I don't think we are a rich country anymore

[ThisHairColourIsTooDarkIThink]

I've been feeling for a while that the country is in a bit of a mess financially.

Are you feeling this and cutting back where you can (I know I am).

Telegraph headline today
Rachel Reeves ‘heading towards 70s-style IMF bailout’
Economists warn of 1970s-style debt crisis unless Chancellor changes course

I think this is why people are so up in arms about the inflow of all these young men from abroad seeking refuge.

Nobody minds helping others when we ourselves are sorted.

Lets be honest though - it's hard to get an NHS dentist or a doctors appt. Our police are falling apart (which is very scary given what they keep at bay in society), ambulances don't come fast when you have a genuine emergency, housing shortage, food prices rocketing etc.

How can we help all these people when we can't even sort out ourselves?

Anyway watched a few things recently and alot about our economy being in serious shit. It seems we are indeed in a position much like the seventies.

So I just wanted to know if others are feeling like we are on a bit of knife edge and are you all cutting back financially to 'brave the storm'

I think you are correct. We are disappearing down the ranks and are no longer a rich nation. If you could pass that on to the people in charge of spending I’d appreciate it.

If you genuinely believe you’ve got a short straw living in the UK please go and spend a couple of weeks in any of the many many developing countries where people live on less than $1 a day and there is no state support. And then come back and complain about the UK.

I don't really understand this logic. We are not a developing country, people
pay taxes for state support. Why should we compare ourselves to those countries?

Didn’t Gordon brown sell most of our gold reserves after the financial crash? What actually assets do we have now as a country?

Of course it's on the way down.

They need to say no to immigration, now. They should have said no 20 years ago but didn't have the balls.

Letting in hordes of uneducated young men of a different religion is never a good idea.

Agree with hangerup.

Of course living in the Congo/ Sudan is worse than here.

Talk about a race to the bottom attitude! That's why we are in the state that we're in!

It is a very difficult job. It is now obvious that Sunak and Hunt were doing this difficult job much better.

RR is on a trajectory to leave her successor a worse situation than she was given.

She’s turned a 20bn black hole into a 40bn black hole. Hence why all of our taxes have gone up.

You think so? Giving away 20 Billion of unfunded National Insurance cuts & then running away!

The welfare state is destroying the country and squeezing the middle classes beyond what is sustainable. The very rich do not feel this pain. There are now too many voters receiving support from the state and they will continue to vote for governments that enable this.

HAHAHA.

You genuinely made me LOL. I snorted in fact.

Brilliant.

The welfare state is destroying the country and squeezing the middle classes beyond what is sustainable. The very rich do not feel this pain. There are now too many voters receiving support from the state and they will continue to vote for governments that enable this.

Who do you mean?

The biggest amount of welfare spending goes to pensioners.

Obviously an ageing shrinking population means a higher welfare spend.

@hangerup

I’m referring to this expenditure:

’In 2025 to 2026 the UK is forecast to spend £326.9 billion[footnote 2] on the social security system. This includes DWP benefit expenditure, Tax credits and Child Benefit, and Northern Ireland Social Security’

Source: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/benefit-expenditure-and-caseload-tables-information-and-guidance/benefit-expenditure-and-caseload-tables-information-and-guidance

"Around 55% of social security expenditure goes to pensioners; in 2025 to 2026 we will spend £174.9 billion on benefits for pensioners in GB. This includes spending on the State Pension which is forecast to be £145.6 billion in 2025 to 2026."

from your link

Yes, I agree this information is in the link. The overall welfare spending is incredibly high and unsustainable.

It also says:

’n 2025 to 2026 we will spend £141.2 billion on working age and children welfare. This includes spending on Universal Credit and its predecessors, and non-DWP welfare spending.
In 2025 to 2026 we will spend £75.3 billion on benefits to support disabled people and people with health conditions, and £35.3 billion on housing benefits.’

When the government says it is spending on welfare, what this means is that it is taking money from taxpayers and giving it to those who are in receipt of benefits and welfare payments.

it's been unsustainable for some time but governments have ignored it. Realistically pensioners won't vote against their interests. More debt is loaded onto younger generations but the issue is that they are shrinking & shrinking faster than expected.

This is not the level of spending of a poor country- it is massive spending in a country where too many people are in receipt of these payments and too few are net contributors. The balance is off. We would feel the benefits of this mass wealth by addressing the issue, but no government has been willing to do this.

@hangerup

I agree 100%

We need to massively reduce the benefits bill, by getting rid of the triple lock and cutting benefits across the board.

Penny on the basic rate of income tax. No more nonsense about the rich paying more when the top 1% pay 30% of income tax.

Get rid of stamp duty, which harms growth.

It's not the only reason of course, but some of us tried to point out that month after month after month of lockdowns would cause massive economic damage, as we watched our businesses crumble before our very eyes; we were told to shut up, put our masks back on, and stop murdering grannies, because nothing mattered apart from "save lives, protect the NHS". And now we're feeling the pain of paying for Saint Boris's magic money tree, while politicians of all parties are whispering "shhhhhh... lockdown didn't really happen"; and the party which is now in government was one of the voices clamouring the loudest for more and more lockdown, and raucously opposed any easing of it at all.

If we didn't have 24 million people claiming benefits..... we'd all be a lot better off. I'd hazard a guess that less than 10% of those claiming genuinely need to be... and if people couldn't have a decent lifestyle on benefits, they'd be incentivized to work. Then we wouldn't need to encourage unskilled workers in their millions into the country to further drain the health/education/housing systems. It's absolutely batshit and should never have been started.

’n 2025 to 2026 we will spend £141.2 billion on working age and children welfare. This includes spending on Universal Credit and its predecessors, and non-DWP welfare spending.

And how much has this changed over the years. I think you would expect any country to spend a large proportion of their welfare bill on children?

We need to massively reduce the benefits bill, by getting rid of the triple lock and cutting benefits across the board.

After the winter fuel & disability reform revolts they won't touch triple lock although I agree it should at least be paused.

@hangerup

I don’t have statistics to compare for you, but I don’t think most countries spend at this level for child welfare. I would expect that most developed countries have parents who themselves work and are paid enough to support their families. Again, I don’t have numbers for you so if anyone does please do share.

A democracy is always temporary in nature; it simply cannot exist as a permanent form of government. A democracy will continue to exist up until the time that voters discover that they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates who promise the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that every democracy will finally collapse due to loose fiscal policy, which is always followed by a dictatorship.