UK Budget response
Winnie-the-Pooh had an excuse. He was, self-avowedly, a Bear of Little Brain. But even he, I am sure, would have seen the stupidity of some parts of our Mr Osborne’s budget.
Let me explain to our transatlantic friends. In the UK we have a social payment called Child Benefit (we like the word ‘benefit’ it seems). This fairly modest sum is paid weekly according to the number of children in a family. It is usually paid directly to the mother under the principle that it is to support children. It is worth £20.30 a week for the first child, and then £13.40 for each subsequent child.
Some time ago Mr Osborne suggested it should be removed in households where one parent was on higher rate taxation – that is they pay 40% tax on income about about £44,000 a year. Osborne suggested that it was unfair that someone on £30k would be paying taxes so that people on £100k would benefit but that is disingenuous – after all the higher earners also benefit from the tax-free income of about £9k which applies to everyone alike. Why not remove tax-free bands from higher rate payers. Continue reading
Money Principle Ideas Generator: economic meltdown and what would you do?
Lately I have been concentrating on thinking about the difference that mentality makes in all affairs of finance (well, other ones as well but this blog is about money). I am working on a test that will help place oneself on a continuum between ‘positive’ and ‘negative’ mentality; today was intending to post an exercise that goes some way towards moving you to the ‘positive’ side.
Then I started thinking about the headlines from the last several days and decided to do something entirely different and I hope that this will spice things around here a bit.
In my post ‘Who holds the strings?’ I said that ‘…we should stop asking whether there will be a global economic meltdown and start asking when there will be one’. Well, reading through the news lately, there are signs that this may be approaching faster than we may think. Greece is in turmoil, there are no ways to ensure that people pay their taxes (this will take some doing given that is a habit that has lasted for several centuries), pension reform is nowhere to be seen and all bets are that Greece will, sooner or later default. Italy’s rating has been lowered; this means it is harder to borrow, harder to repay and it is too large an economy to be bailed out. Portugal and Spain, are somehow keeping out of the news but things are not good. As to the UK and the rest…well have a look at this.
To top it all, politicians seem to be totally at a loss. The British Prime Minister deleted the part of his party conference speech where he implied that the way to solve the economic crisis is to pay our credit cards off but this kind of statement still gives a pretty good idea of the level of ignorance, lack of awareness and distance from any kind of realism.
So, what I thought is that this is a good time to start the Money Principle Ideas Generator: a competition for the best ideas to deal and/or cope with financial trouble/situations. As any respectable competition this one carried a prize – £20 or equivalent if the winner is from overseas.
Today’s Money Principle Ideas Generator consists of the following two questions:
1) What are the three measures you would promote were you a World Leader, to prevent and/or alleviate a global economic meltdown?
2) What are the three measures you would implement immediately to ensure that you and yours survive a global economic meltdown?
Rules: Each entrant is allowed one response. Responses have to be posted as replies to this post (I believe in openness and sharing of ideas). All entries will be judged by me and John on three main criteria: 1) how imaginative the measures are; 2) how realistic their implementation is; and 3) how easy it is for these to be applied by others. Sense of humour is always appreciated but silly entries are discouraged.
Deadlines: All entries have to be in by this coming Sunday (9th October) 23.59 GMT. The winner will be announced next Wednesday (12th October).
Go for it, my friends! I am very much looking forward to your entries.
Pinpoint your spending ‘blind spots’
Looking at the statistics of consumption and levels of consumer debt in the Western world there is not much doubt in my mind that most of us, most of the time spend too much money, on too many consumer items. This is how we have become over-spending, over-consumers – we eat too much, drink too much and have too much stuff. Even when this is valuable stuff! I certainly did fit the bill until very recently. Having realised this I started thinking about ways to limit consumption – my consumption, in this case. One way to do this, as I discovered, is by mastering my wants and working out what are the things I really, really value. By accident, whist doing the exercise, I also noticed that there were, what I have come to call, spending ‘blind spots’. Continue reading
Phew! I have a bank account…in Bulgaria
Walking the streets of large cities in any country is like meeting a person – the outside of what you see is a pretty good measure of what you may find inside. This old rule, a modification of ‘as above so below’, generally works although there can be exceptions. When you walk down the streets of a city they may be lined with shops, with art galleries with eating places. Sometimes, the streets of large cities are lined with banks – banks shout aspirations. Continue reading
