to tell you that £1trillion of national debit equals £35,090 for every person in employment?

[TheRealTillyMinto]

We owe £16,059 for every man, woman and child
That's more than £35,090 for every person in employment
Every household will pay £2,108 this year, just to cover the interest

This interest is taxes that dont get spent on the NHS, welfare or anything useful.

AIBU to say did you have any idea the debt this big? because i didnt. we are all in this together and we are all f**ked:

• if 2 people work in your household, your share of the debt is £70k.
• if you are a high rate tax payer, how much of the debt do you think is your fair share?

(& this isnt supposed to be a benefits thread, so if you dont want it to be about benefits, please dont make it about them. it doesnt have to be that way.....)

This time last year it was less than 700 bn so the increase is astronomical in teh time frame

The national debt situation is an outrage and Brown and the Labour Party have a lot to answer for. We have amassed debt in recent years knowing full well that it will be up to future generations to pay it off, its truly despicable when you think about it and yet some people want the Government to carry on borrowing.

its 1.015 trillion = 1 tillion and 15 billion.

www.debtbombshell.com/

It makes my mortgage look a bit silly really.

nurter when the tories were last in power they increased the debt. they were in power for the long time so could have reduced it if they wanted to.

if you add on your share of the debt to your mortgage....

Is NZ fucked too then? That was plan A, I like Norway tho and dh is very employable.

It's a good job that national borrowing and debt doesn't work in the same way as personal, or we'd all have to shoot ourselves wouldn't we Tilly?

The realtillyminto- The previous Government reduced the public net debt from 43.61 in 1979 to 41.92% in 1997. I know its only a small decrease and it should have been reduced by much more but they did at least decrease it slightly.

www.ukpublicspending.co.uk/downchart_ukgs.php?year=1900_2011&chart=G0-total&units=p

thereal-

or option no.6-

sell off assets (we have plenty)

So dismal. I'm looking for a sandy place, where I can stick my head!

darlene- What assets do we have that could sell to come close to substantially reduce the level of public net debt?

Scotland - we could sell Scotland. They want independence - we could sell it to them!!!! (Am joking - please, please, please no one take offence.)

so extra options

*sell off assets (we have plenty) - list please
*like American gunmen trigger 'suicide by cop' by waving a gun around, can we trigger 'suicide by Hully? by waving a picture of David Cameron? & maybe even kissing it? I would not do this in normal circumstances but despirate times....

• hiding our head in the sand. i think we have been doing this for some time.

nurter -the previous government also colossally increased it- we didn't use the boom years to pay things down and the treasury was totally emptied and heavily indebted by the election, due to the bank bailout and two enormously expensive wars. Not saying I like this one but Labour also spunked money up the wall like mental.

nurter - 0/10 for me on accuracy. it was maggie's reign that increased the debt not the entire term of the tory govt.

Who would buy the assets though? There aren't many healthy economies around at the moment...

chemiseblair- I agree totally we had a period of strong economic growth and yet we managed to increase levels of public debt, which was a criminal decision by Blair and Brown. The problem was Gordon Browns arrogance in believing he had abolished the economic deficit and that growth would never waiver and so public debt could presumably be brought back under control at some point in the medium term. This was of course complete folly and has left in a tremendous mess with debt increasing exponentially. Despite this however many people seem to think that the Tories and the Liberals are evil by seeking to end this madness and attempt to get things under control. Their plans only stop the debt increasing they don't pay any of it back of course.

We could be like Hong Kong in reverse. The Chinese could buy us.

What assets.
The gas and gold are all goooorn.

Also a weak economy that starts selling its assets looks like a shaky country and would make the UK look 2nd rate around the world. This doesn't bother me but the powers that be want to keep the illusion alive. Last year house sales were down 11% and only 50% of all transactions completed yet mortgage lending was up indicating a lot of re mortgaging acc to the CML Debt has become the only way of making ends meet for some.

Seems to be that the uk has been chronically mismanaged for decades. We will just have to knuckle down and pay it off and hope that our grandchildren will be debt free.

assets =The nhs and education of course, that's the plan isn't it? sell them off?

That's really not that much on a global scale and could easily be paid off in a few years if the extremely rich paid a fair share of it off (which they ought to not only out of altruism but because it would benefit the economy for the future thus meaning thigs would be better for them in 10 years or so whereas now it's going to be worse for everyone in 10 years because of their selfishness). The only reason it's problematic is that the government are determined to ensure there are no jobs and thus no economic growth. Also that current old people are wanting more than their fair share but one isn't supposed to say that for some reason- apparently free TV licenses and bus fares are their entitlement while future generations will be on poverty level pensions (not the case for many old people now).