The Financial Times has this morning produced a blinding set of graphs which highlight how fiscal austerity has negatively impacted on the GDP of various European economies.
The Financial Times (£) has this morning produced a blinding set of graphs which highlight how fiscal austerity has had a negative impacted on the GDP of various European economies.
Essentially, the greater each government’s austerity drive the larger the drop in GDP. Are you listening, Mr Osborne? The third graph (furthest to the right) is the important one (the horizontal line depicts the level of austerity from 2009-2012 and the vertical line shows the fall in GDP.
The coup de grace is delivered, however, by Paul Krugman of The New York Times:
“Austerity was costly for the afflicted economies: the greater the tightening between 2009 and 2012, according to the International Monetary Fund, the bigger the fall in output.”
Thus, FT journalist Martin Wolf adds, “the panic that justified the UK coalition government’s turn to a long-term programme of austerity was a mistake“.
“In the long run, the fiscal deficit must close. In the short run, the UK has the chance to push growth. It should take it. So should the US.”
62 Responses to “FT pulls apart austerity economics”
Newsbot9
Except he introduced the NHS. People can change for the better, you might try it one day.
Keep on trying to palm off your violent killers onto the left, so you can excuse your violent thugs today.
gms
famous economist
Newsbot9
Keep on pretending that your Corporatists are “the state”, while you attack pensions, keep talking up non-Keynsian spending as somehow being Keysian in your imagination, and keep calling for taxing the poor and giving them nothing.
And you’re a self-confessed foreign criminal too.
Newsbot9
Yes, the clue is the fact it stood for anti-Communism, and Hitler regretted the name. But that’s history, you don’t believe in it unless you’re using it to excuse your thugs.
Newsbot9
Yes, it’s SO terrible that that schools, hospitals, etc. exist. You simply oppose paying pensions, which are paid out of current revenue, because your corporate welfare billions might suffer.
And the pension is “20%” of what you’d get if there was nothing else it was spent on, if everyone could invest in the FTSE, if there were zero charges, etc.
A typical scam of yours.
And by making you pay tax.