The I cant believe it’s not politics thread.

[urban.spaceman]

This is the best they’ve got

 

 

[weller54]

32 minutes ago, st albans fox said:

Agree with your assessment of last time - but I still think as long as they match the Americans this time it’s enough ….

 

if the income tax cuts had gone ahead next year then would definitely need to be 1%. 

Agree!..

One thing's for sure we'll be seeing interest rates at over 6% in 2023.

[Daggers]

49 minutes ago, urban.spaceman said:

This is the best they’ve got

 

 

 

[ozleicester]

30% of companies dont pay tax in Australia.
 

Chevron - who earnt $9.1 billion and paid just $30

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-11-03/companies-that-paid-no-tax-ato-corporate-tax-transparency-covid/101607632?utm_source=sfmc&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=abc_news_newsmail_am_sfmc&utm_term=&utm_id=1969159&sfmc_id=258955504

Edited 3 November 2022 by ozleicester

[Jon the Hat]

1 hour ago, ozleicester said:

30% of companies dont pay tax in Australia.
 

Chevron - who earnt $9.1 billion and paid just $30

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-11-03/companies-that-paid-no-tax-ato-corporate-tax-transparency-covid/101607632?utm_source=sfmc&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=abc_news_newsmail_am_sfmc&utm_term=&utm_id=1969159&sfmc_id=258955504

Chevron have paid no tax in 7 years mostly because they made huge losses on capital investment in Australia.  They will pay about $3Bn next year and similar amounts ongoing, and then they will also pay the Petroleum Resource Rent Tax down the line as well.  If you don't allow companies to claim the losses when they invest in long term projects there would be zero investment in long term projects in Australia, and the future tax revenues (as well as the masses of employment and resulting taxes) would be lost.  It is how the government supports investment, and it is planned and expected.

 

Chevron and other international companies also usually argue over the interest rates they use for intercompany loans )ie Chevron borrows it cash in the US and lends it internally to other Chevron companies at an interest rate higher than it pays in the US, reflecting the risk of the Chevron entity.  The ATO often disagrees with these rates and takes companies to court.  They won a case on this against Chevron worth $340M, which is important, but pretty small compared to the future taxes Chevron will pay.

 

Edited 3 November 2022 by Jon the Hat

[ozleicester]

4 hours ago, Jon the Hat said:

Chevron have paid no tax in 7 years mostly because they made huge losses on capital investment in Australia.  They will pay about $3Bn next year and similar amounts ongoing, and then they will also pay the Petroleum Resource Rent Tax down the line as well.  If you don't allow companies to claim the losses when they invest in long term projects there would be zero investment in long term projects in Australia, and the future tax revenues (as well as the masses of employment and resulting taxes) would be lost.  It is how the government supports investment, and it is planned and expected.

 

Chevron and other international companies also usually argue over the interest rates they use for intercompany loans )ie Chevron borrows it cash in the US and lends it internally to other Chevron companies at an interest rate higher than it pays in the US, reflecting the risk of the Chevron entity.  The ATO often disagrees with these rates and takes companies to court.  They won a case on this against Chevron worth $340M, which is important, but pretty small compared to the future taxes Chevron will pay.

 

Ampol, Chevron, Woodside and Santos all paid more in political donations ($450,350 combined) in 2020-21 than they paid in income tax ($30 combined).


 

Coal giant Glencore -- currently being prosecuted in the UK for paying massive bribes -- paid zero tax on more than $2.8 billion in taxable income, off more than $16 billion in revenue. 

Edited 3 November 2022 by ozleicester

[st albans fox]

8 hours ago, weller54 said:

Agree!..

One thing's for sure we'll be seeing interest rates at over 6% in 2023.

Can’t see more than 5.5% absolute tops …. It’s not an old fashioned boom/bust cycle. We will be in recession  

[CosbehFox]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-kent-63473640.amp
 

Largely gone under the radar of public consciousness - a 66yr old man threw three petrol bombs at a immigrant detention centre in Kent. He was later found dead. 
 

Some chilling similarities when parts of the Tory party and media whipped up people into a frenzy about undiplomatic MPs and now they have switch targets, an attack occurs. 

[ozleicester]

[Daggers]

51 minutes ago, ozleicester said:

Yeh but they invest in something or other so we should be lining up to toss off the chief exec and give him whatever disposable cash we have left. God bless them for their investing in things. 
 

People defending the tax avoidance of global corporations can royally get in the sea. 

[bovril]

On 01/11/2022 at 23:48, dsr-burnley said:

Yes, it was technically advisory.  And so in principle if the result had voted to stay by a million or so votes, Boris Johnson or any other PM would have been perfectly entitled to take the UK out of the EU on the same pathetic pretext that the referendum shouldn't have been taken seriously.

 

But I suspect if they did, all the people arguing "it was advisory" or "it was too important a decision to be made by popular vote" would have screamed foul like nobody's business.  Because what they're objecting to isn't the principle that the decision was arrived at in the wrong way, what they're objecting to is that it gave the "wrong" result.

This is like saying 'the defendant wouldn't have protested if he'd been found not guilty'. I don't quite understand why you think people will simply accept something that makes them poorer and their country weaker

[Dahnsouff]

1 hour ago, CosbehFox said:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-kent-63473640.amp
 

Largely gone under the radar of public consciousness - a 66yr old man threw three petrol bombs at a immigrant detention centre in Kent. He was later found dead. 
 

Some chilling similarities when parts of the Tory party and media whipped up people into a frenzy about undiplomatic MPs and now they have switch targets, an attack occurs. 

Sorry, but whatever point you are making, this has not gone under the radar by any measure - and what is the radar of public conciousness?!?

[orangecity23]

Didn't Shell announce they were spending billions buying back their own shares to pump up the value of them? That's the kind of priority they have for "investment", the kind that will massively increase the take home pay of their CEO and execs, as they are almost certain to be getting plenty of shares as part of their remuneration.

[Dahnsouff]

5 minutes ago, orangecity23 said:

Didn't Shell announce they were spending billions buying back their own shares to pump up the value of them? That's the kind of priority they have for "investment", the kind that will massively increase the take home pay of their CEO and execs, as they are almost certain to be getting plenty of shares as part of their remuneration.

Yes https://www.shell.com/investors/information-for-shareholders/share-buybacks.html#:~:text=Shell plc (the 'company',share capital of the company.

and this sounds impressive from the headline figure, but judging from the profits being made, is a bit sh*t - https://www.shell.co.uk/media/2022-media-releases/shell-uk-aims-to-invest-up-to-euro-25-billion-in-the-uk-energy-system.html

 

However, I do not know what recent investment numbers look like

[dsr-burnley]

20 minutes ago, bovril said:

This is like saying 'the defendant wouldn't have protested if he'd been found not guilty'. I don't quite understand why you think people will simply accept something that makes them poorer and their country weaker

Because that's democracy.  Once you say that democracy can be overridden in the interests of the money men, then you have to decide which money men are in charge.  If you have a man in charge and you don't like him, how do you get rid of him if you have accepted the principle that he isn't subject to democratic vote?

[dsr-burnley]

1 hour ago, ozleicester said:

Football crowds have risen by millions between October 2020 and now.  Why is that?  Clue - same reason as Shell company share prices have risen.

 

The Shell share price is lower now than it was in the whole of 2018 and 2019.  What this bloke is doing is picking the price at its lowest point in the heart of the covid crisis and using that as his base point for normal trading conditions.

 

 

[bovril]

12 minutes ago, dsr-burnley said:

Because that's democracy.  Once you say that democracy can be overridden in the interests of the money men, then you have to decide which money men are in charge.  If you have a man in charge and you don't like him, how do you get rid of him if you have accepted the principle that he isn't subject to democratic vote?

lmao

"Why would people accept something that makes them worse off?"

"That's democracy"

[Dahnsouff]

12 minutes ago, dsr-burnley said:

Because that's democracy.  Once you say that democracy can be overridden in the interests of the money men, then you have to decide which money men are in charge.  If you have a man in charge and you don't like him, how do you get rid of him if you have accepted the principle that he isn't subject to democratic vote?

Hypernormalisation demonstrates this with bankers in New York in the 1970s

[leicsmac]

16 minutes ago, dsr-burnley said:

Because that's democracy.  Once you say that democracy can be overridden in the interests of the money men, then you have to decide which money men are in charge.  If you have a man in charge and you don't like him, how do you get rid of him if you have accepted the principle that he isn't subject to democratic vote?

The whole matter of democratic self determination and how far it extends and how far it *should* extend is a massive discussion, and it honestly becomes more of a minefield the more you read about it.

[CosbehFox]

43 minutes ago, Dahnsouff said:

Sorry, but whatever point you are making, this has not gone under the radar by any measure - and what is the radar of public conciousness?!?

Well it wasn’t my radar. Despite being sat in an office on Monday, I didn’t hear about it on the radio we have player. No one brought it up and it certainly didn’t make the front page spreads of the newspapers. 
 

Instead it was pushed down the media list because of Matt sodding Hancock 

[Dahnsouff]

Just now, CosbehFox said:

Well it wasn’t my radar. Despite being sat in an office on Monday, I didn’t hear about it on the radio we have player. No one brought it up and it certainly didn’t make the front page spreads of the newspapers. 
 

Instead it was pushed down the media list because of Matt sodding Hancock 

Fair enough, it was certainly on the news feeds I monitor and the news at large, quite right as it was grim

[st albans fox]

25 minutes ago, dsr-burnley said:

Football crowds have risen by millions between October 2020 and now.  Why is that?  Clue - same reason as Shell company share prices have risen.

 

The Shell share price is lower now than it was in the whole of 2018 and 2019.  What this bloke is doing is picking the price at its lowest point in the heart of the covid crisis and using that as his base point for normal trading conditions.

 

 

When oil was $20/barrel in 2020 and petrol was falling towards £1/litre, I didn’t see many people arguing that we should be bailing out the oil companies ….

 

the profits are incredible at the moment - the unit cost is through the roof - I doubt their gross margins are increased. 
 

windfall taxes because of the reasons for  the the unit price increase to v high levels are valid 

[urban.spaceman]

Leicestershire's finest

 

 

 

 

[Daggers]

1 hour ago, bovril said:

lmao

"Why would people accept something that makes them worse off?"

"That's democracy"

I demand the final say on how my next operation is performed because democracy.

[dsr-burnley]

2 hours ago, bovril said:

lmao

"Why would people accept something that makes them worse off?"

"That's democracy"

I really don't understand the objection.  I strongly suspect my taxes are going to rise shortly which will make me worse off.  Why should I accept it?  Because that's democracy.  The elected government wants to raise taxes, which I don't, but I have to accept it unless I can find enough like-minded people to vote for a government that does not want to raise taxes.

 

I understand that in a sense, it is better to have a benevolent and wise dictator making the important decisions and not letting the people have a say.  But if you do that, how do you ensure that it isn't someone like Hitler or Stalin or Mussolini or Napoleon or Pol Pot or even Putin who is in charge?  Democracy is the biggest safeguard against dictatorship, and just because we may be a little financially better off in the short term if we don't have democracy, does not (in my view) make it a good idea.