National Debt

Originally Posted by Berlin

How come we have to borrow so much after 10 years of boom, Why aren't the Coffers full?

This is the question that should really be asked - spot on.

This stupid govt didn't save for a rainy day when times were good, believing that economic growth would continue for ever. Ask them what they have done with North Sea Oil revenues and watch them squirm.

It was the economics of the madhouse and the whole house of cards fell overs because of something outside of their control - sub-prime mortgage lending in the US. Our money has gone into propping up the banks, the very organisations guilty of dubious lending practices in the first place.

Originally Posted by timwilky

+1.

Oh and sort out record unemployment with British jobs for British workers whilst your at it

Little question, but did you know that there are less people unemployed at during this world recession than there were at the end of the last conservative government? That and the working population of Britian is much greater now.......

National debt is a repercussion of WWII...

Originally Posted by Caddy2000

Little question, but did you know that there are less people unemployed at during this world recession......

Is that "unemployed and claiming benefit"?

What about all those on long-term sick or registered disabled?

Or all those 18 to 24 year olds who have been encouraged to go to university taking up all those newly created places that the govt made availble by throwing money at it? The same places that the govt are now cutting because they can't afford it.

The unemployment figures have been systematically massaged over the last 13 years and people removed from that particular list whenever possible.

I might have misheard something on the radio yesterday, the gist of which was that 25% of adults of working age and not in full-time education who are not working is 25%. Happy to be proved wrong on this last point.

[timwilky]

Originally Posted by Caddy2000

Little question, but did you know that there are less people unemployed at during this world recession than there were at the end of the last conservative government? That and the working population of Britian is much greater now.......

National debt is a repercussion of WWII...

At the end of the last conservative government, none of my family or friends were unemployed. At present my twin brother (Construction projects director) and my son (wall and floor tiler) are. so please don't tell me there is not record unemployment.

Unemployment statistics have been fiddled and recalculated. Why has incapacity benefits claimants increased 10 fold? Simple they have been moved off the unemployment register to make it look like rates have come down for long term unemployed.

National debt is a repercussion of government spending money it does not have.


As for WWII debt, it was $4.3 billion at 2% over a 50 year repayment schedule. Approx $27 billion in modern terms and was paid off in 2006. A piddling amount compared to what this lot have spent over the past few years. Does joe public actually realised in real terms Brown has cost us more the 5 years of global warfare.

[yorkie_chris]

Originally Posted by Berlin

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

See post #2.

They need to put businessmen into positions of power rather than political d*ckheads who've never done a days work in their lives.

Originally Posted by yorkie_chris

See post #2.

They need to put businessmen into positions of power rather than political d*ckheads who've never done a days work in their lives.

Yeh Business men who are used to handling huge budgets, and making decisions in the interest of the "Company", Britian. We could ask those nice Bankers!

Am I the only one here who sees that this is a GLOBAL problem?

http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/tgm...ion=1&plugin=1

The debt taken on was done to stop the colapse of the GLOBAL banking system, to protect the life savings and pensions of British citizens. If the banking system had colapsed this recesion would look like a walk in the park by comparison. Even America, the "F**k you Jack I'm alright" country decided it had to spend money to prop up the banking sector. This is the down side of living in a Capitalist world.

Do you really think Britain would have been the only major economy to escape this recesion if there was a different government in charge?

Do you honestly think that the government of Great Britain caused this Global problem? Grow up, it came from the private sector. OK the regulation could be better, but it's a balancing act. If you make it too difficult for private companies to do business the way they see fit, they'll just go somewhere else, and up goes unemployment and down goes government revenue. That's why it needs a global response, with all the worlds major economies signing up to it. And that's what this government is trying to broker.

Unemployment might be a terrible new experience for some people, but it's certainly not new. Just ask the 3 million unemployed of 1982! 20% in Northern Ireland, 15% in Scotland and northern England.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/d...00/2506335.stm

Yes we all know the figures are fidled, but again this isn't new, I'm sure Maggy new how to cook the books too... I wonder what the real figure was?

Oh yeh, and back then there was no global banking crisis.

[embee]

National debt is due to reach £1,406 billion (that's £1,406,000,000,000) by the end of the next parliament according to the latest assessments. Assume 60 million inhabitants, that's equivalent around £24k per person (man woman and child) the Government will want to find from us all one way and another. How's that going to work?

Even if the borrowing miraculously fell to zero overnight, it would still take 20 or more years to bring the debt down to near zero. We're in serious doo-doo for the next 50 years at least. That's depressing to say the least. Unfortunately the media/government have now made the term "bilions" quite meaningless, so numbers just escalate out of control.

The main problem is the the Government departments who spend money, don't have to earn it, they just take it. They have no concept of affordability. We have huge huge huge public spending. Similarly the MPs lose sight of "earning" their wages, they are just given too much too easily. Bring on performance related pay, or payment in shares in UK Plc (i.e. the MPs get paid in IOU's, when the national debt is paid off, then they start getting paid).

Brown believed his own bull$hit so much that he just used the boom revenues to justify borrowing more and more on the basis that there couldn't be a bust, because he said he'd ended boom+bust, QED. It's never his fault, always someone else's. He didn't want the Banks etc to stop the imaginary money creation because he was raking in tax from it.

He clearly never read the Bible (even though his father was a Minister apparently), otherwise he might remember the lean/fat years parable. It's not rocket science. Norway (I think) salted away bits of North Sea oil revenue so it now has a huge sum saved up, we used our revenue to fund more borrowing.

The serious dilemma is just who do you vote for at the upcoming election, I mean really? Are any of them actually capable of dealing with the disaster of the UK economy?

Originally Posted by embee

The serious dilemma is just who do you vote for at the upcoming election, I mean really? Are any of them actually capable of dealing with the disaster of the UK economy?

That's the problem, it's not just the UK economy is it?

People also need to realise that if you want puplic services, like the NHS, like schools and education you need to pay for it. Look at Denmark, they have execelent puplic services, but then again the average joe does pay 50% tax.

A friend of ours from Denmark married a Scotsman, and they live in Denmark. Before he moved he owned a shiny new Firblade, the cost of ownership is shuch that he had to sell it in the UK, and buy a third hand SV as that's all he can afford to own. It was one of the slow curvy ones in super slow yellow too

[arc123]

Originally Posted by Berlin
How come we have to borrow so much after 10 years of boom, Why aren't the Coffers full?

This is the question that should really be asked - spot on.

10 years of boom? we have been encouraged to spend money/accumulate debts on credit cards/loans etc in order to sustain the boom. The government hasn't had 10 years of boom - national debt has been increasing the entire 10 years. The only people gaining from the national debt are the lenders, in the form of interest payments.

The puiblc has conveniantly been blamed for this economic crash - being too greedy, borrowing too much blah blah blah. The fact is that money is created as debt. If there was no debt, then there would be no money.

I see the problem as being this. The economy has been made to look like it has been getting bigger and bigger by letting people borrow more and more and spend more and more... Obviously to someone who forgets the debt (government) it looks like the economy is going REALLY well "look at all the spending that is going on! How can things be going bad?"

Then the people borrowing the money say "we cant pay it back", the housing market goes through because the banks cant finance people to buy them, which is a downward spiral, in the end the bank has no money to loan. So the banks loan other Banks more money and eventually that dries up as well, the banks then say:

"We don't have the money now to cover all these loans that are falling through, we cant recoup on our loans because no one can afford to buy a house without our backing and we cant back them, what can we do!?"

So then obviously we the people (government) has to save the whole thing.



This is a bit of an aside to the real problem which is the fact that Gordon didn't save money for if anything did go wrong, he basically kept borrowing more and more. He is just an idiot. Ill be VERY disappointed if he got back in!


As to Denmark and 50% tax, just how much tax do you think we have? Off the top of my head 20% income tax, then 17.5% VAT. National insurance which no matter how you try to dress it up is TAX is about 10%... Then of course fuel costs which are stupid, Road tax etc etc, id say the Government is getting more than 50% of my money!