Still trying to see the debt mountain in context... So let's see how hard it would be to pay off in gold, assuming that in 1791 a single "bag" of gold would have cleared the account. For the first 70 years, the gold-priced public debt was always less than twice its 1791 level, and often below the starting point. Now to see the progress of the public debt since 1860: ... and second, since 1945...

Companies have made more than £2billion by trading debt in schools and hospitals built using Private Finance Initiative funding, a new report shows.

The Tories have been talking about "Gordon Brown's Debt", but as far as I can see, the fiscal deficit is not the problem. Consider two great debts: one is the public debt, the debt held by our government; the other is the private debt, the debt held by businesses and private citizens. Lets say that the public debt is £500 billion and the private debt is £1,500 bi...

I came across the figures below on the indie list, I have not had time to authenticate them, but given the source they seem kosher. With coalition government ministers in the UK lying through their teeth over the cause of the deficit; and at every turn blaming it on the last government fiscal recklessness in increasing public spending on schools, hospitals and OAP pensions, Cameron and Clegg, have...

The government is considering under-writing private finance initiative deals to build schools and hospitals to prevent the public sector building plans grinding to a halt, the Guardian has learned. Gordon Brown's pledge to kick-start the economy by building schools and hospitals is at risk because Labour's construction programmes rely on PFIs and funding from the big banks, which has bee...

The UK debt crisis has three constituent parts – household, government and banking. The fact that households, government and banks all went on a debt binge at the same time makes the risks for the UK economy so unusual.  The European Commission is now estimating that total UK Government debt will rise above £1.3trillion by the end of 2011, representing a more than trebling in the t...

The interest payments on the Government's growing mountain of debt are on course to consume almost as much public money as the entire budget for schools in England.

The government forecasts net debt exceeding £1,000bn in four years' time, with rates of debt in excess of 1970s levels

Now this is engrossing in a grim kind of way.  It's the Economist's brand new Global Debt Comparison feature, and charts public debt for the entire world ($39.1 trillion dollars, at the moment), while also providing details for individual countries.  If you want a sense of the debt crisis facing this country, then just click on the info for the UK across a few years.  ...

Is the NHS wise to rack up debt building hospitals?