UK National Debt: A Historical Perspective - Martin Slater

The national debt in the UK is currently the highest it has ever been, and a lot larger than many other countries. Martin Slater (Emeritus Fellow in Economics at St Edmund Hall, University of Oxford) takes a look behind the figures, and asks why it is important, whether we should be worried, and investigates the reasons for its growth.

This is one in a series of short 'Teddy Talks' presented at St Edmund Hall's Research Expo in 2017.

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[waltermcphee]

He side stepped the fact that the current debt increase is not due to war but bailing out the banking sector.

[getmartincarter]

What this chap doesn’t mention is the part of national debt ‘ owned ‘ by the Bank of England. To understand my comments one needs to understand the structure of a balance sheet of the BOE .
The Bank of England was nationalised in 1947 and as such assets ( UK gilts ) are balanced, as are all balance sheets, by the BOE liabilities comprising shareholders equity owned by the UK Government . As the UK government owns the BOE is owns all the shares in the BOE and the gilts purchased . At the time of this comment, approximately one third of gilts are owned and appear on the BOE balance sheet as assets " if we deduct from the total national debt the gilts owned indirectly by the BOE then factor in the historically low interest rates paid on the non BOE gilts we get a less alarmist view

[uweinhamburg]

Thanks for bringing things into some perspective :)

[darcey]

Good video that raises an obvious and ignored question usually entirely missed by economists - why on earth do we have an economic system where we have outsourced money creation to private interests? Why is money not created as a national asset? This presentation inadvertently illustrates perfectly how our government has been bought throughout perpetuity.

[Rob-fxdw]

The graph at 5.20 is interesting because that is the time things were getting really awful in England. Since they were so awful in a an economic sense that my ancestors left England and migrated for that very reason - the generally bad economic conditions for most people !!

[unicorntelecoms]

"Push through this thing until the end" love it, so totally blinkered cant see wood for trees. What end sir?

[yttean]

What are the implications of private debts that is the crust of the matter? No explanations then what is the point of this talk incomplete....

[honorkemp]

yes good but what is the debt now and how will the US LOSING ITS RESERVE currency status and world slowdown effect us .You mention how we just inflate away our debt but that just means our savings are taken and currency buys less a hidden tax on the people, transfer of wealth to the central banks

[Rob-fxdw]

Interesting information but wrong in respect to one of the conclusions. The reality of government debt is it becomes entirely the burden of the private sector since there is nobody else to pay for it. Government does not pay it's own since it is only an abstract construct which is exempt from the tax and other obligations of the private sector. It must always be that way since taxes pay for the debt that government creates by spending more than it earns which is something that private sector institutions and people are forbidden by law to do and if they try they are sent to bankruptcy.

[ef]

Misguided view on this subject by an academic in my opinion me thinks....