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Queen Elizabeth Almost Broke
Danny Lawson / AP Photo
The palace accounts must be a royal headache. Queen Elizabeth is headed for a showdown with the Treasury over Buckingham Palace's budget, the Times of London reports. Apparently, the budgeted money the Queen receives for her staff costs and the running of her household runs on a 10-year cycle. Thanks to a deliberately generous official, the Queen was able to squirrel away $57.7 million from her budget during the 1990s, and in 2000, with royal agreement, Tony Blair froze the payment at $13 million per year. Last year the Queen dipped into her savings for $9.9 million and at this rate, the funds will be gone by 2012. The next ten years of budgeting will be finalized next year.
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squiggy
Life is rough all over isn't it! LOL Where is my violin, she needs a song!
amapola101
funny but sad. Join the club Its a shrinking economy evrywhere
guerrilladude
And lets not forget the queen's personal wealth is estimated between $500 and $700 MILLION dollars. She can make a loan to herself to keep the palace floors polished.
Ritarita
Yeah-
Doesn't she perennially
Top the Forbes list of wealthiest
People?
squiggy
I think it' only been the last 6 or 7 years that Oprah has beat her, I remember her being the wealthiest woman in the world for a very long time. I also remember it took them 2=3 years to track down her total wealth.
flyoverland
I think Obama thinks Oprah is the Queen
Hawnzz
Oprah isn't our Queen? (Looks astonished!)
Ottoheinz
I can't wait to watch America's middle-class rage play out in the comments on this story!
Dylan111
Here is my only comment: the title of the article is stupidly deceptive in that the Queen is far from being personally broke since, according to the piece, the money she used to make up the short-fall came from the taxpayers to begin with; in addition, the new budget mentioned will undoubtedly supply her with enough money to meet her queenly expenses. And, as several here have posted, the Windsors have a huge personal fortune.
flyoverland
Did she have an account with Madoff?
hubris
Even symbolic monarchies have outlived their time.
mattbenzor
Hey ,squiggy play a very sad song.She needs to give up the castle life style.Make it into a tourist attraction she could charge a couple pounds.
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n--Y--charles116keepakeeper43
A "democracy" like Great Britan that pours millions and millions into a system of ROYALTY, ("Divine Right", as it used to be called, or "Born into the Right Family at the Right Time"), certainly deserves the pathetic and embarassing reality show/soap opera atmosphere that the "Royal Family" delivers.
The Queen Mum, the Queen, Charles, the Boys, blah, blah, blah - There isn't a needier population of hungry, or job creation, or disabled, or pick-a-card that could put the fortune that these schmucks get to better use?
Unbelievable.
The wealth supplied by the British taxpayers to these goldbricks is to vomit.
Hawnzz
Why on Earth do they pay the Royal Family anything? She has massive assets. If she has an official capacity, pay her for it.
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n--Y--charles116Thank you.
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