CHRIS JOHNS: “WE CAN NEVER HAVE A FINANCIAL CRISIS BECAUSE WE HAVE NO CURRENCY TO SELL AND WE ARE TOO SMALL TO COUNT WHEN IT COMES TO THE EURO’S VALUE”
May 17th, 2010 by Conor McCabe
I was reading Michael Taft’s post on Progressive Economy today, where he was talking about the economic nonsense of a certain Chris Johns, chief executive of Bank of Ireland Asset Management.
Johns has written an article for the Sunday Business Post, telling us all that we can’t raise taxes any further, and that we just have to cut public services and be done with it.
Back in 1999 Chris Johns, who was listed as working in the “funds management industry” wrote an article for the Irish Times entitled “MCCREEVY SHOULD CUT TAXES TO THE FULLEST EXTENT”.
He said that Ireland can NEVER experience a financial crisis as we have no currency to sell and our economy is too small.
Not only that, he said that McCreevy should cut taxes.
We have a golden opportunity to slash tax rates to levels far below those of our European competitors. But, say the old-world thinkers, this will lead to inflation, a consumption boom, higher imports, higher house prices, higher wages, lost jobs and great social exclusion (because tax cuts only benefit the rich). We could take each argument in turn, but we don’t need to because each is either completely wrong or not worth worrying about.”
Anyway, here’s the 1999 Chris Johns article.
Irish economic discourse. Read it and weep.
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