silver panda

Do you have ones for household and corporate debt? Because it was those that brought down the banks. Its TOTAL debt that is important for comparison purposes.

You could have said exactly the same things 12 months ago and yet the economy started to grow. The economy naturally grows 0.5 or 0.6% a quarter and you can add a further 0.1 or 0.2% for rising population. Of course their will be variations within th economy. People in export manufacturing should do much better than those in discretionary wealth consumption for example. If the economy does fall into another recession, which is unlikely but possible if there are adverse efects from the rest of the world, then there will be even more tax rises and spending cuts with big drops in living standards.

Why is spending money (probably borrowed money) on unnecessary imported consumer goods the way to save the economy? It's revealing that so many leftists oppose taxes on wealth consumption but want them raised on wealth creation.

What 'cuts'? What 'austerity'? When the country stops borrowing money and importing more than it exports you can talk about 'cuts' and 'austerity'. As for northern England manufacturing here is doing very well at the moment though with a lot of ground to recover after the disaster of the last few years. And the public sector will still be spending at least as much but the 'executives', 'managers' and 'professionals' will make sure they get an ever increasing slice of the pie with front line workers getting less. If Cameron and Osborne want to really help this country the best thing to do would be to take action against the parastical public sector high earners. In fact they're the only people who can do it as Labour certainly wouldn't.

The evidence is in the economic statistics. Its also available in your nearest shopping centre where the label 'Made in Germany' is a sign of quality.

And what's the equivalent for personal and corporate debt? You need to consider TOTAL debt to have propoer relevance. And have you taken into account future liabilities - public sector pensions, PFI etc? If you do so then public debt is already over 200%. And have you noticed what the other public debt spikes were caused by? Napoleonic Wars WWI WWII Have we been fighting a world war recently? All our debt has caused is unaffordable housing.

Call it what you want but it comes down to understanding that your actions have consequences and that you must face up to them.

Sweeping generalisation it may be but its still essentially true. Still its not surprising that someone who believes individuals should have the right to live off those more hardworking should extend the principle to the national level.

So self-righteous in your mind is working hard and saving and investing and living withing their means. Not to mention giving billions in handouts every year through the EU to Greece, Ireland, Spain etc. The layabout PIIGS have brought this on themselves.

Who in your opinion does have the right to govern then?

Because I've seen what happens to crap workers and crap businesses. The lose their jobs and go bankrupt. Unfortunately bankers and the public sector haven't had that experience.

And how does our personal and corporate debt of now confirm to those of other eras? And what has all the debt we've added in the last decade achieved but unaffordable housing and imported consumer tat. The big increases in the past were used to beat Napoleon, Prussian militarisma and Hitler. And are you expecting the rapid economic growth and technological progress of the Victorian era and post WWII period? And I already know about moral hazard as I live within my means and work in manufacturing. Its about time the public sector learnt a little about it. Unfortunately the bankers got away from it because Gordon Brown bailed them out without conditions.

What austerity? When this country's debt stops increasing and starts falling and when we start exporting more than we import then you can talk about austerity. At the moment the scale of our living beyong our means has merely been stabilized. People on this forum live in a dreamworld.

So what you're complaining about are Monaco's tax and residential laws? And I expect that Philip Green still pays more tax each year than the average person does in their entire life. But still its easier whining about others than actually achieving something for yourself.

Exactly. Anyone born in this country has already a winner in life's lottery and is likely through no effort of their own to have a much higher standard of living than their equivalent in Asia, Africa, South America, Eastern Europe. And yet all we hear is constant whining about people who are in the top 1% of the world's population as opposed to being in the top 10% as they are. At least Philip Green, whether you like him or not, is partially responsible for his own wealth as opposed to the whiners whose lifestyle is down to nothing more than an accident or birth.