Posted on Thursday, May 7, 2020 at 7:53 a.m.
Jean Hindriks is a professor of economics at UCLouvain and a member of the Academic Pension Board. He talks about the measures that will have to be taken to save our economy.
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We are talking about a loss of 70 billion for Belgium …
Yes, I confirm with a public deficit multiplied by three to reach 9% and a contraction of the GDP of around 7 to 8%. (…)
Is there a risk of bankruptcy for the Belgian state?
Money does not fall from the sky. There is a limit to the debt. Someone has to agree to lend. However, all states will resort to debt. It will have to be funded by its nationals. Or consider other ways to plug the social security hole. Like index jumps. For retirement too, the abolition of holiday pay. Or reduce the amount of pensions. We will start with the highest, those of officials. The question will arise as well as for the salaries of civil servants who have been very little affected by the crisis. We were out of austerity but it will come back out the window. We will have to spread the costs and, I repeat, the workers least affected were those in the public service …
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Posted on Wednesday, May 6, 2020 at 2:49 p.m.
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