Cruel Britannia
by digby
Larry Summers on Britain’s impending lost decade, via Brad Delong:
It is the mark of science and perhaps rational thought to operate with a falsifiable understanding of how the world works. So it is fair to ask economists… what could happen that would cause you to… acknowledge that the model you had been using was flawed? As a vigorous advocate of fiscal expansion… I have for the past several years suggested that if the British economy – with its major attempts at fiscal consolidation – were to enjoy a rapid recovery, it would force me to substantially revise my views….
Unfortunately for the British economy, nothing in the past several years compels me revise my views….
The cumulative output loss from this British downturn in its first five years exceeds even that experienced during the 1930s… a decade or more of Japan-style stagnation [is] emerging as a real risk.
An effective policy approach to Britain’s economic problems must start with the recognition that the principle factor holding back the British economy over both the short and medium term is the lack of demand…. [A] car might have many infirmities, but if its electrical system did not work the car would not go. If that was fixed, the car would run, even with other problems. So it is today. Moreover, to a greatly under-appreciated extent in the policy debate, short-run increases in demand and output would have medium to long-term benefits…. A stronger economy means more capital investment and fewer cuts to corporate research and development. It means fewer people lose their connection to good jobs and become addicted to living without work. It means that more young people get first jobs and it means more businesses choose leaders oriented to expansion rather than cost-cutting. The most important structural programme for raising Britain’s potential output in the future is raising its output today.
The objection to this… is profoundly flawed….[T]he behaviour of financial markets suggests that economic weakness rather than profligacy is the main source of concern… the costs of buying credit insurance on the UK to rise when overall interest rates fall… it is evolving optimism and pessimism about the future, not changing views about fiscal policy driving markets… the primary determinant of fiscal health in both the US and UK over the medium term will be the rate of growth… austerity policies that slowed growth could even backfire in the narrow sense of raising debt-to-GDP ratios and turning debt unsustainability into a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Britain must change the pace of fiscal consolidation to stand a chance of avoiding a lost decade… hen demand is needed for growth and the private sector is hanging back, the first priority must be for the public sector to stop exacerbating the contraction.
But hey, it isn’t just Britain and it isn’t just conservative Republicans. Just listen to Ed Rendell, mainstream American Democrat:
Ed Rendell: I’m the co-chair of the campaign to fix the debt with Judd Gregg and we’ve got now 2,000 of the 5,000 major corporations signed on to the campaign we’ve raised 26 million dolars for a PR campaign right after the election to try to get peopel to focus. I think the American business community is going to weigh in with Republicans and say “enough, we want this done.”
Alex Wagner: that would be a bold strike by the business community
[More stupid irrelevant cross talk about nothing … see below]
Wagner: Luke, before we let you go, the president talks a lot about the fever breaking. I know you just gave us a sort of pessimistic view of the next couple months. But do you think the fever could break inside the Republican party come next year if in fact he is re-elected?
Luke Russert: well, it’s a question we talked about a few days ago on your show which is if Mitt Romney loses, what is the catharsis within the Republican party? Do they become more conservative and say, “you know what we nominated a guy who was way to liberal, way too moderate” or do they say “we need to reform ourselves and not be so rigid.” And that’s honestly a question which I think is very hard to fathom which direction they’ll go this far out …
Rendell: Don’t you think if the president’s re-elected, he can frame the issue by saying I want to do Simpson-Bowles, some form of it, I want to do it now, let’s all get in and do our jobs. Then the Republicans have a real Hobson’s Choice..
Russert: If both sides agree to jump in the deep end holding hands. But you’ve seen, is there the impetus to get to that magic number 217 votes in the House, it’s hard to say…
Rendell: if the president and the Democrats are on board, and the Republicans say no
Russert: If they’re on board in terms of raising the Medicare age
Rendell: uh huh, uh huh
Russert: possibly, possibly. Then you could say the Republicans will be out in the woods for the 2014 midterms. It’s tough, it’s tough. We all thought this would happen in the summer of 2011 and you saw that that deal died. Mr Woodward wrote a whole book about it.
Hey, why should Britain be the only nation to have a lost generation?
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