Alistar Darlings budget plan for the UK, Apr 21st 2009

[Flagg]

Im sure most of you guys in the UK have seen it on the news, or heard it on the radio or elsewhere, but what did you guys think? The link below highlights the main points:

http://www.tiscali.co.uk/community/d...arlings_Budget

I can see the first knee jerk reaction being what people think of the 50% tax rate for anyone earning over 150 K a year.
What worries me more is the borrowing being proposed. 606 billion pounds over the next 4 years. That's nearly 80% of our GDP. We haven't had a debt like that since World War II.

A lot of money is going to go into things like pension schemes, help for the unemployed, support for housebuilding and tax reliefs for businesses where as a ton of money is expected to be clawed back from Fuel duty and mostly anyone else earning 150 K.

[Flagg]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C4qznEI-c0A

In some ways I cant help but admire his optimism in this. But im no economist so I wouldn't have a clue what else could be suggested.

[Kratos]

Similar to what we have going on in America...Saddle the future with huge amounts of debt with the promise (unreasonable levels of) economic growth will pay it back.

[Bio-boosted]

I missed the price hikes. Where's the usual beer mark-up? They add 2p = the pubs add 15p. Did this not happed?

[Flagg]

I know he put a 2% increase on tobbaco tax, BioBoosted.