woolley Posted July 13, 2015 Share Posted July 13, 2015 Whatever else she may have achieved, Mrs Thatcher actually didn't do so well on the national debt, Spook. She certainly didn't pay it off. Particularly when you take into account that she had the lion's share of North Sea oil revenue on her watch. Lots of unemployment benefit to pay though. http://www.ukpublicspending.co.uk/debt_brief.php Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spook Posted July 13, 2015 Share Posted July 13, 2015 Whatever else she may have achieved, Mrs Thatcher actually didn't do so well on the national debt, Spook. She certainly didn't pay it off. Particularly when you take into account that she had the lion's share of North Sea oil revenue on her watch. Lots of unemployment benefit to pay though. http://www.ukpublicspending.co.uk/debt_brief.php Her government certainly didn't pay the ND off but it did make some payments off it. Thatcher did good, how we need her like today. As for the unemployment pay, that was a price well worth paying as was the culling of lamb duck industries and the emasculating of the unions. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lxxx Posted July 13, 2015 Share Posted July 13, 2015 The IMF have been banging on about this for the past few months in their reports. Not my words. To be fair, you've been banging on about global financial collpase for a lot longer than that... Very true. Although that was a few years ago when I listened a bit too much to the company I kept at the time, who thought they were a bit more clued up than they were. Some HNWI who are a lot more successful and wealthier than me they were too with investments in a lot of different areas, but in hindsight probably too pessimistic. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pongo Posted July 13, 2015 Share Posted July 13, 2015 Whatever else she may have achieved, Mrs Thatcher actually didn't do so well on the national debt, Spook. She certainly didn't pay it off Why would a govt of a politically and economically relatively stable country which has its own currency ever want to pay off the national debt? It's effectively free spending - govt creates that money itself via the genius of the banking system. The central bank of a country with its own currency can also set the value of that debt (within reason) - and indirectly more or less owns that debt anyhow. Further - I am not sure what the figure is for the UK .. but 2/3 of US debt is directly owned by US institutions. The govt's spending deficit is a different matter. That matters. But the most important thing is political stability and the confidence which that brings. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
woolley Posted July 13, 2015 Share Posted July 13, 2015 Whatever else she may have achieved, Mrs Thatcher actually didn't do so well on the national debt, Spook. She certainly didn't pay it off Why would a govt of a politically and economically relatively stable country which has its own currency ever want to pay off the national debt? It's effectively free spending - govt creates that money itself via the genius of the banking system. The central bank of a country with its own currency can also set the value of that debt (within reason) - and indirectly more or less owns that debt anyhow. Further - I am not sure what the figure is for the UK .. but 2/3 of US debt is directly owned by US institutions. The govt's spending deficit is a different matter. That matters. But the most important thing is political stability and the confidence which that brings. That's a strange juxtaposition of philosophies. The first paragraph intimates that the level of national debt really doesn't matter but the second paragraph says the spending deficit does matter. Deficit simply leads to increased debt and both matter. Because although the government and the central bank effectively own the debt that they created, it is all a matter of confidence in the markets. Lose confidence through reckless stewardship of the public finances and you have Argentina, Zimbabwe, Greece, et al. If national debt did not matter we could just keep piling it up forever. At some point the market realises your currency has no collateral value as happened with the derivatives based on sub-prime US mortgages which led to the current unpleasantness. Re who owns UK debt, I linked this in another thread recently: http://www.edmundconway.com/2013/10/heres-who-the-uk-government-owes-money-to/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pongo Posted July 13, 2015 Share Posted July 13, 2015 That's a strange juxtaposition of philosophies. The first paragraph intimates that the level of national debt really doesn't matter but the second paragraph says the spending deficit does matter. Deficit simply leads to increased debt and both matterNot necessarily. Since, for example, if govt borrowing increases the value of govts assets over time then borrowing can actually reduce the total value of the debt. Obviously a govt should avoid borrowing in order to simply cover its daily costs or the costs of servicing existing debt. But borrowing to invest is a different matter. If national debt did not matter we could just keep piling it up forever.In a stable poltical and economic environment a govt basically could. Provided that the country has a national currency. Of course there needs to be a careful balance - but increasing the money supply also serves to reduce the value of the debt. Clearly political and economic stability itself depends on that careful balance. At some point the market realises your currency has no collateral value as happened with the derivatives based on sub-prime US mortgages which led to the current unpleasantness.With hindsight we can see that it was not so much that the CDOs were definitely backed with high risk debt - it was that there was a loss of confidence with respect to the extent to which these instruments were infected with high risk debt. And also that many of the same institutions were also potentially responsible for the insurance against instruments issued by other institutions with similarly vague risk components. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
woolley Posted July 15, 2015 Share Posted July 15, 2015 Now even IMF publicly falling out with Eurogroup. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-33531743 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Old Git Posted July 15, 2015 Share Posted July 15, 2015 I think they'll be back to square one tomorrow. Expect some turmoil in the markets Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Albert Tatlock Posted July 15, 2015 Share Posted July 15, 2015 My money is on a messy Grexit. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tarne Posted July 15, 2015 Share Posted July 15, 2015 Corr, almost 1.43 on xe.com for Euro's - good for me hols! I'm still going for "Somehow kept on Euro" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GD4ELI Posted July 16, 2015 Share Posted July 16, 2015 Looks like an online anti-Deutschland campain is backfiring Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spook Posted July 16, 2015 Share Posted July 16, 2015 Whatever else she may have achieved, Mrs Thatcher actually didn't do so well on the national debt, Spook. She certainly didn't pay it off Why would a govt of a politically and economically relatively stable country which has its own currency ever want to pay off the national debt? It's effectively free spending - govt creates that money itself via the genius of the banking system. The central bank of a country with its own currency can also set the value of that debt (within reason) - and indirectly more or less owns that debt anyhow. Further - I am not sure what the figure is for the UK .. but 2/3 of US debt is directly owned by US institutions. The govt's spending deficit is a different matter. That matters. But the most important thing is political stability and the confidence which that brings. Amazing. Why would a govt of a politically and economically relatively stable country which has its own currency ever want to pay off the national debt? Because at present servicing the UK National Debt is running at around £60 billion pa which means that each year 60 bil has to be found before a penny can be spent to meet the annual budget. That in itself strikes me as being a pretty good reason to work down the National Debt. What's more 'the government' does NOT create money, in the case of the UK the BoE in consultation with the UK Treasury agree to extend the limits on fractional reserve banking within the BoE in a way that is totally different from the way that The Federal Reserve operate in the corrupt banking world of the USA. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
paul's got wright Posted July 19, 2015 Share Posted July 19, 2015 http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jul/15/radical-left-protests-across-germany-over-bailout-deal-coup-against-greeks Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spook Posted July 20, 2015 Share Posted July 20, 2015 http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jul/15/radical-left-protests-across-germany-over-bailout-deal-coup-against-greeks Absolute typical Guardianista Socialist crap. . Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
paul's got wright Posted July 20, 2015 Share Posted July 20, 2015 or, people who actually care about other people x Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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