Who owns UK National Debt?

[Frankie Jack]

I've been trying to find out which overseas countries and investors own Gilts issued but there appears to be no published records. The US publishes who are the major owners of US debt.

The biggest holdings of US National debt is:

* Japan $592bn
* China $502bn (China has a total of $1trillion dollar based assets)
* UK $252bn

Cannot find anything published that shows who owns UKs.

Any pointers to any references anyone ?

 

[TruXta]

Isn't most of the debt owned by UK entities? I seem to remember seeing this the other day in the news. Sorry, that could've been a lot more informative.

 

[butchersapron]

Who owns UK debt:
1
2

 

[Frankie Jack]

Thanks butchers. Those breakdowns at least give an idea of the percentages.

 

[stavros]

Isn't most of the debt owned by UK entities? I seem to remember seeing this the other day in the news. Sorry, that could've been a lot more informative.

I read something similar, how we're essentially in debt to ourselves with UK pension funds major lenders to the state.

 

[TruXta]

Hmmm, was it in connection with the discussions about how the Sendai earthquake would affect the Jap/world economy? They have most of their debt (which is way higher than here btw) owned by nationals, and so aren't too worried about getting shafted by foreign creditors.

 

[Citizen66]

The Lizards.

 

[Hocus Eye.]

There used to be an answer to the old question "Where is the Capital of England" that ran "In America". It seems that it is still true for £252bn of it. Those links by Butchers are most interesting and help to destroy the nonsense propagated by the Government about the need to make expenditure cuts.

 

[sim667]

According to butchers first link do the government owe money to the same banks they bailed out?

 

[butchersapron]

It doesn't say which banks as far as i can tell. See what i can find.

The real head fuck here is that rather than taxing the rich instead we borrow money off them and pay them back at interest. Proper bonkers bruno.

 

[marty21]

I've been trying to find out which overseas countries and investors own Gilts issued but there appears to be no published records. The US publishes who are the major owners of US debt.

The biggest holdings of US National debt is:

* Japan $592bn
* China $502bn (China has a total of $1trillion dollar based assets)
* UK $252bn

Cannot find anything published that shows who owns UKs.

Any pointers to any references anyone ?

So we are owed $252bn - and we are fucked why?
is that more than our debt?

are we fucked because the yanks won't repay?

 

[love detective]

It doesn't say which banks as far as i can tell. See what i can find.

There will be small amounts, but the bulk of the ownership in the 'banks' category will be the 200bn to the bank of england itself as a result of quantative easing

 

[sim667]

So we are owed $252bn - and we are fucked why?
is that more than our debt?

are we fucked because the yanks won't repay?

We owe about £875 bn........ something like 60% of our GDP

If we owe any money to the banks we've bailed out we should tell them to get to f*ck tho.

 

[audiotech]

List of countries by external debt. All $59,090,000,000,000 of it:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_external_debt

Further info and links on this wordpress blog:

http://sturdyblog.wordpress.com/2011/04/08/to-whom-do-we-owe-this-money-exactly/

 

[butchersapron]

...and what's the maturity profile on this debt?

The average maturity of British government debt is 13.8 years, higher than any other developed economy. Indeed only Estonia comes even close with 11.5 years. The maturity profile of British government debt is more than twice as long as that of the US, Germany, Canada or Italy.

This matters. Osborne is often keen to point out that the UK deficit is higher than that of Greece, or Portugal, or whoever is in the news with debt problems in any given month. But this misses the point. Britain might have a higher deficit than those countries but it still needs to borrow less in any given year.

 

[kabbes]

So we are owed $252bn - and we are fucked why?
is that more than our debt?

are we fucked because the yanks won't repay?

Define "we".

This, however, is the whole fiction behind the simple-minded insistance of this government and their precious narrative to compare the national debt with household finance. It would only remotely be comparable if the household also owned the credit card company to which they owe their money.

 

[London_Calling]

I also like the idea of Portugal and Ireland paying Germany the interest rate Germany demands (to access the EU fund) in order they don't take the German engineered and dominated Euro into proper crisis.

It took them another 60 years but they got their empire in the end.

 

[ymu]

According to butchers first link do the government owe money to the same banks they bailed out?

Yes.

This article is about the US bailout monies - the destinations of which have just been published in horrifying detail - but much the same is happening here. Masses of money handed over to the banks, not much finding it's way back into the economy.

During the financial crisis, the Fed routinely made billions of dollars in "emergency" loans to big banks at near-zero interest. Many of the banks then turned around and used the money to buy Treasury bonds at higher interest rates — essentially loaning the money back to the government at an inflated rate. "People talk about how these were loans that were paid back," says a congressional aide who has studied the transactions. "But when the state is lending money at zero percent and the banks are turning around and lending that money back to the state at three percent, how is that different from just handing rich people money?"

 

[audiotech]

As put by Richard Murphy on the 'Tax Research UK' website butchersapron posted a link to:

...70% of all debt, or thereabouts, is UK owned. At least a quarter of it is owned by the Bank of England – and therefore costs the UK, in effect, nothing. After all, the interest paid goes back to the government.

and...

....all of which makes the claim we need an emergency round of cuts seem like just what it is – political rhetoric sailing us in exactly the wrong economic direction.

 

[stavros]

Murphy may have been the one who made the point about the pension funds I posted upthread too.

 

[love detective]

Yes.

[/quote]

As mentioned above, there will be relatively smallish amounts of government debt held by the UK banks which were bailed out (bailed out in the sense of direct capital injections) , but the majority of govt debt that is owned by UK 'banks' is held by the bank of england as a result of quantative easing. If you look at the links posted above you will see that there is roughly around £200bn of govt debt in the owned by banks category, of which around £200bn is held by the bank of england. A far higher amount of debt will be owned by pension funds & life insurance companies and the like who have a liability profile that, from a risk management point of view, need to be matched by holding government debt. Banks don't have this requirement and from a straight economic point of view are unlikely to hold much government debt, where yields are far higher elsewhere. Obviously during the crisis they weren't so much fussed about yield and instead security was the main thing which made them short term look to hold more government debt, but even then they were faced with competition with the bank of england who were hoovering up any gilts for sale in the market

In answer to the original question - from a quick scan of the accounts of RBS and Lloyds it looks like around £20bn of govt debt is held by these companies - which obviously is a lot in absolute terms but is tiny in terms of overall govt debt outstanding (which I think was the angle of which the original question came from)

 

[butchersapron]

A bit on QE:

The policy of quantitative easing promoted by Labour, and now being considered once more by the Bank of England is supposed to have cost £200 billion. Actually, that's not true. What actually happened was that it gave maybe £40 or £50 billion to the UK's main banks (no one can be quite sure of the exact amount) to bail out their ailing balance sheets but as they recorded it as profit they used it to pay bonuses, to inflate the stock market and to push up commodity prices such as wheat, coffee and other foodstuffs ‚ the impact of which will flow through into real inflation for households in the UK. Perhaps as important though was the other £150 billion or so ‚ which (not by coincidence, I suggest) happens to be almost the exact amount that the UK government borrowed in 2009-10. To put it another way, quantitative easing was, in effect the Bank of England granting the Treasury an overdraft to subsidise the deficit. And that means there is no threat at all to the UK from the bond vigilantes George Osborne lives in fear of ‚ because we are not dependent upon them, at all.

 

[audiotech]

'Offshore Banking and Tax Havens Have Become Heart of Global Economy.'

'UK one of the biggest tax havens in the world.'

http://www.democracynow.org/2011/4/15/offshore_banking_and_tax_havens_have

The difference between tax avoidance and tax evasion is the thickness of a prison wall.

Denis Healey, former UK Chancellor of the Exchequer; reported in The Economist, Volume 354, Issues 8152-8163 (2000), p. 186.

 

[love detective]

Perhaps as important though was the other £150 billion or so ‚ which (not by coincidence, I suggest) happens to be almost the exact amount that the UK government borrowed in 2009-10. To put it another way, quantitative easing was, in effect the Bank of England granting the Treasury an overdraft to subsidise the deficit. And that means there is no threat at all to the UK from the bond vigilantes George Osborne lives in fear of ‚ because we are not dependent upon them, at all.

indeed K - something we noted on matblog a good couple of years ago

3. The last, and the dirty little secret of quantitative easing is that it clears the way for the huge issuance of govt debt that will be needed over the next few years to fund the looming state budget deficits – as a result of the bank of england buying up huge proportions of currently issued government debt this means that the amount of gilts left on the market is drastically reduced ensuring that when new debt is issued by the govt to fund deficits there will still be plenty investors around who are willing to buy it (in the short term anyway) – if you cut out all the bits in the middle this effectively amounts to what’s known as monetising the debt – basically printing money to fund budget deficit

http://meanwhileatthebar.org/blog/?p=102

 

[butchersapron]

indeed K - something we noted on matblog a good couple of years ago

http://meanwhileatthebar.org/blog/?p=102

We were always ahead of the game (you were anyway). That's still a brilliantly written non-wanky radical explanation.

 

[Streathamite]

If we owe any money to the banks we've bailed out we should tell them to get to f*ck tho.

damn right. bizarre to think we owe that money to banks, as A result of rescuing them from their own folly

 

[nightbreed]

http://sturdyblog.wordpress.com/2011/04/08/to-whom-do-we-owe-this-money-exactly/

 

[love detective]

pish article, to be honest

 

[nightbreed]

What does pish mean?

 

[Bahnhof Strasse]

Define "we".

We = kabbes.


Cough ya tight cunt.