Shocking Video Shows UK is Facing Catastrophe!

creeper1

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UdyQd6Xks7A

Very important points to consider

- UK is only at the tip of an iceberg of economic disaster. They say the are experiencing a recession right now. They aint seen nothing yet!;)

- the debt is unpayable. They have racked up UNIMAGINABLE debts with breathtaking irresponsibity. At 3.30 in the video most Brits blood should run cold!

- Almost no other country has such crushing debts.

- 4.50 in the video make clear the massive scale of the problem.

- Over generous welfare state has absolutely bankrupted the country.

- The civil service was much smaller when the UK ruled it's empire which at it's height covered a quater of the globe or some such figure.

It's unbelievable the state they have gotten themselves in to. I believe there could be a tidal wave of economic refugees here.

We need to do something to firewall ourselves off from this disaster.

Here are some ideas of mine

- perhaps consider limiting how many Brits can live Ireland and limit any welfare payments they may be entitled to.

-encourage trade with the EU and Asia and reduce economic ties with the UK.

Frank Black

creeper1 wrote: »

Here are some ideas of mine

- perhaps consider limiting how many Brits can live Ireland and limit any welfare payments they may be entitled to.

-encourage trade with the EU and Asia and reduce economic ties with the UK.

Given that idea 1 would involve leaving the EU, which would pretty much scupper idea 2 - I'd suggest you need to think your ideas through a bit more.

Jawgap

Shocking Video Shows UK is Facing Catastrophe!

Clicked on it expecting to see a giant meteorite heading for London or Godzilla snacking on the Thames Barrier.

I'm not saying they don't have problems but that's a very over-hyped piece. the truth is no one really knows what's going to happen.

As for the idea that we should "perhaps consider limiting how many Brits can live Ireland and limit any welfare payments they may be entitled to." That conveniently forgets the generations of Irish who benefited from the British system without any qualifying criteria applying - it wouldn't be a very neighbourly thing to do, imo.

Scofflaw

creeper1 wrote: »

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UdyQd6Xks7A

Very important points to consider

- UK is only at the tip of an iceberg of economic disaster. They say the are experiencing a recession right now. They aint seen nothing yet!;)

- the debt is unpayable. They have racked up UNIMAGINABLE debts with breathtaking irresponsibity. At 3.30 in the video most Brits blood should run cold!

- Almost no other country has such crushing debts.

- 4.50 in the video make clear the massive scale of the problem.

- Over generous welfare state has absolutely bankrupted the country.

- The civil service was much smaller when the UK ruled it's empire which at it's height covered a quater of the globe or some such figure.

It's unbelievable the state they have gotten themselves in to. I believe there could be a tidal wave of economic refugees here.

We need to do something to firewall ourselves off from this disaster.

Here are some ideas of mine

- perhaps consider limiting how many Brits can live Ireland and limit any welfare payments they may be entitled to.

-encourage trade with the EU and Asia and reduce economic ties with the UK.

I rather doubt we'd suffer a tidal wave of economic refugees, given that one of the few nations with more "total debt" than the UK is Ireland.

But these "total debt" figures are of questionable relevance, to be honest, as is the supposed "pensions timebomb". First, and most obviously, I doubt those figures are external debt, which means that a large chunk of the so-called "UK debt position" is actually owed within the UK, making the UK both the debtor and the creditor.

Second, the "pensions timebomb" can be defused by reference to exactly the same change that has made it such an issue - that people live longer healthier lives. So the pensions age will go up, because a modern 65-year old is in no sense too decrepit for most modern work. I'm not saying that will be politically smooth sailing, but it has to happen, so it will happen.

cordially,
Scofflaw

creeper1

The fact of the matter is that their whole economy is based on low interest rates and cheap money.

When the bond market wakes up to what a disaster the UK economy is then we will see those rates climb the same way the climbed for Greece.

And that can happen overnight and very fast;)

How on earth can they survive with interest rates with even a one percent rise?:rolleyes:

The question is can the BOE keep rates down?

We could see the trashing of sterling, failures of banks and social instability.

Also we will see a humiliating IMF bailout. I don't see the EU being too bothered about them since them since they aren't in the euro.

They are an absolute disaster.

NIMAN

I think us Irish in glass houses .....

Mr.Micro

creeper1 wrote: »

- perhaps consider limiting how many Brits can live Ireland and limit any welfare payments they may be entitled to.

I suppose the UK would do the same with all the Irish old and young resident in there? You can't have it both ways. We took from the EU now we put up with all that is good and bad..... that's the deal.

We Irish could teach others about money, excess, debt, lol..... we can hardly preach to others

creeper1

We can't preach but, being in the Euro, we have strong countries in the core standing behind our banking system.

UK = Argentina

gaius c

Economic refugees coming to Ireland?

Interesting concept...

bumper234

creeper1 wrote: »

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UdyQd6Xks7A

Very important points to consider

- UK is only at the tip of an iceberg of economic disaster. They say the are experiencing a recession right now. They aint seen nothing yet!;)

- the debt is unpayable. They have racked up UNIMAGINABLE debts with breathtaking irresponsibity. At 3.30 in the video most Brits blood should run cold!

- Almost no other country has such crushing debts.

- 4.50 in the video make clear the massive scale of the problem.

- Over generous welfare state has absolutely bankrupted the country.

- The civil service was much smaller when the UK ruled it's empire which at it's height covered a quater of the globe or some such figure.

It's unbelievable the state they have gotten themselves in to. I believe there could be a tidal wave of economic refugees here.

We need to do something to firewall ourselves off from this disaster.

Here are some ideas of mine

- perhaps consider limiting how many Brits can live Ireland and limit any welfare payments they may be entitled to.

-encourage trade with the EU and Asia and reduce economic ties with the UK.

Are you for real?

Even IF (and it's a big if) these "predictions" came true do you really think Ireland would be the first port of call for "economic refugees"? Also if the UK right now said we are only going to let xxx amount of Irish into the country and limit their welfare payments you would be screaming from the rooftops about how unfair that is.:rolleyes:

SupaNova2

Nice quote from the movie linked:

"We used to think that you could spend your way out of a recession and increase employment by cutting taxes and boosting government spending. I tell you in all candour that that option no longer exists, and in so far as it ever did exist, it only worked on each occasion since the war by injecting a bigger dose of inflation into the economy, followed by a higher level of unemployment as the next step. " - Jim Callaghan

Voltex

Scofflaw wrote: »

I rather doubt we'd suffer a tidal wave of economic refugees, given that one of the few nations with more "total debt" than the UK is Ireland.

But these "total debt" figures are of questionable relevance, to be honest, as is the supposed "pensions timebomb". First, and most obviously, I doubt those figures are external debt, which means that a large chunk of the so-called "UK debt position" is actually owed within the UK, making the UK both the debtor and the creditor.

Second, the "pensions timebomb" can be defused by reference to exactly the same change that has made it such an issue - that people live longer healthier lives. So the pensions age will go up, because a modern 65-year old is in no sense too decrepit for most modern work. I'm not saying that will be politically smooth sailing, but it has to happen, so it will happen.

cordially,
Scofflaw

Ive seen these sorts of figures bandied about before. Take Ireland for instance...private household debt is about €100 billion..on its own looks shocking...but what are the underlying assets valued at??..in the case of Ireland the €100billion of private household debt is financing assets worth €400billion.

Sea Sharp

I think what all these doomsday economic predictions are missing is that everybody is in the same boat.

No investors are going to say "OMgz, UK has 800% gpd debt, lets take our money out of there are put it in another country that only has 750% gdp debt".

They're not relatively that much worse off than everybody else so as to trigger some sort of export/run of investment.

I think Argentina was that much worse off than everybody else when their economy nose dived around a decade ago.

donegal_road

creeper1 wrote: »

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UdyQd6Xks7A

Very important points to consider

- UK is only at the tip of an iceberg of economic disaster. They say the are experiencing a recession right now. They aint seen nothing yet!;)

- the debt is unpayable. They have racked up UNIMAGINABLE debts with breathtaking irresponsibity. At 3.30 in the video most Brits blood should run cold!

- Almost no other country has such crushing debts.

- 4.50 in the video make clear the massive scale of the problem.

- Over generous welfare state has absolutely bankrupted the country.

- The civil service was much smaller when the UK ruled it's empire which at it's height covered a quater of the globe or some such figure.

It's unbelievable the state they have gotten themselves in to. I believe there could be a tidal wave of economic refugees here.

We need to do something to firewall ourselves off from this disaster.

Here are some ideas of mine

- perhaps consider limiting how many Brits can live Ireland and limit any welfare payments they may be entitled to.

-encourage trade with the EU and Asia and reduce economic ties with the UK.

Interesting that the film mentions that the only countries with more debt than the UK, are Japan and Ireland.

creeper1

The idea that Ireland limit welfare payments and economic refugees is, ofcourse, based on the assumption that they leave the EU voluntarily or are kicked out.

The Corinthian

Just watched the video over lunch and enjoyed it (how sad is that?).

However, it should be noted - even if one presumes the facts they present are all correct - that whenever they make any predictions, whenever they extrapolate from these facts to predict what will happen the video consistently presumes that 'worst case scenario' will always occur.

For example, repeatedly we're told that the only thing holding disaster at bay is that interest rates are at the lowest point they've been in a long time. It then goes to say that they will inevitably increase.

Now eventually they will increase, but there's actually no reason to presume that they have nowhere else to go in the meantime and eventually can be a very long time; they can remain at current levels or even decrease in reality. If you look at Japan, which has been stagnating now since the nineties, they've stayed pretty much the same (brief spikes aside), during this recessionary period - indeed, with the exception of the seventies stagflation era, interest rates and inflation tend to decrease during recessions.

So while the 'meltdown' scenario presented is a perfectly rational one, it is a worst case scenario and by no means the only one.

Why are they presenting it like this? Because, as you realize three quarters into the video, the whole thing is ultimately a sales tool for their magazine - "subscribe to us and we'll tell you have to avoid the apocalypse".

Overall, I would not dismiss the message in this video. Nonetheless, neither will I treat it as an gospel either. It is one possible scenario and how likely it is to come to pass, is not really examined, just assumed throughout.

donegal_road

not meaning to knock the thread off topic, the US could also be facing catastrophe, I was reading this last week

For some perspective on just how big the Federal Reserve's $192 billion unrealized Treasury bond losses are consider this: the largest loss in U.S. corporate history was $61.7 billion by AIG in 2009.

SupaNova2

From the article:

This could have a serious domino effect. It could paralyze the Fed’s ability to defend the dollar’s purchasing power, causing Treasury prices (NYSEARCA:TLT) to fall further and thereby push interest rates even higher.

The Fed despite what they say were and are never going to be able to sell all those bonds they mopped up with QE. The only option is more QE.

SupaNova2

Scofflaw wrote: »

But these "total debt" figures are of questionable relevance, to be honest, as is the supposed "pensions timebomb". First, and most obviously, I doubt those figures are external debt, which means that a large chunk of the so-called "UK debt position" is actually owed within the UK, making the UK both the debtor and the creditor.

Why do you think debt owed within the UK is less relevant?

nesf

SupaNova2 wrote: »

Why do you think debt owed within the UK is less relevant?

They're "bought-in." An external creditor can call your bluff, or demand harsh measures to get their pound of flesh, they don't need to necessarily worry about the long term or medium term results of this for the country. This isn't the case for internal lenders, they're stuck in the country after its paid its debts to them, so they're going to oppose risking killing the goose that lays the golden eggs etc.

SupaNova2

nesf wrote: »

They're "bought-in." An external creditor can call your bluff, or demand harsh measures to get their pound of flesh, they don't need to necessarily worry about the long term or medium term results of this for the country. This isn't the case for internal lenders, they're stuck in the country after its paid its debts to them, so they're going to oppose risking killing the goose that lays the golden eggs etc.

Large internal lenders might not demand the pound of flesh as vigorously, but large internal debt is only slightly less dire so I don't get why its a case of "oh its internal, nothing to see here". That internal debt is held in large by pension funds making it very relative to the pension time bomb which is what the video is warning about.

nesf

SupaNova2 wrote: »

Large internal lenders might not demand the pound of flesh as vigorously, but large internal debt is only slightly less dire so I don't get why its a case of "oh its internal, nothing to see here". That internal debt is held in large by pension funds making it very relative to the pension time bomb which is what the video is warning about.

No one is arguing that internal debt can just be ignored. It's just not as problematic as external debt is for countries when there is some uncertainty (real or imagined) about their ability to pay. Not as problematic not meaning not problematic etc.

SupaNova2

nesf wrote: »

No one is arguing that internal debt can just be ignored.

I never used the word ignored, I asked why Scofflaw thought it was less relevant, as chances are he was repeating the "we owe to ourselves, little to see here" line parroted by nobel prize winning fools who dismiss its relevance.

Originally Posted by Scofflaw
But these "total debt" figures are of questionable relevance, to be honest, as is the supposed "pensions timebomb". First, and most obviously, I doubt those figures are external debt, which means that a large chunk of the so-called "UK debt position" is actually owed within the UK, making the UK both the debtor and the creditor.

Originally Posted by Krugman

People think of debt’s role in the economy as if it were the same as what debt means for an individual: there’s a lot of money you have to pay to someone else. But that’s all wrong; the debt we create is basically money we owe to ourselves, and the burden it imposes does not involve a real transfer of resources.

gallag

An irish person worrying about economic migrants because of the UK debt levels, you could not make this up lol.