Jim Pickard Nails It!

Osborne won’t stop until he has all the jobs in the world https://t.co/PbwHQPaLb9

— Jim Pickard (@PickardJE) July 4, 2019

George "Six Jobs" Osborne

George Osborne picks up his sixth job: as a professor at the University of Manchester - The Telegraph Growl!! https://t.co/y0p3wuUl0X

— Sue Christensen (@taxqueen49) June 29, 2017

Osborne doing his bit to maintain full employment.

MPC Decision Day

Will the idiots who, pre Brexit, were hysterically warning that rates would be raised please raise their hands.

Seriously, I would like to see you fess up!

Oh, and George, what was it you were saying about an emergency budget???

Follow The Budget Live - #Budget2016

#Budget2016 Tweets

Help To Save

Apparently, if media leaks are to be believed, one of the policies that the Chancellor will unveil in this Wednesday's 2016 Budget will be the Help To Save scheme.

Aimed at low paid workers, it would provide a 50% bonus to those who manage to save up to £50 a month at the end of two years.

Around 3.5m people in low paid work and receiving working tax credit or universal credit would qualify, with the maximum level of help set at £1,200.

Whilst this idea is all very well and middle class patrician, it has two significant failings:

1 People won't get their bonus until two years have passed. Unlike the middle classes, those on low pay don't have the luxury of being able to plan ahead for two years wrt what they can safely put away for a rainy day; as more often than not every day is rainy.

2 Central banks are currently obsessed with negative interest rates, designed to discourage people from saving. This policy is the diametric opposite of that.

Osborne Comments on -0.1% Inflation

See the Chancellor’s response to today’s @ONS #inflation stats. #CPI pic.twitter.com/AE6OzILbAz

— HM Treasury (@hmtreasury) November 17, 2015

Greece Goes Cold Turkey

Yanis Varoufakis, the Greek finance minister, will meet Chancellor George Osborne in London today.

Doubtless the subject of Greece's debt will come up in conversation.

Varoufakis claims that Greece will honour its debts, but repayment of these debts is subject to Greece's economy growing. 

So far so plausible.

However, he also went on to say that Greece will not take on new debt and will go "cold turkey" wrt its debt addiction.

The trouble with this is that, like it or not, Greek banks are currently underpinned by ECB credit lines that come to and end this month. In order for the banks to survive they will need continued lines of credit.

Given that the ECB are saying that no new lines will be given if Greece reneges on its debt repayments, and Varoufakis is saying that he will take on no new debt, how are the banks and the Greek economy meant to survive beyond 28 February?

Chancellor's Autumn Statement Live

Tweets about autumn statement

Bitcoin - A Nice Little Earner for Osborne

It would seem that the rise of Bitcoin has caught the Chancellor's gimlet eye, as a possible means of raising extra revenue.

Osborne has instructed the Treasury to assess how the UK could become a leading global centre for Bitcoin and other virtual currencies.

If it moves tax it, if it threatens other means of revenue generation regulate it!

A nice little earner!

ONS Massages The Statistics

The Office for National Statistics (ONS), for the first time in 15 years, is to change the way that it measures the economy.

The new accounting standards will take effect from September. The ONS will look at research and development spending to calculate its estimate of gross domestic product, rather than treating it as a cost of production. The construction of aircraft carriers and other weapons will also add to GDP.

The changes could add up to 5% to economic growth.

The ONS, in a bizarre move, will also count future pension rights as if they were present income.This is predicted to double the savings ration to around 10%.

Coincidentally George Osborne last week said that Britain needed to save more and that the measures announced in his “Budget for savers” were just a start.

Thus in one fell swoop the ONS has done Osborne a "solid".

Simples!

Budget 2014 Live

Tweets about "#budget2014"

Autumn Statement 2013

Today is Autumn Statement day, when the Chancellor of the Exchequer (George Osborne) outlines spending plans and related matters for the coming years.

By happenstance, Iain Duncan Smith has slipped out a statement that the Universal Credit programme may not meet its 2017 deadline. Ironically, in September, IDS had told MPs that the 2017 deadline remained in place.

UK Economy Grows By 0.6%

The UK economy grew by 0.6% in the second quarter compared to the first three months of the year, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS).

George Osborne tweeted the following reaction:

"GDP stats better than forecast.Britain's holding its nerve, we're sticking to our plan, the economy's on the mend.But still a long way to go"

However, as I always caution, when it comes to ONS statistics never trust them. They are always out of date and subject to revision.

In the meantime whilst people crack open a can of lager to celebrate the modest signs of economic recovery in the UK, let us not forget that China frets when growth bumps along at a "mere" 7%!

£11.5BN Cuts

The chancellor is to unveil £11.5BN of cuts for 2015/16 to help reduce the deficit.

Local government is expected to be hardest hit.

Watch Osborne's speech live at 12:30 here.

Osborne Encounters Resistance

Poor old George Osborne appears to be encountering some resistance form other ministers to his plans to slash spending by £11.5BN.

As yet, according to the FT, his "colleagues" in government have only come up with £2.5BN in cuts; with some ministers failing to provide Osborne with the list of 10% in proposed departmental cuts he ordered before last month’s deadline.

Could it be that they don't think that he will still be in office in a year, and that as such he can "safely" be ignored?

As with any business, there will always be resistance to cuts. However, also as with any business, if the person who is demanding them is deemed to be "on his way out" the cuts will never materialise.

Budget 2013 Key Points

The Chancellor halved his growth forecast in today's Budget. All very well maybe, but no one really believes these forecasts in the first place; therefore halving a figure that no one believes in to another figure that no one believes in is a futile exercise.

Rather amusingly the Evening Standard had to apologise after it published details of the Budget online before George Osborne delivered his statement. When I was a young lad, breach of Budget purdah was a "hanging" offence; now breach of purdah is de rigueur!

Here are the key points, courtesy of the BBC:

FUEL, ALCOHOL AND CIGARETTES

September's 3p fuel duty rise scrapped
April's 3p rise in beer duty scrapped. Instead, beer duty to be cut by 1p
Annual inflation +2% rise in beer duty to be ended but "duty escalator" to remain in place for wine, cider and spirits
Cigarette duties unchanged - continuing to rise by inflation +5%

INCOME TAX

Limit at which people start paying tax to be raised to £10,000 in 2014 - a year earlier than planned

HOUSING

Shared equity schemes extended, with interest-free loans for homebuyers up to 20% of value of new-build properties

Bank guarantees to underpin £130bn of new mortgage lending for three years from 2014

STATE OF THE ECONOMY

Growth forecast for 2013 halved to 0.6% d from 1.2% in December
Office for Budget Responsibility watchdog predicts UK will escape recession this year
Growth predicted to be 1.8% in 2014; 2.3% in 2015; 2.7% in 2016 and 2.8% in 2017.

BORROWING

Borrowing of £114bn this year, up from previous £108bn forecast
Borrowing set to fall to £108bn, £97bn and £87bn, £61bn and £42bn in subsequent years
Borrowing as share of GDP to fall from 7.4% in 2013-14 to 5% in 2015-16
Debt as a share of GDP to increase from 75.9% in 2012-13 to 85.6% in 2016-17

SPENDING AND PAY

Most government departments to see budgets cut by 1% in each of next two years
Schools and NHS will be protected
£11.5bn in further cuts earmarked in 2015-16 Spending Review, up from £10bn
1% cap on public sector pay extended to 2015-16 and limits on "progression" pay rises in the sector
Military to be exempt from "progression" pay limits.
Proceeds of Libor banking fines to be given to good military causes, including Combat Stress charity

JOBS

600,000 more jobs expected this year than at same time last year
Claimant count to fall by 60,000

TRANSPORT AND INFRASTRUCTURE

An extra £15bn for new road, rail and construction projects by 2020, starting with £3bn in 2015-16

HELP FOR BUSINESS

Corporation tax to be cut by 1% to 20% in 2015
New employment allowance to cut National Insurance bills cut by £2,000 for every firm
450,000 small firms will pay no employer National Insurance
Government procurement from small firms to rise fivefold
Tax relief for investment in social enterprises
Stamp duty axed on shares traded on growth markets like Aim.
Tax avoidance and evasion measures, including agreements with Isle of Man, Guernsey and Jersey, aimed at recouping £3bn in unpaid taxes

ENERGY AND THE ENVIRONMENT

Tax incentives for ultra low-emission cars
Pottery industry in Midlands to be exempt from climate change levy
Tax allowances for investment in shale gas

INFLATION

2% Bank of England inflation target to stay in place
Bank remit to be changed to focus on growth as well as inflation

PENSIONERS

Single flat-rate pension of £144 a week brought forward a year to 2016
Cap on social care costs confirmed

FAMILIES

20% tax relief on childcare up to £6,000 per child from 2015
£5,000 payments for those who lost money on Equitable Life policies bought before 1992. Extra money for those on low incomes

Follow The Budget Live

Live Coverage of George Osborne's Autumn Statement

Osborne Rearranges The Deckchairs On The Titanic

George Osborne is set to deliver his Autumn Statement 2012 today at 12.30pm, in which he will rearrange the deckchairs.

Whither Project Merlin? - Osborne's Maxed Out Plan A

Kudos to Mervyn King and George Osborne for gamely trying to shore up the British economy, against the oncoming Eurozone tsunami, with a £100BN support programme.

The FT reports that:

"the chancellor told a City audience on Thursday night that he was working with Sir Mervyn King, the Bank of England governor, to “deploy new firepower” amid fears that turmoil in the Eurozone could lead to a severe credit crunch and higher interest rates in Britain.

Mr Osborne’s aides spoke of a “maxing out of Plan A” – taking advantage of the country’s record of fiscal discipline and credibility with the markets to unleash an aggressive monetary policy offering cheaper loans to businesses and households."

The markets have reacted favourably (as they always do) to "hopeful" news.

This is all very well, if one could trust the banks to lend the money on to companies and individuals. However, all that the banks will do it use the £100BN to shore up their own balance sheets.

Not one penny of this will reach the business or individuals who need it, and would be the engines of growth for the British economy.

It would be better of Osborne took the £100BN and simply dropped it from a helicopter over the UK, that way he could be sure that it will have some positive effect on the economy.

Am I being too cynical?

I don't think so, have you all forgotten the hopes and hype wrt Project Merlin?

Whatever happened to that then?