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Pre-Budget report: UK ‘faces decades of debt’, warns Treasury Britain faces decades of rising public sector debt, increasing taxes and, potentially, falling living standards unless it tackles the growing costs of its pensions and health bill, the Treasury will warn this week. By Edmund Conway Published: 9:20PM GMT 05 Dec 2009 In a paper to be printed alongside the pre-Budget report (PBR), the Treasury will warn that the costs of paying for state pensions and the National Health Service are set to rocket between now and 2059 unless action is taken to reduce the bill. The paper on long-term fiscal...

The credit crunch continues, with businesses large and small finding that their bankers remain exceedingly stingy in the wake of the 2008 financial debacle. "We need to see banks making more loans to their business customers," Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) Chairwoman Sheila Bair told reporters recently after the FDIC released figures showing that the amount of loans outstanding in the nation's banks fell $210.4 billion in the third quarter of 2008. That is the largest quarterly decline since the FDIC began tracking loans in 1984. Of course, today's low interest rates don't especially make lending to small businesses worth...

Countries must get their fiscal houses in order or face credit downgrades, international ratings agencies say. International ratings agencies are warning the United States and several European governments that they face credit downgrades if they don't soon come up with clear plans to get their deteriorating fiscal houses in order. Moody's Investors Service said Tuesday the weakening public finances in the U.S. and Britain may “test the Aaa [triple-A] boundaries” for their ratings. While analysts say there is no immediate risk of a cut in the ratings of major developed economies, the less stable fringe players are already feeling the...

Stuart Varney was just on Fox and said Moody's will lower the United States bond rating for the first time ever in 2013 with current spending plans.