{"id":476136,"date":"2010-03-26T12:00:38","date_gmt":"2010-03-26T16:00:38","guid":{"rendered":"tag:www.economist.com,21005641"},"modified":"2010-03-26T12:00:38","modified_gmt":"2010-03-26T16:00:38","slug":"brightening-up","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/476136","title":{"rendered":"Brightening up"},"content":{"rendered":"

BRITAIN’s recession has been much more like America’s than Europe’s. Its recovery<\/a> may follow that trend:<\/p>\n

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The budget deficit as a share of GDP may be on a par with Greece\u2019s, but Britain\u2019s public debt started much lower, at less than 50% of national output in 2007, compared with over 100% in Greece. Britain has always paid its debts; investors don\u2019t yet doubt the ability of a British government to get a fiscal grip after the election; and Britons tend to pay their taxes.<\/p>\n

Despite the reverses of the past couple of years, the British economy retains important strengths, not least its openness to trade, capital flows and, more recently, migration. There is much talk of rebalancing the economy, of finding new sources of growth now that financial services and the housing market have taken a hit. Yet Britain\u2019s economy is already surprisingly varied. It is still the world\u2019s sixth-biggest manufacturer. The outlook for financial services may have darkened but London\u2019s streets are no less thronged with lawyers, management consultants, accountants and ubiquitous marketing types. Cultural output is strong, with films and video games and edgy fashion pouring forth. Foreigners still want to buy British businesses\u2014and Britain usually does well by it…<\/p>\n

Delivering his pre-election budget on March 24th…the chancellor, Alistair Darling, said he expected growth to accelerate from 1.25% this year to 3.25% next year, then to 3.5% over subsequent years. That smacks of wishful thinking. Britain\u2019s banks are reluctant to lend. Consumers owe too much and will have to pay more in taxes whoever wins power in May. The economy has long-standing weaknesses, including congested transport, unreformed schools and patchy skills.<\/p>\n

Nevertheless, the prospects for growth look reasonable.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Earlier in the crisis, sterling was seen as a potential burden for Britain\u2014as a vulnerability that could lead to currency runs and additional pain. These days, being outside the euro looks like a blessing, for having avoided recent troubles associated with sovereign debt problems and for the boost flexible sterling will give to rebalancing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

BRITAIN’s recession has been much more like America’s than Europe’s. Its recovery may follow that trend: The budget deficit as a share of GDP may be on a par with Greece\u2019s, but Britain\u2019s public debt started much lower, at less than 50% of national output in 2007, compared with over 100% in Greece. Britain has […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4534,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-476136","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/476136","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4534"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=476136"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/476136\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=476136"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=476136"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=476136"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}