[Youngian]

He veers between a state regulated market and pragmatic decriminalisation on drugs, they're different approaches. His defence and foreign policy approaches are just as muddled.
Neither does Zack appear steeped in green economics (as personfied by E F Schumacher) but muscular fairly mainstream Keynesianism. Always like to inform Zack's left supporters that Keynes was a member of the Liberal Party.

[Tubby Isaacs]

He's not just a particularly hubristic Keynsian. He's anything that sounds like it means he can spend a lot without raising taxes. He's MMT as well.

It's nonsense. Hopefully James Meadway can knock some sense into him.

[Youngian]

As I understand MMT its spend and tax. Taxation is raised as a method of halting rising inflation. According to advocates who are lousy at politics even if the economic theory is plausible. It is a kind of round the houses deficit spending.

[Boiler]

Taxation is raised as a method of halting rising inflation.

Once upon a time, we had a thing called "Purchase Tax". The rate varied depending upon what it was that you were purchasing. If the economy showed signs of overheating, it was raised; when it was slack, it was reduced. It was a method of controlling the economy.

As an example, it probably did more to kill the British radio and television industry than anything else; for example, in a boom period manufacturers would step up production of their TV sets - and then when the Chancellor looked at the economy as a whole and inflation was rising, up would go the PT, leaving manufacturers with warehouses full of TVs they could no longer sell because they suddenly became very expensive indeed.

[Youngian]

Sounds very worthy but misguided. A green policy might be to tax cheap disposable goods out of existence in favour long lasting repairable ones.

The Purchase Tax was a tax levied between 1940[1] and 1973[1] on the wholesale value of luxury goods sold in the United Kingdom. Introduced on 21 October 1940, with the stated aim of reducing the wastage of raw materials during World War II, it was initially set at a rate of 33.33%.

The tax was subsequently set at differing rates dependent upon individual items' degree of "luxury"[2] as determined by the government of the day.[3]

The 33.33% rate was increased to 66% for cars costing over £1,000 in 1947 and this rate was extended to all cars from 1951. In 1953, it was reduced to 50%.[4]

In connection with the accession of the UK to the European Economic Community,[5] the Purchase Tax was abolished on 2 April 1973 and replaced by the Value Added Tax (VAT), charged on most goods and services, which is currently charged at a rate of between 5 and 20%. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purchase_Tax

[Killer Whale]

There was a 'luxury' rate of VAT for a while, wasn't there? I've got an idea that it was either lower, or not much higher than today's standard rate.

[Boiler]

There was a 'luxury' rate of VAT for a while, wasn't there? I've got an idea that it was either lower, or not much higher than today's standard rate.

There was indeed. It was 12.5%, as opposed to the standard 8%. Its application was odd, IIRC a BC108 transistor (which had a metal case) was 12.5% whilst the electrically identical BC148 in a plastic case was 8%.

25% is also rattling about in my head.

With regards to PT: during the Winter of 1947, coal trains couldn't get to power stations and staithes for merchants to deliver to homes. But people needed to keep warm, so they bought electric fires which overloaded a struggling post-war electricity grid and the capacity of the power stations.

Next year, to prevent a repeat of that scenario the PT on electric fires was raised to 100 %. On the new-fangled electric shavers, 125%.

Another oddity: a radiogram was considered a luxury item so attracted a high rate of PT, but a record player didn't. So Decca sold their very expensive "Decola" radiogram without a radio, which could be bought separately.

And another: from the world of Meccano, the Hornby model A3 controller was not sold as a model train controller because it would attract a high rate of PT, so it was sold as a "laboratory power supply" instead - with a lower rate of tax.

[Killer Whale]

Was there a thing where car radios had a high rate of PT, so manufacturers devised radios that could be taken out of the car housing and used stand-alone? I have a vague recollection of my dad telling me about this, and it being the reason behind us having a weird tall and thin transistor radio in the kitchen.

[Boiler]

Was there a thing where car radios had a high rate of PT, so manufacturers devised radios that could be taken out of the car housing and used stand-alone? I have a vague recollection of my dad telling me about this, and it being the reason behind us having a weird tall and thin transistor radio in the kitchen.

I think there was; not so long ago I had a battle royal trying to repair an "Elpico" convertible radio - it had battery corrosion damage and it was only me playing detective that discovered it was in fact a re-badged Hitachi radio that helped me fix it. But there was a connector on the bottom of the radio that engaged with a car holder that altered the power and aerial arrangements. I think there were others too - whilst not as complex, many a portable radio in the 1960s had a car aerial socket on them (the design classic that is the Bush TR82 was one such set) and some even a "car" button that disconnected the internal aerial and connected it to the car's aerial. The Bush TR90 looks very much like it was made to go in a car.

[Killer Whale]

A quick search leads me to this, which is the exact model we had:


https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/136703956061 ... ar=0&ff=11