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National Debt

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By *ara J OP   TV/TS
over a year ago

Bristol East

Curious story here about the National Fund.

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/attorney-general-applies-for-400-million-to-be-released-from-legal-limbo-to-help-pay-down-the-national-debt

Someone donated £500,000 in 1928 to pay off the National Debt (cough, cough).

I guess with the financial crash the UK Government borrowing increased and some kind person wanted to help.

The fund is now worth £400m.

But the National Debt is now £2 trillion.

It's the quote attributed to the Attorney General that strikes me as very odd:

"Our economy has grown every year since 2010, which is down to the hard work of the British people. The national debt is now starting to fall, and the release of this fund will further help the country build an economy that works for everyone."

The national debt is starting to fall?

How can that be?

The UK Government is still borrowing money every year to balance its books, so how can he say it is falling?

I seem to recall David Cameron make a similarly clumsy statement that had to be retracted.

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By *ercuryMan
over a year ago

Grantham

The National Debt is falling as a percentage of the UK GDP.

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By *illwill69uMan
over a year ago

moston

The national debt has more than doubled since 2010. Government ministers and mps have even admitted that austerity and the defunding of national and local government has been used to cut wealth taxes not to pay down the national debt, which was how it was sold to the British people.

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By *ara J OP   TV/TS
over a year ago

Bristol East


"The National Debt is falling as a percentage of the UK GDP."

But the actual debt is still rising every month, at a rate of £5170 every second.

It's misleading to suggest otherwise.

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By *riefcase_WankerMan
over a year ago

Milton Keynes


"The National Debt is falling as a percentage of the UK GDP.

But the actual debt is still rising every month, at a rate of £5170 every second.

It's misleading to suggest otherwise."

Using a nominal figure is an extremely ineffective measure of the actual state of the nation's finances though, because it is devoid of context.

I might borrow £100 off a mate and really that's not a big deal to me, to owe £100 - but if we were to take some poor fella from some impoverished African nation, that would represent a HUGE proportion of his income - that might be a few months wages whereas for me it's less than a day's wage.

Measuring the national debt as a nominal sum will always make it seem incomprehensibly large, because the kind of figures bandied around are just ridiculous - but put into context by looking at it as a percentage of GDP means that we can understand it as a proportion of the national income.

Viewing it through that lens is not misleading, it's more nuanced

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