Gross domestic product fell 0.2 percent from the fourth quarter of 2011, when it declined 0.3 percent, the Office for National Statistics said today in London. The median of 40 estimates in a Bloomberg News survey was for an increase of 0.1 percent. A technical recession is defined as two straight quarters of contraction.
The Bank of England is in the final month of its latest round of economic stimulus and the drop in output comes as prospects dim in the euro region, Britain’s biggest export market. As an anti-austerity backlash gains ground in Europe, the report may add to criticism of Prime Minister David Cameron and Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne’s budget cuts.
“This isn’t supportive of the fiscal consolidation program, so the government is likely to be concerned about that,” said Philip Rush, an economist at Nomura International in London. “The data were bad, and that supports the view that the Bank of England will do a final 25 billion pounds of quantitative easing in May.”
It's going to take a lot more than that to get the Jolly Old back into the black. This should also put to rest the issue involving austerity and how it will supposedly "save" economies. Britain has specifically been knocked back into recession because of these massive cuts, plan and simple. If government is the spender of last resort and they aren't spending, guess what happens to your economic engine?
And now Britain will have to resort to more qualitative easing after the fact rather than having that money put towards spending before the fact in a far more efficient manner. Oh well, right?
Just remember the GOP wants to bring even deeper austerity cuts here, and if they get control of the Senate and White House, those cuts will happen, and we will plunge into a recession. Count on it. You can prevent that, you know.
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