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MSE News: Guest Comment - How ratings agency downgrades affect us all
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Former_MSE_Guy
Posts: 1,650 Forumite



This is the discussion thread for the following MSE News Story:
"Many countries and banks have been downgraded recently. Financial guru Justin Urquhart Stewart explains what this means ..."
"Many countries and banks have been downgraded recently. Financial guru Justin Urquhart Stewart explains what this means ..."
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Comments
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It seems to me the heading could equally well have been "Can we trust these incompetent credit rating agencies?".
Could someone explain to me how any government can think it a good idea to build up a national debt that costs £125M a day (£45 Billion p.a.) to service it?
Isn't that just wasted money?
(It's not as though they are using the money to improve the country's infrastructure or build up assets - all UK Goverments recently have been in the business of selling-off national assets.)
Perhaps Martin Lewis should be campaigning for 'Financial Education in Government' rather than in schools.0 -
The debt exists and must be reduced over time but without too big an impact on the country.
Personally, I do not listen to these rating agencies since they seem to have an agenda which does not benefit real people.
The other thing that always makes me wonder, is why do the financial experts always talk about growth being essential, since negative growth is always said to be bad for the country.
Surely, the planet can only support a finite level of consumption and hence infinite growth is not sustainable.This is a system account and does not represent a real person. To contact the Forum Team email forumteam@moneysavingexpert.com0 -
I enjoyed the flow and clarity of the article by Justin Urquhart Stewart.
Perhaps he should consider writing more.
J_B.0 -
Just who does UK owe money to ?
USA ?
WRONG
They owe us over $400 billion - after we paid off the last debt to them in 1989 ($4 billion from WW2)
But the USA owes over $14 trillion (14,000,000,000) to many countries in the world - including Brazil and China
Wouldn't the simplest method be to write off all debts owed by one country to another and start again, with a clean slate ?
Just a thought ....0 -
Wouldn't the simplest method be to write off all debts owed by one country to another and start again, with a clean slate ?
Sounds like a good plan to me after seeing the eye watering figures at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_external_debt.0
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