Overseas aid budget

[joe-90]

Should we really have an overseas aid budget ring-fenced by this government? It's around £9.1 billion - from a country that's £900 billion in debt. We borrow huge amounts of cash from China - and guess what we do with it?


"A shakeup of Britain's £9.1bn overseas aid budget would be launched by a Conservative government to cut funding to more prosperous developing nations, notably China, and boost it to the poorest, especially those in the Commonwealth."

"But the Tories make clear that they would adopt a different approach to Labour by cutting the £50m annual aid grant to China and targeting resources on poorer countries in the Commonwealth."


WTF are we paying China for? Or anybody else if it comes to that. We have nearly a trillion dollars of government debt.

 

[oompah]

We have nearly a trillion dollars of government debt.

Nearly, is the operative word,they are going to make it a trillion.

 

[joe-90]

if they can't stop the debt from rising - how are we ever going to pay it off?

They intend to make just 6 billion in cuts and borrow another 150 billion.

Madness. Cut up the credit card - NOW!

 

[oompah]

But who do we owe it to,and what happens if we don't pay it back, is there a mysterious benefactor,The Bilderberg group ,The Illuminatti, Knights Templar?

 

[Lincsbodger]

But who do we owe it to,and what happens if we don't pay it back, is there a mysterious benefactor,The Bilderberg group ,The Illuminatti, Knights Templar?

1. we owe it to the people and organisations who lend money, or bought bonds, thousands of them all over the world - hedge funds, tax havens, investment banks, merchant banks, credit companies..........

2. if we dont pay it back a) we go bankrupt as a country, like germany did after WW2, and b) no one would lend the government any money ever again, or only at staggeringly high interest rates.

 

[Whitespirit66]

WTF are we paying China for? Or anybody else if it comes to that. We have nearly a trillion dollars of government debt.

We shouldn't be spending one single penny on foreign aid.

Two examples of the madness;

1) Over the last 3 years, we have given India £275 million in foreign aid. Over the same period, they were busy buying arms from Russia, and also employing them to build new nuclear power stations. So our foreign aid is indirectly helping the Russian economy??? WTF!

2) A British teacher working in Uganda started to ask why foreign aid was not getting through to feed the children in his area. He then started investigating the use and distribution of British foreign aid within Uganda as a whole, even approaching Ugandan government ministers. Very soon, he was expelled from Uganda.

Just remember the old saying - 'Foreign aid means taking money from the poor people of a rich country, and giving it to the rich people of a poor country'.

 

[Thermo]

why do you think we do foreign aid joe? Despite what anyone may say its not out of the goodness of any governments heart. Its a form of advertising pure and simple. Its diplomacy. Look mr minister weve invested some money last year to help your economy get going, remember? Thats right just sign here to give us this contract to build the new factories youll need to step up to the next level.

 

[Nige F]

if they can't stop the debt from rising - how are we ever going to pay it off?

They intend to make just 6 billion in cuts and borrow another 150 billion.

Madness. Cut up the credit card - NOW!

30 years too late for me and the Mrs. - We never used them I don`t give a monkey`s about the " National" debt . I never bought shares or borrowed more than I could repay. Thatcher sowed - now the co-hell ition can reap.

 

[joinerjohn]

Thatcher sowed - now the co-hell ition can reap.

How on earth can you blame Thatcher? For god's sake man look at the date. It's now 2010. Labour inherited a small national debt from the Tories when they came to power and every year since, this National Debt has spiralled completely out of control. Please don't blame her. She didn't help the Labourites to run up this debt.
If your going to play the blame game, at least have the common sense to blame the party that have been in charge of the UK economy for the last 13 yrs.

 

[Whitespirit66]

Thatcher sowed - now the co-hell ition can reap.

Perhaps you could enlighten us on how a prime minister, who has been out of power for the best part of 20 years, is responsible for the level of debt that New Labour has saddled us with?

Personally, I blame Benjamin Disraeli.

 

[joinerjohn]

Thatcher sowed - now the co-hell ition can reap.

Perhaps you could enlighten us on how a prime minister, who has been out of power for the best part of 20 years, is responsible for the level of debt that New Labour has saddled us with?

Personally, I blame Benjamin Disraeli.

Nah it were them Pitt's to blame. Both of them profligate as hell. The elder one failed maths at school and the younger one failed the 11 plus.

 

[Whitespirit66]

New Labour was the Pitts/pits!!

 

[EddieM]

Thatcher sowed - now the co-hell ition can reap.

Perhaps you could enlighten us on how a prime minister, who has been out of power for the best part of 20 years, is responsible for the level of debt that New Labour has saddled us with?

Personally, I blame Benjamin Disraeli.

By destroying most of British industry, making the country almost entirely reliant on services. OK, new labour were wrong, and created millions of public sector "jobs" that are not needed and hence introducing huge amounts of new laws, to effectively "tax" people actually creating wealth and of course keep the non job people in work. So in summary, no thatcher didn't necessarily destroy the country, but she sowed the seeds of destruction, that unfortunately were cultivated by new labour.

All coming home to roost now, but I'll try not to be too apocyliptic.

 

[Whitespirit66]

[quote="EddieM";p="1623719By destroying most of British industry, making the country almost entirely reliant on services. .

[/quote]

Trouble is, a lot of these industries had either destroyed themselves by becoming uncompetitive or being sabotaged by the management, workers and unions.

For instance, why were we mining coal, when it was/is being imported from S. America for half the cost?

Liverpool docks and British Leyland were on the ropes because of union/worker bloody-mindedness and management incompetence long before Thatcher took office.

I'm no big Maggie fan, but she just gave many lame-duck industries a mercy killing. She could see manufacturing taking place much more cheaply in the Far East, and realised that we needed service industries to try and plug the gap.

Or should we have kept inefficient industries alive for decades on a life support machine, powered by billions of pounds from taxpayers'?

 

[Lincsbodger]

Thatcher sowed - now the co-hell ition can reap.

Perhaps you could enlighten us on how a prime minister, who has been out of power for the best part of 20 years, is responsible for the level of debt that New Labour has saddled us with?

Personally, I blame Benjamin Disraeli.

By destroying most of British industry, making the country almost entirely reliant on services. OK, new labour were wrong, and created millions of public sector "jobs" that are not needed and hence introducing huge amounts of new laws, to effectively "tax" people actually creating wealth and of course keep the non job people in work. So in summary, no thatcher didn't necessarily destroy the country, but she sowed the seeds of destruction, that unfortunately were cultivated by new labour.

All coming home to roost now, but I'll try not to be too apocyliptic.

on the other hand, thatcher created the housing boom that fed the boom in the economy that lasted from then till now, the one New Labour squandered, so that kinda cancels it out..............