Greece Election 2015: Anti-austerity Syriza party raises Sunday stakes January 20, 2015 Greek anti-austerity party Syriza is on a collision course with European officials after ramping up its election campaign yesterday. The party is keen on renegotiating some of Greece’s debt. “To promote reforms one must settle the debt issue,” said Yiannis Dragasakis, the party’s senior economist, yesterday. Should Syriza win this Sunday – and polls currently place [...]
Thomas Piketty: Anti-austerity parties are good for Europe January 12, 2015 Economist Thomas Piketty's latest argument that the increased popularity of anti-austerity parties is actually "good news for Europe" will no-doubt rile many. He took the world by storm last year with the publication of Capital in the 21st Century which argued for a global, progressive tax of capital to combat increasing equality. It's attracted attention (and criticism) [...]
Could the Eurozone soon see a wave of anti-austerity rebellion? December 10, 2014 Adam Memon, head of economic research at the Centre for Policy Studies, says Yes. In Greece, a disastrous combination of sheer incompetence and an inability to grasp the severity of the Eurozone crisis has meant that Syriza, a party of the hard-Left, could soon form a new government. Syriza’s economic programme, which calls for a [...]
Autumn Statement 2014: Overdoing austerity would be self-defeating – don’t expect balanced budgets soon December 3, 2014 The chancellor issued his election manifesto yesterday, in the form of the Autumn Statement. And the good news for him is that the economic narrative is strong. GDP is now some 3.4 per cent above where it was before the crisis; we have been growing faster than any of our developed competitors. The Office for [...]
Clipper Round the World Yacht Race sailors veering from austerity to global QE bid July 14, 2014 Clipper Round the World Yacht Race sailors were splashing the champagne about as they arrived back in London over the weekend after a 40,000 mile round the world race. With entrants from firms including Goldman Sachs, UBS, Credit Suisse and HSBC, critics might label this sprinkling of sparkling as City excess. But organisers [...]
How the IMF got it wrong on austerity by ignoring psychology June 10, 2014 THE INTERNATIONAL Monetary Fund: wrong again. At the end of last week, the IMF abandoned its criticism of the UK government’s economic strategy. Christine Lagarde, the IMF chief, said her organisation had “underestimated” the strength of the recovery in Britain, and the IMF now believes that the UK will be the fastest growing of any [...]
Austerity is working – but we must continue to challenge its diehard critics May 15, 2014 THE “BACKFIRE effect” is a term coined by the US political scientist Brendan Nyhan to describe how a person’s deeply-held convictions may actually get stronger when presented with contradictory evidence. In one recent study, Nyhan and his colleagues presented a group with information confirming the safety of vaccines. Faced with the facts, those who already [...]
From fast food to fasting: Osborne’s austerity diet March 17, 2014 LAST year his Budget preparations included a calorie-stacked Byron burger, wolfed down with a side of chips. But Chancellor George Osborne is unlikely to be chomping on fast food as he prepares for Wednesday’s big speech. Proving he has a head for figures – not least his own – Osborne last month took up the [...]
Portugal passes 2014 budget as protesters rail against austerity November 26, 2013 PORTUGAL’S parliament passed the country’s 2014 budget yesterday, the last under its three-year EU/IMF bailout, but its approval is likely to trigger court challenges that could disrupt the country’s exit from the bailout programme. Several thousand unionists and pensioners converged in front of the building to protest the budget’s public-sector wage and pension cuts, which [...]
Osborne targets budget surplus September 30, 2013 GEORGE Osborne yesterday promised a future Conservative government would attempt to run a budget surplus by 2020, indicating that his party’s commitment to austerity is here to stay. The chancellor told his party’s annual conference in Manchester that, assuming the economic recovery continues, he would seek to ensure the government’s income is more than its [...]