My post-Budget article for the Radix thinktank considers the future of the State Pension in the light of the Chancellor's changes to National Insurance. The headline news in the Budget was a 2p cut in the main rate of National Insurance contributions for employed and self-employed people. This was the second such cut, the first being in the Autumn statement. And the Chancellor expressed an intention to go much further. He trailed the idea of abolishing personal National Insurance...
Read More »The high price of dollar safety
The world is saving like crazy. Corporations are building up cash mountains that they can’t or won’t invest in expanding their businesses. Individuals are building up pensions and precautionary savings. Governments, especially in developing countries, are building up FX reserves. The “savings glut,” as former Fed chairman Ben Bernanke dubbed it, shows no signs of dissipating. It is sloshing around the world looking for a productive home. But there isn’t one - or at least, not one that...
Read More »The high price of dollar safety
The world is saving like crazy. Corporations are building up cash mountains that they can’t or won’t invest in expanding their businesses. Individuals are building up pensions and precautionary savings. Governments, especially in developing countries, are building up FX reserves. The “savings glut,” as former Fed chairman Ben Bernanke dubbed it, shows no signs of dissipating. It is sloshing around the world looking for a productive home. But there isn’t one - or at least, not one that...
Read More »The UK Government is spinning a yarn
At Prime Minister's Questions the other day, Jeremy Corbyn produced a case study of a working single mother who would suffer a substantial real fall in income due to tax credit cuts despite the NLW and tax threshold rise. In response, David Cameron claimed the new National Living Wage and tax threshold rises would mean that working people on low incomes would be better off by 2020. Who is right?The National Living Wage will improve earned income for a high proportion of families. The...
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