Britians Trillion pound horror story

[denislawsbackheel]

A comparative table for 2007 leads me to ask so what?

Country Gross Expenditure as % of GDP
1. Iraq 87.3
2. Cuba 81.4
3. Slovakia 66.2
4. Timor 65.5
5. Romania 65.5
6. Moldova 63.4
7. France 61.1
8. Seychelles 60.3
9. Hungary 59.1
10. Guyana 58.8
11. Czech Republic 58.8
12. Sao Tome 58.3
13. Sweden 58.1
14. Denmark 58.1
15. Iceland 58.1
16. Malta 57.9
17. Qatar 57.2
18. Kuwait 56.1
19. Belgium 56.0
20. Norway 55.8
21. Uzbekistan 55.6
22. Colombia 55.3
23. Italy 55.3
24. Netherlands 54.7
25. Austria 54.3
26. Finland 54.2
27. Portugal 54.1
28. Lesotho 53.8
29. Libya 53.0
30. Belarus 52.9
31. Cyprus 52.6
32. Ukraine 52.1
33. Yemen 50.9
34. Greece 50.7
35. Brunei 50.5
36. Georgia 50.4
37. UK 50.0
38. Bosnia/Herzegovina 50.0
39. Bulgaria 49.9
40. Swaziland 49.9
41. Germany 48.8
42. Malawi 48.2
43. Canada 48.2
44. Latvia 47.7
45. Jordan 47.6
46. Egypt 47.5
47. Spain 47.3
48. Slovenia 47.1
49. Ghana 47.0
50. Croatia 46.8
51. New Zealand 46.6
52. Oman 46.5
53. Estonia 45.8
54. Zambia 45.4
55. Papua New Guinea 44.9
56. Angola 44.8
57. Namibia 44.2
58. Azerbaijan 43.9
59. Lithuania 43.9
60. Jamaica 43.9
61. Lebanon 43.7
62. Zimbabwe 43.7
63. Israel 43.6
64. Australia 43.6
65. West Bank/Gaza 43.4
66. Algeria 43.1
67. Uruguay 43.0
68. Serbia 42.8
69. Ireland 41.5
70. Venezuela 41.1
71. Saudi Arabia 40.4
72. Congo, Republic 39.2
73. Burundi 39.1
74. Turkey 39.1
75. Bahrain 38.6
76. Switzerland 37.8
77. Mozambique 37.7
78. Luxembourg 37.5
79. Kazakhstan 37.2
80. Vietnam 36.9
81. Rwanda 36.7
82. Trinidad/Tobago 36.3
83. Botswana 35.9
84. Macedonia 35.9
85. Syria 35.5
86. Peru 35.3
87. Cape Verde 34.4
88. Eritrea 34.1
89. South Africa 33.9
90. Kenya 33.6
91. Tajikistan 33.4
92. Mongolia 33.3
93. Indonesia 33.2
94. Malaysia 32.8
95. Gambia 32.4
96. Belize 32.1
97. Senegal 31.5
98. Bolivia 31.3
99. UAE 31.3
100. Kyrgyzstan 31.1
101. Dominican Rep. 31.0
102. Iran 31.0
103. Japan 30.9
104. Gabon 30.7
105. Morocco 30.7
106. Sri Lanka 29.5
107. South Korea 29.3
108. Chile 29.1
109. Madagascar 28.3
110. Panama 28.0
111. Pakistan 28.0
112. Albania 27.9
113. Burkina Faso 27.7
114. Uganda 27.6
115. Tunisia 27.4
116. Mexico 26.7
117. Paraguay 26.4
118. Nepal 26.3
119. Nicaragua 26.0
120. Ecuador 25.8
121. Honduras 25.6
122. Aruba 25.6
123. Togo 25.3
124. Benin 24.8
125. Tanzania 24.6
126. Nigeria 24.1
127. Equatorial Guinea 23.9
128. Sudan 23.3
129. Congo, Dem. Rep. of 22.9
130. Thailand 22.8
131. El Salvador 22.5
132. China 22.0
133. Ethiopia 21.8
134. British Virgin Islands 21.5
135. Cote d'Ivoire 21.4
136. Poland 21.2
137. Taiwan 21.2
138. Mauritius 21.2
139. Laos 21.0
140. Guinea 21.0
141. Russia 20.9
142. India 20.4
143. Chad 19.9
144. US 19.9
145. Cameroon 19.1
146. Argentina 19.1
147. Armenia 17.8
148. Philippines 17.7
149. Brazil 17.3
150. Hong Kong 17.0
151. Guatemala 16.7
152. CAR 16.6
153. Costa Rica 16.5
154. Haiti 16.4
155. Singapore 16.3
156. Bahamas 16.0
157. Cambodia 13.3
158. Bangladesh 12.8
159. Turkmenistan 9.6
160. Afghanistan 9.2

 

[leighton]

You think you have problems look accross the Irish Sea and you will see how shit our finances are. For a population of 4 million people to be billions and billions and billions in debt is crazy. With all the billions we borrowed we are still in the shit. Over a half a million people out of work with more to follow its going to get worst before it gets better.

 

[Skashion]

Fuck me, they even know about the Laffer curve. Whatever next?

I'm seriously confused by this documentary. They hold up Hong Kong as their example of laissez-faire, ok I'll go with it for a minute, but earlier on they argued that we need to expand the manufacturing sector. But we actually have a larger percentage of labour involved in industry than Hong Kong does already.

I also think there are several major flaws in this whole argument as well.

1. How many tax havens can the world really support? Can being a tax haven work as an economic model? For small countries with small populations, absofuckinglutely. We have several in Europe already, which we could never hope to compete with. Can it work with a largely populated already-developed country whose population have already attained high wages and a high standard of living? Maybe it's worth a try, maybe we can be guinea pigs, but the results would be far from inevitable as this fairytale would have you believe.

2. Following on from this, the documentary raised the point about certain former Soviet states following on from this model and achieving some success. What of Mother Russia herself? That transformation didn't go very well and most social indicators are still no better than they were in 1990. At the moment, you can't bribe Russians (quite literally - the Russian state gives you money to have more than one child) to have children. Quite aside from that, until energy prices boomed since the start of the last decade, Russia's economy had shrunk, not grown slowly, but actually shrunk, since the end of the Soviet Union.

3. It doesn't seem to take into account the explosion in growth that can occur when investment pours into a undeveloped country. I think the Soviet Union achieved the highest rate of growth ever. It went from being a backwards peasant country to one of two major world powers with the space of thirty years, and indeed the growth they managed later on was more than adequate until the 1980s. It ended eventually though. As it did in Japan whose growth exploded post-war following an entirely different pretty laissez-faire model of development.

 

[tueartsboots]

I liked the subtleness of the quote
"The taxman goes to Roger the Restaurant owner and taxes him £50"

 

[yerwot?]

I'm no tory-boy, but I don't believe in this nanny state we have created, leaving people to their own devices with less government interference would be much better. It encourages businesses to grow, creates jobs and wealth, along with tax returns to go with it. If we stop spunking money away (whilst taxing the productive parts of the economy into oblivion in the process) we would have greater resources to help people who really need it. Time to remove the comfort balanket, people will cope and adapt.[/quote]
india is a classic case of unfettered capitalism.like victorian england with curry.the hope that the rich will ease the burden on the poor has no basis in history and is not worth consideration.Struggling to think of a productive part that has been 'taxed into oblivion' but can think of plenty that have been mis-managed into receivership,and those that have been politically sabotaged.The 'comfort blanket' is the only thing holding back full-scale riots,we may be a third world country with a grotesquely wealthy tiny minority,and the majority struggling,but when enough realise they have nothing to lose then the student demo will seem like a tea-party.'The peasnts are revolting' you can see the mail headlines,'kill the bastards' in BM,. Early days yet though,phase two is still under wraps,
scrapping the minimum wage is a cert,the selling off of the lucrative bits of the NHS(car park charges for an example) is under way,just waiting for de-staffing and pension funds
to be sequestered and the fun will begin.Be a shame if it rains on City's parade though

 

[PJMCC1UK]

I didn't watch it but it sounds like Tory propaganda.

What, may I ask is wrong with the NHS being a big state run service? The NHS is something we should be proud of in Britain.

No one said there was a problem with it but the socialists and others make out like it is in some way untouchable. If it was that well run it would be the model for all other nations to aspire to. They don't because it is deeply flawed.
What the programme highlights is the amount of money that goes to it

And maybe you should watch it. It was a realist view of things. Private money pays for things. It's something that gets me about the last government how they couldn't realise that by upping public sector jobs we were spending more than we were getting back from those people in tax.

 

[yerwot?]

no-one ever said the NHS was well run,it is just a cash cow for big pharma,a haven for 'middle mis-management' a part-time job for consultants on foot-ball wages,in short a gold-mine for every-one but front-line staff.A huge part of the benefit bill goes to the private sector in outsourced services and rent.It isn't a left versus right clash,it's corruption on a vast scale,like parliament only bigger.Powerful lobby groups and over centralisation are up there with the banks in terms of damage to this country.