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Mixed emotions about the FT mea culpa. https://www.ft.com/content/7b6242c5-8a25-4d98-ba0a-f9d9bd046085 “That consensus can be wrong was on display after the 2008 financial crisis, when many organisations — including this newspaper — advocated fiscal retrenchment.“ 1/4
It is good but rare when individuals and organisations admit they were wrong. Our government still hasn't. But the next sentence is misleading. “The facts have changed and economists have, sensibly, changed their minds.” Well some economists maybe, 2/4
but not the majority of academic economists who always opposed austerity. So many words and so much time was spent by me and others trying to get both theory and evidence across to organisations like the FT. It is not luck or chance that we were right and they were wrong. 3/4
The facts did not change. What is missing from the FT leader is any attempt to ask themselves why they got it wrong, and why they pushed an idea that went against basic macroeconomic principles known since Keynes and abundant evidence that austerity would do great harm. 4/4
