"Lies, damned lies, and statistics"

[Doug Stormforce]

Where does all the money go?

The UK population is at 61 million (61M)

About 20% are under 16 and about the same again are over retirement age

Retirement age is 65 for males, 60 for females

I make that 36.6M left in working age.

75% of the working age group are in employment (inc. self employed, directors etc).

So therefore 27.5M people in this county are working (and paying some level of, or variant of income tax) vs. 33.5M that are not working or paying into this pot.

So what does everyone not working do?

12.2M under 16s
10.2M on state pension
2M over retirement not on state pension
1.82M unemployed (5.8% of working age)
1M other claimants (effectively unemployed but classed as something else to dress the figures)
2.2M are first year Higher Education students
2.2M are rest of HE students
0.08M are banged up

This leaves just under 2M unaccounted for, however different statistics have been collated at different time and rounded differently so there will always be a discrepancy.

So what do the people that pay taxs do?

20% work in the public sector that makes about 5.5M people being salaried by taxation and only 22M left in the private sector.

All figures above are from the National Statistics Office or by applying basic arithmetic to the percentages on the NSO

Is it just my crude understanding of economics or were we always heading for a disaster with this kind loading?

So what happens next?

This is only a prediction but based on current trend we can expect the population to increase by 4.4M by 2016 and have reached 71M by 2031 (source NSO)

What the snap shot above does not show is the trends.
The number of population over retirement age is increasing.
The number of foreign born mothers burdening the benefit system in the UK is increasing.
The value of the £ is decreasing quite rapidly.
The number of employed people paying into the tax pot is falling .
And conversely the number claiming benefit is increasing.

[bogib]

Well and simple put together, problem politicians will not understand this and definately will do their best to get you to the worse

Bogi

[Doug Stormforce]

In 1997 Tony Blair's election campaign manifest pledged “New labour will be wise spender’s not big spenders” The country voted them into power and they began the process that has put us where we are now.

After his first term (2001 election) Tony realised that to stay in power after the next cycle he could just buy votes. He must have been laughing his head of as he just borrowed money and taxed us so that he could be seen to give us more. He actually used voter’s money to buy more votes and got away with it. Here is how it happened

At the end of 2001 Government debt was at £315B

In 2001/2 the government received a one off £22B from the sale of mobile phone licensee, like children in a sweet shop they spent it and borrowed some more.

End of 2005 Government debt was at £467B

End of 2006 it was at £504B

At the end of March 2008 UK national debt was £614.4B

At the end of August 2008, UK National debt was £637.4B (£637,400,000,000)

The cost of paying interest on the government’s declared debt is at least £32B (£32,000,000,000) a year. This is more than the entire military spend for this year.

They have already committed to borrowing a further £42B over the next year and based on previous performance will increase this further.

However when Gordon has added up how much debt he and Tony have got the government into he has forgotten to include a large number of liabilities, he has only counted the cash that is owed to the private sector.

The Centre for Policy Studies argues that the real national debt liability is actually £1,340B otherwise known as £1.3 Trillion or £1,340,000,000,000
The following is quoted from the Daily mail website so should be read with caution

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...nt-claims.html

“Gordon Brown has been accused of covering up the true scale of Britain's national debt which research claims is three times higher than the Government admits.

A new study claims that public debt is a massive £1.3 trillion, equivalent to £53,000 for every household in the UK.”

So if you have read this then you can probably pick holes at the odd bit, statistics after all can always be corrupted however you can not argue that Brown’s borrowing is not out of control.

Maybe his reason for lowering interest rates was not to help the people maybe it was to reduce his own interest payments (£32,000,000 a year in inetrest and rising is after all quite a stone to have hung around your neck).

The problem we face now is that this short term solution of lowering interest makes people think that Brown has rescued them from a worldwide recession. In fact it does the opposite it trashes our currency. The pound dropped to its lowest ever against the Euro yesterday and looks like it will continue to fall. Brown continues to borrow.

When we kick him out the poor bloke who takes over will be starting the race from so far behind that it will take decades to fix what labour have done.

The most frustrating thing is that as bad as Tony was, he was voted in. Him and Cheri lied and the British people fell for it. Just as we laughed at the Americans voting Bush into power, the rest of the world has been watching with amusement at us voting and then keeping Tony in power.

Gordon however has never been elected by the people of GB he just assumed the role of Chief Spender.

[The Garfish]

Originally Posted by Doug Stormforce

In 1997 Tony Blair's election campaign manifest pledged ....blar blar blar......

av anuvver branndy. iyve gott sum dewty frea ifn yorr intrestid

gaRf

[codprawn]

Once again I see the media are doing their best to pull the Tories down - instead of attacking Brown for trying to borrow our way out of trouble they attack Cameron for quite rightly pointing out that the £ is on the verge of collapse!!!

No wonder Labour have stayed in for so long when most of the media support them...........

[SOLENTER]

Yep the same as last time Labour were in
up to our necks in the brown stuff ?

[ian parkes]

and in 97 labour took on the country after the last recession caused by the tories .
Back then in 97 we'd had a long run of tory government and half the population inc me couldn't remember anything but tory rule they just wanted a change and an end to the recession so they voted the only other viable part in .

So its about to happen again another 10 yrs plus of rule and new generations who know nothing but labour , and the same old cycle continues exept each time the problem is worse , the tories destroyed our industry and british pride as a skilled nation , labour have allowed the country to flood with imigrants we just don't have room for.

[Bigmuz7]

I quite liked labour .. my pension is fucked and so are my savings, atleast now I know where I stand

[Nos4r2]

Originally Posted by ian parkes

and in 97 labour took on the country after the last recession caused by the tories .
Back then in 97 we'd had a long run of tory government and half the population inc me couldn't remember anything but tory rule they just wanted a change and an end to the recession so they voted the only other viable part in .

So its about to happen again another 10 yrs plus of rule and new generations who know nothing but labour , and the same old cycle continues exept each time the problem is worse , the tories destroyed our industry and british pride as a skilled nation , labour have allowed the country to flood with imigrants we just don't have room for.

We weren't in a recession when Labour took over.Apparently they fouled it all up with tax and spend beyond their means last time they were in power too.

[ian parkes]

Originally Posted by Nos4r2

We weren't in a recession when Labour took over.Apparently they fouled it all up with tax and spend beyond their means last time they were in power too.

Maybe not officially , by 97 the recession of the early 90's may have officially been coming to an end ,
All I know is what i remember back then , wages were the same as 1990 but the cost of living had gone up and there was little decent work about . Interest rates were low .

What Iam saying is that you can only judge or vote on what you remember of the past and how it effected people like you in your area .

Iam niether pro labour or conservative and Iam not old enough to remember what life was like before the last conservative innings but all i can see is that both parties have failed consistantly, but no other party ever gets a chance because the british public are like lemmings and go for the "safe vote"

[Channel Ribs]

So the 22M people who are paying tax need to cover national borrowing to the tune of 35B/year with their taxes, just to cover the INTEREST ALONE?



Or have I got that wrong?

[Doug Stormforce]

Originally Posted by malthouse

So the 22M people who are paying tax need to cover national borrowing to the tune of 35B/year with their taxes, just to cover the INTEREST ALONE?



Or have I got that wrong?

sort of,

to be fair though the 5.5M of population who work in the public sector are of course also taxed. Together though we all have to pay their saleries as well as all of the other expenses plus the intrest on the debt and so on.

Is it any wonder the government keeps inventing new penalties and fining systems to generate cash

[Bigmuz7]

Originally Posted by Doug Stormforce

Is it any wonder the government keeps inventing new penalties and fining systems to generate cash

And the last classic was the change to self assesment in 1998, whare all self employed who enjoyed paying tax a good time after they had made their years profit,...... in other words , they knew what their liability would be, now we have to guess and pay it up front.. boy that hit me hard that year

[Gerry]

On the subject of debt, statistics, spending, there's an excellent article on the BBC news page:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/7733794.stm

I remember that the national debt was the biggest ever at the end of the last Conservative government (and the annual interest payments were more than the total education budget, to use a comparison like Doug's), but I had no idea how it compares with the current debt. Excellent BBC piece shows that you can spin things how you like. Would be nice to hear a bit more reasoned and clear reporting like this.

Gerry

[Doug Stormforce]

Interesting link to the BBC article and at a first glance it seems to make a lot of sense.

It suggests that stating that “National Debt has increased” and by measuring National Debt in Pounds Stirling is “rubbish” because inflation would increase National Debt anyway.

So let’s apply the Principle and see what we get;

At the end of 2001 National Debt was at £315B (source NSO)
If we use Gordon’s sums the national Debt end of August 2008 before buying out the bank was £637.4B

This means the debt has more than doubled in six and a half years, but we forgot to allow for inflation.

If we assume a 3% rate of inflation per year for those six and a half years (inflation has been below that amount several times but has risen sharply this year) we will find that the £315B at end 2001 should have become £383.6B- just based on inflation.

So if we adapt the inflation model sarcastically suggested in the BBC article I think it’s fair to say the National Debt is still out of control

2001 Actual Debt £315B
Aug 2008 allowing for inflation £383.6B
Aug 2008 Actual Debt £637.4

The BBC article then goes on to say

So how do we work out if the numbers are genuinely better or worse than in the past, and by how much?
First, we compare them with the size of the economy in pounds (or what's called "money GDP"). This takes account of the combination of inflation and how well off we are, and is the method used by statistical authorities worldwide.

So let’s try using this method suggested in the BBC article

Nearer the beginning of this decade, the Government could boast about the national debt being reduced to just 29% of GDP. This was partly aided by the windfall of mobile phone licenses. National Debt is now forecast to rise to 44% of GDP by 08/09. This is half as much again as it was

Again my conclusion is that Labour borrowing is out of control. It was after all Gordon Brown who introduced the “golden rule” that National Debt was never to exceed 40%

Originally Posted by Gerry

Excellent BBC piece shows that you can spin things how you like. Would be nice to hear a bit more reasoned and clear reporting like this.

I have applied both sorts of spin suggested in the “excellent” BBC article and I still find our Governments borrowing to be out of control.

And this is being pretty conservative (as in generous, not the party). The true scale of the problem is actually much bigger.

Public Sector Pensions are a liability that the government has to pay from current spending but have not been included in the National Debt figures.
The Government does not include private finance initiatives in its debt figure even although it has committed itself to this liability

The government has given £100B worth of guarantees to Northern Rock, hopefully they will not loose money here, but like any investment things can go up and down. This is a balance sheet liability, and will remain so until we see a return.

The UKs demographics will only worsen the problem. In about 8 year the baby boomer population will start to retire therefore reducing the amount of work force (and income tax) and increasing the number of pensions to be paid. The government is floating a bill to increase the retirement age to 68 to help solve this but as life expectancy is increasing it is unlikely to be enough (and not necessarily fair anyway.)

The most accurate statement in the BBC article reflected on the media itself

“In short, our media and politicians on both sides have been talking a good deal of rubbish”

[codprawn]

Not a bad summing up but inflation is far worse than they make out. It includes such major purchases as plasma tvs etc which have reduced in price by about 400% which is entirely down to advances in technology - and you don't exactly buy one every day. Put in the REAL inflation figures and it looks even worse.

Also remember Labour stealing Britain's gold reserves and selling it off at $200 an ounce!!!

Of course Labour's borrowing is out of control - it's what they have always done - we are almost at the point where people will stop lending us money and we will have to go cap in hand to the IMF like it did in 1976 - good old Labour........

The whole work - pensions - health thing is like a pyramid scheme - you need far more people at the bottom but people are getting older and there aren't enough at the bottom so like all pyramid schemes it will collapse. This is why Labour have allowed uncontrolled immigration - trying to prop up the pyramid - of course they were too stupid to see that all these foreigners would just send as much money as they could back home!!!