Staggering Government figures

[OldNick]

This is from Citywire News. I couldnt get the link to work and so copied.

 

Perhaps we all should now stop arguing about the cuts but get on with it.

I have just become a grandparent and feel ashamed that our generations are going to leave this debt for them to pay.

 

 

 

 

 

'New figures from the government reveal the country faces public sector liabilities equivalent to 85% of the economy.

 

For the first time the Treasury and the Office for Budget Responsibility have produced a set of accounts that treats UK plc as if it was just that – a business that has to comply with the IFRS (International Financial Reporting Standards) accounting rules.

 

The unaudited results of a snapshot of the country’s balance sheet at 31 March 2010 are staggering at first sight.

 

It shows:

 

•Public sector net assets of £1.2 trillion;

•Offset by total public sector liabilities of £2.4 trillion, including:

•£1.1 trillion cost for public service pensions;

•£803.8 billion of debt in the form of government gilts;

•£105 billion of provisions;

•£379.4 billion of ‘other liabilities'

Of course one can see the ideological drive of a chancellor who wants to keep the public sector on a back foot. But to be fair, work on the whole of government accounts project dates back more than a decade – and so cannot be directly linked to Osborne’s austerity regime. Moreover, the results are certain to be illuminating.

 

Much of the initial focus will inevitably fall on the cost of public sector pensions, the biggest item on the bill. This is an issue that the country needs to address, let’s hope the publication of these figures will generate more light than heat as it is a complex area. For example, a change in the discount rules used to value the liabilities saw the bill jump by £331.3 billion in one year!

 

Other costs are not so large but also leap off the page. These include:

 

•A £60.6 billion provision for decommissioning nuclear plants over the next century.

•A clinical negligence provision of £15.8 billion. What has the NHS been doing? This relates to individual incidents where the government considers claimants have more than a 50% chance of winning.

•£69 billion commitment to more than 600 private finance initiative (PFI) contracts to build and run schools and hospitals etc. Former chancellor Gordon Brown notoriously kept the cost of these off the UK balance sheet, now we can see how big they are.

•£483 billion of ‘contingent, ie, they might not be called upon, liabilities from the bailout of the banks.'

[trousers]

Current generations have always paid for previous generations for....well....generations.

 

For example, we're still paying for the 1st World War today.

 

Doesn't make it right of course. Just an observation.

[trousers]

"A favourite gripe of my father's generation back in the Fifties was that their taxes were being used to pay for the Napoleonic wars.

 

In truth, it was not a very serious gripe, and certainly not the biggest thing to worry about in those times, but it has a certain resonance.

 

Politicians today talk about the burden of public debt being passed on to our children and grandchildren. In truth, every generation of taxpayers has had to pay the bills of its predecessors.

 

Even today, though Napoleon has been taken care of, the Kaiser hasn't. Today's taxpayers may neither know nor care but a small slice of what they hand over to Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs every year goes to pay the interest on a couple of billion pounds of debt run up to pay for the First World War and still outstanding.

Have a look some time at the Government securities section on a stock market prices page and locate War Loan. Launched in 1916 it is still going strong. And it is you who is paying the interest.

 

We did rather better with the Second World War. The last of the millions lent by the US was paid off in 2006."

 

More: http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-23955926-debt-isnt-always-bad-we-may-even-learn-to-love-it.do

[Verbal]

Current generations have always paid for previous generations for....well....generations.

 

For example, we're still paying for the 1st World War today.

 

Doesn't make it right of course. Just an observation.

 

We're not still paying for WW1. We actually reneged on that one.

[OldNick]

Current generations have always paid for previous generations for....well....generations.

 

For example, we're still paying for the 1st World War today.

 

Doesn't make it right of course. Just an observation.

i think you will find you are incorrect there. I think you will find Lawson when chancellor paid back the debt including WWII

[trousers]

We're not still paying for WW1. We actually reneged on that one.

 

Not according to Anthony Hilton from the Evening Standard (see article above).

 

He could be wrong, of course....

[trousers]

i think you will find you are incorrect there. I think you will find Lawson when chancellor paid back the debt including WWII

 

See above. I'm just quoting a City 'expert'....

[Verbal]

Not according to Anthony Hilton from the Evening Standard. He could be wrong, of course.

 

He is wrong.

 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/4757181.stm

[Verbal]

i think you will find you are incorrect there. I think you will find Lawson when chancellor paid back the debt including WWII

 

Twice wrong Nick. The last of the WW2 debt was only paid in 2006 (under your New Lab friends), and WW1 debts were abandoned in 1932.

[trousers]

He is wrong.

 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/4757181.stm

 

Ok. I'll let him know :-)

[OldNick]

Twice wrong Nick. The last of the WW2 debt was only paid in 2006 (under your New Lab friends), and WW1 debts were abandoned in 1932.

well, well done to New labour. I am happy for any of our chancellors to get the debt gone of any persuasion.

[bridge too far]

Nick - I started to watch this report being presented earlier (but got lost in acronyms).

 

I do recall however that these projections (and projected liabilities) are for the next 50 years.

[Verbal]

Ok. I'll let him know :-)

 

Thanks. And tell him he's a loonytunes rightwing ****.

[dubai_phil]

I liked the summary, it was simples like me.

 

Public Sector Pensions the liability is now 42,000 pounds for every tax payer in the UK.

 

Think this was in the Torygraph today before Hacking blew it away, the other below was somewhere I recall ages ago

 

Not bad considering every non public pension saver needs to have a minimum of 190k in pensions saving to be able to survive above the poverty line.

[trousers]

Thanks. And tell him he's a loonytunes rightwing ****.

 

Done

[Verbal]

Nick - I started to watch this report being presented earlier (but got lost in acronyms).

 

I do recall however that these projections (and projected liabilities) are for the next 50 years.

 

Quite so. And the all-important small print from the OBR:

 

"Our report should not be taken to imply that the consolidation already in the pipeline for the next four years should be made even bigger," the OBR added. "That said, policymakers and would-be policymakers should certainly think carefully about the long-term consequences of any policies they introduce in the short term. And they should give thought too to the difficult choices that will confront this country once the challenge of the current consolidation has passed."

[badgerx16]

...

Edited 14 July, 2011 by badgerx16
mistake on my part

[CB Saint]

Can we place ourselves in admiistration with a cunning prepack organised by Android

[JustMike]

..yet we can still afford to blow xxx million on a war or 3, as well as xxx million to schools in another country!