GD4ELI Posted December 8, 2015 Share Posted December 8, 2015 Jersey bet its future on finance but since 2007 it has fallen on hard times and is heading for bankruptcy. Is the island’s perilous present Britain’s bleak future? [link] Worth reading. "In April, officials announced that the budget would be short £125m a year by 2019. “What went wrong?” asked the Jersey Evening Post. And that was just the start of it. By June, the annual deficit – now known on the island as the “black hole” – had been revised upwards to £145m, more than £1 in every five that the government spends. “The black hole is so big,” according to Connect, a Jersey business magazine, that “filling it will take the equivalent of shutting down every school in the island, laying off every teacher, letting the parks turn into overgrown jungles and having our roads literally fall apart.” Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Barrie Stevens Posted December 8, 2015 Share Posted December 8, 2015 The Channel Islands and the Isle of Man were always outsiders operating like Medieval outlaws hiding out in the woods. Measures were specifically brought in to throttle them slowly as regards offshore finance where it involved tax fiddling aka "planning"... It was meant to be. The UK finance sector sacrificed the offshores to satisfy critics up to a point. As I recall there was a threat to impose a 40% tax what was it on now, the Eurobond or Euro Dollar market largely conducted in the City if the UK did not clip the CI and IOM wings? It was widely reported at the time. There is still wide diversification in the UK and the City remains the place to be. And not everything in the UK is predicated on the sort of finance done offshore. There is the issue of stability and expertise and then the UK has been "Wimbledonised" ie the British seldom win at the game but everyone wants to play on their courts. That is why the City was opened up and the "old boy" club that I knew so well was swept away. In the CI and the IOM you have jurisdictions pretending to be more than they really are so when they started to lose their status as legalised cheats the shortcomings were exposed. As they say you don't know who has been swimming in the nude until the tide goes out. The IOM of course had an extra hit designed to bring it to heel and that was taking away the annual £200 m VAT bonus. In my manor there is massive development and expansion of housing, roads and a new railway station and shopping centre. What I have notice is that the finance sector overspill from London (Like the IOM) is changing. The office developments even ones from the 1990s are being rapidly turned into flats often with further extensions...There again working in finance has changed what with portable technology so you don't need these offices so much now. Also, unlike when I went up to the City every day people even bosses no longer wear formal suits. It is all more casual. Their hours are more flexible and the attitude more casual. Enormous numbers use bikes to and from and bike storage near the station is expanding with sales and workshop service in purpose built structures. The old City I knew is now unrecognisable and I would say that the UK will not go the same way as CI and IOM because it is not just a matter of legalised fiddling and having what are high expectations on islands that in reality have little by way of earning capacity. It is planned that you should slowly come to heel and be sacrificed but not destroyed totally in the process. Even now I note that the penny over there has not dropped and people still think that the money tree still bears never ending fruit. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GD4ELI Posted December 8, 2015 Author Share Posted December 8, 2015 It is planned that you should slowly come to heel and be sacrificed but not destroyed totally in the process. I don't think there's any planning at all - unless civil unrest breaks out and the police can't cope then the UK will not do anything. Check out the state of affairs on Sark. The VAT 'bonus' wasn't planned, it was a mistake which has been corrected. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
notwell Posted December 8, 2015 Share Posted December 8, 2015 Plenty still to be positive about in the IOM from an economic perspective. The real challenge is bringing government bloat to heel rather than there being little or no economic outlook here. From a finance sector perspective Jersey did very little to diversify their income streams. At least the IOM did. So that has helped. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Barrie Stevens Posted December 8, 2015 Share Posted December 8, 2015 It is planned that you should slowly come to heel and be sacrificed but not destroyed totally in the process. I don't think there's any planning at all - unless civil unrest breaks out and the police can't cope then the UK will not do anything. Check out the state of affairs on Sark. The VAT 'bonus' wasn't planned, it was a mistake which has been corrected. It is planned that you should slowly come to heel and be sacrificed but not destroyed totally in the process. I don't think there's any planning at all - unless civil unrest breaks out and the police can't cope then the UK will not do anything. Check out the state of affairs on Sark. The VAT 'bonus' wasn't planned, it was a mistake which has been corrected. I think you have not been reading the small print! I wrote a lot of material in the local papers and went on "Sunday Opinion" many years ago to demonstrate and point out what "Sir Humphrey" was up to.. And I did not say the VAT bonus was planned...Taking it away was part of a plan when they realised they could hit two birds with one stone.... I was privy to a tape recording between the then CM I think it was Don Gelling and some big wig in Whitehall and that was definitely a case of "sort it out or we will make you sort it!" The Islands are to some extent expendable. Some of the pressure is EU as they just see them as artificial creatures of the UK and really like counties (When it suits them!) If the UK to EU relationship or sentiment changes then the process of wearing them down may change. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Barrie Stevens Posted December 8, 2015 Share Posted December 8, 2015 Plenty still to be positive about in the IOM from an economic perspective. The real challenge is bringing government bloat to heel rather than there being little or no economic outlook here. From a finance sector perspective Jersey did very little to diversify their income streams. At least the IOM did. So that has helped. This is true! The IOM is more like a mirror of the UK or the UK in miniature. The poster was asking if Jersey and the UK had maybe put too many eggs in one basket (As I read it) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
woolley Posted December 8, 2015 Share Posted December 8, 2015 Barrie, you give the UK too much credit over the VAT situation. GD4 is correct in this instance. There was no plan. In very hard times for the UK they were simply brought to the realisation that the Isle of Man was being grossly overpaid and they rectified it. Simple as that. HMRC are totally inept from bottom to top. I can personally vouch for that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
woolley Posted December 8, 2015 Share Posted December 8, 2015 Also, unlike when I went up to the City every day people even bosses no longer wear formal suits. It is all more casual. I thought it'd be the overalls for you, Barrie. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HeliX Posted December 8, 2015 Share Posted December 8, 2015 There's a few people in Jersey I don't like. Should I take this as a moral victory? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Barrie Stevens Posted December 8, 2015 Share Posted December 8, 2015 Also, unlike when I went up to the City every day people even bosses no longer wear formal suits. It is all more casual. I thought it'd be the overalls for you, Barrie. No. There was a time when I rode through the centre of Athens in a open top Rolls Royce during the days of the Colonels...And I remain a member of the Baltic Exchange to this day.. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Barrie Stevens Posted December 8, 2015 Share Posted December 8, 2015 Barrie, you give the UK too much credit over the VAT situation. GD4 is correct in this instance. There was no plan. In very hard times for the UK they were simply brought to the realisation that the Isle of Man was being grossly overpaid and they rectified it. Simple as that. HMRC are totally inept from bottom to top. I can personally vouch for that. I heard the tape! They were aware of this as you say...And killed two birds with one stone... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
When Skies Are Grey Posted December 8, 2015 Share Posted December 8, 2015 ..And I remain a member of the Baltic Exchange to this day.. Is that some sort of Foxdale swingers group? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
piebaps Posted December 8, 2015 Share Posted December 8, 2015 Baltic exchange blah blah City blah blah Letters to the paper blah blah Mannin line blah blah Chuck in some boasts about your advocacy skills and how you exposed corrupt coroners and we'll have a full set of your repetitive nonsense. Is there no thread you won't pollute with this rubbish? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
woolley Posted December 8, 2015 Share Posted December 8, 2015 Baltic exchange blah blah City blah blah Letters to the paper blah blah Mannin line blah blah Chuck in some boasts about your advocacy skills and how you exposed corrupt coroners and we'll have a full set of your repetitive nonsense. Is there no thread you won't pollute with this rubbish? But to be fair, he will then clean the rubbish up too. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Barrie Stevens Posted December 8, 2015 Share Posted December 8, 2015 ..And I remain a member of the Baltic Exchange to this day.. Is that some sort of Foxdale swingers group? Baltic Exchange is the world's main shipping exchange. Now it is more or less an on-line function trading various derivatives and these days has a lot to do with Singapore. The last board meeting was in Singapore. They are opening up a lot in China as well. My attachment was with the Old Baltic Exchange when we met daily on the last of the City trading floors. I am using my own archives to write about those days. I wrote a small archive about my late father who was a well known Baltic member. This you can see on the catalogue of the Caird Library of the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich and on line in the catalogue of the British Library and the Bodleian Library at Oxford. (Ken Stevens look it up) I hope to complete seen years of work in the new year about January. I have so many papers and photographs to sort and arrange. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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