Dangers Of Cutting

The risks of deficit cutting

Cutting deficits is popular in the heavily indebted Western world. Some countries are being forced to, as lenders decline to lend them more money at realistic interest rates.

Greece, Ireland and Portugal have been in the spotlight as they seek to borrow from the EU and IMF to avoid the penal rates on world markets. Some countries are taking voluntary action to curb their deficits before markets become alarmed by their levels of borrowing.

The UK has embarked on a five-year plan for deficit reduction, and US political dialogue is dominated by the arguments for and against early and deep cuts in spending to curb the state’s appetite for loans.

It is generally agreed deficits need to be cut and the level of debt brought under control if a country is to have a sustainable and prosperous future. The credit crunch exposed the dangers of too much lending to people and companies, and brought down banks which had geared themselves too heavily. Now it is the turn of the sovereign borrowers to be under the spotlight.

In the UK, while all the main political parties agree the deficit has to be reduced, the commonly-voiced fears are that the programme is too rapid and severe. This is a curious bias to the debate if you look at the figures. Current public spending is planned to rise by £73.9bn a year, comparing 2014-15 with 2009-10.

Whether this is an overall rise in real terms after allowing for inflation of course depends on how successful the government is at curbing public sector costs, and how successful the Bank of England is at getting general inflation back to target or below. 

State borrowing over the five years of the deficit reduction programme will add £485bn extra to total debt, or more than the total state debt in 2000.  The March 2011 Budget revised both the extra borrowing levels and the level of public spending up compared to the first Budget of the Coalition government in 2010.

The Chancellor added £34bn of extra spending over the period up to 2014-15, and agreed to an extra £37bn of borrowing over the same time period. In the first year of the programme, current public spending increased by 5.1% in cash terms.

The central feature of UK deficit reduction is the £184bn extra revenue the government plans to collect in 2014-15 compared to tax receipts in 2009-10. This all depends on the economic forecasts, which point to faster growth from 2012 onwards.

Five ways to show trees the love (Y! Green) | WorldNews

Trees provide shade for people, animals, and buildings. They’re essential to combat greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. And they’re beautiful. If you have a yard, you can  plant a tree, and even without yard space, the Arbor Day Foundation has advice on giving the gift of a tree or tree-planting.

But everyone can take small, important daily steps to preserve trees and forests. Besides actually sinking a tree into soil, you can support arboreal respect and abundance — here are five places to start:

1. Mind your paper towels and napkins. Virgin fiber is that which comes straight from a tree. Doesn’t it seem a waste to use a tree for a single-use item? Well how’s this: If every household in the United States replaced one roll of virgin-fiber paper towels with 100-percent recycled paper towels, we could save 1.4 million trees. If every household in the United States replaced just one package of virgin fiber napkins with 100-percent recycled ones, we could save 1 million trees. With those numbers in mind, using virgin fiber for single use items seems simply outrageous. For more facts and details about alternatives, see Paper Towels and Napkins vs. Cloth.

2. Embrace your “trash” trees. Sumacs, pincherries, chokecherries, wild plums, and lots of other fast-growing native trees — weeds, as some people like to call them, pffft — spring up and grow like mad. While many look at these “trash” trees as a nuisance near refined gardens, a tree by any other name is still a tree. The best part? Most of these trees are heaven for wild bird populations!

3. Read The Lorax here.

4. Tame the junk mail beast. In a single year, Americans receive 19 billion catalogs in the mail. That boils down to 3.6 million tons of paper at the cost of 53 million trees. Ouch. And that’s not to mention all the rest of the junky-junk mail that seems to flood our mailboxes like a swarm of locusts. Read Stop Junk Mail, Save a Tree to learn how to beat the pulp out of this ongoing problem.

5. Get in the tree spirit. According to ancient Celtic lore, there is a magical tree associated with each month of the year. Find out which one is your helper and learn valuable information about your personality from the wisdom of the trees. Read Your Celtic Tree Horoscope to see which tree you are.