There is a big difference between wealth and money. The much better off tend to have assets like property or shares, and these assets yield regular money for the wealthy to live on and aquire more assets while they also still retain those existiing assets. It is income without lifting a finger.

For the rest of us wage earners, money is given to us in return for time and expertise at something. Not only must we commit to forty or fifty hours a week but the resulting cash is a pretty fixed amount and it is heavily taxed at source. Unlike the wealthy, we can lose our job too.

All over the Western World the gap between the rich and the poor is widening and more than anything else that we face, I believe this hogging of wealth by the few will be what eventually brings down the house of cards on them, (and us). 

There was talk that this week's budget would seek to address this so what did it actually do. Well, having been told that smokers come from the poorer sectors of society and are more likely to be unemployed than anything else, our Government decided to kick them again while they are down. There was only one single tax increase and that was 50 cent on a packet of cigarettes. Those cigarettes were already the most expensive in the EU, costing twice the average European price.

At the other need of the scale and with an eye to those who could afford to make political donations of substance, the Government 'tweaked' the Capital Gains Tax rates. This is the sole tax on wealth here and it stood at thirty-three per cent. Most of us would love if that were the rate of income tax. But the Fine Gael/Labour coalition saw fit to reduce the CGT rate to twenty per cent. Is that the clink of brandy glasses I hear?

As David McWilliams says about the budget, "The big winners are the already rich." But David goes further. He adds that, "This is not the unintended consequence of policy. It is policy." Meanwhile, the Finance Minister introduced the hike in tobacco as "The only revenue raising item," in his budget. This was quickly followed by the suggestion that the tobacco increase has been earmarked to offset the cost of reducing the Universal Social Charge on wage earners, (USC). 

The net result is that the unemployed have been hit to pay for some relief for wage-earners while the really wealthy got a huge boost to that wealth

Oh, and Noonan recommended it to us as "A Socially Equitable Budget!"

DON'T VOTE FOR THOSE BASTARDS!!!!!!!!