The UK has very unstable economic policy. Despite one party being in charge for the last 12 years, each prime minister has wrought radically different economic policies. Under Cameron was austerity, services were cut and much pain was endured to “get the deficit down”. Under Johnson we had an investment-based economic policy, and then under Truss we are seeing tax cuts for the rich funded by borrowing which is an economic policy that I’m not sure has a name because it’s so stupid (Trussonomics?).

Already there are some calls from within the Conservative party to remove Truss and she has only been in the job for a matter of weeks.

All this time wages and services have suffered, because the political class is obsessed with ideology over the boring work of governance. I realise this is not a unique phenomenon around the world, but what seems to set apart the political class in the UK is the heady mix of egoism and delusion, that blinds them to their own incompetence until they are removed and someone else is instated.

> the tax cut being proposed in the uk at least addresses #3 above

It doesn't address it in any meaningful way. That tax cut only benefits the significantly well-off while doing nothing about the lower classes.

In the lower class, this cut doesn't give you any further incentive to work (you're screwed and won't be able to afford your rent or energy bills regardless so may as well not even bother), and the upper class never really needed an incentive.

IMO, it shouldn't been the opposite - completely abolish tax on anything under 50k or so and make it up by taxing company profits higher.

Of course, you could say "fuck the poor" and not care about them as long as the "rich" are doing fine, but the problem is that a lot of "rich" stay there only because there's there's a steady supply of "poor" that buys their goods/services (not saying this in a bad way) - now if all those "poor" are too poor to have money for discretionary spending, a lot of businesses from the "rich" will no longer have any customers to stay afloat and close, leading to job losses, etc - furthermore businesses that serve those businesses will also see a downturn, etc - essentially a cascading failure, and this doesn't even mention the other downsides that tend to come with extreme, widespread poverty such as people resorting to crime as they're out of options.

> What is global, and why is created by bad policy ?

Every country has problems caused by the pandemic, by war, and by climate change. The energy issues in Europe this winter are downstream of that.

Only the UK has chosen problems caused by Brexit.

Peter, is that you? Reads like any of the provincial or federal conservative websites. Don’t forget that people have agendas. Dislike public services, strange they have funding and staffing issues…. And how can one lower house prices without lowering the value of people’s houses? Yeah, it’s all paper money, but they react far differently during a run up rather than a run down.

And I don’t think any one country (even China or the us) is capable of causing the current inflationary trends. Googling suggests CERB ended in 2020. Pick the current acronyms to keep your political ads up to date.

Changes on the ground are gradual but basically:

* spiralling taxes on income for anyone above the bottom 20% of earners

* housing policy that actively stops construction, mis-allocates housing, maximises debt etc.

* collapsing public services due to lack of spending (NHS, Education, Local government provision)

* gold plated, very inefficient spending on certain benefits (housing and pensions and now energy)

The UK is the poster child for a lot of what Americans complain about with Boomers. When house prices go up 50% people shrug because boomers already own, when food prices go up 1%, government immediately offers anyone over 60 a huge subsidy. Then we realise there is no money so we defund health and education and increase taxes on working people. Rinse, Repeat.

The tax changes this week are nice (I will get an extra 2% in my pay packet) but they mostly just reverse the tax increases last year. Meanwhile I need to earn about 8% more this year just to keep up with inflation and because the allowances/bands don't change that will basically wipe out any gains from the "cut".

And we will need to vastly increase taxes very soon as we just decided to throw as much money at energy as we spend on education for under 18s. And that's not to solve the issue, it just paying people NOT to cut their use or insulate their houses...

/RantOnSteroids.

The headline was changed from the original, not an uncommon practice by Reuters.