How long to pay it all back? 2070?

Optimist

ad9898 wrote: »

It wouldn't be so bad if the money Labour used in taxes they used wisely, but they don't. Sure they build hospitals and schools but they also give vast sums to fekless no hopers who have 3-4 kids with different dads, then milk the system all their lives.... want proof ?, council estates in decades gone by used to have 70% of their population with at least 1 worker in the family............ that figure now is under 40%. That's over 60% of council estate families who have no one in work, and that after 12 years of a Labour government.

Weeeelll they actually get the private sector to build and charge for the running of them under PFI. £38 billion to build and run hospitals that should cost £8 billion. That is according to Prof Pollock from Edinburgh univ who is pretty much a expert on PFI contracts

It always surpised me that Labour has such a good relationship with these companies in that they let them get away with such vast profits, incompetence or maybe looking for jobs after they get kicked out ?

Anybody who thinks Labour is a party for the working person is deluded

Cannon_Fodder

In March 2008, before the big drop off in revenues, the Chancellor predicted borrowing for the year 2008/9 would be £43bn...

Which happens to match JUST the INTEREST PAYMENT on our debt, now.

So, all it takes is for us to need to spend a few billion or so on necessary "unexpected events" - say a foot and mouth outbreak, or a flooding situation, or some summer riots by unemployed, bored teens, or another war, or whatever - we will almost always be taking on some debt, rarely be able to eat into the capital...

And as the Budget's own figures say 2015 borrowing will still be around £90Bn, i.e 5 years of adding to the debt heavily, then I believe that 2032 is as good an estimation as any.

If its out by 5 years, only 3027, whoopdy-do party time..!?!?!? Its still going to be 2030 before Labour get back into power...nice, ease election slogans, they'll write themselves.

"Have you forgotten?"
"Ask your parents about Boom and Debt Brown"
"IMF doesn't stand just for Impossible Mission Force - although Gordon Brown did think he was Ethan Hunt"
"Gordon Brown is an Ethan Hunt" may become new rhyming slang.

Optimist

I know its the Daily Mail but it is rather apt and quite amusing

Don't worry, Margaret, I have put in place measures to help us through these difficult times.

Such as?

I'm going to remorgage the house in Edinburgh. Gordon has told the Royal Bank of Scotland it must start lending again.

But we've already remortgaged three times. We owe ten times what the house is actually worth. How on earth are we ever going to pay it

We're not, Margaret. We'll just keep on borrowing more money.

And how do you propose to do that?

Simple. I'll apply for more credit cards. They keep writing to us offering cheap loans, so it would be foolish not to. Look, here's one from Barclaycard. And another from Egg. Twenty grand, up front.

But we're already up to the limit on all our storecards and our Co-op bank card. How are we going to pay them off?

Haven't you seen those adverts they show on daytime television?

What adverts?

You know, the ones with Carol Vorderman. Consolidate all your debts into one easy, affordable monthly payment...

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-1172996/RICHARD-LITTLEJOHN-What-Darlings-REALLY-saying-breakfast.html

Rochdale_Pioneers

Wookster wrote: »

Rochdale the simple fact is that spending in its current magnitude is unsustainable in the short term.

SNIP

All this because Brown did not mend the roof while the sun was shining.

1. What would be the cost to the economy of drawing out the recession? You say spending is unsustainable, I say we can't afford not to spend it. Again, the Tory position you're parroting is not being copied by any finance minister in recession. Especially not by the ones with economies contracting faster and debts higher than the UK. What does Osborne know that no other finance minister doesn't know? For your argument to be right everyone else has to be wrong.

2. Brown's spending of the mid noughties added about 8% of GDP onto debt - bringing it to a level that was still 4% or so lower than what he inherited from Ken Clarke. Your parroted Tory line doesn't fit the facts in two ways - 8% off the forecast would be 71% - and you wouldn't be happy their either, and with debt lower going into this mess than in 1997 only a loon can argue that Labour increased debt. Argue about how much was paid off yes, but arguing that none was is just silly.

Masomnia

vivatifosi wrote: »

Well, the UK paid the last of its WW2 debts in 2006, 61 years after the end of WW2:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/4757181.stm

The point is that the two debts are different.

The debt that Brown is running up is raised by the issuing of gilts, government bonds, which are bought by investors and pay x amount of interest, depending on the terms of the auction in which they were sold. So many billion pounds-worth of bonds are sold every week in these auctions, and this is added to the national debt. So as Rochdale points out, this is paid down when the government runs a surplus and doesn't issue as much debt in the form of gilts. Different gilts have different dates so are redeemed in say 10 years or 40 years.

The debt we had to the US was not done on the same terms, it was a loan in the traditional sense, and had a fixed number of repayments at a fixed rate of interest. It was meant to take 50 years to pay off.

So it's not worth comparing the two, I suppose is what I'm trying to say.

Entertainer

vivatifosi wrote: »

Not out to ignore QE, spiv, just trying to understand things on my terms. If I take out a loan, any type - whether one that's small to me or a big one like a mortgage, I know what the likely terms are. Nobody is being told when we have to pay it back by and I don't think it is an unreasonable question as it is us, the tax payers, who have to pay it back.

Edited to add: the 61 years to pay off WW2 debt was a bit of a shock tbh, just wanted to put it out there and see what others thought.

The 61 years is a bit of a red herring. As the article says, it was kept because the terms were so good and it was a tiny sum. As to the current situation, the deterioration in the public finances is jaw dropping and it will take decades to just get back to where we were two years ago, incredibly.

I don't think people truly understand the gravity of the situation.

It's like a nightmare; I keep hoping that we're all going to wake up.:o

vivatifosi

Entertainer wrote: »

The 61 years is a bit of a red herring. As the article says, it was kept because the terms were so good and it was a tiny sum. As to the current situation, the deterioration in the public finances is jaw dropping and it will take decades to just get back to where we were two years ago, incredibly.

I don't think people truly understand the gravity of the situation.

It's like a nightmare; I keep hoping that we're all going to wake up.:o

I did try and find other articles/examples, but heck, where do you find a comparison? That's the problem. Thankfully the IFS has come to the rescue today and come out with the first estimate. Its still a damn long way away into the future.

I'm frustrated that the government didn't do more to rein in public spending, because I believe that there are things that it could do to reduce spending without impacting massively on stimulus, scrapping the ID card scheme would be one example. I'm also frustrated that there wasn't a surplus built up given that they had such a long period with a benign economy in which to do it. But hey, what do I know?

Wookster

Rochdale_Pioneers wrote: »

1. What would be the cost to the economy of drawing out the recession? You say spending is unsustainable, I say we can't afford not to spend it. Again, the Tory position you're parroting is not being copied by any finance minister in recession. Especially not by the ones with economies contracting faster and debts higher than the UK. What does Osborne know that no other finance minister doesn't know? For your argument to be right everyone else has to be wrong.

It is simply unsustainable. Who is going to lend the UK Government all this money? Labour has broken the bank. If Crash hadn't run such deficits in the last 8 years then he could afford to be as fec kless as he is now. No other country aside of the US is running such a big annual deficit, worse still, we all know that its more likely I get pregnant than that there is 1.25% growth next year - think how much worse public borrowing will be next year?

It is quite simple - because of Crash's fec klessness public spending MUST be cut, quite ruthlessly.

Your comment is like a drug addict saying, one last hit then I'll give up. We've all heard that nonsense before.

Rochdale_Pioneers wrote: »

2. Brown's spending of the mid noughties added about 8% of GDP onto debt - bringing it to a level that was still 4% or so lower than what he inherited from Ken Clarke. Your parroted Tory line doesn't fit the facts in two ways - 8% off the forecast would be 71% - and you wouldn't be happy their either, and with debt lower going into this mess than in 1997 only a loon can argue that Labour increased debt. Argue about how much was paid off yes, but arguing that none was is just silly.

Do you have any evidence to back that up?

Masomnia

The problem with building up a surplus is that it isn't going to be popular as you might think.

Say for example your child isn't doing well at school, and you think the school's resources could be better. You're going to question why the government is hoarding all this money, taxes you've paid, when schools and hospitals need funding. Especially if the economy is doing well.

Cannon_Fodder

Rochdale_Pioneers wrote: »

For your argument to be right everyone else has to be wrong.

Pretty much everyone, banking, economist, financial minister, etc etc was wrong in 2007 not seeing this coming, not preventing it, why should they suddenly, magically be competent to cure it...?