Austerity crushes UK economy more than previously thought

Ya don't say?

What a shock to hear that austerity is failing miserably because the repugicans keep telling us that it's the only thing that will save America.

As long as you ignore the fact that jobs growth is better under Obama than it was under the shrub and that austerity keeps dragging down the UK and Europe, austerity is probably great.

Ignorance is bliss, truly it is.

Britain’s economy may have shrunk more than previously estimated in the first quarter after the statistics office reported a deeper slump in construction.

Building output plunged 4.8 percent in the three months through March, the Office for National Statistics said today. That compares with a 3 percent drop in the first estimate of gross domestic product on April 25, which showed the economy contracted 0.2 percent. The revision on its own would shave 0.1 percentage points off GDP, the statistics office said.

The building data may add to concerns about weakness in the U.K. economy as it grapples with a double-dip recession. Bank of England policy makers hadn’t seen the revision before their decision yesterday to halt their quantitative-easing program at 325 billion pounds ($524 billion), according to statistics office officials.

“The lazy assumption was that because GDP was drastically below forecasts, it would go up with subsequent revisions,” said Alan Clarke, an economist at Scotia Capital in London. “The economy was in the eye of the storm in the fourth and first quarters.”