How long do you think the current UK economic and employment downturn will last for?

[VectraMan]

Beans by the pallet load. Food presumably won't be getting any cheaper. Heck, it seems to get more expensive each shopping trip.

I'm going to start stock piling petrol. It's guaranteed to go up.

[Green Mango]

It will go on several years, followed by a politically engineered pre-election boom to secure a Tory win in 2015.

HTH

If only, I'm afraid the Labour bastards who put us in this whole will be back in 2015 to screw up any progress up again.

[AtW]

"The taxman can take all your money, but he can't take your memories."

How about memories being in jail for tax evasion?

[Doggy Styles]

How long do you think the current UK economic and employment downturn will last for?

Interest payments on national debt are currently running at £45 billion. I think that's nearly half the cost of the NHS. Those payments will increase all the time we have a deficit.

We cannot even start reducing those payments until we have done away with the deficit and moved into surplus. It's anyone's guess, but I don't see that point happening for best part of 10 years, and that's even if the coallition's plans work.

[OwlHoot]

Interest payments on national debt are currently running at £45 billion. I think that's nearly half the cost of the NHS. Those payments will increase all the time we have a deficit.

We cannot even start reducing those payments until we have done away with the deficit and moved into surplus. It's anyone's guess, but I don't see that point happening for best part of 10 years, and that's even if the coallition's plans work.

How many more times?

Excessive individual debt is servitude and lost opportunities.

Bloated sovereign debt means freedom from interference, and more opportunities.

Yearning to reduce, or even eliminate, the national debt is naive and frankly childish.

[AtW]

Yearning to reduce, or even eliminate, the national debt is naive and frankly childish.

Debt is at critical point when you have to borrow again in order to pay off lenders - this has been happening in the West for a long time now, so the mountain is so large that interest payments alone (at current artificially depressed rates) are massive: £73 bln per year predicted for 2014/15. That's over £1000 for each person in the UK including children and elder, or £3.5k per household per year interest payments only.

That's about the amount VAT raises I think, so in order to pay just for those interest payments VAT would have go go up to 35-40%.

Yes, the debt is THAT massive.

[Doggy Styles]

How many more times?

Excessive individual debt is servitude and lost opportunities.

Bloated sovereign debt means freedom from interference, and more opportunities.

Yearning to reduce, or even eliminate, the national debt is naive and frankly childish.

As AtW says, the lower the debt, the less interest you pay.

Rather than being frankly childish, it is up to each nation to decide what level of debt they can cope with.

Too high, and the proportion of GDP lost paying interest is too high. This is compounded by rises in the rate of interest we'd be charged if markets lose confidence in ability to repay.

That's where we were heading.

I hope this helps.

[Incognito]

Bloated sovereign debt means Labour is in power

Yearning to reduce, or even eliminate, the national debt shows Labour has lost power

Fixed that for you.

[Clippy]

I'm going to start stock piling petrol. It's guaranteed to go up.

Isn't that illegal?

[EternalOptimist]

Isn't that illegal?

I think it may possibly have been a joke.

go up - woooof



aww fergerrit