At the risk of saying I told you so...

[johnny9fingers]

We have the ex-Keynesian but now neo-Monetarist IMF World Economic Outlook report Chapters 1 and 2 here:

http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/weo/2013/01/pdf/c1.pdf

http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/weo/2013/01/pdf/c2.pdf

And even it is advising George Osborne to relax his austerity programme.

I wonder, could some of the IMF bods actually be beginning to remember what the IMF was formed to do? That would be a turn-up, now wouldn't it?

Nevertheless, I can't see it happening: our present government has too much riding on it never being wrong. The loss of face would be so tremendous as to call into question its competence.

Not that any of us could ever be accused of calling George incompetent. Much. 

Comments

[felephant.livejournal.com]

I thought that, when, a couple of weeks ago on Question Time, Vince Cable called government policy Keynesian as if it had always been so, the government was realigning itself and trying to make it look as if it wasn't realigning itself. I was expecting some announcements of infrastructure investments shortly after, but it wasn't to be. But there's still hope: they won't, of course, say that they're back-tracking, but they might tell a different story of what they're doing that stresses continuities between overall policies. Fingers crossed.

[johnny9fingers.livejournal.com]

My notifications don't appear to be working. So I did not know you (or anyone) had responded to any of my posts. Bizarre.
Oh well...

Maybe the coalition will try to disguise its agenda by calling it "Keynesian" but I don't think anyone with any economic nous would be fooled for long.

[felephant.livejournal.com]

When Vince Cable said they'd been Keynesian all along David Dimbleby did a double-take because it was so obviously false; but it's not those with economic nous for whose sake the government would be changing its narrative: it's for the mass of uninformed voters.

[johnny9fingers.livejournal.com]

Well, you have a point. Therefore it is up to those who have economic nous to hold Osborne et al to account.

I guess there will have to be a lot of shouting.

[felephant.livejournal.com]

If Osborne were to offer me a deal that he would implement fully Keynesian policies if I promised not to tell anyone and embarrass him in front of his friends/electorate, frankly I'd take it in a second. Though I guess that, as I can't communicate this to him (and he wouldn't care anyway), I won't have to shut up.