Ten years ago:

http://archive.treasury.gov.uk/budget/1999/leaflet.html

Pop! must go the weasels.

Weasels in this case being overlarge companies.

It will be no reflection on the quality or dedication of employees.

Simply that there isn’t the need for what they do.

____

By increasing production efficiency in a digitally enhanced mechanically engineered fashion, the mass producers of products have soundly oversupplied their respective markets.

Just because a factory makes twice as much product at half the price doesn’t mean there are twice as many people out there waiting to buy it.

The World Economic Forum gathering at Davos will only make a beneficial difference to the world’s economies if all the delegates play games of Monopoly and notice that when all the money in the game is in the hands of a single player (the winner) the game stops and can ONLY be restarted when that money is redistributed among the other players. 

For a game to perpetuate there has to be a mechanism whereby no one player can end up with so much more money than any other player. 

Only by the delegates agreeing to the imposition of much higher taxes on themselves and their peers could real progress be made for the rest of us.

The Chairman of Marks & Spencer has said he will not take a pay increase this year. Already a fatter cat than most of us, he feels it appropriate to lay off the cream for a bit.

The majority of people would rather not die.

The majority of those who would rather die

Have been convinced they will be rewarded

Fantastically or damned for the rest of time

According to how and when they shuffle off

And how many unbelievers they take down.

_____

If your spiritual guide suggests your life is worthless and / or you should act to hasten your own death you really need to question whether they have your best interests at heart.

Happy January 11th

And all the other days, too.

Not just the high days and holidays.

100 people each have £100. Their collective worth is £10,000. They play a game.

They all stand in a circle and, all at once, each passes £10 to the person on their left.  The collective worth of the group at the end of the round is still £10,000 pounds and everybody is just as rich as they were when the game began and can play again as many times as they like.

If, instead, one person were to be given £10 by everybody else and separately to give them each back £5, at the end of the first round the total worth of the group would still be £10k but one person would have £595 and everyone else would have £95 each. After 20 rounds the game would finish with one person having the whole £10k and everyone else being broke.

Just like in board games of old, the game could not be restarted until the player with all the money redistributed it. The only way to become richer than all the money that came with the game was to borrow money from other games, thereby limiting the riches available to players of the other games until it was returned.

Something that costs £4.99 including VAT at the standard rate this coming Sunday night (30th November 2008) will cost £4.89 including VAT at the standard rate on Monday morning.

For the next thirteen months, to enjoy £10 extra spending power as part of Darling’s attempt to kickstart the UK economy one has to spend a whopping £470 on goods or services which attract VAT at the standard rate*.

Even without additional promotional offers, a Boots Advantage card earns the holder £10 of credit by spending just £250.

The generosity of our Chancellor is only half that of our favourite chemist. Not quite enough to change the world.

*Standard rate items do not include most food and non-alcoholic drinks, books and magazines, children’s clothing and footwear, construction of domestic dwellings, domestic passenger transport, drugs and prescriptions or domestic fuel and power.

World leaders gather to make economic peace, to agree a truce

Each has an interest in not being kicked while they are down

Gordon Brown is excited by the sound of fiscal stimulus

Particularly when delivered in a Scottish accent

The President of the United States of

Doesn’t care where anymore

It’s not his problem

No, Sir. Yee

Ha!

The President-Elect waits in the wings, wondering what exactly to do and understandably keen to get on with the job of whatever it turns out to be, safe in the knowledge the world cannot blame him for the collapse of the global economy and comfortable that the worse things get before he takes office the sooner they will bottom out after he does. Only when the dust has settled can the clearing up begin.

I wish him and the American people good fortune.

 www.offhome.org.uk is one year old today.

Gordon Brown insists banks sell themselves to taxpayers.

The FTSE 100 sees record percentage gains

To close 7.2% down on a week ago.

Or 12% on the week before.

So no Hurrah!