The government must set money aside in Budget 2023 to prepare for recession.

That is according to broadcaster and entrepreneur Ivan Yates who warns of repeating past mistakes.

He joined The Anton Savage Show to share his pre-budget predictions and recommendations to Cabinet.

Mr Yates harkened back to the late 1970s and early 80s, when the country was in a similar situation to the present day.

"What happened was money was taken out of people's pockets to pay for a seismic increase in the cost of oil", he explained.

"All the knock-on effects and all the production costs on the economy resulted in a period of hyperinflation."

"We had a sustained period of what's called 'stagflation', in which whatever economic growth you had, it was gobbled up in inflation."

While much has changed in 40 years, Mr Yates believes current structure aren't much better.

"The ECB are actually part of the problem, and the federal reserve are part of the problem and that is they actually believed over the last ten years that they could stimulate the economy by quantitative easing", he said.

"They really loved printing money because during the pandemic they had MMT, which was a monetary theory which said: 'Actually we can solve zero interest rates. This money will never be repaid.'

"They've now a choice between 'stagflation' or having a sharp two-year recession which will get inflation under control."

Pending recession

While Yates believes Finance Minister Paschal Donhue has "won the lotto" with the timing of is ministry due to the spike in corporation tax income, he is urging the Minister to "take the medium term view".

"What is going to be the position if actually we do head into a recession?"

"You don't want to double down and have on top of economic market recession, you don't want to go back to austerity", he said.

"It's really important that the government take the medium term view on these issues and listen to the advice of the Fiscal Advisory Council and actually pay down some of the debt and leave us in a position that, when things get really bad in the recessionary times coming ahead, they can actually be a support, that they haven't blown the budget."

Brexit

Mr Yates also wasn't shy about his opinions on the economy of our closest neighbour, Great Britain.

"History will prove that Brexit was an act of economic genocide on the British people", he said.

"They've now doubled down on that because it'll mean less investment, less jobs and less trade.

"They've gone for broke, they were made deregulate their financial services and they've gone for tax cuts."

Britain's decision to follow through on Brexit cut them off from valuable trade deals that they couldn't replace with non-EU deals, according to Mr Yates.

"They've shot themselves in the foot."

Listen back to the full conversation here.