National Debt

[yorkie_chris]

Originally Posted by Bibio

you can sit and blame the government all you want but at the end of the day it has been the greedy british public that have got us into so much debt.

society today demands that we 'have it now and pay for it later', trouble with that is someone has to foot the bill in the meantime and that would be the government.

O rly?

Account I've read suggests that the British public was actually doing pretty well at servicing their debts.

[timwilky]

Originally Posted by Bri w

Quite a lot of overseas aid guarantees British jobs.

In a lot of cases the Govt pays a British company to supply the materials for x,y,z.

Its a backhanded way of subsidising British industry without breaking EU rules.

Hmmm, I worked on Pergau dam. That was a classic. We will pay for a hydro electric dam you don't need if you let British companies build it.

However, as we were subcontractors. It was Balfour Beatty & Cementation that got the readies and britain got a deal to sell Hawk aircraft

[punyXpress]

[QUOTE=Bibio;2222773]you can sit and blame the government all you want but at the end of the day it has been the greedy british public that have got us into so much debt.

society today demands that we 'have it now and pay for it later', trouble with that is someone has to foot the bill in the meantime and that would be the government.

And there was no element of the government encouraging this?

[timwilky]

Originally Posted by punyXpress

society today demands that we 'have it now and pay for it later', trouble with that is someone has to foot the bill in the meantime and that would be the government.

And there was no element of the government encouraging this?

There is some confusion between personal debt and national debt. In the main, personal debt seems to be handled reasonably well. Even if some stupid banks have made loans more in the hope that the borrower will be able to afford it.

National debt, is as a result of one thing. Government spending. I was brought up with the "If you cannot afford, you cannot have" mentality. Unfortunately ministers in the present government have not understood basic economics. They treated tax payers money as if it was monopoly money and seem to think that if you keep spending the global recession will go away.

No it wont. and there is only one way to spend when you haven't got the cash. Borrow it and expect the tax payer to fund their flawed economic models.

Originally Posted by Biker Biggles

Correct.Capitalism requires constant "growth" or expansion in order to camouflage the ever increasing debt.In a finite world that is unsustainable and eventually must end in economic collapse.

Guess no one really cares at the moment because "it won't happen to me, and if it does the government will prop us up..."

As tim said, they just love to waste our money on any stupid idea thatcomes along. Sigh.

Debt has been steadily rising or thereabouts for near enough the past thirty years, so I very much doubt the country will be out of debt in my lifetime! That is unless they spend a few hundred billion to conquer the middle east, claim all the oil, and double the price per barrell....or invent something which can turn coal into gold. Oh wait...we don't have much coal either!

[keith_d]

Government budgeting is a variation on a well known economic problem, "The Tragedy of the Commons". Here's a modern example of how it works.

A group of ten friends decide to go out for a curry. Outside the restaurant they agree to simply divide the bill between them. After eating they find the bill is rather larger than expected and they have all eaten far too much. Why??

It's because if I order an extra prawn puri I get 100% of the joy of eating it, but only pay 10% of the price. So it's always in my interest to order that extra bit from the common budget, and it's the same for everyone around the table.

The demands from voters that, "the government should do something about the XXX" are just the same as ordering an extra onion bahji at the indian. Except that this time the bill is going onto the credit card instead of being paid in cash.

Originally Posted by Ed

Here are the folks responsible. Right rogues' gallery.

ooh, you never told us you got to sit next to DAvid Milliband at Cabinet!

If the finest economists in the world can't explain how it all works, the org is as good a place as any to come up with the answer !

[punyXpress]

" finest economists in the world "
Who are these people - certainly not that shower of fequits in Whitehall?

We've just had 10 boom years! Where's the money gone from the boom?

Britain is supposed to be a "Company" in that it needs to balance its books. If it doesn't it goes pop. Just like a company, Britain PLC has shareholders (us) that could leginimately expect a dividend from Britain PLC having a Boom for 10 years. Where is it?

If we'd invested in the stock market we'd have made a killing in 10 years. So what about the dividends for Britain PLC? Where has the money gone? How come we have to borrow so much after 10 years of boom, Why aren't the Coffers full?

Three years ago the canadian Dollar was 2.5 to the Pound. Its now 1.5 to the Pound.

Proud to be British?

Get me out of here!

C