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’HMT, the Bank of England, and ELA
The Government agrees that a limited statutory power of direction for the Chancellor over the Bank in a time of financial crisis would be helpful in clarifying lines of responsibility and accountability…
UK debt: £1,003,900,000,000
Blame whoever or whatever you want, but net British debt, “excluding the temporary effects of financial interventions,” topped a trillion pounds sterling in December.
That’s equivalent to 64.2 per cent of GDP.
UK economic policy: less plan B, more plan A+1
If you liked the Bank of England inflation fan charts, then you’ll love the OBR’s fan charts.
GDP:
Public sector net borrowing:
Cyclically-adjusted current budget (i.e. when will the structural deficit be eliminated?):
[Something for the weekend] It’s not the banks, it’s the bankers
By Neil Collins
It’s not the banks, it’s the bankers
No inside information is needed to know what George Osborne is doing this weekend. He’s just taken delivery of the Vickers report, and must at least claim to have read it by the time everyone else sees it on Monday. We’ve a pretty good idea of the contents,
Robin Hood meets William Tell
This should make Davos a bit less tense; a win-win for the British and Swiss governments on Wednesday:
Aug 24 (Reuters) – Switzerland and Britain struck a deal on Wednesday to tax money kept by British residents in secret Swiss bank accounts,
UK inflation *non fail* shock
Cue sighs of relief at the Bank of England on Tuesday morning following news UK CPI had fallen to 4 per cent YEAR-ON-YEAR in March from 4.4 per cent YEAR-ON-YEAR in February.
[Gavyn Davies] Did Her Majesty sign the OBR Act?
I am informed that the Treasury was on tenterhooks last night, waiting for confirmation that the Queen had given the royal assent to the bill which establishes the Office of Responsibility in its final official form.
The 2011 Budget – a fine print primer
Ah, the Budget.
Taxes, benefits, sweeteners, dubious forecasts, the Gladstone box, drinking in the House (just the Chancellor, mind, if he so chooses), and Treasury civil servants staggering out of 1 Horse Guards Road to the nearest pub like students after a final exam.
Snap news
Breaking pre-market news on Tuesday,
- HM Treasury raises bank levy target to £2.5bn — statement.
- UBS Q4 results disappoint — statement.
- BG Group reports forecast beating Q4 figures; provides strategy update — statement and statement.
Hand-waving, UK bank levying, etc.
The step-by-step guide to shaking down UK banks for £2.5bn, according to a draft law released on Thursday.
But there is a rather embarrassing omission (H/T Sam Jones):
Step 1
In accordance with Part 4 of this Schedule,
Gilt-free bloodshed
In public policy terms, this will probably be the most important day of this parliament, possibly of this decade…
– The Guardian.
George Osborne is polishing his scythe… The Chancellor must now try to kill the rapacious £155bn deficit by a thousand cuts…
What’s going on inside the FSA?
Well, this is worrying. When even Britain’s Financial Services Authority acknowledges its own personnel problems, it must be serious.
From a memorandum the FSA recently sent to the Treasury Select Committee,
HMT’s very own synthetic CDO
It exists.
And it’s detailed in the first ever annual report from the UK’s Asset Protection Agency (APA).
It covers the period from December 2009 to the end of March 2010, and features some great bits of detail on the UK government’s Asset Protection Scheme (APS),
[UK Austerity Budget] George goes green
Continuing FT Alphaville’s traditional coverage of Budget Day neckwear:
What does the colour of Chancellor George Osborne’s tie mean?
Green shoots? Recovery? Incredible Hulk-style fiscal bashing? You tell us.
Coins of the UK (public spending) realm
Got a spare 10 minutes? Some technical expertise? Experience in handling large volumes of data?
Then you might be able to get some use from the just-released UK Coins data. That’s the Combined On-line Information System,
Exiting Lloyds and RBS
How do you square this circle? The government wants to sell its stakes in Lloyds Banking Group and RBS, but wants to do so in a way that maximises taxpayer value.
One way, according to an article in the Sunday Times,
It’s over
After six quarters the UK’s longest, and possibly deepest recession since the second world war has ended – but only JUST.
Q4 GDP rose 0.1 per cent quarter-on-quarter, well below forecasts. (A 0.4 per cent rise was expected).
MergerMarket’s M&A rankings
Investment banks like these things — and when the latest deal league tables show Goldman Sachs being knocked off the top spot by Morgan Stanley we can treat it as bona fide news.
From MergerMarket,
Bonus backlash
A copy of the letter sent by Joanthan Keeling, chief executive of Arden Partners, to the FT:
Dear Sir,
Bank Payroll Tax
As CEO of a quoted stockbroker I am angry to find that the draft BPT legislation appears to capture our firm,
A global banker tax? (updated with breaking news from France)
Might other countries follow the UK’s lead and hit the bankers where it really hurts?
That certainly is the impression one gets reading the letter penned by Gordon Brown and Nicolas Sarkozy in the Wall Street Journal on Thursday.
Darling’s fiscal fiction
BNP Paribas’ Alan Clarke is not the only City economist seriously displeased with Wednesday’s pre-Budget report.
Citigroup’s Michael Saunders also has a few choice words for the chancellor, who he accuses of trying to create a fiscal fiction that the UK’s huge deficit can be resolved by taxing the ‘few and not the many’.
Banker tax – further details (updated with bonus maths)
From page 48 of the pre-Budget report, unveiled on Wednesday (emphasis ours):
Box 3.2: Banking Bonuses
The Government attaches great importance to tackling the remuneration practices that contributed to excessive risk taking by the banking industry.
Banker tax unveiled
From the pre-Budget report, via Reuters:
DARLING – WILL CHARGE BANKS 50 PCT TAX RATE ON STAFF BONUSES OVER £25,000
DARLING – TAX ON BANK BONUSES EXPECTED TO YIELD £550m
And from FT.com:
The Treasury estimates that the move – which comes into immediate effect and runs until April 5 next year – will affect 20,000 bankers.
PBR preview, bankers’ bonus edition
We all know the chancellor is going to announce a bankers’ bonus tax in Wednesday’s pre-Budget report. What we don’t know are the details; Things like the level at which the tax will kick in and whether it will be levied on bonus pools or individual bonuses.
Discrepancy du jour, APS edition
FT Alphaville reported earlier on Tuesday that HM Treasury does not expect losses on its Asset Protection Scheme portfolio to exceed £60bn, meaning all of that will be borne by RBS as per the terms set out in the APS agreement.
Presenting RBS’s toxic assets
As you may have read, HM Treasury has released full details of the toxic RBS assets being guaranteed under the Asset Protection Scheme.
Annex A of the 100 page report (which was quietly put up on the HM Treasury website on Monday) provides the full breakdown of the £282bn assets being insured.
Bank windfall tax looms
According to PestoWire:
The Treasury is preparing to levy a windfall tax or super tax on British based banks, which could be announced as soon as Wednesday in the pre-budget report and would raise considerably more than £1bn a year for two or three years.