UK Debt / US Debt

[snoop51]

is there a link we could look at?

BBC News - Republican House Speaker John Boehner quits debt talks

Half way down page is this

Who owns the $14.3tn debt?

• US government owes itself $4.6tn
• Remaining $9.7tn owed to investors
• They include banks, pension funds, individual investors, and state/local/foreign governments
• China: $1.16tn, Japan: $0.91tn, UK: $0.35tn
• Deficit is annual difference between spending and revenue, $1.29tn in 2010
• Congress has voted to raise the US debt limit 10 times since 2001

Source: US Treasury, May 2011, Congressional Research Service, Congressional Budget Office


I do find it a bit ironic that having finally paid of the USA for helping out in & after WW2 only a few years ago that they now owe us. To all that have attempted to enlighten my financially inept brain, thank you.


Britain set to finally pay off WWII loans to US | Metro.co.uk

BBC NEWS | Magazine | What's a little debt between friends?

We apparently still owe them for WW1 though and others owe us. Weird, I did find that the US even owes money to Chile & Colombia although the biggest portion is to China

US federal deficit: how much does China own of America's debt? | News | guardian.co.uk

This is quite interesting as well

U.S. National Debt Clock : Real Time

All looks very frightening to me although if everyone called in their debt perhaps the US wouldn't be quite such the school bully it has become.

 

[Benzowner]

BBC News - Republican House Speaker John Boehner quits debt talks

Half way down page is this

Who owns the $14.3tn debt?

• US government owes itself $4.6tn
• Remaining $9.7tn owed to investors
• They include banks, pension funds, individual investors, and state/local/foreign governments
• China: $1.16tn, Japan: $0.91tn, UK: $0.35tn
• Deficit is annual difference between spending and revenue, $1.29tn in 2010
• Congress has voted to raise the US debt limit 10 times since 2001

Source: US Treasury, May 2011, Congressional Research Service, Congressional Budget Office


I do find it a bit ironic that having finally paid of the USA for helping out in & after WW2 only a few years ago that they now owe us. To all that have attempted to enlighten my financially inept brain, thank you.


Britain set to finally pay off WWII loans to US | Metro.co.uk

BBC NEWS | Magazine | What's a little debt between friends?

We apparently still owe them for WW1 though and others owe us. Weird, I did find that the US even owes money to Chile & Colombia although the biggest portion is to China

US federal deficit: how much does China own of America's debt? | News | guardian.co.uk

This is quite interesting as well

U.S. National Debt Clock : Real Time

All looks very frightening to me although if everyone called in their debt perhaps the US wouldn't be quite such the school bully it has become.

Maybe we should not have won the two world wars, Germany ended up a very wealthy country as did Japan, very ironic!

 

[balge]

Germany and Japan had their infrastructure almost completely rebuilt by the US (Marshall Plan and other aid)...we had to rebuild ourselves and pay back 'lend-lease'..... took until 2006 iirc . Neither Germany nor Japans industry were particularly advanced before the war either.

 

[snoop51]

Germany and Japan had their infrastructure almost completely rebuilt by the US (Marshall Plan and other aid)...we had to rebuild ourselves and pay back 'lend-lease'..... took until 2006 iirc . Neither Germany nor Japans industry were particularly advanced before the war either.

That's why the railways in those countries and France are vastly superior to ours. The infrastructure in those countries is a maximum of 60 years old whereas ours is well over 100 years old.

 

[Scott_F]

Neither Germany nor Japans industry were particularly advanced before the war either.

Germany had been industrialising rapidly since unification in the 1870's and by the early 20th century was one of the World's foremost industrial nations.

 

[balge]

Quite, however most of Europe had been industrialising since the 'Industrial Revolution'.
According to my reading however, German industrial output only regularly and noticeably exceeded British output in the years immediately before WW2 as the Nazis built up their war effort. With a higher population too.

http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/economics/research/workingpapers/publications/twerp_848.pdf

For example car production in Germany barely reached 50% of Britains output before the war.

The Roaring Twenties

cheers

 

[DrNick]

Has anyone added up the total debt in the world and the total amount of money available? I'm a bit worried that there isn't enough money in the world to actually pay off the debt.

I suspect thats a can of worrms that no-one wants to open!

 

[Dryce]

Has anyone added up the total debt in the world and the total amount of money available? I'm a bit worried that there isn't enough money in the world to actually pay off the debt.

I suspect thats a can of worrms that no-one wants to open!

'money' can mean different things.

Assuming you're meaning actual issued currency then that's just a note that represents a promise by the issuer (eg. HMG) to pay you the equivalent face value by some other means (eg. gold or other commodity).

There's nothing special about it and the money supply as such includes a whole load of other types of 'money' depending on how you measure it.

 

[snoop51]

Has anyone added up the total debt in the world and the total amount of money available? I'm a bit worried that there isn't enough money in the world to actually pay off the debt.

I suspect thats a can of worrms that no-one wants to open!

Here you go. Prepare to poop yourself.

http://www.getmoneyenergy.com/2010/03/net-worth-of-whole-entire-world/

 

[grober]

The Western democracies were fearful of Japan and Germany lurching towards Communism after World War 2 so despite being "the losers" immense resources were poured into them to rebuild their economies. Couple this to the fact that they were not allowed to "waste" huge sums on armaments. [BLUE STREAK anyone?] means they were bound to succeed. Britain too was given its economic " get out jail free card " in the 70-90's in the form of North Sea OIL and GAS but successive governments of both political hues failed to use it to modernise British Industry and now its running out.

 

[Benzowner]

Question, what would happen to world economy is all debt were written off? Would the economies of the world go bust, if so, then has the world been lumbered with toxic debts?

 

[Dryce]

Question, what would happen to world economy is all debt were written off? Would the economies of the world go bust, if so, then has the world been lumbered with toxic debts?

Where do you draw the line? Sovereign debt, mortgages, personal loans, credit card debt? Any savings can be considered a loan to a bank? So wipe out savings. Wipe out pension funds?

If creditors don't trust debtors then they stop supplying credit.

Would you put your savings into NS&I certificates if you thought UK gov was about to write off all debt including those certs?

 

[Benzowner]

Where do you draw the line? Sovereign debt, mortgages, personal loans, credit card debt? Any savings can be considered a loan to a bank? So wipe out savings. Wipe out pension funds?

If creditors don't trust debtors then they stop supplying credit.

Would you put your savings into NS&I certificates if you thought UK gov was about to write off all debt including those certs?

Just the debt that countries owe each other, not personal debt. Sorry, but with a topic of US/UK debt I wrongly assumed that people would accept it was national debt. Obviously wrong on my part.

 

[Dryce]

Just the debt that countries owe each other, not personal debt. Sorry, but with a topic of US/UK debt I wrongly assumed that people would accept it was national debt. Obviously wrong on my part.

Trouble is that when people quote country A owes country B they may well mean the 'banks and institutions of country B' as opposed to 'the taxpayers of country B'.

So at what point does debt stop being 'personal'?

I've met plenty of people who don't connect government spending with the idea that it's taxpayers money (present or future) that is being spent.

 

[hawk20]

Question, what would happen to world economy is all debt were written off? Would the economies of the world go bust, if so, then has the world been lumbered with toxic debts?

There would be an enormous shift of wealth from savers to borrowers.
The Banks and Building societies would go bust and would not be able to give us back the money some of us think they have of ours.
Pension funds would be unable to pay the pensions they had promised. Nobody would be able to get a mortgae to buy a house of finance to buy a car etc.
The domino effect would see masses of bankruptcies.
Who would ever lend again?

 

[clever dicky]

Isnt 'money' actually a representation of peoples labour ?
Obviously we dont have 10,000 navies at a time digging canals as we once did. But its still a commodity that gets forgotten about when talking about bank notes. Since everything the world does is dependant on our labour with the exception of selling for profit the planets resources whether it be oil or gems.

But not so when Uni fees were protested about, these kids aren't stupid, or the poll tax. All these loans and tv purchases and even inflated house prices etc. just means we're indebted for more and longer.
The real crime if ever there is one are those who provide no labour or contribution to the whole that speculate and profit from the rest. In that regard I do see the benefit to sharia law, is it ? If houses were charged at what they cost to build and just a regular land tax once paid for, I doubt we would have had the banking bust. Bit simplistic I know, but there must be an end to ever increasing gains from the same pile of bricks.

 

[Dryce]

In that regard I do see the benefit to sharia law, is it ?

LOL.

It's not as if this part of the world is exactly perfect.

But think for a moment - can you name one Islamic country that makes a significant economic impact with its home grown goods or services apart from oil?

Only Indonesia and Malaysia actually make stuff in quantity that is fed to the rest of the world. Both also benefit with oil and gas reserves. And both have large ethnic communities that are non-Islamic that contribute disproportionately to their economies.

The one brand from the middle east that many people outside the ME are familiar with is probably Emirates. Guess what. It's supported by cheap oil and staffed by a huge number of non-ME expats.

 

[clever dicky]

I never mentioned culture or religion. Just the principle of one belief. And that is not to profit from money ie speculate on house prices, buying bonds and even on the trading of Gold and oil. Because lets face it, how much longer can capitalism / debt go on for. Something has to give.
Otherwise we'll end up with some fictional 'credit' system and one central bank we all work for. (who owns the bank ??? )

 

[crockers]

It used to be within the Christian believes that no-one should lend money for profit. Hence the growth of the money lenders within the Jewish faith and the growth of Merchant Banks owned by Jewish families.
Also while over time the Jewish peoples have been persecuted by many. Nothing maybe to do with religion but maybe more to do with the fact they were owed monies and the debtors didn't want to repay.

 

[Mr E]

It used to be within the Christian believes that no-one should lend money for profit. Hence the growth of the money lenders within the Jewish faith and the growth of Merchant Banks owned by Jewish families.
Also while over time the Jewish peoples have been persecuted by many. Nothing maybe to do with religion but maybe more to do with the fact they were owed monies and the debtors didn't want to repay.

Not heard that one before. Jews were allowed to charge interest to others but not their "brothers" (Deut, 23:20). The growth in Jewish money-lending predates the Christian era by quite a way, and probably has it's roots in the time that they were in exile in Babylon (where the Babylonians had quite a sophisticated banking and lendng system in place). I've never seen anything that forbade Christians from charging interest - outside of those causing undue hardship to others.

Many of the Jewish pogroms seem (I'm no expert) to have their roots in commerce. Usually settlers, the successful Jews were seen as an asset for a while, but were then seen as the root of evil when times were hard - somewhat similar to banking today then.

I remember years ago customising a retail banking system for an Arab bank. Interest was not charged on things like mortgages and loans, but there were annual service fees that mounted up to what worked out to be very close to market rates.

My time on the fringes of the banking world taught me many things, mainly about how untrustworthy bankers are. They are very clever though...