About that recovery George (The Osborne Effect revisited)

George Osborne departed for the summer holidays evidently feeling rather chirpy about the UK’s economic prospects, and it’s true, the economic outlook is improving. But that doesn’t mean that the catastrphic failure to acheive growth over the past three years can be ignored. Let’s compare UK growth to the US – the epicentre of the financial crisis. Whilst the UK went for austerity, the US went for stimulus. How have these two economies grown since autumn 2010? Well whilst the UK has grown just 1.7%, the US has grown by 5.5%:

So that’s clear. But what about the relative sizes of the two economies compared to their pre-crisis peak? Well whilst the UK economy is still 3.3% smaller than it was pre crash, the US economy is now 4.4% larger:

Enjoy your holidays George, there’s plenty more work to do…