Member Info for mick-b

ONE years rainfall in just EIGHT hours.

"Many people were inside their cars, they couldn’t make it out."

"They were just drowned by the water."

At least 158 people have died with many more missing.

FTSE100 ✅ 0.2%

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TRO

Greece are now doing well after the Germans underwrote their finances and propped their economy up. But I think they lost a port or two in collateral.

"Hopefully it settles down, but it's a lot of spending and borrowing for little economic benefit. "

Decent public services BLUEGLOW....which are in a terrible state.

7,000,000 on the NHS waiting list....on wonder our economy is static with a sick workforce.

Or maybe you want to die on an NHS trolley.

There was over 120 unfunded projects in that £22B black hole.

Including both Tory budget NI tax cuts, the Horizon post office payouts and the terrible contaminated blood scandal payouts.

TRUMP looks so old. He should have cognitive and neurological tests for dementia.

TRUMP seen in a garbage dump truck.

Clearly this off the scale as far as madness goes.

"japanese did in the 60/70;s...flooded us with cheap autos "

rust buckets

Maybe fearing another bonkers TRUMP presidency....

I sold lloyds a couple of months ago as I saw headwinds.

Fearing the banking levy would be increased.

But the car finance saga popped up first.

So was right but for the wrong reason.

Jeremy Clarkson, the former presenter of Top Gear, bought Diddly Squat Farm for a number of reasons, including:

No death duties

Clarkson explained to The Times that he bought the farm because he doesn't have to pay death duties on land. He said, "You could derive a great deal of pleasure and pass it on to your children".

GOOGLE

FTSE100 🔻0.35%

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Highlight of the budget speech?

The look on Sunaks face when the PPE contract investigation was mentioned (OUCH!).

SCREWED....

"The proportion of the farm support budget spent on direct payments is decreasing in stages until these types of payments are phased out entirely by the end of 2027. Only 30% of the 2024/25 farm budget is ear-marked for direct payments, with most of the remainder to be spent on environmental, animal welfare and climate schemes on farms (such as the Environmental Land Management schemes mentioned above)"

The Budget produced a raft of tax rises NOT aimed at the working class for once (as much as non dom owned media try to spin it).

"UK farmers paid not to grow."

that was introduced by the Tories after leaving the Common Agricultural Policy.(CAP)

What has also hit farming was the promise by Johnson after BREXIT to continue paying the same amount to farmers as the CAP did.

Unsurprisingly HE LIED.....and paid out much less.

Nice sucker 🥊 NOM

BLUE,

On the positive side, at least you won't die on a trolley under Labour, anymore.

Hopefully...

"How can the average farm survive that IHT bill? "

You should gift it away....7 year rule.

NOTE/ Wealthy investors have been buying up farms to avoid IHT.

Paul Scott investors summary....

Not as bad as the worst fears - has already triggered a big rally in some AIM shares.

Taxes will be raised by £40bn, the bulk coming from Employers NICs at £25bn.

I think this is a fairly balanced set of measures, but it’s going to hurt business profits due to higher labour costs & taxes.

AIM loses half its IHT relief, from 40% to 20%, so still worth holding good AIM shares. Pity she didn’t commit to no further changes in future.

So uncertainty will continue, but AIM lives to fight another day!

Increases to CGT, but not particularly big.

Pensions will become subject to IHT - a big change.

Employers NICs will go up by 1.2% from 13.8% to 15.0%. Thresholds also lowered - a heavy extra cost for employers.

Big increase in minimum wage, as expected. So this is going to be very expensive for struggling hospitality & retail companies. Expect broker forecasts to be slashed in some sectors.

Corp Tax will remain at 25% for full parliament. Lowest in G7. Confirms what has previously been announced, but it’s clearly good news.

What it didn't do (which had been feared) - no changes to tax relief on pension contributions, and I didn't hear anything about betting taxes either. Also ISAs left alone, which was another fear. Also apparently no change to the 25% tax-free lump sum on pensions.

Eckoh Agrees To Acquisition By Eagle UK Bidco