audit commission CEO says uk debt makes armageddon scenario a distinct possibility!

bubblesmoney

Steve Bundred is chief executive of the Audit Commission.

see this article by him in the times

It is worth recalling that at the height of that sterling crisis, the Prime Minister, James Callaghan, (who was a former tax inspector), told the Labour Party Conference: “We used to think that you could spend your way out of a recession and increase employment by cutting taxes and boosting government spending. I tell you in all candour that that option no longer exists and, in so far as it ever did exist, it only worked on each occasion since the war by injecting a bigger dose of inflation into the economy, followed by a higher level of unemployment as the next step.”
...............
With the debts of the nationalised and part-nationalised banks now on the public sector balance sheet, the ratio of public sector debt to GDP in the UK exceeds that of Italy and Japan. And it is set to grow much higher. On the basis of the planned levels of borrowing, it could exceed 65 per cent of GDP in 2010-11.
And at that scale of indebtedness, the Armageddon scenario most feared by the Treasury - that there will be insufficient lenders to match the planned level of borrowing - begins to look a distinct possibility.

thats the CEO of the audit commission talking and not me, just clarifying things before the labour party brigade on here start flaming me . please dont start calling steve bundred the audit commission CEO as a sock puppet of !!!!!! now :rotfl: . sorry couldnt resist that one as after hearing the word sock puppet so many times on this forum i get scared wearing socks now .

ad9898_3

This is what Labour governments do, take the country to the brink, they have always been financially illiterate.

[Deleted User]

Its all well and good criticising the labour govt,but only 12 months away at most from a GE we now need to know what the Tories would have done to avoid these problems,and more importantly how they as presumably the next govt intend to deal with the level of debt we will have and they will inherit.
Cos one things for certain cameron aint no maggie thatcher<spit>and he and his front bench team of nobodies(exc.clarke and hague)appear clueless.
Could it be that they are quietly hoping that they dont win the next election?

sabretoothtigger

I thought Italys debt was over 100% gdp

Heyman_2

woodbine,

You have it right but the scary thing is - I just read results from a poll that said most people now think that Cameron/Osbourne would be better at running the economy. :eek:

What with all that experience between them, and given how much they've said about what they'd do etc I'm sure they'll do a much better job :rolleyes: Bloody hell, I'm about as qualified as they are to do it but leave it to the 'gwate bwitish pubwic' to stick their crosses on the other side of the form out of complete desperation....

sabretoothtigger

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

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/35/Public_debt_percent_gdp_world_map.PNG

ad9898_3

Heyman wrote: »

woodbine,

You have it right but the scary thing is - I just read results from a poll that said most people now think that Cameron/Osbourne would be better at running the economy. :eek:

Who wouldn't be better than Ponzi Brown ?, he has bought the country close to collapse and he might yet achieve it, I can't think of a single person over the age of 5 who could have possibly done any worse.

torontoboy45

woodbine wrote: »

Its all well and good criticising the labour govt,but only 12 months away at most from a GE we now need to know what the Tories would have done to avoid these problems,and more importantly how they as presumably the next govt intend to deal with the level of debt we will have and they will inherit.
Cos one things for certain cameron aint no maggie thatcher<spit>and he and his front bench team of nobodies(exc.clarke and hague)appear clueless.
Could it be that they are quietly hoping that they dont win the next election?

I won't get bogged down in any party political argument, but this is a fair point: the tories are weighed down with a lot of baggage, historically.
cameron has yet to explain how the tories would have handled this differently.
he's not really convincing when he pushes the tory card on 'what to do next'.
the tories are on course to win the next GE. whether they are creative/skillful enough to make a difference is another matter.

Heyman_2

ad9898 wrote: »

Who wouldn't be better than Ponzi Brown ?, he has bought the country close to collapse and he might yet achieve it, I can't think of a single person over the age of 5 who could have possibly done any worse.

Hey, I'm no Brown lover - I just don't think much will change getting Cameron and Osbourne in. It's going to take them long enough to get to grips with things - they're both wet behind the ears and walking into a world of s**t. At least they've got the shadow shadow chancellor to help them out though, assuming he sticks around for that long.

In any case, you can relax now because Brown Flakes is going to make a gargantuan effort to make sure that Fred Goodwin doesn't get his fat pension so that should see the country straight for ooooooh a few seconds at least.

Harriet Harman was talking about passing a law to stop him getting it which seems sensible to me - you know, passing a law to deal with ONE person when the rest of us are in the cra*per :rolleyes::mad:

That's one thing that DEFINITELY hasn't changed from the Blair era - the tabloid press pandering. They scream over a small fire and Brown comes dutifully running with a fricking resovoir in tow.

torontoboy45

looks like harperson was fielded to big up the populist view - 'ooh, we've finally reconnected with joe and joanne public'.
zero chance of retrospective legislation re pensions, but lab wasn't really being serious anyway. the spin boys got to work on singling out goodwin as a useful distraction. there are plenty of greed-driven bankers out there, grateful that fred the shred is stuck in the limelight.
and a frontbench team happy to see themselves off the front page.
that's how politics works, kids!

Rochdale_Pioneers

sabretoothtigger wrote: »

I thought Italys debt was over 100% gdp

It is. With respect to the head of the Audit Commission he appears to be using different figures for Italy and Japan than Italy and Japan are. Not sure how 65% debt is armageddon when Italy and Japan have been above 100% for years. Germany has been up in the 60s for a good while as well without problems.

Glad some people are starting to ask questions about what the Tories would do. Hate Brown as you may do, the Tory proposals (well, lack of Tory proposals) are truly dangerous. We need a global fix to the global problem of an economy that has died. Specific to the UK the details are, but only a loon would claim that we can fix things here and ignore Eastern Europe and all the other problems this crash has created.

Say what you like about Brown but at least he is working on the same kind of solution as everyone else. There is argument about how much to spend and what on, but everyone seems agreed on the need to spend big and quickly. Everyone except the Tories that is. If they win, and we become isolated in the world, how does that strengthen our case?