Tough decisions to overcome tough times

David Cameron's call for tough measures, austerity and slashed expenditure to overcome the enormous fiscal deficit comes as no surprise; a Prime Minister saddled with a 156 billion pound deficit could not have acted differently. While his speech placing the entire blame on Labour's door may seem typical of a politician, what is heartening is his no nonsense observations on how these steps are going to inflict more pain than anticipated and for a longer time span than what anyone bargained for. It is reminiscent of Churchill's promise of blood, sweat and tears to Brits besieged by the Second World War. Politicians have a knack of sugar coating harsh steps that make everyone believe that the pain would be for the neighbour and not for him. It should be told to Cameron's credit that he did not indulge in such deception and did not mince words on the pain that is in store for every Brit. A 156 billion deficit cannot be knocked off through shadow boxing; it calls for some tough jabs and punches that would leave many with blackened eyes and bloody noses.

When it comes to fixing things it is natural human tendency to start any tough step with the other man be it at home or the nation, which calls for some coercive and unpopular measures. All right thinking people would agree that this is a step in the right direction, the intensity of the exercise could perhaps have been milder if the government had acted when the pile up had not become so huge and was still within manageable limits. It is futile to talk about bygones and we need to come to terms with steps that have become imperative to save the economy and the nation.

A curious twist to the economy drive is US President Obama trying to dissuade any such tough austerity measures, and his reasoning that such hard cost cutting measures at this point would come in the way of a world economy recovering from bad times. The US may be our strongest political ally and trade partner but it is apparent that it has an axe to grind in advocating a stand against budget cuts. We do not have to look far to know the logic behind such a persuasion from them. The UK is one of the largest markets for American goods, any austerity step would bring down the purchasing power of the Brits, which could have a negative impact on their exports to this country. We cannot obviously be concerned about how our tightening the belt would imbalance their export prospects.

The UK and Germany two of EU's biggest economies announcing strong cuts on expenditure and tough austerity measures have sent strong ripples across the world as they could have far reaching consequences on the world economy at large. Economists would get busy interpreting the impact this could have in the way they perceive it and it would be discussed in length in different forums. We cannot be concerned about these extraneous factors and simply need to get down to the task of supporting the government in their efforts and express our solidarity with it if we do not want to go the way Greece went. The silver lining in the cloud is that UK's proposed budgetary cuts have already started creating waves of anxiety in world markets, which goes to prove that even in such tough economic times we are a force to reckon with and our actions do not pass of like a ship in the night.

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