justthisbloke

So did anything happen? I'm fairly certain I heard something but didn't catch the detail. Must go and read the big doc.

Does the CGT cut save the leveraged BTL bacon?

I'm really not liking the backdrop of Theresa May's cleavage!

This is true. While we've been knotted with angst over privacy, the real threat of the cashless society is to the modern day gleaners.

Comments suggest that swinging the vote could be a challenge!

I had an odd one the other day. A woman ahead of me beat me to a penny. "Damn the sharp-eyed competition", I thought. But then she turned to me and said, "I have to give you this penny I've just found to bring us both luck". Never heard that one before. But, who was I to argue seeing as I was a penny luckier on the deal. BTW. I must thank this thread for turning me into a miserly street-scourer. I laughed at you at first but now I can't help myself. It's become a game I can't stop. I have even been known to get off my bike to rescue dropped silver from the gutter.

Is that directed at me? Don't start waving the burning brands and shouting "witch" in my direction! You're close to putting two and two together and coming up with "troll"! They're unrelated opinions. When it comes to discussion, true, I'm open to seeing BTL-ers here. It usually ends badly for them as their position is so intrinsically weak and doomed. In fact, seeing them torn apart with rational analysis is deeply rewarding - and serves to illustrate their delusions that underpin the current HPI housing crisis. Far better, IMO, than just banning them or closing them down with calls of "troll". Re: reporting tax evasion. I'm torn. Yes, I'm very happy when I read in the papers of mortgage fraud and BTL tax dodgers convicted. And I know there's a lot more of 'em out there. I even suspect I've worked with a couple. But I'm wary of actively snitching on - in the instance on which I commented - "a friend". When it's your own crooked LL then fill your boots. But dobbing in your social group goes against how I was brought up. I also didn't like the justification someone gave; "so you want to pay more tax?". That's the line of a government that wants a cowed population with no loyalty except to the state.

A similar set of circumstances created the 88/89 boom/crash. In both cases, a tax change deadline to beat and a population wide HPI-forever psychosis combines to create pricing lunacy. Back then the mainstay of the market was FTBs. This time it's BTLs. The outcome will be the same. With the difference that 30% negative equity on a £60k house in inflationary times is a hell of a lot less life ruining than 30% NE on a £300k house with zero or negative wage inflation.

You're quite a bunch of snitches here aren't you? I see the wrong in her position and your rationale for dobbing on her. It's just that it's not something I could ever do myself. Am I the only old fashioned bloke left?

Isn't that a bit of the "I'll cover Clause 24 tax bill by raising the rents" fallacy?

Isn't there a regulation (IR35 or somesuch) already in place to stop long term employees masquerading as contractors? Or is this an assault on contracting and consulting one man bands? I suspect there's a bit of political showmanship behind this grab for the sum of, ooh, £70m. It's popularly assumed (because of high profile chaps like Paxton) that this is a sweet deal only available to the "elite".

Why is there a fashion for saying "hmm, I things aren't the way I want them to be = a problem = the answer is tax someone"? If you don't like Amazon, don't shop there. If you think there's not enough money spent on 5-a-day coordinators/wars-in-foreign-lands/old-people/whatever then keep spending at Amazon and donate your tax savings to whichever charity represents your angst. That way, your angst is addressed 100% and no money is consumed by civil servants or directed towards whichever of 5-a-day coordinators/wars-in-foreign-lands/old-people/whatever that you don't approve of.

My point about resources was more about consumption of finite resources (oil etc) or consumption of replacing resources at an unsustainable rate (fisheries, for instance). I'm not sure if simple use of land in a non-damaging manner falls into my definition. But I'll through another philosophical point into the mix: squatting. The law has always[1] recognised hoarding as anti-social - which is why trespass is merely a civil matter. It's very difficult to hoard land as you need to actively, and expensively, and physically keep people off it. Hoarded but unused houses were legally usable by people other than the owner, for instance. Hoarded but unused land could be legally camped on or farmed equally. [1] For residential property, this is of course past tense. As the loons in parliament have made it criminal to stay in a hoarded, unused, empty house.

The only just taxes are those on pollution and resource use. IMO, govt has only two valid functions - protection of the environment and its resources for all generations and operation of justice.

Given Ricardo's Theory of Rents, LVT makes economic sense to me. However, I have major philosophical objections. If all land requires tax to be paid for its use then, given that all men have to stand and sleep somewhere, you can never be free. On balance, I object to LVT.

What do you mean by "unearned wealth"? The last 15 years or so has seen me excelling as an HPC frugalista (no i-frippery, city breaks, or fine dining for me), with the (successful) aim of having enough wonga to do something other than *work* all my life. Is that "unearned wealth"? I can tell you, it doesn't feel unearned. Private accumulation of wealth seems a laudable aim. Earned leisure time. If governments remove that option - or make it hard for the non-zillionaires to achieve, then you're effectively enslaved. Work and pay tax and never accumulate. No thanks.

Is it also possible that wages, particularly NMW, are too high? If labour was cheap, employers could address their requirement for flexibility through peaks and troughs by keeping people on the books as staff - even if they were underloaded. When labour is expensive, the admin costs, hassle and risks of juggling lots of non-committed zero-hours staff suddenly becomes worth it.

If I've read their webpage correctly, nPower's pre-payment is the same as their conventional quarterly billing price.

That's a bit of a non sequitur in relation to my post, I think. But your point is interesting. I don't think employment rights regarding redundancy are sufficiently strong or distortative so as to incentivise employers to overpay or retain deadwood staff. Statutory minimum redundancy is the square root of FA.

I bought in quite early as I was curious about the technology. I'm holding now and regard it as a sort of gold equivalent (with the added risk that it could all go to zero). It's been a wild ride. I invested the cost of a tank of petrol, watched it soar to the value of a decent new car. And then half!

Short term: Brexit. By short term, I mean nearest risk that could manifest. The damage would be long term. Medium term: consumer debt Longer term: govt debt I'm not so worried about a large financial sector. It makes money. It's in international demand. The City is a classic case of successful business clustering - the financial equivalent of Silicon Valley.

There's always a feel-good rationale for government interference. Same with tax credits - topping up wages of the low paid sounds very altruistic. A politician or party gets short term gains - either in popularity or in personal sense of an "I made a difference" warm glow. But the longer term consequences, the price of this short term fuzzy warm glow, are paid by the country. And a low skill, low wage economy - with the young and old scrapping it out to be cheap labour with the Chinese and East Europeans is too high a price, IMO, to pay for Gordon Brown's[1] ego trip. [1] Or whichever politico is behind whatever society benefitting wheeze. They're all the same.

As you say, apprentices are subbed by government. This results in direct financial incentive to replace expensive, skilled, experienced staff with cheap, inexperienced apprentices. Combined with other distortative schemes such tax credits, it's almost as if there was a concerted policy to turn the UK into a low skill, low wage economy.

At the lower end of the labour market, the use of apprenticeships rather than conventional employees seems well entrenched. My son was looking for his first work (sans degree) and quickly realised that there was a surfeit of barely paid apprenticeships in things like retail, childcare, and hairdressing. Even a lot of office admin type jobs were being recruited as apprenticeships at minimal pay. He got a decent real office admin job at £20k but for someone with no experience, he felt this was rare.

You don't need a conviction to have your life wrecked. The FBI claims hundreds of successfully disrupted terrorists annually - far more than there are trials. What they mean by "disrupted" is that lawful behaviour is prevented - permits denied, jobs lost, etc, etc.