UK Wealth, Editor at large, Bloomberg. Ex Ed in C @Moneyweek. Ex Columnist/Contrib Editor @FT Opinions personal. NED: THRG and Schroder https://xitter.twitterapi.xyz/t.co/ojIBNzZwBO #SharePower
Joined August 2010
- Tweets40K
- Following2.4K
- Followers66.7K
- Likes9K
Merryn Somerset Webb retweeted
With reports that HMRC will start photographing people's homes to assess Mansion Tax liability one point is surely clear. A huge amount of money is going to be spent on a tax that will raise almost nothing. What's the point?
Merryn Somerset Webb retweeted
This shoudl also be a reminder that the cost of living crisis is in large part government imposed. You wouldn't have one if you weren't paying so much tax to cover regulations and subsidies. See housing as below, energy, labour costs etc etc etc
Did you know government-imposed costs are responsible for more than half the price of a new build London flat?
Really important new report from @Ben_A_Hopkinson and Edward Donov👇
Merryn Somerset Webb retweeted
The time has come. It's a little scary out there. The AI bubble is obviously fragile, geopolitics are a mess and the financial consequences of rising rates are just getting going. You know what you need? Resilience in the form of a cockroach portfolio.. bloomberg.com/news/newslette…
Merryn Somerset Webb retweeted
Did you know government-imposed costs are responsible for more than half the price of a new build London flat?
Really important new report from @Ben_A_Hopkinson and Edward Donov👇
Government imposed policy costs make up 57% of the clearing price of a new flat in London and 42% of a new home in the Home Counties.
Despite a big housing shortage and positive planning reforms, new home starts in England are declining from 182,000 in 2022 to under 125,000 last year.
While the macroeconomic context has worsened with build cost inflation and high interest rates, the Government is imposing more burdens on new homes, not fewer.
Taxes, levies, planning, and mandates add over £440,000 to the cost of delivering a home in London and nearly £225,000 nearby, with several of these imposed recently like the Second Staircase, Future Homes Standard, Building Safety Levy, Biodiversity Net Gain and Residential Property Developer Tax.
Individually these may be justified, but together they are making new homes unviable.
As a result, large developers are buying less land and small builders are going out of business; nearly 4,000 construction firms went bust just last year.
If we want to build more homes, we should be easing the burdens on them, not adding more.
Making housebuilding viable again is the most important issue in housing policy and my co-author, Edward Donovan, has completed excellent modelling showing how big the challenge is.
Read the full report: cps.org.uk/wp-content/upload…
And simulate what changing the policies does with Edward's modelling here: easing-the-burdens.cps.org.u…
Merryn Somerset Webb retweeted
Major UK power stations demolished in the last ~20 years (coal + oil):
Coal:
• Cockenzie (2015)
• Kingsnorth (~2014–18)
• Tilbury B (2016–19)
• Didcot A (2014–20)
• Ironbridge B (by 2021)
• Rugeley B (by 2021)
• Longannet (by 2021)
• Ferrybridge C (by 2022)
• Eggborough (by 2022)
• Cottam (2023–25)
Oil / primarily oil:
• Inverkip (closed 2006, demolished 2010–13)
• Grain oil station (closed 2012, demolished ~2014–16)
• Richborough (towers/chimney 2012)
• Littlebrook D (closed 2015, demolished 2019)
• Fawley (closed 2013, demolished 2019–23)
Several more (West Burton, Aberthaw, Fiddler’s Ferry, Ratcliffe) are still being demolished. Part of the broader fossil-fuel phase-out
Since 2006 China has built several hundred New Coal Power Stations
Merryn Somerset Webb retweeted
"We've been spoiled"
Neuberger's Juan Torres shares the opportunities he's spotted away from AI with @merrynsw
Listen at bit.ly/4iuR9nj or watch Merry Talks Money at bloomberg.com/videos
Merryn Somerset Webb retweeted
African financial companies? Mid caps in Uzbekistan? Miners in Brazil? Maybe they aren't that bothered by Jensen Huang's sex life? Which is nice. Listen in for more.
"We've been spoiled"
Neuberger's Juan Torres shares the opportunities he's spotted away from AI with @merrynsw
Listen at bit.ly/4iuR9nj or watch Merry Talks Money at bloomberg.com/videos
Merryn Somerset Webb retweeted
Your letter has not answered my questions, John.
Why did the official Scottish Government account not acknowledge Remembrance Sunday, but did post about a Sikh Festival at precisely 11am?
The Scottish Government has questions to answer.
More than 207,000 fallen men and women are listed on the Scottish War Memorial's Roll of Honour.
Yesterday, the country fell silent at 11am to remember those to gave their lives for us.
Also at precisely 11am yesterday, the Scottish Government's X account published a post. Not about Remembrance Sunday, but about a Sikh festival. In fact, that account did not post to mark Remembrance Sunday at all.
Later in the day they also posted about climate change. But still, did not see it necessary to mark one of the most poignant days in our nation's calendar.
Bandi Chorr Divas is, of course, an important date for Sikhs. Indeed, it coinciding with Remembrance Sunday was the perfect opportunity for the Scottish Government to recognise the almost 200,000 Sikhs who were killed or injured fighting in the World Wars alongside allied forces.
They didn't do this. They chose to just ignore Remembrance Sunday altogether.
I have written to the Scottish Government for answers, not least in identifying who is responsible for showing such contempt and disrespect to our armed forces and veterans.
Merryn Somerset Webb retweeted
Has the time finally come to buy the much cheaper operating companies that are going to benefit in profit terms from the much more expensive AI stocks’ products? And is that what we have been seeing this last few weeks?
“The length of tasks an AI agent can complete on its own has been doubling roughly every four months. Businesses are adopting these tools at a pace with few precedents,” said Scottish Mortgage #SMT after £14.8bn tech investor posted a 31.5% halfyr return. citywire.com/wealth-manager/…
Merryn Somerset Webb retweeted
Great episode @MerrynSW and @John_Stepek
Which investment style do you prefer?
I’m thinking largely passive but with some evidence/rule based intervention?
Eg equal weighted passive top 100 world wide equity but with some criteria to meet?
@business
podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcas…
41%Passive ETF
26%Semi passive fund/IT
29%Managed fund/IT
3%Other please comment
117 votes • Final results Merryn Somerset Webb retweeted
If you asked anyone at HMRC what Adam Smith's four canons of taxation are, I doubt they would know.
In any case, they are that taxes should be:
1. equal and proportionate.
2. convenient.
3. certain.
4. economic.
On 4, the point is that the cost of raising the tax should be minimal, so that what actually reaches the treasury closely matches what was taken in the first place.
Meanwhile at HMRC
Merryn Somerset Webb retweeted
It’s all unravelling. Nevermind the blue wave, this story - Revolut cuts its AI costs 90pc by swapping to Chinese open source models - says it all about the end of of the AI spending boom dealroom.co/news/169124-revo…
Merryn Somerset Webb retweeted
Yesterday's market wrap with @MerrynSW has been somewhat left behind by events but I still think there are some useful points about bursting bubbles podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcas…
Merryn Somerset Webb retweeted
Value stocks (+24%) are now outperforming Growth stocks (-6%) by over 30 percentage points in 2026.
If that holds, it would be a record spread, even wider than what occurred in 2000 when the Dot-Com Bubble burst.
Is this the beginning of a major shift in market leadership?
Merryn Somerset Webb retweeted
Just to be clear, it’s not a tourist tax, it’s a travel tax, applying to anyone who has to stay away from home for a night
Merryn Somerset Webb retweeted
Staggering statistic - for perspective, 30 years ago, the index referred to below (FTSE Small Cap ex investment trusts) contained over 450 stocks.
Merryn Somerset Webb retweeted
Worth remembering re the BoE move, that it's mostly about oil/energy costs, and the last two days have seen those change rapidly. Note too though that it highlights UK's ridiculous energy fragility - your mortgage is rising because our MPs refuse to prioritise energy security.
Merryn Somerset Webb retweeted
House builder Vistry to shutter 13 out of 25 regional offices, by firing unnumbered members of staff in “difficult but necessary process of reducing headcount” in attempt to reduce £800m of debt in a market that is going nowhere.
Merryn Somerset Webb retweeted
High-income workers are fleeing Europe.
Economic theory tells us that the more
mobile a factor of production becomes,
the lower its optimal tax rate. This is why taxes on capital, which is relatively mobile, tend to be lower than taxes on labor, which historically has been less mobile.
However, as the chart below shows, as elite human capital has become more footloose, high taxes have become increasingly counterproductive.
This is a huge existential problem for European welfare states, which have traditionally relied on heavily taxing their most productive workers.
