If this is a billion, then how much is 4.8 trillion?
Everyday Christian has an interesting article which begins thusly:
If we were to go backwards in time 1 billion seconds, the year would be 1976. A billion minutes ago, the Roman Empire was doling out free wine and free food to every Roman citizen over the age of 14… male, of course.
OK, we’ve got a handle on that, so what is the UK debt right now?
£4.8 trillion. Do you know how much that is? Neither do I.
Tags: Politics
November 12th, 2010 at 10:31 pm
How long is 4.8 trillion (American trillion, of course) seconds? Does it go back to the Ancient Greeks? or 4004 BC? Nowhere near. 159,840 years. Yes that is right: 4.8 trillion is 4,800 billion. As you imply an incomprehensible figure. I can only conclude that the people we have in government are stark staring bonkers – or very evil – or this figure is not that firm. If it includes future commitments like pensions and care in your old age, if you’re under a certain age, forget it. It won’t be there when you need it. Like earlier societies we will have to rely on our children to provide for us in our old age – isn’t that what the 5th commandment really meant?
November 13th, 2010 at 12:25 am
Barry
It has been children who pay for the pensions of their parents for a very long time. This is nothing new.
The figure may seem huge but let’s not forget that all figures to do with the finances of one of the wealthiest countries in the World are going to be large! Ireland for instance has a very much lower national debt but is in really serious trouble. becasue Ireland’s economy is so very much smaller. Yes, our position is not great, but relatively speaking it ain’t so bad. However, the current belt tightening by the government is unfortunately absolutely essential if we are not to slip into more serious trouble. Successive governments have overspent for a number of years, and it is our children who will be hardest hit by it.
Perhaps a more disturbing thought is that it makes no sense to save right now, when the interest you might earn will not keep pace wth inflation.
November 15th, 2010 at 12:06 am
That’s an interesting way of looking at it, but it is mediated by bureaucrats and politicians and distributed as they see fit – so we have to trust them.
Michael Durkin may have said it’s £4.8 trillion but others (http://burningourmoney.blogspot.com/2010/10/tina-does-spending-review.html) say with some
justification that it’s £7.9 trillion – the Real National Debt which will go on rising despite these much-trumpeted cuts. The biggest slice of this is unfunded state pensions, closely followed by unfunded public sector pensions.
The government’s plan (the spending review) is for the deficit to continue for another 6 years, taking the total Government-defined deficit from £0.932 trillion to £1.316 trillion by 2016. http://www.candidmoney.com/articles/article160.aspx After that, they imply we can start paying off the debt.
The interest on this debt, let alone repayments, will rise from £43 billion a year to £66 billion a year. The taxpayer’s alliance says that if you include state and public sector pensions and PFI, the 2016 ‘interest’ figure is nearly £200 billion, but this is less than 30% of the total government spending for that year (£711 billion) so seems containable. The fly in the ointment of this is the optimistic government forecasts of consumption, unemployment and inflation. So, having looked behind these ‘trillion’ figures a bit, perhaps future pensioners may be alright in the medium term – the real problem being later: the demographic timebomb of too few people of working age to support a large elderly population.
November 15th, 2010 at 7:23 am
“….the real problem being later: the demographic timebomb of too few people of working age to support a large elderly population. …”
Precisely. Hence governments increasing in the age at which pensions are paid, and potentially the need to encourage immigration; to provide a large enough working population to finance those of us who are/will be retired!
Personally I intend to go on working for as long as I can. Along with many on pensions related to contributions rather than final salary, I have actually seen the value of my pension pot shrink over the past few years, despite continuing my contributions. We live in ‘interesting times’ !!
November 15th, 2010 at 9:45 am
I’m sure the expression ‘bonfire of the certainties’ was intended to refer to faith in God, Jesus and the Bible, but it seems to me it should be applied to faith in insurance companies, the security of money in the banks and a comfortable pension when you retire. We can now see that such faith is on shaky ground.
“And I said to the man who stood at the gate of the year: ‘Give me a light that I may tread safely into the unknown’. And he replied: ‘Go out into the darkness and put your hand into the hand of God. That shall be to you better than light and safer than a known way.’” — M. Louise Haskins
The Desert