National Debt

Originally Posted by Ed

I don't understand why the overseas aid budget is ring fenced. Why not cut it, if we can't afford it, we shouldn't be doing it.

I think there is a difference in providing money for people so that they can live (clean water, sanitation etc) and giving larger unemployment benefits so that people can smoke more, drink more, spend more on lottery tickets (not forgetting Sky TV) etc.

Originally Posted by ThEGr33k

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?"

Availability of credit is hardly something you can blame on the/any government. That's down to the privately owned; only worry about the dividend for the shareholder, banks. And if any government did try to step in they would be accused of being a nanny state, interfering with people’s rights.

Originally Posted by ThEGr33k

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.

Majority of this problem originated America, how is that the UK Governments fault? If they didn't prop-up the banks things would be much worse, and people all over the world would find that the life savings account they had tucked away in the private bank vanished when the bank went bust.

Originally Posted by ThEGr33k

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!

Well, I don't suppose we really need nuclear weapons do we? And why does such a small nation have such a big army? OK, more could have been done to put some cash aside, but any government is judged on what it delivers. In a stable healthy economy what government is going to say "No you can't have access to the new cancer drug, were saving for a rainy day". Lets be objective, this government was elected on promises to spend money, not save it. Anyway they would have had to have put aside some serious money to make any sort of dent on this problem, and if they had they would be accused of hording tax payers cash when people are in need of X, Y, or Z.

Originally Posted by ThEGr33k

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!

I don't have full detials of all Danish taxes, but the 50% figure isn't the only tax. Read the bit where I mentioned the cost of motorcycle ownership.

Borrowing money was actively encouraged by this Governement in order to fuel the false boom which it created. Agreed that the availability is down to the private banking sector, but would the credit have been offered had the Government's spend, spend, spend policy not been in effect I wonder?

Originally Posted by Philbo

Availability of credit is hardly something you can blame on the/any government. That's down to the privately owned; only worry about the dividend for the shareholder, banks. And if any government did try to step in they would be accused of being a nanny state, interfering with people’s rights.

People's rights... Spending money that you havn't earn't isn't a right in my opinion.

Originally Posted by Philbo

Majority of this problem originated America, how is that the UK Governments fault? If they didn't prop-up the banks things would be much worse, and people all over the world would find that the life savings account they had tucked away in the private bank vanished when the bank went bust.

What America does is not our problem but what we should have done is made it so our banks cant take silly risks... But then our government was loving the risks as much as the banks, like I said, boosted the economy.

Originally Posted by Philbo

Well, I don't suppose we really need nuclear weapons do we? And why does such a small nation have such a big army? OK, more could have been done to put some cash aside, but any government is judged on what it delivers. In a stable healthy economy what government is going to say "No you can't have access to the new cancer drug, were saving for a rainy day". Lets be objective, this government was elected on promises to spend money, not save it. Anyway they would have had to have put aside some serious money to make any sort of dent on this problem, and if they had they would be accused of hording tax payers cash when people are in need of X, Y, or Z.

Our armed forces is not big at all. The US's's forces gets 14% of the budget, ours gets 5% of our considerably smaller total spending. We waste money on benefits mostly. N' now debt interest is now more than our spending on the forces... I know which one is the better value for money!

What stable economy? Obviously it was so stable we arnt just about crawling out of a recession because of an unstable economy. MP's and it seems most people only have an eye for the short term... Look at what we are stuck with now! We have been spending like crazy since about 2007 and then the banks last year... We should have spent what we had not what we could borrow.

Originally Posted by Philbo

I don't have full detials of all Danish taxes, but the 50% figure isn't the only tax. Read the bit where I mentioned the cost of motorcycle ownership.

To be honest I would guess that moving to any country (or even in our own) would hit the wallet... Its probably more down to the move than the Taxes that he had to get a cheaper ride.

learn how the economy works boom, bust, boom, bust... guess whats going to come next?
its not efficient, its not the best way to run an economy but every 20 years you get get massive growth, and then a few years in a recession. These recessions only happen when one thing happens, greed is greater than the economical growth.
the national debt is caused by the attempt to grow, think of it as a business does a business save when it needs to grow? no
the growth needs to money injecting into it quickly so it borrows money and pays it back with money from the growth same with the economy, the debt does go down when we are making high economical growth, normally the year before a recession has the highest economical growth.

Originally Posted by ThEGr33k

People's rights... Spending money that you havn't earn't isn't a right in my opinion.

There are millions who would argue about that. Part of me actually agrees with you here, but it's the old free country, free market stuff again. For some folk, in certaim circumstances, it's the ony option.

Originally Posted by ThEGr33k

What America does is not our problem but what we should have done is made it so our banks cant take silly risks... But then our government was loving the risks as much as the banks, like I said, boosted the economy.

Again I don't exactly disagree, but without global standards it would simply have meant bye bye to the financial sector the UK. Not much of an option in my view.

Originally Posted by ThEGr33k

Our armed forces is not big at all. The US's's forces gets 14% of the budget, ours gets 5% of our considerably smaller total spending. We waste money on benefits mostly. N' now debt interest is now more than our spending on the forces... I know which one is the better value for money!

The British Armed Forces has the fourth highest declared expendature of any military in the world, behind the USA, China and France... We also have the largest Airforce and Navy in the EU. Why? We still seem to have this empire attitude. We don't have an empire any more, we need to remember this and cut our cloth accordingly.

Originally Posted by ThEGr33k

What stable economy? Obviously it was so stable we arnt just about crawling out of a recession because of an unstable economy. MP's and it seems most people only have an eye for the short term... Look at what we are stuck with now! We have been spending like crazy since about 2007 and then the banks last year... We should have spent what we had not what we could borrow.

Do you have a mortgage? I couldn't afford to buy a house without one. By the "only spend what you have" arguement none of use would own our homes. It's not such a big leap to extend this concept to government spending.
We are in a recision becuase of a GLABAL banking crisis. One of the joys associated with Capitalism.
As mentioned, do you really think the UK would have been the only major world economy unaffected if there was a different government in charge?

And be fair, this crisis asside, this has probably been the most stable the UK economy has been in living memory. Healthy? Well it's all relative isn't it!

Originally Posted by ThEGr33k

To be honest I would guess that moving to any country (or even in our own) would hit the wallet... Its probably more down to the move than the Taxes that he had to get a cheaper ride.

I thought you might say that! It was the cost of ownership. The money he would normally have spent in the UK to put/keep a shiny new fireblade on the road would only allow him to run a third hand SV650.

[yorkie_chris]

Originally Posted by ThEGr33k

People's rights... Spending money that you havn't earn't isn't a right in my opinion.

You advocate a return to the landower/serfdom system?

Mortgaging property is different, right?

Originally Posted by Jabba

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.

The coffers aren't full because we are "At War"... in two countries. Everything we've made in the last 10 years in Britain PLC has been spent in a "Hostile takovers" of Iraq PLC and Afghanistan PLC.

I put a motion forward of No confidence in the Borad of Britain PLC!

C

[Biker Biggles]

What makes the current situation so much more serious than ever before is that we now have no means of getting out of the mess.After the war we had our manufacturing base which could be rebuilt and hence the "export or die" mantra of the fifties and sixties.Along came Thatcher who started the trend towards a finance biassed economy away from a manufacturing based one,and the whole restructuring was propped up by huge income from North Sea oil and flogging off anything that wasnt nailed down(privatisation).This disguised the uncomfortable truth that GB plc hasnt been solvent for decades and naw the gravy train has hit the buffers.What is going to prop up the economy for the next thirty years?Anyone who has an answer for that should be made Prime Minister ASAP.

[punyXpress]

[QUOTE=sunshine;2224396]learn how the economy works boom, bust, boom, bust... guess whats going to come next?

BOOM! 'cos Brown G will be down the road.