Tag Archives: UK

I am temporarily departing from my usual finance & economics slant to write about something that I consider utterly shameful: the response of European countries, including my own, to the refugee crisis on their borders.This photo was taken on the Macedonian border today: : Herbert Mayrhofr tweeted this with a comment, "This is not the Europe that I want to live in".I wholeheartedly agree. What kind of society is it that will threaten toddlers with police batons?Many argue that Europe...

No, says The Times' David Smith. He says that the notion that there was a pause in austerity is an "austerity myth".He points to this chart from the Office for Budget Responsibility that shows fiscal consolidation as a percentage of GDP (relative to the 2008 Budget) continuing on throughout 2013 and 2014 and 2015:But the OBR's chart doesn't actually show what I would define as austerity. It shows the size of the government budget as a percentage of GDP relative to...