Ireland imposed heavy austerity at the time of our then bailout. It led to the country not only being the fastest growing economy in the eurozone in 2014 but the whole of the twenty eight EU countries. This was repeated in 2015. And we're now on track for a hatrick this year.
So heavy austerity has led to Ireland being europe's fastest growing economy, for 2014, 2015 and 2016. No other country in the EU comes close.
Can we blame the massive housing benefit bill on the fact that the Right to Buy, started by Thatcher, has left us with shortages on council housing and higher living costs on the Tories then. Sure Labour did **** all about it but it was started by the Tories.
This is fun - blaming past Govts whilst overlooking the current Govts lack of desire to fix the problem.
The Labour Party have supported the RTB since the middle of the 1980's - so blaming Thatcher is rather desperate.
Except it's not the same people is it? And the IMF are notorious for disagreeing among themselves. After all, it was less than two years ago that the IMF accepted they were wrong about the UK's austerity program.
Add the document to the lengthy list of opinions on the subject.
You would have to read the report to judge it, and know a lot about economics.
The newspaper's headline doesn't actually match what the same article says. The IMF doesn't think that cutting productive spending, or poductive investment spending, is a good move. It isn't. the key question is what productive means?
But its far from clear, here, that cutting services, defence, spending on benefits, fiddling with rates of increase on other benefits, or raising VAT, was cutting anything remotely productive. Nor is it clear that Brown, spending 13 years, building new schools, new hospitals, and new government buildings, added anything productive to the economy.
Indeed, you could argue that spending on new schools - while the standard of education fell down the internationall eague tables - was counterproductive, while pushing more people into work by reducing access to benefits, was productive .
You could also ask whether what went on was actually austerity at all, but a necessary correction to stop benefits, housing allowances, tax credits, debt, and pensions, growing faster than the economy could keep up. Cuts effectively provided the head room to spend a bit more on the NHS, while reducing the rising demand elsewhere.
Arguably, its the fast rising demand in the UK for, non productive, benefits, pensions and NHS spending, thats the real enemy of productive budgetary investments in research, support for business, infrastructure and education.
... Arguably, its the fast rising demand in the UK for, non productive, benefits, pensions and NHS spending, ...
Though to solve those problems you'd have to get rid of kids, the unemployed, the pensioners, and the sick and injured....
The main problems caused by the austerity measures have been the sudden changes in the rate of flow of money and not just because they were 'austerity', because the various parts of the system have to make quick changes to adapt and these don't always go smoothly. Perhaps if they had made the changes over a longer period of time it wouldn't have been so bad and maybe had less of a disapproving glare from the IMF.
Comments
So heavy austerity has led to Ireland being europe's fastest growing economy, for 2014, 2015 and 2016. No other country in the EU comes close.
The Labour Party have supported the RTB since the middle of the 1980's - so blaming Thatcher is rather desperate.
You would have to read the report to judge it, and know a lot about economics.
The newspaper's headline doesn't actually match what the same article says. The IMF doesn't think that cutting productive spending, or poductive investment spending, is a good move. It isn't. the key question is what productive means?
But its far from clear, here, that cutting services, defence, spending on benefits, fiddling with rates of increase on other benefits, or raising VAT, was cutting anything remotely productive. Nor is it clear that Brown, spending 13 years, building new schools, new hospitals, and new government buildings, added anything productive to the economy.
Indeed, you could argue that spending on new schools - while the standard of education fell down the internationall eague tables - was counterproductive, while pushing more people into work by reducing access to benefits, was productive .
You could also ask whether what went on was actually austerity at all, but a necessary correction to stop benefits, housing allowances, tax credits, debt, and pensions, growing faster than the economy could keep up. Cuts effectively provided the head room to spend a bit more on the NHS, while reducing the rising demand elsewhere.
Arguably, its the fast rising demand in the UK for, non productive, benefits, pensions and NHS spending, thats the real enemy of productive budgetary investments in research, support for business, infrastructure and education.
The main problems caused by the austerity measures have been the sudden changes in the rate of flow of money and not just because they were 'austerity', because the various parts of the system have to make quick changes to adapt and these don't always go smoothly. Perhaps if they had made the changes over a longer period of time it wouldn't have been so bad and maybe had less of a disapproving glare from the IMF.