Brown isn't a particularly shrewd economist. Brown believes that the UK lags behind the US, for instance, because Britain spends less per capita on higher education than we do. Given that the US has created an axis between universities, government, and the corporate sector were pedigree is more valued than actual ability, this is a very foolish statement from Brown.
In terms of actual economic "management", Brown's primary accomplishment has been to fuel an absurd inflation of real estate values. British real estate is now nominally worth twice as much as in 1995, and Brown keeps pumping more money into the system. He recently introduced zero interest, zero down loans of up to 50,000 pounds (up to 100,000 for teachers) for government workers, to try to keep the boom going. He has discarded Britain's traditional inflation index in favor of a new one which ignores real estate prices; the official position is to bring British inflation metrics more in line with the Continent, but the real reason to fool the people into thinking inflation is low (much as the US Treasury Department's hawking of the ridiculous Core Inflation Rate, which excludes food and energy--useful for all those people who don't use food or energy). Since 1997, Britain's productivity growth has dropped markedly, and most of Britain's growth since then has come from money creation and a hefty FDI in Britain (mostly in, you guessed it, real estate). Britain now has severe private indebtedness, a growing current account defecit, and, not to mention for you lefties, rapidly increasing income inequality. Britain's economy is headed for collapse, but Brown is doing everything possible to keep the bubble at full tilt before the next election.
- By FiveofSwords
- By Rich
- By Potemkin