Jump to content

The Referendum Thread


Lanarkshire_Bud

Scottish Independence Referendum  

286 members have voted

You do not have permission to vote in this poll, or see the poll results. Please sign in or register to vote in this poll.

Recommended Posts

Can you explain that bit?

By and large government bonds or ,what I prefer to call them is gilts because I'm an old fashioned bugger. The UK government has never defaulted on its gilts apart from a controversial cut on the coupon of war bonds in the early 30's. The certificates used to have a gilt border in the early days to signify that they were as good as gold. Pension funds use a huge amount of gilts. Once a pension is in payment, you can't tell your clients sorry, had a bad run on the stock market recently so can't pay you this year. The guarantee inherent in gilts make them very attractive.

Link to comment
Share on other sites


So you're talking about premium bonds (of ERNIE fame), am I correct? If so, was that saying that most of the Government's debt is due to these? It is really the phrase "public debt" that I don't get. It said most of the Government's public debt is owed to its citizens, is the public debt the whole debt or a % of the debt. It looks to me (I'm a bit of a sceptical git) that putting the word "public" in there is trying to hide something.

No, Ernie counts but not massively. Gilts are bought in huge chunks very regularly. Premium bonds is a form of public borrowing but I'm fairly sure it's not a particularly high percentage. There is some external borrowing but I have no idea what %age of the total borrowing that constitutes. It has always been accepted by all the main parties that it is not high. I imagine the figures are available but offhand I don't know. Someone will come up with it now I imagine. Public debt really just means the whole damned lot including the likes of council debt and so on.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Guest TPAFKATS

I see East Sussex council are running their annual 5th November event in Lewes. This year the burning effigy will be Alex Salmond complete with Nessie & 45% motif.

Can we safely assume the love bombing is over then?

Edited by TPAFKATS
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I see East Sussex council are running their annual 5th November event in Lewes. This year the burning effigy will be Alex Salmond complete with Nessie & 45% motif.

Can we safely assume the love bombing is over then?

Lewes is classic middle england. In 2012 they had angela merkel doing a nazi salute.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Thick one , you obviously ignored it further back. Still you completely ignore the rise in national debt the hostility your blue private educated party will bring to the poorest in our society. Nor run on Thick One.

i haven't commented on the debt whatsoever, never mind ignored it

i ain't going to engage in a debate about the debt with a guy who doesn't know the difference between the debt and the deficit. :1eye

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Right, let's see if I've got this now.

Bonds/Gilts are basically IOUs given by the Government for investments (in the UK as opposed to a company) by individuals/pensions/etc that give the investor a lower, but more "secure", return over a pre-defined period.

Most of the Government debt is Bonds/Gilts.

Is that right?

If it is, then why are people always going on about all the AAA credit ratings for borrowing on the international money markets and why would losing this rating affect things when the Government aren't (apparently) borrowing much (in the grand scheme of things) from the international money markets? Or, when that person said "most" were they talking about just over 50% or thereabouts?

Anyone can buy gilts and a lot of private investors do. When there's a bear market gilts become more attractive and again the inherent guarantee comes into it. On the medium to long term equity investment usually provides greater returns but investors have to decide how much risk they are prepared to accept. The other thing I haven't mentioned is Capital Gains Tax. Gilts held for over a year are free of CGT and this is attractive to institutional investors. Equity gain is taxable. For donkey's years pension funds were exempt from CGT on gains but the great socialist chancellor Gordon Brown removed it in the 1997 budget. The faculty of actuaries reckoned pension funds would lose about £100b. Brown countered that the Labour government were doing so well with the economy that better equity returns would more than compensate. Everybody and their granny knew that was utter shite. Worked out well, didn't it?

So far as the AAA rating is concerned, the decision by Moody's last year to reduce the UK's rating doesn't appear to have made any difference. The UK government can still sell their gilts. Moody's in my view should be apologising to Osborne because their reason for the downrating was largely put down to the poor economic outlook for the UK. Worked out well didn't it? The economy has done so well Europe wants a share. Remember too Moody's and Standard & Poor's sat on their arses doing zilch as Freddie and Fannie rode off into the sunset and American banks raped the world. With some help admittedly from Fred Shred.

It's hard to know how much of the UK's debt is abroad. Something like 25% of gilts used to be in the US and it might still be around that figure. But the debt isn't all gilts. Technically if Paisley still had a Toon Cooncil and it's putting green had an overdraft of £!k, that counts in the national debt.

The more or less universally held view is that the bulk of the national debt is owed to ourselves and I've never heard it seriously disputed. As long as interest is being paid it is under control and of course that's why worldwide interest rates in developed countries are so low. A worrying feature is that inflation can help the problem with national debt but of course inflation introduces other difficulties into the equation.

That's about as much as I can offer. I was only on the periphery of the investment world but a pension fund of say £100m. had to be invested in everything from gilts, equities, property and cash mainly in the UK but also using unit trusts and the like for overseas investment. It did provide an idea of the problems any chancellor faces in trying to balance the books.

Reynard has been quiet. Wonder what he thinks?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Anyone can buy gilts and a lot of private investors do. When there's a bear market gilts become more attractive and again the inherent guarantee comes into it. On the medium to long term equity investment usually provides greater returns but investors have to decide how much risk they are prepared to accept. The other thing I haven't mentioned is Capital Gains Tax. Gilts held for over a year are free of CGT and this is attractive to institutional investors. Equity gain is taxable. For donkey's years pension funds were exempt from CGT on gains but the great socialist chancellor Gordon Brown removed it in the 1997 budget. The faculty of actuaries reckoned pension funds would lose about £100b. Brown countered that the Labour government were doing so well with the economy that better equity returns would more than compensate. Everybody and their granny knew that was utter shite. Worked out well, didn't it?

So far as the AAA rating is concerned, the decision by Moody's last year to reduce the UK's rating doesn't appear to have made any difference. The UK government can still sell their gilts. Moody's in my view should be apologising to Osborne because their reason for the downrating was largely put down to the poor economic outlook for the UK. Worked out well didn't it? The economy has done so well Europe wants a share. Remember too Moody's and Standard & Poor's sat on their arses doing zilch as Freddie and Fannie rode off into the sunset and American banks raped the world. With some help admittedly from Fred Shred.

It's hard to know how much of the UK's debt is abroad. Something like 25% of gilts used to be in the US and it might still be around that figure. But the debt isn't all gilts. Technically if Paisley still had a Toon Cooncil and it's putting green had an overdraft of £!k, that counts in the national debt.

The more or less universally held view is that the bulk of the national debt is owed to ourselves and I've never heard it seriously disputed. As long as interest is being paid it is under control and of course that's why worldwide interest rates in developed countries are so low. A worrying feature is that inflation can help the problem with national debt but of course inflation introduces other difficulties into the equation.

That's about as much as I can offer. I was only on the periphery of the investment world but a pension fund of say £100m. had to be invested in everything from gilts, equities, property and cash mainly in the UK but also using unit trusts and the like for overseas investment. It did provide an idea of the problems any chancellor faces in trying to balance the books.

Reynard has been quiet. Wonder what he thinks?

Rick, that's a good explanation without over complicating it. The structure of the UK debt is a bit more complex - as Jim Sillars tried to explain in the run up to the referendum. In recent years the UK Treasury took to a policy of "Quantitative Easing" which protected us from burgeoning inflation by having the Bank Of England buy up UK Government issued bonds and gilts. In effect it's debt owed to the Treasury by the Treasury.

There's a number of other things that some on this forum fail to grasp when it comes to the National Debt figure. One of the most glaring omissions is that because the UK enjoys a reasonably good credit rating and because we are seen as one of the more secure places for investors to invest we are able to sell our government issued bonds offering a reasonably low rate of return, we are then able to use the money raised from the sale of those bonds to buy gilts and bonds in other countries and get a higher rate of return. We saw this being used particularly in the bail out of the Irish economy after the Allied Irish Bank collapse. I can't remember what the exact percentage rate figures were but they were reported in the media, particularly on the BBC by the likes of Robert Peston at the time. In effect though we have done what banks generally do in that we've borrowed money at a low rate and then lent it out at a higher rate to make a profit.

Another factor that is never mentioned is that the UK Government also owns a large number of assets, the value of which have never been factored into the National Debt calculation. For example in England alone there are 168 NHS Trusts - all of which operate at least one hospital and some of which operate several. These are government owned assets of indeterminate value, however if we were to scrap the NHS and create a market for the private sector to move into hospital care those existing buildings would obviously become much more valuable as competing private care providers bid for these buildings for their local operations. The same is also true of our schools, many of our universities and colleges, and then there's government owned offices, public buildings like town halls, sports centres, golf courses, bowling greens, football pitches and even UK embassies in foreign countries. We also own a large shareholding in some of the worlds largest banks - like Lloyds and RBS - and we completely own many nationalised industries that still operate under public ownership. When you factor in the value of all of those assets and balance them against our National Debt we are nowhere near being bankrupt.

Edited by Stuart Dickson
Link to comment
Share on other sites

On this specific subject, I don't. That's why I was asking. Was that too subtle for you to understand? Can you explain it to me then, without referring to Rick's post, that is? No? You can't? Thought not.

You know, no matter what nom de plume you use, you still show yourself up as being almost totally illiterate and still utterly useless at this trolling lark.

You can refer to me any way you like, your last alias had a pet name for me too - I didn't give a f**k then either. No matter what you call yourself, I'll just refer to you as "The Useless Troll" or something similar. bye1.gif

:lol:

looks like ive touched a raw nerve with Ernie! :lol:

to not know how government debt is funded disqualifies you from any discussion on economics or politics

to think that its mainly funded by premium bonds shows what a fu cking idiot you are

pointing and laughing at you Ernie :lol:

Link to comment
Share on other sites

And, guess what, you're still no good at it.

You should know it's time to give up when it's only Dorothy that likes your posts.

EDIT: Answer Tony's question then, if you're so knowledgeable about this. No? Thought not.

why would i waste my time?

I'm quite sure tony and you are capable of using google...

then again considering that neither of you are aware of something so basic as government debt... Maybe not

:1eye

Link to comment
Share on other sites

:lol:

looks like ive touched a raw nerve with Ernie! :lol:

to not know how government debt is funded disqualifies you from any discussion on economics or politics

to think that its mainly funded by premium bonds shows what a fu cking idiot you are

pointing and laughing at you Ernie :lol:

why would i waste my time?

I'm quite sure tony and you are capable of using google...

then again considering that neither of you are aware of something so basic as government debt... Maybe not

:1eye

certainly not someone who wonders why we pay interest to ourselves :lol:

Oh, ffs Mods, can't we lose the troll for ever? Please? For everyone's sanity? Except the troll's, obviously, even the Jehovah's Witnesses don't think he can be saved.......

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Oh, ffs Mods, can't we lose the troll for ever? Please? For everyone's sanity? Except the troll's, obviously, even the Jehovah's Witnesses don't think he can be saved.......

It's always the same when the Nationalists get shown up for the dafties they are. They complain to someone in authority and want everything banned. The act of party members of an authoritarian party who would have Scotland run as a dictatorship with concentration camps and re-education establishments for those who dared to criticise any of their policies.

It was the same down in Lewes earlier this week when the Natsi's supposidly complained bitterly that one of their community groups wanted to burn a politician as their effigy just weeks after some of their idiot supporters were filming themselves burning Union Flags. rolleyes.gif

Edited by Stuart Dickson
Link to comment
Share on other sites

And the third imbecile joins the fray to complete the set.

Yeah. Everybody, just relax.

But alternatively you could spend every daylight hour trying to make juvenile bets with people who have no respect for you whatsoever, or if all else fails stalk professional footballers on twitter.

That would make you a sad c**t of the highest order.whistling.gif

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Talk about seething :lol:

Relax, it's just the internet.

f**k off thicko, the grownups are conversing.

Same thing applies. In a completely calm, measured and far from seething (© P&B ) manner. Edited by salmonbuddie
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

Loading...
×
×
  • Create New...