The Real National Debt: A Decade of Reckless Growth

The TaxPayers' Alliance reveal the true extent of national debt, finding that the official Government figure is much lower than the true amount that the UK Government (and therefore UK taxpayers) currently owes, and that the real national debt has mushroomed over the last decade.

Full details of the research can be found here - http://www.taxpayersalliance.com/realdebt.pdf

Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• TaxPayers' Alliance
• Matthew Elliott
• Budget
• Debt
• Deficit
• George Osborne
• Danny Alexander

[litesp33d]

I agree with what you are saying but found it interesting that you mentioned but did not provide a figure for nuclear decommissioning which if you include the costs associated with storage of spent waste is hundreds of billions.

Would this be because some of the backers of the TPA are in favour of new nuclear installations because by passing these costs on to future generations they stand to make a fortune.

[TaxpayersallianceUK]

@litesp33d Nuclear decommissioning is covered in detail in the report, under 'other debt'. Although not quite debt in terms of our original definition – there is no explicit lender on the other side – it is clearly a liability to future payments on account of services consumed in the past. We use official estimates from the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority, which for 09-10 put the liability at £45bn (table 1). There's no conspiracy here, I'm afraid.

[lendusaquid]

I think it is time the English set up their own Government and tell Parliament, the city of London and the bank of England to Fuck off!!!

[peterpaulparker]

It is time to abolish private central banks and their fractionalised system. Otherwise humanity will be forever indebted to it. Or is it already too late?!!!!!!!!! It is a countries soveriegn right to issue its own currency.

[simonsrd100]

over a trillion now

[pauldanon]

The facts are remarkable but the presentation is poor. The table on the right is redundant and we never really see a good representation of the debt. A guy pouring out a bucket of pennies just says "lots of money" and pennies aren't anywhere near as evocative as notes (even if the notes are fake).

[Xaiano]

@topcoat2001 true but that's like saying you can walk to work and save the cost of the car. Public services will never generate wealth but do a service we want. The level of service and the price we pay are indeed open to debate though.

[richardblogger]

@Xaiano sure, but that is not what the video was saying. It was making out that there was no funds for the future pensions, which is a typical TPA piece of misinformation. Of course, a funded pension scheme is not necessarily better. Investments can go down as up. (10 years ago I invested a one off payment in a pension scheme and the fund is *still* worth less than I paid in.)

[Xaiano]

@Xaiano ...would be less than the rate of interest they would pay on bonds and less risky too.

There is only a surplus at the moment because of the fact that there are more workers on higher wages now than there was 30 years ago. While the full amount never needs to be repaid since it is essencially borrowed from your own future, the amount outstanding determines the amount needed to be 'topped up' and given that people will live longer and staff levels fall, it will grow rapidly unless we act.

[Xaiano]

@richardblogger unfunded pension liabilities are important. Think of it as rather than people in the NHS putting pension contribs into a fund which invests them, the government borrows that money to offset debt as a whole. If nothing ever changed and all things were equal this would mean year-on-year you would lose an amount equal to the rate of interest you would have got as an investment. The extra needed would be brought out of government income but the reason this is done is the money out...

[calucalu123]

Its fucking scary!