The revolting French

The Revolting French Charles Dickens’ captured the mood of the moment in the opening part of A Tale of Two Cities.

“It was the best of times it was the worst of times etc etc”

The French revolution arose from the overspending autocracies of Louis the XV and XV1. The aristocracy in France at that time were exempt from taxes, and the monarchy lavished favours on indolent courtiers who had roles at court, but no meaningful tasks. In order to meet the extravagant lifestyles at court, taxes were imposed virtually everything from flour to salt. Seigneurs required their serfs to work longer hours on the seigneural land, thus creating less time for serfs to work their own ground and grow food. Reduced incomes, rising commodity prices, failed harvests, spiraling debt, unemployment, starvation and abject misery resulted.

Anyway, as you know, most of these feckless people had their heads chopped off and the French have lived happily ever after!

There are many of us who feel that there could be a message in all this and that many bankers would probably be better without their heads! We had a letter last week from the world’s local bank, HSBC who told us that they were going to close the branch in Ellesmere; so it is the world’s local bank as long as you don’t live in Ellesmere or environs. At the same time, it appears HSBC have been busily transferring money for Gadafi and his family from Libya; it sounds like ethical banking to me.

So, as ever, nothing really changes apart from taxes for you will go up again this year to pay for all this lunacy. I enclose the tax tables for the 2011/12 tax year. It is getting increasingly difficult to mitigate income tax on earned income, but it is still possible to protect investment capital from income tax, capital gains tax and inflation; it is, also, relatively easy to avoid inheritance tax on estates.