That wasn’t really the point
:guns:
Stat on Newsnight there that Greece’s economy was projected to grow by 1% in 2012 at the start of the year.
It’s now projected that it will shrink by 6%.
So the austerity plan is working, then?
They were talking about some report on the radio this morning where the IMF basically admitted that they have been underestimating the effect that austerity has on an economy and the calculation they were using was wrong.
.
Nobel prize winning economist Stiglitz rubbishes the entire concept of austerity as a road to recovery and the record of the IMF around the globe, as does Paul Krugman re current austerity measures in Europe.
The mistake is thinking that austerity has anything to do with economic recovery.
Taking money out of the economy won’t help it grow? :o
Pretty scary that they couldn’t understand that idea. What are they going to do about it now is the question?
I’ve been saying here for ages that taxes need to be cut. Then people will spend. Simple!
Neoconservative voodoo economics.
Simple economic theory and sensible too.
But the other side of that coin is raising taxes when times are good and people can afford to pay more.
That will not win seats and so, will never happen. At least not in Ireland anyway.
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/world/2012/0522/1224316503183.html
IRELAND RANKS among the EU countries with the lowest tax revenues and only Slovakia has lower revenues in the euro zone, a new study has found.
Irish tax revenue compared to gross domestic product was 28.2 per cent, a little above fellow euro country Slovakia (28.1 per cent) and in the same league as Bulgaria (27.4 per cent) and Latvia (27.3 per cent).
The lowest tax revenue was in Lithuania (27.1 per cent) and the highest was in Denmark (47.6 per cent) which was followed by Sweden (45.8 per cent).
Italy have reduced their income tax rates.It certainly flies in the face of the EU/IMF approach and austerity measures.It will be interesting to see the effect it has on their exchequer and growth.
That would have been to subscribe to the economic theories of Keynes. But Keynes was oh so passe, darling during the boom, Hayek was the man. Taxes should only ever go down. The inverse of what happened to house prices, which should only ever go up. Taxes down, house prices up. Yeah! Fucking snake oil peddlers.
Interesting comments from Pat Rabbite last night that the Government would not be paying the next instalment of the Anglo Promissory note due in March.
The more cynical amongst you might be inclined to think the timing of this statement of intent is very convenient given the week that was in it.
There is no way that money can be handed over in march. Given the budget just gone people would go apeshit if it was.
I think he said they wont be paying it in March mate- not that they wont be paying it
Will the guards be picking the homeless lads off the streets again and bunging them off to jail for vagrancy for the duration of our EU presidency again this time? Anyone know?
No they wouldn’t.
I really reckon they would. It would a huge F you to everyone hurt in the last budget and that’s a lot of people. There would be massive protests.
People simply do not protest in this country. Most of them voted to get Ireland into this situation.