The Budget

Fucking bankers more like...

Unfortunately we are all going to have to swallow some bitter medicine if we are going to drag ourselves out of this mess

Yep that's why corporation tax has been cut

We ALL have to swallow some bitter medicine?

Not wanting to sound like a cunt, but... As long as I'm actually able to find some work, I'll be loads better off... :]

The bankers got us in this mess, but the whole country was on a credit binge - think about all the people with credit agreements they can no longer afford on 50 inch plasmas from currys, or cars, or kitchens etc etc. All of that consumer finance is a bomb ready to explode.

We are were we are, we can blame whoever, but we all have accept cuts to get us back on track

There goes my family tax credits.
Fuck.
More tax.
Double fuck.
Just as I was starting to get out of the shit...

I agree that plenty of people went berserk on credit.
But why should every other fucker suffer on their account?
And that Robin Hood Tax sounds like a fucking good idea to my uneducated ears, so why isn't it implemented?
No, it's back to taxing the shit out of the working cash cows.
I agree something had to give, tighten our belts, etc... but I'd like to see the banks paying some as well.

Don't disagree that there has to be some pain - but to blame the profligate spending of those who access credit displays a lack of understanding of what has caused the recession.

The impact of the changes to benefit and tax will hit the poorest/most deprived areas. To suggest that these people spend outside of their means sounds like the views of an uninformed Daily Mail reader.

A poor budget. It will not help.

1336
"The proposed spending cuts are "the equivalent of putting every man and woman in Coventry out of work", says Ms Harman"

Seems like a good solution to me...

The problem with the banks is the we hitched are economy to their performance, and because of that we need them to make money to dig us out - as much as they caused the problems, we need them to perform to balance the books now, so the government cant go at them all guns blazing as we will only be shooting ourselves in the foot.

I dont like it one bit, but its what we are stuck with.

1336
"The proposed spending cuts are "the equivalent of putting every man and woman in Coventry out of work", says Ms Harman"

Seems like a good solution to me...

they are already on the dole. no?

Don't disagree that there has to be some pain - but to blame the profligate spending of those who access credit displays a lack of understanding of what has caused the recession.

The impact of the changes to benefit and tax will hit the poorest/most deprived areas. To suggest that these people spend outside of their means sounds like the views of an uninformed Daily Mail reader.

A poor budget. It will not help.

I am not suggesting that it caused the recession, just that the country as a whole was on a credit binge - we got into a culture of easy credit with seemingly no downside.

they are already on the dole. no?

Not all of us. Some, like me, are lucky enough to work in cycling even :P

Hopefully he'll bump the tax on lol-pros

Don't disagree that there has to be some pain - but to blame the profligate spending of those who access credit displays a lack of understanding of what has caused the recession.

The impact of the changes to benefit and tax will hit the poorest/most deprived areas. To suggest that these people spend outside of their means sounds like the views of an uninformed Daily Mail reader.

A poor budget. It will not help.

[daily mail mode] every chav family i see on the telly smokes/drinks to excess and has a 40in plasma and sky tv, these are now seen as necessities rather than luxuries [daily mail mode]

There goes my family tax credits.
Fuck.
More tax.
Double fuck.
Just as I was starting to get out of the shit...

They abolishing tax credits or summat ?

1336
"The proposed spending cuts are "the equivalent of putting every man and woman in Coventry out of work", says Ms Harman"

Seems like a good solution to me...

they are already on the dole. no?

Speaking as someone who grew up in/works in Coventry - fuck you ;)

But seriously, it's a bit of a shit hole these days. Not like when I were a lad etc [/nostalgia]

blimey, what a mess.

And to top it all we've just had a strike ballot at my work last week. A sign of things to come methinks. i don't think the ConDems (or whatever other acronym we want to use) can possibly expect there to be anything other than massive public outcry over this. And of course that is why they've been pumping out this discourse of "austerity", "hard decisions", "digging deep" etc for us to buy, for weeks.

There is, however, quite a lot of blame to be pointed at New Labour for a lot of their policies, and this budget is simply the standard knee-jerk laissez-faire approach that the Tories have always done. In a sense, they're just being true to form, whereas Labour had a choice to an extent.

Aside from the obligatory strikes and protests that will inevitably come out of this, i'd like to see a lot more grassroots community organisations springing up in the coming few years, building collective forms of resilience (credit unions, LETS, etc) that don't need to rely on capital or state to dictate their futures. On the other hand, there could be an intensification of scapegoating around immigrants and benefit claimants. It'll be very interesting to see how people respond to all this.

The reason we're in this mess is because there was a panic in the markets, no? The government stepped in and saved the banks, now we're in huge debt...

Sorry if I missed something...

You missed the bit about the banks not being able to resist lending to people who couldn't afford the repayments...and Mr Smyth watching too much Shameless

You missed the bit about the banks not being able to resist lending to people who couldn't afford the repayments...and Mr Smyth watching too much Shameless

Including themselves.

Second job, cash in hand me thinks

Cash? What cash?

Second job, cash in hand me thinks

Too right.

applies lippy and packs handbag full of knob hats

i blame all the idiots who bought their shitty little 1 Series BMW's on HP for this whole mess,
and all just so they could head down the pub and tell their mates they drive a BMW ...

dickwads

as mr smyth said above Plasma TV's are now something you must have or your mates will look down at you

cutting benefits AND corporate tax. clearly noone from the lib dems was available when the budget was being devised.

Increasing capital gains and VAT though..