismanagement of the economy by an individual Chancellor be that a red one or a blue for that matter. Our problem is that from the perspective of ordinary people our system is completely and utterly fucked and the world is sliding into a variety of different flavours of authoritarianism. This is not an issue fixable by trying to wrangle economic policy within an economic system that in itself has increasingly become a fundamental part of the problem. Though you can't fully decouple them, the capture of the nation state is a political not an economic problem. The current labour government doesn't at this time have anywhere near the political juice to address this, if anything their refusal to do anything other than tactical politics has surrendered the narrative to a party who only want power so they can finish the job and impoverish virtually everyone. I'd like to think someone could mobilise a mass movement before the only option for change becomes something more chaotic as and when the next stage of the latest industrial revolution bites. But who?

What should he be doing he is spending on public services he is taxing the rich and business etc

 

[hilts]

What should Starmer be doing. It’s not like he isn’t spending on public services or taxing companies or the rich etc

He's not taxing companies or the very rich enough, he needs to be braver on inequality of wealth, he's not leading he's gets sucked into media negatives and is shit scared of Reform, his welfare reform attempts have been embarrasing.
Arresting protesters on masse and it sounds like he's about to scrap some jury's sitting. Its a bit too authoritarian.
Frankly he sold himself to the members as a socialist, he ain't. He's a charlatan who only cares about his legacy of becoming PM. You could quite easily slap a blue rosette on him. He's about as radical as one of his beige suits.
Anyhow let's see what tomorrow looks like. Let's see how much he throws to those struggling and how much he's prepared to take off the very wealthy. The people who are no doubt in his 'circle'

 

[threespires]

What should he be doing he is spending on public services he is taxing the rich and business etc

I don't think he can do or is wired to do anything else, that was really my point. To make a difference he'd need to be making wholesale change to the tax system, trying to build or join a coalition to put some guide rails around big tech and a raft of other things he just doesn't have the political capital, allies or will to do. The things he can do and will try to do won't deliver enough to buy him the capital he needs to do the things that might start to make a difference.

All that said right now if he could fix the shitshow of the Blue Car Park I'd vote for him. I might even be inclined to let him pick the f***king team.

 

[meltonblue]

He's not taxing companies or the very rich enough, he needs to be braver on inequality of wealth, he's not leading he's gets sucked into media negatives and is shit scared of Reform, his welfare reform attempts have been embarrasing.
Arresting protesters on masse and it sounds like he's about to scrap some jury's sitting. Its a bit too authoritarian.
Frankly he sold himself to the members as a socialist, he ain't. He's a charlatan who only cares about his legacy of becoming PM. You could quite easily slap a blue rosette on him. He's about as radical as one of his beige suits.
Anyhow let's see what tomorrow looks like. Let's see how much he throws to those struggling and how much he's prepared to take off the very wealthy. The people who are no doubt in his 'circle'

Think people are really underestimating the difference between those they percieve as rich vs those that are really rich, and that’s a gap that is growing every day.

The latter aren’t going to feel much impact at all from tomorrow, the former will probably get the biggest hit. The cycle continues as we all go after the next wrong bogeymen again…

 

[Kompany Car]

You're right. But your unrealised gain is actual gain as the holder of the portfolio, could if they wished realise their gains by drawing that gain out immediately, but it either way it may persuade some, as it recently has my friend whose portfolio has done quite well, to drawdown a bit more than they otherwise would have done and spend it in the economy rather than it being saved in the pension which is effectively "dead" money as far as the economy is concerned.

All investments are in essence dead money apart from for the recipient of it at a later date. The British ISA was actually a decent idea if you want to put money into UK businesses, but not at the detriment of other ISA products.

Getting money into the economy from savings is as much about giving people confidence to do it and not being worried about future shocks like energy prices, sudden changes in taxation and job security. I know people who are reasonably well off holding a lot of cash at the moment as they are really worried about job security. Most are well remunerated in PAYE roles. Yes people can say, that must be nice to earn enough to build a decent cash buffer, but they are only doing it as they can see how bad the jobs market is even for highly skilled people in the private sector.

For older people as they age they generally become much more risk averse and thats partly due to physical changes in the brain, but also not being able to work or gain employment due to ageism.

I've said it before, but the death of the final salary pension in the private sector was one of the worst things to happen and unfortunately it was Gordon Brown who put the final nail in the coffin back in 97. Its not only made everyone have to suddenly become financially astute investors, with no training, but also removed the security in old age. Annuities fail to offer decent income levels for a joint life policy under the conditions which the government is striving for, i.e. lower gilt yields and low inflation. Yes they have been good whilst interest rates were high but that is not great for the UK as a whole. This results in people not spending down their pension pots for fear of running out.

If we want people to get money into the economy, its much better to incentivise the desired behaviour in the first instance. Forcing people to do something almost always results in people trying to circumvent the system and secondary effects such as people being worried about future tax creep and hence stopping using pensions.

For the record I appreciate you are only trying to think of some potential solutions to a very difficult to solve problem.

 

[meltonblue]

All investments are in essence dead money apart from for the recipient of it at a later date. The British ISA was actually a decent idea if you want to put money into UK businesses, but not at the detriment of other ISA products.

Getting money into the economy from savings is as much about giving people confidence to do it and not being worried about future shocks like energy prices, sudden changes in taxation and job security. I know people who are reasonably well off holding a lot of cash at the moment as they are really worried about job security. Most are well remunerated in PAYE roles. Yes people can say, that must be nice to earn enough to build a decent cash buffer, but they are only doing it as they can see how bad the jobs market is even for highly skilled people in the private sector.

For older people as they age they generally become much more risk averse and thats partly due to physical changes in the brain, but also not being able to work or gain employment due to ageism.

I've said it before, but the death of the final salary pension in the private sector was one of the worst things to happen and unfortunately it was Gordon Brown who put the final nail in the coffin back in 97. Its not only made everyone have to suddenly become financially astute investors, with no training, but also removed the security in old age. Annuities fail to offer decent income levels for a joint life policy under the conditions which the government is striving for, i.e. lower gilt yields and low inflation. Yes they have been good whilst interest rates were high but that is not great for the UK as a whole. This results in people not spending down their pension pots for fear of running out.

If we want people to get money into the economy, its much better to incentivise the desired behaviour in the first instance. Forcing people to do something almost always results in people trying to circumvent the system and secondary effects such as people being worried about future tax creep and hence stopping using pensions.

For the record I appreciate you are only trying to think of some potential solutions to a very difficult to solve problem.

Completely agree with all of that, particularly on final salary pensions.

 

[Kush45]

Wouldn't trust Labour with the kids piggy banks.
Couldn't organise a piss up in a brewery.