Britain's Trillion Pound Horror Story

FTBFun

ILW wrote: »

She is rather attractive though.

Really?

Can't see it myself.

ILW

FTBFun wrote: »

Really?

Can't see it myself.

Compared to Harriet Hormone.

tomterm8

ILW wrote: »

Our GDP in 1950 was much lower than it is now, and we were still paying for a war.

Certainly true... and with any luck in 60 years time GDP will be much higher than it is now. But I was wondering how come, after fifty years of spending more money than we take in tax, according to the program, our fiscal position is so much better than it was 50 years ago.

In fact, a single years trend GDP growth is, in numerical terms, enough to pay off all the debt we owed in 1950.

I'm not doubting that we spent the money well winning the war, I just wonder how come you can behave completly recklessly over sixty years, according to the program, and be very much better off than you started.

ILW

Paynig off the war costs tumbled within 20 years, the expenditure we are now commited to is virtually impossible to restrain due to the total reliance of half of the population on state funding.

FTBFun

ILW wrote: »

Compared to Harriet Hormone.

That's not really saying much.

StevieJ

tomterm8 wrote: »

Certainly true... and with any luck in 60 years time GDP will be much higher than it is now. But I was wondering how come, after fifty years of spending more money than we take in tax, according to the program, our fiscal position is so much better than it was 50 years ago.

In fact, a single years trend GDP growth is, in numerical terms, enough to pay off all the debt we owed in 1950.

I'm not doubting that we spent the money well winning the war, I just wonder how come you can behave completly recklessly over sixty years, according to the program, and be very much better off than you started.

BTW 1950 was 60 years ago not 50, something dramatic must have happened during the missing 10 years

tomterm8

ILW wrote: »

Paynig off the war costs tumbled within 20 years, the expenditure we are now commited to is virtually impossible to restrain due to the total reliance of half of the population on state funding.

Debt to GDP was around 50% of GDP in the 1970's and went down to 25% of GDP by 1990. It went up again due to a recession under John Major, and then after 1997, it started to fall again. Even though Brown spent a little more money on the public sector than was really adviseable, debt to GDP was lower in 2007 than it was in 1997. Until 2007 the ratio of debt to GDP was lower than it was in 1970. The thing that changed this was a rather large recession, but under the conservative governments forecast, the deficit will be eliminated within 4 years, and there will be a surplus, which wasn't achieved between 1970 and 1990.

suburbanwifey

nomoreboomandbust wrote: »

I don't think the people sleeping in the cages would agree, or are they the equivalent of Britain's workshy scroungers so it doesn't matter :mad:

The people who I saw in the you tube video promoted in an earlier response, were in fact very old people...I agree, those conditions are not fit for humans, but that doesn't equate with the modern British work shy, many who have been on TV recently, in their 20's, 30's, fit and healthy and stating to the cameras that film them that they do not work because they are better off on benefits....your comparison does not equate. The people who work in Hong Kong take home more of their pay, the low paid don't pay taxes, they are better off than we are as individuals and as a nation as such...

All these red angry faces at people who mention work shy scroungers...seems the Prime Minister (now we have a decent one) agrees with all us out here who are sick of paying for them! The last PM got lots of votes off the work shy didn't he....he did them lots of favours and the workers of this country virtually none and the marrieds of this country none.

I am entitled to my opinion as you are yours. We should follow Hong Kong's example.

Sir_Humphrey

A._Badger wrote: »

Whatever you may have been led to believe about American Tea Party supporters by the Guardian and the BBC, your claim that they were share a common Whig-like belief in 'progress' is simply wrong.

The religious element, clearly, could not hold such a view, neither could the 'true' libertarians. The rest? Some perhaps - but in either case, as I said before, you're spreading the marge far too freely.

Which makes the charge of 'bigotry' a bit rich.

You mentioned Whigs, not me. Progressivism does not require a belief in the perfectibility of human nature.

Mr_Mumble

According to this programme: over the last 60 years Britain has declined economically because of the rise of the state. Is anyone going to claim that Britain hasn't declined economically relative to most other nation states in this time period? Anyone going to argue the state doesn't spend more money now than pre-WWII? The programme did a good job with the correlation but not so good at proving causation imho.

You only need to look at empirical evidence to see the likelyhood of high tax being the cause of Britain's relative decline but the programme moved from some rather informative (though some would say misleading) charts in the first half to a more evangelistic second half. It would have been nice to have seen the PPP GDP of the likes of Hong Kong and Singapore illustrated like the debt and % of public sector to GDP was.

I don't see why folk are against this kind of programming. When you have the kind of ignorance that has Banksy representing South Koreans as sweatshop workers (Banksy himself may have been poking fun or not but many commentators took it seriously) in the Simpsons you do wonder what planet L'Oreal Britons are on.

tomterm8 wrote: »

Certainly true... and with any luck in 60 years time GDP will be much higher than it is now. But I was wondering how come, after fifty years of spending more money than we take in tax, according to the program, our fiscal position is so much better than it was 50 years ago.

In fact, a single years trend GDP growth is, in numerical terms, enough to pay off all the debt we owed in 1950.

Illustrating how the government inflated its way out of troubles in the past! Unfortunately double digit inflation now would be far more ruinous. Just as cutting back on state spending now (health, education, benefit payments) would be seismically different to cutting back then (military and more military).

It is harder for government to sneakily take money from people nowadays too. Most people have their wealth tied up in real assets (mainly residential property) rather than paper money while seigniorage is lessened thanks to electronic payments.

I'm not doubting that we spent the money well winning the war, I just wonder how come you can behave completly recklessly over sixty years, according to the program, and be very much better off than you started.

The programme makers would say you're ignoring the vast majority of the 'debt', transfers promised to retirees especially those in the public sector. This wasn't a problem back in 1948.

The programme had a bit of a disparate message - the first and second halves were talking about different things imho (British debt in the first half, decline of Britain & advancement of HK in the second half). I wouldn't be surprised if this was supposed to be a two or three part series.

tomterm8 wrote: »

Until 2007 the ratio of debt to GDP was lower than it was in 1970. The thing that changed this was a rather large recession, but under the conservative governments forecast, the deficit will be eliminated within 4 years, and there will be a surplus, which wasn't achieved between 1970 and 1990.

Just checking the OBR stats it seems to be over five years based on "cyclically adjusted" forecasts that assume >2% growth each year and an output gap of <1% by 2015. As you note the conservatives got debt to GDP down to 25% around the time of the 1990 recession. New Labour went into recession with an increased debt to GDP of 15% in addition to all the off-balance sheet trickery (PFI + Pensions + Network Rail).