Friday, December 26, 2008

Britain Has Binged On Debt

By Abbi Rouse

Reform claims that Britain's economy has become bloated over the past few years due to Brits bingeing on debt and failing to work off the excess.

The independant think tank reports that Britains trade deficit is continuing to burgeon, while public spending programmes are based on out-of-date and over-optimistic forecasts for gross domestic product (GDP) growth. The tendency to rely on cheap credit cards and cheap loans to support spending habits has produced an economy that is unfit and working inefficiently. The group also pointed out that it is not just consumer borrowing that has caused the countrys coffers to become corpulent with debt, as the public structural budget deficit has become the fourth highest of all countries in the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development.

It warned that in the coming years, the average taxpaying family will pay around 4,000 pounds to rebalance the national debt, equivalent to 100 billion pounds in tax contributions every year. So too, it noted that this tax increase - amounting to 6.6 per cent of GDP - does not take into account the additional burden which will be borne by further fiscal stimulation packages.

Reform warned, cutting public expenditure on vital long-term development programmes is equally ill-advised, as it claimed that as recent history has shown, cuts in spending will inevitably lead to increased investment a few years down the line. Ahead of the pre-Budget report, which will be announced by Alistair Darling on Monday 24th November, So too, it warned that simply injecting more public money into the banking industry will have little lasting effect on the state of the countrys economy.

Rather, the group insisted that there is only one course of action that will relieve the strain of the national debt: "In order to move beyond the obese economy, Britain has to consume less and work more. Households need a sense of direction towards a higher saving, lower tax economy. The short-term objective is the same as the long-term path to economic growth - to increase productivity. This should be the theme of the Pre-Budget Report and of Budget 2009."

In addition, the group called on the chancellor to focus on the main key objectives: private sector productivity, public sector reform and personal productivity.

On the last note, the group insisted that individuals will be vital to economic recovery and as such, the government must provide support for people to help them to stop relying on personal loans and other forms of credit and start spending their own money.

The independent financial advice site Motley Fool, warned that millions of Britons are unprepared for a recession. For those affected by the recent economic storm, taking a debt consolidation loan could prove to be an effective way to sort out those finances. Motley Fool stated that the number of people in need of a debt consolidation loan may increase over the coming months. - 16759

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