The biggest bust since Lolo Ferrari

Photo of Lolo by Karel leermans

UK prime minister Gordon Brown may be planning to hold a general election, before the UK, thanks to his policies, risks going even more bust.

Back in 2006, Alex Yawar, at Ohmy News, wrote about Britain's Bubble Economy (Pop! Britain's Bubble Economy.)

Here are some of the points made:

1. Officially, UK inflation has been relatively low, but in most key areas of the economy, inflation has actually been very high.

House prices, for example, rose 11.4 % each year for a period of ten years up until 2005.

Transport and energy costs also shot up.

2. The U.K. economy relies on consumer spending, which accounts for two-thirds of the nation's GDP.

But the average family does not have enough money to pay for fancy holidays and clothes and cars and so on.

So people borrow and borrow and borrow.

Lolo: Cosmos page (TransAtlanticFilms)

3. The UK population, in 2006, owed £1 trillion in household debt.

14 % are indebted to the tune of £10,000 or higher.

This debt is more than the total annual GDP of the U.K.

And this figure does not take into account the gargantuan pile of mortgage-related debt - £967 billion.

Including mortgage payments, the average British household has £83,722 of debt.

4. Any move towards a realistic interest rate level will result in economic meltdown.

UK prime minister Brown wants to borrow more and spend more. Britain's personal debt is increasing by £1 million every four minutes. The average UK consumer owes over twice as much as the average western European owes. Vote for Brown if you like a really big BUST. (conservative.)

5. many of the UK's economic fundamentals - and the foundations for future growth - are rather shaky.

6. We could be heading for the biggest bust since that of Lolo Ferrari.

Under the influence of her husband, Ferrari had 25 cosmetic surgery operations to alter her face and enlarge her breasts with silicone.

Like Ms Ferrari, 'we have flooded our system with plastic in the quest for growth.

'The result is likely to be similarly artificial'.

The UK (yellow line) has the most household debt (Indebted Britain Coffee House)

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