Quizzes & Puzzles2 mins ago
the big money hole
9 Answers
can someone tell me in simple terms (cos i am simple ) .......
we owe one trillion pounds + and other Euro countries not far off that,
but who do we owe it all too,who lends us all this money in the first place ??
we owe one trillion pounds + and other Euro countries not far off that,
but who do we owe it all too,who lends us all this money in the first place ??
Answers
Best Answer
No best answer has yet been selected by jacksprat16. Once a best answer has been selected, it will be shown here.
For more on marking an answer as the "Best Answer", please visit our FAQ.everyone borrows from everyone but I think it's basically China keeping other countries afloat.
http://www.realclearw...na_needs_us_debt.html
http://www.realclearw...na_needs_us_debt.html
Two minute explanation
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LyePCRkq620
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LyePCRkq620
How much we owe depends on how you do the figures. UK national debt is about £900 million.
You can get over 1 trillion if you add in a bunch of things like pensions that we don't have to borrow for now (that's what the Centre for Policy studies have done - they're a right wing think tank)
Think of it this way though - £1 Trillion is about £16,000 per person.
Now that's quite a lot of money but it's nothing compared to what many people owe already - and it's nothing compared to what we owed after the war.
It also doesn't account for assets that we spent the money on - The Government stake in Llyods -TSB alone is about £15 Billion
What is important is to make sure that figure is going down and not up and a lot of doing that is making sure that the economy grows.
Growing economy -> more tax revenue + less benefit claimants
Cutting spending too harshly will give you a vicious circle of more unemployment and less tax revenue that's what happened in the early 80s
But back to your original question.
Governments issue bonds called gilts - these are promisses to pay back with interest in x years.
These are bought and traded by investments houses and banks and pension firms.
If you want a real shock realise this
We borrowed all this money to bail out the financial sector and prevent a depression.
This same financial sector is now saying "you've borrowed too much money - if you don't reduce it, we'll downgrade your credit rating"
You can get over 1 trillion if you add in a bunch of things like pensions that we don't have to borrow for now (that's what the Centre for Policy studies have done - they're a right wing think tank)
Think of it this way though - £1 Trillion is about £16,000 per person.
Now that's quite a lot of money but it's nothing compared to what many people owe already - and it's nothing compared to what we owed after the war.
It also doesn't account for assets that we spent the money on - The Government stake in Llyods -TSB alone is about £15 Billion
What is important is to make sure that figure is going down and not up and a lot of doing that is making sure that the economy grows.
Growing economy -> more tax revenue + less benefit claimants
Cutting spending too harshly will give you a vicious circle of more unemployment and less tax revenue that's what happened in the early 80s
But back to your original question.
Governments issue bonds called gilts - these are promisses to pay back with interest in x years.
These are bought and traded by investments houses and banks and pension firms.
If you want a real shock realise this
We borrowed all this money to bail out the financial sector and prevent a depression.
This same financial sector is now saying "you've borrowed too much money - if you don't reduce it, we'll downgrade your credit rating"
I like the way that site is dressing itself up to look like The Economist, Ankou; check the white-on-red logo and typeface
http://www.debtbombsh...-of-national-debt.htm
http://www.economist.com/
http://www.debtbombsh...-of-national-debt.htm
http://www.economist.com/