A Hard Look at UK Austerity and Correcting the Mistaken Lessons of History – John Gelmini

United Kingdom (Photo credit: stumayhew)

Further to Dr Alf’s reblogging of John Cassidy’s excellent article, entitled “The Mistaken Lessons of History : a UK Misfortune“,  published in the  New Yorker, I should like to make some additional observations.

Austerity and cutting on their own are never going to work because the jobs which are lost as a result will not be replaced unless other measures are taken in parallel.

Secondly, austerity has to be delivered quickly as was the case with Canada and Ireland where it was applied for two short years and where people were told in advance why it was being done and how growth would be engineered.

In the UK, we have had austerity delivered too slowly and without the accompanying additional measures.

A comprehensive list of necessary measures should include (inter alia):

a) Lower taxes to get money hidden offshore brought back onshore and thus…