The ConDems say time and again that the UK has the worst borrowing record of any government (bar, maybe, Greece).
This is very obviously wrong. As the Guardian notes, yesterday, the ratios of borrowing to GDP across Europe are:
|
Country |
Ratio of Debt to GDP |
|
Greece |
124.9% |
|
Italy |
118.2% |
|
Portugal |
85.8% |
|
Hungary |
78.9% |
|
Germany |
78.8% |
|
Ireland |
77.3% |
|
Spain |
64.9% |
|
UK |
62.1% |
The claim is just not true in other words.
Now why isn’t the press saying so?
Because it should. That’s the role of the fourth estate.
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Good question. I think the answer is that the press – has owned by people of a very right-wing persuasion – have a vested interest in propagating and perpuating lies about every aspect of economic policy. This is just one aspect of this. The most telling quote from the election campaign was the Sun editor who said that he had been told by Rupert Murdoch that his job was to get David Cameron into Downing Street… or else.
Al Franken’s book “Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them: A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right” is an excellent expose of the way the right in the US just makes things up to serve its cause. And we are going more and more that way over here as well, sadly.
Because a high GDP does not a sound economy make.
Our GDP is built on ever increasing debt. Our GDP is horribly biased to the Service Sector which earns very little that helps our current a/c which is itself in meltdown because of the changes in international banking.
GDP is a very misleading indicator to the health of a nations economy, especially when comparing nations one with another and singularly inappropriate in the case of GB.
What we need is a falling GDP, continuing recession, and a balanced budget combined with at least not a negative national current a/c.
I just wonder if Joe Public realises the price that must be paid for the years of excess, or is willing to pay it without social unrest.
The next few years will be ——— interesting.
@roger
So how will you manage all those unemployed as a result of your policy?
What will they live on?
Do you plan massive redistribution to make your policy fair?
@Richard Murphy
That is why I wrote that it will be interesting. We face a monster, a society that lives way beyond its means and based on continual taking on of debt.
But trying to ignore it won’t make it go away, continuing to take on yet more debt in the face of falling foreign earnings is like paying Dane Geld without the Geld to hand over.
There are no good outcomes to where we are. The best that can be hoped for is the least worst. Maybe a number of years of inflation with no corresponding increase in incomes that take down the standard of living by nickles and dimes to what is affordable will be the least worst, maybe taking action such as making people work for what they get from the state, maybe even paying non British Nationals to repatriate, most probably all of these things and more.
Sometimes there are no acceptable solutions. I believe that we are in such a position now and will have to face the fall out of what will be unacceptable and deal with what results.
As I wrote, the next few years will be ——— interesting.