I received this email from financial adviser, Hargreaves Lansdown this morning:
So, who is fuelling the budget paranoia that is very obviously penetrating Rachele Reeves' thinking?
Firstly, the comfortable elderly.
Secondly, no one else.
Tory voters are, in other words, through their capacity to win the support of powerful lobbyists like Hargreaves Lansdown, seeking to set the agenda of this supposedly Labour government. And the trouble is, they are succeeding.
What that means is that a Tory minority might have seen their chosen party thrown out of political office, but they are still ruling the roost because their agents are able to make sufficient noise on their behalf to be heard in the Treasury, and so by Reeves, who totally lacks the courage to respond appropriately to their inappropriate demands for continuing favour within our society.
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We can only hope that the reported contemplation Reeves is doing about changing the ‘fiscal fools’ will result in something better.
And that is asking a lot.
The big issue for human beings is how we can move much further in taking responsibility for how we affect other people in our lives. In other words how we can improve our social intelligence. Clearly the Labour Party under Keir Starmer’s direction isn’t doing this and certainly the previous Tory government wasn’t.
“… there are three types of personality that have problems, disturbing problems. They’re called the dark triad. They are narcissists, Machiavellians and psychopaths or sociopaths. And all of them have a defect in empathy, which means they don’t care about the consequences for the other person of what they do, so they can be manipulative. They can use their ability to attune – to the extent they have it – just for what interests them. They don’t care about the other person and it leads to great trouble.”
Daniel Goleman
https://www.npr.org/2006/10/23/6368484/is-social-intelligence-more-useful-than-iq
The implication of all this is many people lacking or lower in social intelligence will seek to have their outlook represented by political parties. These parties will operate by having individuals in their higher echelons who seek “social intelligence nullification” (SIN) which broadly takes the form of shutting down democracy in the party. We can see this with Starmer and his behind the scenes manipulators McSweeney and McFadden. They will be seeking SIN. So it’s no good us pretending that MMT is going to easily make it into the thinking of political parties the manipulators in political parties, who act in the interests of the rich, will seek to shut-down or substantially reduce the operation of social intelligence in the party. MMT is nothing if not about social intelligence!
You should post this on the previous thread on optimism. Perhaps it’ll reassure Prof M that optimism isn’t dead.
I’ll hope along with you, if you don’t mind. I too always try to believe that the good parts of a situation will prevail.
Remind me what they are again!
My inbox is full of BS from financial firms right now. “Buy AIM ISAs”, Buy EIS”, take your tax-free cash before its too late, sell this, buy that!!
I had some new people visit me just yesterday anxious about IHT – when I pointed out that it was very unlikely that any IHT would be due on their estate had they died the day before, they were astonished – “but the newspaper says”. When I pointed out that financial firm’s advertising revenue was very important to the MSM, they understood better.
It’s all complete nonsense.
Agreed
The FT reported yesterday in a small box on the front page.
“Reeves to spare PE bosses top UK tax rate in compromise on ‘loophole’
Chancellor wants to raise revenue from pay through carried interest without driving investors away”
It is behind a paywall, so I am not sure of the details, but the intention seems clear – don’t touch the wealthy!
It seems she is dropping VAT on schools, income tax on the earnings from private equity and reform on pension contributions. Domicle reform is also in doubt. You’d think she’d caved in to all the demands of the wealthy.
Thank you, both.
Private equity is not just heavily represented on the working groups the Blair organisation set up to advise Starmer, Reeves, Reynolds etc., but the way the Blair family investments (and those of their associates) have been organised since he left No 10 have influenced matters.
What can you say though about people who post the following on an investment website?
“The shameful politics of spite and envy, the juvenile dogma, and the nonsense that all can be made well if only ‘the rich paid their fair share’, have now collided with reality, and pragmatism wins, then that’s a good thing”
Nothing
There is no successful outcome from debate with people of such mean-spirited disposition. I speak from long experience.
Rachel Reeves, Keir Starmer and the Labour Party have caved in to everybody, except the marginal pensioners. Everybody with political clout receives a special pass from or to Downing Street (in one form or another, wink); except those in receipt of WFA. Tough decisions are only made if those who pay for the tough decisions are defenceless and can’t, or will not fight back.
How on earth does anyone think this thing works?
Those who control the Press are in the best position; because typically they scarcely even have to fight; a few adverse headlines in the Mail, Sun and Telegraph, or a couple of well placed calls about displeasure in the ‘Markets’ – and Labour folds like a collapsing tent.
@ Colonel Smithers. Well my take is until UK voters wise-up to most of its political parties being two-faced and saying they’ll help those on low incomes whilst impementing policies that only help the rich then the country will continue its downward drift. Essentially we have the farce of many voters electing low social intelligence politicians who are only out for themselves by shilling for the rich!
As I said on another thread, Labour lacks the competence in cabinet to stand by any tax changes that see the wealthy pay their fair share. Rachel Reeves is the closest thing they have to a financial services professional and compared to some of the hard hitters on the right – including Rishi Sunak – she might as well have been a cleaner at the Bank of England.
The wealthy will do what they always do. Machiavellian to the max. Threatening to ostracise this government. Fanciful tales of the rich departing our shores. The usual.
And Labour will swallow it wholesale and look on at these financiers with awe.
I’ve worked in financial services for years, the truth is they’re genuinely worried about the Labour Government and the claims people will leave are horseshit.
I agree with your conclusion – it matches what I hear
Hargreaves Lansdown expect the budget to ‘target the wealthy”. ??
FFS. What evidence do they have for that assertion?
I don’t see it coming. I hope to be surprised but I don’t expect to be.