Friday, April 24, 2009

Britain’s shrinking private sector

Maybe we can all serve each other at the DMV. Probably wouldn't speed up the lines though.
From FT Alphaville:

Quite shocking really - or a cause for celebration, depending on your political bent. But pretty soon now, maybe in a year or so on current trajectories, the public sector will overtake the private sector in terms of economic output in Britain. [economic output? -ed]

The first chart below, culled from the National Stats by a very helpful reader (Ed Bolton, Cambridge), re-sets peak GDP to 100 in the middle of last year, when the public/private ratio stood at 43/57....

...One other point: the data show the private sector growing at just 2.2 per cent since 1989. If Mr Darling is only going to increase public spending at 0.7 per cent per annum, overall growth of 3.5 per cent the year after next - as promised on Wednesday - really is in the realms of fantasy.

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