Quote:
Originally Posted by Hugh
But the previous government didn't - it spent money it didn't have, and eventually the free-for-all has to stop, and we have to live within our means as a country (slightly frightening that borrowing over £140 million per day to stand still can be called "living within our means....).
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The current level of UK debt is due to the twin evils of gross over spending by the last government and banking stupidity but it is not and never has been the end of the world.
Countries like many of the largest companies operate on a permanent debt basis. The ways of eradicating debt are, paying it down, inflation or liquidation. A combination of inflation and growth has always taken care of debt in the past and unless the coalition has also stopped the economic cycle inflation will help in the future. Growth is the coalition's responsibility but anything in that direction is on their "hope for" list with the last budget showing a small element of afterthought.
IMO we are being conned with the real agenda being wealth re-distribution. There was too much easy distribution of wealth towards the poorer in society but I have no doubt that if all the coalition's agendas are followed through everybody up to the super rich will be a heck of lot poorer but the super rich will see the wealth once again moving towards the concentration of the most in the hands of the few.
Notice how many companies are showing record profits whilst raising prices in the face of austerity. We should be in a deflationary environment where companies compete for the reduced spending power of consumers but somehow suppliers of essential services are bucking the trend. IMO it is blatant wealth distribution.
These are charts which show that the "end of our financial world is nigh" is nothing but political rhetoric to push an agenda. We are led to believe that our AAA rating was under threat. Rubbish abetted by an agency already thought to be worthless as it signed off AAA rating on the USA banks debts that went on to cause a global banking crisis.
We are being conned on the cause and if the public are long term stupid enough to go along with the path to the consequences then welcome to the world of my early life where the poor were poor and the rich incredibly rich with almost nothing in between.
http://www.economicshelp.org/blog/uk...national-debt/
Look at the lower chart and see the power of inflating debt away whilst simultaneously growing an economy. The much maligned Boomers paid that debt down at tax levels that hurt.
---------- Post added at 10:53 ---------- Previous post was at 10:35 ----------
Quote:
Originally Posted by Hugh
erm, how has the government the means to pay back what it is borrowing?
The only money the government has is taxes, and we have a shortfall on those at the moment - should we raise those?
Re the jobs - encourage private industry to thrive, which will create more jobs; like it or not, we are a service/creative industry hub, as we cannot compete in (many) manufacturing areas. Just creating more public sector jobs builds a larger deficit - we need a reasonable sized public sector, but over 50% is not, imho, reasonable sized.
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We need lots and lots of people prepared to slave away in factories for minimum wage. The fact that they cannot live on what they will earn is an unfortunate detail but at least they will have a job
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We also need to stop silly aspirations and close universities wholesale as that gives people aspirations way beyond what the economy needs.
I still do not see how we can compete in many areas as consumer electronics are so cheap that for something like a computer hard drive the largest percentage cost factor is not production or shipping half way round the world but the local white van man delivery.
I live in an area where everybody wants to get rich off of every job they do whether it be window cleaning, gardening, plumbing etc etc etc. They have to learn to be poor and realise that their value is counted in small change. Will it happen... of course not but the consequences of trying to make it happen may not be pretty. The Chinese curse of "may he live in interesting times" is just beginning for all of us.
Will the last person to leave UK plc please turn out the lights ( in case the power ever comes back on
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