Britons in £2 trillion Debt

tonytsdiver

zappahey wrote: »

Did you just make that up or do you have evidence to support it?

I worked it out but I lost my notes and I'm not working it out again

Old_Slaphead

ad9898 wrote: »

As Generali said, a lot of this is unknown, however what is absolutely certain is the tax payers of this country will remember the name Gordon Brown for the next 40 years, and not in a favourable way either.

It takes something special to make Margaret Thatcher's 'reign' seem a paragon of virtue - but Gordon and 'things can only get better' Tony have managed it.

Oh for the good old days when leaders actually lead and didn't run scared of all and sundry.

chewmylegoff

tonytsdiver wrote: »

The United Kingdom is about £2 trillion in debt - which equates to £33,000 for every man, woman and child in the country.

Removing the 40% of the population who don't/can't work, are children or retired means every working person owes about £47,600. If you then remove from the equation the 60% of that figure who are ordinary working people struggling to make ends meet, the remaining 16.8 million people each owe £119,000.

are you just talking about personal debt here? that would make more sense, since it is supposedly pegged at 100% or so of GDP.

if so, what is the point of these statements? are we assuming that people on benefits, pensioners and "hard working families" aren't in debt? if so then that is the stupidest assumption i have ever seen.

Generali

fatpig wrote: »

We need Mad Maggie back to sort all the mess out. She'd sort them flipping bankers out once and for all.

People have this memory that she hated the working classes and wanted to destroy them but my memory is that she wanted to kick over all those entrenched privileges - the accountants', City and lawyers' professional bodies hated her as much as NUM leadership.

zappahey

Old_Slaphead wrote: »

Oh for the good old days when leaders actually lead and didn't run scared of all and sundry.

I've just read Andrew Marr's "History of Modern Britain" and, apart from the mad old witch, it would seem that you would need to go back a long way to find such a leader.

exil

Generali wrote: »

It depends what you want to include.

Unfunded Civil Service pensions. Not included in the official Government debt figures. Cash liability? Approx £1,000,000,000,000
PFI. Not included in the official Government debt figures. Total liability? Aprrox £128,000,000,000. Cash liability? Approx £30,000,000,000
Nationalised bank liabilities? Included in Government debt. Ok, perhaps some of the assets should be offset against this. How much though? What value would you ascribe to mortgages in arrears or credit card debt with missed payments?
Future state pension commitments. Not included. Cash liability? £46,000,000,000
Future healthcare commitments. Not included. Cash liability? I'm not aware of any credible calculation.

If we're to have 'transparency' by including bank assets in the mix, then we should also include genuine future liabilities such as the NHS for older people, state pension, Civil Service pension and PFI.

OK. So the true national debt is all public spending for the next, say, 10,000 years?

Not sure how you get future pensions for 500,000 civil servants to be £1 trillion - unless you're going to roll up a couple of centuries' liabilities. My own back-of-the-envelope calculation is

500,000 current civil servants
assume 1 pensioner for every 2 civil servants, with a pension of 50% of final salary
average salary £30,000 - so that makes 250,000 at £15,000 a year
or £375 million a year.

Assume the average pensioner lives to 85 - that's 25 years - OK, about £8 billion. Add in teachers and armed servicemen you might end up with 20-30 billion. Local Government officers and University staff might be added too given the government part funds local authorities, universities and colleges. This liability would increase over time depending on pay rates, staff numbers and longevity assuming the benefits paid by the pension schemes
remain the same. Which, given the current mood is looking increasingly unlikely.

As for state pensions - in this respect the UK is not as badly off as other countries which have more generous schemes. Including the USA, where it is forecast that Social Security will be officially "bust" in about 30 years.

Backbiter

exil wrote: »

OK. So the true national debt is all public spending for the next, say, 10,000 years?

Not sure how you get future pensions for 500,000 civil servants to be £1 trillion - unless you're going to roll up a couple of centuries' liabilities. My own back-of-the-envelope calculation is

500,000 current civil servants
assume 1 pensioner for every 2 civil servants, with a pension of 50% of final salary
average salary £30,000 - so that makes 250,000 at £15,000 a year
or £375 million a year.

Assume the average pensioner lives to 85 - that's 25 years - OK, about £8 billion. Add in teachers and armed servicemen you might end up with 20-30 billion. Local Government officers and University staff might be added too given the government part funds local authorities, universities and colleges. This liability would increase over time depending on pay rates, staff numbers and longevity assuming the benefits paid by the pension schemes
remain the same. Which, given the current mood is looking increasingly unlikely.

As for state pensions - in this respect the UK is not as badly off as other countries which have more generous schemes. Including the USA, where it is forecast that Social Security will be officially "bust" in about 30 years.

Also, the retired civil servants will of course pay vast chunks of their pensions back to the Government in tax every time they pay VAT, put petrol in their cars, buy some cigs or booze, go on a plane etc.

So really the pension liabilities will in practice cut themselves in half in a money-go-round.

bubblesmoney

Backbiter wrote: »

Also, the retired civil servants will of course pay vast chunks of their pensions back to the Government in tax every time they pay VAT, put petrol in their cars, buy some cigs or booze, go on a plane etc.

So really the pension liabilities will in practice cut themselves in half in a money-go-round.

not if they take the pension and live in the EU or elsewhere, the money will go elsewhere where there are lesser taxes.

Andy_L

exil wrote: »

Not sure how you get future pensions for 500,000 civil servants to be £1 trillion - unless you're going to roll up a couple of centuries' liabilities. My own back-of-the-envelope calculation is

500,000 current civil servants
assume 1 pensioner for every 2 civil servants, with a pension of 50% of final salary
average salary £30,000 - so that makes 250,000 at £15,000 a year
or £375 million a year.

It's how big a pot of money you'd have to have so you'd have no annual cost for ALL the unfunded Public Sector pensions (ie Civil.Service, teachers, NHS, police, military but not Local gov) accrued to date.
http://www.iea.org.uk/files/upld-book390pdf?.pdf

To get that number he makes some amusing assumptions about public sector career progression, every nurse has to become a matron, every teacher a head teacher etc so basically it's toss

treliac

fatpig wrote: »

We need Mad Maggie back to sort all the mess out. She'd sort them flipping bankers out once and for all.

Unfortunately she isn't in the land of the lucid anymore. Strange that dementia has hit her at a relatively early age. I would have thought she would have remained capable until later in life.