Post-COVID-19, Bitcoin & Co May Help UK Escape from Economic | Gimme The Coin
Post-COVID-19, Bitcoin & Co May Help UK Escape from Economic Funk
After the UK’s decidedly mixed response to the coronavirus pandemic, the nation has proven something of a frontrunner in all things vaccine-related, leading it to start easing out of its latest two-month-plus national lockdown on March 8 ahead of its European counterparts – almost a year since the country began its first lockdown.
The economic story since Spring 2020 has proven to be full of woe, and last week the British Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak delivered a budget that attempted to plug the gaping chasm in the UK economy. Included were delayed tax rises, increased government borrowing, an extension of the furlough project, corporate rates rises and yet more short-term public spending.
The budget has already been on the end of stern criticism from the influential economic think-tank the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) calling some of Sunak’s measures “unanswerable,” per the Guardian.
Later, the IFS was harsher still, labeling the Chancellor “Scrooge Sunak” after the budget also unveiled government plans to slash spending in the longer term, reported the BBC.
Even ex-Prime Minister Theresa May waded into the debate. Per Sky News, May claimed that the budget had neglected the innovation and research & development sectors.
Sunak, it appears, is damned if he does and damned if he doesn’t – and it all points to a bigger problem identified last month and before – the fact that Office of National Statistics data shows GDP slowed by almost 10% in 2020, and that there is a USD 84bn hole that needs plugging, per Bloomberg.
With Brexit still driving economic uncertainty in the UK, some might argue that the country badly needs a growth engine, ideally one based on new technology, and with the power to disrupt the existing financial sector, which London ruled the roost over during the European Union era.
Some might argue that such a growth engine already exists, if the government will only be brave enough to embrace it: crypto.
