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Well Ritchie makes the papers

In a second major policy u-turn the Labour leader announced his support for a “maximum earnings” limit on Tuesday morning only to abandon the policy just hours after proposing it.

He backtracked on the plans just hours later after they were dismissed by his own former economic adviser as a “lunatic idea” and “completely unworkable”.

That peerage ain’t getting any closer though.

30 thoughts on “Well Ritchie makes the papers”

  1. He finally filed the TRUK accounts, 7 days after the due date. Another 70K year, so he’s getting that or more from City as he won’t drop funding unless he can make it up elsewhere.

    The man who campaigns for more information in filings and openness from companies, lists his Kenneth Miller Trust funding as “private trust (name withheld to protect the trustees)”.

    Oh, and despite still saying the funding does not pay for the blog, the accounts still state the blog is a principle activity of TRUK.

  2. “He backtracked on the plans just hours later after they were dismissed by his own former economic adviser”

    “after” is being used merely to show the timing, but what are the chances Murphy will use it to imply causation?

  3. Corbyn really is amazing. He’s managed to piss off anti and pro immigration people simultaneously and footie supporters, and strike hit commuters. He’s almost as brilliant as the Murphy is knowledgeable about anything. It’s like a superpower.

  4. @ ken – perhaps Blanchflower was referring to Murphy there: “… lunatic and unworkable…”

    And yeah, JC is the gift that keeps on giving. Brilliant!

  5. “Corbyn really is amazing. He’s managed to piss off anti and pro immigration people simultaneously and footie supporters, and strike hit commuters. He’s almost as brilliant as the Murphy is knowledgeable about anything. It’s like a superpower.”

    And successful luvvies. And luvvies who hope to be successful one day and think they have a chance.

    Basically the only people he didn’t piss off are the SWP crusties.

    Long may he reign at the head of the Vanguard of the Free Islington movement, formerly known as the Labour Party.

  6. Murphy posted a brilliant blog two years ago himself citing thaximum salarm he thought necessary. He also distinguished employment income from dividends and other income that entrepreneurs such as he himself should be able to earn.

    He is a creep.

  7. Well, there is a point of view; the earnings high fliers may be “worth” their money in a market sense but, an added value sense, what they bring to an enterprise isn’t. They may provide a guiding hand but the added value is the result of the “team” endeavours, all the way down to the bloke who sweeps the floor.
    In my own business, I always regarded the blokes who worked in it were the people made our money. Doing the stuff the customers paid for. They didn’t work for me. I worked for them. Including the labourer kept the job clean. All I did was make the whole thing possible. That it was us doing the work rather than a competitor. And supplying the capital, of course.
    High earnings are a matter of bargaining positions, as much as anything else. So one might want to legislate to put a thumb on the scales.
    Totally unworkable, of course.

  8. “The story quotes Danny Blanchflower saying it is lunatic and unworkable?” The views of a gifted, albeit defunct, wing-half are always worth weighing.

  9. @BiS – I think the general point with CEO remuneration is that a bad CEO can completely tank an organisation in short order.

    I understand why bad CEO’s getting fired with a golden parachute irks people (and it irks me too when it’s not as due compensation for a non-competition clause which basically means that the person can’t work in his industry for a number of years), but high executive pay when billions at stake seems reasonable to me.

  10. “and it irks me too when it’s not as due compensation for a non-competition clause which basically means that the person can’t work in his industry for a number of years”

    I tend to take a more robust view of things. “You’ve had your chance. You fucked up. Now fuck off. You’ve proved you’re not fit for the industry you’ve been in. Go try something different. Flipping burgers, or something*.”
    It’s generally only amongst the high earners people get the opportunity to be serially incompetent on other people’s money.

    *Because that’s what all us independent entrepreneurs have to do.

  11. By taking up the academic appointment, he has effectively admitted his days of political influence are over. He has burnt so many bridges, there are dead creatures at the bottom of lakes who have more influence than him.

    He is now looking for a safe, quiet gig to take him to retirement.

  12. A point of pendantry:

    Mr Corbyn added to the chaos by calling for a Cuba-style maximum wage, adding that it would be “somewhat higher” than the £138,000 he earns.

    He gets paid, dear journalist. He doesn’t effing earn it. He’s just another public sector middle-class welfare scrounger.

    (then again, destroying the fascist Labour party is a vital public service, so I suppose it could be considered unintentionally well-earned money)

  13. Thanks Noel for highlighting Ritchie’s accounts. His grant income is up but his income for lobbying for unions/fake charities is down. I wonder if he has pissed them off through his criticism of Corbyn?

    http://www.friendsprovidentfoundation.org/building-the-tax-foundations-of-a-resilient-economy-tax-research-llp/

    According to their website he is still getting his Friend Provident grant of £40k p.a. Not sure about the Kenneth Miller one but with his professorship and a bit of consultancy he is doing pretty well. Which makes his property downsizing all the more strange…..

  14. “Richard Murphy says:

    IHT and CGT ae taxes on gains otherwise untaxed”

    Tax ‘expert’ Murphy strikes again.

    If I earn £2m, it is taxed. If I put the balance in my bank account and promptly drop dead the next day, the balance would form part of my estate and be subject to IHT.

    If I bought a million pound painting from taxed income which was worth a million when I died, there would be no gain but it would still form part of my estate.

    IHT is not a tax on gains, it is a tax on wealth.

    He really hasn’t got a clue.

  15. It’s interesting that it takes Jeremy Corbyn discussing policy to make Richard Murphy sound sane.

    And you wogs wonder why we simply laugh and walk away when you start mocking the States for electing Donald Trump.

  16. And you wogs wonder why…

    wog 1 |wɒg|
    noun informal, offensive
    Brit.a person who is not white.

    I know it must seem like it sometimes, but we’re not all wogs just yet.

  17. Can someone check if I’ve understood this right:
    I buy that painting Andrew C is selling for £1m using after tax income. Twenty years later the painting is sold on for £1.5 million, but the general prices level has risen 60% due to inflation. So a real terms loss overall,
    Is CGT still payable on the nominal gain of £0.5 million even though I’ve lost money?

  18. @bongo. Yes. For personal tax there is no inflation adjustment.

    The lower rates of capital gains (compared to income tax) are sort of supposed to compensate for this.

    Of course that cvnt Murphy wants CGT at income tax rates and still no inflation adjustment.

  19. Bongo – yes.

    But you pay tax at only 20%, rather than at 40%/45%, to compensate for the fact that the gain you’re paying tax doesn’t really exist 🙂

    On the other hand, if your company had bought it then you’d index the cost up by RPI, so you might not have a gain at all (but if you have a loss it wouldn’t be recognised for tax purposes).

    I’m all for bringing back indexation, and taxing gains at income tax rates. I know it doesn’t fit with Tim’s opinions about the economic efficiency, but it’s simple, it’s intuitive, and it level the playing field between income and gains, which are too easily interchangeable.

  20. BiW –

    The wogs start just east of Pennsylvania’s border with New York and New Jersey. They populate all environs from that point until one circles the globe and reaches California’s border with Nevada. Unfortunately, half of what’s left is pretty iffy… Most notable being Florida, Virginia, Louisiana and Arizona.

  21. Cheers Pellinor and Andrew C.
    So a good way to reduce inequality would be for all those museums to auction their decent stock to private collectors only ( no trusts, charities ) as the buyer will effectively be losing money in most scenarios. It would need a pretty extreme upturn to beat inflation plus taxes.

  22. Bloke in North Dorset

    When I was a kid wog was derogatory was supposed to have been supposed to have been derived from western oriental gentleman.

  23. Bloke in Costa Rica

    Too much even for Murphy? Stopped clocks and all that, but I can’t imagine what a Murphyesque clock would measure. Obviously not time. Relative humidity? Scoville units? The anomalous magnetic moment of the muon? It would mostly get it wrong, whatever it was measuring. So Corbyn’s really played a blinder here. I feel like there should be sad trombone music every time he’s on TV.

  24. A thought, but the market in arts and other stuff commonly affected by CGT should operate differently in territories where there is no CGT compared to where CGT both exists and doesn’t allow for inflation.
    If there was a way to put a metric on the quality, accessibility and enjoyment of galleries and museums in different territories, then a case could be made that in artistic terms CGT is good or bad. One for the academics to research imv.

    Unless someone wants to bung me £200k directly to do the study.

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