George Osborne - still a twat (6)

Writing in today's Telegraph, The Boy Wonder makes a few good points ...

The message from Messrs Brown and Darling is that they will save us from recession with a spending splurge funded by borrowing. But it is the wrong approach - the policies that got us into this mess cannot be the ones to get us out of it. It just doesn't work.

... and then ruins it with this:

Look at Japan. Between 1992 and 2002, Japanese government net debt grew by 58 per cent of GDP. Over the same decade, the economy grew by only 9 per cent. The result was a crippling debt burden and a landscape littered with the evidence of endless white elephant public works programmes.

There may well have been public works programmes, but the main reason for the massive increase in government debt was because the government bailed out the banks after the Japanese credit bubble burst. Which is a bit awkward for Camerosborne, because they have expressed their support for a taxpayer funded bank bail out in the UK.

Then just in case there was any doubt, he nails down his twat credentials with this:

It must be for the independent MPC to make its judgment, but it is a statement of fact that, with interest rates still at 4.5 per cent, there is plenty of scope to stimulate demand with lower rates.

If he's going to use the real life example of Japan, shouldn't he try and learn some real life lessons from it? Ed Harrison explains here why cutting interest rates in Japan did not work. He uses the expressions 'credit deflation' and 'debt deflation', but I suppose it all boils down to the 'pushing a piece of string' argument.

So despite the odd glimmer of hope, we can only assume that George Osborne is indeed, a complete numpty.