While last week’s announcement that Greece entered deflation for the first time in 45 years was not entirely unpredicted, the case put forward by the Troika for slashing wages and dismantling the country’s industrial relations system should be challenged.
While I don’t believe the criticism Osborne has received is in any way a distraction from the wider issues (if anything it’s an indictment of his inability to empathise with disabled shoppers), I thought it worth a quick look at just how out of touch this government is policy wise.
Larry Summers nails austerity on Newsnight
What’s wrong with the Mundell-Fleming model? This question probably doesn’t much pre-occupy the political class, but it should because it provides pretty much the only defence remaining for the coalition’s macroeconomic policies.
Martin Wolf has a blistering piece in today’s Financial Times (£) challenging David Cameron’s stubborn adherence to austerity economics.
A year ago, Ed Miliband set out his vision of Responsible Capitalism, saying Labour was “determined to stand up against the vested interests that are imposing a surcharge culture on people”. In the past few weeks in Germany, the German trade union movement (DGB) has developed the idea of a new Marshall Plan for Europe. It is this kind of joined up thinking that we urgently need to build a credible alternative to austerity.
Economic output declined by 0.1 per cent in December, January and February, suggesting an economy that continued to flat-line in the first two months of this year, according to the latest data from NIESR.
We must be watchful of a spinning of facts by this government to justify its policies. Nowhere has this been more apparent than when Cameron and co talk about government borrowing.
Government borrowing will overshoot the chancellor’s target by £8bn this financial year, according to predictions published today by PricewaterhouseCoopers.
The devolved administrations have united to call on the UK government to adopt Vince Cable’s call for much greater expenditure on infrastructure to boost growth.
