Quote Originally Posted by az city View Post
Oh come off it.

First, UK austerity is now widely acknowledged to have been a huge own goal and a bust (cf Joe Stiglitz).

This "amazement" at borrowing and debt levels is one of the standard rightwing tropes that emerges from time to time before they slam the poor with austerity claiming it's about controlling public finances. For context, the UK's current GDP is around 3T. In your language that's GBP 3,000,000M. Does 17,400M GBP now seem that big? I think not.

A few other things that seem missing in your picture. The UK economy is not (as Thathcer said) like a household. The National Debt never has to be repaid. That is a crass oft-peddled misunderstanding of the macroeconomy. Debt has to be serviced sustainably to maintain confidence in the currency but the debt can revolve forever. Effectively it means the UK has to cover its interest payments so the ROW is confident it will continue to do so and carry on buying its debt instruments.
Your'e right about the Nat. Debt never having to be repaid, but BC [before Covid], any Govt. would have made a fair effort at keeping a lid on it and also the balance of payments. I think the overall debt liability for the Govt. is closer to £6T when pensions etc are taken into consideration. The problem facing this or any other Govt. is falling tax revenues, exponential future increases in care, health etc., and the need to increase interest rates to curb inflation, but unable to do so. The 'West' has seen standard of living growth year each decade for 100's of years, excepting recession/war. I think that's as good as over.