by Andy Merricks, Head of Investments of Skerritts Wealth Management
When this was written the result of the General Election was not known. Regardless of the result, it has got us thinking about something that we mentioned in the immediate aftermath of the 2008 Global Financial Crisis and which appears to remain a big problem in Society today – short termism.
Back in 2008/9 we suggested that the democratic system itself would make it a lot harder to recover from the mire in which the world found itself, simply because the remedies would take longer than most elected governments needed to put things right.
The electorate would not give politicians the time, if indeed they had the inclination, because any government only has the first two years of its elected term to carry out the harder reforms that would be generally unpopular. Some of these reforms would lose votes for the longer term in any event; thus, continuation of policy (Left, Right or Centre) becomes harder to achieve. But how else is short termism affecting us?
