What George Osborne has done to the economy is the worst policy mistake for a century. It's as bad as that. A disaster.
He inherited an economy that was growing nicely and then decimated growth with his reckless austerity that has had terrible consequences on ordinary people who know we are not all in this together.
The Bank of England's agents reported yesterday that the economy was flat on its back; they could find no evidence of any significant growth anywhere, not in investment, consumption, exports, or in the housing or labour markets.
Given the tanking economy, it wasn't that surprising to find that Osborne had borrowed more money than expected in October - £8.6bn compared with £5.9bn a year ago - which has made it even less likely that he will be able to meet his self-imposed and unnecessarily tight deficit reduction targets.
In response a totally out-of touch Treasury spokesman tried to claim all was well because 'the economy is healing', which it isn't.
The economy is getting sicker before our very eyes; it shrank by 0.1% over the last twelve months.
Most growth was down to a temporary boost from the Olympics. Osborne has ignored all the warning signs and done nothing to get businesses hiring and investing so down we all go. He is like a rabbit in the headlights unable to move.
This is only the beginning, as there is every prospect that the economy will be back into recession again when data on growth for the fourth quarter of 2012 are published in the New Year.
We are likely to see a negative number which would be four out of five quarters in a row.
This mean we would be in a triple-dip recession which is exactly what the Monetary Policy Committee predicted last week.
Plus there is little sign that the economy will grow much in 2013 or 2014.
This heartless and incompetent government is bad for everybody's health.
Prof David Blanchflower is an economist and former member of the Bank of England's Monetary Policy Committee.
No hay comentarios:
Publicar un comentario