UK Budget Special: What Will It Cost You?

Merryn is joined by Stephanie Flanders, Head of Economics and Government at Bloomberg, Helen Thomas, founder and CEO of Blonde Money, and Money Distilled newsletter author John Stepek, to break down key announcements from the November Budget and what those changes mean for markets, investors and households.

The conversation was recorded in front of an audience at Bloomberg's European Headquarters in London. 

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, Radio News. Welcome to Meren Talks Money,
the podcast in which people who know the markets explain
the markets. I'm Maren zumsetweb listeners. As some of you

(00:24):
will know, we have made a bit of a tradition
of hosting a live recording of the podcast the morning
after the budget. So earlier today I sat down with
a familiar cast of Merin Talks Money guests to talk
through our reactions to the budget and to take listener questions.
Joining me in Bloomberg's London headquarters was John Steppeck, my
co host and author of the Money Distilled newsletter, Stephanie Flanders,

(00:45):
Bloomberg's head of Government and Economics, and Helen Thomas, CEO
of Blonde Money. Now, this we are hoping is going
to become a long term tradition. We did this last
year the same panel. You were here last yearn you, Stephanie,
John Bial's say me.

Speaker 2 (01:01):
Okay.

Speaker 3 (01:04):
And the idea is that we do a.

Speaker 1 (01:07):
Live podcast here the morning after the budget from Bloomberg
headquarters here in London. So with me today Stephanie Flanders,
head of Economics and Government at Bloomberg, Helen Thomas, you
were here last your way, I was not worked. Okay,
Well come every year please, founder and CEO of Blonde
Money and John Steppeck, senior reporter and author of the
award winning a multi award winning Money Distilled newsletter. I

(01:30):
will say, by the way, that this podcast has also
won an award, So there's an award winning podcast right now.
Before I start, I just want to check the feel
of the audience.

Speaker 3 (01:39):
Who is happy with the budget?

Speaker 1 (01:40):
Hands up the right, Oh, well, two hands have got free,
hands have gone up. I think we've got about three
hundred and fifty people in the audience who thought it
was a good budget for Rachel Reeves more hands okay,
good budget for young people, no old people, for more

(02:02):
of their okay, for growth, not a single hand, not
a thinker. That was my aim to go to a
bit where not a single hand went up.

Speaker 3 (02:12):
Okay.

Speaker 1 (02:13):
So can we start Helen with you now? The question
that a lot of people ask before this budget and
after it is is this enough for Rachel? We used
to keep a job for a.

Speaker 4 (02:23):
Few more weeks, maybe months at best, and she can
thank the Fed's John Williams for that, okay, Because what
we have had is the market giving her the benefit
of the doubt because broadly the market now seeing potentially
will rate cuts out of the US is sort of

(02:44):
in a slightly more benign mood. So yes, benefit of
the doubt for now, but it will unravel, It will
unravel politically, and we'll probably come onto it.

Speaker 1 (02:53):
Okay, So as far as the guild market is concerned,
everything's basically fine.

Speaker 4 (02:58):
For the next well for sort of the next few
days and weeks. Okay, if you want me to read
out the bit of the OBL report that means it
isn't No.

Speaker 3 (03:07):
I don't want you to read it out. I want
you to summarize.

Speaker 4 (03:10):
Okay, borrowing will be is higher, and the fiscal consolidation
comes later. Yeah, that is a pretty toxic mix if
anyone thinks they're going to do fiscal consolidation in the
year before scheduled election.

Speaker 3 (03:22):
Yeah, so this is what the markets may be missing.

Speaker 1 (03:24):
There's a lot of spending up front, but the consolidation
itself is backloaded, and we can't be absolutely sure that
very many things those things will happen, and we'll come
onto the mansion tags later, which is one of the
things that I suspect the audience is super interested in
and which I suspect will never happen.

Speaker 5 (03:39):
John, from your point of view, Yeah, I think.

Speaker 6 (03:42):
I mean, I agree with Hell and I do think
the other issue is that possibly people I think they
will get a little bit too excited about the gelp's
market these days because of what happened to realized choice.
And the thing that we have to remember is that
when that happened, it was an extremely fair rail moment
in global microeconomics, so interesting, it's shooting up. And on
top of that, Britain had some kind of LDI leverage

(04:05):
inside the system. So you can think what you like
about Liz Trust, but she was throwing a Molotov cocktail
at Agenda Tower. That's the point. So what has happened
now is the guilts market is much more stable. Also,
the Debt Management Office is managing the issuance much more so.
For example, they canceled three scheduled thirty year guilt auctions,

(04:26):
so that means there are fewer chunks of long term
debt being issued, which means the supplies down, which is
the reason that yield went down yesterday, because if you
need thirty year gilts, that are a few of them
kicking about So I think all of that stuff is
easy to neglect because we do get obsessed with the
politics and the ushi. But equally, as Helen said, it's
also because they fed now looks as if it might

(04:47):
cut interest roots. So it's you know, there's a big
chunk of things going on that make her you know,
she's throwing a Molotov cocktail. She's thrown it at like,
you know, a skyscraper or you know, a kind of
fireproof trump.

Speaker 1 (04:59):
Okay, and this was a relatively non inflationary budget, particularly
relatively yes, well.

Speaker 6 (05:03):
Yeah, I mean relatively speaking, it still wasn't you know
she was pushing back against you know, like she's sort
of gaming the figures a bit over the next year
by you know, poising the index and the train fairs
and things like that. But certainly putting the minimum wage
up by four point one percent is not.

Speaker 5 (05:20):
That's an inflationary younger people.

Speaker 6 (05:22):
Oh yeah, And it's also because you know, because supermarket's
employer paid a lot of people who I mean to
be through the supermarkets all pay above minimum wage. But
if you're going to keep paying above minimum wage, and
then every time minimum wage goes up, you have to
bump up your staff salaries. I mean quite apart from
the impact on kind of wage compression and you know,
damaging people's motivation to work. The point is they need
to pass that cost on somehow. In the Bank of

(05:43):
England itself said, you know earlier this year one of
these food prices have gone up. Isn't because global food
prices are higher. It's because the kind of labor costs
are having to get passed on by the supermarkets, which
are extremely low margin businesses. As I suspect everyone in
this room probably knows. So yeah, so yeah, I'm not
particularly interest, but I think the reason she's got away

(06:05):
with it is bequised. The envitement is much more forgiving.

Speaker 1 (06:08):
Yeah, definitely have any major surprises in their view.

Speaker 7 (06:12):
Well, so the surprise was actually the market reaction is
at some level, and I think it also underscored the
missed opportunity because you had a budget that was I'm
not sure, at least for the purposes of today, I'm
going to be slight. I'm going to try really hard
to be a bit more positive because it just feels
like otherwise we're going to be beating our stick over
this budget for the next hour.

Speaker 5 (06:31):
But it's hard.

Speaker 7 (06:33):
I have to say, it's hard to find things to
good say, but I think it was if you're looking
at the UK and thinking is this, and you would
many people were, obviously, and the global markets were thinking
this when the Labor government came in, and were actually
betting on the UK, putting money into the UK on
the basis that this was going to be a government
that was going to be more long term, certainly more

(06:53):
stable politically, was going to take some of these tough
choices after all this chaos, and instead you've had a
series of budgets that made all the same sort of
awkward short term compromises. I wouldn't say these I mean
they're obviously in a labor direction. I wouldn't say they're
fundamentally worse than some of the compromises that were made
in the previous government. But you certainly haven't seen a
step change in the quality of macro decision making or

(07:18):
a government taking advantage of the fact that it had
a full term ahead and a large majority. And I
think in this case, you know you had and our economists,
chief economists Dan Hanson had identified you know, you have
that money on the table that you could have got
from persuading the markets that actually you were going to
you were willing to take some pain, that you were

(07:38):
willing to have some front loaded fiscal consolidation, which also
incidentally could have helped the more sort of fundamental way,
Hey up the Bank of England to cut rates sooner.
And when I saw how little the market had reacted
to this one, you know, purely with the reassurance that
there was more margin for error now, but not that
we won't actually be making those errors, I thought, Wow,

(08:00):
they really could have.

Speaker 5 (08:01):
They could have come away.

Speaker 7 (08:02):
We had what four basis points cut in yeals, it
could have been twenty. We could have got halfway back
to the US, potentially on a day where people, as
we've all said, you know, the markets were feeling a
little bit more favorable. Anyway, that gap with the US.
There's no sensible reason for it, even if you look
at the long term fundamentals, except this feeling that UK

(08:23):
governments can no longer do difficult things, which is true,
which you know, based on you know, all available evidence,
seems to be true.

Speaker 1 (08:32):
What difficult thing do you think that she could have
had to go at?

Speaker 7 (08:35):
I mean the obvious one, but it's funny because you know,
it's a bad sign for a government that has this
many years ahead that you're constantly going back to things
they might have done a year earlier. Yeah, So, you know,
this time a year ago, we were saying, why did
she sign up to that national insurance cut that Jeremy
Hunt or the two success of Jeremy Hunt national insurance cuts,
and why hadn't she not just said we're going to

(08:55):
reverse those, but we'll be back to where we were,
will keep rates exactly where they were a year ago,
but we don't think these cuts are affordable. That would
have saved her twenty billion pounds of pain. Then we
got to this budget, we said, well, why hasn't she
done you know, why hasn't she been braver on saying
the world has changed, you know, and actually tackled some
of the things on income tax. Same with the spring
statement that we had a complete change in the global

(09:18):
environment with Trump and the intensification in Ukraine, and yet
they still missed that opportunity. So I just think, you know,
the real shame is that we are constantly saying she's
missed an opportunity. She's just doing the minimum, and you know,
we're going to look back and say, wow, there's just
there's so many things that this government could have done
that it's not done. And instead, as we're pointing out,

(09:38):
the welfare bill is going up and the same physical
challenges are there.

Speaker 3 (09:42):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (09:43):
Well, we were talking about this earlier, about the signals
that we're sending here, and one of the sort of
extraordinary things that you can look at at the moment
to see that the total welfare bill is remarkably similar
to the total income tax bill. And you get to
a point when you're looking at maybe young people working
and working very hard paining their income tax and they
can now look at it and go wow, pretty much
every pound I pay an income tax is going one

(10:04):
way or another into the welfare bill. And that's a
terrible signal to send to our young people.

Speaker 7 (10:08):
And it's also just a weird signal that disc government.
I mean, you've got a particular thing around.

Speaker 5 (10:12):
You know. I think it was.

Speaker 7 (10:15):
Really disappointing and you know, dereliction to not push harder
on the welfare of formula, but to not push to
not get anything in return for this kind of important
contribution to child poverty. But you would always have said,
given the downsides of that, you would always have said
it had to go with some more serious reform and
to end up with nothing.

Speaker 5 (10:35):
On the other side of the ledger, I think, well.

Speaker 1 (10:37):
There is something the return to face to face appointments well,
and I think that sounds little bit and actually maybe
quite big.

Speaker 7 (10:43):
I was actually yesterday someone asked me, you know, what's
some sort of the opposite of an unexploded bomb, you know,
the sort of positive things that might unexpectedly go well
in the last year, And that was the while I highlighted.
I think, I think there is a possibility that that
will have a much bigger effect on the roles. But
remember you've still got a lot of people who you know,
the fixed number of people already on the rolls as

(11:03):
well driving up the bills.

Speaker 1 (11:05):
Helen were let's let's pick up that, then let's go
for something positive. Were there any hidden positive surprises in
there for you? Do you think I have a horrible
feeling the answer is going to be no.

Speaker 4 (11:13):
But well I want to give I suppose give some
credit to Rachel Ruves that she was trying to square
an impossible circle and it could have been worse.

Speaker 3 (11:23):
So it could have been worse that's not what I'm
looking for, no.

Speaker 4 (11:25):
Okay, okay, so yes, all right, let me let me
think about that.

Speaker 3 (11:31):
It's quite difficult, okay, John.

Speaker 8 (11:37):
I was.

Speaker 4 (11:40):
In terms of, well, I've got to go back to
this thing about welfare, because the front page of the
newspapers this morning pretty much singularly or negative.

Speaker 3 (11:49):
But you know, it's what is it?

Speaker 4 (11:51):
You know, the shirkers, the strivers are paying for the shirkers.
So we just roll on all the time, and what
is this government about? What is its strategy, what is
its narrative, what is it s message? Where are its priorities?
And then this tussle over welfare turned into a temic
debate about the two child benefit cap, and now it's
rolled into shirkers versus drivers, which is surely not what

(12:11):
the government wanted it to do.

Speaker 3 (12:12):
So sorry, that's negative again.

Speaker 4 (12:15):
They okay, okay, Well, she has, as we started on this,
given something more to the sort of labor. It's a
labor budget for labor people. I'm a labor person doing
progressive things.

Speaker 3 (12:29):
She said that. I think she's she has sold.

Speaker 4 (12:33):
That to some degree, so perhaps she has managed to
bring a bit together. The splitting parts elements the Labor Party.

Speaker 3 (12:43):
Okay, brave Helen.

Speaker 6 (12:47):
It's really didn't work with the line Fell tax. There
was a line Fell tax which was basically I'm not
an infrastructure of gay, so then that I might change.
They were going to like multiplayer by about ten teams men.
You can never build our hose again in the entire country.

Speaker 5 (13:03):
So that was quite a good idea.

Speaker 3 (13:05):
Slash that would be.

Speaker 1 (13:06):
A much better idea because yeah, constructure and it's one
of the reasons why we have dumping across the UK,
because it's so expensive to move stuff to a land
filled stuff there.

Speaker 7 (13:15):
Is I mean, what's ironic about this government is all
the good stuff they're doing is the stuff they're really
trying to hide not talking about very much at all.
So as she did mention John Fingleton's report on the
making it easier to build nuclear power stations, I mean
that goes to this whole swath of things of why
is it so flipping difficult to build anything in this country?
And there has been quite a lot of active involvement

(13:36):
if you.

Speaker 5 (13:36):
Look for my sins. I was actually looking.

Speaker 7 (13:38):
At some of the amendments in the remember it's called
now Land Planning and Infrastructure Bill, which for some reason
is still not got roll ascent. But anyway, there was
an intervention actually by number ten to make that even
tougher in terms of overruling local councils on big projects,
a number of things that should make it easier also
to do big infrastructure and those things. You know, if

(14:00):
it becomes not impossible to build a nuclear power station,
I think that's something that you know, future governments will
benefit from. But it's an important change which you know,
let's face it, all of those the planning, all of
those things got much worse under the last fifteen years.
There was no concerted pressure from the Conservatives on that,
so you know, I think that kind of thing matters. Also,

(14:21):
I know it's not very popular and many people have
said it's something that might get reversed, but we were
going to have to move to a way of taxing
electric cars, and for them to have had actually been
brave enough to say, okay, this is the system and
it's going to come in in a few years time.
You know, somebody was going to have to do that,
and we don't want it to be another thing that

(14:42):
governments are incredibly unbrave about that we have for the
fuel levees.

Speaker 5 (14:47):
The other positive stick sticking with electricity.

Speaker 1 (14:49):
The other positive you might pull out is the beginning
of a recognition that electricity builds them. You go too
high because of the piling of green levels, green levees,
on and on and on and on and on, and
of course they will have to be paid. Shifting them
into general taxation doesn't take away the fact they have
to be paid, but it takes them off of electricity.
But it probably should have been in general taxation. Yeah,
it should be in general taxation in the first place.
But it's a recognition that we have a problem with

(15:11):
electricity prices. So that seemed that was a very minor
positive that I could.

Speaker 6 (15:16):
Thing as well.

Speaker 1 (15:18):
Yes, that just irritated me, to be honest.

Speaker 6 (15:20):
I mean it's really it's really a limp because yeah.

Speaker 1 (15:23):
And this is this is the if you I p O,
then you don't. There's no stam duty on the trading
of the shots for three years, which you know is fine.
But the reason people don't IBO in the UK is
because they're not going to get a good enough price.

Speaker 3 (15:33):
And this of only three years.

Speaker 1 (15:34):
Sure you capitalize that into it, you get a small
uplift possibly in your issue price, but but not much.
And you know stamp duty should go across the board,
don't you think. I mean, you've been listening, but can't
take the big steps to make the proper change that
is needed.

Speaker 6 (15:50):
I think that's that that is the problem, and it's
kind of bog was doing a very FoST question that
you asked here, and like the issue here is that
this is our budget done essentially to see for the
Chancellor's neck, and that means she's basically doing it for
a tiny audience of labor MPs and that makes all
of the difficult things even harder. I mean, it was

(16:11):
always to have to promise that she wasn't going to
put up income tax. I don't know why people are
so obsessed with the manifesto because it's very clearly been broken.
I mean, if you don't think physcal drag is putting
up income tax on people, and I don't know what
to tell you to We're absolutely honest, you know this
stuff is you know, it's very loyally kind of like
way of looking at things, But if you look at

(16:32):
all the problems that we fundamentally have, it is about
politicians being afraid to tell people hard things. And that's
why they're hiding the planning stuff as well, because there's
a cohort who really you know, the ymbies want to
hear it, but the nymbi's don't.

Speaker 3 (16:44):
They don't want to be told it.

Speaker 6 (16:46):
And as soon as I mean even the ymbi's, as
soon as it's actually in their backyard, very very quickly,
I think.

Speaker 5 (16:56):
That's the problem. And I don't.

Speaker 6 (16:57):
I don't know how we get beyond that. Except for that,
I guess they'll like that. It has to get source
sick of the kiniscaliursis and the plaque building not in
the arteries of the state, that eventually we get somebody
who's got the vote online date total quilo.

Speaker 5 (17:13):
You get to crisis?

Speaker 1 (17:14):
Can I ask you Ellen about We're talking about fiscal drag,
which is such a big deal in the UK and
we worry a lot.

Speaker 3 (17:20):
We talk a lot John nine on the podcast.

Speaker 1 (17:21):
We talk about the rich leaving the UK, and we
talk about the millionaires and the billionaires and they're all
going to Milan and Luxembourg, in Dubai, etc. But I'm
not sure we talk enough about high income young people.
And so there's in fiscal drag like this so they're
starting to pay higher levels of income tax very early.
And then of course we saw yesterday the thing that
I was I was surprised by. I didn't see that coming,

(17:42):
with freezing preshoals for student loans and the freezing of
interest rates for student loans.

Speaker 3 (17:47):
So you will see increasingly.

Speaker 1 (17:49):
Young people hitting this level where their marginal rate of
income tax at fifty one percent, really remarkably early. And
this seems to me to be one of the not
particularly discussed problems in this budget.

Speaker 4 (17:59):
Well, this is the the thrust of if you do
a smagas board rather than be brave and do and
do the big income tax rise on.

Speaker 3 (18:06):
Everybody that you then end up hitting.

Speaker 4 (18:09):
I mean, presumably that was done to scrimp back some
cow work lard wire to get the numbers swab up
in that year onwards, and so to actually, you know,
I think that you know the risk of this unraveling.
I mean we're here less than twenty four hours later
is extremely high that this unravels. Don't forget that just
because she made the statement doesn't mean it gets through through.

(18:32):
You have to vote on each tax measure. Then there's
a second reading. I mean this there is you know,
the whole finance bill that goes through. Quite possible that
if one of these becomes a totemic issue, that maybe
it is something on that maybe it is something for
young people that there's a big fuss about that various
MPs aren't happy with, and that this is the issue
politically now because of what happened on the welfare bill.

(18:53):
Because of now this budget's moving slightly to the left.
That side of the party is a veto it can
it can it can push harder. So we're saying in
other countries as well, look at France, other places where
there's fragmentation politically.

Speaker 3 (19:08):
And so and so.

Speaker 4 (19:09):
Yes, it could, it could, it could unravel. And then
we now know. What we do now know is her
political capital is very low. It hasn't yet got lower
as a result of what happened yesterday, but for it.

Speaker 3 (19:26):
To go up your d to see the polls shift.

Speaker 5 (19:29):
Okay, so she's done very well.

Speaker 1 (19:30):
She's hung on to a position as one of the
most unpopular chancellors in the history of the UK and
it hasn't got much worse.

Speaker 3 (19:35):
Yeah, yeah, that's right. But this is only going to
get rid of the original sin.

Speaker 4 (19:39):
If you like was that we we've had a government
with a huge majority but no mandate for various of
the things it's done, and they are never getting away
from that because really their real mandate was just don't
be the Tories. And then actually some of the things
they're doing are actually some previous government did and then that's.

Speaker 3 (19:57):
Not getting it going well with anyone. And so the
only way you end up resolving they'll switch leader.

Speaker 4 (20:01):
That might give them a bit more romandic because that
person will have some slightly different polished platform, but that
still won't gather. That's not what every labor voter voted for.

Speaker 3 (20:10):
Yeah. Sorry, seven No, I was just going to put
back a little bit on hell.

Speaker 7 (20:12):
I mean, I think it's maybe that's the parlor game
that we should be playing, is what you've identified.

Speaker 5 (20:17):
Marin.

Speaker 7 (20:18):
I think the student the freezing of those threshold for
student loads is actually one of the worst things that
was done as sort of on the sly, But I
also think it's one of the least likely things that's
going to get voted down because all the evidence talk about,
what the visible evidence for, all the evidence for is
that you can really squeeze students for a very long
time remember how long the fees stayed exactly the same,

(20:39):
and you had the university sector students facing hard, worse
and worse services, and there's been no pressure to change it.
So I think that's it should be one of the
ones the most content students.

Speaker 1 (20:51):
You can squeeze students, but can you freeze relatively high
income thirty two year olds who suddenly look at their
income and go fifty one percent?

Speaker 7 (21:00):
And it comes from having been fixed in terms of
the basic rate, because as you know, we actually have
in terms of the average tax rate on average earners
in the UK is much lower than certainly any other
countries in Europe.

Speaker 5 (21:15):
We're much more reliant on the high earners.

Speaker 7 (21:17):
But we've just ended up with this really skewed system
where people are some rather than having the basic rate
be higher for everybody. We're hitting these very high marginal thresholds.

Speaker 3 (21:28):
Yeah, and maybe they will leave, maybe they won't.

Speaker 5 (21:30):
We'll find out in a few years.

Speaker 3 (21:31):
When we.

Speaker 1 (21:46):
Okay, so let's talk about the thing that I just
think everyone would like us to talk about, the mansion tax.
We're talking about things that might not make it. So
this is a tax that will take years to figure out.
Quite a long time to implement, will be relentlessly challenged.
Do any of you think that we will ever actually
see a mansion tax on houses supposedly worth over two million?

Speaker 4 (22:08):
I do froll the point actually of me saying over
all this labor MPs something manravel. I would think it's
broadly extremely popular with labor MPs to do something on this,
even if it's not very well designed, which does appear
to be one of the key criticisms. So actually that
I would put on the could get pasted absolutely easily.

Speaker 3 (22:28):
Are you talking about in the mechanics? Is it logistically possible?

Speaker 1 (22:31):
Is anyone ever actually going to pay an extra tax
on their house that may or may not be worth
two million pounds?

Speaker 6 (22:35):
I think so, John, I mean, I guess the problem
is that the logistics are quite see it is because
you've got it, You've got a guess at the valuation,
and the tax itself reduces the value of the house.
And then the top of that I've already heard conn
appracially saying, is it's split in your hosts and in
two different homes each one.

Speaker 1 (22:54):
I've already had two or three of those conversations literally
yesterday off the basement, having got rid of themmultiple dwelling
tax relief.

Speaker 7 (23:02):
Everybody's put their houses back together again and put.

Speaker 5 (23:05):
Them off atastic.

Speaker 1 (23:06):
Yeah, we're moving into a new age of tax dodging,
bign any flights.

Speaker 5 (23:11):
Basically that sort of thing solve.

Speaker 1 (23:16):
The granny clap problem. I think we'll have an election
before then. By the way, I do like that that's
the commission. They don't make it because there was an
election before it happened.

Speaker 7 (23:26):
Obviously, I'm sure we all think that council tax should
be reformed and that it's a completely use tax at
this point. And I guess if I was trying really
hard to be somewhat sort of quick sostic about this,
I would say they have now Remember we had even
the first attempt ed Milliband's attempt to have a mansion
tax was the kind of first effort. Now they've actually

(23:48):
managed to break the first barricade in terms of saying, okay,
we're going to have this high level You're quite right,
theren it's going to have lots of technical issues, but
there is now an opening if you say, well, okay,
if we're going to revalue some of the houses.

Speaker 5 (24:00):
There's just the.

Speaker 7 (24:01):
Tiniest possibility that the mess that this causes, the clear
need for councils to have a better basis for funding,
may coincide into having some kind of cross party effort.

Speaker 5 (24:12):
And you know who could be the person who would
do it be Nigel for.

Speaker 7 (24:15):
Us, because he has twelve councils now who are all
realizing that council tax is completely useless and actually they
have a stake in reforming it in lots of different
councils across the country. And if he's listening, I would
say that would be a really good thing for him
to show that they were a serious party that wants
to do serious things to help local and central government.
When to do something really complicated, I think it's really

(24:35):
likely to happen. Okay, interesting pertect a positive almost a
positive trying to think that, thank you for happening, and.

Speaker 3 (24:40):
John, let's talk about isis yes? Right?

Speaker 1 (24:43):
So you and I've talked a lot about how we
don't approve of the twenty thousand pound allowance for tax
iceis and this makes no sense and that's too much
cash to have if you're rolling it up every zerashizers
it's too much. Have you with docs and shares isis,
and I think we were hoping and suddenly I was
hoping that the cashized will be reduced and the element
it was reduced by would be funneled into U k

(25:05):
Rriston stocks, and that didn't happen.

Speaker 6 (25:07):
No, So it's like SINS twenty's still twenty thousand pounds,
and I know it's people get quite confused about this.
So from April twenty twenty seven, the ISA allowance will
still be twenty thousand pounds, but rather than being able
to stick it all in cash, you'll only be able
to stick twelve thousand in cash.

Speaker 3 (25:22):
Unless you're an old persson, unless you're over.

Speaker 6 (25:24):
Sixty five, which is the other thing that we've made it.
I mean, it's almost like they can't do anything, just
adding a little quirk. And again, I mean I wouln't
write about it, but it comes back to that idea
that you can't have any losers, and it's like, you know,
why are we leaving the three over sixty five? I mean,
there's people under twenty who want to be saving cash
for a property deposit and they don't need that to
be in shares. That's one of the few times when

(25:45):
I would say no, you know you need this soon,
so you cannot stick it in something with a long
risk horizon. But parking that. The only thing I will
say is it's at least it's a signal, you know,
it's a very again, it's kind of limp.

Speaker 5 (25:59):
Is a bit like the three year business.

Speaker 6 (26:01):
Yeah. And the other thing is people keep talking about
who oh yeah, but I can put my money in
a money market fund and said, well, that's not the point.
To get to the point where you know there's a
money market fund into which you can put cash, you
need to have grappled to be getting an investment platform
and going into their stocks and shares. So that's one
thing why I would say that that's not a kind
of a reasonable objection to it, because we're actually just

(26:23):
trying to get people to engage with investing, which a
lot of people in this country currently don't.

Speaker 4 (26:30):
Do you know why that this has happened with the
LIMP measures. It's government by committee, it's a group of
it's you know, treasure civil servants, bad others sitting around
a table saying okay, right, we're going to definitely do
this measure. I know, but hang on, what about this interest? Okay, Well,
we'll give them a little bit of it, I know,
but what about that long? Okay, well can we hand

(26:51):
them back bits this way?

Speaker 3 (26:52):
Oh no, hang on. That's and that's what's going on,
which is why it's leak.

Speaker 6 (26:56):
Are you saying I'm being on Trea by blaming Martin
Lewis for that?

Speaker 3 (27:05):
It's interesting, yeah, isn't it?

Speaker 1 (27:06):
Because one of the big one of the groups that
pushed back where the building society is you know, if
you don't go to the guys, the mortgage rates will
go up. So you definitely can't do that, and that's
one of the reasons why we ended up with this
measure manage.

Speaker 4 (27:16):
Yeah, and you get the interest group depending how good
their lobbying is. And now I thought that was quite
a smart angle to take because when you're lobbying, you
then need to go for well, what what is really
going to worry or upset this government? Oh well, they're
quite obsessed about mortgage mortgages and mortgage costs because well,
because you know, that was the story for rich Reeves's mind,

(27:38):
you know, truss led to higher mortgage rates which led
to her losing her job. Yeah, I don't want to
do my job, so don't do that.

Speaker 3 (27:45):
And the one thing we.

Speaker 1 (27:45):
Haven't talked about is salary sacrifice and how John isn't
going to be able to buy the new bicycle they wanted.

Speaker 7 (27:52):
Oh I didn't supoot that gone and everyone thought it
was going to go.

Speaker 5 (27:55):
Did it go? I think so she didn't. She didn't check.
I assumed that.

Speaker 6 (28:00):
I thought it was just pension wrong. I haven't looked
at the absolute microdatail thought.

Speaker 5 (28:05):
It was okay, you can have the bike up.

Speaker 6 (28:08):
Can not tell you know, the salary sacrificing. The thing
I've been most interesting is the fact is not coming
in until April twenty twenty nine. And part of that
I'm wondering as if because by even just by signaling
she's going to do it, everyone who was using it
is going to have to go back and have a
chat with her employer. Other employer is going to have
to have a chat with her staff and explain about

(28:31):
how this is going to affect their overall compensation. And
so I'm wondering if it's one of those things that
she's kind of thinking, well, this is just going to
unravel itself, rather than be something that we need to
legislate for aggressively I don't know, but it kind of
feels like, I mean, because you're going to start talking
about it now because it is complicated, very complicated, you know.

Speaker 7 (28:51):
I think that's the length of time is actually I
think they were told that it's just because employers were
actually going to have to rework a lot of their
contracts and they all systems for their payments and so
I think or the internal approach to company pensions all
of that was going to have to change. So I
think she was told, you cannot rush this, you can
ask too hard, but.

Speaker 5 (29:10):
It should be said.

Speaker 7 (29:11):
You know, it's way more money, ten times more money
than you're going to get from the mansion tax.

Speaker 5 (29:16):
That's just something that will just probably.

Speaker 1 (29:18):
Note and something which which doesn't mean much too many
people initially. They'll only find out later howlets is going
to cost them.

Speaker 9 (29:38):
No questions from the audience, given the dependence of this
country or the income tax on high net worth and
super high networths, has this budget done anything to deter
people from who are considering leaving but yet haven't from leaving,
you know, in terms of capital incentives for their investment
to stay.

Speaker 1 (29:57):
Is there is there any reason given by this budget
stay in the UK.

Speaker 5 (30:01):
Is the question, John, what do you think?

Speaker 3 (30:02):
I mean, I don't think so.

Speaker 6 (30:03):
If you were already saying they're doing it, then I mean,
there isn't anything. You know, if if you can see
that eating on the wall, you know it's going to
go left before it goes right again.

Speaker 5 (30:14):
For one of the words, it's going to go.

Speaker 6 (30:16):
Big tax before it goes lower tax again. And so no,
pretty straightforward, I don't think so.

Speaker 3 (30:22):
No headshake from Stephan.

Speaker 7 (30:23):
I mean there have been some pressure, there have been
some question marks whether whether you could unpick some of
the most damaging changes from the removal of the non
dom but she's obviously not listened to those.

Speaker 6 (30:33):
So yes, I inheritance tax is the big thing. It's
like people do not want to give forty percent of
the global assist to the UK government just because they
stayed here for ten years. I mean, what's his name
likes me? Mittau just left and that's why. That's exactly why.

Speaker 1 (30:49):
Yeah, so that would be a very straightforward fix. But no,
it hasn't happened. So I think that that'll be a no.
That'll be a no.

Speaker 3 (30:54):
Can we have back here, white shirt? Please?

Speaker 5 (30:57):
Thank you?

Speaker 1 (30:57):
I'm fraid all these questions are depressingly easy to answer.

Speaker 10 (31:01):
That's great as a London parent who is trying to
provide a bedroom for my three children and has just
purchased a two million pound house to do that, they
still don't have a bedroom because I've got two lodgers
to pay the bills. Am I being punished for not
having a vasectomy? And is there a ify name that

(31:22):
you can give to this tax for my situation? Is
it the London family tax or the vasectomy tax or
you know what these books?

Speaker 1 (31:32):
Anyone've got a snappy name for the having too many
children in central London and not being on welfare tax?

Speaker 6 (31:37):
I'm glad my legs are already crossed.

Speaker 3 (31:43):
Again.

Speaker 1 (31:43):
I've read that one was depressingly easy to answer as well,
and I'm sorry. Maybe you should have bought a tuber
house or moved out of London, or personally I would
just give up your job at this point, Peter.

Speaker 11 (31:53):
Here in front, I just want to be go onder
John sir, because this does feel awfully like nineteen seventy
to me what I mentioned in the panels. Do is
this ninety seventy four or is it ninety seventy six?
Or is it nine seventy nine where we actually get
a revolt against the current services.

Speaker 1 (32:12):
Oh interesting, nineteen seventy six, Helen, I think what was
your nineteen seventy nine?

Speaker 4 (32:20):
No, well, no, I'm thinking what was it year with
the two elections nineteen seventy four? Yes, well, I mean
it's nice to do the historical parallels, and actually it's
good because we need to think that that when everyone
gets frustrated with politics, it's quite useful to know there
were other times when things were very fractious for very
understandable reasons. But I think you know, history rhymes doesn't repeat,
does it. So the key thing now, of course, is

(32:41):
dead to GDP at one hundred percent, So we're still
actually sitting on a knife edge here of at any minute.

Speaker 3 (32:48):
I know she's built in more headroom.

Speaker 4 (32:49):
I mean the ABR sensitivity SOD I think it was
a one percentage point moving guilt yields would clear that headroom,
and last time I think it was point six, So
you know, she has got more space. But we are
in a greatly volatile world, Assel has admitted, and so
the House of cards could fall apart politically.

Speaker 3 (33:08):
And economically at any moment.

Speaker 4 (33:10):
So I think actually it's not quite analogous to the seventies,
not least because news travels so much faster, markets move
everything so much quicker, quicker. Yeah, crypto markets ripened on Saturdays.
And of that ninety seventy six.

Speaker 5 (33:24):
There is something.

Speaker 7 (33:26):
I mean, I certainly if you look at the dynamic
in the Labor Party currently, there is something that feels
a bit reminiscent of that whole period. I don't know
if i'd dated to whatever, but where you started to
have you could imagine a leadership battle at some point
we might disagree about when it is that that show
that is the sort of establishment center, sort of Callahan
type figure or Heally as it was then and the

(33:48):
Michael foot You can imagine that kind of battle happening
quite easily, actually, given the concerns around the support for
Green Party.

Speaker 5 (33:55):
And I did think yesterday's quite interesting.

Speaker 7 (33:57):
I mean, we look, you know, obviously run econoised politics globally,
we're used to thinking right and left are no longer
the key fractures in politics.

Speaker 5 (34:05):
It's much more complicated than that.

Speaker 7 (34:07):
And that's all true, and we see that when we
look at the opinion polls. But actually yesterday was opened
up a very old fashioned space for the Conservative Party,
which actually I think Kemy did quite a good job
of walking into. You know that we're suddenly back to,
at least between the two main parties are very old fashioned.
Do you want to spend more on high tax and
welfare or do you want to shrink the state? And

(34:27):
if she if the Conservatives kind of lean into that,
that actually makes it quite difficult for a form I think.

Speaker 1 (34:33):
Yeah, thank you, right, more questions that they've got one here,
Given the number.

Speaker 12 (34:38):
Of policies that were trailed in advance of the budget
around the housing market, there were rumors about stamp duty,
potential capital gains being applied to primary residents, an all
new annual property tax, council tax pans being doubled at
the higher end, and then on the big day it
was a big nothing.

Speaker 5 (34:58):
That was a surprise to me.

Speaker 12 (34:59):
I wondered if and also surprised that there was very
very little that happened in the housing market, given what
a big impact the housing market is having one way
or other almost everybody's lives.

Speaker 6 (35:07):
Yeah, John, I mean I support that didn't surprise me.
And as much as they're not going to want to
do in that kind of makes housing like house prices
go down any more than they already are in real terms.
The mansion tax is obviously just a sop to the left.
It may or may not happen. I mean, the real
problem is obviously the innability to get you know, house's

(35:28):
being built, and that is partly a function of the
fact that house prices aren't going up anymore. And probably
the main focus if she wanted to help the housing
market was more in pushing back against inflation so that
interest rates can come down a bit. And to be fair,
I mean, one thing it did happen yesterday as a result,
like gult yield's going down, is that you've you've actually
seen mortgage rates take ever so slightly lower over the

(35:50):
last two months. And I suspect that, I mean, that
will continue for as long as you know, the boind
market remains roughly kind of happy with what's going on,
so we'll see. But yeah, no, it didn't surprise me
because there's so much other stuff, and I think you
could raise a lot of money from those in the
market in a way that we wouldn't meet the voters

(36:10):
just abail.

Speaker 5 (36:12):
Also, I mean, a.

Speaker 3 (36:13):
Lot of the rumors were obviously nonsensical.

Speaker 1 (36:15):
I means, we're never never going to abolished down duty
for example, It's never going to happen.

Speaker 5 (36:18):
That was a very bizarre float.

Speaker 1 (36:20):
I know we'd all love it, but it's never gonna
get worst worse tax in the UK give will take
and there's a lot of competition right with another one
in the front here.

Speaker 13 (36:27):
Yeah, if I could just come back to John's comments
about cash ices and whether that's actually going to work,
I would have thought that if Rachel Reaves wants ordinary
working people to invest more in stocks and shares, and
you mentioned that you've got to get your head around
the money market sort of approach to do that, wouldn't

(36:47):
it make more sense to do that in the safest
long term way, which is to put more money in
their pensions through salary sacrifice. And yet that seems to
be cut So I don't know if you have any
insight into those two seem to work against each other,
you know they do.

Speaker 6 (37:01):
I mean, so there's absolutely doubts, a completely confused.

Speaker 5 (37:04):
So it's not confused.

Speaker 6 (37:05):
It's basically again it's a sock to the idea that
they support investment, but everything that they're doing in the
tax system pushes against that. You know, it's kind of
you know, so the tax on savings interest properly, we
could basically got NI imposed on earned income yesterday. You know,
We've got lots of measures that the dividend taxes, that

(37:28):
sort of thing.

Speaker 5 (37:30):
And you know how.

Speaker 6 (37:32):
The fact that pensions constantly have the rug pulled out
from under them is another thing that militates against private
sector pensions constantly. So I think nothing's absolutely right. I
think that if we spent more time focusing rather than gimmicks,
making the tax system simpler, but that's not going to
happen because I think yesterday had something like I should Bloomberg.

(37:54):
I did it up and it was like over eight
hundred different measures unless I'm getting that long, but we
had a chat. I need to get my glades when'm
leading these charts. But it's just just it was more, exactly,
it was more than anyone for a very long take.
And they have been getting more and more complicated as

(38:15):
we go on, and again that's partly duck in difficult decisions,
but just.

Speaker 5 (38:19):
The direct response.

Speaker 7 (38:19):
So I was just checking it in the thinks, not
that I'm a Treasury spokesman but it's the cost of
the salary sacrifice are predominantly I mean, was going up
to eight billion, and a huge chunk of that was
going to not just higher rate taxpayers, but the very
higher end. You know, people who are putting their bonuses
in other things. They claim, judged on the current thing,

(38:40):
at seventy four percent of basic rate taxpayers will be
protected by the CAT because they're not saving, they're not
putting more than two thousand pounds in.

Speaker 5 (38:48):
So, just as a direct response.

Speaker 6 (38:50):
That always it comes back to this thing people not
seeming to realize that the fort basically tax pills, know,
aren't basically tax pills for the entire lives. And it
was like the number of people who hit forty and
hit forty five during their life cycle is much greater
than the current number. And so what we're actually doing
is we're punching people in the face when they get
to the point where they should be when they're at
peak earnings and should also be at peak savings, because

(39:13):
that's kind of the big issue. You know, everyone probably
hits kind of forty or fifty and starts to look
at their pension, assuming they're not working for the public sector,
and goes, oh my god, I'm going to be poor
when I retire, and that's why you need that kind
of thing when people are on forty or forty five percent.
So it's not enough for the government tongue and say,
oh yeah, but we're protecting this lot. We're getting to

(39:34):
the stage where, I mean, the minimum a lot.

Speaker 7 (39:36):
Of money did that say, is getting to people who
were on maybe half a million.

Speaker 6 (39:44):
It's just as sorry, but I think that there's too
much of this again. It's that sort of zero some
thinking as opposed to why don't we stop worrying about
how this guy's got this and start thinking about, you know,
why is the econ source and complexities?

Speaker 7 (40:04):
All in these I mean, I'm partly saying Devil's advocate,
but in these conversations we do tend to think of
tax relief spending as great spending that is somehow very
different from other forms of public spending. You're deciding to
spend eight billion because you're foregoing that you could have
spent it or something else you are spending. You're deciding
to spend eight billion on people being able to do

(40:25):
these pension savings.

Speaker 5 (40:26):
Well, we all just remember that it is exactly I'm
going to stop this one here. This is extent.

Speaker 1 (40:32):
Extent to which how much easy you have an event
and all that kind of thing. We'll come back to this,
but we've got a very enthusiastic question answer at the
back here.

Speaker 3 (40:39):
Hi, good morning.

Speaker 7 (40:40):
Thanks.

Speaker 6 (40:41):
You are now selected as our new chancellor and you
have one wish.

Speaker 5 (40:48):
This is pre budget.

Speaker 3 (40:50):
What would your one major policy be cut welfare spending?

Speaker 1 (40:57):
Yeah, exactly what I was going to say, Just fine,
in a way to cut welfare spending.

Speaker 4 (41:03):
Or try and even do what she tried to do,
which was reduce the rate of growth, which is what
she was trying to on that.

Speaker 5 (41:09):
John, Yes, it's a good question.

Speaker 6 (41:12):
If I'm trying to thank you, Paul, I'll see then
I mean something I've always been mainly attracted to as
I can align the value tax.

Speaker 1 (41:18):
And if you no, no, no, no, no, no, nor John.

Speaker 7 (41:23):
Definitely I think you have to. I mean, well, it
has to be welfare. Although do you think of this
ships in particularly.

Speaker 1 (41:29):
If there was outside wealth for one thing that I
would really would have loved to see and it wouldn't
have been hard and it would have sent a brilliant signal,
would be the full abolition of the stamp duty on
equity trading, and we've talked about it on the podcast.

Speaker 5 (41:40):
Over and over and over.

Speaker 1 (41:41):
It's not a big money thing five billion here or there,
and it's a huge signal to the rest of the
world that we were taking our equity market seriously. That
would have been I think that the one and so easy,
so easy, so quick, such a signal here in the front.

Speaker 5 (41:54):
You've had your hand up a long time.

Speaker 2 (41:55):
Thank you, given that physical drag seems to be a
very good way of raising revenues without letting people know
you're raising revenues. How long, particularly given what's happening in
the States with do we have Kevin has it coming
in as a fetchair? How long until we have QE
back in the UK?

Speaker 5 (42:15):
Ooh?

Speaker 7 (42:16):
Definitely, really long time, I think actually, I mean that's
one of the things. That's one of the missed opportunities, right,
I mean, inflation has narrowed her room for maneuver in
some ways. And obviously she was sort of punished a
bit for doing things last year that increased inflation because
then that slowed interest rate cuts. But one of the

(42:37):
advantages we have in the current environment from the higher
inflation is that the Bank of England has plenty of
room to cut and if you look at the revisions
that were made in the next few years growth, I mean,
one of the reasons why we haven't got into the
fact that she wasn't faced with a hole to fill
thanks to the Office of Budget Responsibility, because their reset,
their lowering of real growth was actually largely offset by

(43:00):
them deciding actually inflation and wages were going to be
higher over the next few years, and that they hadn't
fully factored that in in their nominal GDP cash GDP estimates.
So without getting too much into the sausage making, I think, yeah,
I don't think Q. Well, we can see in a
few years time, but I don't think q's on the horizon.

Speaker 5 (43:17):
Helen Quey coming.

Speaker 3 (43:18):
I think it could come back.

Speaker 4 (43:20):
Sorry not q E, but as it purchases could come
back if we do get to a dysfunctional point in
the bottom market, which I do still yet to see
there being a risk of purely because huge amounts of debt,
as we know throughout the world, huge amounts of issuance.
Inflation broadly speaking is higher now than it was in

(43:40):
the sort of fifteen year decade before fifty a decade,
fifty a period before and so at some stage, you
know there's going to be a serious case of indigestion,
and then they may well need to sort of step
in with bomb purchases just to stabilize things.

Speaker 3 (43:54):
Okay, not qui all.

Speaker 1 (43:56):
Right, there's a sort of maybe for you more questions
on the aisle here that's close by.

Speaker 8 (44:03):
Thank you, thanks, Yeah, it's just a quick question on unemployment.
So unemployment rate's been ticking up the last two years,
even a little bit before the last ge, from like
four percent to five percent. Given John mentioning the minimum
wage going up and everyone mentioning the fiscal drag, do
you think this budget is going to sustain keep ticking

(44:24):
up an unemployment rate, will perhaps even accelerate it.

Speaker 14 (44:29):
Anyone wants to say anything beyond yes, Well, don't you think
that there's We've not been much discussion of recession risk there,
but a lot of stuff talk about procesession in the US.

Speaker 3 (44:40):
I mean, I know, were sort of bumbling along at
pretty much zero a bit above it.

Speaker 4 (44:44):
OBR said, this doesn't really change the growth outlook that
much this budget, but you know what if there is
some sort of shock, could be external could be here.

Speaker 3 (44:52):
What if on the salary sacrifice.

Speaker 4 (44:54):
Element, I think that's going to be a hit to employers.
The cost for them will be going up, you know,
the minimum wage as you mentioned. So, God, I now
sound really gloomy. I didn't mean to sound. I mean,
obviously we be going to a session. We'll have loads
of bagging and rate cuts, so that will that will help.

Speaker 5 (45:09):
But we have in the new workers riots, et cetera.

Speaker 3 (45:11):
So there's a lot going on.

Speaker 1 (45:13):
Of course that doesn't necessarily move in the direction of
making people think themselves. Got I'll go and employ another
ten people next week exactly.

Speaker 3 (45:20):
Yeah, I think it's a risk.

Speaker 7 (45:22):
I mean, I think you've obviously one of the big
factors that's been supporting employment has been immigration, and if
that we're now on, so that's something which is kind
of offsetting some of this.

Speaker 5 (45:33):
But you know, we get back to the welfare reform thing.
It's not the unemployment rate that matters. It's the huge
number of people in activity rate active inactive.

Speaker 1 (45:42):
Okay, because someone please ask a question which we can
give an upbeat answer. Can we go in the front here, Well,
whatever the question is, we're going to have an upbeat answer.

Speaker 5 (45:52):
Okay, I'm not sure if this makes sense of them.

Speaker 1 (45:55):
I wrote it down, how much is fiscal drag affecting
how much people spend, especially since households have a high
like marg margin oppropunity to consume. Well, I mean, any
any reduction in your income is going to affect how
you spend, right.

Speaker 6 (46:11):
Yeah, I guess it's because it's kind of in the
future that people maybe don't think about it in the
same way. Because actually, going back to your point the
Henry the point about fiscal drag, I think people are
aware of it, but I do not think that they
fully understand what it means in kind of number terms,
and so I don't think that people will sit there
and think, in five years time, my income is going

(46:33):
to be lower by this amount, therefore I'm not going
to spend today. My own view tends to be that
if people have got money in their pockets, they spend it.
But I'm not an economist, and I know the economists
have slightly different views of expectations. I think people are
a lot more short term perhaps than economists.

Speaker 1 (46:52):
And I'll say this is an interesting one because it
means people need to have an understanding of how inflation works.

Speaker 5 (46:56):
To understand how physical drag works.

Speaker 3 (46:58):
It's visible either.

Speaker 6 (46:59):
It's like inflation. You go to the supermarket every week
and that's why the Bank of England people care about
food place inflation because when the place of food goes up,
people do notice it and they will change their behavior.
Beyond that, some of this longer is kind of hard
to do, especially if your wages have grown up as
well and you can't quit work. Got how much more

(47:21):
you get and compare to how much more your life
course than you It was a good question.

Speaker 7 (47:26):
Sorry, just on the comparison, because there was a lot
of discussion around whether they would raise the basic rate
of tax and then offset that with a reduction in
the National insurance and that would have actually been slightly
better for lower income All sort of basic rate taxpayers
actually people in the lower brackets and they tend to
spend more. So on your point, I think this is
going to have a bigger impact on spending potentially than

(47:50):
if they've gone that route.

Speaker 1 (47:52):
I apology to those you didn't get your question asked, Well,
we'll be around for a few minutes afterwards, so do
ask them then. And all there is to say, thank you,
So much for joining us today.

Speaker 3 (48:01):
Hugely appreciated it and thank you you wonderful gust.

Speaker 1 (48:16):
Thanks for listening to the special post budget episode of
Merrin Talks Money. If you like us show, rate, review,
and subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts also be shored
follow me and John on ex or Twitter at marinas
w and John Underscore Stepic. This episode was produced by
Summersadi and Moses and Dunn. Special thanks, of course to
Stephanie Flanders, Helen Thomas, Vic Wakely and all those at
Bloomberg who helped with this production. Questions and comments on

(48:39):
this show and all our shows are always welcome. Our
show email is Merrior Money at Bloomberg dot net