3 ms·
He did many things that were part of the conventional wisdom - 'light touch" financial regulation, which were wrong, but then did some things that are excellent
by dimitar 11y ago
He did many things that were part of the conventional wisdom - 'light touch" financial regulation, which were wrong, but then did some things that are excellent in retrospect - preventing the UK from joining the Eurozone and his crisis response.
It is unfair to say that he caused the crisis and in hindsight he could do more to prevent and mitigate it. However he did much better than most of his peers abroad and better than his successor.
He is generally much more warmly received by economists (Paul Krugman) and economic historians (Skidelsky) and journalists (Martin Wolf).
Here is Martin Wolf on the end of his term:
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/3074d7ba-5ec0-11df-af86-00144feab49a.html http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/3074d7ba-5ec0-11df-af86-00144feab4...
Krugman: http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/10/17/hints-of-spring/ http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/10/17/hints-of-spring/ - "Gordon Brown may have saved the world, after all"
- gadders 11y agoI never said that Brown caused the crisis. He did, however, spend all the UK Government's surpluses that would have helped cushion the crisis' effects. I can't read the FT article as it's paywalled, but I don't think Krugman can be called an economist any more. He's more of a paid troll for the NYT. How can you say he's done better than his successor? We can never know how the economy would be doing now under Brown.