Category: Gummint

Great Idea, Never Happen

Advice, Economics, Taxes and Theft

Turning Britishland into Singapore?  It’s an intriguing concept, as explained here.  An excerpt:

There is nothing new in the comparison between modern Britain and circumstances in Singapore when it gained independence in 1965. Like the UK following the Brexit referendum, Singapore was involved in a rancorous divorce from a much larger geopolitical entity that left it facing an uncertain path. For one island’s withdrawal from the European Union in 2016, read another’s split from the Federation of Malaysia 55 years ago.
As many a minister has pointed out in recent years, Singapore went on to conjure an economic miracle. In the space of a generation, it has transformed itself from a country where the average citizen was two and a half times poorer than the average Briton, to a hotbed of soaring prosperity where total economic output is now 70 per cent higher than in the UK.

Here’s what the Brits would have to do, though:

In a country where the average monthly salary is about S$70,000 (£40,000), [Singapore] residents pay income tax of just 7 per cent – less than half of the 20 per cent charged in the UK – while a salary equivalent to £46,000 would attract 11.5 per cent tax.
The individual tax ceiling is 24 per cent, payable only by those earning more than 1 million Singapore dollars; the equivalent rate in the UK is 45 per cent, a bracket that comes into play for anyone with a salary of more than £125,140 (about 217,000 Singapore dollars).
The country’s more favorable tax regime extends to corporation tax, which stands at 17 per cent in Singapore compared with 25 per cent in the UK. There is no capital gains or inheritance tax.

Cut and eliminate taxes?  In Britain?

Hence the title of this post.

That Tariff Thing

Business, Drive Time, Economics, Gummint

Ignoring any sensationalism from the Daily Mail  (like ignoring rapaciousness from the IRS), I see that Britishland faces a 10% tariff hike.

Which, using Kim’s patented Law Of Ten Method, means nothing.  (The corollary to said law, when applied to budgeting, says that you can always take 10% off anything without much or indeed any problem.  This is true of a household or corporate budget.)  Remember too that tariffs are not applied to the retail sale price — i.e. what you pay for them — but to the cost of goods in the home country.  Even so, I expect that U.S. retailers will eat some of any wholesale price increases, so the retail cost of goods to the consumer will not be that onerous.  Especially after we’ve just gone through Bidenflation. [25,000-word rant on that topic deleted]

I see this, with amusement:

The UK currently exports around £60billion worth of goods to the US. 

Almost all of these goods will now be taxed 10% to send them to the US, making it more expensive.  

Within this £60billion, British cars make up just over £6billion of the exports. Trump last night announced a 25% tariff on all imported cars, again making it more expensive, and less attractive, to buy UK-made motors.

So those Rolls Royces, Bentleys and NuJaguar Duracell cars are going to cost more (not the full 25%, as I expect that the manufacturers thereof will eat at least part if not most of the tariff).  Somehow, I’m pretty sure that the Murkin buyers (plutocrat scum) of said luxury items will not be  driven away by what is not a significant price increase.

Doubtless, my post-lottery Eagle E-type will cost more:

…but I’m pretty sure the lottery winnings would absorb the hit with little notice.  [/snark]

As for companies like AstraZeneca (the Covid guys) with their ~5,000% profit margins, my heart bleeds custard, the chiseling scum.

The Euros (20%), on the other hand, may have a harder time of it, and the Chinese (34%) harder still.  Whatever.  Peruse the table below, and feel free to comment about any of the countries that you may know about.

The Balkans are not listed, but I’ll be curious to see what if anything happens to the price of, say, Prvi Partizan ammo.

Finally, just remember that the United States is the world’s largest market for just about everything made in that world, so if prices rise too high, Americans will just stop buying that imported shit.  Which suits me just fine.  I’d like to see a whole bunch of textile mills, for example, re-open in places like Mississippi, who could sure use the jobs that they lost to the cheaper sweatshops in Asia in not-so-long-ago times, when the Finance assholes moved their operations abroad.

Interesting times.

Oh, The Humanity

Gummint

Why am I reduced to peals of helpless laughter at these tales of woe?

Thousands of federal employees who were forced to return to their offices in recent weeks have made some disgusting discoveries – including a lack of toilet paper and rodents.

Donald Trump promptly ended work from home options for federal workers upon taking office, saying anyone who does not ‘show up to the office on time and on schedule’ will be fired.

Ever since, federal employees across the country have found themselves in cramped offices where they have been forced to clean toilets and take out the trash, according to the New York Times. 

One Bureau of Land Management employee even detailed to NPR how ‘we have to go to the agency head to ask if we can buy toilet paper’ because the government-issued pay cards they used to use have been capped at $1 under Trump’s spending freeze. 

Together, the unidentified employees have said the Trump administration’s efforts to bring back federal workers has been marred by a lack of planning and coordination, leading to confusion and even more inefficiency.

At times, the federal workers are even forced to share office space with people from other agencies – creating chaos as they all try to video conference at different times.

Some have said they were not even fortunate enough to get a desk at the offices, with shortages of anywhere to 80 to 100 desks, according to a Federal News Network survey. 

The lack of space has left some working out of conference rooms, cafeterias, hallways and even storage closets.

At the Food and Drug Administration, employees who flocked to the Maryland office on March 17 also found that parking was scarce, and a line snaked around the neighborhood as workers tried to get through security.

Once inside, they told the Times, they found the cafeteria had not stocked up enough food and there were not enough office supplies to go around.

A scientist with the agency, who was hired for a remote position, also said she now has to share office space while she works on sensitive and proprietary projects – creating ethical and practical concerns.

Meanwhile, at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, Georgia, employees were told to brace for limited parking at the two campuses.

One employee there said it can now take up to an hour and a half just to leave the campus because the parking lot is so full and there are choke points at every turn.

Read the whole thing, because there are so many more tales of woe.

Listen, you motherfucking taxpayer-supported slackers:  change is always uncomfortable, and sometimes it takes a little time for things to get worked out properly.  In the meantime:  deal with it because after all, if the conditions are that problematic, quit.   (You know, the way people in the private sector have to deal in the midst of corporate downsizings and the like.)  The fact that these pampered little Gummint apparatchiks now have to live in the real world — a world that they seem to have had no problem with forcing onto the private sector — is just one of those things.

I also note with amusement the source of this whining:  the New York fucking Times and National Pussified Radio.  Haven’t seen much about it in conservative media, of course, but there ya go.

I needed a good laugh, anyway.

Racism, Straight Up

Legal Stuff, Mocking Furriners, Rights

Here’s a fun item:

The British Sentencing Council has decided that starting Tuesday, white men will be sentenced to longer prison sentences than women and ethnic minorities.

From Tuesday, new judicial guidelines in the United Kingdom will introduce sentencing policies that apply differential treatment based on ethnicity, gender, and age—leading to harsher punishments for white men compared to other groups in society.

Under the updated guidelines, judges will prepare pre-sentencing reports where necessary for defendants from ethnic, cultural, or faith minorities, as well as young people under 25, women, and pregnant women. Historically, such reports have resulted in mitigated sentences, including reduced jail time. The practical implication of these changes is that white men, who do not qualify for these reports, will face relatively harsher sentencing outcomes.

I’m not sure that any Brit, ever again, can accuse anyone else of being a racist.

Simple Solution

Gummint, Mocking Furriners, Morons & Idiots

Here’s an interesting development in Britishland.  Apparently, there’s a garbage workers’ strike in Birmingham, and as “Brum” is run by Labour and is a wretched hive of scum and villainy thereby, this is a case of ultra-Lefties arguing with “ordinary” Lefties — you pick which fits best for which — and has left the city streets (never that tidy to begin with) in a state of advanced rat infestation.

So then this came along:

Tories call for Cobra meeting over Birmingham bin strike
The Tories are urging the Deputy Prime Minister to send in private cleaning firms to break the unions’ grip over the rubbish-strewn second city.

The three-week pay dispute has seen detritus pile high in the streets, with residents saying neighbourhoods are plagued by giant rats “as big as cats”.

It centres on a row between the bankrupt Birmingham council, which is Labour run, and the Unite union.

I have no idea what a “Cobra” meeting is, but for one memorable moment, I thought it involved getting all the unionistas  and city councilors into one room, locking all the doors and windows and giving them ten minutes to come to an agreement.  If that failed, then throw a bunch of live cobras into the locked room.

I bet the hapless residents of Birmingham would be the first in line to watch the proceedings on PPV.

Too extreme?  Let’s ask the Brummies to vote on it.

Wasted Money

Bureaucracy, Foreign Affairs, Good Stuff, Trumpism

I see that the Department of Labor, not to be outdone by other federal departments in Extreme Chainsaw Activity, has done The Right Thing:

The U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) has canceled nearly $600 million in grants to foreign countries in another round of major funding cuts.

John Clark, a DOL official appointed by President Donald Trump, directed the department’s Bureau of International Labor Affairs (ILAB) to axe all 69 of its active grant programs on Wednesday due to a “lack of alignment with agency priorities and national interest.”

Quite what the Department of Labor was doing in giving money to furriners in the first place… well, we all know the answer to that one.  [humming the tune to “The Internationale”]

And seeing as the U.S. is no longer part of the international socialist collective — or at least we’re heading in that direction, at long last — there’s no reason for us to fund the wellbeing of foreign workers anyway.

One particular item did catch my attention, though:

“$3 million for ‘safe and inclusive work environments’ in Lesotho”

I’ve been to Lesotho several times, know the place quite well in fact, and for three million bucks you could probably buy the country’s entire industrial infrastructure, pay the workers a fat cash bonus and still have some money left over to  gamble  invest in a couple of their casinos.

Of “$3 million to ‘enhance social security access and worker protections for internal migrant workers’ in Bangladesh”, we will not speak.  (It’s a Muslim country;  let the fucking Arabs pay for it.)

Similar arguments can be made for all the other useless items.  Read the article for the full flavor of the wastage, and if you have specific knowledge of the circumstances of any of them, feel free to comment.

In the meantime: