Rather than making society’s most vulnerable members carry the can, true ‘austerity’ would require those at the top to bear the much greater burden, in order to bring down increasingly obscene levels of unequal wealth.
Something strange has been happening in stock markets since 2008: they have been going up. Not just up, but absolutely flying. Through the prolonged failed recovery, unemployment, an investment crisis, the Fukushima crisis and the EU debacle, Wall street, still the market all else look to, has doubled in value.
Ed Balls is currently making a speech in which he will effectively renege on previous Labour Party statements that universality remained a “part of the bedrock” of the welfare state.
The policy of austerity is finally dying with Europe and even the monetarist IMF realising their folly recently. With its intellectual justification in tatters this government’s economic policies must change right now.
New data and projections from the OECD starkly portrays the differing approaches to austerity in the US and UK. The red line shows the US, the blue line shows the UK.
The chancellor went on the Today programme this morning to trumpet his success in getting seven government departments to agree on their budgets for 2015-16 as part of the Spending Review that he will announce on 26 June. It is reported that they have all agreed to cuts of between 8 and 10 per cent.
The average weekly disposable income has fallen to a 12-month low, the second consecutive year-on-year decline in two months, according to Asda.
The first minister of Wales has issued a stark warning of painful financial decisions to come ahead of George Osborne’s spending review at the end of next month.
While cuts are inevitable, there are ways to rebalance cuts towards those with the broadest shoulders. Public sector jobs are not the problem.
The IMF has cited some improvement in overall economic conditions, but has urged the government to do more to speed up growth in its assessment of the UK economy.
