UK government debt has risen above £2 trillion for the first time amid heavy spending on measures to support the economy amid the coronavirus pandemic.
Spending on measures such as the furlough scheme means the debt figure now equals the value of everything the UK produces in a year.
Total debt hit £2.004tn in July, £227.6bn more than last year, said the Office for National Statistics (ONS).
Economists warned the situation would worsen before improving.
It is the first time debt has been above 100% of gross domestic product (GDP) since the 1960-61 financial year, the ONS said.
That whirring noise you can hear is Mrs T…
I don’t really understand how governments can get away with such profligacy and indiscriminate borrowing. If you ran your personal finances that way you would end up living on the streets. Surely the economic chickens must come home to roost at some point. Then all those fools that were whining about austerity will actually get something to whine about.
GDP is not the sum of what is made.
Most of it comes from churning money in ever decreasing circles and counting every time it completes a circuit.
If I give you money, that increases the GDP.
Then at the end of the week when you give me back the money that also increases the GDP.
Of course the Government take a cut, which increases the GDP and pays its minnions which increases GDP again.
All this financial edifice stands on the shoulders of a few who actually produce somthing, or do something useful.
This long period of lockdown has shown us who these useful people are. The rest of us are just hangers on.
So, unless I’m mistaken, I make that almost £45m per fatality. The sheer size of these figures makes my eyes water.
I was trying to give someone an idea of what 1billion actually means.
If this fag packet is 1 million, that small office block is 1 billion.