Friday, March 27, 2009

Oh Dear

Oh Dear

it is easy to see how the UK could end up in such a parlous situation. Britain exited the Second World War with crippling debts worth around 260 per cent of GDP. The consequences of this millstone were still being felt as late as the 1970s. The figures this time around don't look nearly as bad. Thankfully, banking crises are not as expensive to prosecute as world wars. Even so, total national debt could rise as high as 80 per cent of GDP. Add in the liabilities being assumed of semi-nationalised and nationalised banks, and the numbers become much more alarming – something over 400 per cent.
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1 comment:

Anonymous said...

The numbers are indeed concerning, yet nothing that a British people in full possession of its unique spirit of fortitude and love of country cannot handle. Cameron must find the means to ignite that spirit - as I'm sure he will once he's PM.

You're right to point out the continuing effect of WW2, Newms. Though the debt burden of war goes back even further than that.

UK entered WW1 as the world's biggest creditor, and we exited that pointless, lunatic, murderous war as the world's biggest debtor.

The left claims that WW1 and WW2 were all part of the inevitable contradictions of a capitalist system. In this world view, war is the logical manifestation of the conflict structured into the very essence and heart of capitalism by virtue of its base contradiction of capital and labour and the labyrinth of contradiction stemming from that.

Replace Capitalism with socialism, say the left and we can all live in the idyllic state of the Paris Commune.

What the left choose to ignore, of course, is the extent to which the left itself and socialism is so inherently riddled with warring factions that its even more of a war of all against all than capitalism.

I'd love to hear Blair and Brown's ideological explanation of Iraq and Afghanistan and how members of the idyllic soviet state of the EU either falsely prosecuted or failed to prevent those wars.

1:08 am

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