No 67: All About Government Debt

IN MORNING A2 class today we covered the topic of government borrowing and debt. I showed a number of materials which we did not really have time to look at in detail.

1) Billion Pound o-gram

From the blog Information is Beautiful, this shows the size of the UK government budget deficit alongside other billion pound amounts so you get an idea of how big public sector borrowing has really been.

2) The UK National Debt Clock

This is a static image so it looks like the national debt has stopped growing. Sadly, the real UK national debt is increasing as each second passes. In 25 minutes during class today, it went up by £13,000,000. Click on this to get to the real clock:
http://www.debtbombshell.com/
Both scary yet funny (?!).....



3) Plans to reduce the budget deficit


Also from Information is Beautiful together with the Guardian, this shows the main political parties' plans so far to cut the deficit by reducing spending and raising taxes. Clearly, none of these plans will be enough. Equally clearly, we will have to wait until after the election to see the full range of measures taken by whoever forms the next government.

Enough to make you glad you aren't British, isn't it? (My Canadian nationality application has been started.....)