By James North – America currently has a massive $14.3 trillion of public debt and is in the midst of a political struggle that could send shockwaves around the world. 

The taxpayer-funded £1.3 trillion bank bailout has allowed the Lloyds Group to post a pre-tax profit of £2.2 billion, somewhat better than the Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) group which yesterday posted a £1.1 billion loss.

Britain's national debt has topped the £1 trillion mark, but could be as high as £8 trillion, according to a statement by the Taxpayer’s Alliance. The lower estimate of £1 trillion equates to £40,000 for every household in Britain.

Much current media attention is focused on the £7 billion extra which British taxpayers will have to stump up to bail out Ireland — but no-one has taken the time to look at Britain’s sovereign debt levels which are nearly identical to that of Ireland.

Decades of Tory-Labour-Liberal mismanagement have brought Britain to the point where we are about to lose our international credit rating as new figures reveal that the true national debt stands at £4.9 trillion, or nearly three-and-a-half times the country’s Gross Domestic Product.

By Andrew Moffatt, BNP Economics Department -- The chief beneficiaries and causes behind the 2.5 percent VAT increase announced yesterday are the foreign aid budget and the EU.