So the laughably so-called independent Office for Budget Responsibility…. can’t get its sums right.
The OBR has forecasted 490,000 job losses by 2015 and 610,000 by 2016.
Yet leaked Treasury documents estimate
This shows the government is expecting between 600,000 and 700,000 private sector jobs to disappear by 2015 as a direct result of Osborne’s budget, which represents the biggest squeeze on public spending since the second world war.The unpublished Treasury analysis also shows that between 500,000 and 600,000 public sector jobs will be lost over the five-year period.
Richard Murphy in his article last week predicted
At least 750,000 state sector jobs will go on that basis, in my estimation. I think 750,000 more from the private sector could join them on the unemployment register.
Who is right?
David Blanchflower savages the OBR sums.
To be right the OBR and the ConDem government have got to have neo-liberal policies that work like such policies have never worked before. True, you do get booms following de-regulation tax cutting etc but these are more to do with speculative behaviour pushing up economic activity in a particular place for a limited amount of time. There then follows a bust. Think of Japan, more recently the Gulf, Britain a number of times over , the USA under (1)Reagan and (2)Bush Mk II and at present China. The ConDem austerity drive would need to outdo all these booms and not have a bust at the end of it.
Where is the evidence that this is possible let alone probable?
Search high and low for an answer from the supporters of austerity you will not find an answer to these things.
