Is it time to be prudent and consider austerity policies again?

GEORGE Osborne, Chancellor of the UK Exchequer, has introduced more cuts for the UK in his 2016 Budget. As the UK is the world's fifth largest economy, might it be time for South-east Asian nations to consider introducing measures of austerity?

I am against "austerity measures" though I am not against evaluating core and peripheral business processes to remove redundancy and waste. We abhor lots of apps in our smartphones, calling them "bloat-ware", so why not slim down redundant departments and processes? In fact, this was the purpose of Business Process Re-Engineering - a consultancy portfolio action plan to be undertaken before large-scale back-office automation. It is a necessary evaluation of core processes before Artificial Intelligence applications are applied to the complex systems that comprise modern businesses.

Over years, managers have looked for ways to increase their mini-empires and have created paperwork redundancies that are perpetuated even when they retire as few wish to disturb the status quo or make paper-pushing staff redundant. But these empires absorb cash that would be better spent on modern automation and machine tools. Hence overstaffed firms gradually lose competitiveness and some actually acquire state support over fears of "too big to lose" if, say, the national unemployment figure is high on the list of government targets. All in all, while "austerity" may be a grim prospect, the rationale is reasonable: to free up corporate capital and apply it to productive purposes.