The national debt

[Dan 4RR]

What is the UK national debt? To whom do they owe? Why do they have to pay it back? What would happen if they decided to not pay back the money?

It seems such an impossible amount. I am having a really hard time finding any solid information that I can understand about what really is this "debt."
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[Itchy]

Two places ,

me and you ,

and foreign governments/banks

me and you equates to things like debentures Bonds NS&I , premium bonds war bonds guarenteed government loan stock , when the government used to be short on cash it pumped up interest rates , which made bonds look juicy Gordon

If they refuse to pay the interest in such things it will piss of a HUGE number of people since 33 million people have bonds hell most of the clients I deal with have bonds paying typically 6-9%.

Pissing off people is one thing , pissing off 33 million means revolution, such that they'll borrow money to pay such debts if needs be. And in future have to offer higher interest rates

when there is surplus the government buys back these debentures reducing the debt.


The other is government securities much the same things but offered to foreigners , or a special arrangement like the US has with gold and USD and bonds (its why the US is pretty much owned by China these days),

If they refuse to pay the credit rating goes down , most western countries have AAA rating you don't pay it goes down , poor credit rating means higher interest rates ,

ie just like junk bonds higher risk = better rate of return.

So while China might lend us a couple billion quid for 2-15% as we have AAA credit rating (and have gold to back it up and a good credit history as well as a good economy to back it up) , zimbawe has to offer bonds @ 20,000 percent interest to get anybody to buy them , but when its starve or get gang raped by interest, grab those heels!


Its sort of like lending money to mates a good mate who you know for years has a job £20 is ok to lend them , an utter git who you don't trust its not ok to lend £20 or you impose 100% interest on him to cover your risk.

or attach all sorts of strings to such loans , Suzi's boy worked for a Japanese agency which loaned money like that , its why it is incorrect to say Charity begins at home , it doesn't loaned money like that has some strings no chains attached to it 2 years ago we forced an african nation to buy an obselete airtraffic control system from us , they have no aircraft.


There is this net story around 2002 where the US reneged on its bonds for the first time EVER in its history , it saved some money in the short term , but had to offer bonds at higher rate in the future to make up for it.



The most extreme was the USSR and China fragmenting they used to be best of Pals , China said no , USSR asked for its loans back , they starved 50-75 million people to repay the debt by selling every scrap of food they had to raise money.
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Spain 2008France 2007Big one 2009 We all die. The goal isn't to live forever, the goal is to create something that will. In the end, your life will flash before your eyes. Make sure it is worth watching.

[Itchy]

enemy of the state moment,

it also has debts in terms of income tax , the gov accidntally on purpose puts people on M1 tax codes for 6 or so months , doing this against 28 million employees = lots (they owed me nigh 500) , which means that the Inland Revenue hold a bank account with several billion quid in it , which gets a massive amount of interest,

your £1 in an ING will get 5.5% , their 20bn will get on the money market 12-25%.

dragging its heels on paying back income tax due = semi interest free loan the £500 they owed me had no interest on it at all.
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Spain 2008France 2007Big one 2009 We all die. The goal isn't to live forever, the goal is to create something that will. In the end, your life will flash before your eyes. Make sure it is worth watching.

[CortezTheKill...]

As of August 2006, the national debt stands at £478.6billion (net). If plans to incorporate the pensions liability of £530bn go ahead, that figure will rise to approximately £1,000bn (or 1 trillion Pounds).

These are government figures, however. Independent studies (produced by the Centre for Policy Studies) have estimated the true national debt figure at 1.3 trillion (taking into account the Public-Private Finance initiatives and the cost of killing Railtrack and setting up Network Rail, which the governments own figures do not include). This amounts to £53,000 for each household in the UK. It is also more than the UK's GDP, therefore if these figures are correct, our debt is greater than our wealth.

One of the reasons why the figure is so high is that an ever-greater tax burden is forcing many businesses to go abroad, therefore our wealth is spent outside of the country.
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[Itchy]

[Dan 4RR]

Jezuss! You certainly know how to confuse a guy Itchy. I'm more confused now than I was before No doubt you've answered my questions but is there anyway in making more simple for noob's like me.

[TheShaggyDA]

[Itchy]

Dan , buy an economics text book , ones that are 3-4 years old are ok , economic theory stays fairly stable or see

www.bized.co.uk

its pretty insulting in teaching economic theory but might be just what you are looking for.
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Spain 2008France 2007Big one 2009 We all die. The goal isn't to live forever, the goal is to create something that will. In the end, your life will flash before your eyes. Make sure it is worth watching.

[Dan 4RR]

A bit lame dragging my own thread back up, but I found this quite interesting.

https://www.brillig.com/debt_clock/
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Humans....the largest form of cancer the world has ever seen!
Speed Cameras - Putting goverment revenue before public safety!

[Itchy]

that clock is too slow , it should be increasing sooo much faster than that!
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Spain 2008France 2007Big one 2009 We all die. The goal isn't to live forever, the goal is to create something that will. In the end, your life will flash before your eyes. Make sure it is worth watching.

[colin1]

just keep clicking refresh (f5) to get the required effect

[Itchy]

still not fast enough,
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Spain 2008France 2007Big one 2009 We all die. The goal isn't to live forever, the goal is to create something that will. In the end, your life will flash before your eyes. Make sure it is worth watching.