Condems have run up largest ever UK Debt

MrMoonX said:
well well well, looks as though the Tory mantra of reducing the deficit with balmy austerity measures truly isnt working "official statistics showed Britain ran up the largest current account deficit on record in the second quarter of 2012" :rolleyes:

Just shows how broken the capitalist financial system really is or that Cameron and co are just a bunch of incompetent fools, which judging his Letterman performance is quite probable.

source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2012/sep/27/uk-gdp-economy-data-second-quarter
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debt doesn't matter so long as it's servicable debt.

I could have a 100k mortgage and not pay it = bad debt my colleague could have a 2.5 million mortgage and be able to keep up with repayments = good debt.

The whole debt is bad policy in order to throw people on the dole was wrong from the start.
 
How do you reduce debt? Become more efficient, spend less, encourage investment in the country, jobs & spending. Austerity, is simple the name for efficient spending & cutting silly spending in order to stop bankrupcy - the same applies to the individual essentially.

You don't try and scare off 'the rich' or the investors by taxing them at over 50% of their earnings. These people have money, they can relocate easily for tax breaks (and would therefore pay nothing to us), or they can stay here & pay a reasonable amount of tax rather than a ridiculous amount. Simply because you earn a lot, you already pay a lot. I agree with tax breaks for the poor, but personally think everyone above a certain standard of living should just pay the 'reasonable' amount. You make more, it's yours to spend, why excessive taxes for increased income? Simply because they can afford it? Well, you can afford another pound to go to the treasury, you don't *need* those crisps, so send it in.

Idiots that think you can "spend your way out of a recession" like Brown, and the OP deserve public humiliation. A basic grasp of economics, money in vs money out, is all thats needed to realise steps have to be taken.


edit: speeling :)
 
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drunkenmaster said:
When you have a single clue what you're talking about come back, till then get a grip.

Here's a little hint, ONS decide the deficit is the difference between what comes in to the government and what they spend ignoring all investments.

EVERYONE else looks at net borrowing to determine deficit.

When Labour left power we had a deficit by way of total public borrowing(and debt we load onto the country) of about £170billion, or deficit according to ONS, was just over £110billion.

The "real" figure IS £170billion, that is how much we borrowed full stop that is how much was added onto our debt.

If you can tell me how in one quarter we have hit record deficit, when even according to their own numbers we hit £110billion (with the mostly pointless lower number) that is more than 4 times the figure they are now quoting as a record, go ahead.

In reality Labour left us with a deficit of £170billion, divide that by four and see if the 20billion in a quarter is some kind of new terrible record due to Conservative incompetence.

It's way way way way .... way way way way .... way way way easier to run up a £170billion deficit than it is to bring that back down. Almost every cut means someone losing out somewhere, Brown bought us out of a recession... with no sensible economy growth, infact with years and years of ruining the underlying economy, and he loaded massive completely previously unseen levels of debt and spending on the public sector to "fake" our way out of a recession.

The only way that plan would have continued to work was by continually every year massively increasing the deficit... we'd be talking about well over £200billion deficit to keep that idiotic plan going.

Due to inflation, "records" in every sector, in every statistic happen constantly. Record average wage as we hit £23k, because the year before it was £22.8k, and 50 years earlier it was £5k, because... money is worth less and we get more of it.

Another way to look at it, whats better, 20billion one quarter and 5billion in the other 3 quarters, or 19billion every quarter? One simple loan, completely meaningless statistic on its own is worth... nothing.
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So UK how's your debt doing?

Well it's falling

Why's that?

Because instead of paying doctors 1000s to heal the sick we pay them 100s to sit on their couch.

Ahhhh good plan UK .... oh wait :D
 
This is what worries me about politics. Everyone gets to vote regardless of their complete lack of understanding.

We don't clear the country's debt whenever we get a new political party so when the previous government has endeavoured to screw the country over hugely, it won't be fixed in a few years. It will take years and years to undo the damage and by then, we will have forgotten about it and we will probably do it again.

Blame the government that was in power during a brilliant economic boom and still managed to screw up in a plethora of ways. I genuinely do worry that people are being less informed / incapable of actually thinking for themselves. At least ignorance should give the feeling that someone doesn't understand an issue; these days we are all "educated" on issues by the media which has been getting worse and worse for years.
 
MrMoonX said:
sorry what? when have I ever said that
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Are you the one studying to become a social worker? If not, then I apologise. But whoever the mad lefty who is studying to become a social worker, said that in a thread earlier this year.

estebanrey said:
If you're talking about me I don't think I've ever started a thread about politicians let alone a ranting one. I'll wait for the apology....
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Haha, I'm not doing very well today. Sorry.
 
MrMoonX said:
well when you cut useful services that poor people use and need, and give tax breaks to millionaires and corporations, it doesnt take a genius to work out what they are doing.
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Any public service will affect the poor, that is just a fact of life. Poor people are more likely to use public services.

Cuts were needed as you can't just employ another 800k public/civil servants as Labour did without running up a huge cost to the tax payer.
 
Ahleckz, i think you mean Stockhauen for the second on, he always come here for stupid names for everything and makes himself look ridiculous
 
I'd almost give anything to see what situation we'd be in now if the Tories were in power instead of Labour during the last ten years, I get sick and tired of people on here solely blaming Brown for the state of the economy like the Tories would have done so much better, during that decade everyone was ignorant to the fact they we were in a boom bubble, had the Tories been in power that wouldn't of made us immune to the recession bought on by the sub-prime mortgage crisis in America, at best we would have been in a slightly better position than we are now, people on here talk although had the Tories been in power the recession wouldn't of even come about, that we would be living in this economic utopia created by the them, it's such ********.
 
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MrMoonX said:
What im getting at is, that all this government seems to do is go on about the financial incompetence of Brown et al, but in reality they are doing no better themselves.
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How could they?

MrMoonX said:
Labour for all their wrongs did actually close the gap between rich and poor...
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That's not actually true now is it. This from the IFS:
FT.com said:
The gap between rich and poor has grown since 1997, despite three successive Labour governments reforming the tax and benefit system in an attempt to reduce income inequality, the Institute for Fiscal Studies said yesterday.
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/a17068a8-42a5-11df-91d6-00144feabdc0.html#ixzz27g8v8DkO
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This thread fails due to a complete lack of understanding of key terms. here is a hint, the guardian article has nothing to do with the public sector deficit or debt.... or indeed government spending at all.
 
lowrider007 said:
I'd almost give anything to see what situation we'd be in now if the Tories were in power instead of Labour during the last ten years, I get sick and tired of people on here solely blaming Brown for the state of the economy like the Tories would have done so much better, during that decade everyone was ignorant to the fact they we were in a boom bubble, had the Tories been in power that wouldn't of made us immune to the recession bought on by the sub-prime mortgage crisis in America, at best we would have been in a slightly better position than we are now, people on here talk although had the Tories been in power the recession wouldn't of even come about, that we would be living in this economic utopia created by the Tories, it's such ********.
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I would like to think we would have been in a better position. If you look at spending during labours first 3 years we actually had a budget surplus because they followed conservative spending plans. Gordon then decided to win elections he needed to spend more thus beginning the huge deficits. National debt had already doubled before the recession had hit. On another note I believe Tony Blair was told about the incoming bubble burst in circa 2005 and he wanted to reduce spending. Gordon wouldn't let him.

Redman said:
Idiots that think you can "spend your way out of a recession" like Brown, and the OP deserve public humiliation. A basic grasp of economics, money in vs money out, is all thats needed to realise steps have to be taken.

edit: speeling :)
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To a certain extent. There is a difference between deficits and recessions. Recessions are where there are two consecutive quarters of negative growth. Traditionally (and this has worked in the past) governments spent more to prop up GDP due to a decline in private sector spending. The problem herein lies we were spending during the good years to falsely inflate our growth rate. Thus there was little money available to spend our way out. Daniel Hannan's speech in the Euro Parliament is quite succinct. Gordon didn't fix the roof whilst the sun was shining.
 
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lowrider007 said:
I'd almost give anything to see what situation we'd be in now if the Tories were in power instead of Labour during the last ten years, I get sick and tired of people on here solely blaming Brown for the state of the economy like the Tories would have done so much better, during that decade everyone was ignorant to the fact they we were in a boom bubble, had the Tories been in power that wouldn't of made us immune to the recession bought on by the sub-prime mortgage crisis in America, at best we would have been in a slightly better position than we are now, people on here talk although had the Tories been in power the recession wouldn't of even come about, that we would be living in this economic utopia created by the them, it's such ********.
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I haven't seen anyone say anything like that...

I am certain that the Tories would have done a better job than Labour managed though. Not perfect, or recession avoiding, or "popular" just better.
 
I quite like how the Guardian had to take a slightly positive news story (growth not as bad as first forecast) and change it to a negative story about the current government.
 
lowrider007 said:
I'd almost give anything to see what situation we'd be in now if the Tories were in power instead of Labour during the last ten years, I get sick and tired of people on here solely blaming Brown for the state of the economy like the Tories would have done so much better, during that decade everyone was ignorant to the fact they we were in a boom bubble, had the Tories been in power that wouldn't of made us immune to the recession bought on by the sub-prime mortgage crisis in America, at best we would have been in a slightly better position than we are now, people on here talk although had the Tories been in power the recession wouldn't of even come about, that we would be living in this economic utopia created by the Tories, it's such ********.
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We'd still be in recession of course and yes some people tend to forget that. But by the same token we'd be in an undeniably better position. Just in case people forget, Brown went on an unbridled spending spree in order to create an illusion of prosperity leaving us vulnerable to this recession in the worst way possible.

Here's government spending as % of GDP from Thatcher to Brown:

http://www.ukpublicspending.co.uk/spending_chart_1980_2010UKp_12c1li011lcn_F0t_UK_Public_Spending_As_Percent_Of_GDP

Thatcher inherited a disaster, bequeathed a decent economy to Blair who (understandably for a Labour administration) increased spending but it was not stupidly high, then.... oops what happened from 2000 onwards given that the crisis wasn't until 2008?

Play with the figures as much as you like. UK Current Account Defecit, UK total national debt. It all tells the same story.

Also don;t forget that these figures do NOT include PFI, under which all those lovely schools and hospitals were built and will end up costing us far more.
 
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The problem goes all the waaay back to after WW2 when Britain started socializing everything. Even further in the USA, back to Roosevelt.

Would things be in the same shape if Churchill stayed on as PM, Roosevelt was never elected, and governments went with Friedman's ideas over Keynes'?
 
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