Giantaxe

A nice little graph of the UK's debt as a proportion of GDP. Brown's fault? Hmm, only to the extent he had control over the great recession. The proportion remained pretty constant (actually falling a little) over the course of the Labour government until the financial crisis hit.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:UK_National_Debt.svg

chris955

Of course I can only comment on our own experiences, maybe we are just very lucky to have stumbled on such a good local surgery ? GP's are human therefore prone to variability as in any other profession.

dunroving

- against which currency/ies? It's at traditional exchange rates against the USD... although admittedly it did have a 2-year high/blip back in 2006-2008 (ish).

roaringmouse

USD has also experienced QE - comparing GBP to USD is comparing two currencies devalued over a similar period.

chris955

The £ is also getting back to the traditional rate against the AUD as well and several other currencies from what I can see.

bigglesworth

Against the old Euro it is about 5 percent below its forty year average. So normal ranging.

Difficult to gauge against the present Euro, as the Eastern parts were effectively fixed rates for much of that time.

Wonder what will happen if Germany is indeed ready to approve QE?

bigglesworth

Why would anyone include the bank bailouts? They are not generally counted in the deficit.
If they were, the deficit under Brown would have been over 100 percent. But that would not have helped understanding, would it?

And how on earth was the forced nationalisation (and theft from the shareholders) of Network Rail by Stephen Byers a Conservative policy? They had been out of office for five years when Railtrack went under.

Bud the Wiser

The NHS in 2030...........

http://www.hsj.co.uk/home/innovation...e#.UzG1N2dOW1s

Don't fancy nipping into Aldi for a full body scan though.

Giantaxe

"Since 2008, when the British economy slowed sharply and fell into recession, the national debt has risen dramatically, mainly caused by increased spending on welfare benefits, bank bailouts, and a significant drop in receipts from stamp duty and income tax."

"As a result of the 2007–2010 financial crisis and the late-2000s global recession government spending increased to a historically high level of 48 per cent of GDP in 2009–10, partly as a result of the cost of a series of bank bailouts."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United..._national_debt

Huh? Did you even read what I wrote?

bigglesworth

It is the technology that gives me hope. When I read that they are printing replacement bones, well.....

Much medicine is pretty routine, and could be performed by an intelligent machine. The knowledge based nursing that has spread across the UK is likely be be eminently replaceable. The softer skills probably cannot. So the nursing/caring,the bedside manner will probably be more highly prized. As for doctors -
It will be at the margin that judgment will be required.

The downside of course is that if Moores law continues, it is difficult to see a human occupation that could not be replaced. Perhaps florists will become more valuable than lawyers.

dunroving

Lawyers are one of those professions who seem to spend half their energy making a case for themselves being "valuable". A bit like university professors. We could lose a good 50% of both and not be any worse off as a society, IMO.

I personally value the following:

Police
Fire service
Nurses
Bin men

Far more than the following:

Lawyers
Politicians
Estate agents
Bankers

bigglesworth

The bank bailouts totalled about a thousand billion sterling (or US trillion) and the UK economy was between 1.2 trillion and 1.4 trillion. Are you saying therefore thatthey comprised over 100 percent of the UK debt?

As the total committed is now down to about 500 billion the current deficit is in reality many percentage points worse?


You said "An ill thought out privatization that Brown inherited from the prior Conservative government!" Sorry - your meaning was far from clear. The status of National Rail as a Public Interest Company or some such, and its corporate status was NOT under discussion, nor was it my point, but rather the effect on debt. Which is the subject under discussion?

bigglesworth

Interesting to speculate how many of those jobs/professions will remain. Three of the last four will definitely go far sooner than they imagine. But Politicians -somehow I think they will be like that 5 billion year old fungus in New York State. Nobody knows why it is there but it keeps growing.
Nurses - Yes but the academic part probably not.
Fire service -definitely gone.
Police - Robocop
Bin men is interesting. I was reading today about a chap who was on the bins in the 70s and 80s and rescued huge numbers of photos from the bins of old soldiers who had passed away. So that is an occupation that might well attract higher status than it does now.

Giantaxe

I'm saying that bank bailout costs were a significant contributor towards the large increase in the national debt to GDP ratio in 2008 onwards.

Your implication was that that the effect of the Railtrack/National Rail debacle on debt could be laid at the foot of the Labour government. Which carefully ignores that that mess was created by the initial flawed privatization of Railtrack in the early '90's. I don't recall a Labour government being in power at that point. Or perhaps you would have preferred a situation where Railtrack " had no idea how many more 'Hatfields' were waiting to happen" to continue.

I'm actually a big fan of rail service privatization, but quite why the Major government felt the need to privatize track as well is unclear. After all, we have hardly any privatized roads.

bigglesworth

The Major Government had no choice. It was an EU requirement.