In Australia, the Federal Treasurer announced today that they would be making further spending cuts to the fiscal position of the government in the mid-year statement to pay for “an increase in funding for security agencies” and its onslaught against ISIL. So education, health spending, income support etc will get the chop so we can make the world an even more dangerous place than it is currently at a time when unemployment is rising and economic growth falling. Another case of austerity madness combined with the mindless approach to dealing with the external threats from extremist groups. He should take a note from the British Chancellor’s book who is overseeing an expanding fiscal deficit and public debt ratio, despite the rhetoric to the contrary, and that on-going deficit is supporting growth, helping private households increase their saving ratio and is generally a good thing to behold. Austerity in the UK?- not if you consider the current data!

The British Office of National Statistics published the – Gross Domestic Product Preliminary Estimate, Q2 2014 – last Friday (July 25, 2014), which showed that real GDP growth was 0.8 per cent in the second-quarter building on the same result in the first-quarter. It is also the first quarter than the British economy has reached the peak value in March 2008 some 6 years and 1 quarter to get back to square one. On the surface it is a reasonable result but focusing on the headline figure misses some of the salient points that the British government certainly doesn’t want to advertise. The following blog provides some other perspectives some pointing out the deficiencies in just focusing on the headline GDP figure and others looking at other measures. Overall, what growth there is in the UK appears on the surface to being hijacked by high income earners and corporations.

The UK Guardian article – Britain’s economy returns to pre-crisis strength earlier than expected (June 30, 2014) was interesting, especially in the light of the major revisions that the Office of National Statistics has announced, which suggest the loss of real output during the crisis was somewhat less (but still very large) than was previously indicated in the official data. One commentator was quoted as saying that the “recession was still huge even if it has now gone from perhaps 10 to 9.9 on the Richter scale”. But when a national statistical agency makes announcements like that people with vested interests in talking the economy up jump and the Government is no exception. The problem is that while growth has firmed over the last three quarters it is mostly due to an increase in private sector debt and a dramatic drop in household saving. There is still support for growth from the Government, which suggests that the austerity hasn’t been as severe at the macroeconomic level as the rhetoric might have indicated. The growth dynamics in the UK are looking decidedly like the pre-crisis build-up, which doesn’t augur well.

I was happy this morning and then I thought about the spikes that I had read about last week. Those 17-inch spikes didn’t improve my mood. They are symbols of how successful the neo-liberal period has been in dissolving the sense of collective will in our societies. We have been indoctrinated by the capitalists, their servant politicians, and the think tanks and co-opted media to believe that we are all in this for what we can get whereas in the full employment period after World War II we were all in it together. Now we think someone who is unemployed or homeless is in that state because of their own failing whereas we used to understand it was because their were not enough jobs and an individual was powerless to alter that overall lack of spending in the economy. It needed strong government intervention to resolve the issue. Now we consider the homeless are to be treated like pigeons!