Saw the following article this morning.
Seems to me that being a dole/benefits scrounger is looking the smart move for the next xx number of years. Anyone with income, assetts, or savings will be taxed to death while still paying for the scroungers and public service cuts, or am I being pessimistic?
http://money.uk.msn.com/budget2010/a...ntid=152754595
Seems to me that being a dole/benefits scrounger is looking the smart move for the next xx number of years. Anyone with income, assetts, or savings will be taxed to death while still paying for the scroungers and public service cuts, or am I being pessimistic?
http://money.uk.msn.com/budget2010/a...ntid=152754595
The deficit - the amount the government is overspending this year - will clock in at £167 billion. That's £11 billion less than expected. But it's still £167 billion.
That is a staggering number. And it'll stay above £160 billion for the next two years at least.
Let's just get a bit of clarity on that. What this means is that this year, another £160 billion-odd gets added to our national debt. The same again the year after and the year after that.
Even by 2014/15, and assuming that Darling's predictions are right, the government will still be spending £74 billion a year more than it's making annually in tax.
That'll take our national debt from £617 billion right up to £1.406 trillion by 2014/15. And at that point, our deficit - the annual overspend - will still be at 4% of GDP.
For some perspective on that, to join the eurozone an overspend of 3% was seen as the ceiling. Of course, most countries didn't manage that, but it just gives you a benchmark as to what is seen as a sustainable level of government overspend.
How will we pay for the borrowing? Well we've done it so far, haven't we?
Yes, but we had the Bank of England buying our debt then. The net sales of government gilts are expected to fall to £148 billion in 2010/11 from £211 billion in 2009/10. But the Bank of England bought all but £28 billion of that this year.
In 2010/11, private buyers will have to pick up all that slack themselves. Will they do it? Perhaps not at current prices. That would push up the interest bill and, in turn, make the scale of our borrowing even larger.
That is a staggering number. And it'll stay above £160 billion for the next two years at least.
Let's just get a bit of clarity on that. What this means is that this year, another £160 billion-odd gets added to our national debt. The same again the year after and the year after that.
Even by 2014/15, and assuming that Darling's predictions are right, the government will still be spending £74 billion a year more than it's making annually in tax.
That'll take our national debt from £617 billion right up to £1.406 trillion by 2014/15. And at that point, our deficit - the annual overspend - will still be at 4% of GDP.
For some perspective on that, to join the eurozone an overspend of 3% was seen as the ceiling. Of course, most countries didn't manage that, but it just gives you a benchmark as to what is seen as a sustainable level of government overspend.
How will we pay for the borrowing? Well we've done it so far, haven't we?
Yes, but we had the Bank of England buying our debt then. The net sales of government gilts are expected to fall to £148 billion in 2010/11 from £211 billion in 2009/10. But the Bank of England bought all but £28 billion of that this year.
In 2010/11, private buyers will have to pick up all that slack themselves. Will they do it? Perhaps not at current prices. That would push up the interest bill and, in turn, make the scale of our borrowing even larger.
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