Britain is Slowly Going Bust (economist.com)
- Reference: 0179616564
- News link: https://news.slashdot.org/story/25/10/01/175234/britain-is-slowly-going-bust
- Source link: https://www.economist.com/leaders/2025/09/25/britain-is-slowly-going-bust?giftId=6c9d804b-c7bb-433d-a935-1d4cbf89894e&utm_campaign=gifted_article
Britain spends about 6% of GDP supporting pensioners, an increase of over a third this century. Some 15% of the working-age population now claims jobless allowances following a surge in disability claims since the pandemic. Labour attempted to reduce spending on pensioners and welfare this year but reversed both reform plans after political outcry from within the party.
Tax revenue is already on course to reach 38% of GDP, a historical high for Britain. Labour promised before the election not to raise broad-based taxes on income and consumption. Four in five Britons say the government is mismanaging the economy. Yields on long-term government debt exceed those in any other major rich economy. The economy grew faster than any other G7 country in the first half of 2025, but the fiscal adjustment that would bring Britain to a primary surplus of less than 0.5% remains politically elusive.
[1] https://www.economist.com/leaders/2025/09/25/britain-is-slowly-going-bust?giftId=6c9d804b-c7bb-433d-a935-1d4cbf89894e&utm_campaign=gifted_article
Inevitable collapse (Score:5, Interesting)
Neither of the major political parties seems to have any desire to make tough decisions or implement hard policy changes needed to course correct. Who can really blame them though when the public seems to keep voting for them despite that. Like too many addicts the chosen course of action is to keep engaging in the same behavior that brought them to this point. Unfortunately for everyone reality will catch up with them and the untenable position will collapse.
Someday all of this will be written about in history books that future humans will refuse to learn from as they do the same damn thing all over again. I'd give the British more shit, but the U.S. isn't all that much better and similarly has no political will on either side of the aisle to actually reign in spending. At least we might get to catch a glimpse of what's in store for us before teetering over the edge ourselves.
Re:Inevitable collapse (Score:4, Insightful)
Voters don't want to admit they F'd themselves via Brexit. Ego blinds.
Re: Inevitable collapse (Score:2)
At least we have the autonomy to put ourselves into debt.. /s
Re: (Score:3)
Actually [1]only 37% of the British electorate voted for Brexit, [fullfact.org] vs. 34% who voted to remain. This is why it's important to vote, otherwise you end up like the remaining 29% who woke up the next morning [2]and started frantically Googling various wordings of "Wut is Brexit?" [macleans.ca]
So probably at least 6 out of 10 potential voters in the UK would readily admit that Brexit was a mistake.
[1] https://fullfact.org/online/brexit-referendum-electorate-leave-vote/
[2] https://macleans.ca/politics/worldpolitics/what-were-googles-most-frequent-searches-after-brexit/
Re: Inevitable collapse (Score:2)
Erm, no. An abstention is a vote for the status quo.
Re: (Score:2)
Have to disagree, blahabl is more correct even if in a snarky way. The status quo or something like it is usually an option you can vote for, if a person wants the status quo they could vote for that. A person who abstains from voting is, maybe not standing behind, but at least signing themselves up to be carried along for the ride by whatever decision is made by those who did vote. They can have regrets about it just like those who voted for the winning decision could, but they likewise have to blame thems
Re: (Score:1)
> when the public seems to keep voting for them despite that
Britain also voted for Brexit so voters are absolutely culpable as well.
if you got snookered by the like of farage and johnson youve cooked your brains as a nation
Re: Inevitable collapse (Score:5, Insightful)
> Neither of the major political parties seems to have any desire to make tough decisions or implement hard policy changes needed to course correct.
"Tough choices" is a sick euphemism for cuts. The Tories tried that with Austerity starting in 2010. After fourteen fucking years, it still didn't work. If a nation wants wealth it needs to invest in its people, not just bricks and mortar. Yes, the welfare bill needs to come down, but cutting everything indiscriminately has done more harm than good. Labour have brought back some of the basics, like school breakfast clubs, but need to go further and bring back Sure Start centres (places that give help and advice to parents with young children), and there is currently some hope that they may be scrapping the two child cap on benefits that the Tories introduced and which plunged hundreds of thousands of children into poverty. If you want children to do well in school, one of the first things to do is to make sure they all have full bellies. Hungry children don't learn as well, who knew?!
Re: (Score:3)
The Tories tried that with Austerity starting in 2010. After fourteen fucking years, it still didn't work.
And as an act of pure genius they did that at a time of record low borrowing costs.
If a nation wants wealth it needs to invest in its people, not just bricks and mortar.
We (and they) don't d that either.
Yes, the welfare bill needs to come down, but cutting everything indiscriminately has done more harm than good.
That was completely insane. The motability scheme allowed one of my neighbours to get hims
Re: (Score:3)
Sure, cuts, but more important is to raise the frelling revenue. The years when the US economy was at its peak (I don't know as much British economic history) were when corporations and the rich paid the majority of taxes, with rates up to 90% in some categories. Now Warren Buffet and Bill Gates openly say that they need to be paying more in taxes since they pay a smaller percentage of their income than their secretaries do, and most of the issues with Social Security could be fixed simply by eliminating
Re: Inevitable collapse (Score:4, Insightful)
A lazy, but not too far off the mark, explanation for the current situation is Margaret Thatcher. The US has Reaganomics and the lie of trickle-down, we had Thatcher who thought it would be a good idea to deindustrialise the economy but gave no thought to what would replace those jobs. She was big on what she would call "individual responsibility" and "self-reliance" but the rest of us would call "unashamed, insatiable greed".
Re: (Score:2)
I expect national bankruptcies will play out a lot more like personal ones than the economists like to think, that is they be slow at first then suddenly and all at once..
A few small differences (Score:2)
> I expect national bankruptcies will play out a lot more like personal ones than the economists like to think
Not always. Germany went effectively bankrupt in the 1930's leading to hyperinflation which in turn lead to the democratic election of a far-right party National Socialist Party to address the problem since the mainstream parties were ineffective and the rest, as they say, is history. Things are not yet that extreme for the UK but there are definitely clear parallels: the country is spending more than it collects, the mainstream parties are entirely ineffective at dealing with the issues and there is a far
Re: (Score:3)
U.K. voters are just as brain-dead as U.S. voters. They keep voting for the same idiots that got them into the mess they are in. Then the voters complain about the people they voted for doing what they are doing. The voters only have themselves to blame! Until they start voting out the people THEY put there they have ZERO justification to complain.
Re: (Score:2)
> Neither of the major political parties seems to have any desire to make tough decisions or implement hard policy changes needed to course correct. Who can really blame them though when the public seems to keep voting for them despite that. Like too many addicts the chosen course of action is to keep engaging in the same behavior that brought them to this point. Unfortunately for everyone reality will catch up with them and the untenable position will collapse. Someday all of this will be written about in history books that future humans will refuse to learn from as they do the same damn thing all over again. I'd give the British more shit, but the U.S. isn't all that much better and similarly has no political will on either side of the aisle to actually reign in spending. At least we might get to catch a glimpse of what's in store for us before teetering over the edge ourselves.
The cycle may end once the Technofeudalists manage to convince enough of the populace that whatever passes for AI is god-like enough to take big societal level decisions out of the hands of pesky, corruptible humans. And the behavior that's happening world-over right now among the "civilized" nations will make it really difficult to argue against trying something else.
Re: (Score:2)
"One thing we learn from history is that our leaders rarely learn from history." - Historian Barbara Tuchman, in 'The March of Folly'
Re: (Score:2)
Is this story even accurate? I thought tax revenue at 38% of GDP was astounding so I checked it and wikipedia quotes world bank the figure of 27%.
[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
And I can't read the linked article due to paywall.
Still high compared to the US at 12%, although we are accumulating debt so fast it probably should be higher.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_tax_revenue
Re: Inevitable collapse (Score:2)
You can read it here:
[1]https://archive.is/WP8J7 [archive.is]
[1] https://archive.is/WP8J7
Re: Inevitable collapse (Score:2)
Governments made cuts and stupid QE since pretty much 2008 and now seem surprised that birthrates and growth are not looking rosy
The government is aware of the crisis (Score:1)
They're most likely going to raise taxes, which is unfortunate, but it's something everyone will have to bear.
This is not so much a debt crisis as a revenue crisis. The taxes accrued are too little, and they'll need to be raised. In addition, the weight of pensions on the bottom-line will need to be examined. Baby boomers are inevitably weighing on expenditures as they all retire en masse.
Re: (Score:2)
Probably not "everyone", it's hard to believe that the rich bastards in Parliament are going to agree to raise taxes on themselves any more than the rich bastards in the US Congress will.
Kicked by Brexit, US copying (Score:4, Interesting)
Brexit was also a populist movement: reduce trade, visas, and immigration. Spain is actually having a mini-boom thanks to increased immigration.
Those who don't learn from history vote Donald Trump.
Re: (Score:2)
The last time we had the US going it alone and getting independent from global politics, germany, italy and japan decided to fill that hole and we all know what happened after that.
Re: (Score:2)
> Spain is actually having a mini-boom thanks to increased immigration.
spain isn't doing bad, comparatively, but nothing in spain is ever what it seems, it has structural problems of its own. spanish leaders are just as incompetent and sold out as any other current western leader and while it isn't enthusiastic about eu agenda it will follow orders nevertheless, to the letter.
Re: (Score:2)
Immigration to the UK skyrocketed right after Brexit. We're talking 4 or 5 times more immigrants entering the UK, mostly unskilled. What do you mean by reducing visas and Immigration? Have you not seen the news lately either? Immigration and policing have become such a huge problem that nationalists are beginning to march and even riot in some cases over their immigration problem. Brexit is a democratic movement. The conservative party was against it.
They did the opposite of what Trump is doing and they're
Never thought it would happen but... (Score:3)
Time for the crown to start distributing its wealth and real estate holdings.
Re: (Score:3)
If they did, it would not cover one year's interest on the national debt.
They are no longer part of the problem, unless you think the King could exercise a constitutional privilege and dismiss Parliament, forcing new elections. Which would not change anything either, so feh...
US 122%, Japan 255%, China 83% so on (Score:4, Insightful)
That is how sovereign countries grow and inflate their way out of debt.
Russia is at 15%. How is that possible? Because they bankrupted their country out of debt, another way of avoid paying the full debt.
Re: (Score:3)
> Because they bankrupted their country out of debt, another way of avoid paying the full debt.
That was pretty much how Trump built his personal fortune.
Well, increased it over what his father handed to him anyway...
Caught by surprise (Score:2)
The boomers were born sixty-odd years ago, so they are reaching retirement age about now. As the Government has apparently made no plan to be ready for this, might we think that this is taking then by surprise?
Re:Caught by surprise (Score:4, Informative)
The boomers (of which I am one) reached retirement age quite a few years ago. If you were born in 1949 (near the end of the boom) you are 75 years old in 2025. People are living longer, which means they collect retirement benefits for more years. It should be noted that the only reason Social Security has financial issues is that the Congress used it to reduce the apparent national debt for years. The government has been cutting taxes (mostly for the ultrawealthy) for years (without reducing spending) and also makes little real effort to collect what it is owed. That is why the country is in debt. It is home economics 101, if you spend more than you earn, you end up in debt. Neither our government nor a considerable fraction of the population seem to be able to understand that.
Re:Caught by surprise (Score:4, Interesting)
> makes little real effort to collect what it is owed.
Yep, thanks Newt Gingrich, who separated the IRS enforcement division from the main IRS budget, and then proceeded to squeeze. From being a revenue source the enforcement group went to being a cost, especially after Congress made catching people applying for the Earned Income Credit (which only the poorest qualify for) their top priority.
Re: (Score:2)
Yes. What he said. I am approaching sixty but in the Gen-X category. That started around 1965.
This is getting scary (Score:3)
Most governments are going into debt up to their eyeballs, all it's going to take is one major event that affects tax revenue and the whole house of cards is going to come down. Then we get global depression 2, not cool. The difference is most people were in rural areas and could support themselves in the first depression,
Re: (Score:2)
> Most governments are going into debt up to their eyeballs, all it's going to take is one major event that affects tax revenue and the whole house of cards is going to come down. Then we get global depression 2, not cool. The difference is most people were in rural areas and could support themselves in the first depression,
Modern democracies mostly all have too much debt. Many (like Canada where I live) are borrowing not just for capex but for regular operating costs. It does not take a genius to know that won't end well. I think it is safe to say none of it is ever going to be paid off either, it is just a permanent forever interest payment now. And absolutely one day it will all come crashing down, but I won't be here to care.
[1]https://www.imf.org/external/d... [imf.org]
[1] https://www.imf.org/external/datamapper/GG_DEBT_GDP@GDD/CAN/FRA/DEU/ITA/JPN/GBR/USA
Unlimited Immigration, we were told, would make ev (Score:1, Flamebait)
I remember that for years we were being told immigration has to be good so more immigration can only be even more betterer.
Even before Brexit, the UK was one of the top destinations for immigration, which only skyrocketed after.
So how can this be that they are in such shambles and dire straits if unlimited immigration would make the whole UK stonk like crazy?
Re:Unlimited Immigration, we were told, would make (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm no fan of unlimited immigration, but to be fair it seems to have been Brexit that really put the UK into a downward spiral, including the exit of many of the immigrants that had previously been doing many of the construction, hospitality, healthcare, etc jobs.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Wasn't brexit sold on the basis that it would mean less brown people?
Re: (Score:2)
Is this true? Because immigration to the UK has increase 4-5 times in the years after Brexit. That seems to be opposite of what you're saying.
Are you saying that the democrats pulled a bait and switch over there too?
FEARMONGERING ABOUT IMMIGRATION... AGAIN! (Score:2)
Some racist snowflake tried to censor my previous comment - so here it is again:
Fearmongering about immigration... [1]...is what sold them the Brexit. [aljazeera.com]
So, when you ask "So how can this be that they are in such shambles and dire straits if unlimited immigration would make the whole UK stonk like crazy?" - go and find a mirror.
Then proceed to go fuck yourself.
Maybe everyone gets lucky and you end up bleeding to death from being literal.
[1] https://www.aljazeera.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/f7930d26a43c4dc384412551c6739de1_18.jpeg
Re:Unlimited Immigration, we were told, would make (Score:4, Insightful)
I can't tell much for UK, but here is my insight from EU. Did you experience the first 5am subway in any EU capital? Brown ladies, getting ready for the 6am cleaning shift so you can have your return-to-office coding job in a clean cubicle. Do you have older relatives in a nursing home? Guess who's assigned to spoon feed demented elderly. Did you try to get someone to clean your home once a week for a small fee? Take the kids from school every night, while you're working late on your high-pay job? Immigrants, sometimes barely speaking the language, but grateful for the opportunity.
These jobs might not make an economy skyrocket, but they contribute to make your country a nicer place to live in. Without them, you'd enjoy waiting lists for babysitting and the news would be building house is impossibly expensive due to shortage of workers.
Don't like brown immigrants? Feel free to send your daughter to be a geriatrics nursing assistant so she can wipe my elderly aunt's ass. My aunt lives in a lovely French village full of white people, I'm sure your daughter will love that.
Re: Unlimited Immigration, we were told, would mak (Score:2)
The thing is that immigrants get paid minimum wage for jobs that natives apparently won't do. The problem with the logic is that those same immigrants are costing the country a good sum in benefits, therefore the 'real' salaries for those care home jobs are a lot higher. If care homes actually paid salaries that people could live on without me subsidising them, then natives might actually want to do them. Wages for all at the bottom are typically subsidised by taxpayers, not just increasing public debt but
Re: (Score:2)
> If care homes actually paid salaries that people could live on without me subsidising them, then natives might actually want to do them.
1) If the salaries of the most basic staff doubled, elderly care would be unaffordable, and would have to be subsidised by your taxes even more (I guess it already is, at least for a part of the population).
2) Nursing assistant has always been, and will always remain a low paid job, because it's the most basic job in that field, requiring minimal qualifications. Asking to e.g. double the salaries of all the least-desirable jobs that immigrants currently take e.g. nursing, cleaning, waste collection etc. is
Re: Unlimited Immigration, we were told, would ma (Score:2)
At this point though you'd see the logic in setting up state care homes wouldn't you? If care homes allegedly can't pay much more than minimum wage for carers (despite charging fees of £1500 or so per WEEK) and are pocketing enormous fees whilst the taxpayer tops up their staff wages, then I'd say government should be running things. Stop distorting markets by paying in work benefits to people that have full-time jobs!
Re: (Score:2)
https://slashdot.org/~denzacar
denzacar (181829) wrote:
> So, when you ask "So how can this be that they are in such shambles and dire straits if unlimited immigration would make the whole UK stonk like crazy?" - go and find a mirror.
> Then proceed to go fuck yourself.
> Maybe everyone gets lucky and you end up bleeding to death from being literal.
Oh, look! It is one of the tolerant and inclusive better-than-you-people! And his signature is written in Nazi-language!
Seems you will just have to tolerate people with different opinion. xoxo
Something that can't go on forever, won't (Score:3)
I guess this isn't saying much for those who are paying attention, but GB isn't alone in this unsustainable course. At some point in the near-to-medium term, the bubble will pop, the first domino will fall, the dam will break, there will be a last straw, insert idiom here. Rough times are ahead.
Re: (Score:2)
> I guess this isn't saying much for those who are paying attention, but GB isn't alone in this unsustainable course. At some point in the near-to-medium term, the bubble will pop, the first domino will fall, the dam will break, there will be a last straw, insert idiom here. Rough times are ahead.
What's sad about it is that there are people who will be sailing high as those rough times wash over the globe. The uber-uber-uber rich, the .01%ers, will somehow *STILL* be making money hand over fist as entire economies collapse in on themselves in a display that would make the universe's biggest black holes envious due to continually finding ways to give tax cuts to those same .01%ers and not cutting spending. Zero financial responsibility will lead to collapse, inevitably.
As much as us future fantasy /
Debt-based currency vs Modern Monetary Theory (Score:5, Insightful)
There are definitely lots of cracks showing in modern western socio-economic systems. Debt-based currency is certainly unsustainable. But I don't believe any sort of gold-based money is the solution. In fact it has many of the same problems: dividing the gold thinner and thinner as the economy grows, there's no real-world connection with what actually drives economic output, and the richest 1% can hoard it.
As someone who's certainly not in the 1%, I lean heavily towards modern monetary theory which turns money creation around and instead of using debt to create money, money is simply created as needed. Debt-free public spending increases the money supply, and taxation is used to decrease it. There is no link between taxation and public spending. Sounds crazy, but makes some sense, at least as much as our current debt-based fiat system does. We've learned that increasing the money supply by fiat did not lead to runaway inflation (inflation definitely happened, but primarily from other factors like greed). The big problem with MMT is the Trump factor. It relies on government acting rationally and in the public interest, something that it most certainly does not do anymore. And debt-based money definitely benefits the 1% who now have a permanent stranglehold on government (they always had influence before, but now they own it).
Maybe after total collapse people will consider MMT, but I'm not holding my breath.
Re: (Score:2)
This is a bad strategy all around. If you try to manage the money supply with spending, it means that must inflate anytime your wish to boost the economy with fiscal policy.
It would prevent governments from doing stimulus when the really should. Meanwhile it would force additional government spending when the economy is expanding or becoming more productive on its own; because to do otherwise would trigger deflation and probably break things that are working.
Basically that plan pretends there are no rainy
Re: (Score:3)
The US federal government needs to a) stop stimulating the economy and b) be reduced to the necessary and reduce the load on the economy.
'money is simply created as needed.'
Who does, how do they, determine the 'need'? That's the trouble we're in now. Britain has other problems, but the US will look like that soon enough unless we change.
Re:Debt-based currency vs Modern Monetary Theory (Score:4, Interesting)
Currently the "they" is the central bank. They already do all this, create as needed and loan it out. Governments borrow it. MMT simply eliminates the debt part of it, which is a bit silly to have anyway. Governments still spend money as they see fit. This just removes the drag on the economy that comes from the debt part of it. MMT does do away with much of the separation between government and central bank, but most countries in the world have no real separation. The US is somewhat unique in having an independent fed.
Anyway, economists who are a lot smarter than me and you have been exploring and debating MMT for quite a while now. If you are interested in the specifics you can read up what various research groups have said about it.
Re: (Score:2)
> This is a bad strategy all around. If you try to manage the money supply with spending, it means that must inflate anytime your wish to boost the economy with fiscal policy.
That already is the case. Just look at stimulus spending.
When the economy is growing the money supply already must be expanding. Feds already create money as needed. The difference here is it's not lended to get it in the economy.
I don't understand what you mean about rainy days at all.
Re: (Score:2)
If the economy grows or becomes more productive with a fixed money supply - you have deflation. Fewer tokens buying more goods. There is no need for a growth in money supply for economic expansion, at least at the start only a growth in velocity.
But the faster/bigger that expansion the more deflation, eventually the deflationary pressure will get to big, and the expansion will stop because nobody will be able to locate a token to spend.
If the economy is stalling, you'd generally want to be able to do gove
Re: (Score:2)
I can tell you've never lived in a country with hyperinflation. How do I know? Because you still think that printing unlimited money won't cause issues in the long term. When you buy a soda for 50 cents at the beginning of the month and that same soda cost 50 dollars at the end of the month come back and tell me that printing money without limit is a good idea.
Re: (Score:2)
In the US we print money and give it to the wealthy, and have been doing so for a century. The wealthy don't generally grant unlimited access to the increase in money supply, it just kind of pisses down on the rest of us in a limited way. As the wealthy have better access to regulatory controls and tax law, they can further limit access to the increased money supply. Where a rain becomes a trickle becomes a mist. We're living in a "mist down" economic system. ;)
That's different than hyperinflation you are r
Re: (Score:2)
Oh, boy, the ghost of Trickle On Theory, don't piss on my back and tell me it's raining. Even David Stockman said that he knew Trickle Down was a fraud even while they were promoting it.
Re: (Score:2)
Im sorry, but MMT is not a new theory nor is it the silver bullet. When you have an economy that is operating below capacity, you can use MMT ideas (print money from thin air) to generate demand without causing inflation. This intuitively makes sense and it is really nothing more than fiscal stimulus. But at some point if you keep doing it you run out of economic capacity and you will get inflation - which is what we saw after COVID (inflation was picking up rapidly BEFORE the Ukraine war).
But MMT has the r
Re: (Score:2)
> We've learned that increasing the money supply by fiat did not lead to runaway inflation (inflation definitely happened, but primarily from other factors like greed)
Um, what?
Inflation definitely happened (just like real economists said it would), because more money was chasing not-proportionately-more goods and services.
It's ... math.
Compare to USA (Score:2)
Not to 'brag' here, but the US public debt is well over 100% of GDP. We are totally beating the UK on this issue :-q
Of course, the US has the benefit of a much larger base economy. If I understand it, the UK is basically one large wealthy city (London) plus a large rural economy. This is much more vulnerable to economic shocks than the US's larger economy with multiple major cities each surrounded by a mix of suburban/rural areas.
Re: (Score:3)
Q2 2025: 118.78171 ( [1]source [stlouisfed.org])
Things started going off the rails for the US back in 1981 and then 2008. Of course 2020 has a huge spike (pandemic), but zero effort has been made to reverse course. Because unwinding debt is harmful to the sorts of people who have the most influence in our economy.
Until we pry the hands of capitalists off our economic levers, we'll continue down this dead-end path of infinite growth through infinite debt. The short term grift is too attract for them to change course.
[1] https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/GFDEGDQ188S
News for nerds, stuff that matters (Score:5, Interesting)
I’ve followed Slashdot for decades, but if diving into the political septic tank of tax policies and Brexit is now considered relevance, count me out.
Re: (Score:2)
I wondered if this story is a plant by Reform UK. And yes, sorry for further politics and I agree with your assessment.
Re: News for nerds, stuff that matters (Score:2)
Youâ(TM)re only just saying this now with all the crap of US politics all over this site? A story doesnâ(TM)t even have to be remotely political for the comments to find a way into some childish school yard slanging match between the two sides of America politics.
Labour inherited this shite (Score:2)
They say it's easy to blame your predecessors but in this case this is exactly what's happened. Decades of neglect by the Tories ruined and sold out the country to private entities. Now Labour is facing an immense cleanup tasks but they've quickly realising how deep the Tories shit legacy is.
Re: Labour inherited this shite (Score:2)
You missed the bit where TFS says 2005. This started then when Labour were in power and raised taxes and spending even more so debt was increasing when the economy was at its peak during a long boom. Nothing that followed has helped, but you canâ(TM)t just blame the Tories.
To increase revenue, what if (Score:2)
the UK start issuing fines about all sorts of silly reasons against tech companies, to fill back their coffers?
Some perspective (Score:2)
23% of that debt is [1]owned by the Bank of England [dmo.gov.uk] ("Gilt and Treasury Bill Holding"), which in turn is owned by... the British government.
Some more background information: [2]https://www.taxresearch.org.uk... [taxresearch.org.uk]
In short, it is a choice to be beholden to the bond markets in this way. It is a political choice to outsource the fiscal margins of government spending to the financial sector, and paying them lavishly for that privilege. And no, I'm not saying this means you can spend endlessly on anything without very ba
[1] https://www.dmo.gov.uk/media/opunj3ps/apr-jun25.pdf
[2] https://www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2025/09/27/andy-burnham-vs-the-bond-markets-who-really-runs-britain/
Economics 101 (Score:2)
Economies have 2 inputs - capital and labour. They have 2 outputs - consumption and capital. Capital is created by savings,i.e. postponed consumption.This is true if you are a capitalist, communist, or feudal system.
A socialist system is a capitalistic system that taxes the profitable to redistribute consumption to the common good or the less fortunate.
If you spend too much on consumption as a society, you crowd out capital creation. If you tax profits too much, you leave less for future capital in
I'm sure the mullahs will sort it out soon enough (Score:2)
n/t
Well duh (Score:2)
The electorate was told that Brexit would ruin the country and Brexit is ruining the country. I don't just blame assholes like Boris Johnson & Nigel Farage. I blame the erstwhile leader of Labour at the time Jeremy Corbyn who sabotaged his own party's remain campaign. Given how the narrow the result was he is the main culprit for this.
Re: (Score:2)
That's also not true, but you be you.
No worries; the EU will come to their rescue (Score:5, Funny)
Oh, wait...
Re:No worries; the EU will come to their rescue (Score:5, Funny)
I would say that I've never seen another modern nation shoot itself in the foot so badly, but...
well...
yeah, anyway...
Re: (Score:2, Troll)
Boy did that made me laugh. Hurray for American exceptionalism, right?
American exceptionalism (Score:5, Funny)
In the modern parlance it's called: hold my beer.
Re: (Score:3)
Donald Trump's response to Brexit was "hold my beer..."
Re: No worries; the EU will come to their rescue (Score:2)
Pop quiz time Nazi, how much has the orange shit gibbon increased the national deficit?
Re: (Score:2)
care to pay your nations rising debt - nah thought not,
Re:No worries; the EU will come to their rescue (Score:4, Insightful)
> Oh, wait...
UK was the second largest net contributor through it's entire time it was in the EU and that was even after the rebate Thatcher negotiated.
Re:No worries; the EU will come to their rescue (Score:4, Insightful)
And that's why we're doing so well with the Brexit dividend and the £350 million per week extra to the NHS...
Re: (Score:3)
I guess brexiteers will weasel out by saying it would have been worse if they had remained in the EU? There is always an excuse.
Re: (Score:2)
Spending just 0.1% of GDP on building guillotines would have quickly solved the Brexiteer issue.
Re: (Score:2)
You seem equally smart as rsilvergun. Congrats, I guess?
Re: (Score:2)
Also that we Brexited wrong of course. Apparently despite exiting harder than any Brexiteers dreamed we didn't do it hard enough also everyone should have mysteriously given us free shit rather than driving any kind of bargain. I'm not entirely sure how that was meant to work but maybe eviscerating human rights will fix it!
Re: (Score:2)
We hadn't actually left in 2016.
I'm not really sure how I'm meant to read, oh what was it, I can't be arsed to look it up. Something like "we give the EU 350 million a week, we could spend it on the NHS".
I do remember at the time it was weaselly, though the figure of 350 million was an outright lie. The entire bus was designed to be deliberately misleading, how am I supposed to interpret it?
Re: No worries; the EU will come to their rescue (Score:2)
Here's the thing about not redistributing income, it doesn't get multiplied by its velocity since that doesn't increase and your GDP takes a shit.
Re: (Score:3)
But I thought Brexit wasn't supposed to have any negative consequences!
Re: (Score:2)
> But I thought Brexit wasn't supposed to have any negative consequences!
What does Brexit have to do with their debt levels? Debt-to-GDP has been climbing across the EU as well, with the average debt [1]over 88% of GDP now [europa.eu]. Germany is the lowball figure among the major powers in the union at 68%, with with the other big boys... France, Spain, Italy... all at well over 100%. High debt is endemic throughout nearly every first world power, especially in the West. Why Britain is being singled out here is strange. The EU members with relatively low levels of debt are, ironically, the ex
[1] https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/products-euro-indicators/w/2-21072025-ap
Re: (Score:3)
Yeah, those awful countries that want to help a Democratic nation defend itself from foreign aggression. Funny to hear a Brit complaining about that.
Re: (Score:2)
They aren't Israel either,
Re: (Score:2)
And not I'm being to understand why the Left in America cannot distinguish between racism and representative democracy.
Ukraine is not a functional democracy, and it's not because of war.
Re: (Score:2)
My mistake. To be fair the same can probably be said of whichever country over there you come from though.
Re: No worries; the EU will come to their rescue (Score:3)
Hows the weather in Moscow Igor?
Re: No worries; the EU will come to their rescue (Score:2)
Wrong. There was no election in the UK between 1935 and 5 July 1945. VE Day was 8 May. Not even a decent try, lying Russian troll. You canâ(TM)t hold an when your country is being bombed every day.
Re: No worries; the EU will come to their rescue (Score:2)
Missing word: you canâ(TM)t hold an election when your country is being bombed every day
Re:No worries; the EU will come to their rescue (Score:4, Insightful)
german and french warmongers
Britain was the first country to give tanks to Ukraine. Though personally I don't see how not letting someone kill your people and steal your shit is "warmongering", but that's just me. If you want to live under Putin's yoke, you can emigrate to Russia. You haven't so really you love the freedoms the "warmongers" keep for you.
Re: (Score:2)
Ukraine is violating international norms by not letting a nuclear power do whatever it wants.
Re: No worries; the EU will come to their rescue (Score:2)
"Yes it so terrible that a country's citizens decided what would be best for their people and country"
They were lied to, including a lot of propaganda from Russia. It is terrible that they are stupid enough to believe obvious lies.
Re: (Score:2)
You jest, but EU countries all have the same problem. Just being together in the EU won't solve it.
Re:No worries; the EU will come to their rescue (Score:4, Informative)
Not really. The EU still is a major part of UK exports, but there is an increase in transport time and costs, and paperwork requirements for exports and imports. Larger UK companies can handle it, but not many smaller to medium UK companies who have just stopped.
Here is an article about it that I found: [1]https://www.thelondoneconomic.... [thelondoneconomic.com]
[1] https://www.thelondoneconomic.com/news/uk-exports-have-declined-by-27bn-since-brexit-387392/