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We don't quite owe as much as we thought
Comments
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It's funny listening to all the posters claiming the whol massive debt ius Labour's fault. I suppose it is since they were the ones in power making the decisions but regardless of who was in power, similar decisions would have been made leading to a situation similar to the one we're currently in.
It wasn't Labour's fault that the whole world went into a slump.
A quick search on the internet turned up the following:
From the following countries ( picked these before I knew the results and haven't omitted any that I found) the Uk's debt is the lowest -
Spain, Germany, USA, France, Italy and China.
As far as unemployment is concerned, the UK is second lowest from the following - Spain, Germany, France, USA and China. Only Italy has a lower unemployment rate.
While not trying to claim Labour are the be all and end all of politics, I think any party in power would have done similar and when compared to other countries, perhaps Labour haven't done as badly as many think.
As Rochdale Pioneers explained - cutting 6bn loses jobs, increases unemployment reduces cashflow, reduces savings and increases borrowing.
None of which are good for the economy
I suspect the Tories would have had more money saved up for a rainy day but I suspect they would have failed also if they were in power.
The problem was that as a country we became reliant on financial services, personal debt and high house prices and therefore we have been effected the hardest in the crash and therefore the massive deficit.
The reality is that you can only keep spending if those who are lending are happy for that to go on until the growth comes. It seems though that they are not an the situation that hit Spain and Portugal a few weeks ago shows how quickly the markets can turn against you.0 -
I suspect the Tories would have had more money saved up for a rainy day
Probably because they'd have sold off anything they could. They did it in the 80's with the steel industries, bus services, gas, bt, electricity, coal mines, council housing and countless other companies. They've started already with another publicly owned company in the Royal Mail.
It's a short term fix - selling off an asset for a quick income, but you then lose the income stream that company provides.
They may well have had more money in a piggy bank for a rainy day, but they'd more than likely have a lot less coming in because they'd have slashed their income streams
Keen photographer with sales in the UK and abroad.
Willing to offer advice on camera equipment and photography if i can!0 -
Probably because they'd have sold off anything they could. They did it in the 80's with the steel industries, bus services, gas, bt, electricity, coal mines, council housing and countless other companies. They've started already with another publicly owned company in the Royal Mail.
It's a short term fix - selling off an asset for a quick income, but you then lose the income stream that company provides.
They may well have had more money in a piggy bank for a rainy day, but they'd more than likely have a lot less coming in because they'd have slashed their income streams
I suspect many of the companies sold off would be making no money or bust is still state run. The state is never that great at business.
The problem is waste and we need to get rid of it something for me Labour were not interested in doing especially now in a time when we have no money.
A simple example is a foster carer was telling me recently that in their borough most of the social workers do not drive so they spend most of their time on public transport rather than doing their job. They also had a meeting recently where one of the social workers slept for 30mins and the other one spent about the same amount of time arranging childcare.
We need to get rid of waste and treat services like a well run business. Not so long ago Philip Green was talking about how he was asked to go into the NHS to look at ways of cutting costs. he said there was so much red tape it was impossible.0 -
The problem was that as a country we became reliant on financial services, personal debt and high house prices and therefore we have been effected the hardest in the crash and therefore the massive deficit.
.
False.
The UK is still one of the worlds largest manufacturers.
Manufacturing is a bigger component of UK GDP than financial services.
Other countries did far worse than us in the recession, even those with a strong manufacturing base.
Our unemployment is lower than the Eurozone and the USA.
Our property markets have recovered far quicker after the crash than many other economies, despite them also lowering rates and having massive stimulus packages.
I know you're a bit of an obsessive UK basher, but at least get your facts right.“The great enemy of the truth is very often not the lie – deliberate, contrived, and dishonest – but the myth, persistent, persuasive, and unrealistic.
Belief in myths allows the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought.”
-- President John F. Kennedy”0 -
HAMISH_MCTAVISH wrote: »False.
The UK is still one of the worlds largest manufacturers.
Manufacturing is a bigger component of UK GDP than financial services.
Other countries did far worse than us in the recession, even those with a strong manufacturing base.
Our unemployment is lower than the Eurozone and the USA.
Our property markets have recovered far quicker after the crash than many other economies, despite them also lowering rates and having massive stimulus packages.
I know you're a bit of an obsessive UK basher, but at least get your facts right.
Our deficit is larger than the US and the Eurozone as a whole. Which countries did worse than us in the recession? Which massive stimulus packages did other countries have? Eurozone have not done QE yet.
To be honest I would rather believe people like Ken Clarke and Vince Cable. Cable said back in 2003-2004 that we were over reliant on a housing bubble and personal debt and Ken Clarke said as much a week or so before the election on question time. This was pointed out again this week on question time and nore of the panel argued it.
The credit crunch was caused in the US by people wanting to buy houses they could not afford and therefore borrwowing money they could not pay back. Our problems were exacerbated by the same. The quicker we accept this and learn from our mistakes to make sure it does not happen again and that it will be years before the money lost as a result of the problem is replaced the better.0 -
Our deficit is larger than the US and the Eurozone as a whole.
Nope. After the latest numbers came out, it turns out that contrary to projections, the USA had a bigger deficit than us last year.
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/finance/edmundconway/100005840/britain-no-longer-has-the-worst-deficit-in-europe/Far from being a Greek-style 12pc of gross domestic product or £163bn (as prophesied by the Budget), Britain’s deficit last year (2009/10) was actually £145bn – just over 10pc of GDP.
In 2009, Britain had less hideous a deficit than the US or Spain;.
And of course our total debt position is better than many, as we started from a much lower base......
http://www.visualeconomics.com/gdp-vs-national-debt-by-country/In Germany, the national debt is $1.79 trillion. This represents 62.6 percent of Germany’s gross domestic product, or GDP.
In The U.K. the national debt is $42.2 trillion. This is 47.2 percent of the GDP of the U.K.
Italy owes a national debt of $1.89 trillion, or 103.7 percent of the Italian GDP.
The national debt of France is $1.40 trillion. This is 67 percent of France’s GDP.
One of the highest levels of national debt relative to the country’s GDP can be found in Japan. The Japanese national debt is $7.47 trillion. This is 170.4 percent of the Japanese GDP.
India has a national debt of $2.55 trillion. This debt is 78 percent of the GDP of India.
Zimbabwe has a national debt of $472.51 billion. This level of national debt is 241.2 percent of Zimbabwe’s GDP.
The United States has a national debt of 8.68 trillion. In the U.S., this is 60.8 percent of the American GDP.
The Canadian national debt is $814.26 billion. In Canada, the national debt is 62.3 percent of the GDP.
In South America, Argentina has a national debt of $293.56 billion. The Argentinean national debt is 51 percent of the GDP of Argentina.
Oh dear..... It seems we really did start out in a better position after all....Which countries did worse than us in the recession?
Lots.....
Notable manufacturing based economies, like Germany and Japan, did worse than us in terms of GDP decline.
The USA unemployment rate is currently 9.9%.
The French unemployment rate is 10%.
The Irish unemployment rate is 13.8%.
The UK unemployment rate is 8%.....Which massive stimulus packages did other countries have? Eurozone have not done QE yet.
The Eurozone launched a stimulus package in 2009 worth 400 billion between spending and increased welfare.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/7955389.stmThe European Commission says that if member states' increases in welfare spending are included, the measures total 400bn euros - equivalent to 3.3% of the bloc's gross domestic product.
And of course the new stimulus/rescue package announced last week is worth $1 Trillion.....On Monday, May 10, eurozone officials presented a stimulus plan involving $1 trillion.
The main reason for the package, as stated by officials, is to prevent European economies from falling into an economic black hole on account of the economic crisis in Greece.
Another factor that prompted the European leaders to come up with the massive stimulus package is the desire to arrest the slide of the euro. After climbing to $1.51 in November 2009 the price of the euro in US dollar terms plunged to around $1.26 in early May — a fall of 16%.
Read more: The Eurozone Stimulus Package and Economic Fundamentals - Frank Shostak - Mises Daily http://mises.org/daily/4424#ixzz0oksUWCT7
The USA's stimulus package dwarfed both ours and Europe's in 2009, of course....
http://environment.about.com/od/environmentallawpolicy/a/econ_stimulus.htmThe American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009—the $787.2 billion economic stimulus package proposed by President Barack Obama and passed by Congress in mid-February [2009]—is intended to put America back to work and to help shorten the recession.As for manafacturing which countries are behind us. I understand we are the 6th largest is this really great? I await all the facts
We are (depending on year) either the 6th or 7th largest manufacturer country in the world, despite only being the 22nd largest country in the world by population.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_population
Clearly we continue to punch well above our weight.
Manufacturing by country.....In 2007, the top manufacturing countries besides the United States were China ($1,106 billion USD), Japan ($926 billion USD), Germany ($670 billion USD), the Russian Federation ($362 billion USD), Italy ($345 billion USD), the United Kingdom ($342 billion USD), France ($296 billion USD), South Korea ($241 billion USD), Canada ($218 billion USD), Spain ($208 billion USD), and Brazil ($206 billion USD).
Like I said, get your facts right before Britain Bashing.....
Your assertions were wrong.“The great enemy of the truth is very often not the lie – deliberate, contrived, and dishonest – but the myth, persistent, persuasive, and unrealistic.
Belief in myths allows the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought.”
-- President John F. Kennedy”0 -
HAMISH_MCTAVISH wrote: »Nope. After the latest numbers came out, it turns out that contrary to projections, the USA had a bigger deficit than us last year.
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/finance/edmundconway/100005840/britain-no-longer-has-the-worst-deficit-in-europe/
And of course our total debt position is better than many, as we started from a much lower base......
http://www.visualeconomics.com/gdp-vs-national-debt-by-country/
Oh dear..... It seems we really did start out in a better position after all....
Lots.....
Notable manufacturing based economies, like Germany and Japan, did worse than us in terms of GDP decline.
The USA unemployment rate is currently 9.9%.
The French unemployment rate is 10%.
The Irish unemployment rate is 13.8%.
The UK unemployment rate is 8%.....
The Eurozone launched a stimulus package in 2009 worth 400 billion between spending and increased welfare.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/7955389.stm
And of course the new stimulus/rescue package announced last week is worth $1 Trillion.....
The USA's stimulus package dwarfed both ours and Europe's in 2009, of course....
http://environment.about.com/od/environmentallawpolicy/a/econ_stimulus.htm
We are (depending on year) either the 6th or 7th largest manufacturer country in the world, despite only being the 22nd largest country in the world by population.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_population
Clearly we continue to punch well above our weight.
Manufacturing by country.....
Like I said, get your facts right before Britain Bashing.....
Your assertions were wrong.
As I say Hamish I would rather believe Vince Cable and and Ken Clarke than you. Our Unemployment is lower than the many of the countries you quote because our deficit is higher than those countries. Our unemployment will go up once all those cuts happen. Yes thats those cuts which you said would never happen.
The US's GDP over the last couple of quaters is way higher than ours. Our Bailout of RBS is way higher than any other bank in the world. Also per head we have more personal debt than pretty much any other country in the world.Oct. 8 (Bloomberg) -- The U.S. government ended its 2009 fiscal year with a deficit of $1.4 trillion, the biggest since 1945, the Congressional Budget Office reported.
The deficit amounted to 9.9 percent of the nation’s economy, triple the size of the shortfall for 2008
So lower than ours. Not by much but of course this was the country which caused the biggest global recession for 80 years and still managed to have a similar deficit to ours.
I do not needs to get my facts straight. behind the PIIGS pretty most ecomonists I've heard are saying we are in the worst position followed by the US.0 -
Also per head we have more personal debt than pretty much any other country in the world.
Oh dear.....
Household debt as a percentage of disposable income
Denmark 260%
Netherlands 246%
New Zealand 181%
Australia 173%
United Kingdom 159%
Ireland 141%
United States 135%
Sweden 134%
Japan 132%
http://curiouscapitalist.blogs.time.com/2008/02/07/americans_arent_the_only_peopl/#ixzz0ol1ewXYQI do not needs to get my facts straight. .
Clearly you do.....“The great enemy of the truth is very often not the lie – deliberate, contrived, and dishonest – but the myth, persistent, persuasive, and unrealistic.
Belief in myths allows the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought.”
-- President John F. Kennedy”0 -
HAMISH_MCTAVISH wrote: »Oh dear.....
Household debt as a percentage of disposable income
Denmark 260%
Netherlands 246%
New Zealand 181%
Australia 173%
United Kingdom 159%
Ireland 141%
United States 135%
Sweden 134%
Japan 132%
http://curiouscapitalist.blogs.time.com/2008/02/07/americans_arent_the_only_peopl/#ixzz0ol1ewXYQ
Clearly you do.....
What year were those figures for Hamish?0 -
What year were those figures for Hamish?
Article was from 2008.
But worth noting that according to creditaction UK household debt has actually decreased in real terms since then.
Point remains we are nowhere near the highest of the developed nations.“The great enemy of the truth is very often not the lie – deliberate, contrived, and dishonest – but the myth, persistent, persuasive, and unrealistic.
Belief in myths allows the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought.”
-- President John F. Kennedy”0
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