IMF get their maths wrong so we suffer far more than was predicted

THE myth that crippling austerity measures have been anything other than disastrous for this country was finally nailed by this newspaper yesterday, when it revealed that the IMF hugely underestimated the devastating impact of a relentless programme of tax increases and spending cuts.

The IMF calculated that every €100 of austerity would cost the economy €50 in lost growth and unemployment. This was deemed to make fiscal sense and, lo, the age of austerity was born.

Belatedly discovered “large and significant” errors in the IMF’s maths mean it underestimated the catastrophic impact of austerity by a factor of up to three. Oops.