Getting my thoughts in order

Hmm, so it has been a long time. Whilst I get some more serious thoughts in order, the news of the day seems to be the budget. I'm frequently aware of how ignorant I am of economics and finance in general. Nothing in the budget seemed very dramatic or interesting at all to me, nor were any of the responses to it.

Here's a slightly interesting thing though, these the words of David Cameron:

"and would target binge drinkers with tax rises "not every responsible drinker in this country who wants a glass of wine at the end of a hard day's work". "

I noticed the other day his party plans to raise taxes on high strength beer and cider, and on Alcopops (which I think would be pretty hard to define under law). What about every responsible drinker in the country who wants a half of strong cider at the end of a hard days work?
Pretending to be serious about binge drinking by taxing only the drinks Dave and his chums percieve the 'yobs' to drink is a typical example of conservative snobbery in tax form.

In the meantime, if I may criticize the government in turn, many of the measures announced seem to be fiddling around at the edges.

For example, introducing laws to 'tax plastic bags if shops do not do more to charge for their use' does nothing to address the far more pressing problem of the amount of plastic packaging used by supermarkets. Do a weekly food shop, weigh the plastic bags you use to carry it, and then weigh the packaging that comes with your food........

and statements like 'every school should be an improving one by 2011' (because a matter of a few thousands of pounds has been thrown at each school) don't really offer concrete and innovative proposals for improving the education system.

Mind you, if I were Chancellor I've no idea what I'd propose. Tax exemption for everybody whose surname is Foster, I reckon.