Saturday 7 August 2010

Debt Vs Bank Bailout

From figures published May 2010, UK public sector net debt was £903.0 billion. (or 62.2% of National GDP) – Source: Office National Statistics.

And £850bn was the official cost of the bank bailout.

Notice how close these numbers are? £903.0 billion debt less £850bn from the bank bailout would leave our debt at £53 billion. Relatively speaking this is small beer. Currently we are at 62.2% of GDP, 22nd worst in the world. At £53 bn our debt would be 4%, ranked one of the lowest in the world.

Now I don't claim to be a financial genius, but why arent these figures talked of more often?

Why do the ConDems keep on about the massive cuts needed for us taxpayers to pay back the debt? They could simply force the banks to pay back what they owe. Clearly they couldnt do it all in one go but considering the big bank profits recently they could make a start.

The ConDems seem to enjoy cutting services.
Why else do they refuse to cut Trident?
We are not all in this together.

4 comments:

NickJ said...

With you all the way on this and your child protection post :-)

Adrian Windisch said...

Cheers Nick. I wish other people would say this too.

DocRichard said...

Hi Adrian
I agree with the thrust of your argument. Our National Debt is not that bad, comparatively, and also it matures later than some other countries. I had a poke at all of this here: http://bit.ly/amMK1q

I did find that our budget deficit was rather high in comparison with other countries. On the other hand, we are about seventh in line from attack from the market predators. The most wollby counties were the PIGS, Japan and the - wait for it - the USofA. If the US goes down the tube, everyone follows anyway. The nordic countries were the most stable.

So the Gleggeron is brandishing one big figure around, scaring gullible journalists. SNAFU.
Regards
Richard

Adrian Windisch said...

Richard, did love this one http://greenerblog.blogspot.com/2010/08/gove-school-milk-pakistan-diplomacy.html

The point of this post is that most of our debt is with the banks. I dont know if this is true for other countries. I expect Greece has deeper problems.