Readers Comment from UK debt under Labour. In 13 years from 1997/8 to 2009/10, the Labour Government increased debt by about £420 billion. In the 5 years from 2010/11 to 2014/2015, the Coalition Government will increase debt by about £600 billion. These are the facts. Yes, though I’m always nervous about extracting facts like …
Readers Question: In Risks and benefits of Quantitative easing one point the programme mentioned was: The scale of quantitative easing could make it impossible to sell bonds back to market and this will damage the UK’s ability to borrow in the future. If the UK’s ability to borrow is constrained, this will lead to higher …
Banks play a key role in the financial system and wider economy. Therefore governments have been concerned about regulating banks to avoid banks defaulting on promises. If one bank gets into difficulties through reckless borrowing or illegal activities it can harm the whole banking system. The credit crunch of 2007-08 caused the Government to consider …
One feature of the recent crisis has been the degree to which governments underestimated the forecast rise in government borrowing. The IMF produced a report which looked at forecast debt from 2007, and what debt actually was three years later. In ten selected countries, the increase in the gross debt ratio 31.8 2007 forecast for …
Readers Question: Hi and thanks for your article “UK Budget Deficit”. I am ‘new’ to economics, but trying to do my bit to get to understand it all. From your article I followed links and found the ”Pocket DataBank” published by the treasury. Being a bit retentive about things, I tend to learn by adding …
General government gross debt is a definition of government borrowing used by the EU. Generally, UK government debt is published as ‘public sector net borrowing’ – There are two measures of this public sector net borrowing – one which includes financial sector intervention, and another which excludes. see: UK National Debt source: Stats on UK …
It’s been a week of unexpectedly bad news for the UK economy. Inflation was higher than expected 3.6% and core inflation 4.3%. Unemployment was also higher than expected, and that is after last weeks economic growth was lower than predicted – a 2nd month of negative growth. It is only a matter of time before …
US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent recently criticised China for having the most unbalanced economy in the history of the world. Omniously, he said, “China cannot be allowed to export their way back to prosperity.” The US is doing their best to upend the global trading system and make it difficult for China. In 2025 US …