Wednesday 28 January 2009

A 20 year recovery

From today's FT....

The UK will need to raise taxes or introduce spending cuts worth an extra £20bn annually by the end of the next parliament if it is to repair public finances to the level forecast in November’s pre-Budget report, according to the Institute for Fiscal Studies.

In its 2009 Green Budget, an annual analysis of fiscal policy, the IFS concluded that even with spending cuts and tax increases of that magnitude, public sector debt may not be able to return to pre-crisis levels for more than 20 years.


This is a welcome wake up call. Brown and Darling are diving, head first, into the shallow pool of a fiscal crisis. These jokers will not get away with three or four years of £100 billion public sector deficits.

7 comments:

AntiCitizenOne said...

> The UK will need to raise taxes or introduce spending cuts worth an extra £20bn annually

We're at the peak of the laffer curve, the state extortion maxima.

The state will just have to punish people less for working and reward likely labour voters less of other peoples money.

Anonymous said...

If Brown had an ounce of honour and sense of responsibility, he would have resigned months ago.
We can expect him to take the UK to the brink of bankruptcy before he walks out... can someone please take this cretin out for good ASAP !!!!

Mitch said...

Gordons recession will probably outlive him.

mike said...

Reduce the number of public sector workers by a half a million and lay-off the 20000 100K+ a year workers. That should do it.

Anonymous said...

Maybe you should all be more realistic. Do you really think that New Labour will make public "servants" redundant? The same public workers who vote for New Labour?
I don't. I see the situation getting worse until the election and given the number in the regime, as you can describe fairly, 50% of the workforce, there is no guarantee of any change in government.
However, there is a guarantee that I won't be paying the money you losers have run up.
Good luck with it.

Anonymous said...

Sorry, I have no idea why I came out with that. I know the viewpoints here and I agree.
But I won't pay for the UK debt. No way hose. Foreign travel for me, and for you and your kids if you have any brains. I am 38, the debt repayment period obviously fills the rest of my working life and I don't have a public sector pension.
Not much point playing this game....

Anonymous said...

I agree: get out. I have already begun moving all my business and accounts out of the country. I will jut between world capitals a la Tyler Brule, and I am most certainly will not be paying for the chav/scum debacle and social decline Labour has set up for the next couple of decades.