What is a nation’s capacity to produce? What is the ideal mix of public and private economic production? What is the right size of population to national resources? Where do nation’s stand with regard to these answers?
In a sustainable economic world in which nations address constraints on economic production in which people must live within the planet’s boundaries to support humanity with clean air and water, politicians must produce facts and lead with the hard truth.
Governments’ primary purpose is to produce an environment that optimizes return on national resources. They accomplish that in concert with varying degrees of public and private partnership. In some economies, everything is owned and operated by government. In others, it is more democratic. In the US, it is a mixed capitalist economy as it is in Britain. The difference is the amount of burden carried by government to cover people's needs versus individual responsibility.
Self-determination is a god thing for which governments benefit by providing incentives. Responsible behavior is rewarded while irresponsibility due to intentional fault or default is punished. Governments and societies work out their balance of consequences in accordance with the laws, regulations, and rules.
When Britain joined the EU, the floodgates opened and vast numbers of people immigrated. Probably deficient consideration was given to the capacity to absorb and to immigration quality with regard to skill, knowledge, experience and proficiency needed to sustain the economy.
Population control, both quantity and quality, is something governments must manage as it is a driver toward economic sustainability and quality of life.
The condition of economies like England and the US, teetering on the brink of fiscal disaster is a symptom that government and private enterprise are dysfunctional in their planning and engineering results. There are many actors and moving parts in the process, and government leaders need more sophisticated tools to help them manage complex variables.
"Britain heading for triple-dip recession as GDP shrinks 0.3% in fourth quarter UK economy not expected to regain peak level for another two years – marking longest recovery in a century
Phillip Inman, economics correspondent
guardian.co.uk, Friday 25 January 2013 07.09 ESTGeorge Osborne at Davos. He has steadfastly refused to consider a Plan B which would stimulate demand. Photograph: Eric Piermont/AFP/Getty Images
Britain could be on course for its third recession in four years after the economy shrank 0.3% in the last three months of 2012.
The figures were worse than expected and could put pressure on the government to consider a "plan B" that would stimulate demand.
A fall in manufacturing output dragged down the economy, countering a small rise in construction between October and December, according to the Office for National Statistics. The economy achieved zero growth for the year as a whole.
Sterling dived on the news, reflecting fears the UK will lose its AAA credit rating and status as a haven economy, though the stock market shrugged off the news, remaining at a four-year high.
George Osborne said he would not "run away" from the problems facing the UK economy: "We have a reminder today that Britain faces a very difficult economic situation. A reminder that last year was particularly difficult, that we face problems at home because of the debts built up over many years and problems abroad with the eurozone, where we export most of our products, in recession."
The shadow chancellor, Ed Balls, called on Osborne to introduce policies which will "kickstart our flat-lining economy". "A plan B now should include a compulsory jobs guarantee for the long-term unemployed and a temporary VAT cut to boost family incomes and our struggling high streets," said Balls.
The Trades Union Congress (TUC) general secretary, Frances O'Grady, said the chancellor's austerity plan had "pushed the UK economy to the brink of an unprecedented triple-dip recession".”
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2013/jan/25/uk-triple-dip-recession-gdp
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2013/jan/25/uk-triple-dip-recession-gdp
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