The UK debt has risen by billions/month. Who do we owe the money to?

[Crowdedmarket]

Just now, Locke said:

The purpose of a government is to maximally extract wealth from the populace in order to enrich the politically well-connected, while minimising the probability that the populace will revolt.

This premise explains almost every action taken by almost every State in the history of Man.

A notable exception was the early United States at the writing of the Constitution. Every action by the US government since then has undermined its founding principles, in accordance with the above premise.

If I had your mental agility, I would have written this.

[Locke]

Put another way, you are no different than the beef cattle who love their farmer and believe he only has their interests at heart when he provides them with clean water.

[crumblingcon]

3 hours ago, Gigantic Purple Slug said:

https://www.economicshelp.org/blog/1407/economics/who-owns-government-debt/

Roughly 1/4 overseas investors. 1/4 BOE. 1/2 UK Private institutions (pension funds, banks etc).

It's important not to look at government debt like household debt.

In household debt you cannot magic money out of thin air to pay off your debt.

In government you can, but there are consequences.

Out of interest I wonder what total UK personal debt is now?

Only seems like yesterday that the UK was in a panic because we hit the £1 Trillion mark, today nobody hardly ever mentions personal debt like it's nothing to be concerned about, sure it's now more than £1 trillion though

 

[Warlord]

4 hours ago, Gigantic Purple Slug said:

Roughly 1/4 overseas investors. 1/4 BOE. 1/2 UK Private institutions (pension funds, banks etc).

 

Sooner or later the BoE will be the ONLY buyer of gilts then we will have descended into a banana Republic.   They're determined to kill the pound instead of cutting government spending. and balancing the books.

 

Edited May 28, 2020 by Warlord

[Biggus]

5 hours ago, zugzwang said:

We need inflation! Lots of inflation to counter the deflationary shock of the Covid pandemic.

There are no net benefits to society from printing money. Money does a certain amount of work by facilitating exchange, as a unit of acoount and store of value and so on. When there is enough to perform these functions adding more does not create a net benefit. It does have negative effects. It also enriches a few at the expense of the many.

Also, when money is printed the value of currency in circulation falls more than you might expect. For example, if the amount of money is doubled you may think that the purchasing power of the currency would halve. It doesn't. It falls by more than half as people look for protection elswhere. A shortage of money is created. There are calls for more money printing to make up the lost value.

 

[Speed1987]

17 minutes ago, Biggus said:

There are no net benefits to society from printing money. Money does a certain amount of work by facilitating exchange, as a unit of acoount and store of value and so on. When there is enough to perform these functions adding more does not create a net benefit. It does have negative effects. It also enriches a few at the expense of the many.

Also, when money is printed the value of currency in circulation falls more than you might expect. For example, if the amount of money is doubled you may think that the purchasing power of the currency would halve. It doesn't. It falls by more than half as people look for protection elswhere. A shortage of money is created. There are calls for more money printing to make up the lost value.

 

So surely they're winners and losers in the game of printing money.

Those with high amounts of debt and assets, are the biggest winners.

Those with savings and little assets are the losers.

[Biggus]

6 minutes ago, Speed1987 said:

So surely they're winners and losers in the game of printing money.

Those with high amounts of debt and assets, are the biggest winners.

Those with savings and little assets are the losers.

Yes, there are winners an losers.

Those are not my thoughts, by the way. I got the first paragraph from an online lecture on inflation -

https://youtu.be/y_SL2tIF6i4?t=112

The second paragraph come from a passage in Adam Furgusson's book, which I can't be bothered looking up.

[Crowdedmarket]

12 minutes ago, Speed1987 said:

So surely they're winners and losers in the game of printing money.

Those with high amounts of debt and assets, are the biggest winners.

Those with savings and little assets are the losers.

HPC it is then....

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2009/mar/26/tent-city-california-recession-economy

 

[Speed1987]

In all honesty I would love to see some inflation above 5% for a few years.

If I was alive in the 1970s, I would be much more wealthier, right now.

 

[winkie]

Inflation is only good if you have pay rises inline with inflation, have savings that pay credit interest in line with inflation and debt interest inline with inflation......can't have one without the other two.  

[zugzwang]

1 hour ago, Biggus said:

There are no net benefits to society from printing money. Money does a certain amount of work by facilitating exchange, as a unit of acoount and store of value and so on. When there is enough to perform these functions adding more does not create a net benefit. It does have negative effects. It also enriches a few at the expense of the many.

Also, when money is printed the value of currency in circulation falls more than you might expect. For example, if the amount of money is doubled you may think that the purchasing power of the currency would halve. It doesn't. It falls by more than half as people look for protection elswhere. A shortage of money is created. There are calls for more money printing to make up the lost value.

 

Money is created and destroyed on a continuous basis, though mostly outside of the banking system, which makes regulating the money supply impossible, as Margaret Thatcher and her monetarist advisers discovered to their enormous chagrin in the early 80s. The ideological u-turn she undertook in 1984-5, though essentially undocumented at the time, set us on our present course. By the end of the 1980s Britain had been transformed into a nation of careless lenders and negligent borrowers.

[scepticus]

The simple answer is the we owe the extra debt to ourselves. And maybe a few foreigners but mainly ourselves. Don't forget that all public debt is essentially the savings of the UK non government sector (and maybe a few foreigners). So we have a bunch more debt than we had before, but we also have a bunch more savings we didn't have before.

Also, government debt basically is money, or a kind of money. The differences between base money/cash  and government debt is not that much when the economy is at ZIRP and peak debt already.

[Wayward]

5 hours ago, Gigantic Purple Slug said:

I don't have to, I do !

Although I will add in a bit of a modifier.

The government action is to do what the collective thinks is best for them. As opposed to what is actually best for them.

 

The government acts for the rich and powerful and a majority persuaded they share the same interests.  This majority then exploit minorities and voiceless, in the case of HPI and state debt this is the poor, young and unborn.

 

Tyranny of the majority - the cause of most of our woes.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tyranny_of_the_majority

 

 

 

[Gigantic Purple Slug]

1 minute ago, Wayward said:

The government acts for the rich and powerful and a majority persuaded they share the same interests.  This majority then exploit minorities and voiceless, in the case of HPI and state debt this is the poor, young and unborn.

 

Tyranny of the majority - the cause of most of our woes.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tyranny_of_the_majority

 

 

 

Vote them out then.

[Wayward]

Just now, Gigantic Purple Slug said:

Vote them out then.

With first passed the post?  Unlikely.

[Gigantic Purple Slug]

Just now, Wayward said:

With first passed the post?  Unlikely.

Vote to remove first past the post then.

There was a vote on that pretty recently IIRC, but people decided they didn't want it.

[Crowdedmarket]

3 minutes ago, Wayward said:

With first passed the post?  Unlikely.

Oh, a Lib Dem. I recall the leader in the last election going all in anti-brexit, and then posing in a boxing camp. Odd.

Haven't heard many of them in the press lately. Hope they come strong again soon. Otherwise Sir will get in.

[Wayward]

2 minutes ago, Gigantic Purple Slug said:

Vote to remove first past the post then.

There was a vote on that pretty recently IIRC, but people decided they didn't want it.

Yes the majority didn't want it !  Sounds fair?  Well the result is pro HPI policies, rocketing debt and the young made a modern serf class working principally to support lifestyles of the over 55s.

[Wayward]

1 minute ago, Crowdedmarket said:

Oh, a Lib Dem. I recall the leader in the last election going all in anti-brexit, and then posing in a boxing camp. Odd.

Haven't heard many of them in the press lately. Hope they come strong again soon. Otherwise Sir will get in.

no not a natural Lib Dem just someone who understands the forces at work here that underpin our woes.

[Crowdedmarket]

4 minutes ago, Wayward said:

Yes the majority didn't want it !  Sounds fair?  Well the result is pro HPI policies, rocketing debt and the young made a modern serf class working principally to support lifestyles of the over 55s.

Surely, helping your elders is a spiritual duty?

[Warlord]

@Wayward you should read up on the American Founding Fathers. They were genius in that they understood the tyranny of the majority and devised a system where executive (President) was split from Congress (House and Senate) and with a judiciary to back it up along with the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.  Government basically split three ways. Amazing stuff and it has stood the test of time... 240 years!

Our parliamentary system sucks to be fair.

 

 

 

[Gigantic Purple Slug]

1 minute ago, Wayward said:

Yes the majority didn't want it !  Sounds fair?  Well the result is pro HPI policies, rocketing debt and the young made a modern serf class working principally to support lifestyles of the over 55s.

We get the government we deserve. If we don't like what they do then campaign for change.

You and I may not want pro HPI policies, but the majority of people have bought into them. We are where we are because of that.

I don't see any alternative to democracy, imperfect as it may be.

Blaming the government for our inability to hold them to account is not a solution to bad governance. The solution is to hold them to account properly. If the majority don't share your views and you want change, it's your job to persuade them otherwise. It's the only way it can work.