Monday 24 November 2008

Stats, stats and more stats

This has been shamelessly lifted from a comment by Kieron, but is too good to lurk under the floorboards. Highly recommended.

18 comments:

Anonymous said...

It's a good article and raises some interesting points.

However, it still leaves the fact that public sector debt is going to increase drastically, and is expected to be over 8% of GDP next year (according to the beeb's reporting of treasury figures http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7745340.stm).

It all boils down to increased debt and increased tax, with more and more of the economy being driven through the state. I'm utterly at a loss as to why this would seem anything like a good idea.

Old Holborn said...

£1 Trillion.

Sorry £1,000,000,000,000

Why do all Labour Governments insist on bankrupting the country every time they get power?

Anonymous said...

Old Holborn, did you read the article???!!! The number you quoted is meaningless. Can you put it in a comparable form?

Bristol Dave said...

Old Holborn, did you read the article???!!! The number you quoted is meaningless

Why? Sorry, has the currency of this country suddenly changed to Martian Xnyvzzxys?

No, it has not. Therefore the figure is far from meaningless, it means 1 Trillion Pounds Sterling. Branding the huge levels of borrowing the Chancellor is planning on "fixing" the economy with as "meaningless" shows how much you know, and frankly how much the Labour goverment care about failing the entire country.

Anonymous said...

So what is the significance of £1trn? Why is £1,000,000,000 more significant than, say, £234,732,321?

It's certainly much more dramatic to say ONE TRILLION POUNDS LIKE OMG than to say, for example, 57% of GDP. But "£1 trillion" on its own doesn't really tell you how big the debt is. In a generation or so £1trn won't be that much money. A generation or so ago it was a lot of money indeed. It's just a number of pound coins - which are constantly changing value.

"57% of UK GDP" - that has meaning, because you can compare it to other countries or to other times in history.

The level of debt is not meaningless, and I would never have said so. But it's meaningless to try and express that in some number of pounds.

Anyway...

Anonymous said...

What a fine peace of balanced journalism from the BBC that clearly discharges its charter obligations about impartiality and balance

If only anyone at all in the international sovereign debt insurance default market believed it. They don't, which is why it costs twice as much to insure Gordo's debt as it does to insure Germany.

Mr Mugabe has some interesting stats you may want to plagiarise explaining how Zimbabwe is a well run economy

Old Holborn said...

I'm going to tell the Tax Office that it's meaningless when they demand yet more from me to pay for Gordons binge spending.

Kerry said...

The significance of £1 trillion is that was what was on the front page of the Sun today. That's where OH gets his financial information from.

Anonymous said...

Single Acts of Tyranny, how timely! I saw this and thought of you:
http://www.economicnews.ca/cepnews/wire/article/171134

Kerry said...

How can you type 'Single Acts of Tyranny' with a straight face?

Old Holborn said...

Let’s have a look at what a recession will bring. Firstly, credit is hard to come by. Unless you have a good record of borrowing money and paying it back, you won’t get it. People are beginning to shout that this is not fair, as they’ve been able to borrow squillions before, buy loads of useless shit and have the odd month off from repaying it. Well, tough. The rules have changed. If you had an ounce of foresight, you would have realised that buying things you can’t afford to pay cash for, using other peoples money is a privilege, not a right.

Yes, your house is full of Argos tat, but you haven’t actually bought it. Other people have. You just used their money to do it and now, you’ll have to capitalise your labour and give the people their money back.

That means:

Little Tyson WON’T be strutting around the playground in £90 trainers this year. He will be wearing Primark plastic trainers that you bought for £6. He WILL survive, trust me. Most of the other kids will be wearing them as well. 99.99% of the kids in the world wear nothing on their feet at all. David Beckham may feel the pinch as his earnings from the mongs who buy his endorsed shit goes down a million or two, but his wife still has her career. He’ll get by.

You will not be able to take the entire family and Nanna to Disneyland twice a year and put it on the plastic. Trust me, this is a good thing. Eventually, your children are going to have to earn their own money and if you have been teaching them that spunking every penny you have up the wall is a good policy, they have been ill advised and are in for a large shock later in life. 99.99% of the worlds children do not know what a Disneyland is or have any need to know. Spend the money paying back a bit of last years lager fuelled bender to Benidorm before you start spending even more of other peoples money.

You will have to sell your Saxo wiv da big exhaust and get the bus. Yep. Tragic isn’t it? No more wheelspins away from the lights wiv ya crew in da back, trying to get that bird with the tattoo on her tits to shag you. If you want her to shag you, be nice to her, be attentive to her needs and show her you care. Handbrake turns are not romantic.

You may have to cook some food. This is a hard one. 99.99% of the world has managed it but somehow, life without the “ding dong” of the Dominoes Pizza man (with free Cola) arriving at your abode everynight, spilling out utter shite for you to eat on your laps whilst watching the Simpsons is actually not a bad thing. If you can save up £100 (without immediately spending it on a PS3 game or a handbag) you could buy a dining table and some chairs. Then, you could sit as a family and eat together. Maybe some of you could talk about stuff. Decide things as a family, plan days out together and get to know the other people who live in your house. You can buy food in markets. Those shouty blokes waving green stuff in your face as you head to the Bingo are actually selling fresh food. All you have to do is cover it in salt and sugar and boil it for an hour. Then sit down at your table and eat it. Topped with lard for all I care

Your house. This is a hard one, because some of you saw stuff on Sky and thought you had to have it. So that hot tub you bought on the Barclaycard and have used twice (both times to invite your wife’s mates over, although you weren’t so keen when they brought their slimmer hubbies and your missus whipped her tits out, were you?) and was a snip at £4K didn’t actually ADD £4K to the value of your house. In fact, it turns out that spending £20K on patio heaters, a ride on lawn mower, a “chiminea” and koi carp has actually brought no return at all. Apart from more letters offering “consolidation loans” secured on your foreskin.

A recession means you will have to live within your means. It means that you can no longer spend money you have not earned. Just like the rest of the planet in fact. It can be done. The rest of the planet manages to do it, so can you

OH’s 10 money saving tips for poor people who don’t realise they are poor yet (but fucking will, soon enough)



1.Stop spending money
2.Cook and eat food yourself
3.Don’t go to Menorca with Nanna on shit holidays you cannot afford
4.Stop trying to keep up with the fucking Joneses who are just as fucking skint as you
5.Get the bus
6.Life is short. Do stuff that doesn’t cost money. A walk with the kids for example
7.Put a jumper on
8.Get a bike
9.Stop pretending to be rich. There is no shame in poor but honest. Even if you lost everything, you still have more than most of the planet. Which is why half the bastard planet is trying to get here in the back of lorries.
10.Tanning/nail studios are the work of the devil. Stay away from them
Go and look at some really poor people (the Scottish or Welsh is a good place to start) and you may just understand that it doesn’t matter what other people think. Including me. You've been sold fools gold and it ain't the end of the world. Anyway, serves you right for voting Labour, you tossers

Kerry said...

For a libertarian you're quite keen on telling people how to live their lives, aren't you?

Michael said...

OH can tell me how to live my life, I can reply with "Get tae f**k" if I want, it's up to me to decide, he cannot force his views on me.

You and the 645 on the other hand...

Old Holborn said...

Kerry, why should children in Africa starve to death whilst ours grow obese on welfare benefits?

Possible answers

1. Ours should starve to death as well.
2. We should send enough money to Africa so they have obese children as well.
3. People should take responsibility for their own lives. If you cannot feed your children, stop sitting under a tree all day, waving an AK47 at your four wives. If your children are fat, stop sitting on the sofa all day with your mouth open like a cuckoo waiting for the next benefit cheque to spend at KFC.
4. Do shut up OH. Nobody is listening to your inane rants

Choose 1

Kerry said...

4!

Anonymous said...

I'll have a number 4 please.

Old Holborn said...

Except they are listening Kerry.

At least I gave you the option, eh?

Now, about that Lisbon Treaty that was promised in the ZNL manifesto.....

John Pickworth said...

Kieron said...

The number you quoted is meaningless. Can you put it in a comparable form?

Its HUGE!

If a Trillion Pounds were the GDP of a country, it would qualify as the 13th richest nation (just behind India).

Its almost 12,000 times the number of £1 coins currently in circulation.

If there were enough £1 coins available; you'd need a colossal 10 million tonnes of them. Which is the approximate weight of 32 of the World's largest Supertankers.

Or you might attempt 385,000 Great Train Robberies? Although Acapulco might get a little crowded afterwards.

How about if on the day that Queen Victoria died you dragged £25 million Pounds in used notes off into the woods and burnt them; and then repeated the exercise EVERY day since? You'd still be two years short of destroying a Trillion Pounds.

Assuming the Government were able to pay back the Debt at a rate of £20 Billion a year, it wouldn't be repaid until the year 2060 (not including the huge interest payments meantime). Alternatively, you could close every school in the UK, sack all the teachers and maybe pay it back in less than 30 years.

Its 5 times the entire economy of Hong Kong.

Its 30 times the size of our Defence budget or approximately equal to the USA's massive defence spending.

If it were turned into £20 notes you'd need 2000 Securicor vans to move it.

In a generation or so £1trn won't be that much money.

You're right. Which is why the Government is going to have little choice but to let inflation rip... low inflation is the last thing you want when you have this kind of millstone around your neck. Unfortunately, it will also devalue everyone else's wealth too.

We really are in big trouble you know?