Mid Year Review of 2015/16 Budget April 8 2016

[lostboys crew]

Works the same way for bread and any thing give them a lil boycott and watch the prices tumble. Trini's again complain and still buy foreign consumers don't play around with silly price hikes.

[EFFECTIC DESIGNS]

So much money is going to be saved with this online shopping tax. So much. I have brought in two packages for the year so far. Time to do without. firetruck imbert

His aim is for you to go to his financiers mega stores to buy your latin american 3rd world edition of the goods which I won't do however I bought everything I needed last year black friday and I build a PC to last beyond 2030 as futureproof as possible for the games I do play.

Now I don't know if he going to make people pay the 7% Tax on PS4 or xbox games etc or online software maybe he will who knows. But this is a deliberate act to force people to go to the PNM financiers to shop and pay higher prices which I will not do I will pay 7% or do without, I have nothing to order again so I go do without.

He will just force skybox companies to cut back and fire people or close down all together because I don't believe he is going to stop at 7% if this has little effect he will increase it till enough people start to shop at his financiers.

[Dizzy28]

I use premium gas, never owned a skybox, don't gamble, drink rarely and don't smoke, all in all not a bad midyear review for me.

Typical PNMite

If you only saw my voting history

[Gladiator]

The online purchasing tax seems to really be a Credit Card tax. Once you use it outside of T&T or online you pay 7%. This is robbery, the result would just be persons going to the bank, buying US and spending the cash abroad.

Yes because 7-13% price increase is much more than airfare, accommodation and transport

The reduction in online shoppers and increase in cost of products sold by small businesses that trade online would result in closure of these micro enterprises and killing of the entrepreneurs that take the little risk to buy online and start up.

Yes because 7-13% would equate to more than your mark-up and thus your business model collapses

This is a deliberate attempt to put the power back into the hands of big business and strip the buying power from john public. These tax measures would see the country creep back into the 1980s where only the "big boys" could drive the nice car, own a business, carry their family down the islands, live in gated communities etc.

Yup because even when "john public" raises their price by 7-13% which is still cheaper than the 100% mark-up of local merchants the buying public will choose to pay the higher price because PNM make them do that (btw if you're an internet buy and sell person you are a local merchant too)

The tactic is an old and vicious one used by Imbert... keep the population at large repressed, when all they studying is where the next meal and rent money coming from they would behave and keep the straight and narrow line and not complain. And you would see no more Roget and OWTU kickup.... they will tell you now to be happy you have a job cause we all know that with the cost of living now you might as well be dead if you unemployed.

Sometimes I wonder if it's just oppose for opposing sake, so many armchair economists but none willing to admit we're broke

So if we are broke don't you think a Govt with a little common sense would start to implement measures for real revenue generation. Where the money to finish the Tarouba Stadium come from? Is their plan to tax the hell out of the public so that they can raise the 14% backpay for public servants. Take your own money and give you back. The red and ready crew wouldn't know the difference anyway.

You really believe that the little vampire going to stop at 7% on the credit card tax, that is just the start. The tax makes small business non competitive with the local big stores therefore they will close up.

The tax is also meant to hit you when travelling abroad. Everything you buy would have a 7% tax even though you buying in the US and consuming in the US. So the fool wouldn't think that people would just take US cash out and travel with it.

Take off your PNM blinders for a second and look at the bigger picture. The country spiraling downwards fast. Is the little revenue from these taxes worth the social impact as the result?

[York]

Dizzy28, I'm guessing that your monthly salary is (well) in excess of $25000?

[rookie]

All over the world governments removing subsides so we immune to that [SMIRKING FACE], stop fighting RACE an wake up folks, it's a business if pnm didn't do it unc would have done it
Not a day later and the bill has already passed in Parliament
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/ ... fect-aug-1

[rookie]

U.A.E. Removes Fuel Subsidy as Oil Drop Hurts Arab Economies

The United Arab Emirates, the third-biggest OPEC producer, will link gasoline and diesel prices to global oil markets starting next month, becoming the first country in the oil-rich Persian Gulf to remove transport fuel subsidies.

Fuel prices will be deregulated as of Aug. 1, the Ministry of Energy said in a statement on Wednesday. Diesel prices will also be linked to global markets, and are initially expected to decline, it said. Prices for both fuels will be announced on the 28th day of each month, the ministry said.

Gasoline is now subsidized in the U.A.E., the second-biggest Arab economy and home to about 6 percent of the world’s oil reserves. Unleaded gasoline 98 octane in the U.A.E. sells for 1.83 dirhams (50 cents) a liter, according to prices on the ministry’s website. The U.S. price of premium unleaded gasoline is $3.18 a gallon, or 84 cents a liter, according to AAA, the biggest U.S. auto group. That compares with 16 cents in Saudi Arabia, the largest OPEC producer.

“There was no reason to subsidize in a country that is as rich as the U.A.E.,” said Nasser Saidi, former chief economist at Dubai International Financial Centre and head of Nasser Saidi and Associates. “All manufacturing and industry which is highly energy intensive will need to adjust. People will now have to think twice before buying gas guzzling cars.”

Subsidies Cost

Persian Gulf members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries provide some the largest per capita energy subsidies in the world, according to the International Monetary Fund. Subsidies have cost U.A.E. state-owned energy companies about $1 billion a year over the last decade, Suhail Al Mazrouei, the U.A.E. energy minister, said in February.

The U.A.E., which doesn’t impose income tax or measures such as value-added taxes, comprises seven sheikhdoms including Abu Dhabi and Dubai, the Persian Gulf business hub. Expatriates comprise about 80 percent of the country’s residents.

The change is part of the government’s plan “in diversifying sources of income, strengthening the economy and increasing its competitiveness in addition to building a strong economy that is not dependent on government subsidies,” Al Mazrouei said in the statement. A committee will review fuel prices every month, according to the statement.

Global oil prices have dropped almost 50 percent in the past year to $56.57 a barrel today as increased production from the Middle East to the U.S. swelled supplies, leaving a global surplus. The 2015 break-even crude price for the U.A.E. is about $65.50 a barrel, according to Deutsche Bank AG estimates.

“Moving to international prices is a very rational and a correct policy to undertake at this moment because the international oil prices are very low,” Saidi said.

Budget Deficit

Energy subsidies will reach $5.3 trillion this year, with the U.A.E. at $29 billion and Saudi Arabia at $106.6 billion, according to an International Monetary Fund report in May. Qatar has the world’s biggest subsidies per capita at $5,995, compared with the U.S. at $2,177 and China at $1,652.

“Low international energy prices have opened a window of opportunity for countries to move toward more efficient pricing of energy,” the IMF said. “A gradual approach may be desirable, given the size of the required price increases.”

Saudi Arabia uses fuel and power subsidies to transfer oil wealth to citizens, and the kingdom is expected to post a budget deficit equal to 20 percent of economic output this year, the IMF said last month. Cutting them is politically sensitive after domestic discontent led to the overturning of governments in Tunisia, Libya and Egypt since 2011.

The oil and gas sector in the U.A.E. contributed 34.3 percent of its gross domestic product at current prices in 2014, according to the National Bureau of Statistics. With lower oil prices, the U.A.E. will have a fiscal budget deficit for the first time since 2009, according to the IMF.

“They have to finance the fiscal deficit and this is one small way to do that,” said Sanyalak Manibhandu, head of research at NBAD Securities LLC in Abu Dhabi.

Before it's here, it's on the Bloomberg Terminal.

[zoom rader]

The online purchasing tax seems to really be a Credit Card tax. Once you use it outside of T&T or online you pay 7%. This is robbery, the result would just be persons going to the bank, buying US and spending the cash abroad.

Yes because 7-13% price increase is much more than airfare, accommodation and transport

The reduction in online shoppers and increase in cost of products sold by small businesses that trade online would result in closure of these micro enterprises and killing of the entrepreneurs that take the little risk to buy online and start up.

Yes because 7-13% would equate to more than your mark-up and thus your business model collapses

This is a deliberate attempt to put the power back into the hands of big business and strip the buying power from john public. These tax measures would see the country creep back into the 1980s where only the "big boys" could drive the nice car, own a business, carry their family down the islands, live in gated communities etc.

Yup because even when "john public" raises their price by 7-13% which is still cheaper than the 100% mark-up of local merchants the buying public will choose to pay the higher price because PNM make them do that (btw if you're an internet buy and sell person you are a local merchant too)

The tactic is an old and vicious one used by Imbert... keep the population at large repressed, when all they studying is where the next meal and rent money coming from they would behave and keep the straight and narrow line and not complain. And you would see no more Roget and OWTU kickup.... they will tell you now to be happy you have a job cause we all know that with the cost of living now you might as well be dead if you unemployed.

Sometimes I wonder if it's just oppose for opposing sake, so many armchair economists but none willing to admit we're broke

I have many a time gone abroad to buy my stuff, where I came out cheaper that paying for sky box extortion prices. r
Airfare + hotels, a lot cheaper that skybox plus u on a mini holiday.
Knowing trinis they will stay will family or get them to buy and ship it for them.

The suit case trade will revamp as it was in the late 1980s.

[desifemlove]

6/10 for the report.

no rapid rail is fine, but then no new solution for traffic managment/less road traffic? no bus routes? why not a priority bus route from north to south? or a CNG bus-way between town, Piarco airport, and grande?

any plans for foreign manfacturing? what about incentives for the ICT sector to expand, export?

The solution should be raising taxes, privatising state bodies, lessening state spending, and structural reform. half of this has been done, more needs to be. like FCB, sell half of the state holding to place in the sovereign fund. part-privatise UTT,

[zoom rader]

6/10 for the report.

no rapid rail is fine, but then no new solution for traffic managment/less road traffic? no bus routes? why not a priority bus route from north to south? or a CNG bus-way between town, Piarco airport, and grande?

any plans for foreign manfacturing? what about incentives for the ICT sector to expand, export?

The solution should be raising taxes, privatising state bodies, lessening state spending, and structural reform. half of this has been done, more needs to be. like FCB, sell half of the state holding to place in the sovereign fund. part-privatise UTT,

I see that you are now seeing the light.

I explained governments need to get rid of state bodies long ago. State bodies are useless and with very little production coming from them.
This country has too many useless state bodies.

[BRZ]

The online purchasing tax seems to really be a Credit Card tax. Once you use it outside of T&T or online you pay 7%. This is robbery, the result would just be persons going to the bank, buying US and spending the cash abroad.

Yes because 7-13% price increase is much more than airfare, accommodation and transport

The reduction in online shoppers and increase in cost of products sold by small businesses that trade online would result in closure of these micro enterprises and killing of the entrepreneurs that take the little risk to buy online and start up.

Yes because 7-13% would equate to more than your mark-up and thus your business model collapses

This is a deliberate attempt to put the power back into the hands of big business and strip the buying power from john public. These tax measures would see the country creep back into the 1980s where only the "big boys" could drive the nice car, own a business, carry their family down the islands, live in gated communities etc.

Yup because even when "john public" raises their price by 7-13% which is still cheaper than the 100% mark-up of local merchants the buying public will choose to pay the higher price because PNM make them do that (btw if you're an internet buy and sell person you are a local merchant too)

The tactic is an old and vicious one used by Imbert... keep the population at large repressed, when all they studying is where the next meal and rent money coming from they would behave and keep the straight and narrow line and not complain. And you would see no more Roget and OWTU kickup.... they will tell you now to be happy you have a job cause we all know that with the cost of living now you might as well be dead if you unemployed.

Sometimes I wonder if it's just oppose for opposing sake, so many armchair economists but none willing to admit we're broke

I have many a time gone abroad to buy my stuff, where I came out cheaper that paying for sky box extortion prices. r
Airfare + hotels, a lot cheaper that skybox plus u on a mini holiday.
Knowing trinis they will stay will family or get them to buy and ship it for them.

The suit case trade will revamp as it was in the late 1980s.

They actually let your nasty a55 on a plane???? Geese that flight must have stunk of garbage.

[zoom rader]

^^^ Yeah I actually own shares with that airline, so I get special discounts with my Gold card

[novastar1]

I see a lot of doctors complaining on facebook

no panadol in hospitals
all patients have to now go pay for blood tests and dialysis
no anti depressant meds available

yet they take 6 million from health ministry

Boy it bad
We rationing X rays due to lack of film, Paper to do ECG's in real short surply, Antibiotics and other crucial meds in real short supply. Staffing is a mess as they cutting down on Nurse's overtime, which used to prop up the chronic shortage of nurses. Hiring of new doctors either on a go slow or not happening at all, all the rota's in a mess. Cleaning staff at the institutions down to 1/2 -1/3 of normal levels. People seriously pissed that they have not received their back pay yet.

I feel most of trinis either don't know or don't care about this.
It seems like highways and trains are much much more important and thus higher priority than adequate medical care

Others don't realize just how expensive a private medical bill really is

[drchaos]

You see it all the time, people storm out a public hospital and bawl I waiting here to long i going private only to show up the next morning waiting in line.

Private healthcare uber expensive ... A Cesarean section is approaching 40K privately now, and free to those who need it in the public sector.

[S_2NR]

This is why there's Health insurance

[novastar1]

This is why there's Health insurance

What percentage of tuners do you think have health insurance?

And your answer makes me think that.... you as well... Underestimate the private medical bills

[S_2NR]

This is why there's Health insurance

What percentage of tuners do you think have health insurance?

And your answer makes me think that.... you as well... Underestimate the private medical bills

I know private is extremely expensive but what is the alternative? Health insurance is worth it imo

[novastar1]

This is why there's Health insurance

What percentage of tuners do you think have health insurance?

And your answer makes me think that.... you as well... Underestimate the private medical bills

I know private is extremely expensive but what is the alternative? Health insurance is worth it imo

The alternative is supposed to be the public health system
What I mean is..... How many tuners realize that instead of buying medication.... We have been building highway/train/ports/ etc instead
Same with locally produced food .... It Hasn't been prioritized

And after all these dry seasons..... We don't have any expanded dams or desalination plant

What could be more important to a trini than their health and their food supply?.... Seems like lots

[EmilioA]

we in for some interesting times. I think we going and copy Greece. I await to see what our version of SYRIZA will be .

[Gladiator]

You see it all the time, people storm out a public hospital and bawl I waiting here to long i going private only to show up the next morning waiting in line.

Private healthcare uber expensive ... A Cesarean section is approaching 40K privately now, and free to those who need it in the public sector.

That is a good idea for Dumbert... tax baby making.... so they would make less chirren.

[novastar1]

we in for some interesting times. I think we going and copy Greece. I await to see what our version of SYRIZA will be .

Well all this is to keep up from going down the Greece, Venezuela route.
This was affecting most of the world.... It just beginning to sink in they we weren't immune to it as the last government was leading us to
At least that's how I see it
Kind Of like someone spending on their credit cards.... Without thinking of how they were gonna pay the bill at the end of the month

[novastar1]

We need to hunker down and move forward together.
Red and yellow supporters don't realize that if this is messed up.... Then it will be all trinis and not just red or yellow that will suffer.

While the supporters fight each other....... The "leaders" are drinking wine (at the Mauby pocket tax payer expense)

[novastar1]

You see it all the time, people storm out a public hospital and bawl I waiting here to long i going private only to show up the next morning waiting in line.

Private healthcare uber expensive ... A Cesarean section is approaching 40K privately now, and free to those who need it in the public sector.

That is a good idea for Dumbert... tax baby making.... so they would make less chirren.

Will this is the opposite of the free stuff you get for your baby.... Baby grant, baby food etc.

I

[BRZ]

^^^ Yeah I actually own shares with that airline, so I get special discounts with my Gold card

Tsk tsk zoom, they didn't tell you? Being a porter for them doesn't make you a shareholder old man!!

[EFFECTIC DESIGNS]

This is why there's Health insurance

Thing is though we are paying about 38% Vat and Import Duty on items unlike the Americans who not paying anything beyond say 7% and some states nothing. Things like this pays for free healthcare these people are supposed to be providing a reliable health care. But like everything else they won't and nothing we can do about it.

The way I see it I eh going to live forever so screw it, if I hadda dead I go dead its the inevitable anyways, the best health insurance or not. I does take my chances now with exercise and eating healthy and hope for the best.

[De Dragon]

Yes murder the average joe with taxes, while the big boys have it nice. Like I said, this is a $2.00 Government, looking to save small money while spending much more than that on dotishness, all while invoking the IMF bogeyman to keep illiterate people in line.

[zoom rader]

Yes murder the average joe with taxes, while the big boys have it nice. Like I said, this is a $2.00 Government, looking to save small money while spending much more than that on dotishness, all while invoking the IMF bogeyman to keep illiterate people in line.

Ppl just don't understand that the only ppl benefiting from this second budget is the PNM Financiers.

PNM financiers now have all access to free US, while citizens have to pay a tax to access it.

There was even a mod on here defending the online tax, saying it cheaper to pay the tax with weak points

As I said

Citizens 0, PNM financiers 2

[eliteauto]

We need to hunker down and move forward together.
Red and yellow supporters don't realize that if this is messed up.... Then it will be all trinis and not just red or yellow that will suffer.

While the supporters fight each other....... The "leaders" are drinking wine (at the Mauby pocket tax payer expense)

Too simple for the chip on shoulder posse to grasp.

[De Dragon]

we in for some interesting times. I think we going and copy Greece. I await to see what our version of SYRIZA will be .

Well all this is to keep up from going down the Greece, Venezuela route.
This was affecting most of the world.... It just beginning to sink in they we weren't immune to it as the last government was leading us to
At least that's how I see it
Kind Of like someone spending on their credit cards.... Without thinking of how they were gonna pay the bill at the end of the month

Yes, but the Government that wants to play saviour of the manufactured crisis have a deficit Budget as their very first one! The next Budget will only look more balanced because the H&SF will be used as "revenue".

[zoom rader]

^^^ PNM ppl don't understand that.
If Rowley and Maxi fluffy Tell them dat they will say PNM save the country. When in fact the country was never in any danger

As I said a make believe recession to please PNM financiers