Comments on: What part of “You can’t afford it” don’t they understand?

By: sm

sm — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 23:57:52 +0000

Did you clean the dog mess up? or was this an oversight?
Not a Murder 1, but in an overpopulated urban area not nice, when you have to encounter this.

Very interesting re BOE pension investment calls.
No one saw this coming!?

By: Steven_L

Steven_L — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 00:40:40 +0000

Well Guido has picked up on this now so it’s going to get around pretty fast.

Maybe it was just a hedge against Gordon becoming PM.

By: Brian Tomkinson

Brian Tomkinson — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 20:17:43 +0000

No. They and the European Parliament should be included but we need to sort out Westminster first and without delay.

By: mikestallard

mikestallard — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 18:37:47 +0000

The trouble with parliament is that we all know that they don’t make 80% of the annoying laws that we have to live by. They just nod them through, when they can be bothered to turn up at all.
But it is these laws – and then some – which the Police are enforcing now very heavy handedly. Look at the letter in the Telegraph today where a Councillor says, when heckled, that transexuals ought to tick both M and F boxes. Two hours of questioning.
On the same page, a violent girl is not even arrested.
Police are now in our local Comprehensive enforcing laws made for grown ups.
Now no photography – on anti-terrorist grounds – of the coming riots.
It all makes us despise the greedy politicians who set the targets and unctuously pass the ridiculous laws under which we suffer.
I myself got a serious warning from the Police, who came out specially in a Squad Car a couple of days ago, for letting my dog mess in some grass beside the street. I was actually threatened with jail. It was like something out of “The First Circle”.
Then we see profligacy, corruption, lying and cheating in the very people who cause us all this aggro. What is worse: they do not even show the shame and grovelling acceptance of their crimes that those of us who are threatened with arrest have to.
And we all know that our taxes, which are already as high as those the peasants who caused the French Revolution had to bear, are just about to quadruple owing to the greed and incompetence of those very people.

By: mikestallard

mikestallard — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 18:22:23 +0000

Don’t you actually mean “MEPs”?

By: mikestallard

mikestallard — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 18:20:22 +0000

This is such an important point! Mr Hague, for instance, spent his time studying a couple of great people from history and making a lot of money in the City and by speaking engagements. This must have brought him into touch with normal people. Our host on this blog has been in finance and therefore speaks from experience. Ken Clarke loves jazz and smoking.
By banning all that what do you get?
How about the Labour Front bench?

By: Robin

Robin — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 18:12:12 +0000

If you look at this other doc for 2003/2004 you can see

http://www.bankofengland.co.uk/about/humanresources/court2004.pdf

page 7 – for 2003/4 you can see UK equities made up 43%, overseas equities 30% of assets, indexed linked 8.3% and property 10%. Then by 2007 it all magically turned into gilts.

It all smells a bit fishy.

By: alan jutson

alan jutson — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 17:56:12 +0000

Old Rightie

You could well be correct with your perspective of a new Party emerging if nothing is done to arrest the declining standards, and fill your pockets while you can culture of some of our representitives. Let us hope poeple do not turn to the BNP in frustration.
I agree that it would appear that Standards of some of those in Public Life have gone down so far that we are now near the gutter with some of them.
The latest round of exposures of expenses just shows how far it has all gone.
No I am not talking about Adult movies, but the culture of claiming for everything possible (even a 89p electric plug) if the press are to be believed, so as not to spend a single penny of your own money.
It really does begger belief that some of our representitives can trouser such huge amounts of money (over £300,000 for a second property for one MP according to the Press) without paying any sort of tax (income or capital gains) at all, without it would seem much form of audit.
The rest of us who try to run a business in a normal competitive environment get the run around either from the Inland Revenue or Customs and Excise if we have inadvertantly claimed just a few pence over the normal allowance.
John I am very well aware of your thoughts in your blog last week, and your thoughts on cleaning up this mess, but it needs looking at now, not in 9 months time as suggested by G Brown after pockets have been filled to bulging.

By: jim

jim — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 16:36:21 +0000

I’m staggered that you say the taxman has a right to grab our money! I thought you were different, obviously I was wrong.
I don’t suppose it matters, there is very little left to grab. People will be pushed into the informal economy, as that is all that will be left after Brown finishes the country off.
Reply: I am different. I want to cut the amount the taxman takes from you. We all do, however, have to obey tax law, and in recent years the electorate has decided to elect by large majority a high tax high spend party.

By: StevenL

StevenL — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 16:20:26 +0000

The graph shows the transfer from equities to gilts taking place between Feb 07 and Feb 08.

That is a bit weird isn’t it when you look at the holdings of other public sector pension schemes and even managed funds that offer flexibility between shares, bonds and cash.

The really interesting thing is that the money was all stuffed in index linked gilts, as if they are worried about inflation.

Another quote from page 14 is:

“There were no employer-related investments held at any
time during the year.”

What’s this supposed to mean? Why can’t government speak language we all understand? How can a gilt edged security not be an employer related investment when you’re talking about the Bank of England pension pot?