Anótonio Costa, the "unelected" PM of Portugal
The "contraption" - government of Socialist-Marxist-Leninists,
came to power on a promise of tremendous economic growth.
The Portuguese believed, and increased internal consumption
and spent all their savings.
In leftist Portugal, only the public deficit
and the country´s external debt, is growing.
A lot has happened in Portugal (and in the world)
during the last year,
most of which the Portuguese have already forgotten,
but between 2011 and 2015,
the Socialist Party spent all their energy to attack
the government of the PSD and CDS,
that the Portuguese economy was not growing.
João Galamba, Pedro Nuno Santos and others,
accused the then government of doing nothing to promote growth.
António Costa has twisted and turned himself,
in promising miraculous growth and more growth for Portugal.
The Socialists, the radical BE and the communists,
consistently attacked the then government´s "austerity" meausres,
accusing it of impeding economic growth.
Before the elections,
Costa created a working group, full of brilliant economists,
to present a growth program for the country.
In the election campaign, Costa assured the Portuguese,
of an increase of 2.5% with a socialist government.
In short, the message Costa transmittes was:
the right-wing government meant "austerity";
while the Leftists meant substantial growth.
Among the national radical leftists and many journalists,
an "absolute truth" arose:
"With austerity, there´s no economic growth".
So, for the economy to grow, it would be necessary
to end the bloody "austerity."
However, when the contraption goverment was formed,
they announced a turning of a page,
ending all "austerity" and announced substantial growth.
But, alas, growth is just not arriving.
On the contrary, it is always sloping downwards.
Every quarter, going down even more.
Here, is a good definition for this contraption government:
the government of decreasing growth.
And the "substantial growth" promised for 2016
is slipping down so low,
in the year that was supposed to be the anti-austerity year,
with a growth that is lower than the growth of 2015,
a year of cruel "austerity".
This radical contraption government
will have to explain to the Portuguese,
why the economy grew more during "austerity" measures
than without any austerity?
For sure, all Portuguese want to know the answer.
Repeating: why did the "austerity" measures
promote more economic growth than the end of austerity?
The previous government of Passos Coelho realized the obvious.
An indebted economy does not produce wealth.
Any Portuguese would realize that if he earned two euros
but spend three euros, he doesn´t not produce any wealth.
In the first decade of this century,
there was a huge imbalance between wealth creation
and consumption in Portugal.
The result was the indebtedness
and a highly negative trade balance.
The previous government began to correct these imbalances.
It was at the expense of lower incomes and purchasing power.
But there are no miracles
and the truth is that economic growth returned gradually,
as was well observed in 2015.
In the long term,
we would have a healthier economy
growing in a more consistent manner.
Then the radical contraption government of António Costa arrived,
with the promise of tremendous growth.
The Portuguese believed them,
and increased the internal consumption causing imports to rise,
and they spent their savings.
In a leftists Portugal, ruled by the radical left,
only the deficit and the debt is growing.
The inability to get the economy to grow,
shows two obvious points about the socialist government.
In the first place, this radical contraption government
has no program for four years.
They want to stay in power for four years or more,
but there isn´t a government program for that period of time.
By attacking "Europe" and blaming the previous government executive,
is definitely NOT a government program
and it will not last four years.
Also, by continuing to increase revenues through public policy
is no solution either.
There simply is no money for it,
not in Portugal nor in Germany.
Secondly, the economy will defeat this radical government.
It won´t be public finances, nor Europe.
There is enough pragmatism within the contraption government
to approve budgets that Brussels accepts.
But what will happen to a government
that came to power, promising an economic growth of 2.5%
and then does not even managed to reach 1%?
Antonio Costa promised the end of austerity
and promised susbstantial economic growth.
Unfortunately, Portugal will end up
with a cruel return to austerity without any growth.
The President has already realized this fact
and he has started sending out alert messages.
No comments:
Post a Comment