Economic Rebalancing

In the views of the politicians, the economy was not one of a ‘Golden Age’. As the British Cabinet Paper wrote, ‘It is clear that ever since the end of the war we have tried to do too much…we have only rarely been free from danger of economic crisis’. This illustrates the fact that although the economy was not falling apart, it was not stable and not prosperous. There was also a lack of a plan to deal with the economy; the government merely adjusted the system as it went along, which sometimes resulted in high rises of inflation or sudden consumer booms that did not correlate with its ability to pay for them – causing a deficit.

The Labour government in 1945-1951 achieved a high degree of activity and success, despite working within ‘the aftermath of war’ which inevitably ‘brings enormous difficulties’. The Labour government devoted their power to reconstructing a better nation, one that would be a ‘better place in which to be born, to grow up, and to live and even die’. On the other hand it is possible to criticise Labour due to their ‘irresponsible’ spending.

1. If an economy produces final output worth $5 trillion, then the amount of gross

The government has been implementing policies in the improvement of the growth in the UK. Such as improving economic growth during the Great Depression and the recent financial crisis. A brief history by (Pettinger, 2016) on the use of fiscal policy, Keynes promoted the use of fiscal policy as a way of boosting growth. Moreover, during 1970-1980s the government switched to using monetary policy in influencing the economy. However, the government later reverted to using the fiscal policy in the recession of 2008-2013. Whether or not fiscal policy is the key policy in the process of improving economic growth is the issue.

Whether or not there truly was a ‘post war consensus’ in British politics from 1951 to 1964 is a highly debatable topic of which historians can often appear to be in two minds about; on one hand, Labour Prime Minister Harold Wilson infamously described the period as ‘Thirteen years wasted’, whereas historian Robert Blake (a supporter of the Conservatives’, regards it as a ‘Golden age of growth’. The likes of Kevin Jeffrey’s even argue that consensus had even started before the war. Overall, the central issue was the idea of a mixed economy.

Modernisation of the British economy was one of the key priorities for the Labour government. By 1964, it was widely accepted that Britain was lagging behind other countries such as West Germany and Japan. Britain’s economy seemed to be trapped in the cycle of “stop-go”, with

Margaret Thatcher’s economic and political Legacy has shaped the western world. Thatcher denounced the “prolonged experiment” of socialism in Britain as “a miserable failure in every respect.” Thatcher’s economic policies, aided by Reaganomics in the United States, promoted free trade, open markets, privatization, and deregulation of the financial sector which was

“Since 2007 to mid 2009, global financial markets and systems have been in the grip of the worst financial crisis since the depression era of the late 1920s. Major Banks in the U.S., the U.K. and Europe have collapsed and been bailed out by state aid”. (Valdez and Molyneux, 2010) Identify the main macroeconomic and microeconomic causes that resulted in the above-mentioned crisis and make an assessment of the success or otherwise of the actions taken by the U.K government to resolve the problem.

Debates - these battles of mental fortitude and intellectual dexterity are arguably the cornerstone of a thriving democracy. Picture this - a latino social Democrat from Los Angeles observes a flooring critique of the distinguished saltwater economist Paul Krugman delivered by Niall Ferguson, a famous Harvard economic historian. What he notes, aside from Ferguson’s eloquence, is Ferguson’s attempt to remain intellectually honest as he discusses political polarization occurring in the modern political system as it relates to macroeconomic realities. A palpable dearth of political distortion surfaces in Ferguson's ideological argument as he describes both modern “caricatures of austerity and caricatures of stimulus.” For those unfamiliar, austerity

Economy is an important part of any country, as it determines the country's wealth and power. The United States has an economy which is always changing. However, changes to the economy don’t always benefit the people. The reason for this affecting the people would be tax increase. Some people believe that increased tax rates will help the economy by bringing in revenue needed for it to thrive,while other believe that it wouldn’t motivate people to do things like invest. The economy, for many reasons such as the one listed, is important because it determines various factors such as a country’s military, the production of goods and services, and things like trade as well.

It remains it a prolonged economic crisis but has no active completion internationally since the fall of the berlin wall. While Marxism is seeing a renewed interest by society. The media and other spheres of culture speak of Marxism as not being a viable alternative but a source for examining the wrongs of capitalism through the analysis of Marx and by this synthesis a desirable form of capitalism can be formed. This idea, is a form of concession, the admittance of an error of the international markets in lieu of making any systematic criticisms. These arguments get an echo in society where people call for the jailing of bankers and a regulation of the markets but don’t ask any serious questions that trouble the establishment. Marxists economists like the late Andrew Glyn argue that the recession was a result of an unsolved crisis of capitalism from the 1970s where profitability declined and capital had to be shifted from industry to finance. The way capitalism sought to recover was to introduce neo-liberal policies which inflicted savage austerity cuts on labour in a move to squeeze more profitability from workers. While in crises again the problem of the tendency of the rate of profit wasn’t dealt with and with the markets failing, austerity measure had to be reintroduced. This analysis of the economic crisis tells us we are facing a future of shorter booms and much longer recessions and that capitalism is fundamentally incapable of

With the introduction of controversial austerity policies, mass protest or perhaps even a legitimation crisis (Habermas, 1976) have been suggested as likely outcomes. David Bailey (2014) notes that whilst post global financial crisis there has been a noticeable growth in the number of political protests, large segments of the UK Population have accepted austerity with generally little vocalized dissent. Marion Fourcade (2013) reinforces this notion, noting that that austerity in Eurozone countries is distinct due to the fact the it seems to have “the backing, if not active encouragement, of a large segment of their populations” (Fourcade, 2013 p.625). This is intriguing as both the ‘Winter of Discontent’ (Hay, 1996) and the poll tax incidents

The “Great Recession” is commonly used to explain the massive economic contraction that occurred in the United States during the fourth quarter of 2007. However, the actions of the United States spanned to other nations, leaving massive effect on the global economy. One nation that took on serious financial burden during this recession was the United Kingdom. This nation first faced the effects of the Great Recession beginning in the first quarter of 2008. Overall, the initial mass effects on the nation can be attributed to the nation’s reliance on the financial sector. In fact, after partially stabilizing in 2009, the country struggled with a double-dip recession between 2010-12, and continues to struggle with some of these effects.

Since the global financial crisis of 2008, the UK government has been implementing various policies to combat the recession and stimulate economic growth. This essay will look at how effective the fiscal and monetary policies used since the crisis are in achieving the four-macro economic objectives. In addition, I will provide my input on the best way the UK government can carry out these policies.

The economic reforms initiated by Prime Minister Margret Thatcher since 1980’s has made the United Kingdom record steady economic growth in the 1990s. However, successive Labour governments increased government spending significantly. Since 2010, the government upheld austerity as the principal of its economic policy. In 2014, the country recorded its strongest economic growth since 2007 of 2.387 trillion dollars with GDP per capita at 39,350.64 dollars. The GDP increased significantly because of the enhanced performance of the construction, manufacturing, and services sectors. Retail sales also increased with unemployment relatively at lowest