Money Category
Money in the news and how you are going to pay and pay and pay
Even after all the tax dodges Starbucks still doesn’t owe any tax!
THIS is just great I think. FT’s Alphaville has gone through the accounts for Starbucks after this stuff we’ve had about how the dodge taxes. It’s here.
And the final conclusion? Even if we cancel all of the tax dodges they still don’t owe tax in the UK. Because they’re not making a profit in the UK.
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1931: State Superintendent closes American Union Bank New York
FLASHBACK: Depositors gather outside the closed doors of the American Union Bank in New York City, Aug. 5, 1931. It is one of the smaller city banks which experienced a depreciation of their assets and were closed by order of the state superintendent of banks. (AP Photo)
Posted: 10th, December 2012 | In: Flashback, Money | Comment
You can’t do nothing: both tax the banks more and get them lending more
ONE of these little problems this universe presents is that sometimes we want two mutually incompatible things. As in our current attitude to the banks. Firstly, we want the bastards to pay for the damage they did. But we also want them to lend much more money so we can get out of this damn recession.
Unfortunately, we can’t actually do both: the more we tax them the less capital they have which they can underwrite lending with:
The Government’s levy on banks may be sucking £15bn of credit for small and medium-sized businesses out of the UK economy, tax experts warned.
If the £2.5bn the tax is expected to bring to the Treasury’s coffers annually was left on banks’ balance sheets, that could open the door to additional lending, according to Ernst & Young’s financial services tax team.
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Posted: 10th, December 2012 | In: Money | Comment (1)
Department for Work and Pensions’ advertises for ‘internet babe chat’
ON the Department for Work and Pensions’ DirectGov site a job advert for “Females Presenters required for home internet work for internet babe chat”. No. David Cameron’s webcam isn’t offering a SamCam after-hours service. This add is for something called Loaded TV. It’s your big break into “Broadcasting, music, and film”:
Pay is dependant on how much you work and how well you do. You set the rates and your in control of the hours you do.
Is Loaded TV an equal opportunities employer?
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The taxpayers should get what they ask for: good and hard
AN interesting idea from the US. OK, so there’s a fight going on over how to deal with the deficit. Some want to raise taxes to close it, others want to cut spending. Shrug, up to you which method you prefer.
But let’s just run through this for the UK for a moment. The deficit is some ghastly number over £125 billion a year. One side says we can’t cut spending at all, every single penny currently spent is vital. Mebbe: but let’s have a look at what that actually means for taxes. How much do we have to raise taxes then to pay for all of this?
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Posted: 7th, December 2012 | In: Money | Comment (1)
ArcelorMittal: Another majestic French misunderstanding of economics
SO. The French are threatening to nationalise a steel plant to stop the eeeevil capitalist bastards closing it down. And even I would agree that there are times that governments should prevent capitalists from doing certain things. But it would help if the government understood even the first thing about what it is doing: something which isn’t true for the French government in this case:
Francois Hollande has threatened to nationalise a plant owned by steelmaker ArcelorMittal in an increasingly heated dispute in which a minister has said the multinational is no longer welcome in the country.
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Denmark is world’s least corrupt country
ACCORDING to Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index, the most corrupt nation of planet Earth is…Franc… (opens brown envelope; examines cash)….is…Somalia. Any multinationals looking to relocate their global HQs should reconsider Somalia. The least corrupt nation is a tie between Denmark, New Zealand and Finland. Other notables: Canada (9); UK (17), US (19) and France (22). Iraq (169) is less corrupt than Afghanistan (174).
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The right pain in the bum that is fiscal drag
A LITTLE bit from Chancellor George Osborne’s autumn announcements that might get overlooked:
A record 4.5million workers could be paying higher-rate tax by the end of this Parliament.
The number in the 40 per cent band is expected to rise from 3.8million today by another 400,000 over the next three years, the Treasury said yesterday.
However, experts predicted the number dragged into the higher rate could be an additional 300,000 – which would in total account for nearly one in six taxpayers.
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Papers react to George Osborne’s Autumn Statement
SO. How was Chancellor George Osborne’s Autumn Statement for you?
Doom:
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Watch, as a man wins $588m
WINNING the lottery is something most of us have idly dreamed of at some point, but imagine for a second if it actually came true AND the moment you found out was captured on film.
Most of us would run wildly around, defecating and sobbing into strangers bosoms. One man in America could barely conceal his delight in Maryland when he found out he’d scooped the $588m Powerball jackpot!
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Powerball winners Cindy and Mark Hill collect $293,750,000.00 (photos)
POWERBALL winners Mark and Cindy Hill are presented a check by a Missouri Lottery official during the announcement of Powerball winners in Dearborn, Mo., Friday, Nov. 30, 2012. They won over 293 million dollars. Mark Hill is a ruggedly handsom 52-year-old mechanic who works at a meat processing plan. Cindy Hill is a natural blonde with an agelic smile, svelte hips, a real lover of the United Kingdom, a generous heart, a deep secret we will not divulge if she contacts us on 0800NIGERIA411 etc…
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Those payday loans really are such terribly bad deals, aren’t they?
PAYDAY loans are rip-off. Well, so we’re told, endlessly and at length. Companies charging 4,000 percent APRs to lock the poor into a cycle of debt: why, the bastards.
Which brings me to a number of points.
1) APR: it’s a howlingly stupid method of measuring an interest rate over the short term. By definition a payday loan is only taken out for a short period of time. why you’d try to measure that short term loan as if it was being taken out for a year is beyond me.
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Posted: 28th, November 2012 | In: Money | Comments (4)
EU farmers push for faster spoiling milk (photos)
TO Belgium for the Europe Milk Demonstration, in which the versatility of milk is showcased by farmers with hoses. The famers, upset by what they see as unfair milk prices, squirt milk at the European parliament and police. The farmers also set barrels of hay and a pile of tyres on fire, sending plumes of black smoke billowing into the sky. They plan to stay put outside parliament until Tuesday afternoon.
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Posted: 26th, November 2012 | In: Money | Comment (1)
On Dublin’s anti-austerity march with The Girl Against Fluoride (photos)
TO Dublin for the March against austerity. We spotted Aisling Fitzgibbon, aka ‘The Girl Against Fluoride’, strip off outside Leinster House to highlight the cost of the addition of chemicals including fluoride to the water supply. She and her associates have beautiful smiles. Well, fluoride does make you stupid. You can read how here…
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Activists supporting Aisling Fitzgibbon aka 'The Girl Against Fluoride' strip off outside Leinster House to highlight the cost of the addition of chemicals including fluoride to the water supply as trade union members march through Dublin City Centre in opposition to Austerity. PRESS ASSOCIATION Photo. Picture date: Saturday November 24, 2012. Photo credit should read: Niall Carson/PA Wire
How to save on that grocery bill: eat less food
THIS somewhat surprises me. Unilever, which sells lots of food, is trying to tell people to buy and waste less food. Seems pretty odd really: killing your own business even.
You can see the advice here: all pretty standard stuff, plan your meals, only buy what you need, eat it before it goes off etc. The one and only bit that actually seems useful is this:
Remember to keep your fridge temperature below 5oC. Research shows that up to 30pc of our fridges are too warm, meaning food won’t last as long as it could. Milk goes off much quicker if the fridge is just a few degrees too warm.
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Posted: 23rd, November 2012 | In: Money, The Consumer | Comment
More Google tax dodging: and this time the might actually get done
WE’VE had all sorts of people whining about how Google doesn’t pay enough tax, from MPs down to the fools at UK Uncut. There’s a problem with the complaints they are making, quite an obvious one. But here’s a story where Google might actually be forced to cough up:
Australia released draft revisions to tax laws on Thursday, which it said were designed to stop big firms, including the local arm of Google, from shifting their income to countries such as Holland or Ireland where the tax rates are lower.
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Posted: 22nd, November 2012 | In: Money | Comments (3)
Can we call Margaret Hodge a tax avoider now?
MARGARET Hodge is the Labour MP who currently chairs the Public Accounts Committee in the Commons. Yes, I know, dreary minutiae only a politics geek could enjoy.
Except, except….it’s Mrs. Hodge who last week was lambasting Google, Amazon and Starbucks for their tax avoidance. Even, at one point, going so far as to say that of course no one thought it was illegal but was it immoral?
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Posted: 20th, November 2012 | In: Money, Politicians | Comment
Guardian job advert for teacher pays £2375996117 per annum
WANT a job that pays loads money? You do? Then get down to Croydon, where the teaching job with Protocol Education pays “£25117 – £2375996117 per annum + DEPENDANT ON EXPERIENCE” [sic].
There are places for 5 x Key Stage 2 Teachers in South Croydon, Thornton Heath, New Addington and Caterham areas.
Greece should apply pronto to avoid disappointment…
Posted: 20th, November 2012 | In: Money | Comment (1)
How to avoid £650 million in bank and credit card charges
QUITE incredibly UK consumers seem to pay £650 million a year in bank overdraft charges, late credit card payment charges and so on. That’s the sort of amount that makes payday loans look cheap (which, in some circumstances, they actually are in comparison).
British consumers have paid nearly £650m in credit card and bank account penalty fees in the past year, according to research from the UK’s first fully-secure, multi-platform finance management service OnTrees.
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The Secret European Union budget deal that isn’t
THE European Union. It’s out to get you. The Daily Express says so. Today the Express yells “SECRET EU PLOT TO STITCH IP BRITAIN.” Macer Hall’s story is that EU officials are “stitching together an ‘alternative’ financial plan that could be agreed with the 26 other member states, leaving the UK isolated”. It’s about the EU’s next €1tn seven-year budget. Britain is the only country calling for a complete EU budget freeze. The long-term budget – 2014-2020 – requires unanimity.
THe “SECRET” the Express exposes was written about on November 15. Reuters reported:
European Union officials are examining legal options to side-step a possible British veto on the bloc’s long-term budget, in a bid to weaken Prime Minister David Cameron’s trump card in the talks, diplomats said.
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Posted: 20th, November 2012 | In: Money, Politicians | Comment
How to save money: make a shopping list
MAKE a shopping list to save money. Or at least that’s the advice here. Consumers waste thousands upon thousands of pounds a year in the supermarkets. The secret to not doing so is to make a meal plan, create a shopping list and only buy what’s on it.
Shoppers overspend by an average of £30 every time they visit the supermarket, and men aged between 35 and 44 are the worst offenders. Almost a third of shoppers have no set budget for food – meaning they more frequent visits to the supermarket and greater monetary waste.
Posted: 16th, November 2012 | In: Money, The Consumer | Comment
How much money do you need to get by? Depends how high taxes are
HOW much money do you need to get by? No, not to afford all the little luxuries of life, but how much do you need just to be able to get by? As a couple, with children that is?
British families need to earn nearly £30,000 a year just to survive, even without ‘luxuries’ like holidays and meals out, according to a survey.
The study suggests that an average family now needs £24,801.51 every year for essential expenditure such as mortgage or rent payments, utilities, insurance, food, petrol, mobile phone and landline costs, and clothing.
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NatWest chase dog called Noodles for overdraft payment
BANKS, as we know, are joyless, recession-causing imbeciles. Those delightful swine at NatWest are showing this off with aplomb at the minute, chasing a dog called Noodles for money.
YOU HEARD.
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Posted: 16th, November 2012 | In: Money, Strange But True | Comment
What a silly complaint about the Southern Cross collapse
SOUTHERN Cross was, as you will remember, the care homes company that went bust. At the time it did there were great wailings that the elderly would be thrown out on hte street and how this proved private profit making was just appalling. Man.
Of course what actually happened is that the people who owned the care homes simply found another manager and no one was moved at all. Just the shareholders in Southern Cross lost all their money for the mistake of hiring the wrong people using the wrong business model. Which is exactly the way this capitalism shtick is supposed to work.
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Why don’t we all move our bank accounts more often?
WHY don’t we all move our bank accounts more often? It’s one of these very strange things about the British economy. We’ve a number of national banks. It’s easy enough to move one’s bank account yet very few of us do so. But we all also complain interminably about how the bastard banks rip us off.
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Posted: 9th, November 2012 | In: Money | Comments (3)
