debt

The total of loans, mortgages, overdrafts and credit card purchases is massive and in Britain stands at some £780 billion, £500 of which is born by ordinary people. The Americans, supposedly the richest citizens ever to walk the face of the planet, are the most heavily indebted people of the world, carrying morgage debts that currently total $4.2 trillion.

A few of the 50 Economic Numbers From 2011 That Are Almost Too Crazy To Believe References available at original article.

1. 48 percent of all Americans are either considered to be "low income" or are living in poverty.

2. Approximately 57 percent of all children in the United States are living in homes that are either considered to be "low income" or impoverished.

7. Since December 2007, median household income in the United States has declined by a total of 6.8% once you account for inflation.

10. According to author Paul Osterman, about 20 percent of all U.S. adults are currently working jobs that pay poverty-level wages.

12. Back in 1969, 95 percent of all men between the ages of 25 and 54 had a job. In July, only 81.2 percent of men in that age group had a job.

13. One recent survey found that one out of every three Americans would not be able to make a mortgage or rent payment next month if they suddenly lost their current job.

21. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, 18 percent of all homes in the state of Florida are sitting vacant. That figure is 63 percent larger than it was just ten years ago.

31. Today, one out of every six elderly Americans lives below the federal poverty line.

32. According to a study that was just released, CEO pay at America's biggest companies rose by 36.5% in just one recent 12 month period.

33. Today, the "too big to fail" banks are larger than ever. The total assets of the six largest U.S. banks increased by 39 percent between September 30, 2006 and September 30, 2011.

34. The six heirs of Wal-Mart founder Sam Walton have a net worth that is roughly equal to the bottom 30 percent of all Americans combined.

37. A higher percentage of Americans is living in extreme poverty (6.7%) than has ever been measured before.

65,500 people are facing an average weekly cut of £41 due to changes in housing benefit, which the government says will "save" in total £200 million.

The homeless charity Crisis says this could force 11,000 disabled people out of their homes. "We are deeply concerned that some of the disabled people affected by this will end up homeless, and in the worst cases rough-sleeping."

We were told the cost of the war would be "tens of millions, not hundreds", but the government admits that over £100 million has been spent already. It is anticipated that by October over £1 billion pounds will have been spent waging war on a country which poses no threat whatever to Britain.

...It is costing over £2 million a week to station Britain's warships and submarines in the Mediterranean. In total, Britain is spending £3 million a day on the war in Libya. Which means that in the next nine weeks the war will cost the £200 million the government says it has to cut through changes to housing benefit.

Note: 260% debt-to-GDP is the all time record for repayment, accomplished by England between 1815 and 1900, but required both massive cuts in spending and an industrial revolution.

Without mincing words, the world does not face a crisis of liquidity, nor a crisis of insufficient debt, but one of entirely too much debt. That's the entire predicament in three words: too much debt.

We have a financial crisis in the UK. It was not caused by the government; the crisis was caused by a collapse in our national income. That was, in turn, caused by the collapse of the banking sector...

Any deficit reduction policy aimed at cutting spending is wholly misdirected. What we need is a deficit cutting policy aimed at increasing government income, and there are three ways to achieve this.

The first is for the government to stimulate a moribund economy by encouraging investment. This is the Keynesian solution that is proven to work. The second is to raise selective new taxes on those best able to pay them. This is possible. The third option is to tackle the tax gap.

The tax gap has three parts. The first is tax avoidance, which I estimate to be about £25bn a year. This arises from the exploitation of loopholes in UK tax law and between UK tax law and that of other states – especially tax havens. The second part is tax evasion – that is breaking the law. I estimate this to be £70bn a year. HM Revenue & Customs claims it is much less, but their methodology for estimating anything but VAT evasion is very weak. Last, there is unpaid and late-paid tax – currently evaluated by HMRC to be at least £26bn.

Put these figures together and they come to more than £120bn. Enough, at least in principle, to close the whole current government deficit.