Thursday, Sep 20, 2007
Britain is different to the USA, we are more in debt!
International Herald Tribune: Britain's newfound 'buy now, pay later' culture starts to wobble
Britain a country that used to pride itself on thrift is now awash in consumer debt: more than $2.5 trillion of it. That is roughly the same as the United States, which has five times the population.
In other words our average debt per person is 5x the USA's.
Posted by enuii @ 09:08 PM (868 views) Add Comment
15 Comments
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1. planning4acrash said...
Holy C%&P, not only do they have 5x more people, but their GDP is far higher, omg.
2. uncle chris said...
The most depressing thought is that this debt has been accumulated by buying property that we already owned. Total madness.
3. Surfgatinho said...
That is such a depressing read. Good bit of journalism form the IHT - not the usual Britain is booming crap and quite socially accurate
4. planning4acrash said...
I wouldn't mind so much if it had been spent on plant for manufacturing, or for a new public transport system, solving climate change, etc. Total madness.
5. david20040_0 said...
If our debt is 5* higher then the USA and the USA is so much Sh*t right now, how can we keep successfully avoid it for so long?
6. enuii said...
Amazing isn't it, I can only attribute this mind blowing phenomenon to the miracle of Gordonomic's.
7. david20040_0 said...
It literally just makes no sense. The USA is getting worse, yet we in the UK are in MORE debt but avoiding it.
I just don't understand what is happening.
Logic tells me we should be in the middle of a big crash.
But we just seem to JUST keep avoiding it.
8. harold said...
"The most depressing thought is that this debt has been accumulated by buying property that we already owned."
In other words, there is a tranfer for wealth to the those we are increasingly indebted to, i.e., the banks. Nice scam.
9. Davidr said...
It's a bit rich isn't it, Politicians grilling Mr Mervyn King, when Britains debt plight, and its shortly to be fully appreciated consequence, have been deliberately created by themselves. And even if this wasn't blindingly obvious, we can be confident about this, because Eddie George let the cat out of the bag in a Radio 4 interview in 2003 shortly after he retired. Their motive, simply to keep themselves in power and enjoy the personal kudos and riches that come with it. Surely, such deception of ordinary people would be regarded as a criminal act in any other walk of life. Why isn't their a better system for denouncing and prosecuting these self serving fraudsters?
10. Orwell said...
Well,
And US savings are at their lowest since the great depression.....
11. Davidr said...
A large crowd of people are entering a football stadium down a too steep and slippery stairway. The owners of the stadium allow too many in, too quickly so that their takings are bigger. The effect of those being pushed in at the top creates a surge in the stairway. Some of those at the bottom trip and fall. In seconds everyone is falling. Many at the bottom are crushed to death. Afterwards the owners deny allowing too many in, to pushing the queue forwards, or any resposibility for the design or state of the stairs, and instead seek to blame those who first fell - they were greedy, rushing to get the best seats, they say.
We have just this situation now with HPC. It's naive and stupid to allow blame for Britains impending disaster to fall on the newly discovered scapegoat "The sub prime mortgage market"(who'd heard of it this time two years ago?) . Like those in the analogy who only wanted to see a game of football, ordinary people only want to live their lives happily. Have Politicians and their apologists somehow persuaded the press to attribute everything to supposedly poor, ill educated and greedy people in America (and here).
I'm no conservative, but in my view the only guilty people are the Labour government and simply being kicked out of power is too good for them. Of course in our crazy system where after they have been kicked out they will simply go the the House of so called Lords and continue make hay. What a joke.
12. Davidr said...
Did I say Joke? No It's a F"""""g disgrace
13. uncle tom said...
It's not true actually - looks like they've muddled up consumer credit with mortgage debt.
Very roughly, the UK and the US are in much the same boat when it comes to debt per capita.
14. dohousescrashinthewoods said...
Back in the 1930s, hadn't people been buying shiny new tellies on credit too? Granded they weren't as widescreen as today's models..
15. dohousescrashinthewoods said...
Gordonomics on a broken-down train: "paint the windows black and tell people we're moving"