18 September, 2015

Backwards, comrades! | The Economist

Backwards, comrades! | The Economist: "Time and again, Mr Corbyn spots a genuine problem only to respond with a flawed policy. He is right that Britain sorely lacks housing. But rent controls would only exacerbate the shortage. The previous Conservative/Liberal Democrat coalition government should indeed have been less austere. It could have boosted demand by spending more on infrastructure. But Mr Corbyn’s notion of “people’s QE”—getting the Bank of England to print money to pay for projects—threatens to become an incontinent fiscal stimulus by the backdoor (rather than serve as an unorthodox form of monetary policy when interest rates are at zero). There is no denying that young people have been harmed by Tory policies that favour the old. But scrapping university-tuition fees would be regressive and counterproductive. For proof, consider that in England more poor students go to university than when higher education was free, whereas in Scotland, whose devolved government has abolished tuition fees, universities are facing a funding crisis and attract no more poor students than they did."



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