Wednesday 18 March 2015

So who needs economic growth, eh?

Some days Idiot/Savant at No Right Turn really earns his sobriquet.

This morning for example he’s chuntering away about “out-of-touch elites only talking about things voters don't care about” – things like quantitative easing and deficits and GDP.

Instead, he reckons, “when it comes down to it, voters don't care about GDP or quantitative easing - they care about whether they have a job and a roof over their heads…”

Which is all very well but, well, guess what: they may not want to think about them, but maybe they should.

And maybe they should, because it’s things like economic growth – or economic progress as I like to call it -- a general rise in production and consequently in living standards and real wages that makes more jobs possible and pays for more things like more roofs over more heads and more food and comfort within.

And while GDP is certainly a very imperfect concept indeed, when used as a proxy for economic progress then it certainly is a way for Idiot/Savant’s voters to understand that many more jobs and roofs over heads are generally available  when this figure is going up rather than down.

And when understood properly, Idiot/Savant’s voters might also take a real interest in deficits and quantitative easing, both of which make jobs and roofs over heads less likely, rather than more.

In short, Idiot/Savant and his idiot voters might care to understand that economic growth is good, and then perhaps they might like to vote more for those who make it possible, and less for those who don’t.

Instead of having things arse-backwards.

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