Sunday Morning in Byzantium

Zero Hedge

Is this simply an entirely different video than the BBC seems to be reporting on, or are British politics even more full of nuance and nonsense than we have hithertofore given them (substantial) credit for?  See, it sounds to us like the Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osborne, just suggested the elimination (or total circumvention) of loss-carry-forwards for UK banks (and foreign banks with UK offices).  That’s something coming from a conservative MP, but then, anything to tie Gordon Brown (himself a former Shadow and then actual Chancellor of the Exchequer) into knots by rocking Alistar back on his heels and forcing the purse holder to look anit-populist, yes?  Actually, that’s pretty impressive work for a Sunday.  Sure, Alistar “We’ve Simply Run Out Of Money” Darling ducks and covers nicely (well, for the weekend tele crowd anyhow- insofaras fairness to bankers is on their civil justice list) but the writing of Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs (“Our purpose is to make sure that the money is available to fund the UK’s public services.” -Fail-) is on the wall for UK finance.

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You do have to admire the way Osborne rationalizes the literal elimination of loss-carry-forwards as a basic property of taxation.  It’s all in your time series starting point, we suppose.

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