Tuesday, July 06, 2010

Krugman: Two Imaginary Creatures Dominating the Discussion on Austerity.



If I have to make a choice between Paul Krugman's opinion or George Osborne's opinion, my money will go with Krugman.

Here, he explains why Osborne is wrong to stop stimulating the economy and concentrate on reducing the deficit.

I actually don't believe that Osborne feels it is vital to reduce the deficit, he is against the entire notion of the state and is using this financial crisis as an excuse to slash social programmes that he never believed in in the first place.

He recently called for some departments to reduce spending by 40%, which is clearly ludicrous. I mean does anyone seriously believe that Whitehall departments have been overspending by 40% year after year? He's literally plucking figures out of ass now, demanding ridiculous cuts.

It's so bloody easy to be a conservative. They slash, and imagine that this is making "tough choices", when there is nothing "tough" about this at all.

They simply don't care for social programmes and they imagine that everyone who needs help is a sponger, so they are utterly lacking in compassion as they take decisions which will have a horrid impact on real people's lives.

This was always the danger of electing a bunch of former Etonians and putting them in charge of the country. They simply have no understanding of how much of this country works. And Osborne, as he slashes and throws more people on to the dole, runs the very real risk of starting a double dip recession. We need people to spend at a time like this, making many people unemployed only makes things much worse.

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