Wait a second. You mean the harsh budget cuts that everyone else said would stagnate the economy and prevent recovery for years were right? Golly, who would have imagined?
Archie Norman, the former Tory MP who now chairs ITV, said the government's growth targets were too optimistic. The former Asda boss Andy Bond, Carphone Warehouse founder Charles Dunstone, Tory peer Lord Wolfson, who runs Next, and Yell chairman Bob Wigley predicted tough times ahead as soaring inflation dents consumer spending power, although they continue to support George Osborne's austerity strategy.The Democrats who went along with the GOP cuts should wake up and accept that they too will be responsible for a stagnating economy in the US. Someone in the party really needs to learn how to organize and actually fight. It's been obvious from the day Obama picked his cabinet that he wasn't someone who would fight so somebody else needs to step up.
Bond expressed doubt about the ability of the private sector to create as many jobs as hoped. "I don't think the private sector is going to be able to pick up the slack in this climate," he said.
Bond, who ran the UK's second largest supermarket chain for five years, forecast a two-year "retail recession" earlier this week.
He was one of 35 bosses who signed a letter to the Daily Telegraph six months ago supporting George Osborne's plan to slash the deficit and arguing that businesses "should be more than capable of generating additional jobs to replace those lost in the public sector".
