No such thing as gov 'deficit'

System

. The UK has almost consistently run deficits since 1945. Whe hasn't any of this money come back as taxes?

Some would've done but money printing over time probably inflated it away relative to current spending, and also the generation I mean was v young at the start of heavy gov investment in the economy via spending

.No it doesn't. If you sell sterling and buy US dollars, then you have US dollars but no sterling.

But someone else then has your sterling, who can spend it in the UK, who owns it isn't the issue, they can only spend it here

.You can spend any currency anywhere it is accepted.

Which as far as I know is only the UK, good thing were not in the euro

And hopefully will be rich, at least gov will be, with all that property equity

System

The amount tied up in property values is huge and we just need to look at the age distribution of ownership

Enterprise_1701C

I see further up that you suggest "hitting the rich".

Labour tend to try to hit the "rich", they haven't worked out that they simply leave the country if tax rates etc are increased.

Another thing they haven't worked out is that a lot of the so-called rich people are rich for a reason. They run large companies employing a lot of people. They put a lot into the economy by employing these people and by buying those things that people get so jealous of. If these people are taxed heavily enough they simply up and leave, if it goes on long enough they remove their businesses from this country and trade elsewhere. Therefore a sustained high taxation policy could easily do serious damage to the country.

And no, we are not among these people. We happen to run a small business which puts us into contact with a lot of people, including millionaires, several of which had put arrangements into place to simply leave the country within a week of the last election in case Labour got into power.

Don't forget also, that a lot of property is now out of the IHT range (as long as Labour never get back in) and will simply be passed onto the younger generation.

System

Enterprise - the UK is heavily biased towards service sector, which means companies can't easily participate in the lucrative UK market without actually being here, so the beauty of Osbourne's stamp duty and wage increases is they're difficult for investors to escape.

And whilst entrepreneurs play a crucial role they can't take credit that should go to customer demand. Its like saying a seed makes a tree or 2 parents make an adult child, it takes food and water to grow the actual mass - bosses aren't paying workers purely at their own expense, customer demand is paying it

On an individual level also, the UK is a safe, free, English speaking country, those things would be high on the priority list of luxuries of the rich, as well as any family they have, and if they do leave their sterling is simply exchanged and recirculates from the bank

I think a lot of its fear mongering, also good point about imheritencr tax, well become an inheritance society where some are luckeier than others and social mobility is decreased. Care fees are much more brutal. Respect for starting a business, but unless someone's on a high wage or inherits to start with, or borrows from bank or investors its difficult to start employing people paid similar to you and therefore there's a massive gulf between small business and big business

antrobus

MatthewAinsworth wrote: »

Some would've done but money printing over time probably inflated it away relative to current spending, and also the generation I mean was v young at the start of heavy gov investment in the economy via spending....

That doesn't make any sense.

But that's no surprise. Your initial premise doesn't make any sense either.:)

MatthewAinsworth wrote: »

...But someone else then has your sterling, who can spend it in the UK, who owns it isn't the issue, they can only spend it here....

Sadly, no. You simply don't understand basic economics. The UK current account deficit in 2014 was some £98bn, but the amount of sterling in existence actually shrank.

MatthewAinsworth wrote: »

....Which as far as I know is only the UK, good thing were not in the euro...

No, you can spend any currency anywhere it is accepted.

MatthewAinsworth wrote: »

....And hopefully will be rich, at least gov will be, with all that property equity

Sadly, no. Not unless you are going to have an IHT rate of 100% and an IHT threshold of £0.:)

System

. That doesn't make any sense.

But that's no surprise. Your initial premise doesn't make any sense either

After ww2 there was lots of gov spending building motorways, starting the NHS, building council houses, etc. There was heavy gov investment in the economy, that materialised into jobs and wages for a period of time, and that combined with a property market with low price ratios to income combolined to give a generation an advantage.

Now the fact that we get paid in larger numbers than before, spend larger numbers than before, and property prices are larger numbers than before all suggests that there is more money in the economy than before. Making this money would've had an inflationary effect which would've eroded the returns on previous government investment, essentially granting that cash back upfront, rather than waiting for it to trickle back in.

Gov finances are not like personal finances, as they get tax back on what they spend

.The UK current account deficit in 2014 was some £98bn, but the amount of sterling in existence actually shrank.

In 2014 perhaps it did shrink, but definitely not since ww2, as all our prices are higher.

. No, you can spend any currency anywhere it is accepted.

And which countries can you spend £sterling in? Most of our 'deficit' is to countries that don't use sterling, our £s are exchanged at the bank, then the bank can lend it, then it can be spent, then it starts to come back as vat while the remainder recirculates the economy and gets taxed again.

. Sadly, no. Not unless you are going to have an IHT rate of 100% and an IHT threshold of £0.

I'm not saying all of it, just a significant amount, and I think care home fees are a much more brutal vehicle for recovery with a threshold of twenty something thousand at the moment than iht is. People get het up about iht not realising that it'll probably be the nursing home that robs them

WHA

Considering we have a balance of payments deficit, i.e. import more than we export. A very large amount of the money leaves the UK, particularly to the Far East, to pay for all the electrical goods, cars, etc. Not to mention, buying gas and oil from abroad to keep our cars and lorries moving, and our homes and industry powered.

Your philosophy would only work if we exported more than we import, and even then, we'd need to borrow money to fill the timing delays, meaning having to pay interest on that borrowing. The last figures I saw, the government (i.e. we as a country) pay more in interest on the accumulated deficit than we spend on education!

System

Wha- I think that's just a short term thing, in the big picture China has accumulated vast stashes of foreign currency and at some point it must be spent or loaned or investment. Currency can be exchanged, but like property it will always sit with an owner who can only use if for a few limited purposes