When Europeâ??s finance ministers meet for a group photo, itâ??s easy to spot the rebel â?? Anders Borg has a ponytail and earring. What actually marks him out, though, is how he responded to the crash. While most countries in Europe borrowed massively, Borg did not. Since becoming Swedenâ??s finance minister, his mission has been to pare back government. His â??stimulusâ?? was a permanent tax cut. To critics, this was fiscal lunacy â?? the so-called â??punk tax cuttingâ?? agenda. Borg, on the other hand, thought lunacy meant repeating the economics of the 1970s and expecting a different result.
Three years on, itâ??s pretty clear who was right.
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