May 25, 2010
At its peak in 2006, the median house price in the United Kingdom was 10 percent higher than the median price in the United States, even though its per capita income is more than 10 percent lower. This bubble was driving the economy in the UK in the same way that it was driving the economy in the U.S.. The collapse of this bubble led to the recession in the UK and its financial crisis in the fall of 2008.
The bubble was completely absent from the NYT’s discussion of the UK’s current economic problems. Instead, it attributed fiscal profligacy for the UK’s problems. In particular, it focused on the UK’s public health care system, which it tells readers: “soared to 9 percent of G.D.P. from 3 percent.”It also described the public health care system as ” elephantine.”
It was many decades ago when health care costs in the UK were just 3.0 percent of GDP. Health care costs in the UK have increased in GDP like as in all other wealthy countries. When the Labor government took office in the mid-90s, health care costs in the UK were close to 6.0 percent of GDP.
With the increase in spending, the UK is still spending only a bit more than half as much as the United States, which spends 17 percent of GDP on health care. When adjusted for the difference in per capita income, the US still spends more than twice as much per person on health care as the UK. It therefore seems somwhat bizarre to describe the UK system as elephantine, especially when life expetancy is longer in the UK than the US.
It is also worth noting that the build up of a large debt burden during the housing crash recesssion is the result of the policy decision by the Bank of England not to simply buy and hold the debt issued to finance the deficits currently needed to support the economy. If the Bank of England followed this strategy, then the debt burden would not increase as a result of the downturn.
The Bank of England created this crisis by failing to take steps to rein in the UK’s housing bubble. It now appears to be compounding the crisis by failing to use appropriate monetary policy.
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