Greed is good, or at least that’s what the bankers and CEOs of the biggest companies think. What is surprising is not their avaricious self-interest and total indifference to everyone else, but the blatancy with which they flaunt it. As their leader so movingly put it, they’re all in it together – the CEOs of Ocado and Kingfisher, those Labour sell-outs Lord (Digby) Jones and Lord Myners (both worth a bob or two in the City), and inevitably Boris Johnson.
The only omission was Blair, but no doubt it would have been too much of an embarrassment even for him now that he’s reputed to be worth £40 million. The cacophony of financial selfies that Balls’ modest proposal has elicited is extremely revealing. It shows what a tin ear they have to the tightening squeeze being imposed on 90% of the population, where 60% of voters sampled in a poll approved of Labour’s move, even including Conservatives. Continue reading
The idea that the rest of us suffer because the super rich are subject to a nominal tax rate of 50p – and that’s the claim that 20 leading economists 
One has to rub one’s eyes. Britain is smack on course for a double-dip recession, the collapse of consumer and business confidence is ubiquitous, the manufacturing PMI barometer is turning down more sharply even than after the Lehman Brothers collapse, the US housing and labour markets remain extremely fragile, the Eurozone sovereign debt crisis is worsening by the day, both the IMF and World Bank are now counselling strongly against cutting debt too much too fast, and what is our myopic Chancellor’s response to this cataclysm of bad news……………..abolish the top 50% tax rate! That’s like opening an air-bag when the carburettor’s stalled to get the car moving again. He must be delusional if he thinks it’s either (i) relevant, (ii) necessary, (iii) fair, or (iv) appropriate. It’s none of them. 