Austerity's Hidden Purpose & From California Economics to Bidenomics (tags)
For governments pursuing austerity, spending cuts mean lower national income and fewer taxes. Unlike a household or a business, if the government cuts its spending during tough times, it is cutting its revenues, too.
How Misguided Financial Policy Strengthens the Right-Wing (tags)
Capitalism has shown how democratic processes can be easily evaded. The Chicago boys carried out their radical reform program that was known as shock therapy. This included dismantling social state structures, opening the market to foreign investors and shattering unions
State Debts - The Primal German Fear (tags)
Unlike a private homebuilder, the state can be indebted and never expect the entire debt to be repaid. For most, taxes are a book with seven seals. A tax-cutting lobby exploits our unease over taxes for their purposes. Social cohesion declines and milieu egoism increases.
Finance Ministers Applaud Greece Debt Deal that Provides Aid and Continues Austerity (tags)
European Finance Ministers endorse a new Greece debt agreement that provides financing in exchange for maintaining austerity policies and economic reforms.
More Public Investment is Sensible and Necessary (tags)
Low-interest rates should create possibilities for expansive budgetary policy. Public investments in the infrastructure and education could benefit future generations by helping raise long-term prosperity and well-being. The one-sided narrowing of budgetary possibilities is excessive
Austerity Policy as Momentous Mistake (tags)
The IMF's austerity policy of the last years was misguided. That austerity policy led to intensified growth declines and increasing unemployment and did not reach its goal of permanently calming the financial markets. Public investments could raise economic growth.
After the economic crisis in 2008, the neoliberal fairytale of austerity was given a new boost. The neoliberal ideology reflects the idea the dismantling of the welfare state is urgently needed. Austerity means that all state expenditures are reduced to a minimum...
Basta Ya, Brussels! British Voters Reject EU Corporte Slavestate (tags)
“The EU is an instrument of the ruling classes of Europe for the imposition of brutal austerity measures—most directly on the workers of Greece, of Spain, Portugal and Ireland, but also on workers in the UK, France and Germany….Prime minister, Cameron, has even proclaimed an “Age of Austerity” as his government imposes cuts of £210 billion, (€263 billion), equivalent to over 10 percent of Britain’s GDP, at the cost of the destruction of 20 percent of all public sector jobs, millions more in the private sector and the decimation of vital services.
Jeremy Corbyn's Economic Vision (tags)
Corbyn
Greeks Without Choice in Sunday Election (tags)
Greece
Jeremy Corbyn Elected Britain's New Labour Party Leader (tags)
elections
Puerto Rico’s Religious Leaders Call for Debt Relief and End to Austerity (tags)
Puerto Rico’s religious leaders called for debt relief in the face of the $72 billion financial crisis burdening the Caribbean US territory. At a press conference in San Juan, leaders of the principle religious groups laid out six principles to resolve the crisis.
Greek PM Calls Snap Elections (tags)
Greece
Deepening Greek Depression (tags)
Greece
Puerto Rico's Debt Crisis (tags)
Puerto Rico
Austerity Urbanism, 28 pp (tags)
Without the social contract (Roussieu), we become wolves to each other (Hobbes).
Banker Occupied Greece: Requiem for a Failed State (tags)
Greece
EU deal with Greece/Betrayal of OXI ideal (tags)
The die has been cast. The Geek prime minister Tsipras, who won the elections because of his promise to make an end to Trojka austerity measures, has capitulated, accepting the hardest EU deal with Greece ever. Shame on him and his party Syriza, which has lost every credibility. It's a horrible betrayal of OXI, plunging the Greek people in still worse misery. People of Greece, fight for Freedom!
Tsipras Surrenders to Troika Bandits (tags)
Greece
Greece
Entrapping Greece in Debt (tags)
Greece
Greece
Looming Greek Capitulation to Troika Bandits? (tags)
Greece
Statement of Solidarity With the People and Government of Greece (tags)
The following statement is issued by various progressive individuals and organizations from many parts of the world, but mostly in Asia-Pacific. A copy of the statement has already been sent to Syriza's international department.
High Stakes Game of Chicken in Greece (tags)
Greece
Planned US Coup in Greece? (tags)
Greece
Greek Voters Reject Financing Plan (tags)
Article on recent election in Greece, concerning its debt.
"No" Supporters Win in Greece: Now What? (tags)
Greece
Scare-mongering Greeks to Vote "Yes" on Sunday (tags)
Greece
Greece: Ground Zero for Global Pillage (tags)
Greece
Greece Announces Referendum on Bailout Terms (tags)
Greece
Plans for Destroying Greece Stall (tags)
Greece
SYRIZA Sellout Triggers Internal Party Revolt (tags)
Greece
Thousands in Britain Rally Against Austerity (tags)
Britain
Video: Richard Trumka on TTIP (tags)
TTIP represents a crisis for democracy and the constitutional state. Corporations could sue states in parallel private arbitration courts. Labor and environmental regulations could be chilled or invalidated as indirect expropriation.
Greece Surrenders to Troika (tags)
Greece
Austerity Policy as Momentous Mistake (tags)
The IMF's austerity policy of the last years was misguided. That austerity policy led to intensified growth declines and increasing unemployment... Public investments could raise economic growth both in the short- and long-term.
The poorest and weakest persons must pay the price for misguided political decisions. Political-economic decisions decide over the life and death of persons. The New Deal stands for an effective debt reduction. Germany has been an active driver of austerity.
Free internet Book: The triumph of failed ideas, 286 pp (tags)
Free Internet books like Swiss, Austrian, Polish and German critical economists could help us to a sustainable future-friendly economy where the tax code is revised and the top 1% pay more taxes than their secretaries.
Caribbean Religious Leaders Demand Debt Forgiveness (tags)
Caribbean religious leaders gathered in Grenada last week to demand an end to austerity and debt policies harming poor communities in the region.
This economy kills!: Pope Francis (tags)
The Cold War in internal church policy may be coming to an end. A religion without mysticism is merely a philosophy. Mysticism is a specifically modern form of faith. God's presence is no longer self-evident or plausible to the entire world. Francis' church is a hospital under the open air.
Austerity: The History of a Dangerous Idea (tags)
Book review of Mark Blyth's "Austerity: The History of a Dangerous Idea," 304 pp, March 2013: "Slaves of Defunct Economists: Why politicians pursue austerity policies that never work" by Henry Farrel, Washington Monthly, Mar/Apr 2013
From Summit to Summit: Lost Generation and Lost Decade (tags)
Neoliberal economic thinking explains unemployment as a balance phenomenon with only supply-side causes: poorly trained, wrong place, excessive wage demands and an overly generous social state.. Youth unemployment of 30 or 60% is a catastrophe.
Alternatives to Stagnation and Depression (tags)
Politics has fought the symptoms of the great crisis with banking- and economic packages while its systemic causes remain untouched… The hardest phase of the great crisis is ahead of us, not behind us. All sectors try to safeguard their position through spending cuts...
Portland's Austerity Resistance Movement Sparks Changes to City (tags)
On June 20, Oregon’s Portland City Council unanimously voted to approve a budget that had been one of the most grassroots-contested examples of austerity in recent memory.
VIDEO: Austerity - The History of a Dangerous Idea (tags)
Mark Blyth is Professor of International Political Economy in the Department of Political Science at Brown University and a Faculty Fellow at Brown's Watson Institute for International Studies
Local Fights Against Austerity Are Growing Across the U.S. (tags)
Between sequestration, with its damaging impact on workers and the entire economy, and the billions of dollars in cuts to Social Security, Medicare and other necessary social programs that President Obama is pushing, it is evident that the economic policies of both major parties are not intended to promote a recovery for working people. You cannot lift up a nation’s economy while slashing away at its consumers’ pocketbooks. In order to justify their defiance of this elementary law, both Republicans and Democrats start talking the language of “austerity,” that is the notion that economic policy must be guided by reducing budgetary deficits first and foremost, and that workers exclusively must be made to pay the cost.
Greece’s depression is IMF’s idea of ‘progress’ (tags)
Austerity programs are designed with ideology in mind, not with economics based on the real world.
Opposition Grows Fierce to Austerity Cuts in Portland (tags)
On April 11 over 400 people packed the third public Portland Budget Hearing, which was organized by the City of Portland and which left many spilling out beyond the room where the hearing took place. More importantly, for the City Council there was an unexpected critical outpouring from the vast majority who attended. For the first time, the City Council and Mayor Charlie Hales began to lose control over their attempts to sell austerity.
When Theory and Reality Diverge (tags)
Politics forces crises and prevents their ending every day by holding to its ideological blinders. The state is not a private household and spending cuts always strike back on other actors of the economy. When theory and reality diverge, the theory is wrong, not the reality.
Italians Reject Austerity (tags)
class war
Austerity When Stimulus Is Needed (tags)
class war
Austerity USA Begins March 1st (tags)
U.S. politicians have cried wolf over austerity long enough for the public to ignore them. A perfect time, then, for politicians to actually unleash the wolves. Barring an unlikely last minute deal, here’s a short list of some of the massive, national bi-partisan-created austerity cuts, according to the New York Times.
More Economic Straight Talk (tags)
class war
Child Poverty Massively Increases through EU Austerity Programs (tags)
Caritas warns "lost generations" are growing up in Greece, Spain, Italy, Portugal and Ireland. The Cairitas study blames the austerity programs for the impoverishment of children. A new prioritization and an even distribution of the burdens of the debt crisis are demanded.
Responding to financial crisis: are austerity and suffering inevitable? (tags)
Austerity in a recession is counter-productive. Lower taxes and lower wages mean lower demand, lower GDP, lower state revenue and higher unemployment.
Never mind! IMF now says austerity mistakes don’t matter (tags)
IMF paper says damage wrought by austerity much greater than expected, but it should continue anyway.
New York Times Supports Austerity Harshness (tags)
class wa
Austerity — the 1%’s Global Battle Cry (tags)
Whether we are left with the Fiscal Cliff or a Grand Bargain, workers in the U.S. face massive cuts to programs such as Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, unemployment insurance, Food Stamp assistance and other needed social safety nets. This is an example of “austerity” which has largely been pursued in the U.S. until now, on a statewide and local level.
To Krugman, the increasing ideological blindness of German politicians can only be explained by their belief that "hard times must be the necessary punishment for earlier excesses." Krugman overlooks that the hard times and excesses do not concern the same people.
Greece: Profile of a Failed State (tags)
Greece
Portland Anti-Austerity Protest Draws 1,000 Despite Police Violence (tags)
It’s difficult to build a pre-election protest with so many labor and community groups busy campaigning for Democrats. Nevertheless, over 1,000 people marched the streets in Portland, Oregon against austerity cuts to education and other public services and the consequent debt accumulated by students.
There are no national solutions for Greece, or any other country (tags)
In what can be interpreted as a dry run for other countries, financiers intend to reduce Greece to a vassal state that has no control over its finances, with its tax revenues used to pay banks instead of for government functions.
Portland, Oregon Prepares for Pre-Election Anti-Austerity Protest (tags)
On November 3rd Portland community and labor groups will declare “enough is enough” by organizing a first for the U.S. — a large demonstration against government austerity cuts.
class war
Quietly, the IMF confesses that austerity does not work (tags)
Not that those who reap rewards from austerity will admit it, but the IMF’s own calculations show that austerity accelerates economic decline.
Debt Forgiveness Or Death! (tags)
These are the only two choices for the global elite as history does not lie.
German High Court Capitulates to Bankers (tags)
class war
Irrational Draghi Exuberance (tags)
class war
It’s not only jobs that are off-shored; the profits are as well (tags)
Trillions of dollars are hidden in secretive tax havens untaxed while austerity is imposed and jobs are lost.
Austerity Hastens Economic Decline (tags)
class war
class war
Stop the neo-liberal crisis politics - dispossess the beneficiaries! (tags)
We are experiencing the deepest crisis of capitalism since the great depression of the 30s.
A medieval present of austerity, a future of feudalism (tags)
Financiers can’t tolerate losses flowing from their own greed and reckless gambling. Their solution is to have the state guarantee their stratospheric profits, bonuses and salaries. Governments can only do so through extracting money from their citizenry and facilitating the upward flow of wealth within corporate structures.
Greece Reflects Growing Economic Turmoil (tags)
class war
European Electoral Postmortems (tags)
elections
Charting a path out of impasse for Greece, and other countries (tags)
Should Greece remain within the eurozone or should it return to the drachma?
The great austerity war (tags)
The great austerity war: what caused the US deficit crisis and who should pay to fix it? The right-wing coalition has been so successful over recent decades that the long-run challenges facing the country today are daunting.
class war
Readying the Greek Corpse for Burial (tags)
class war
Video: On the Brink: Fiscal Austerity Threatens a Global Recession (tags)
Dr. Heiner Flassbeck, Director, Division on Globalization and Development Strategies, UNCTAD: European austerity policies past the point of no return, driving global economy towards deep and lengthy recession
Deepening Greek Tragedy (tags)
class war
When The Shop Keepers Join The Revolt! (tags)
When the shop keepers join the revolt things must be very bad indeed.
Crisis Conditions Grip Eurozone (tags)
class war
Banker Occupation and Europain (tags)
class war
The Crisis, Trust and Homeowners (tags)
Capitalism cannot function any more without credit-financed debt on account of its increasing productivity. The recession will come because the indebtedness-dynamic can hardly be maintained with which the capitalist zombie-economy is kept alive in its pseudo-life.
BTL:European Economic Crisis, Austerity Measures, Resistance Portend Future of U.S. Econom (tags)
Interview with Richard Wolff, economics professor emeritus at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst, now visiting professor at the New School University's graduate program in international affairs, conducted by Scott Harris
Debts? Whose Debts? and Keith Olbermann (tags)
Truth is inwardness and must well up in everyone. Life is full of supernova explosions, a universe of possibilities where stars remain invisible until they find their partner star. "We keep the madness going that we call the economy when we do nothing against business as usual."
Financial Terrorism Rules Eurozone (tags)
economy
Strikes, riots, revolutions. This is the shape of the new Class War.
BTL:Greeks Fight for Alternatives to Austerity Policies Provoking Economic Hardship (tags)
Interview with Peter G. Prontzos, professor of political science at Langara College, conducted by Scott Harris
Banker Occupation of Greece (tags)
financial terrorism
Greece must deny to pay an odious debt (tags)
In times of harsh neoliberal austerity and limited national sovereingty, the denial to pay an odious and illegitimate debt is a moral, political and social need. (by Nicolas Mottas/American Chronicle)
Spanish Voters Reject Austerity (tags)
financial terrorism
The Worldwide Austerity Madness (tags)
What is obvious is still not recognized. Countries like Greece, Ireland and probably Portugal cannot be revitalized without changing the terms of their debts. Austerity programs are exacted which are inhuman and counter-productive.
Everyone Has a Stake in US Uncut's Fight (tags)
Exxon, Bank of America, Poeing, Wells Fargo and Citigroup[ paid no federal taxes last year. Like its predecessor UK Uncut, US Uncut insists corporations that benefit from education and roads should pay their fair share and not avoid taxes.
Economic Turmoil in 2011 (tags)
economic trouble
Right-wing Democrat takes California governor’s office, demands “sacrifice (tags)
The inauguration speech of right-wing Democrat Jerry Brown, in which he callously boasted of the harshness of his austerity budget and demanded “sacrifice,” amounted to a declaration of war by the new governor of California against the state's working population.
How do we get out of here? Alternatives to Austerity (tags)
Austerity is not the only way to make up for massive government debt and lack of revenue following self‑induced disasters in private finance. There are fairer ways to balance the books.
What’s Going On In Europe? (tags)
"The attack on education is an international phenomenon. In the UK on Wednesday, tens of thousands of students walked out of classes over tripled tuition fees. Thousands participated in a demonstration in London, where more than 1,000 were penned in and contained by police for hours. Police used batons to beat back students attempting to reach parliament. The demonstrations in Britain came two weeks after more than 55,000 took to the streets throughout the UK. A crackdown by the government has included the arrest of dozens of students. In the US, there have been mass protests and, in some cases, occupations in the state of California against tuition fee increases of more than 30 per cent. The education cuts in Italy and the UK are part of a wave of austerity measures throughout Europe aimed at forcing workers and young people to pay for an ongoing economic crisis."
Destructive Neoliberal Austerity (tags)
austerity, not stimulus coming
Between Austerity Mania and Megalomania (tags)
The more capitalism invokes its rationality, the more irrational it seems to be. Fewer and fewer persons handle more and more tasks. This savings mania was forced to the detriment of quality controls. The economy should be a part of life, not a steamroller crushing self-determination
The IMF Dictates More Than Ever (tags)
"Many developing countries that were independent in food production at the start of the 1980s import food necessary for their populations today. The subsidized agriculture of western countries has flooded the cou9ntries of the South. Haiti imports the rice that it once cultivated.."
"Severe Austerity Programs will have Catastrophic Consequences" (tags)
"Instead of real growth, the financial sector has only promoted phantom growth. The state functions differently than a family. Less should be spent for unproductive purposes like the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and unconditional bank bailout packages.."
Deficit Hysteria: Wrongheaded in Times of Depression (tags)
proposed policies are wrecking economies
Saving is not a Solution (tags)
The capital markets repeatedly force the real economy to its knees. The savings orgy should help heavily indebted states regain the trust of the financial markets. In a play from the madhouse, states must run into debt to bailout their money-houses.
The "Houdini Recovery" under IMF-Type Austerity (tags)
the recovery is the big lie
The Age of Austerity Dawns (tags)
The burst bubble of the New Economy should have been understood as a warning. Then as today, wishful thinking and greed blocked the view to reality. Recessions offer a period of welcome recovery. Losing the hectic turbo-capitalism is not really a great loss.
Strikes Spread in Nigeria (tags)
As Nigeria's economy suffers under the effects of capitalist globalisation, Nigeria's people fight back in a series of strikes.