So what could be done for this pensioner, presuming we care, which Johnson clearly does not?
…
The government’s national insurance increases could be removed and then reversed for those on lower pay. This is already an unfair tax. Increasing it for the lower paid was always a mistake.
Pensioners don’t pay NI. Also, the rise in the allowance was greater than the rise in the rate for those on low pay. NI has, overall, been reduced for those on low pay.
Sigh.
Frack produce more gas,bankrupt Putin and less carbon dioxide.
A real real win.
Invest in nuclear to make sure that long term Russia etc stay poor and we keep warm cheaply without harming the environment
Details, mere details. You expect such trivia to matter to men of vision like the P³?
[To be read in a pompous tone of offended amour propre suitable for Ely’s Most Famous Son.]
+10000 David. A sensible and effective policy that’d actually work.
So we know they’ll never do it.
Worth outlining all his measures:
The £20 a week Johnson took away from so many people when Covid was claimed to be over would help. This could be restored now for pensioners and those on Universal Credit.
Increase government expenditure to reduce inflation? I’m actually not opposed to this per se – £20 per week for a state pensioner is a sizable amount of money. However, in the next breath he’ll say ‘it doesn’t cause inflation’
Benefits including pensions could and should also be uprated now by the full current inflation rate, not the much lower rate of last autumn.
As per above – again one wonders where the money is coming from and how inflation would be curtailed?
VAT on domestic energy could be reduced to nothing. Fuel duty on diesel and petrol could also be reduced temporarily to keep both within a price cap to cut inflation. That cap would reduce price pressure on many other products, including food.
Nothing on the need to abandon the Net Zero target which is driving inflation and is likely to be responsible for the death of tens of millions globally…
Interest rate rises should be cancelled, and those that have already happened should be reversed. After all, interest rate rises put up the price of money, and that’s inflationary, so increasing them has to be the wrong policy now.
This guy is a ‘professor of economics’ apparently…
We could, and should, have a windfall tax on energy company profits because there is nothing remotely moral about profiteering from the poverty that is being imposed on others and these companies can already borrow all the funds they need for investment.
That’ll drive the investment in Green sources of energy of course…..
Then there should be tax increases on wealth and high incomes – because those who enjoy both are the people really driving inflation, and both have also been undertaxed for far too long – which is why we have such an unequal society, as this crisis is showing.
Let’s increase the tax burden, which is at the highest for 7 decades, on those who are already paying the largest proportion of it – what could possibly go wrong?
Finally, the government should be willing to borrow or use quantitative easing to tackle this crisis, just as it used QE to tackle Covid. Borrowing is cheap. People want to lend to the government. </i)
We solve inflation by printing more money. If only he'd made it to the second term of his economics undergraduate course.
I guess we should be grateful his ability to start an argument in a phone box (as evidenced by the laudable decision of Downham Market pubwatch to ban him from every hostelry in town) means there isn't much possibility of people taking his suggestions too seriously. However, given the extreme damage such stupidity can do isn't there a strong case for re- enacting something like the Defence of the Realm Act and detaining Murphy at least until such time as the economic crisis is over?
Life imprisonment VP? Bit harsh to the other prisoners and prison staff I’d think.
Why is no one suggesting a windfall tax on the vaccine producers?* They’re been raking it in on the back of Covid.
*Yes, I know windfall taxes are bad, I’m suggesting consistency.
@Boganboy
Sadly Putin’s anti fracking propaganda has worked – and might give us prime minister Keir Starmer!
When we are freezing next year.
Ask her for a copy of her weekly / monthly budget would be my first step. I’ll wager there are significant savings to be made from moving to cheaper suppliers (energy, insurance etc)and she probably has a number of benefits to which she is entitled, but is not claiming.
@Van_Patten, it is his standard list:
– print money
– big government spending programmes|
– tax the rich (defined as anyone with more money than him)
Whatever the issue is he comes out with the same agenda
@ Van Patten
Murphy has now decided that thousands of historic eamples that raising interest rates reins in inflation are of no importance because he has decided that raising interest rates increases inflation.
@Tim W
“Pensioners don’t pay NI”
Do keep up Mr Worstall, they do now
😛
@ Pcar
Wake up!
Workers over pension age and Pensioners are two different groups with minimal overlap. Many of the former are in that category primarily, or solely, because they are not in the latter.
The Tories do not care about the poor or the working class. Boris has described the British working class as criminal, drunk and useless. He has also allowed an article in his magazine that called for extermination of all Scottish people.
Boris is a far right PM who has contempt for the British working class.
That is why they do not tax the oil companies. He cares more about oil companies than pensioners. End of story.
The far right hate the poor. The far right see the poor as criminals, parasites and drunks.
@john77
Pardon? Are you mad? Everyone over state pension age is a pensioner whether they work or not. The overlap is close to 100%, only those who defer state pension for a future uplift, if they live, are not in overlap
@Carl Pierce of Wales
Whut?
Boris is a tax & spend socialist who cares about nobody other than himself
Here was me thinking people here were @john77
Pardon? Are you mad? Everyone over state pension age is a pensioner whether they work or not. The overlap is close to 100%, only those who defer state pension for a future uplift, if they live, are not in overlap
@Carl Pierce of Wales
Whut?
Boris is a tax & spend socialist who cares about nobody other than himself
Here was me thinking people here were intelligent
I was expecting to return today and see Tim W swinging on a pendant
Pensioners do pay NI if like I did they continue to work after retirement if they operate as a limited company, they pay employers NI for themselves.
@ Pcar
I didn’t start drawing my state pension until I was 70.
I am not mad: you are ignorant.
Pcar I am intelligent. You are the one who does not even know how to spell what. You spell it whut. You have shown a narcissistic arrogance. Plus you made some mistake in saying the same thing twice. Did you drink too much French wine? LOL. Hoist by your own petard.
@John77
Yes John, you deferred pension as I explained, one of very few
However, this new levy would force you to pay NI if you did same now
@Carl Pierce of Wales
You are? Well that’s your perogative
Twice? No idea what gremlin caused that. First click on Post did nothing, clicked again later. Button must lack your projection powers
Whut? Oh good grief, what a silly pendant you are
😛
Pcar You called out my intelligence and then showed yourself to be an utter idiot. End of story.
Boris Johnson is a far right PM. In 2004 he published a poem in his magazine that called for an extermination of the Scottish people. How can any self respecting Scot vote for a man who has called for the extermination of the Scottish people? How? Thank God we have a Scottish Parliament to protect us.
Boris Johnson has also called the British working class as criminal, drunk and hopeless. So he has far right extremist views.
I think that Boris Johnson looks on the Scottish people the way Putin look on the Ukrainian people. Putin has no concern for the Ukrainian people. Just like Boris has no concern for the Scottish people. He wants Scotland destroyed as a nation, with a contempt for those who see themselves as Scottish.
@CPoW
Johnson is far-right? Good grief, are you Paul Mason? That and rest: You’re living in a deluded fantasy world. Stop the LSD
No point replying to such nonsence again