Government Spending Cuts - How Much Are We Actually Talking About?

meths · 24 Jun 2010 at 10:05

I keep hearing people talking about how the government needs to claw back billions of pounds to repay the deficit but what do they actually mean by a billion pounds?

According to the Collins English Dictionary a billion is currently 1 thousand millions but formerly in Britain it was 1 million millions.

The Oxford Dictionary on the other hand says "commonly in Great Britain: A million millions. (= U.S. trillion.)" and "In U.S., and increasingly in Britain: A thousand millions".

So which is it that the government are using?

Sirrel Squirrel · 24 Jun 2010 at 10:06

It's a thousand million, everyone would be seriously worried if it were a million million.

edscdk · 24 Jun 2010 at 10:13

Meths said:
I keep hearing people talking about how the government needs to claw back billions of pounds to repay the deficit but what do they actually mean by a billion pounds?

the defecit does not need to be repaid, the defecit is what we borrow each year which the government wants to reduce..

If the defecit was 0 it would mean the government did not borrow anything... and so we could start paying back the billions we owe

meths · 24 Jun 2010 at 10:44

edscdk said:
the defecit does not need to be repaid, the defecit is what we borrow each year which the government wants to reduce..

If the defecit was 0 it would mean the government did not borrow anything... and so we could start paying back the billions we owe

Yeah, I do get it despite what my hastily written first post may suggest but thanks for taking the time to explain it to me anyway.

doodah · 24 Jun 2010 at 10:57

£30-40bn on interest payments. That is the defence budget!

Energize · 24 Jun 2010 at 11:44

Meths said:
I keep hearing people talking about how the government needs to claw back billions of pounds to repay the deficit but what do they actually mean by a billion pounds?

According to the Collins English Dictionary a billion is currently 1 thousand millions but formerly in Britain it was 1 million millions.

The Oxford Dictionary on the other hand says "commonly in Great Britain: A million millions. (= U.S. trillion.)" and "In U.S., and increasingly in Britain: A thousand millions".

So which is it that the government are using?

The only system ever used is the short scale where a billion is 1,000 million, the long billion has not been used since the olden days.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_and_short_scales