It is burdening our children.

And here's a simple analogy. There was an undisputed house price boom in recent years, a bubble caused by lots of factors. This bubble burst spectacularly and house prices fell.

Imagine yourself back a few years. Your house price has doubled, in the midst of a largely favourable economy. You buy a house at the peak price. No one seriously imagines that this would be a problem for 'our children' because every thing is going so well. But then it burst. Your new house is worth a lot less.

That's an analogy.

We are now in the middle of another bubble. Caused by a lot of factors. But rising population, the end of cheap oil, uncertainty over food production, chaotic weather will all contribute to the bursting of this current bubble.

And then it will be our debt that is unrepayable that will be a real and present burden on 'our children' .

How different every thing will look then.
Nige

Well said Daniel J.

Until these dogma riddled, meat heads understand that party politics are the cause of the problems that this, and future generations are facing, the better.

Unfortunately, successive Governments have only been interested in being 'in power' and serving the best interests of their pals and sponsors rather than doing what is clearly the best for the country and its people. We can only hope that future politicians come to office in order to serve, rather than to merely rule. The current crop, of either 'side' are only interested in continuing their divisive strategies in order to divide and rule - looking at the comments from others on this article, they are still being depressingly successful.

To really improve the lot of our children and future generation, we need to both free up their time and then provide them the resource to use that time to maximise their potential. This isn't a question of political parties, because as most senior politicians will tell you off the record that they haven't got much room to move - as they need to keep everyone happy - for their own and their parties goals. With just a few organisations controlling the raw materials used to produce everything that we consume and gradually automating everyone out of jobs, we need to reverse this marginalization. By creating a COMPOPOLY (consumer owned buying monopoly) to regain control of raw material pricing and encouraging the build of AUTOMATED local production of the things that we consume - food, energy, manufactured products - this would free up ourselves and our children from the shackles of poorly paid work. We could then work to maximise everyone's potential in tackling the really big challenges ahead - tackling global warming and pollution whilst maintaining the rise in living standards - by expanding out into the rest of the universe or perhaps using virtual worlds to fulfil demand. My book - Compopoly - deals with the problems and solutions in greater depth. It is available in ebook or hardcopy versrions via amazon.com or lulu.com.

Alex Andreou's cogent argument on debt is one which we have come across in the past.
We have managed to locate a similar explanation put forward in the 1998 publication 'The Grip of Death".
Michael Rowbotham puts the case in response to S J Bailey's remarks that growth of national debts suggests "intergenerational inequity in that the current generation is enjoying a higher standard of living( ie consumption ) at the expense of future generations, who will have to pay higher taxes in order to service the public debt used to finance the extra consumption....there is a question about the morality of the current generation living off the presumed affluence of future generations".
[ Our interjection - Heard about Original Sin ]
Rowbotham's respone: "Of all the explanations offered for the national debt, this suggestion, that they represent the current generation living 'at the expense of' future
generations is the most ridiculous, and has the hollowest ring. Do the economists who present these theories ever read the newspapers? Has income tax risen since Nigel Lawson imposed monetarism on the nation? [VAT's another matter, of course.]
Each generation is told that they must ,tighten their belts', and that they must 'face the harsh realities of life, that the nation is spending more than it earns.
Are we really constantly borrowing from the future? If so what one earth have we borrowed?
It would be far more accurate to say that the present generation is living at the expense of < past > generations, in the sense that we benefit from their endeavours, just as future generations should benefit from our economic efforts.
National debts have existed since the seventeenth century, have mounted steadily since their inception and have proved themselves utterly unrepayable by this or any other generation.
The nations of the world were only able to escape the worldwide depression of the 1930s as governments, one after the other, were forced to accept a steady increase in their national debt by running an annual budget deficit.
As soon as an individual commences employment he/she works for a week, a fortnight or a month without pay. A nice little earner for the employer as Del Boy would say.
Thank goodness for Mrs T. She put more balls on the High Street so the strivers could pawn something to tide them over.
Now you can even get credit on your future wages. Enough of that 'pie in the sky' malarky! Worked in the past - not now!

Live Now, Pay Later

The sooner we oust this uk calition government the better they are lyers hyporcrytes overpaid scum

What a load of tripe.

Under Labour the divide between rich and poor grew substantially (under the coalition it has fallen). Most of the personal assets which are not tied up in pension funds are either in the money supply or concentrated on a small proportion of the population. Debts, especially the national debt which we share equally, impacts the least well off the most. The solution is not to increase the public and private debt which only disadvantages the least well off.

Its cynical Labour posturing to try to sell the idea we should not worry about borrowing. It tries fool enough people like Gordon and Balls managed to do that we can afford to borrow, spend and enjoy now because interest rates will always be low and we will never need to repay the money in our lifetime. Part of the approach is to hide the numbers and distort the truth through spin.

The truth discovered after they left office is that Labour borrowed and spent an unbelievably massive £600bn mostly before the banking crisis. Was it done in the interests of our children or was it not to manipulate voters to cling to power?

An excellent, concise summary of the bleeding (in more than one sense) obvious.

Problem : how is it that so many in this (allegedly) advanced(?) industrial(??) society find the bleeding obvious so difficult to grasp?

Perhaps it's the over-dominance of private education. A sure recipe for dumbing down.

Education is an asset, but only if it is effective, and there are serious question marks over the effectiveness of Stagte education. NHS spending largely isn't - the hospital building themselves are clearly assets, but day to day expenditure is not. Similarly welfare doesn't produce any assets worthy of the name.

Education is an asset, but only if it is effective, and there are serious question marks over the effectiveness of Stagte education. NHS spending largely isn't - the hospital building themselves are clearly assets, but day to day expenditure is not. Similarly welfare doesn't produce any assets worthy of the name.

I thought comparing a national economy to a mortgage (as is the wont of Tory MPs) was generally frowned upon as economic illiteracy.

However, notwithstanding that, you are of course right that both sides of the balance sheet needed to be taken into consideration.

The problem surely is though that whilst debt has exploded in recent years following the banking crisis there hasn't been any commensurate improvement in health, education or industrial capacity.

To rewrite your Geneva analogy. Five years ago you'd have left your well-paid kids with a 200k house and an £80k mortgage. Today you are leaving your kids (who are now on part time work on lower pay) with a £170k house, a £120k mortgage and a builder telling them that the roof needs £20k spent on it.