Latvia: protestors have smashed the treasury and stormed parliament

Reaper

beaujolais-nouveau wrote: »

The answer is in the quote which, I take it, you have not bothered to read.

So you picked out one juicy but incorrect sentance from the paragraph and used it for the title.

To clear things up the riot was over 5 weeks ago and windows in the Treasury building & Parliament got broken, plus a police car and liquor store. Story here.

I would not be surprised if there are more protests ahead, but this one is hardly news.

Wookster

MrFonzerelli wrote: »

You can technically sustain a 10% budget deficit forever.
The pound might not be worth much though.

Yup - hence why I said sustainable

I don't think 10% is sustainable for very long, though no doubt Rochdale is going to pop up and say 10%, while maintaining the status quo can go on indefinitely.

chucky

Reaper wrote: »

So you picked out one juicy but incorrect sentance from the paragraph and used it for the title.

To clear things up the riot was over 5 weeks ago and windows in the Treasury building & Parliament got broken, plus a police car and liquor store. Story here.

I would not be surprised if there are more protests ahead, but this one is hardly news.

why quote current facts if you can get a good headline thread - at least it keeps the doomers entertained

Rochdale_Pioneers

Wookster wrote: »

Just how long do you think Crash can sustain a 10% budget deficit?

As long as there are still punters out there willing to loan the UK the money.

And anyway, what does our 10% deficit do to our level of debt vs France, Germany etc? I get that our deficit is a few percentage points higher than theirs - given that government debt here is so much lower than there, does that mean that we will overtake them?

purch

2000wave.com ??

Did he use this website to warn us of the doom n gloom of Y2K as well ???

beaujolais-nouveau

Reaper wrote: »

So you picked out one juicy but incorrect sentance from the paragraph and used it for the title.

To clear things up the riot was over 5 weeks ago and windows in the Treasury building & Parliament got broken, plus a police car and liquor store. ...

I would not be surprised if there are more protests ahead, but this one is hardly news.

Government collapses, and prime minister resigns last Friday would have made a duller headline, certainly. Still true, though. Are you trying to say everything is sweetness and light with the Latvian economy just now? Read this, then

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/21/world/europe/21latvia.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

http://www.forbes.com/feeds/afx/2009/02/18/afx6066152.html

http://latviaeconomy.blogspot.com/

Latvia has a population of 2.2m; its economy is expected to shrink a 12 per cent in 2009.

beaujolais-nouveau

purch wrote: »

2000wave.com ??

Did he use this website to warn us of the doom n gloom of Y2K as well ???

I do know something about how much businesses and governments around the world did to prevent the "date change bug" doing any damage. Such as setting up entire new departments of programmers to go through every line of code, every day for a couple of years. An enormous amount of money was thrown at the threat, and even so at least one international software house was caught when all its clients ran an audit after 1 January 2000 and the programs set everything back to 1982. Then even more money was thrown into fixing that and stuffing people's mouths with gold.

Wookster

Rochdale_Pioneers wrote: »

As long as there are still punters out there willing to loan the UK the money.

DOH Thanks for pointing out the obvious. Why not take things to the next level and ask what happens in a couple of years when all governments are borrowing madly and there is competition for limited amouts of money. Where will the UK stand then?

Rochdale_Pioneers wrote: »

And anyway, what does our 10% deficit do to our level of debt vs France, Germany etc? I get that our deficit is a few percentage points higher than theirs - given that government debt here is so much lower than there, does that mean that we will overtake them?

Who do you think pays more interest on Government borrowings? The UK, France or Germany?

MrFonzerelli

Rochdale_Pioneers wrote: »

And anyway, what does our 10% deficit do to our level of debt vs France, Germany etc? I get that our deficit is a few percentage points higher than theirs - given that government debt here is so much lower than there, does that mean that we will overtake them?

The UK may have already overtaken France and Germany, it depends on ones default assumptions.
Who can say with certainty how much toxic debt there is and how much of it is likely to be eventually repaid.
An indicator would be the return on bonds, higher risk having a higher return.

MrFonzerelli

Wookster wrote: »

DOH Thanks for pointing out the obvious. Why not take things to the next level and ask what happens in a couple of years when all governments are borrowing madly and there is competition for limited amouts of money. Where will the UK stand then?

If the UK has trouble selling Gilts on the international market.. you may find that a certain 'independent' body else comes along to snap up the debt