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.....)

Here's a plan - how about asking people who have their share in savings to pay their lump sum off now, in return for a massively reduced Income Tax % (say 5%) so that they can save up their money again..... it might bring the debt down quicker and think of the interest payment savings!

YABU - you would have to be pretty Head in the Sand-y to not realise national debt was a problem.

Haven't seen the personal debt figures recently. I imagine that's also pretty sobering.

I think it has been proved over the years that the super rich doing anything about this is a huge no.

The point with the UK's national debt is that most of it is 10 or 20 year bonds
unlike Greece and Italy and Spain who are mostly 6 month or one year bonds

Broon should have mended the roof while the sun was shining but he could not tell the difference between a bubble and growth

so long as the deficit is eradicated and the bonds are reduced as they roll over rather than increased, the actual debt is not an issue for several years

the annual deficit that drove the borrowing is what we have to deal with

living within our means - NOT something the UK has been good at for the last 15 years
cut up that plastic
pay down that mortgage
clear that overdraft

What are we considering 'super rich'?

i agree we dont need to worry about interest rates in quite the same way as the PIGS but if we take 10yrs to pay off:

that is 21k in interest from every household.

Yes on the other points.

What are we considering 'super rich'?

they need to have a combined wealth of £1trillion

so it could be:
1,000 billionaires - i dont think we have that many
or 1,000,000 millionaires

do we have 1,000,000 millionaires? say the top 2%?

And how much are we taking from them?

And people are still blaming the last tory government? Last seen in 1997. Labour certainly managed to spin the wool over people's eyes. Gordon 'an end to boom and bust' Brown famously adopted and then unceremoniously dumped the 'Golden Rule' of fiscal policy i.e over the course of the economic cycle, borrowing only to invest for the benefit of future generations and not to fund current spending (see where it went wrong now?) Instead he borrowed in the bad times, borrowed in the good times and gambled that 'an end to boom and bust' wasn't just a soundbite.

Not surprised about the trillion.

we need £1T so it either:

£2M from the top 1% (500,000 people)
£1M from the top 2% (1 million people)
£500K from the top 4% (2 million people)

all the way down to:
£16K from 100% of the people

??????

Tackle tax havens

Or, cut government spending so that it gets to a realistic and sustainable level. For e.g. don't host a ridiculously expensive sporting event during the middle of one of the worst recessions ever. That would have been a good start.

Well I don't think all this money we owe can really exist. It must be like monopoly money with billion dollar notes.
I say it is imaginary money let's all wipe the slate clean and say nobody owes any money to anyone, either personally or as a nation.
What do you think? Think it's a viable plan? :)

We need to increase the GDP somehow and use the entire surplus to pay back our debts...oh hold on a minute....when Labour were in power our GDP was fantastic but unfortunately they spend the lot and more.

gentle otter yes to that

Oi, I am in the top 1% of income but have nothing like £2m thankyouverymuch. More like Minus £££££, thanks to a London mortgage. Not complaining, I have a very nice life and all that but looking at income is a bit misleading.

I don't think many of the top 1% would be very keen to give away all their money actually.

Fullofregrets

Unfortunately we would probably be worse off if we did that. National borrows are not a pound for a pound (or equivalent exchange rate) is it?

It's all at weighted borrowing at different interest levels and different terms, if only it was that simple.

Freebutton

Same here! We could always sell our homes to raise money and go on the council waiting list?

house prices were increasing everything felt good, boom times. funded by money we didnt have.....

hedgeblog

Could do. Also I'd have to go bankrupt as I wouldn't be able to pay "my" full £2m and would 100% lose my job (lawyer, would be struck off) so would then have to go on benefits too! Double whammy!

Or, could we all just go and mug Switzerland or Saudi Arabia? They're pretty cash rich.

so what would be fair on the top 1%?

(assuming everyone else pays something as well)

Freebutton

snap snap!! How funny! I would imagine as we're quite hated anyway people wouldn't worry too much if we end up at the soup kitchen on hand outs.....all for the good of society and all!!

(I make money from lawyers - i dont dislike you...well not the handsome ones! )