Because of the way the ONS does its stats, which seriously benefits the government at present, the true scale of this crisis is not apparent as yet. But for those thinking 2021 is going to be a bonanza, think again. It won’t be.
The reason for saying that is straightforward. When people fear redundancy they do not spend. Many in the private sector will have that fear. And Sunak is already offering austerity. Job cuts in the state sector will follow. No one turns on the spending taps in that scenario.
We are in trouble. And it can only get worse.
Well, OK, maybe:
In September 2020, retail sales volumes increased by 1.5% from August. This was the fifth consecutive month of growth in the industry from May to September 2020, resulting in an increase of 5.5% in volume sales when compared with the pre-pandemic levels in February 2020.
That rarity from Spud, a testable proposition.
Your over and under on retail sales growth/shrinkage for 2021 over 2019 then?
“We are in trouble. And it can only get worse.”
How can this be? The State is in the process of spending £400bn of borrowed (or rather printed) money into the economy, equivalent to nearly 20% of GDP. Have we not been told ad nauseam that government spending pays for itself via the magic multiplier? Why will this spending have zero effect? Why is it always spending in the future that pays for itself, not spending we’ve actually done?
Because the multiplier doesn’t work when the tories, or the private sector, spend money.
‘Because of the way the ONS does its stats, which seriously benefits the government’
A government agency benefiting the government. Wat?
Still stuck in the punk Keynesian anti Say doom loop of ‘spending drives production’ then? Twat. Is he.
We will certainly need job cuts in the State Sector -especially in the field of higher education where misanthropes who hold highly dubious ideas about economics and politics are still free to operate on the taxpayers dime with impunity despite never saying anything vaguely intellectual in their lives…