407 Billion Pounds
Discussion
407 billion pounds - it seems this is the amassed bill for the UK government's plethora of coronavirus support schemes:
Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme (Furlough Scheme)
Bounce Back Loans
Self-Employment Income Support Scheme
Business rates holidays
Temporary VAT reduction in certain sectors
Temporary SDLT reduction
Restart Grant Scheme
Recovery Loan Scheme
Any others?
I fully understand the need to financially support certain individuals and businesses, but did Boris and Rishi in fact oversee egregious squandering of the public's cash, with significant amounts ending up either poorly spent or in the hands of fraudsters?
Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme (Furlough Scheme)
Bounce Back Loans
Self-Employment Income Support Scheme
Business rates holidays
Temporary VAT reduction in certain sectors
Temporary SDLT reduction
Restart Grant Scheme
Recovery Loan Scheme
Any others?
I fully understand the need to financially support certain individuals and businesses, but did Boris and Rishi in fact oversee egregious squandering of the public's cash, with significant amounts ending up either poorly spent or in the hands of fraudsters?
Olivera said:
407 billion pounds - it seems this is the amassed bill for the UK government's plethora of coronavirus support schemes:
Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme (Furlough Scheme)
Bounce Back Loans
Self-Employment Income Support Scheme
Business rates holidays
Temporary VAT reduction in certain sectors
Temporary SDLT reduction
Restart Grant Scheme
Recovery Loan Scheme
Any others?
I fully understand the need to financially support certain individuals and businesses, but did Boris and Rishi in fact oversee egregious squandering of the public's cash, with significant amounts ending up either poorly spent or in the hands of fraudsters?
egregiousCoronavirus Job Retention Scheme (Furlough Scheme)
Bounce Back Loans
Self-Employment Income Support Scheme
Business rates holidays
Temporary VAT reduction in certain sectors
Temporary SDLT reduction
Restart Grant Scheme
Recovery Loan Scheme
Any others?
I fully understand the need to financially support certain individuals and businesses, but did Boris and Rishi in fact oversee egregious squandering of the public's cash, with significant amounts ending up either poorly spent or in the hands of fraudsters?
A word that used to mean good, now meaning bad. There can't be too many words that now mean the opposite?
Inflammable springs to mind.
Olivera said:
407 billion pounds - it seems this is the amassed bill for the UK government's plethora of coronavirus support schemes:
This is a lot of money that will now not be available to be spent in the future, on important things that governments spend on, like health and social care, education, etc. All these things will lead to poorer outcomes over the long term.And paying it back or just paying the interest on it will mean higher taxes, thus less money in the pockets of consumers.
This upcoming 1.25% National Insurance increase is just the start (and this tax increase is being reported as being too much for some people to afford)
popegregory said:
Fraudsters / their mates?
This. I've seen an example of a bounce back loan of £50k given to a foreign student who was claiming that they had expected to earn over £200k during 2021 as a sole trader working as a hairdresser. Zero checks made apparently as banks were forbidden to make even basic sanity checks. The cash was out of the country within hours of being deposited. Ashfordian said:
This is a lot of money that will now not be available to be spent in the future, on important things that governments spend on, like health and social care, education, etc. All these things will lead to poorer outcomes over the long term.
And paying it back or just paying the interest on it will mean higher taxes, thus less money in the pockets of consumers.
This upcoming 1.25% National Insurance increase is just the start (and this tax increase is being reported as being too much for some people to afford)
I’ve a feeling that we may see our income tax thresholds frozen for a VERY long time (imagine 15 years on top of the existing freeze). A whopping fiscal drag And paying it back or just paying the interest on it will mean higher taxes, thus less money in the pockets of consumers.
This upcoming 1.25% National Insurance increase is just the start (and this tax increase is being reported as being too much for some people to afford)
I can see higher rate tax payers pension reduced to 20% the 25% pension fund draw tax free be removed.
Possibly the removal of the tax wrapper on ISA TESSA PEPS and removal of the tax wrapper on the principle primary property.
anonymous said:
[redacted]
It was called Test and Trace, most of the money went on all those free tests that everyone has relied on to be able to go to work and keep their kids in school.The bill is under £6k each, which seems quite low considering what happened and how long it's gone on for.
Olivera said:
407 billion pounds - it seems this is the amassed bill for the UK government's plethora of coronavirus support schemes:
Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme (Furlough Scheme)
Bounce Back Loans
Self-Employment Income Support Scheme
Business rates holidays
Temporary VAT reduction in certain sectors
Temporary SDLT reduction
Restart Grant Scheme
Recovery Loan Scheme
Any others?
I fully understand the need to financially support certain individuals and businesses, but did Boris and Rishi in fact oversee egregious squandering of the public's cash, with significant amounts ending up either poorly spent or in the hands of fraudsters?
Oddly enough, I've just seen a TV prog about the uses of specialists in investigations. One was a fraud squad. The offender, sentenced to a minmum of 40 years a couple of years ago for double murder, applied for 8 bounce-back loans of £50,000 each for shell companies, all created on the same day, all without assets, all of which collapsed. One man, a cool £400,000 of 'my' money. I missed the justification of £8 million fraudulent payments.Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme (Furlough Scheme)
Bounce Back Loans
Self-Employment Income Support Scheme
Business rates holidays
Temporary VAT reduction in certain sectors
Temporary SDLT reduction
Restart Grant Scheme
Recovery Loan Scheme
Any others?
I fully understand the need to financially support certain individuals and businesses, but did Boris and Rishi in fact oversee egregious squandering of the public's cash, with significant amounts ending up either poorly spent or in the hands of fraudsters?
I thought the idea had some use but expected some degree of management. They've written off £4.9 bilion in predicted fraud losses. In such situations, to expect total compliance is unreasonable. Few would expect to limit fraud to what they normally pay out in benefits, but £4.9billion! In such circumstances, you'd not expect the person in charge to try for PM.
The programme was on BBC iPlayer, called CSI something or other.
It truly is shocking the amount of money thrown at this over reaction! Most of the funds have been squandered and a lot funnelled off to MP’s friends and family who quickly set companies up to milk their teat.
I would say the next 2 generations will feel this in their lives as tax payers, it’s outrageous when you think of it like that. 2 years of madness will cost so many for a lot of years!
By chance I was reading a piece on the three gorges damn in China, this thing is colossal, a huge piece of engineering that supplies the majority of the power for Chinese citizens, it’s so big that the mass of water it holds back affected the globes rotation. Obviously there is a lot of cost for something like this, but the benefits it offers are substantial.
What really shocked me was the cost to build, while massive it is dwarfed by the spend we as a country have thrown at Covid. It’s shocking and maddening when you see things like this as you realise the people we put in power really are incompetent and blinkered and self serving greedy a
holes.
Cost to build. £35 billion. Cost of The covid response, many, many times that. Utterly bizarre. I have lost all hope in humanity and the people we elect to make decisions.
If we had invested that money, the country could have been truly building back better. Instead we have a lot of hot air and the biggest hang over we’ve ever witnessed.
I would say the next 2 generations will feel this in their lives as tax payers, it’s outrageous when you think of it like that. 2 years of madness will cost so many for a lot of years!
By chance I was reading a piece on the three gorges damn in China, this thing is colossal, a huge piece of engineering that supplies the majority of the power for Chinese citizens, it’s so big that the mass of water it holds back affected the globes rotation. Obviously there is a lot of cost for something like this, but the benefits it offers are substantial.
What really shocked me was the cost to build, while massive it is dwarfed by the spend we as a country have thrown at Covid. It’s shocking and maddening when you see things like this as you realise the people we put in power really are incompetent and blinkered and self serving greedy a
holes.Cost to build. £35 billion. Cost of The covid response, many, many times that. Utterly bizarre. I have lost all hope in humanity and the people we elect to make decisions.
If we had invested that money, the country could have been truly building back better. Instead we have a lot of hot air and the biggest hang over we’ve ever witnessed.
Edited by Evolved on Sunday 30th January 21:21
Johnnytheboy said:
How much economic damage would a laissez-faire do nothing approach have caused?
How many people would now be on unemployment benefit if furlough hadn't been a thing?
We'll never know, but it seems to a hardened tory like me that this was a time to go all Keynesian.
It’s the “doing something” which totalled the economy and required the spend. For barely any benefit to the death numbers etc.How many people would now be on unemployment benefit if furlough hadn't been a thing?
We'll never know, but it seems to a hardened tory like me that this was a time to go all Keynesian.
From the FT regarding BBL:
"The taxpayer is facing total losses of up to £17bn from defaults, fraud and error.
The predicted losses make the BBLS the most costly of the government’s Covid business support schemes. Fraud and errors in the furlough, self-employed income support and Eat Out to Help Out schemes total about £5.8bn."
"The taxpayer is facing total losses of up to £17bn from defaults, fraud and error.
The predicted losses make the BBLS the most costly of the government’s Covid business support schemes. Fraud and errors in the furlough, self-employed income support and Eat Out to Help Out schemes total about £5.8bn."
Derek Smith said:
Oddly enough, I've just seen a TV prog about the uses of specialists in investigations. One was a fraud squad. The offender, sentenced to a minmum of 40 years a couple of years ago for double murder, applied for 8 bounce-back loans of £50,000 each for shell companies, all created on the same day, all without assets, all of which collapsed. One man, a cool £400,000 of 'my' money. I missed the justification of £8 million fraudulent payments.
I thought the idea had some use but expected some degree of management. They've written off £4.9 bilion in predicted fraud losses. In such situations, to expect total compliance is unreasonable. Few would expect to limit fraud to what they normally pay out in benefits, but £4.9billion! In such circumstances, you'd not expect the person in charge to try for PM.
The programme was on BBC iPlayer, called CSI something or other.
Months and months ago I raised this very criticism of the Treasury, and just today raised the point the people who are supposed to regulate this stuff don't know their arse from elbow. The huge sums of loss, can't all be Chalked up to expediency and urgency. Even IF some of the benefits are NOT directly Treasury oversight, they pay for it. I thought the idea had some use but expected some degree of management. They've written off £4.9 bilion in predicted fraud losses. In such situations, to expect total compliance is unreasonable. Few would expect to limit fraud to what they normally pay out in benefits, but £4.9billion! In such circumstances, you'd not expect the person in charge to try for PM.
The programme was on BBC iPlayer, called CSI something or other.
Oh, and 400billion sounds a lot, but people ought to recalibrate what a lot is these days - especially if its perpetualised. Whatever debt we raised to pay for it, just rolls over. And over. And over until inflation has done its thing.
This is one of the main things that makes me wonder why people think the uk government (along with the others) have a deliberate plot to drag Covid measures out or created it as part of some conspiracy.
A. It’s hard for different governments to agree on minor things, let alone conspiring over a ‘fake’ virus.
B. Why would governments initiate something that is so costly to the finances of the country?
A. It’s hard for different governments to agree on minor things, let alone conspiring over a ‘fake’ virus.
B. Why would governments initiate something that is so costly to the finances of the country?
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