Is bankruptcy inevitable now for the UK

[BringOnTheHandyMan]

In the most layman of terms the UK is actually broke.

Every month we cannot pay the interest on our outstanding debt and thus have to borrow more. (Note this is not repaying the capital, just the interest)

The rate we pay to borrow used to be quite low and that is not the case anymore.
The bond markets have lost faith in the UK and charge us a rate that reflects it.

We have systems we can no longer afford (welfare, NHS etc)
We have little to no growth
We have inflation issues (so printing money is out)
Raising or cutting interest rates is problematic due to having both growth and inflation issues together
Our politicians are scrapping like rats in a barrel and even prior to that they seem incapable of making hard decisions or even facing up to the mess we are in.

We do actually need a PM that stands up and says okay folks we are in deep shit. We are broke. Actually worse than that. In debt and unable to pay even the interest.
So any borrowing we do must be for investing/growing the economy only. All spare money must be used for paying down debt or investing/growing the economy. That means for the foreseeable future all state funding is scrapped. We would enter a period of being very much a 'poor country' and acting like it. If we worked really hard we might be able to turn it around but it would take years, hard decisions and many, many sacrifices.

Since I can't see any party being able to actually do that. Then I honestly don't see how we can go anywhere except an IMF bailout. Then they will play the tough guys and cut the lot anyway.

I try to plan for my retirement but honestly it's sort of impossible.

For those with public sector pensions I wouldn't be sure you will get it paid
For those with private defined contribution pensions, the stock market is vastly overpriced just now and your pension is likely to fall once the AI bubble bursts.
State pension - yip not convinced we'll be getting that
Costs to be budgeted for - healthcare but how much?
Downsize my house - perhaps but will house prices tumble making this impossible.

Does anyone think that any government (regardless of party) can fix the country. If not what happens. The UK used to have no NHS or welfare so do we just go back to that. How long will it be until the wheels come off?

Lots of threads about which benefits should be cut etc but nobody seems to be shouting that actually it ALL needs to be cut regardless of what hardship it causes.

What’s that got to do with the need for a healthy workforce to grow the economy?

How many holidays are young people taking? https://www.abta.com/news/number-holidays-taken-person-reaches-new-high-people-seek-getaway-get-together

When I was young I paid for the pensions and health care of older people and help for the sick and those out of work. Didnt whine about it, if you were young, healthy and in work you paid for those who were not. Didnt have much in the way of maternity benefits, didnt have any help with childcare expenses, didnt have universal credit when work was poorly paid. Now I'm paying for education to age 18 and loans to 21 that often wont be repaid, maternity benefits, childcare, pensions for those who couldnt or didnt make provision for their old age. I'm also funding men who dont support their children and a government that doesnt even use the powers it has to make them. But I'm also supposed to fund lower taxes for the young people who can afford to go on holidays multiple times a year - something I certainly could not afford when young.

No the depressed and anxious didnt commit suicide all the time because when you work you normally have to get out of the house. The exercise and social interaction can often help with depression. Suicide rates dropped a lot between 1981 and 2007 with the development of better treatments but they've been increasing a bit recently. That's partly a change in recording. I've plenty of experience both of people working despite their depression and anxiety and people who use it as an excuse and when they are not supported to the same extent financially suddenly improve. Sure some are so ill no-one would want to employ them but it's a subset of the large numbers now not working.

Young people whine a lot but enjoy far more benefits from the state than young people did in previous years. The government, instead of pointing that out, thinks pensioners will stay around and spend the money they saved for their retirement being cash cows to keep taxation lower for the young. Some will, either because they have family ties they think wont withstand leaving, because they need free health care or because they are set in their ways. Others will up and leave. Young people are so used to having everything provided for them they dont know when they are well off.

The idea that uk tax rates cant be raised is silly - our tax rates are not particularly high in comparison with other developed countries https://ifs.org.uk/taxlab/taxlab-key-questions/how-do-uk-tax-revenues-compare-internationally
Politicians need to be more honest and say actually we cant get better public services or defend the country properly with out more tax, our rates are not high compared to other countries and if you can afford multiple holidays a year you can afford to pay a bit more.

I think we should consider a high speed railway linking London to the North. Shouldn't cost much and will boost the economy in no time.

The survival of the fittest has governed the world forever. I sympathise with you on a personal level, but we may not have the luxury of taking passengers in the next decade.

Trouble is you and I might well be those passengers.

I think you are wrong here. We started a company 34 years ago, and it is still trading. There was no backer. All the capital came from our savings, earned overseas tax free in horrid places when we were in our mid twenties to our early 30s. The capital was brought back to the UK and invested in a very tiny business. It's not Amazon, but it keeps five families paid decent wages.

We're old @BIossomtoes . We don't have to shuffle off the mortal coil quite yet. I may have 10-15 years left to me, but I'd like to make the most of them!

BUT, a big one, we shall be paying our passage.

Well, having worked hard for nearly 30 years, I feel I deserve to be regarded as more than a "passenger".... it's rhetoric like that that contributes to a dehumanising environment for sick and disabled people.

@ThingsAreNotWhatTheyWere good intervention. What would you like to expect? Where is society failing you?

I feel that your last post is sophistry. You will receive the social and financial benefits due to you at your age as and when they become payable.

Assuming you are UK based, you will have full access to the NHS. Free prescriptions for any ailments. A state pension. Probably free public transport. Do you think you should be entitled to more? What did you do to save for your future?

I don't particularly feel society has failed me as such. Thanks to great parents who encouraged me to do my best, despite significant hurdles to overcome, and I have done just that. Now though as my health is getting more challenging and I can't work as much after my stroke, this is coinciding with a time where people like me are increasingly seen as a burden and too expensive. Fortunately I haven't come up against any negativity in real life, but I am careful in what I share with people.

Without going into too much details, I have a private pension which I will probably take early. As for the state pension, it's not guaranteed that I'll even be around for that.
As I said, it's not about money, it's about not valuing people merely as an economic unit and how productive that economic unit is!

I'm not pushing you under a bus @ThingsAreNotWhatTheyWere , please don't think I would want to.

I'm in an odd situation here. I still have a live parent (now 92) who is away with the fairies intellectually but in decent physical health regardless. Were it not for a much younger second wife, someone would be expecting me to step up, after being estranged for 50 years.

Sincerely, I wish you the very best and happiest days @ThingsAreNotWhatTheyWere .

Thank you 😊.

Any property and assets they leave here when they think they’ve asset-stripped the country enough to move abroad and never work again on, will be stripped in their turn by those of us left here to fight for scraps on the edge of starvation. And as you point out, stocks and shares are not entirely reliable investments. If we are talking about a true complete end-of-age collapse such as the dark ages, fiat currency will not have the same meaning.

There’s enough sob stories out there from the extremely rich who’ve lost everything in the event of war that should make even such as you just a little bit concerned about the wellbeing of those of us with no inheritance, no support, and in the coming times, no jobs either. The destruction of all possible means of earning a living is a problem for everyone.

That's an apocalyptic picture @WaryCrow . IM opinion, it's a bit over done. Nevertheless, I'm happy to be 70 not 30.

There is no scenario I can envisage in which no one can earn a living. It might not be the hourly rate you think you are entitled to though.

Then you need to start listening to those who’ve already lost jobs to computers and those who are losing out to AI right now. It’s happening. It has happened. The number of jobs is contracting and the number of sectors offering jobs is contracting. Why do you think inheritance has become so much more important in recent times? The hourly rate does not match the cost of living, especially for women, and for older people who had it all to expect us to take less to support them ad infinitum: you can, as the saying has it, go whistle.

Oh look another "older people had it all". I'm too young to have experience rationing but some did, some left school at 14, some 16 and for the majority education stopped before 18. Houses without indoor toilets and with leaking roofs, cold enough to have ice on the windows in winter, no universal credit, no free childcare, no rent support. Expected to work regardless of any mental health problems you might experience, although if really bad you might be put in an asylum.

So we got on with it - got as much education as we could, if female fought discrimination to get promotion. We didnt have foreign holidays, had a day at the seaside maybe, we didnt spend money getting our nails done or on going for a coffee, we didnt spend a lot on makeup or clothes, didnt buy on credit unless it was interest free, didnt pend a fortune on fancy weddings. We saved, we invested wisely, we experienced 27% inflation. Didnt have any parental support to buy a house, if lucky you lived at home rent free and if not you commuted long distance so you could live cheaply and save. You walked or cycled when you could to save fares, no complaining if you got a bit wet. Some of us had negative equity. We did this while funding pensions and health care and campaigning for better support for those who needed it.

Spoilt kiddies dont know how easy their lives have been.

Oh dear. Another youngster who doesn’t seem to realise that some of us grew up in the boomer world, with boomers for parents, with the same issues that they lived with. And then grew up and had all the benefits that they also got taken off us, and given to them.

Save it for the tourists. This is my living history we are talking about. My parents worked less hard than I did and do, yet got far more from it and are still milking the difference.

Nail on the head.