ABCDiamond

I wonder how many people get confused by these debt levels ?

MartinLuther

You probably know this already but I think people mix up the debt with the budget deficit.

ossigeno

Which one is correct?

CNBC article states for the UK:

"External debt (as % of GDP): 427.6%

Gross external debt: $9.26 trillion (2009 Q3)
2009 GDP (est): $2.17 trillion"

ABCDiamond

It's like when some people say the fact that Australia's External Debt is now about 109% of GDP, and say that it is VERY high.
But what are they comparing it to ?
Obviously not Europe....

MartinLuther

You wouldn't want to marry Ireland.

MartinLuther

Of the figures given in the above posts I would think that the 400% figure is the debt and the 12.7% figure is the budget deficit. Neither of them very attractive.

ABCDiamond

The 427% for GB is Gross External Debt, not to be confused with Public debt

Public Debt comparisons (2009 est) are:
United Kingdom 68.5% (51.8% in 2008)
Australia 18.6% (14.7% in 2008)
Greece 108.1% (97.4% in 2008)

slapphead_otool

The problem with measuring debt is putting it into perspective – eg debt per capita:
Ireland US$448,032/head
Iceland US$362,942/head
United Kingdom US$150,673/head
Australia US$38,798/head

And of course debt should be measured against national assets and ability to service it.

ABCDiamond

The 12.8% of GDP British figure, should be compared against the Australian deficit figure of ? expected to be about 5-6% for 2009-10 ?

In 2008-09 it appears to have been 2.5%

ABCDiamond

Yes, I once saw the UK debt compared to the Australian debt, with two totally different figures.

ie:
UK 12.8% of GDP being deficit
compared to
Aus 109% External Debt
and saying that Australia must be worse according to that comparison..


However, looking deeper into the figures, we see that the UK public debt has risen 4.5% faster than Australia's in the last year.
Not that big a difference, when you boil down the figures.

creepycrawley

He's probably just bored of the same people running the UK/Europe down again and again with the same points said in the same way.

creepycrawley

You clearly don't have great reading/comprehension skills.

I know the thread you refer to and nobody ever said that positive thinking ALONE would get the UK out of trouble.

The suggestion was that positive thought, as opposed to relentless ''the UK is stuffed'' negativity (as favoured by your good self) might not be a bad starting point.

ABCDiamond

This reminded me of a time where I was talking about people thinking positive, to help keep Australia in better shape, and was told in no uncertain terms that it was ridiculous thinking.

It seems that these reading problems are very common.

slapphead_otool

Mate, if you want to be offensive find somewhere else to personally attack me.

You have no idea of my reading skills or comprehension skills.

Play the ball - which in this case is the economic crisis in Europe, or take your offensive attitude elsewhere.

Ozwanderer

All this doom and gloom and humour is lost!

We just have to remember the pollies

About 10 years or so ago I attended a public meeting where two prominent MPs came to enlighten us mere mortals, talking of world trade etc.

I've always wondered about the merits of the level playing field, global economics etc. and at the time Citrus farmers had been ploughing crops into the ground and then it became bulldoxing out complete orchards while we had juice extract being imported from South America.

I asked the senior MP how the governement measured the effectiveness of global economic decisions in regard to agricultural imports.
His answer: The orange juice in the stores is cheaper isn't it?
I thought FMD, what an idiot!

A lot of farmers went on to grow grapes and now we have wine so cheap the farmers are seeing a lot of their winery contracts gutted.
Maybe 'they'll go Italian and brew their own, rot their livers and join us all on getting blind with cheap wine.

Younger generations will not notice for they'll be too busy drinking martinis and other shit on their plastic.

Maybe that story about the planet ending in 2012 is not so far from the truth and we ought to just join the party.

The Domino effect has been there in the past and the game still exists .
. Market place capacity decreases through available discretionary spending.
. Manufacturing slows and industrial countries get less income.
. Manufacturing countries have less income to purchase raw materials
. Internal and external market places shrink further - global depression

It is laughable to me to have politicians and media commentators talking of the recovery when the demise has only just started as some posters have indicated.
Krudd and Kronies in Oz have been hell bent on crowing on how the stimulus package has saved us!
Saved us from having a healthier budget to handle worse times to come is all that we've been saved from.

And you'll not hear too much different from Budgie Smuggler for he'll be wanting to tell how much better it could be without the stimulus/debt. more so than how bad it'll get regardless of who is in power.

Australia already has massively expensive housing with huge personal debt levels and once China's production drops off and resources export plummet , the magnitude of economic woes is going to soar.

Meanwhile we have societies with massive numbers of effectively non productive people, all the fat cat parliamentarians and support staffs, the people in financial institutions etc., all overheads that simpler society structures in the past never had and the salary levels that some of these people get, even close to $.5M for local government CEOs, about 10 times an average wage and the multiplication of that is just unsustainable.

Meanwhile, hot on China having cheap 4WDs for us, India has just started production of the worlds cheapest car.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/7957671.stm

Going to be great for Carbon levels if you believe it's good for absorbing and growth.

Time for another bottle and a laugh with Musso.