Who could have predicted it?

Just about everybody, that's who. Well, just about everybody apart from politicians and people who keep spouting stupid slogans because they believe that money grows on trees. Tax those rich bastards. Why shouldn't rich corporations pay their "fair" share? Fair share of what, one asks oneself.

Anyway, as City AM reported today,

THE CHANCELLOR was forced to defend his surprise tax raid on oil firms yesterday after energy giant Statoil announced that it was suspending a $10bn (£6.2bn) investment in the North Sea in response to the hike.

Well, we couldn't consult them all, whined Georgie-Porgie. Of course, they don't like being taxed. What do you mean they can take their money somewhere else? That was not in the script.

The real problem lies in this paragraph:

The government hopes to raise more than £10bn over the course of the current Parliament, to fund an immediate 1p per litre fuel duty cut and a fuel stabiliser to cushion motorists from rising oil prices.

There is no thought behind any of these cuts. The assumption is that we can cut a bit here and a bit there but, basically, the state retains all its powers and portfolio of activity. Therefore, if we cut taxes in one place, the government will not have enough money and taxes will have to be raised somewhere else. How about asking whether the government actually needs all that money in order to do (very badly) many things that it ought not to be doing? Then we can start working out what it is the government does need to be doing.