1nvest wrote:ursaminortaur wrote:
Interesting chart. Thanks.
Looking at the 1950 peak, I believe interest rates back then were around 0.5%. Looking at the lows and that coincided with periods of higher interest rates.
Would be interesting to see the progression for a cost to service debt, debt level x interest rate being paid. But even though that might be a smoother line, would also be nice to see how much was actual external debt, rather than for instance as of present when the BoE holds around a third of the Treasury's Gilts (debt) and returns all interest paid on those gilts back to the treasury.
Here is the corresponding interest paid as a percentage of GDP chart
and a similar graph which shows interest payments from 1980 onwards.
Of course these are for the total interest paid and don't take into account that a large part is being paid back to the treasury since QE.
Here is a spreadsheet of interest rates since 1694. After the war interest rates were at 2% until 1951.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1OKo38R1blO71SGNIVuhaRZ4P2GYPpJQklmOymQiXixQ/edit?hl=en&hl=en#gid=0