Debt goes from private to public to your family

The Office for Budget Responsibility has raised its prediction of total household debt in 2015 by a staggering £303bn since late last year, in the belief that families and individuals will respond to straitened times by extra borrowing. http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2011/apr/02/family-debt-burden-government-figures

Average household debt based on the OBR figures is forecast to rise to £77,309 by 2015, rather than the £66,291 under previous projections. What this proves is that in order to maintain living standards households are forced into increased debt.

In other words the debt reduction strategy is not about slashing the debt that was transferred from the banks to the state but transferring that same debt from the state to the individual.

It will be the poorest families that are hardest hit. Far from Osborne slashing debt he is merely engaged in a magical illusion of debt reduction which is in fact a transfer of debt from rich bankers to the poorest families.

Anna Rose