National debt clock.. surprised me

triathlon

http://www.nationaldebtclock.co.uk/

I remember the big fanfare when it went over the £1 Trillion market, I was totally unaware it had crossed the £2 Trillion mark, there was nothing in the media.

Good or Bad?

No idea

New_World_Man

Would be interesting to see how it got divided up if Scotland became independent (I have never been able to find any clear discussion of how these assets and liabilities would be split - and I am interested in the economic argument rather than the political grandstanding).

Don’t mean to take your point off topic but it is an interesting financial fact and, as you rightly say, tends to be overlooked.

Zero_Sum

Is this all (both government & personal) debt or just government?
The big fanfare was when government debt hit £1Tr

Masomnia

Just government debt.

I think it's over £2tr if you include quantitative easing, and less if you don't.

The government's policy seems pretty balanced to me. As a % of GDP the national debt is falling, and the money borrowed at the moment is going on infrastructure.

sevenhills

Masomnia wrote: »

As a % of GDP the national debt is falling, and the money borrowed at the moment is going on infrastructure.

I guess that is what the Government would say. Didnt Boris Johnson say '£33.9bn a year NHS funding boost' and 'employing an additional 20,000 police officer, cost = £1.1bn

Is that "infrastructure"?

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/jul/23/the-cost-of-boris-johnson-pricing-up-the-next-prime-minister-pledges

https://inews.co.uk/news/politics/boris-johnson-general-election-2019-tory-funding-pledge-nhs-investment-1332861

caroline341245

No big deal even if it was 2000 trillion, like all big debts it never gets paid back.
Now if the national debt was £5000 then there would be bailiffs and legal notices demanding it repaid.

ruperts

The debt was used as justification by the Tories to go on a campaign of punishment and hatred towards the poor and the vulnerable and all their voters lapped it up; loved it, loved seeing the disabled and minority groups finally getting 'what they deserve'.

Now they've had their fill of sadistic class war the debt is all forgotten about. The debt? What debt? Oh the two trillion? Yeah forget about that we've got tax cuts for the rich!

Expect the debt to come back into focus at some point this decade when the Tories and their voters are horny for punishing a few more poor people.

Thrugelmir

ruperts wrote: »

The debt was used as justification by the Tories to go on a campaign of punishment and hatred towards the poor and the vulnerable and all their voters lapped it up; loved it, loved seeing the disabled and minority groups finally getting 'what they deserve'.

Now they've had their fill of sadistic class war the debt is all forgotten about. The debt? What debt? Oh the two trillion? Yeah forget about that we've got tax cuts for the rich!

Expect the debt to come back into focus at some point this decade when the Tories and their voters are horny for punishing a few more poor people.

We've just had an election in case you've missed it.

Labour's spending commitments were yet again determined to be pure fantasy by the electorate.....