Britain's national debt to reach £1.4 trillion under 2009 Budget

Source The Telegraph :
Britain's national debt will reach £1.4 trillion - equivalent to almost 80 per cent of the country's economy - after Alistair Darling announced plans to borrow another £700 billion over the next five years.


The unprecedented borrowing programme sparked warnings that a generation of British workers face higher taxes to pay off the debt, and raised doubts about international investors' willingness to go on lending to the UK.

The final figures could be even higher, since Mr Darling based his borrowing plans on an assumption that the UK economy will start to grow again later this year and rebound sharply by 2011.

Apr 23 Why Should We Invest in Commodities

It depends on the supply and demand. And we have had a dearth of supply. Nobody has invested in productive capacity for 25 or 30 years now. The inventories of food are the lowest they have been in 50 years and you have a shortage of farmers even right now because most farmers are old men because it has been such a horrible business for 30 years.

And as for metals, nobody can get a loan to open a mine as you know. Who is going to give you money to open a zinc mine? It takes at least 10 years to open a mine so it's going to be 15 or 20 years before we see new mines come on. Nobody has been opening mines for 30 years and they are not going to. And in the meantime reserves are declining.

As for oil, the International Energy Agency came out recently with a study showing that oil reserves worldwide were declining at the rate of 6% or 7% a year.

That does not mean that if suddenly the U.S. goes bankrupt that everything won't collapse in price. But I would rather be in commodities because it's the only thing I know where the fundamentals are improving. They are not improving for Citibank or General Motors but the supply situation in commodities is such that when demand comes back, then commodities are going to be the best place to be in my view.