January 1 st 2010, and then again if the other lot win the election,and Greasy Dave doesnt get knocked off his bike

So has the 2.5% reduction done anything for your spending.

It's made calculating invoices a bit easier.

Well it hasn't made any difference to me but I'm willing to bet that those who will moan the loudest will be the same ones that said the cut was pointless and wouldn't make any difference.

gonefishing, I like the cut of your jib. Very jibby.

Cost a fortune in re-printing pricelists, going to have to do it all again in a few weeks. Still will have plenty of scrap paper again, every cloud……..

I can't see it winning GB any extra votes…

Just wait, it will probably go higher..

I very much doubt it will go higher…not while I'm a resident of this mis-managed country anyway. Any MP that suggested such a rise would be unlikely to survive the drive home, never mind the power to enforce the ruleing.

I think VAT is almost certain to rise. We need an increased tax take from somewhere and increasing income tax is such a no no politically. If Cameron gets in he will need to raise taxes on everyone to pay for the tax cuts for the rich he has planned ( inheritance tax) seeing as he has pledged not to cut NHS education and to increase defence spending the three main parts of the tax spend

Mof, is that what they said in 1991, when the last conservative government raised it?

Not being funny but did anyone really see prices drop 2.5% in reality? Im sure if it goes back up to 17.5% we'll all see a definate 2.5% rise in prices.

Maybe im just cynical…

In reality most things have stayed the same. The only difference I can think of is that a medium coffee at Costa costs 5p less.

McDonald's actually raised their prices shortly before the cut for all of about 3 days, before magically reducing them to the exact same price they were before. Cunning.

Cost a fortune in re-printing pricelists, going to have to do it all again in a few weeks. Still will have plenty of scrap paper again, every cloud……..

didn't you realise it was going to go back up?

and then again if the other lot win the election

Have you not noticed that whoever gets into power at the next election, we will have to spend a very long time paying for the utter mess that Comrade Brown has made of the economy?

"The problem with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people's money."

cranberry

+1

We're up to our chins in it and sinking fast, it's going to hurt (the wages earners again) alot and we have very little to show for Brown's grand social engineering project. Most tangible infrastructure was paid for on PFI so we don't really own that. In the meantime I personally haven't seen any improvement in public services or the NHS and as we all know our society is in a mess.

Which socialism is this? I can't remember any socialism … I seem to remember the collapse of capitalism relying on the state to bail its sorry ass. If that's the socialism we're talking about, then fine.

And yes I did my bit by spending more money (that was mine) rather than totally hording it for no interest. And that included a new bike.

I have just moved from retail and in the large DIY chain I worked in we took the 2.5% off at the till so we didn't have to change 10,000+ price labels. After a couple of months we simply just stopped doing the markdown and put notices up about price increases absorbing the rate cut. This may have been true, I don't know. All I know is that M and S still take it off.
I wonder what'd going to happen when the rate goes up? Prices stay the same? I doubt it!!!!

And people wonder why I was desperate to get out of retail.

If Cameron gets in he will need to raise taxes on everyone to pay for the tax cuts for the rich he has planned ( inheritance tax) seeing as he has pledged not to cut NHS education and to increase defence spending the three main parts of the tax spend

Well that ring me a bell, and i tell you what there is going to be a lot of moaning on here, expect from the usual suspect indeed.

Have you not noticed that whoever gets into power at the next election, we will have to spend a very long time paying for the utter mess that Comrade Brown has made of the economy?

"The problem with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people's money."

Where was the socialism then? People don't half talk some bollocks. New Labour is if anything a centre-right party, nothing even vaguely socialist about them. You seem to be confusing them with the Labour party – similar name but that's about it.

The only time I've noticed it at the till in M&S.. when its a happy surprise.

Cost a fortune in re-printing pricelists, going to have to do it all again in a few weeks. Still will have plenty of scrap paper again, every cloud……..

didn't you realise it was going to go back up?

Of course we did, however underlying prices have gone up as well, just means we have had an extra 2 print runs in the last 14 months.

We certainly haven't had any more customers through the door because of it.

-2.5% did not affect me very much. I suspect +2.5% won't either. I don't like it, but sometimes you have to lump it.

Whatever happens I wish they'd just be honest about putting it up (beyond the 17.5%) it needs too as TJ says to pay for the bloody mess. Income tax should rise too.

Income tax should rise too.

No it shouldn't, it's time the country lived within it's means, if the money isn't there it shouldn't be spent. Time for our halfwit politicians to prioritise and make some hard decisions. It's not time to squeeze the economically active minority yet again so the politicians can claim to be sustaining (bloated) public sector services.

We're ****!

Well and trully shafted!

About to sink without a trace!

But I'll still be voting Labour at the next election.

Stumpy john – we pay less tax than most of Europe – its not as low as it wa in relation to them but still on the low side.

Myself i would like an NHS and decent education for the young

If we all just wrote a cheque for 10k each we could get rid of the debt once and for all; I'd rather do that than listen to people moaning about it for years to come. The government messed up but there's no going back so solution needed. But then again maybe people haven't got that sort of cash…add it to our mortgages whilst rates are low.

It won't work I know….

Stumpyjon wrote, "In the meantime I personally haven't seen any improvement in public services or the NHS and as we all know our society is in a mess."

What people fail to- or don't want to- understand about the NHS is that modern medicine is more expensive than 1970s medicine. The most expensive thing a hospital can ever do is keep someone alive, which they do more of now than ever before. Increased life expectancy, better cancer treatments, better disease treatments, all staggeringly expensive. Yet people look at waiting lists as if they're a sane way to judge the success of a health system. If you keep a cancer patient alive for another year, you don't get any impressive stats to present, in fact you get a longer waiting list than you would have had they just died. If you offer a treatment that you couldn't have last year, the same applies.

I feel a bit personally about this, since the only reason I can ride a bike is because the NHS rebuilt my leg using a cutting edge treatment which wouldn't have been available 5 years before, and which wouldn't have been paid for by most private insurance. I've seen some numbers and it cost about 5 times more than the traditional treatment on the day of surgery (not to mention the higher cost of training) and the post-op care ran to about 10 times more one-on-one physio than the prognosis for the older treatments would have justified.

But, to the headline writers and knee-jerkers, all that looks like is a longer waiting list, since if I'd got the older, inferior treatment they could have seen 10 more patients in the same time. They never get to say "Look, this guy can ride a bike and run for a bus- we did that."

thisisnotaspoon – Member
We're ****!

Well and trully [sic] shafted!

About to sink without a trace!

But I'll still be voting Labour at the next election.

Thanks very much. Why? You want us to be even more ****?

Julian – 'cos he would like to still have an NHS and the tories will **** up worse?

TandemJeremy – Member
Julian – 'cos he would like to still have an NHS and the tories will **** up worse?

I know you are in the nursing profession and I have every respect for what you and the rest of the nursing profession do (that is NOT meant to sound patronising, as I have met some brilliant nurses), and whilst the NHS put my wife back together (up to a point) after a serious accident (all praise to the paramedics, but she spent a lot of money getting other stuff sorted which was not going to be sorted by the NHS), I'm not sure that the NHS is all that it's cracked up to be even after all the money that has been spent on it.

I'm not going to quote further examples as they involve other people and it wouldn't be fair to mention them or their experiences.

I shan't be voting Labour – as you probably already know!

Are you joking? I submitted the final 2010 budget for work today, now thanks to this prick I will have to renter all the costs with the new total.

"The problem with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people's money."

The problem with capitalism is they ran out with your money.

I shan't be voting Labour – as you probably already know!

Curious. You expect the other lot to make it any better?

We're ****!

Well and trully shafted!

About to sink without a trace!

Are we?

alwyn – Member
Are you joking? I submitted the final 2O10 budget for work today, now thanks to this prick I will have to renter all the costs with the new total.

Change the formula in Excel?

gonefishin – Member

Well it hasn't made any difference to me but I'm willing to bet that those who will moan the loudest will be the same ones that said the cut was pointless and wouldn't make any difference.

couldnt have said i better.

I wish, it's not in excel.

I'm a supporter of higher VAT and lower income tax though with variable rates of VAT so that essentials have little tax whilst luxuries have more. VAT is easy to collect and a fairer and cheaper way of taxing according to relative wealth.

I shan't be voting Labour – as you probably already know!

Curious. You expect the other lot to make it any better?

Yes

We're ****!

Well and trully shafted!

About to sink without a trace!

Are we?

Yes

So I believe but I'm not going to argue the point(s) as we are all free to believe different things, if not to say them – but that's for another thread.

'Night (on this thread, at least).

someone I know who knows quite a bit about these things has said to brace myself for a bigger rise than 2.5% – the moneys got to come from somewhere. and that somewhere is us, for everything we buy.

Alwyn, the return to 17,5% was announced at the same time as the cut to 15%, so if you've screwed up your budgeting whose fault is that?
a) yours
b) nobody else's
or c) all of the above