What About The Budget?

[Hidden]

What you all think about the latest budget?

I personally find it a 'sweetheart' budget to get alot of votes if he calls a snap election, but that's just my take.

Good thing is free university education though :)

[Paradoxxx]

On my side the budget helped alot with my income :), Did trinidad win the world lotto or something?

[Xecutiona]

i think that things looking good....the tax reductions and food reductions are reallllll good

the import duties are real good too

they tryin to get trinis to stop eatin chicken lol

the only thing is the crime...but the gov't alone cant alone stop that problem...a parliamentary decision not goin to help the mkentality of a man to shoot and kill another

sigh this country yes....economic growth is upon us...but socially we goin down the drain

and this budget is based on oil prices of $35.50 per barrel....the price of oil currently is >60

[SPK]

..Cuz the quality of the oil we producing is not that high quality.

Remember, those figures are based on Brent crude oil, our oil nowadays is nowhere that quality anymore, all the oil of that level got pumped out in the last oil boom....

[Hidden]

Doesn't all this extra money floating around mean increased inflation?especailly with more disposable income.
They say they want it to be spent here to develop the country, but isn't that a double edged sword?

[rumbelly]

not exactly dinesh

increased Gross Domestic Product ( simply .. the sum of goods and services that are produced within a country ) means increases in the quality of living in a country

inflation is natural .. due to demand and supply .. and limited resources ... about 4% inflation per year in seen as "normal" in most economically stable countries

Major inflation happens when countries spend alot of money on goods produced in forieng countries ( hence the money is leaving the country ) , making other coutries richer

i'm not too worried about the inflation that would happen when we have "more money" to throw around .. quite simply >>
people would make/spend more money ,hence increasing demand for goods and services, hence businesses would have to raise the prices due to limites resources, hence businesses would make more profits , hence are able to pay thier employees more money .. hence people spend more money ( and ths cycle starts over )


but trinidad is a very rich and blessed nation .. we shouldnt have to be buying so much goods from foreign countries , good that can be produced down here ( hence keeping the money in the country ) .. with a little investment and some kind of foresight ... sigh


and yes para ... with the oil shortages in the world right now, it really come like trinidad win the lotto

[Hidden]

And lotto money going and run out when Bush gets his hands on Iraqi Oil.

[Xecutiona]

thats why we making these investments now....so that we would be seeing returns in the future so that we can make further investments.....

we import almost 90% of our agriculture from other countries

agriculture is one of the main goods used by consumers becasue every one needs it

since caroni has given out the lands for AGRICULTURE purposes, the intention is to decrease the amount of agriculture imported by our country...dat means lower food costs again


things SHOULD look up.....note i say SHOULD

unless there is another recession....then we in sh!t

[rumbelly]

SHOULD


thing is eh .. trinidad is such a tiny country, with just a million people ... a population of 1 million is like nutten on the world scale

yet we have a very high recognition the world over, and we are also rich in reousrces ( natural gas , oil , asphalt )

when yuh think about it ... the "measures" that were put in place in this last budget shoulda really be already there ... everyone in trinidad should be living real nice, because we have more than enough resources in this country to have a very high GDP

some of those small oil countries in the middle east have entire populations livin in upper middle class to rich

we should be all rich :(

lol

[opium]

so other than free education

and prices drop on food (what food btw)

and reduction on taxes

wah went on in de budget?

i was not in trinidad to hear any of this

and please dont get blinded but de free education u dont know what strings are attached to it

[Xecutiona]

no strings opium....and u can read the budget online if u so desire

its really good...there is a whole list online bout the decreased food prices...and its food that most ppl eat...reductions in all meat exept chicken...i mean u can inport horse cheaper now!!!!

[rumbelly]

oddly enough ,

after some analysis, there is some "gayness" in the budget as well

while increasing personal allowance, they removed soem benefits of from loans and employee share holder programs ...

i'll get more details .. but it jus seems like a ploy by the government to make people feel the government doin something good .. making big announcement about increases in personal allowance so yuh feel yuh richer ... then quietly taking away some of your other benefits ..


sigh

[Paradoxxx]

yeah that was the catch no more allowances for mortage, wife, children etc the ppl without these things will get more $$.

They are taking away money from parent and giving it to single ppl ;)

[oats]

its a conspiracy i say

[Itachi]

I find we shud get our resident economist, JOCKO, to give us his analysis of the budget, it wud be good to hear an economist's point of view....

[Xecutiona]

well rum, while taking away from benefits and what not i would like to emplore you to budget YOUR annual spending and allowances from the former budgets and then compare it to when you do the same with this one.

if you do, it is highly unlikely that you would end up worse off than before....

you would end up better off by a couple shades of blue paper...nice :)

but what about the people not really getting those benefits...the people who dont feel a loss due to the reduction of these benefits?

the fact of the matter is that they benefit. Even though you benefit less as a result of your loss in your benefits in those areas, you are no more in debt than before and you are actually having more to spend

this budget has been suited for people not to gain less but to have moer disposable income.

i would be shocked to see if anyone does not benefit from this budget...and by benefit i mean having more disposable income from before.

[Hidden]

Haven't a bunch of taxes gone up or something?
I was hearing something about increased rates of lending from banks.

[jocko]

There is alot that can be said about the current budget.

I would like, however, to draw attention to a startling statistic which RUM mentioned above

GDP in T&T for the 2004-2005 fiscal year is $90 billion

To put this into perspective, consider dividing this income among the 1.3 million Trinibagonians.

This gives $70 000 per person.

Assume now that an average household has four individuals a mother, a father and say two kids. Then this would seem to suggest that the average houshold in Trinidad and Tobago should under all fairness recieve an income of $280 000 (4 x $70 000).


I know of very few households who make anything close to this amount. Waite....with the exeption of snake of course who own ah gas station and the land the shoe locker building on and a host of other remarkable assets.


My central point is that, if a national budget results in a lil bit more paper in your pocket, then yuh simply being screwed....in the back door.

Every single budget in the histroy of T&T was not sucessful in addressing this shortcoming, the overall thesis is that this budget is just another budget.....thats all.

Fellas go back and play some SOURCE!


Regards

[oats]

ALL I have to say iz,

"Never Underestimate the power of stupid people in numbers"

[rumbelly]

yea xec, i tryin to understand how come u fightin down this budget

cause honestly , its seems like the only people who benefit are those makine less than 5 grand a year in jobs that have no benefits ....
like dinesh said, there were changes (increases) in the lending rates of banks , and there was also alot of allowances removed for famillies and children .. come like we spinnin top in mud ... we aint goin nowhere with this budget man

dare i say ...it seems the poor people benefitting at the cost of the rich .. or well in this case ,, at the cost of the middle class and up

though i have no problem with that, imo, trinidad should be an overall richer country ....... we shouldnt have to be haggling over this

i'll read up the different analyses i received at work with respect to this budget

[Xecutiona]

its not like i realll fighting down this budget, im just stating that this budget is better than the rest in the past 10 years....

and i think its a good step towards economic growth.

[Hidden]

I think its a step towards getting more votes, but thats' just me.

[Xecutiona]

i want to really leave the politics side out of it eh dinesh but still....you have a point.

but if by wooing votes positive is done for the country i am in favour oif the ACTION....

but i am not in favour of the only real reason for hange is the votes....thats just wrong...but all politicians are the perpetrators of such an act arent they?

[Hidden]

I have high sources that have given me sufficient reason to know this is a 'sweetheart' budget for votes.
Only time will tell what is going to happen, but I stand by my opinion that this is to benefit no one but the government.
It's the largest budget ever, even more than last year.
All I have seen for this is painted stones, traffic lights getting changed to smaller more retarded ones, and whole page ads about our dear prime minister.

Yes it's better for the 'poorer people' , but what are they going to do when the cost of living goes up? Trinidad going and inflate like a bloody hotair balloon, then is catchass for the lower income folks.