The Numbers Game
We had a budget yesterday.
I got a fiver a week pay increase.
For this, I am supposed to prostrate myself at their feet thanking them for their magnificence and largesse with a tearful promise to vote for them next time around.
They can fuck off.
Any increase is just swallowed up by further taxation. My petrol and heating oil have gone up in price and, naturally my smokes.
They used to make a little speech during the budget telling us that they are increasing the price of fags as a health measure and how the increase was to an incentive for us to quit. They’ve given up that pretence now in a tacit admission that it’s just another money grab. Smokers got one single line in the whole speech –
There will be a 50c increase in price of a pack of 20 cigarettes bringing the average price of a pack to €16, with a pro rata increase in other tobacco products.
Naturally their sin taxes came into force at midnight last night while my pay increase doesn’t appear until next year.
Miserable cunts.
Yesterday the meeja was obsessed with the budget with wall to wall analysis and dissection. Today they’re back to the tedious old business of the Virus. The health mob’s graphs have thrown a bit of a wobbler. They’re spending the day trying decide whether it’s a blip or a trend.
Give me strength!
Much the same here Grandad. My Social Security (there is a misnomer for ya), is going up but as in the past I’m fairly certain that my Medicare cost will go up by enough to cover that. It would help a great deal if the Senate and Congress would pay back some of the money they have “borrowed” from the SS coffers over the years.
It’s the same every year. They give us something and make a big fanfare out of it and then take it back [plus a good bit more] in stealth taxes. We are supposed to be grateful for this….
Some genius in our government invented the triple lock for pensions, whereby the state pension will increase each year by inflation, as measured by the Consumer Prices Index (CPI), the average wage increase or 2.5% whichever is greater. Now, anybody halfway competent in simple arithmetic will tell you this is unsustainable in the long term but our current government promised to keep it for the term of this parliament.
Until this year when:
“During the Covid pandemic, many people were earning less than usual because they were placed on furlough.
“Now, as people come off furlough and return to full pay, this has been recorded as a large rise in average earnings – an estimated 8% from May to July 2021.”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-53082530
In my world, a promise is a promise, but obviously a politician’s promise isn’t worth anything so:
“Work and Pensions Secretary Therese Coffey has said the triple lock is to be suspended for 2022-2023. Instead, the state pension will be determined by either the inflation rate or 2.5%.
“She said the triple lock would then be restored for the remainder of this Parliament, which ends in 2024.”
I’ll believe it when I see it in my bank account. I was looking forward to that 8% rise. 🙁
This is perfectly normal. They make cast iron guarantees that can be rescinded at any time. Similarly they can make hard and fast laws which they are free to repeal or ignore as they please.
The old saying about a verbal contract not being worth the paper it’s written on also applies to gubmint promises.
Unless you are one of the elected. One set of rules for the herdsman and a bit tighter set for the herd.