Britain's budget deficit

[SteveThaiBinh]

But you heard WoD. America's the best!

Too true! Your deficit's way bigger than ours.

 

I quite often have the TV on in the background at home with a news channel on, and I wish they would stop showing the projected national debt in large black numbers because it makes me jump.

 

We must all remember to focus on the shiny thing.

[Walsingham]

I generally take the view that if I don't pay any attention to it it will go away.

[Amentep]

I generally take the view that if I don't pay any attention to it it will go away.

 

I actually think this is true for a good number of people (if not everybody). I don't think humans on average do well with large numbers.

 

Say you owe ₤1,000 you understand that amount. Saying your nation owes ₤1,379,987,321.02 is most likely to make people shrug, or afraid or outraged but not really understand what it actually means to have that kind of debt.

Edited October 14, 2009 by Amentep

[213374U]

I think it isn't that people don't understand the numbers, what they don't understand are the economics behind those numbers. If you owe five grand, you have a fairly good idea of the effort, time and sacrifice it would take for you to repay that debt.

 

If your country has a debt in the trillions, you have no idea where to start cutting expenses, what % of the GDP that is, and how long could reasonably take the country to repay that debt. It's only natural, as most people aren't economists.

Edited October 14, 2009 by 213374U

[Amentep]

Well yeah, that's my point. There's an inherent understanding with the lower numbers that can't be fathomed with the larger numbers.

 

But I think even if you knew all the numbers it'd still be difficult to see the whole thing. That's why most solutions to problems involve trying to solve some small part of it rather than approaching a total top-down perspective.

[Wrath of Dagon]

Btw, that chart corrected for inflation is misleading.

 

Adjusting for inflation makes the chart have actual meaning in present day dollars. Otherwise it's just arbitrary numbers. But if you insist...

 

If you look at my link, there were significant budget deficits under Carter, but perhaps because inflation was even higher, it doesn't show up as a debt increase on Krezack's chart. If corrected numbers are shown, it would probably make more sense to show them as a percentage of GDP.

 

Sure, here's public debt without adjusting for inflation. This is even worse for the Republicans mate.

 

The link I posted has a second chart which shows debt as % of GDP. It actually peaked in Clinton's first term. Can't see you chart right now, will comment later.

Edit:

Republicans tend to run up higher deficits because they like to cut taxes and spend more on defense. Reagan had to cut taxes because the economy was in a horrible state after Carter and he needed to increase military spending to defeat the Soviet Union. Clinton was able to have a surplus because his spending was restrained by the Republican congress and there was an internet stock market bubble which increased revenues. None of this changes the fact that right now Democrates are spending like there's no tomorrow, and seriously threatening the economy.

 

So, a republican congress (who you've said has been fairly constant about spending more money) SAVED money, and then clinton did nothing because he was on a bubble from the internet stocks....

 

And yet GW had the same bubble from the stock market but found that his deficit skyrocketed under his control, with a republican congress. Probably the only thing that will save us quickly (note quckly!) would be a good honest to god, going to the mattresses war between superpowers.

 

Not saying that's a good thing, but it'd probably be the only thing that'd refocus our industry and force us to create new jobs and factories here instead of in a foreign country.

I didn't say Clinton did nothing, but it certainly helped that he was restrained by the Republican congress. The stock market bubble started bursting at the very end of Clinton's term, and then there was 9/11, so you can see the deficit peaked in 2004 and then went down until 2008 when the current recession started. Edited October 14, 2009 by Wrath of Dagon

[Humodour]

Wrath of Dagon, your utterly queer arguments about how it's OK for Republicans to run up deficits but not Democrats (and your further queer attempts to play down Democrat financial prudence) aside, do you actually understand the difference between public deficits and public debt?

[Wrath of Dagon]

I don't think I actually said it's OK, I was just explaining the historical background. And what do you mean "queer"? Debt is the accumulation of deficits, or do you mean something else? Edit: Democrat financial prudence? It usually begins and ends with "We better raise taxes", but right now they're not even showing that much prudence.

Edited October 14, 2009 by Wrath of Dagon

[Walsingham]

It never fails to make me giggle when you chaps get all loyalist about Republicans versus Democrats. As if there's a real difference. Conservative and old Labour, now THAT's a difference. Not that anyone can remember old Labour these days. Or in fact the old Conservatism, before Thatcher.

[Wrath of Dagon]

Krezack, you chart is incorrect, it does not match my CBO numbers. This is probably because your chart is ignoring the Social Security surplus.

[Humodour]

Krezack, you chart is incorrect, it does not match my CBO numbers. This is probably because your chart is ignoring the Social Security surplus.

 

You're sort of right except you're mainly wrong.

 

No, the chart is correct - it is national debt. Adding up the deficits will get you a roughly similar graph, but there are certain things that would be missing (such as Social Security surplus tax receipts - and to be clear this is debt, not surplus, because you seem to think that it's a good thing heh).

 

For example, the deficit 2008 under Bush was $455 billion, but he actually increased the national debt by $1 trillion after all debt was considered.

[Amentep]

It never fails to make me giggle when you chaps get all loyalist about Republicans versus Democrats. As if there's a real difference. Conservative and old Labour, now THAT's a difference. Not that anyone can remember old Labour these days. Or in fact the old Conservatism, before Thatcher.

 

Party systems in general are kind of silly. Like saying "I want to elect an entity to represent me in this other entity."

[Wrath of Dagon]

No, social security surplus is an actual surplus, not debt. The debt is the sum of all deficits, the CBO public debt column is the true national debt, not what your chart shows, although that's a common mistake, it get misreported all the time.

[~Di]

Once again, thread hijacking has ensued.

 

Carry on.

[Walsingham]

It never fails to make me giggle when you chaps get all loyalist about Republicans versus Democrats. As if there's a real difference. Conservative and old Labour, now THAT's a difference. Not that anyone can remember old Labour these days. Or in fact the old Conservatism, before Thatcher.

 

Party systems in general are kind of silly. Like saying "I want to elect an entity to represent me in this other entity."

 

That's why I believe in systems where you vote for the man, not the party. Which only makes it doubly perplexing that people in the US and UK where we have that option rarely consider the candidate. It's like choosing a musician to listen to based solely on where they trained.

 

This is relevant to the thread, I guess since we're talking about implementing solutions. *ponders* I don't suppose we could raise cash by putting all parties on the game?

[SteveThaiBinh]

I don't suppose we could raise cash by putting all parties on the game?

That's for the market to show, but how much would you pay for George Osborne?

 

The Conservatives, after initially opposing the idea when Blair introduced it, are planning to increase the number of directly-elected city mayors, along the lines of Boris Johnson. No doubt their enthusiasm will wane when non-Tory candidates get elected, but ho hum. There's an election in Bedford today, I believe, with a close race between the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats.

[mkreku]

Please don't fix your economy. The Swedish Krona is stronger than (almost) ever against the dwindling British pound and I want to go shopping in London before Christmas.

 

Thank you in advance for understanding.

[Lare Kikkeli]

Please don't fix your economy. The Swedish Krona is stronger than (almost) ever against the dwindling British pound and I want to go shopping in London before Christmas.

 

Thank you in advance for understanding.

 

I've been buying stuff from the US and UK like crazy the past few years. It's awesome.

[Humodour]

Apparently the AUD will be worth $1.10 USD early next year. Up from about $0.60 earlier this year. I'm thinking it might be time for a shopping spree in America, too.

[Walsingham]

I almost understand the concept of a mayor, as the 'owner' of a city. But there's been a mania for elected and unelected officials recently, none of whom appears to have the power or inclination to do their job. Surely scrapping those bastards would save cash.

[Rostere]

"Debt does not matter"... That is an interesting statement, if a little pessimistic.

[Walsingham]

I'm still waiting for mkreku to take ManU away.

[The Illuminator]

I don't understand why they insist on invading other countries like Iraq or Afghanistan desptie their budget being so bad.Maybe because of their being of war mongerer nature.

[Humodour]

Maybe because of their being of war mongerer nature.

 

I'm pretty sure that's exactly what the reason isn't.

[jaguars4ever]

I think we should be more concerned with Britain's fit bint deficit.