Topic
Fiscal Policy
Everything Briefed has filed against Fiscal Policy, most recent first.
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Brazil's Congress backs spending curbs as Lula eyes reelectionBrazil's Congress is moving to attach expenditure-control measures to existing legislation, with Finance Minister Fernando Haddad's proposals expected to save around 10 billion reais next year by c…China reopens its offshore bond loophole, this time with a lockShanghai Electric Global Capital just raised roughly 1.5 billion yuan through a Shanghai free-trade-zone bond, the first from a nonfinancial issuer in nearly three years, since Beijing shut the mar…The Sell America trade is back, and this time it has receiptsDollar bears got quiet after the spring tariff panic faded, but the underlying complaint never actually went away: foreign holders of US assets are recalculating what Washington's policy volatility…Japan wants growth to do what intervention couldn'tBetting on GDP growth to fix the yen is a longer, riskier play than currency intervention, and Tokyo knows it. The argument coming out of Japan's leadership is that sustained economic growth, not c…Student loan repayments are quietly becoming a fiscal problemCalling repayment rates an unsustainable burden to the chancellor directly is a warning shot ahead of the Autumn Budget, not an academic complaint. The current system, where graduates repay 9% of i…Education Department wipes loans for another 170,000 defrauded borrowersThis is the latest tranche under borrower defense to repayment rules, the mechanism that lets defrauded students at collapsed for-profit colleges get federal loans discharged, and 170,000 more appr…US growth slowed and nobody's sure if that's good newsA weaker-than-expected second quarter GDP print lands at an awkward moment: soft enough to strengthen the case for Federal Reserve rate cuts, but not so soft that it looks like the hard landing bea…Egypt clears its IMF review, unlocking $1.8bnEgypt passing its latest IMF programme review and unlocking roughly $1.8bn matters beyond Cairo because it's a live test of whether currency devaluation and subsidy cuts, the standard IMF prescript…UK car production down 7.5%, and carmakers want government helpA 7.5% drop in first-half vehicle production is the kind of number that turns into a lobbying campaign, and that's exactly what's happening as manufacturers push the government for cost relief. Ene…Burnham is floating a new tax on workers to fund social careAndy Burnham opening the door to a dedicated social care tax is the clearest sign yet that Greater Manchester's mayor is positioning for a national conversation, not just a regional fix. Social car…Manchester's mayor is boxed in on borrowing, and Barclays just piled onAndy Burnham wants more fiscal room to spend, and two separate voices just told him no in the same week. A think tank has warned Greater Manchester has no scope to increase borrowing under current …A quiet Medicare subsidy cliff lands on insurers in 2027The federal subsidy program supporting Medicare drug plans is set to end after 2026, and the insurers running Part D plans, Centene, CVS's Aetna, UnitedHealth, are the ones left holding the pricing…The 20% business rates cut for pubs looks generous until you read the funding mechanismGovernment plans to cut business rates by 20% for pubs, clubs and music venues from April address a sector that's lost thousands of sites to rates bills exceeding what many small venues turn over i…UK inflation hits a 15-month low, but the £2 bus cap is the only relief that's actually locked inUK inflation eased in June to its lowest reading in 15 months as food and fuel prices fell, and the government used the moment to confirm the £2 bus fare cap in England returns from January. Econom…Thames Water's creditors offer Labour a golden share to dodge the nationalisation billHanding the government a golden share costs lenders almost nothing and buys them the one thing they actually want: keeping £15 billion of debt off the taxpayer's balance sheet while retaining econo…Japanese bonds are earning the nickname that once bankrupted tradersThe widow-maker trade got its name in the 1990s and 2000s from investors who repeatedly shorted Japanese government bonds expecting yields to rise, only to be wiped out as the Bank of Japan kept bu…Defence stocks jump on hopes John Healey has Treasury backing to spendBAE Systems and Babcock shares climbed on speculation that Healey's move to the Treasury signals a chancellor sympathetic to raising defence spending beyond the current 2.5% of GDP target, rather t…VAT cut on electricity bills lands in October, savings look smaller up closeScrapping the 5% VAT charge on domestic electricity bills sounds like meaningful relief until you run the numbers on an average household bill of roughly £1,700 a year, where the saving lands close…Burnham's chancellor pick spooks the gilt market before he's even unpackedGilt yields moved before John Healey had finished his first briefing, which shows markets are pricing a looser fiscal stance rather than reacting to a change of face at the top. Healey inherits a T…Parents could be missing £27 a week in child benefitHMRC's own data shows thousands of eligible families never claim it, usually because one parent assumes the household income cap rules them out when it doesn't.New Zealand's PM is running against his own predecessor's playbookWarning against 'sugar rush economics' is a direct shot at Ardern-era stimulus spending, and it signals New Zealand is choosing fiscal restraint over growth juicing well ahead of most G7 peers stil…Covid inquiry: £10bn of PPE spend failed the staff it was meant to protectThe UK Covid inquiry's finding that billions in emergency procurement delivered inadequate protective equipment is the clearest evidence yet that pandemic-era waste wasn't a rounding error, it was …Japan's 30-year bond yield just hit a three-decade high. The global rate reckoning has a new front.Japan's long-end yields are doing something they haven't done since the mid-1990s, and the mechanism matters more than the headline number. The Bank of Japan's gradual exit from yield curve control…Federal judges strike down Trump's changes to public servant loan forgiveness. 43 million borrowers are watching.A federal court has struck down the Trump administration's attempt to roll back the Public Service Loan Forgiveness programme, which affects borrowers who have spent years in government and non-pro…Shetland backs £1.5bn undersea tunnel planShetland Islands Council has backed a proposal for £1.5bn of undersea tunnels connecting the archipelago to the Scottish mainland, a project that would cut journey times and potentially reverse a d…Burnham's Manchesterism needs a tax lever to move from vision to policyThe economic case for English city-region devolution is well-evidenced. The implementation gap is the absence of hypothecated local tax-raising powers, and Treasury silence on that specific ask is …A third of UK firms want business rates cut. Labour has twelve months before that number becomes a political liability.Survey data showing one in three UK businesses prioritising business rates reform above other fiscal asks is a useful political temperature check. The current regime taxes physical premises on a va…Indonesia's capital flight is a test case for how EM investors price political risk in 2026Already covered in Markets and Economy.The Crown Estate's Treasury transfer just halved, and the King's sovereign grant formula is now the quiet storyThe Crown Estate's returns to the Treasury have fallen by more than half after profits dropped sharply, driven by a decline in offshore wind lease fees as developers paused new commitments amid ris…A decade after Brexit, the City is drawing up its wish list for the next PMWith UK political succession now a live question, the financial sector is doing what it always does in interregnums: publishing demands dressed up as analysis. The City's priorities, broadly, are r…Starmer out: sterling takes the hit the gilt market refused toKeir Starmer has resigned as Prime Minister, ending a tenure that never found its footing between a mandate it had and a public it lost. The pound fell on the news while gilts held, which tells you…Corporate market caps above $1 trillion warp risk perceptionThe cognitive inability to distinguish between millions, billions and trillions is distorting investment decisions as corporate valuations enter the multi-trillion range. Most people systematically…Treasury clashes with No 10 over war bonds proposalTensions have emerged between HM Treasury and Downing Street over proposals to issue new "war bonds" to finance increased defence spending, with officials split on whether symbolic retail debt inst…Jeffries positions affordability as Democrats' 2026 priorityHouse Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries is explicitly positioning "driving down the high cost of living" as the central governing priority if Democrats recapture the House majority in 2026, establi…Malaysia may miss deficit target as fuel subsidies hit RM7bn monthlyFinance Minister Amir Hamzah Azizan warned the 3.5% deficit target is at risk after fuel subsidies exploded to RM7 billion in April alone, roughly 10 times pre-Iran war levels. The government cut R…UK commits £1.3bn to Universal's Bedford theme parkThe government will provide £1.3 billion in infrastructure support for Universal's first European resort, opening in 2031.Midlife women tap government loans they may never repayGrowing numbers of women in their 50s are using taxpayer-backed loans to supplement stagnant wages, exploiting income-contingent repayment terms that effectively function as deferred welfare. The t…Southeast Asian yield curves may steepen on oil-driven fiscal pressureRising energy prices are widening the spread between short and long-term government bond yields across Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia and the Philippines as markets price higher inflation and larger…Australians reject Albanese budget despite cost-of-living focusAlmost half of Australian voters say the federal budget will leave them worse off financially, with only 13% expecting to benefit from Treasurer Jim Chalmers' tax and spending package. The negative…NYC real estate boss sees opportunity in buyer hesitationHigh mortgage rates are creating a buyers' market in America's most expensive cities. Brown Harris Stevens CEO Bess Freedman calls NYC and West Palm Beach "opportunity markets" due to ample invento…