Osborne unveils the classic Tory way to collect unpaid taxes and fines. Ignore HMRC and DWP which are there precisely for this purpose, but suffer from a fatal disadvantage – they’re in the public sector. So strike a deal instead with a private US-owned company – creating a joint venture with TDX Group, a so-called ‘recovery management’ company whose parent company, Equifax, is based in the US. TDX will have a 75% stake in the new entity, Integrated Debt Services Ltd, with the government holding the other 25%. TDX will get a percentage of any unpaid debts collected beyond the level collected in the last year, though the Cabinet Office won’t reveal what the percentage commission is on grounds of commercial confidentiality, as though this wasn’t a service for the public sector! Continue reading
Tagged with Debt
Public borrowing under Osborne now going UP
The whole point of the austerity programme imposed by Osborne was supposed to be to reduce the budget deficit. The latest data on the deficit however shows a dramatic and disturbing turnabout. Instead of going down, it is now rising, and there are good reasons for expecting this trend to continue. Official data shows that Osborne was forced to borrow £11.6bn to fill the gap between revenues and spending, £700m more than a year ago. He had been forecast to borrow about 12% less this year than last, but in the event has had to borrow 6% more. This is a really sensational reversal of the government’s claim that it is on track with its (fantasied) ‘long-term economic plan’ and blows a big hole in the idea that austerity is the best way to reduce the deficit, let along able to do so at all. Continue reading
Activists prepare for another day of action against student debt
University campuses across the country will play host to another day of action against the privatisation of student debt, this Wednesday, 20th November. This follows numerous student actions on the 5th November “bonfire of austerity”, along with a week of action in late October which saw the offices of several Lib Dem MPs targeted.
Students at 26 universities are set to stage direct action events, rallies, information stalls and public meetings. The day of action has been called by two bodies that co-ordinate national student action: the Student Assembly Against Austerity and the National Campaign Against Fees and Cuts. Continue reading
Student “debt-in” in protest at loanbook privatisation
Students and staff at the University of Cambridge this week (Tuesday 5th November) staged a “debt-in” on King’s Parade, in opposition to the government’s plan to privatise student loans, which could see interest on such loans being retrospectively doubled. This comes after a number of actions taking place in London last month, including the targeting of a number of Lib Dem MPs’ offices.
To symbolise the burden of student debt, activists performed a game of “Stuck in the Debt” from 12pm, a spin on popular playground game Stuck in the Mud, this time involving students being captured by debt-wielding bankers. Cambridge Defend Education, the activist group organising the protest, handed out a briefing on the student loan privatisation to passers by, who stopped in surprise at the spectacle of scores of red boxes symbolising student debt. Continue reading
The German elections will not change a thing in the Eurozone
As far as austerity is concerned, even after the September elections Germany will not turn the page. The Germans have benefited from the crisis, and even if the Bundesbank itself has reservations about the general direction of European economic policy, Berlin has no interest in changing course.”
So says Emiliano Brancaccio, researcher and professor of Economics at the University of Sannio. A report by the Bundesbank said that Greece will need further aid by the spring of 2014, in a clear, if indirect criticism of the policies of German Chancellor Angela Merkel. Continue reading