Daily Telegraph Anti-Cgt Campaign

[uncle_monty]

In today's DT there are countless anti-CGT articles. Also, there are pre-printed forms for readers to send to The Chancellor (via the DT). These forms are in both the main and money sections, so they're really throwing the kitchen sink at this.

The Daily Telegraph........, protecting "hard-working" [2nd/3rd/4th......nth] homeowners/savers everywhere

[LittleSteroid]

so the only question now is:

...do they have balls big enough to do it?

[Guest DissipatedYouthIsValuable]

"Hello. I believe that because I was clever enough to get a loan to buy our second house in Chipping-Sodbury I should be allowed to sell it for 300% profit after 4 years and keep it all. Not in the least bit fair that I should have to pay as much tax as someone who actually works for their money. How am I supposed to keep my savings up with inflation eroding it all away? I blame these bloody youngsters inflating the money supply to buy their iPods."

[uncle_monty]

so the only question now is:

...do they have balls big enough to do it?

Indeed.

The proposal tentatively started as:

1. CGT rate (typically 40 or 50%)

2. Reduce threshold from £10k-ish to £2,500

3. No taper relief

4. No indexation relief

IMO if Con-Libs have balls to implement 1. or 1. and 2. effective from April 2011, then this will contribute significantly to falling house prices. I know its a MASSIVE IF!

[LittleSteroid]

OFF TOPIC

Hi, I have just notice description change at rightmove: "open house 5th, 6th June". Does it mean I can pop in anytime without making appointment?

[pyracantha]

OFF TOPIC

Hi, I have just notice description change at rightmove: "open house 5th, 6th June". Does it mean I can pop in anytime without making appointment?

That's what open house means - I would expect some time restrictions though, to stop nutters turning up at closing-time.

[jammo]

"Hello. I believe that because I was clever enough to get a loan to buy our second house in Chipping-Sodbury I should be allowed to sell it for 300% profit after 4 years and keep it all. Not in the least bit fair that I should have to pay as much tax as someone who actually works for their money. How am I supposed to keep my savings up with inflation eroding it all away? I blame these bloody youngsters inflating the money supply to buy their iPods."

Parma Ham gives you Swine Flu BTW, and leaves you penniless.

[Pauly_Boy]

you cant get much more off topic than that!!

[jammo]

you cant get much more off topic than that!!

Have you seen DissipatedYouth's status "Lives exclusively on Parma Ham"

[_w_]

France, 1791:

But these evils, though great, were small compared to those far more deep-seated signs of disease which now showed themselves throughout the country. One of these was the obliteration of thrift from the minds of the French people. The French are naturally thrifty; but, with such masses of money and with such uncertainty as to its future value, the ordinary motives for saving and care diminished, And a loose luxury spread throughout the country. A still worse outgrowth was the increase of speculation and gambling. With the plethora of paper currency in 1791 appeared the first evidences of that cancerous disease which always follows large issues of irredeemable currency,—a disease more permanently injurious to a nation than war, pestilence or famine. For at the great metropolitan centers grew a luxurious, speculative, stock-gambling body, which, like a malignant tumor, absorbed into itself the strength of the nation and sent out its cancerous fibres to the remotest hamlets. At these city centers abundant wealth seemed to be piled up: in the country at, large there grew a dislike of steady labor and a contempt for moderate gains and simple living. In a pamphlet published in May, 1791, we see how, in regard to this also, public opinion was blinded. The author calls attention to the increase of gambling in values of all sorts in these words: "What shall I say of the stock-jobbing, as frightful as it is scandalous, which goes on in Paris under the very eyes of our legislators,—a most terrible evil, yet, under the present circumstances,—necessary?" The author also speaks of these stock-gamblers as using the most insidious means to influence public opinion in favor of their measures; and then proposes, seriously, a change in various matters of detail, thinking that this would prove a sufficient remedy for an evil which had its roots far down in the whole system of irredeemable currency. As well might a physician prescribe a pimple wash for a diseased liver.

Now began to be seen more plainly some of the many ways in which an inflation policy robs the working class. As these knots of plotting schemers at the city centers were becoming bloated with sudden wealth, the producing classes of the country, though having in their possession more and more currency, grew lean. In the schemes and speculations put forth by stock-jobbers and stimulated by the printing of more currency, multitudes of small fortunes were absorbed and lost while a few swollen fortunes were rapidly aggregated in the larger cities. This crippled a large class in the country districts, which had employed a great number of workmen.

In the leading French cities now arose a luxury and license which was a greater evil even than the plundering which ministered to it. In the country the gambling spirit spread more and more. Says the same thoughtful historian whom I have already quoted: "What a prospect for a country when its rural population was changed into a great band of gamblers!"

Nor was this reckless and corrupt spirit confined to business men; it began to break out in official circles, and public men who, a few years before, had been thought above all possibility of taint, became luxurious, reckless, cynical and finally corrupt. Mirabeau, himself, who, not many months previous, had risked imprisonment and even death to establish constitutional government, was now—at this very time—secretly receiving heavy bribes. When, at the downfall of the monarchy a few years later, the famous iron chest of the Tuileries was opened, there were found evidences that, in this carnival of inflation and corruption, he had been a regularly paid servant of the Royal court. The artful plundering of the people at large was bad enough, but worse still was this growing corruption in official and legislative circles. Out of the speculating and gambling of the inflation period grew luxury, and, out of this, corruption. It grew as naturally as a fungus on a muck heap. It was first felt in business operations, but soon began to be seen in the legislative body and in journalism. Mirabeau was, by no means, the only example. Such members of the legislative body as Jullien of Toulouse, Delaunay of Angers, Fabre d'Eglantine and their disciples, were among the most noxious of those conspiring by legislative action to raise and depress securities for stock-jobbing purposes. Bribery of legislators followed as a matter of course, Delaunay, Jullien and Chabot accepted a bribe of five hundred thousand livres for aiding legislation calculated to promote the purposes of certain stock-jobbers. It is some comfort to know that nearly all concerned were guillotined for it. 37

It is true that the number of these corrupt legislators was small, far less than alarmists led the nation to suppose, but there were enough to cause wide-spread distrust, cynicism and want of faith in any patriotism or any virtue.

II.

Even worse than this was the breaking down of the morals of the country at large, resulting from the sudden building up of ostentatious wealth in a few large cities, and from the gambling, speculative spirit spreading from these to the small towns and rural districts. From this was developed an even more disgraceful result,—the decay of a true sense of national good faith. The patriotism which the fear of the absolute monarchy, the machinations of the court party, the menaces of the army and the threats of all monarchical Europe had been unable to shake was gradually disintegrated by this same speculative, stock-jobbing habit fostered by the superabundant currency. At the outset, in the discussions preliminary to the first issue of paper money, Mirabeau and others who had favored it had insisted that patriotism as well as an enlightened self-interest, would lead the people to keep up the value of paper money. The very opposite of this was now revealed, for there appeared, as another outgrowth of this disease, what has always been seen under similar circumstances. It is a result of previous, and a cause of future evils. This outgrowth was a vast debtor class in the nation, directly interested in the depreciation of the currency in which they were to pay their debts. The nucleus of this class was formed by those who had purchased the church lands from the government. Only small payments down had been required and the remainder was to be paid in deferred installments: an indebtedness of a multitude of people had thus been created to the amount of hundreds of millions. This body of debtors soon saw, of course, that their interest was to depreciate the currency in which their debts were to be paid; and these were speedily joined by a far more influential class;—by that class whose speculative tendencies had been stimulated by the abundance of paper money, and who had gone largely into debt, looking for a rise in nominal values. Soon demagogues of the viler sort in the political clubs began to pander to it; a little later important persons in this debtor class were to be found intriguing in the Assembly—first in its seats and later in more conspicuous places of public trust. Before long, the debtor class became a powerful body extending through all ranks of society. From the stock-gambler who sat in the Assembly to the small land speculator in the rural districts; from the sleek inventor of canards on the Paris Exchange to the lying stock-jobber in the market town, all pressed vigorously for new issues of paper; all were apparently able to demonstrate to the people that in new issues of paper lay the only chance for national prosperity.

[CasualBear]

France, 1791:

Wow! Source, please.

[_w_]

Wow! Source, please.

http://www.mirrorservice.org/sites/ftp.ibiblio.org/pub/docs/books/gutenberg/6/9/4/6949/6949-h/6949-h.htm

A must read if you haven't. We are going through a step by step replay of the French hyperinflation of 1792, but interestingly enough, in slow motion. The excesses are the same, the societal and cultural changes identical, the resulting political and moral corruption as bad, and the economy as gutted as it was then and via the same processes.

To see how identical these episodes are you must stretch the timeline as follows:

- 1973 = 1789

- 2010 = 1792

Enjoy!

[tomwatkins]

http://www.mirrorservice.org/sites/ftp.ibiblio.org/pub/docs/books/gutenberg/6/9/4/6949/6949-h/6949-h.htm

A must read if you haven't. We are going through a step by step replay of the French hyperinflation of 1792, but interestingly enough, in slow motion. The excesses are the same, the societal and cultural changes identical, the resulting political and moral corruption as bad, and the economy as gutted as it was then and via the same processes.

To see how identical these episodes are you must stretch the timeline as follows:

- 1973 = 1789

- 2010 = 1792

Enjoy!

W-you should get some sort of award for sharing that. Amazing stuff-thanks.

[_w_]

W-you should get some sort of award for sharing that. Amazing stuff-thanks.

Credit must go to lowrentyieldmakessense(honest!), IIRC he was the first to post references to this text on HPC. It is a gem!

[scepticus]

http://www.mirrorservice.org/sites/ftp.ibiblio.org/pub/docs/books/gutenberg/6/9/4/6949/6949-h/6949-h.htm

A must read if you haven't. We are going through a step by step replay of the French hyperinflation of 1792, but interestingly enough, in slow motion. The excesses are the same, the societal and cultural changes identical, the resulting political and moral corruption as bad, and the economy as gutted as it was then and via the same processes.

To see how identical these episodes are you must stretch the timeline as follows:

- 1973 = 1789

- 2010 = 1792

Enjoy!

another example stuffed full of sampling and frequency resolution problems.

http://www.bores.com/courses/intro/basics/1_resol.htm

http://www.bores.com/courses/intro/basics/1_antia.htm

[pl1]

Can someone scan the form in, edit it slightly (so it says support instead of oppose or whatever) and let's all send the altered one off.

[uncle_monty]

Despite a co-ordinated campaign across the Telegraph, Daily Mail and Times, the cold hard truth continues to seep out.

In The Sunday Times Business section, guesting for the holidaying David Smith, Robert Chote (Director of the independent and highly sensible IFS) lays out his views on CGT. A good read, that closes with the following:

"The uncomfortable truth is that the coalition partners will have to inflict a lot of pain and disappoint quite a few expectations over the next few years as they clear up the fiscal mess they have inherited from Labour. Hopefully they will have the courage to move towards a more rational tax system as they do so, rather than simply scrambling from one short-term fix to the next."

http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/columnists/article7144762.ece

[urban_hymn]

Wow! Source, please.

Who wrote the original text that's being quoted in this ebook?

[Bear Goggles]

Despite a co-ordinated campaign across the Telegraph, Daily Mail and Times, the cold hard truth continues to seep out.

In The Sunday Times Business section, guesting for the holidaying David Smith, Robert Chote (Director of the independent and highly sensible IFS) lays out his views on CGT. A good read, that closes with the following:

"The uncomfortable truth is that the coalition partners will have to inflict a lot of pain and disappoint quite a few expectations over the next few years as they clear up the fiscal mess they have inherited from Labour. Hopefully they will have the courage to move towards a more rational tax system as they do so, rather than simply scrambling from one short-term fix to the next."

http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/columnists/article7144762.ece

My guess is that they will water it down and introduce taper relief. But perhaps that is just my cynism persisting after 13 disappointing years of New Labour.

This is the first big challenge for the coalition, and it's a key test of whether Cameron really is the Blair-style centrist capable of dragging the Tories towards electablity (with a majority). The old school Tories will naturally want to protect unearned wealth in the same way as old Labour wanted to protect unionism. The trouble is that protecting speculation is as unpopular now as supporting unionism was at the end of the 1970s. So there is a conflict within the Tory party: The vested interest of unearned wealth vs the vested interest of being electable.

The rightwing press have stated their position clearly. They're with the dinosaurs, we're not "all in this together". The question is, can the electorate be persuaded that - in times of austerity - the wealthy don't really need to pay their share?

[live in hope]

Indeed.

The proposal tentatively started as:

1. CGT rate (typically 40 or 50%)

2. Reduce threshold from £10k-ish to £2,500

3. No taper relief

4. No indexation relief

IMO if Con-Libs have balls to implement 1. or 1. and 2. effective from April 2011, then this will contribute significantly to falling house prices. I know its a MASSIVE IF!

And what is wrong with a 10 k threshold, indexation and taper relief for ordinary investers who hold investments for many years. Its the get rich quick merchants who should pay more.

[uncle_monty]

And what is wrong with a 10 k threshold, indexation and taper relief for ordinary investers who hold investments for many years. Its the get rich quick merchants who should pay more.

I'm afraid we are "all in this together". Why should unearned profits continue to receive very generous tax breaks in the face of the UK's great financial storm whilst modest earners lose their jobs?

My preference would be CGT on non-business assets at marginal tax rate (floor at 40%), £2,500 threshold with indexation relief i.e. tax on "real" capital gains.

Taper relief is a red herring. Greedy "investors" in 2nd/3rd/4th....nth homes buying for the long term or BTL speculators flipping properties between themselves for quick profits are the same in my book. BTL has been a blight on this country for over a decade.

If you disagree strongly then please tell me precisely where the money for the deficit is going to come from? I accept that as I'm pretty young I will share some of the burden through higher taxes and lesser public services (i.e. my quality of life will fall over the next 10, 20, 30? years). Can't see the problem with older generations paying their share as a lump sum. Please explain how this is unfair in any way?

[Guest happy?]

My guess is that they will water it down and introduce taper relief. But perhaps that is just my cynism persisting after 13 disappointing years of New Labour.

This is the first big challenge for the coalition, and it's a key test of whether Cameron really is the Blair-style centrist capable of dragging the Tories towards electablity (with a majority). The old school Tories will naturally want to protect unearned wealth in the same way as old Labour wanted to protect unionism. The trouble is that protecting speculation is as unpopular now as supporting unionism was at the end of the 1970s. So there is a conflict within the Tory party: The vested interest of unearned wealth vs the vested interest of being electable.

The rightwing press have stated their position clearly. They're with the dinosaurs, we're not "all in this together". The question is, can the electorate be persuaded that - in times of austerity - the wealthy don't really need to pay their share?

It will be the litmus test for Cameron - if Osborne caves-in to the concerted efforts of Redwood and the right-wing press (the BTL's champion) it will mark him as a weak man unable to deliver.

It will be an interesting budget.

[_w_]

Who wrote the original text that's being quoted in this ebook?

ANDREW DICKSON WHITE, LL.D., Ph.D., D.G.L.

He was a historian/history prof. at Cornell in the late 19th century.

In the following edition he writes an introduction that gives a complete background to the document.

http://mises.org/books/inflationinfrance.pdf

I've just noted the path to the pdf: no, he was not an economist and AFAIK the Austrian school did not exist back then :-)