George Osborne in New York backing austerity ideology

The Financial Times is carrying a story by Gillian Tett about the recent visit of George Osborne, the British Chancellor of the Exchequer to New York during which he spoke at a breakfast in his honour sponsored by Tina Brown and at a dinner sponsored by Mayor Bloomberg. The FT article suggests that Osborne is on the right track and laments that America has not followed in the UK Tories' footsteps. It is a very good thing that Barack Obama and the Democrats have avoided following the foolish and destructive policies of the British coalition government which has already led to social unrest and risks plunging Britain into a prolonged slump and imposing severe  and totally unnecessary hardship on many of Britain's poorest citizens. It never ceases to amaze me how foolishly ignorant of history and economic theory and policy fiscal conservatives can be. Celebrating Osborne's policy of deliberately cutting expenditures when an economy is struggling to recover from recession is equivalent to celebrating the medieval practice of medicine which killed many an unfortunate patient. Recrudescent woeful ignorance is nothing to celebrate. It is instead to be lamented and avoided at all costs. Thankfully Barack Obama , although far from perfect, has shown himself to be a far wiser political leader in touch at least in part with the history of the last century.