Pardon me if I disagree by offering a correction: It’s more like the conservatives were wanking the economy by doing the opposite of Keynesianistic guidances.. at great cost to the public but at great benefit to insiders. The headline attributes the behaviour to “miscalculating” multipliers associated with fiscal policy spending.

In reality the multipliers are observed empirical numbers which were ignored and new numbers were postulated… to justify the contrarian policies. It’s been done in Canada as well, which probably has the highest number of economists per capita. Bottom line is that the economists advise.. the politicians choose what they think is appropriate.. like incorrectly using austerity budgets to fight a recession or increasing government spending during booms. The IMF statement is just awkwardly presented.