Have a laffer

The desperate claims from the right wing press that taxes need to be slashed is relentless and totally misplaced. The papers are thick with claims that we are headed back to the 1970’s, that growth will be destroyed, we will be destitute.

Professor Laffer has even been dragged out to comment on the UK, and has basically said we are doomed if Jeremy Hunt does not slash taxes. The Professor is famous for the Laffer curve, which states that in any economy, and all economies are different, there is a rate of taxation above which tax revenue falls as people avoid it and economic activity is constrained.

The good Profs intervention is however ruined by several facts.

The first is that plenty of economies have had and still have higher tax rates than the UK and higher growth. The UK is nowhere near the point where income would fall if taxes rose further.

The second is that during the terrible periods of high taxation quoted, the 50s, 60s and even the 70s, growth was higher than it has been since.

Finally, Professor Laffer explicitly backs Liz Truss’s appalling budget, which almost destroyed the British economy. Apparently it was not “implemented” properly.

It is worth repeating that the economy imploded not because of Guardian reading traitors but because the red in tooth and claw markets decided it turned the UK into a victim, a loser and a financial liability.

These attempts to rewrite history, not least by Ms. Truss herself are shameless and pathetic. The swivel eyed loons are still desperate to retry their failed experiments and the first step in that scheme is to dominate the debate on tax and economics.

We can therefore expect headlines and comment pieces galore on how we are doomed or in a death spiral, when in fact the terrible economic state we are in is because we have been listening to these idiots for far too long.

Jonty’s Jottings

Economics, trade and Brexit, not necessarily in that order but the dog always comes first.

By Jonty Bloom Media