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Sharan Burrow |
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These are truly times for anger.
The world is barely re-emerging from the deepest economic crisis in a century, yet the very policies and mindset that caused the problem in the first place are back with a vengeance. Indeed, the world economy risks sliding back into crisis as dangerously short-sighted policies are put into place. The brave words of reform from world leaders in the G20 meetings of 2009 are now largely forgotten and have been replaced with the old scriptures of fiscal consolidation and calls to address the “fundamentals”.
And thus the world is fast slipping into a self-defeating round of “competitive austerity” where everyone seeks salvation from austerity at home through export-led growth. This is a strategy that might have worked for some for a time, but those days are gone: credit-driven consumption in a few key countries can no longer make up for the lack of wage-driven consumption worldwide.