h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

>>would we not have collapsed in an Icelandic style<<

Not Icelandic style, more Greek style. As I understand it the Icelandic ecconomy collapsed because of currency speculation: it's population and major companies took out loans in euros and took advantage of the favourable exchange rates between the kronor and euro.

Then people started speculating on the kronor, it's exchange rate with the euro sky-rocketed and people were saddled with loans they couldn't possibly afford to repay.

That is very, very unlikely to happen to the pound, it's a major international currency, with strong backing and most Brits take out their loans in pounds.

Ancient Brit, you are lying when you say our real debt is that ridiculous sum you claimed earlier.

You can carry on repeating a falsehood and not taking in anything others say, but no-one's going to pay you much attention.

There are those among us living in cloud cuckoo land.
Now why should I lie. A mere £1.2trillion, just add on state and public sector pension liabilities and the figure grows:-

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/economics/7957110/Government-urged-to-reveal-true-national-debt-of-4.8trillion.html

Ah ok, thank you

It just occurred to me that if 'we' had just folded, then we'd all, individually, actually be in a worse situation.

Now dont get me wrong. There's in my mind an unrealistic 'wouldn't it be nice' scenario of wouldn't it be nice if people were worth more than money, but that's not the world we live in.

Ancient Brit. The next time you attempt to patronise me I'll be reporting you. It's not how we roll. Capiche? Now, lets get on with the discussion without being so personal, shall we?

>>Now why should I lie.<<

An attempt to look right or relevant? Without lying, you are neither.

From your link:

"The ONS numbers included a £1 trillion to £1.5 trillion liability for the Government's stakes in the part-nationalised banks, equivalent to the relevant portion of their total liabilities."

How many times do you need to be told? The nationalised banks are an abberation that shouldn't be included in the total debt because they will be sold off with a considerable profit. Anyone including them in long-term analysis is flat-out lying or ignorant.

Pension liabilities aren't included because they are, by definition, long term investments and the prevailing economic issues aren't long term.

In the *opening sentence* of the article you link to the quoted figure is £816 billion, almost half the figure you are claiming. The link you gave refers to a report by a free-market and anti-state sector think-tank, a biased source and one whose numbers and findings cannot be trusted without further scrutiny.

Even your own "evidence" doesn't support your claims.

- Put simply from a reliable and truthful source:- A827381

When all else fails, use a non-sequitur. That way no-one can prove you wrong. You be taking lessons from warner perchance?

Couple of things:

I don't honestly think the state will get back what it paid for the banks, especially once the inevitable lawyers and consultants fees are included. I'm willing to be corrected on this, but I think this is one of the reasons why private sector takeovers weren't (in all cases) possible. But yes, the banks hugely inflate both national debt AND the number of public sector works, as nationalised bank employees are now included as such.

Secondly, talking about debt (whatever the figures) is meaningless out of context of income, assets, interest rates, repayment rates, and time. Especially when everything including the kitchen sink is lumped in there as "debt". If I were to say "I am in debt to the tune of X", that would be meaningless out of context. Based on that, there's no way to tell whether I have a problem or not.

Quite.

This is the problem with people panicking over pension defecit figures...

They are a figure used to show how big the pension scheme is, not a true example of how much they are paying out every year, or how much they are ever likely to have to pay in one go...

One more quick point.

Without wishing to be unfair, the "debt bombshell" site is run by an online marketing professional (and clearly a good one), not by an economist. Although the site's author claims no party political affiliation, he calls himself a "libertarian", which for those who don't know, generally means very likely to be more right wing than the Tories. All this information is on the website.

So.... the site is not a neutral, unbiased source of information, and should not be regarded as such. Any more than anything I say.

That's why there's only talk of cuts and more cuts, assertions (without evidence) of huge amounts of waste, and no talk whatsoever of increasing income, either by collecting tax properly, raising taxes, or through an economic recovery. I don't want to go as far as saying it's propaganda, as that's unfair, but it's every bit as much spin, manipulation, and agenda than anything any politician would say. It is neither authoritative nor neutral.

Que cryptic post from Ancient Brit that says and means nothing....

FB

Glad you read it Otto the site is well put together.
Unbiased views are hard to find and it is hardly likely that they will be presented on a community web site.

<> AB

"However our credibility is falling fast."

Our credibility isn't falling at all; we got an AAA rating this week from Moody's.

"From time to time the debt is called in."

Nope. Govt debt is issued as bonds: fixed-term, fixed-rate bills which willing parts of the financial make bids for. They're bidding quite high at the moment, because we're seen as a good bet. They can be sold on too, and like I said before the interest rate on UK bonds is very low at the moment, because the markets have confidence in the UK.

"Of course we could always just carry on an get a third world rating"

See above.

AB, you really don't seem to understand what you're talking about.

Sorry Pedro, it must be something to do with the h2g2 environment. Don't have a problem in the real world.
Us oldies are told repeatedly that we had the best years, so it's a fair assumption that things are seen to be going downhill.
Survival on a voluntary redundancy package handed out in the 80's means a fair bit in real life but bugger all in h2g2.