UK Debt and the Cuts that have to be made!

Isn't that always the aim of the game?

To divert money from public spending to 'poor' corporations and cronyist contracts? It's the same every time.

Take that money and power and see that it ends up with the gangsters at the top.

Keep it in the family. It's how the rich stay rich.

I really do not understand this whole debt thing, is it money owed to other countries?

If that is the case, going by 2011 figures (in Euros):

UK owes US 578.6bn, US owes the UK 834.5bn
UK owes France 209.9bn, France owes the UK 227bn
UK owes Spain 316.6bn, Spain owes the UK 74.9bn
UK owes Ireland 113.5bn, Ireland owes 104.5bn
UK owes Japan 122.7bn, Japan owes UK 101.8bn
UK owes Germany 379.3bn, Germany owes UK 141.1bn
Portugal owes UK 18.9bn
Italy owes UK 54.7bn
Greece owes UK 9.4bn

How can some countries owe us more than we owe them, yet we still owe them??

Am I missing something here?

originally posted by: Phage
a reply to: CthulhuMythos
Thanks. I am unfamiliar with that sort of arrangement.
Seems odd to complain about government debt when the government is responsible for clotheslines though. Maybe there should be a clotheslinepole tax to cover it?

If we still had Quangos I'm sure there'd be a minister for clotheslines.

a reply to: OtherSideOfTheCoin

The whole premise that we need to make cuts because of the debt is false. The cuts are driven by a combination of political ideology and outright stupidity about how a national economy works. That is not to say there is no good case to be made for cuts, and it is perfectly possible to make a good case for smaller government, however the case is political not economic.

That said there is a definite case for looking at how we distribute government spending, I would totally agree that spending huge amounts on defence while ransacking out public services is appalling. I wouldn't agree with cutting overseas aid although I think how we spend it needs reviewed.

originally posted by: OtherSideOfTheCoin
When it comes the politics i am a realist I dont vote for the same party every election and I tend to go with the party I think is the most realistic.

At the last general election that meant that the best of a very bad bunch was the Conservative party. I know that this country is skint like a student on bender, we have mountains of debt and things are getting worse the only solution. Our total debt stands at about £900 Billion or about 90% of our GDP that moron George Osborne today said that the government needs to save 50p in ever £100 spent or cut spending by about 0.5%.

So ecconomically things are pretty crap and like I said i am a realist if cuts have to be made then fair enough, if my tax's have to go up fair enough my attitude is that we are all in this together and we all have to take our fair share of the burden.

HOWEVER!!!!

This government in my view is making the wrong cuts.

The independent recently had a interesting article on this they stated that:

More than 1,000 police community support officer (PCSO) jobs have been cut in England each year since 2010, a total of 4,430 positions, according to Home Office statistics analysed by Unison. PCSOs make up 75 per cent of neighbourhood policing teams. The BBC reports the number of police officers currently employed across England and Wales is 127,000 – the lowest since September 2001

and that they done the same to the fire-fighters

By 2011 more than 1,000 jobs had been cut across England, Scotland and Wales according to the Fire Brigades Union. By 2014, 10 firestations in London alone were forced to close, causing 552 jobs to be lost, as part of £45m worth of savings needed to be made across the capital’s service by 2016.

Now I could link to all the cuts they have made, cutting out the NHS Student nurse bursary, messing around with the NHS to make as many back door cuts as they can really (junior doc's contracts) then we could look at the cuts in welfare for the disabled, the massive closure of domestic abuse centres, library, post offices, children centres, mental health facilities the list goes on and on.

Other than cutting child benefits for those earning over 50K a year along with defence budget cuts i can't find much that i agree with cutting.

You see the problem i have is that they are cutting the wrong things, rather than cutting on the number of police and firefighters how about the government just scrap trident. Some estimates state the replacing Tri dent could cost as much as £160 billion in addition to the £250 million it costs to maintain a year. You see that right away i have found billions that the government could save on getting rid of its big guns. We have no need for trident, we could even adopt a latent nuclear deterrent like Japan if we really need them so much. I can't help but feel like in todays world spending billions on nuclear weapons we don't need when we can't afford to keep 11 fire stations open that something is seriously wrong with how the government spends our tax's

And on the topic of Trident how about we face up to the fact that we also dont' really need to pretend to be a military super power, sure we have a awesome armed forces our capabilities for a country our size is really quite spectacular. But again, when we are facing such economic austerity do we really need to spend over £65 billion on defence, can we not cut that down a bit? I fail to see a need for the UK to be spending this much on defence.

What about the almost £16 billion on foreign aid, hell lets take a couple of billion off that and spend it on keeping some of those domestic abuse shelters and post offices open.

Like i said at the start, I have no problem with cuts in principle, what i do however have a huge problem with is cutting public services before you make huge cuts to nuclear weapons, defence and how much money you give out in aid to countries who will probably use it to build a few more palaces.

As I read your post and got closer to the gist of where your coming from I thought "hello, attacking welfare for individuals is on the cards here" and I was right.

A few things you might like to consider as part of your body of knowledge of economics and how the world works.

Are you aware of corporate welfare?
How much money does the corporate welfare budget consume each year?
Who are the principle beneficiaries?
What is the scope for cuts in corporate welfare?

I'm sure corporate welfare and its impact on the budget has been given just as much coverage in the media as has been given to welfare system for individuals so there must be readily available answers to these questions.

Have you considered extending the VAT to share trades? How much money would it raise if VAT was extended to share trades? (I'm not referring to the brokerage here either) again, I'm certain that this matter has been widely canvassed in the media so there must be some readily available figures.

All that needs to known is the annual turnover of the UK stock market divided by the VAT rate for an accurate calculation to be made.

Another matter you might like to consider giving some thought to is this.

Its becoming more widely known that banks create money out of thin air. There may be disagreement about exactly how this is done but there is ever growing awareness that banks create money (credit) out of thin air.

Therefore, the government can create all the money required by the economy every year using the exact same method the banks use.

Attendant to this is this little factoid.

It was our governments who gave the banks permission to create money out of thin air. This is apparent from the fact that the govt is the highest authority in the land and only they have the authority to give such permission. Not only that but the reason you and I pay so much tax is because OUR government did not reserve for itself, ie, us, the right to create credit using the same method the banks do.

After dwelling on this factoid and thinking about it, how do you now feel about your govt giving the banks the right to create money (credit) out of thin air but not allowing themselves to use the exact same method to create money (credit) for British people. ?????

After all, the only reason you and I pay tax; is because the govt cant now create money for itself, it has to go and borrow it off the bank and the tax we pay is in fact the interest it has to pay the banks for the borrowed money.

My apologies if I have upset you with this information but I wanted to help create a better understanding of the greater picture of how the world works.

cheers

originally posted by: Phage
a reply to: CthulhuMythos
Thanks. I am unfamiliar with that sort of arrangement.
Seems odd to complain about government debt when the government is responsible for clotheslines though. Maybe there should be a clotheslinepole tax to cover it?

We still have quite a bit of social housing in UK, something I am sure baffles you guys on the other side of the pond.

As said they are similar to a landlord but are actually a charitable trust that provide low cost housing.

As by the sounds of it it was the pole had fallen down this would be the responsibility of the housing association in the same way as if it was a private landlord.

No need for the clothesline tax, the rental income on the properties they have in trust cover the maintenance and administration of the operation.

originally posted by: woogleuk
I really do not understand this whole debt thing, is it money owed to other countries?

If that is the case, going by 2011 figures (in Euros):

UK owes US 578.6bn, US owes the UK 834.5bn
UK owes France 209.9bn, France owes the UK 227bn
UK owes Spain 316.6bn, Spain owes the UK 74.9bn
UK owes Ireland 113.5bn, Ireland owes 104.5bn
UK owes Japan 122.7bn, Japan owes UK 101.8bn
UK owes Germany 379.3bn, Germany owes UK 141.1bn
Portugal owes UK 18.9bn
Italy owes UK 54.7bn
Greece owes UK 9.4bn

How can some countries owe us more than we owe them, yet we still owe them??

Am I missing something here?

That is not the kind of question I want to see at 8.40am on a Monday morning. I have not even had my second cup of coffee yet.

I would guess it has something to do with corruption and greed by a small group of elite billionares.

Don't have a problem with PCSOs being cut. They have no powers, get terrorised by kids and the bad ones walk around thinking they're Jason Bourne annoying normal people going about their business. It's a good idea in principle but horrifically implemented and badly screened.

Agree that trident should be scrapped though.

The thing is trident is useless. I mean who do we intend to nuke? Russia'? If we ever nuked Russia or one of its allies, we would be wiped off the face of the planet. the U.K. Is dotted with military instillations. I've got about 3 us Air Force bases within 20 miles. So I'll be dead within the first wave of Russian strikes . Not really up for surviving either in a post nuclear war scenario, eating radioactive rats and cockroaches. Being a child of the 80s the mushroom cloud fear made Isis, look like a bunch of clowns in comparison. For those that want trident, who would we possibly use it on, without ensuring our own destruction? Making it a totally pointless requirement to our needs. no to trident

originally posted by: woogleuk
Am I missing something here?

You're not missing anything, it's why I raised the question because it's so illogical

originally posted by: OtherSideOfTheCoin
a reply to: stonerwilliam

those new carriers are costing a couple of billion

Think about how many council workers they could have kept in a job

You need to treble that figure i am afraid In the latest budget, the Ministry of Defence is set to estimate the cost of the two ships at £6.2bn. 2013 figures so add on a few hundred million

www.bbc.co.uk...


It is the IT programmes they scrap that we never hear about that cost Billions in some cases ie the NHS one at 2.2 billion

originally posted by: Phage
a reply to: CthulhuMythos
Thanks. I am unfamiliar with that sort of arrangement.
Seems odd to complain about government debt when the government is responsible for clotheslines though. Maybe there should be a clotheslinepole tax to cover it?

Please do not give those people ideas Phage , We already had the window tax at one time , The local councils are telling people to fix things themselves now ,need your gutters cleaned - do it yourself .

The great Socialist idea is starting to fall apart witrh all the cutbacks maintenance has gone out the window as always when cuts come even to the stage of telling a octogenarian to cement in their own clothes poles .

Did that for her phage and discovered she was washing her clothes in the bath so as i was moving home i gave her my washing machine and a microwave and a freezer .

A lot of pensioners freeze to death in this country as they cannot afford to heat their homes in the winter , But they sure can find hundreds of millions for purposes when needs be !

Happy campers Phage

george osbornes family company has not paid tax for the last seven years....

Perhaps if the UK left the EU it could spend that £30,000,000 a day it sends to the thieves in Brussels on things that really matter to the Brits, such as nurses, doctors, flood defences, schools, teachers, hospitals, paramedics, police, roads, railroads, border guards...

The government budget deficit has shrunk to -4.4 from -6.3 in 2013, i would say that this is quite positive, yes, government debt has risen but the most important issue to gain trust from the financial markets is if spending is in control.
Trust means lower interest on debt, the forecast is -2.1 in 2017 with a gdp growth of 2.1 so in my view no need to worry.

a reply to: Discotech

Check out Zeitgeist (the first decent one, before it all went a bit hipster). It explains the US financial system really well - and if you've not seen it before, it's shocking.

An oldie, but a goodie.

www.youtube.com...

originally posted by: earthling42
The government budget deficit has shrunk to -4.4 from -6.3 in 2013, i would say that this is quite positive, yes, government debt has risen but the most important issue to gain trust from the financial markets is if spending is in control.
Trust means lower interest on debt, the forecast is -2.1 in 2017 with a gdp growth of 2.1 so in my view no need to worry.

That's all in relation to our GDP though. The actual deficit hasn't decreased much at all, we are still losing a similar amount year on year, it's just that the Conservatives decided to report it as a percentage of GDP now to make them look like they are tackling the situation, which they are not.
The Conservatives have doubled the national debt in the last 5 years alone.

If the global markets crash as many people predict will happen in the next two years, then we'll be in further trouble.

Austerity is a con, a means to a political ideology to shrink the state, justified by national debt. It has been shown time and time again that harsher austerity equals slower economic recovery. Ask yourself, why if we are so strapped and if we need to make even more savings, is our dear Gideon able to afford to hand tax breaks to the most well off?

originally posted by: Scouse100
Ask yourself, why if we are so strapped and if we need to make even more savings, is our dear Gideon able to afford to hand tax breaks to the most well off?

We can't afford to do it.
He's doing it because that's what the Conservatives do.
They don't care about the poor or middle class, they just care about themselves and their already rich mates.

a reply to: 83Liberty

Yes, level of debt is in relation to gdp, this is always how it is calculated.
Look back in history and find out how much debt is actually paid of over the last 25 years, my presumption, 0
When the economy grows again and thus gdp, the debt to gdp level goes down.

There is a lot of scaremongering about global crashes, but in all honesty, the only way to destroy this financial system is to blow it up by unregulated growth of money, with that i mean housing and huge private debt because people loan more than they can repay.
To my knowledge this is not possible anymore and banks are a lot healthier than in 2008.
Let's hope that the US does not commit fraud again by selling AAA stamped toxic waste to the rest of the world, than all will be fine.

a reply to: Scouse100

Austerity is not a con, it is simply balancing the budget and keep spending under control.