General Chat

I've been reading in today's Daily Mail some disturbing figures concerning our
NATIONAL DEBT. Since becoming chancellor in 2010 and inheriting a very bleak economy from the Labour party, this nation's NATIONAL BEBT has increased by
£55BILLION. It's supposed to be coming down (?)
Apparently our national debt is £1,577,000,000 almost £1.58 TRILLION pounds
We will be paying interest on the interest for the rest of our lives.

Are we still in debt to USA for WW1 and WW2? they are in debt themselves.
Where's all this money going?

...and this from the Daily Fail, the most Tory paper in existence - it must be VERY bad!!!! :-S

The money is going into the pockets of those who don't need it.
The UK is being sold off to Russian and Chinese oligarchs, who aren't paying stamp duty.
Firms such as Amazon, Google, Costa Coffee and Starbucks aren't paying Tax - or if they are, at a VERY reduced rate.
Taking a pittance from the most vulnerable in society was never going to fill the gap.
Here's where some of the money has gone:
•Freeze on fuel duty – £435m
•Relief for oil companies – £265m
•Freeze on alcohol duty – £85m
•New rights to buy – £35m
•Tax cuts to personal allowance & higher rates – £2bn
•ISA savings allowance – £170m
•Not investigating senior mgmnt tax fiddles on loans – £260m
•Reduced corporation tax – £1.1bn (2020)

Thank you Maggie. I read in the same paper there 100 billionaires in Beijing

The deficit is caused by spending all our money & buying nothing of much real value.

I acknowledge my own deficiency in this matter.

Dermot, it's called 'having a whale of a time.' :-D

There's also allegedly 97 billionaires in New York
That's that declare it.

There's also a lot of poverty

We have paid off the war debts but this is the history of the debt

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_British_national_debt


:-)

That is interesting Pat. I'd sometimes wondered about the
origin of The Bank of England and its notes

New Zealand's national debt is also increasing at an alarming rate. When will people wake up to the real facts about money? Governments should not be borrowing from foreign owned commercial banks. If they need money (at least here in NZ, dont know what your equivalent is) they should borrow from the Reserve Bank (owned by our Govt) at no or very low interest.

I write as a pensioner millionaire (in halfpennies). Seen all this so many times before. The only answer (and my mother loved me) is to increase tax to pay for all the benefits we now have.(sick;elderly; infirm etc.)
All else is fleabite, tinkering at the edges. - should be done but will only apply a plaster. My main point is that we shouldn't inflict debt on to our young ones - my generation and later ones borrowed, so we should pay it back.

The country is now a disgrace in so many ways. MAJOR surgery
is the only way to get proper improvement.

Happy days

Social services and the NHS cost this country far more than the MOD
The NHS and all manner of benefits (including not working and sickness) is surely the reason why we are content to be kept, for want of a better word.

An entire generation is unaware of what working for a living is.
I don't think there is such an influx of immigrants because of our climate.

I think saying that about a whole generation is a bit sweeping David! I think a lot of young people work extremely hard, my own two offspring have worked hard since leaving college many moons ago and have done very well as have their friends. My elder granddaughter is about to enter the V1th form to study for A levels pre university. Her goal is to teach PE with the emphasis on gymnastics. Her younger sister is hard on her heels, little brother, still at primary school is also showing academic promise. I don't think that all migrants come here just for benefits, a lot want to work hard and make a better life for themselves. I really don't think you can say that a whole generation are unaware of what working for a living is!!!!
We paid off our war reparations in 2006 (I think!) and there are lots of reasons why the National Debt is so high, people living longer, babies surviving where once they didn't, higher standards of living, disease that is now curable which once wasn't, numerous everyday things, that people now expect whereas once they didn't. All these things cost!!!

OK magpie, I revise my earlier posting.
A high percentage of a generation (20years?) have not experienced work.
The same ones enjoy a better standard of living than their parents and grand parents.
The closing of our pits put thousands of men out of work and saw once thriving communities to start to close. The sons of these miners expected to go down the pit.
Pits are closed with little alternative.

But David that's thirty years ago now, today's generation have much more going for them than just blindly following parents down the pits!!! A lot of miners didn't want their sons following Dad, they wanted better for them. These days educational opportunities are vastly superior for young people, travel is much easier and cheaper, the world is your oyster if you look hard enough. I'm sorry, I just don't accept that there are swathes of youngsters sitting around doing nothing because of something that happened thirty odd years ago, their parents may have for a while, but a lot found other employment through various government training schemes, and other occupational outlets, but not youngsters now. I don't accept that they're that stupid, and neither were their parents. To say differently is to belittle them.

Well I actually agree with you up to a point David. There are areas where shipbuilding and mining have gone that have never really recovered and tv programmes in very recent years have highlighted the problems for youngsters growing up in areas of no hope and reliance on benefits. Yes, despite education opportunities being better than ever, these children don't have more going for them. They grow up in depressed areas of neglect and decay and little employment with no expectations or confidence and wouldn't be encouraged or funded like they would be in more affluent families. I've driven around some of these areas and seen what it is like and have heard from OH the reaction when offices were to be closed in them with little prospect of other employment. That was only 7 years ago. Then in the more affluent areas there are youngsters relying on the bank of mum and dad, that can afford gap years, that are fussy about what employment they take because they have qualifications, think they are too good for menial work, won't do voluntary work. They can spend years claiming rather than working and contributing too and can only afford to have these attitudes because they are bankrolled by parents and grandparents.

The closure of Consett Iron works many years ago with nothing to replace it caused deprivation. The cessation of ship building and repairing on The Tyne caused deprivation as did the regional and national closure of the mines
You cannot invent work. The ships are built elsewhere in cheaper more reliable countries, coal is imported. Sunderland's Stadium of light is on top of a former coal mine!! Pubs are closing because people have little or no money.
In the town of Bedlington, a former mining town Tesco closed their super market last year. No alternative employment in that town. These are examples of a bigger problem.
:-S

Dont worry, the political parties will promise to make jobs available for everybody, when the election comes round. They just dont explain how producing more goods for sale will help, unless the work consists of crawling around on hands and knees pulling weeds out of the ground in parks etc.

When a machine is installed in a factory to do the work of 100 men/women, that means 99 are put out of work. How are their lack of wages supposed to buy the goods the machine produces? I know, give them another job, producing more goods, then they have the money to buy the goods the first factory produces. But who buys the goods they are now producing?

If work was good you the wealthy would make sure there wasn't enough for the poor.

I am far from being wealthy if that is what you think.

I dont understand what you mean.

It was just a quote I remembered Huia