Sweden, that Democratic Socialist paradise that is the role model of all progressives, is compared to the UK, whose state sector is the same size and whose over-extended housing sector is similar.
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Corrigan points out how in the USA the “cash for clunkers” scheme has had the only effect of bringing consumption forward. Something we all knew would happen when this half-brained scheme was launched both in the USA and in the UK post Lehman. When policy makers will ever learn, I do not know.
World trade is back to where it was three years ago, most of it being driven by the next giant credit bubble boiling to burst: China.