5 ms·

The UK is broke and in debt. The Prime minister and Chancellor spend their time going cap in hand to BlackRock and others begging for money. One spends money

by v5v3 1y ago

The UK is broke and in debt. The Prime minister and Chancellor spend their time going cap in hand to BlackRock and others begging for money. One spends money on speculative projects when they have money to spare.

tom_ 1y ago
Ahh, something approximating a substantive criticism! You should have put this in your first comment.
- tim333 1y ago
  It's not true apart from 'in debt' though.
  - v5v3 1y ago
    External debt by country https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_external_debt https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_externa... BlackRock as one example https://www.nasdaq.com/articles/blackrock-urges-uks-starmer-make-global-competition-easier-ft-says https://www.nasdaq.com/articles/blackrock-urges-uks-starmer-... UK stock market has failed https://www.fxstreet.com/analysis/are-uk-stock-markets-facing-an-existential-crisis-202506121908 https://www.fxstreet.com/analysis/are-uk-stock-markets-facin... Now 10th in world for gdp https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PP... Prisons declared full, shoplifting pseudo-legalised. I could go on and on. 40% of the worlds dirty money goes through UK. It's USP is now mainly money laundering https://www.standard.co.uk/news/world/dirty-money-laundering-london-uk-overseas-territories-b1158052.html https://www.standard.co.uk/news/world/dirty-money-laundering...
    - neepi 1y ago
      As someone who works on money in the UK this is why I work on money in the UK.
      - v5v3 1y ago
        A well known 'brain drain' occurs in London, where instead of doing other things like homegrown Startups, the finest minds are instead lured into banking. You could have created a unicorn company by now my friend, but instead you are writing python code in excel, or automating regulatory submissions and investor communications or something else similar.
        neepi 1y ago
        I consider my job to be a form of moral good: using up their budget so they don’t spend it on something nefarious. I don’t think they even know what I do.
        PaulHoule 1y ago
        Alternately London draws in people who know about bond trading and such from all over the world. It's the only financial center that holds a candle to NY and the great thing is that the time zones are just close enough it's reasonable to live in one city and work the financial markets in the other city.
        gsf_emergency_2 1y ago
        Let's see if Ilan, being thoroughly Berkeley-bred, will be able to fight the 2 predominant forms of (emergent, not emerging) akrasia in the UK: The (Edwardian) liberal, who tolerates The Grauniad, & the (neo/classical) liberal, who tolerates the FT
    - deleted 1y ago
      [deleted]
    - foldr 1y ago
      If you look at the debt as a percentage of GDP or percentage of total wealth (both columns in the table, but not the default sort order) then the UK isn’t an outlier. Singapore has more external debt, for example.
- v5v3 1y ago
  Watch the CCP spokesman give China's view of the UK. It is brutal https://x.com/LBC/status/1701292018037825571?t=WMi0Hys_vnYfj9QDTjj4Yw&s=19 https://x.com/LBC/status/1701292018037825571?t=WMi0Hys_vnYfj...
  - sgt101 1y ago
    Well, a Marxist Leninist analyses the global scene and concludes that communism is inevitable. We've been here before.
    - v5v3 1y ago
      He said that China and the world don't see the UK as a big player anymore. Which is true. UK has it's legacy advantages, UN permanent seat, nuclear weapons etc but the empire is long gone and it grows weaker by the year. After the war, Germany was at its lowest point and the UK squandered it's lead and fell below Germany. All of Europe + USA failed to bring Russia to it's knees no matter what they tried. The world is changing and in the new world order UK is slipping down the ladder.
      - sgt101 1y ago
        >He said that China and the world don't see the UK as a big player anymore. Which is true. So what? You can see people however you want, but you still have to live with them in your world and they have a vote on what happens next. This is what Russia discovered in Ukraine, and the USA in Iraq before it. China may want to boss everyone in the world, but it can't - it can't have everything it's own way and run the world as a Marxist Leninist 1984 style nightmare, we won't allow it. >UK has it's legacy advantages, UN permanent seat, nuclear weapons etc but the empire is long gone and it grows weaker by the year. Well after WW2 we had 270% GDP to debt ratio and the country was bombed into bits. British industry had retooled for a war economy and there was no capital to retool meaning that the fundamental disadvantages for industries like shipbuilding where British yards were located in the wrong places on the wrong rivers became sharply plagent. I grew up in the 1970's and there were still bomb sites in London and Portsmouth then. If that was a legacy then you can keep it. >After the war, Germany was at its lowest point and the UK squandered it's lead and fell below Germany. I agree, we should have kept Germany as an agrarian low population country so as to dominate continental europe... oh no, wait: I just realised! That would be both evil and stupid! Instead we should have Germany develop into a liberal democracy full of enlightened well educated Germans and make sure to be good friends with them so that we can work together in the world to shape it for the common good. >All of Europe + USA failed to bring Russia to it's knees no matter what they tried. Or we were trying the "Germany mark 2" move, but the Russians are so stupid that they invaded Ukraine and manged to ruin themselves for the rest of the 21st century? Time will tell. Perhaps ask the guys with no hands and faces begging on the Moscow underground what they think? >The world is changing and in the new world order UK is slipping down the ladder. For sure, but who cares? No one serious in the UK wants to be in charge of the world and frankly that's been the case since about 1919. What we want is to sit on our little island with our nice wind turbines and good internet and make interesting things while enjoying our gardens. I think that fundamentally that's what 99% of the worlds population would like to do but there's 1% playing "lets kill the XYZ" or "I am due the respect and tribute of the people of YZX" as if this was 1850 and no one has nuclear weapons.
brokencode 1y ago
This ARIA program’s budget is apparently only about 800 million pounds, which is a tiny fraction of UK’s overall budget of over a trillion pounds. These types of highly speculative projects are inherently risky, making them unappealing for profit-driven investors. That’s why it’s important for non-profit organizations and governments to fund them. Scientific breakthroughs don’t happen in a vacuum. They are the product of dedicated research requiring years of consistent funding.
- v5v3 1y ago
  Cumulative interest is a b*tch though, put that 800m into the debt. You say the UK has a budget of a trillion, but around 70% comes from consumer spending. As consumers have been hooked on debt and hit with annual increases in every indirect tax they can think of.
  - brokencode 1y ago
    I am not familiar with UK’s debt situation and am not disputing that they may need to balance the budget. But I don’t think the 0.08% line item for scientific research is where I’d start. Science is already deeply underfunded despite a disproportionately large impact on society in my opinion.
    - v5v3 1y ago
      It's not 0.08% in isolation, A further £20 billion a year was announced recently. https://www.gov.uk/government/news/government-backs-uk-rd-with-record-204-billion-investment-at-autumn-budget https://www.gov.uk/government/news/government-backs-uk-rd-wi...
      - brokencode 1y ago
        All I can say is that it’s really sad how politicized science has become. Oil company propaganda has really done a number on some people.
  - sealeck 1y ago
beej71 1y ago
Smart countries always spare money for speculative research.
CraigJPerry 1y ago
>> The UK is broke and in debt. This is nonsensical. Public debt is nothing like private debt, you can't apply prudent financial advice from the context of an individual to that of a currency issuer. The difference being that they are a currency issuer. The Bank of England is a great starting point: https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/explainers/how-is-money-created https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/explainers/how-is-money-crea... Key points: You can't save in a currency you issue. If a state issues its own fiat currency, it does not need to save in that currency because: - It cannot run out of its own currency. - It can always credit accounts via fiscal or monetary operations. - “Saving” in the conventional sense implies a constraint that doesn’t apply to sovereign issuers. Every single pound the UK gov spends, is a brand new pound that's never existed before - NB: it wasn't collected by tax. From the Bank of England: “The central bank can create money in the form of central bank reserves by lending to the banking sector… or by purchasing assets. This money is new—it did not exist before.” https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/-/media/boe/files/quarterly-bulletin/2014/money-creation-in-the-modern-economy https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/-/media/boe/files/quarterly-... - that is to say, government spending results in the creation of new money, rather than the recycling of pre-existing tax revenues. The limits to pay attention to are real resources in the economy, not money; you can have all the money in the world but if you can't procure steel then you simply can't build that bridge.
- v5v3 1y ago
  You clearly know zero about money. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2025/05/28/britain-no-more-capacity-borrow-starmer-costly-u-turns/ https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2025/05/28/britain-no-m...
  - pinoy420 1y ago
    [dead]
  - CraigJPerry 1y ago
    Low effort reply warrants a low effort response. My citations are a central bank, an authority (perhaps THE authority) on money. Your citation is a newspaper and therefore i haven't clicked it.
andrepd 1y ago
Why is it always "Blackrock" in these borderline economic-illiterate rants? My guess is just that people see "Blackrock 7.23%" or whatever on the stockholder list of every major company, and thus reduce that Blackrock = Elders of Sion or some shit.
- GHanku 1y ago
  [dead]
Yoric 1y ago
Do you really think governments should stop investing in the future?
gerdesj 1y ago
You clearly don't understand how country/nation finances work, especially when you have your own currency. It's not like a personal finance regime. "Fiat" means "let it be". All you have to do is make sure that everyone else believes you. That is also largely the basis behind a public offering for a company. Keep up!

by v5v3 1y ago

tom_ 1y ago

Ahh, something approximating a substantive criticism! You should have put this in your first comment.

tim333 1y ago
It's not true apart from 'in debt' though.
- v5v3 1y ago
  External debt by country https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_external_debt https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_externa... BlackRock as one example https://www.nasdaq.com/articles/blackrock-urges-uks-starmer-make-global-competition-easier-ft-says https://www.nasdaq.com/articles/blackrock-urges-uks-starmer-... UK stock market has failed https://www.fxstreet.com/analysis/are-uk-stock-markets-facing-an-existential-crisis-202506121908 https://www.fxstreet.com/analysis/are-uk-stock-markets-facin... Now 10th in world for gdp https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PP... Prisons declared full, shoplifting pseudo-legalised. I could go on and on. 40% of the worlds dirty money goes through UK. It's USP is now mainly money laundering https://www.standard.co.uk/news/world/dirty-money-laundering-london-uk-overseas-territories-b1158052.html https://www.standard.co.uk/news/world/dirty-money-laundering...
  - neepi 1y ago
    As someone who works on money in the UK this is why I work on money in the UK.
    - v5v3 1y ago
      A well known 'brain drain' occurs in London, where instead of doing other things like homegrown Startups, the finest minds are instead lured into banking. You could have created a unicorn company by now my friend, but instead you are writing python code in excel, or automating regulatory submissions and investor communications or something else similar.
      - neepi 1y ago
        I consider my job to be a form of moral good: using up their budget so they don’t spend it on something nefarious. I don’t think they even know what I do.
      - PaulHoule 1y ago
        Alternately London draws in people who know about bond trading and such from all over the world. It's the only financial center that holds a candle to NY and the great thing is that the time zones are just close enough it's reasonable to live in one city and work the financial markets in the other city.
        gsf_emergency_2 1y ago
        Let's see if Ilan, being thoroughly Berkeley-bred, will be able to fight the 2 predominant forms of (emergent, not emerging) akrasia in the UK: The (Edwardian) liberal, who tolerates The Grauniad, & the (neo/classical) liberal, who tolerates the FT
  - deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
  - foldr 1y ago
    If you look at the debt as a percentage of GDP or percentage of total wealth (both columns in the table, but not the default sort order) then the UK isn’t an outlier. Singapore has more external debt, for example.
v5v3 1y ago
Watch the CCP spokesman give China's view of the UK. It is brutal https://x.com/LBC/status/1701292018037825571?t=WMi0Hys_vnYfj9QDTjj4Yw&s=19 https://x.com/LBC/status/1701292018037825571?t=WMi0Hys_vnYfj...
- sgt101 1y ago
  Well, a Marxist Leninist analyses the global scene and concludes that communism is inevitable. We've been here before.
  - v5v3 1y ago
    He said that China and the world don't see the UK as a big player anymore. Which is true. UK has it's legacy advantages, UN permanent seat, nuclear weapons etc but the empire is long gone and it grows weaker by the year. After the war, Germany was at its lowest point and the UK squandered it's lead and fell below Germany. All of Europe + USA failed to bring Russia to it's knees no matter what they tried. The world is changing and in the new world order UK is slipping down the ladder.
    - sgt101 1y ago
      >He said that China and the world don't see the UK as a big player anymore. Which is true. So what? You can see people however you want, but you still have to live with them in your world and they have a vote on what happens next. This is what Russia discovered in Ukraine, and the USA in Iraq before it. China may want to boss everyone in the world, but it can't - it can't have everything it's own way and run the world as a Marxist Leninist 1984 style nightmare, we won't allow it. >UK has it's legacy advantages, UN permanent seat, nuclear weapons etc but the empire is long gone and it grows weaker by the year. Well after WW2 we had 270% GDP to debt ratio and the country was bombed into bits. British industry had retooled for a war economy and there was no capital to retool meaning that the fundamental disadvantages for industries like shipbuilding where British yards were located in the wrong places on the wrong rivers became sharply plagent. I grew up in the 1970's and there were still bomb sites in London and Portsmouth then. If that was a legacy then you can keep it. >After the war, Germany was at its lowest point and the UK squandered it's lead and fell below Germany. I agree, we should have kept Germany as an agrarian low population country so as to dominate continental europe... oh no, wait: I just realised! That would be both evil and stupid! Instead we should have Germany develop into a liberal democracy full of enlightened well educated Germans and make sure to be good friends with them so that we can work together in the world to shape it for the common good. >All of Europe + USA failed to bring Russia to it's knees no matter what they tried. Or we were trying the "Germany mark 2" move, but the Russians are so stupid that they invaded Ukraine and manged to ruin themselves for the rest of the 21st century? Time will tell. Perhaps ask the guys with no hands and faces begging on the Moscow underground what they think? >The world is changing and in the new world order UK is slipping down the ladder. For sure, but who cares? No one serious in the UK wants to be in charge of the world and frankly that's been the case since about 1919. What we want is to sit on our little island with our nice wind turbines and good internet and make interesting things while enjoying our gardens. I think that fundamentally that's what 99% of the worlds population would like to do but there's 1% playing "lets kill the XYZ" or "I am due the respect and tribute of the people of YZX" as if this was 1850 and no one has nuclear weapons.

brokencode 1y ago

This ARIA program’s budget is apparently only about 800 million pounds, which is a tiny fraction of UK’s overall budget of over a trillion pounds. These types of highly speculative projects are inherently risky, making them unappealing for profit-driven investors. That’s why it’s important for non-profit organizations and governments to fund them. Scientific breakthroughs don’t happen in a vacuum. They are the product of dedicated research requiring years of consistent funding.

v5v3 1y ago
Cumulative interest is a b*tch though, put that 800m into the debt. You say the UK has a budget of a trillion, but around 70% comes from consumer spending. As consumers have been hooked on debt and hit with annual increases in every indirect tax they can think of.
- brokencode 1y ago
  I am not familiar with UK’s debt situation and am not disputing that they may need to balance the budget. But I don’t think the 0.08% line item for scientific research is where I’d start. Science is already deeply underfunded despite a disproportionately large impact on society in my opinion.
  - v5v3 1y ago
    It's not 0.08% in isolation, A further £20 billion a year was announced recently. https://www.gov.uk/government/news/government-backs-uk-rd-with-record-204-billion-investment-at-autumn-budget https://www.gov.uk/government/news/government-backs-uk-rd-wi...
    - brokencode 1y ago
      All I can say is that it’s really sad how politicized science has become. Oil company propaganda has really done a number on some people.
- sealeck 1y ago

beej71 1y ago

Smart countries always spare money for speculative research.

CraigJPerry 1y ago

>> The UK is broke and in debt. This is nonsensical. Public debt is nothing like private debt, you can't apply prudent financial advice from the context of an individual to that of a currency issuer. The difference being that they are a currency issuer. The Bank of England is a great starting point: https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/explainers/how-is-money-created https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/explainers/how-is-money-crea... Key points: You can't save in a currency you issue. If a state issues its own fiat currency, it does not need to save in that currency because: - It cannot run out of its own currency. - It can always credit accounts via fiscal or monetary operations. - “Saving” in the conventional sense implies a constraint that doesn’t apply to sovereign issuers. Every single pound the UK gov spends, is a brand new pound that's never existed before - NB: it wasn't collected by tax. From the Bank of England: “The central bank can create money in the form of central bank reserves by lending to the banking sector… or by purchasing assets. This money is new—it did not exist before.” https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/-/media/boe/files/quarterly-bulletin/2014/money-creation-in-the-modern-economy https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/-/media/boe/files/quarterly-... - that is to say, government spending results in the creation of new money, rather than the recycling of pre-existing tax revenues. The limits to pay attention to are real resources in the economy, not money; you can have all the money in the world but if you can't procure steel then you simply can't build that bridge.

v5v3 1y ago
You clearly know zero about money. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2025/05/28/britain-no-more-capacity-borrow-starmer-costly-u-turns/ https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2025/05/28/britain-no-m...
- pinoy420 1y ago
  [dead]
- CraigJPerry 1y ago
  Low effort reply warrants a low effort response. My citations are a central bank, an authority (perhaps THE authority) on money. Your citation is a newspaper and therefore i haven't clicked it.

andrepd 1y ago

Why is it always "Blackrock" in these borderline economic-illiterate rants? My guess is just that people see "Blackrock 7.23%" or whatever on the stockholder list of every major company, and thus reduce that Blackrock = Elders of Sion or some shit.

GHanku 1y ago
[dead]

Yoric 1y ago

Do you really think governments should stop investing in the future?

gerdesj 1y ago

You clearly don't understand how country/nation finances work, especially when you have your own currency. It's not like a personal finance regime. "Fiat" means "let it be". All you have to do is make sure that everyone else believes you. That is also largely the basis behind a public offering for a company. Keep up!