Give an example of a country which is more socialist than the UK (not that the UK is that socialist atm) which has a "better balanced economy"?
The problem with those graphs is that the second graph shows a marked increase in debt as a percentage of GDP, which is actually a GDP growth that in the UK is shrinking. It's a bit misleading. And China does abide with a modern economic theory. They have a modern economy. And currency manipulation is certainly a mainstay of modern economics. And I would suppose the economies of Denmark and Norway have more welfare than the UK and are also more sustainable as economies, but that is not a function of their welfare. It is more a function of specific economic sectors, and the UKs management of her ongoing debt, and questions regarding her austerity measures, but perhaps I am not sure I understand exactly what the question is? Honestly, this seems to be becoming more of an internet pissing contest than a very interesting discussion... why are the debt discussions always so polarizing?
Norway is oil rich, with a 70-80% tax on profits of oil producers. They can afford to run crazy socialist programmes.
If you want to get to the source of large deficits in the UK you might start by looking for differences in the UK economy versus say countries where there are not large deficits. One difference would be the size of social welfare programs on a per capita basis, but here you have several examples of countries even more socialized than the UK that are running much smaller deficits, or none at all! So that alone isn't likely to be the major contributor. You could look at things like the number of people on the dole per capita. Then you might be on to something. You also might look at military expenditure per capita, and then you might be quite astounded. Also look at the government's medical costs per capita. Here I would think that Norway, say, and the UK would be roughly on par. You might want to normalize all your numbers by dividing by net government revenue and compare the numbers before and after division. You might find that lower revenue, i.e., productivity, is a problem. That could be related to the per capita rate of people on welfare. In the case of the United States, a country I'm far more familiar with, it would seem that the largest social program, i.e., social security has virtually nothing to do with huge deficits but might add to them going forward if the contribution rate isn't adjusted upward as recommended by the actuaries. When you look at medical costs and military costs per capita in the U.S. you get some rather amazing numbers compared to other countries. So these are places you'd want to look for causes of the deficit. There would be other places to look as well, but you'd want to look at the major areas of expenditure, Public Health, Education and perhaps Homeland Security would be good candidates. It is a startling observation that the United States spends (when interest and V.A. benefits are factored in) about $4000 per capita per year on its military, while a country such as Germany spends roughly $300 per capita. The U.S. military, is privatized, it would seem, almost to the maximum extent possible, but one could imagine a military where major pieces of equipment, vehicles, aircraft carriers, etc., are owned by corporations and leased to the military. (I wonder sometimes why the Reagan administration did not think of that, or perhaps they did, but just didn't get around to it.) As it is, the military is a hybrid between government and private enterprise. The private part, base design, building and operation, and weapons manufacture has some cartel like aspects, but often there is keen competition among bidders. Sadly, the cost savings that might be expected to accrue from the competitive bid process are often not realized, because sole sourcing and contracts which allow massive cost overruns have become de rigueur. Another interesting observation is that the United States is the only major country where medical care is delivered by a cartel, albeit a government protected one (read FDA). As we all know, when we purchase from a cartel prices tend to be higher. Medicare, and Medicaid, two hybrid medical programs --payment socialized, service privatized-- have had the curious effect of holding down medical costs rather than increasing them, because those who are not covered by medicare or medicaid, but private insurance instead, must often pay more for the same service. Medicare has been forbidden by law to hold costs down as much as they might have, however. That is also a curious thing about U.S. medical care, and laws even make it illegal for citizens to obtain prescription drugs from the cheapest source available, if that source is other than a U.S. source. Go figure! That law is poorly enforced, however, or perhaps too difficult to enforce. These two areas, military and medical relative to revenues are the two areas of Federal involvement that I would think anyone interested in the Source of Federal deficits in the U.S. would be highly interested in. On the surface anyway, it seems that "socialism" or social programs haven't much if anything to do with the root causes of outsize deficits in the US. Federal Budget. The U.S. is, after all, the most capitalist of all major countries. It is probably the only country in the world where even passport issuance is privatized. You can look long and hard, but you are not going to find any country of any significant size that is less "socialized" than the United States of America!
Denmark then? I can keep this up longer than you. (The UK is "oil rich" by the way, have you heard of the North Sea?)
Exactly, which does not fit my definition of "balanced," as you say. Maybe "broad" is what I mean... But, Norway does have a better balanced governmental budget, as do others. It's more complex and deserves more attention than a simple soundbyte or short post. And the questions are much more complex... the biggest being - the German domination of the EU through the Euro coming to an end. It may not be good for UK in the short run, but in the long run, good for everyone.
The UK *used* to be oil rich. They're now a net importer. Not coincidentally, that switch lines up perfectly with their economic malaise.