13 billion in one month though Cem. A lot of money by anyones standards.Debt is at an unprecedented level already and yet we are borrowing more than ever before. Cant be good.
Call me old fashiolned, but to start repaying debt, you need to stop borrowing, then spend less then your income. Otherwise you can never start to repay the debt.
There is waste on a grand scale all over this country, but everyone seems to think that it should be someone else who is responsible for making cutbacks and savings.
Trouble is Albs that it takes years to make the changes (as they should ahev been started years ago and argueably been more under control 10 years ago!)
The key thing is that we are doing something....unlike Greece and Spain, and the consequence is that the organisations that have loaned them money are not confident they will get it back so the credit rate drops, the interest rate goes up (because they are higher risk) and they spiral into effective insolvency.
The spend approach is an interesting scenario as well, yes it would potentialy kick start the economy (but only slightly) however, it would not be doing anything to address debt, in fact it would be making it worse.
This is the point your lenders go 'ow, your in debt and spending still'...bad credit rating arrives, cost of the debt goes up.....and the consequences are worse!
To me the spend approach only works if you have some debt but not a stupid amount, sadly we have a stupid amount! 
What a load of rubbish. You make it sound as though neither Greece or Spain are doing ANYTHING to tackle the problem. Haven't you noticed that the Greeks are rioting? Why? well public pay has been cut by up nto 20%. A better thing to say was they are not doing enough at this late stage in the day. I agree with your remaining summation of the situation.
The problem with it all is where will it end?
Germany needs the rest of Europe to keep buying its goods but will Germany bail out the eurozone PIIGS. Don't think so. So when Greece etc have to leave the Euro and the euro then strengthens but the drachma and peseta (or whatever) weaken the PIIGS won't have the cash anymore to buy German goods. Same applies to China and America. It might just be that eally bad times are ahead for a large % of the world not just Greece,Spain etc.
Albs- glad you picked up on the terrible waste of money on the regional (never to be used) fire centres. Yet another example to add to my already huge list of waste on galactic scale by Britain. It might have been a Prescott project but others were in on it too.
I notice you didn't mention anything about yet
another banking fiasco. Rogue trader done it again. 1.3 billion or was it 2.5 billion. The bank doesn't actually really know. Really encouraging for mere mortals who will foot the bill for his actions. I still hate the banks.
Lovely story in the local Scarborough paper about a tree. It has cost the local council 1/4 million pounds to fight a person over a six year fight to fell a 100 year old beech tree with a preservation order. You couldn't make it up. Of course the tree is still standing. Where is Swampy when you need him , we have had to make do with Snuz..