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Spends less than what is earned. Which UK country has tried that?
No, that is not what an austrity measure is. That would be the goal of successful austerity measures. If the goal is not reached, it does not mean austrity measures were not taken, it only means the measures did not accomplish what they were hoped to accomlish. As a matter many people argue they usually DO NOT accomplish their goals. In the worst case they can have the exact opposite effect.
If the austerity triggers lay-off and unemployment, the government will end up spending more money to support the unemployed, and it can offset any savings coming from the austerity cuts. Win some, lose some, but are you winning more than you are losing? That's the question.
Are you seriously trying to argue UK has not taken austerity measures when they just eliminated 200 government agencies?
Last edited by Finn_Jarber; 02-27-2013 at 09:51 AM..
This last possibility becomes especially persuasive when you look at the full list of advanced countries that have exceeded the supposed 90 percent threshold in the past 50 years: Japan, Italy, Belgium, Greece. That’s it. So yes, Japan and Italy have had high debt and slow growth; do you really want to say that debt was the only reason for slow growth, or that the Japanese slowdown of the 1990s had no role in causing the rise in debt? Do you really want to say that debt is the only reason for Italy’s poor performance? If your answer to either question is no, you have just said that you don’t believe in Reinhart-Rogoff’s results.
So why do people imagine that this is a definitive result? That’s obvious. R-R on debt got picked up eagerly by deficit scolds, because it said what they wanted to hear. Then it became orthodoxy through what we might call the Scarborough effect: Very Serious People heard other Very Serious People citing the alleged finding, then repeated it themselves, and it became part of what Everyone Knows — after all, everyone they talked to said it was true.
Exactly, and its not working. The far right here gets its talking points from one source, which explains the dissonance.
In the US those advocating "austerity" have an agenda. They want Wall St gambling with what remains of peoples retirement money.
Spain:
“A desperate 59-year-old Spanish man facing eviction from his home has committed suicide, the third such death since October amid rising public outrage over repossessions…
“…An estimated 400,000 home owners have been evicted since the start of Spain’s economic crisis in 2008
Rajoy's year-old conservative government no longer calls the shots, if it ever did. In 2012 it tried to obey Brussels and Berlin, raising taxes and chopping spending on health, education, social services and almost everything else. Pensioners and civil servants became poorer. Yet early figures suggest that, by the time money borrowed to bail-out banks is included, the deficit remained above 8%. In 2013 Rajoy promises to do better. And that means even more cuts.
With a quarter of this year's budget to go on servicing debt, Spain itself now needs a bailout. In 2013 it looks set to test the new "soft" bailouts now on offer from eurozone partners. That will be a make-or-break moment in the euro crisis. If it works and helps set Spain on the road to recovery, the euro is safe. If it does not, there are few solutions left. A soft bailout will be less painful than those inflicted on Greece, Portugal and Ireland – because it comes with a European Central Bank (ECB) promise to buy Spanish bonds in order to keep borrowing costs down. But it will still come with one chief condition – more austerity.
Restricted by the euro straitjacket and unable to devalue its currency, Spain is on the slow, painful path of internal devaluation.
The economy means more than whether or not your neighbor is employed, even in the USA.
That's the point. Whether or not austerity measures are taken, and whether or no they actually work are two entirelly different things. In UK the measures HAVE BEEN TAKEN, and time will tell if they worked.
That's the point. Whether or not austerity measures are taken, and whether or no they actually work are two entirelly different things. In UK the measures HAVE BEEN TAKEN, and time will tell if they worked.
The UK was one of the last countries to go to austerity vs pump the system.
Greece was the first and has been under 'austerity' measures for a number of years now.
Why just the focus on the UK ?
i didn't say whether spain had tried austerity or not.
however, since you asked, the size of the deficit year-to-year is not necessarily a measurement of austerity.
Bailouts and austerity have the same purpose: to take money from the people and redistribute it among the financial sector.
Take the U.S. for example. There is no reason whatsoever for us to undergo "austerity" measures. Wages have been stagnant or declining. Core inflation is not a threat.
The two entities that can create new dollars through the Fed are: The financial sector, and the government. That's what this "austerity" business is: a power struggle between the banks and the government.
If you don't understand the role that private-sector banks play in austerity, then you don't understand the topic.
You don't understand austerity. Which country has taken in more than they've spent? When you can show me a country that has then you have seen austerity. Maybe Iceland for its stand against bank bailouts
Stay in the shallow end tad pole and quit making up definitions of what austerity is. Since you obviously don't know I suggest the smart thing to do is stop commenting. Not that you'll do that, just that it's the smart thing to do.
On top of that you refer to Core inflation which uses the already fraudulent numbers CPI spews out then takes out energy and food because as everyone knows food and energy mean little to peoples wallets.
You can stop selling your perverted snake oil now.
You don't understand austerity. Which country has taken in more than they've spent? When you can show me a country that has then you have seen austerity.
Austerity is about spending cuts, not necessarily bringing spending below revenue although that is the idea believed by many to be the only way (or else, you could argue that increasing revenue to surpass spending is also austerity).
What FDR's New Deal really did is create and grow a middle class, which grew income during this period. The right-wing has been trying to undo that for decades.
What your graph shows is that a thriving middle class came about after WW II and the destruction of most of the industrialized/industrializing nation's infrastructure leaving the only intact large industrial complex on the planet, the U.S.A.
The New Deal did nothing to build the middle class. At best it made people feel good and kept them out of extreme poverty. The military build up that employed almost the entire nation had more to do with the rising middle class.
FDR's massive revolution and vast new programs are what led to the Communist infiltrating nearly every aspect of U.S. government and the subsequent cover up of that infiltration. America is still suffering the legacy of FDR's hiring choices...
Here's where it gets real sick and twisted:
And so here is today's left talking points that they automatically regurgitate anytime McCarthyism is brought up or if infiltration by Soviet spies ever occurred:
So, no, FDR's New Deal programs didn't save the U.S. from a communist take-over. It did however lead to a very long Cold War and mounds of U.S. secret projects falling into the hands of the Soviets.
You don't understand austerity. Which country has taken in more than they've spent? When you can show me a country that has then you have seen austerity. Maybe Iceland for its stand against bank bailouts
Define austerity. That , as it typical in this forum, is your problem. Most countries after 2008 were in a state of financial austerity.
Quote:
Stay in the shallow end tad pole and quit making up definitions of what austerity is. Since you obviously don't know I suggest the smart thing to do is stop commenting. Not that you'll do that, just that it's the smart thing to do.
Because you make up what you think it is and then tell people they are wrong.
A state of reduced spending and increased frugality in the financial sector. Austerity measures generally refer to the measures taken by governments to reduce expenditures in an attempt to shrink their growing budget deficits.
So what most people are talking about is that government did little to counteract financial austerity from the death in bank credit. So a person may claim that fiscal austerity has not dropped but it is not the entire truth.
Quote:
On top of that you refer to Core inflation which uses the already fraudulent numbers CPI spews out then takes out energy and food because as everyone knows food and energy mean little to peoples wallets.
You can stop selling your perverted snake oil now.
If you actually wanted to be insightful, you would note that those prices are rising because assets prices are rising relative to wages. Its not hard to understand when you know banks lend against fixed assets and not capital production. However no one is taking that money to build capital. They just recycle it back into more rent seeking like a REIT reinvesting its dividend into more shares..
Not that anyone would pay attention to the fact that to get to full employment we were creating a least a trillion more dollars per year, but if the government dumps these people there will not be enough money to employ them. The options are bank credit(more consumer debt and mortgages), deficits or maybe an oligarch that wants his own moon base. Those are the three options. Spending is not the same thing as running deficits. Spending cuts = fiscal austerity. Balanced budgets = private sector austerity.
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