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UK interest rates are going to stay higher for longer.

UK gilts are suddenly looking shaky.

UK state debt and borrowing and debt payments are soaring dramatically.

It's a classic Labour budget of tax, debt, and despair.

Bank of England just said in a press release that today's budget will push inflation up by nearly +1%. ITV is saying it will delay interest rate cuts. Indeed, rates may go back up.

So... no extra growth... more inflation... higher interest rates... more tax to a sickening level...

Make no mistake, this is a disaster. A budget for de-growth 😥

OBR just said in a press release that the Labour budget does (literally) nothing for long-term growth. Zip. Zero. Nada.

Labour are sucking £40b from your pocket... and putting it in theirs.

Nope. There's nothing "exciting" about more tax, more state interference, less productivity, less net disposable income, less savings, less pension, less hope.

The relentless clamour in the UK for an even bigger state is beyond stupid. Growth in state *productivity* has been (and is) a staggering -90% lower than the private sector since the turn of the century. Private now out-produces public (per employee) by an astonishing +40% per hour. As a nation, we are basically shifting the economy rom the productive private sector to the unproductive state sector. From the efficient to the inefficient. From healthy to unhealthy. It is beyond stupid. And today's (unnecessary) tax-snatch budget will make the downtrend even worse.

Today looks set to be the worst budget day the UK people have ever seen in history. The words talk of growth. The actions point to de-growth. A tsunami of neo-Marxist tax, red tape, and inflation is about to wash over us all 😔

When comparing wages, you folks always need to remember that public-sector *pensions* are way way way beyond anything available in the private sector. You need to compare TOTAL wages, not partial wages. My mate works for the NHS -- his free pension cash (paid by you, the taxpayer) is nearly 30% of his entire salary... For comparison, the average private-sector pension contribution is about 5%.

Quite incredible that a bank the size of Santander has not properly prepared for the car finance scandal! The DCA sums and numbers have been known for years and are widely available in the public domain. To be "caught out" by the judge's ruling last week is astonishing. The bank should have had a worst-case scenario model ready to go in an Excel spreadsheet. Goes to show how many "top" banking executives are simply just winging it -- like everyone else.

My mate runs a recruitment firm. If all the budget rumours come true -- massive sudden NI tax increase, massive income tax increase by fiscal drag, yet another massive minimum wage spike beyond all reason, massive EV tax increase for company cars, massive petrol-diesel fuel tax increase for company cars, pay-per-mile road tax for company cars -- he's going to immediately cut his staff by 5-10% to recover the losses. The extra tax is going to cost him thousands of pounds per employee, and the extra spike is coming overnight, in a flash. It's a tax tsunami washing over the company. He risks going bust.

What's interesting is that Robber Reeves's unfunded extra debt of £20-50b per year (in Oct 2024) is about the same size as Truss's unfunded extra debt of £20-45b per year (in Sep 2022)... The UK media and markets this quarter have barely flinched... Truss's analysis of a deepstate and leftwing media attack on her budget in 2022 no longer looks like a wild conspiracy theory.

..."I believe this will drop back to 30p again shame, every time i get hopeful"...

Presume you will be opening on Monday a 5 x leveraged short on LLOY to 30p? And then post a photo of it? 👍

Many have been posting here for months that the DCA car loan bill is gonna be way bigger than many realize. The banks are easy pickings for social justice warriors everywhere.

Yup, UK banks desperately sucking up to the state, praying they won't get slammed with a new bank or windfall tax next week. It's like North Korea, when everyone hails Kim Jong Un thru gritted teeth.

It's amazing how 1% GDP growth under the Tories in the 2010s was routinely positioned by UK and international institutions (like the ONS) as "stagnation"... Now, 1% growth under Labour in the 2020s is positioned as "accelerating"... The Left really have "marched thru the institutions" and taken control of UK information propaganda. It's staggering to watch.

Nothing says "modern 21st century economy" like a Victorian creation from the 1800s and £150b of national debt for the taxpayer just as everyone starts getting the automatic right to work from home (WFH) 👍

Get a job as a train driver. Few, if any, qualis needed. Just press a stop and start button in the cab every few minutes. Can easily make 100k. Take a (fully paid) day-off if there’s a big footie match on. Work from home, if you want. Virtually unsackable. It's probably the best job available anywhere in Britain right now.

Here it comes, people. A staggering £40b, perhaps £50b, of extra tax for you all to cough up -- before Xmas. A little Labour gift 👍

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13965115/Rachel-Reeves-tax-hikes-spending-cuts-Budget-bombshell-Labour-pay-inheritance.html

A wise move, TFE. We've moved into a new Marxist era, and there's just no telling what extremist measures will come in this budget or the next. Labour is spending the people's money like a drunken sailor. Take the cash now, while it's still ours.

Not sure an Essex mini-port to import more Chinese plastic tat, a couple of warehouses for data servers around the M25, and concreting over green fields with godawful newbuilds, count as an "investment frenzy", tbh. And no point in bringing in ~$5b of investment, if you're just gonna suck it all out again with ~$40b of tax hikes.

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