Re:Austerity Is an Antidemocratic Strategy to Boost Capital
by JetSetWilly on Wednesday January 10, 2024 @05:35AM
(#38938659)
It is only a "one off thing" in hindsight. I recall well the UK deficit was 14% of GDP each year. That is not sustainable. The point you are missing is that if the government had said "YOLO, lets just increase the deficit to 20% and invest in infrastructure!" then the markets would certainly not have continued to lend money at 1%. That's the path towards an Argentina style situation.
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Re:Austerity Is an Antidemocratic Strategy to Boost Capital
by rwmj on Wednesday January 10, 2024 @05:45AM
(#38938747)
Once you've bailed out the banks, then what? You're going to bail them out again? (No, because they're now publicly owned). There was no reasonable scenario where that was not a one-off increase in the debt.
We were borrowing at 1% (basically free money because inflation was higher) and we might have spent that on growth policies, but George Osbourne thought this was a good way to reduce the size of the state, a political decision.