Tag Archives: austerity

Deficit Hawks (Obama, Romney, Bowles, Boehner) Plan to Shrink YOUR Economy – Part 1

Posted on September 29, 2012 by Devin Smith | 19 comments

By Michael Hoexter

Most of the US political class has been infected with the “mind virus” of austerity that suggests to them that either virtue or necessity consists of cutting government spending and government programs. Under the influence of this “folk economics” with no evidentiary support, the equivalent of economic superstition, politicians seem prepared to slash vital supports to the economy despite the ability of monetarily sovereign governments, like the US federal government, to afford continued spending on current and even expanded government programs. Continue reading →

19 Comments

Posted in Michael Hoexter

Tagged austerity, deficit hawks

Bird Brains: From Austerity to Prosperity

Posted on September 29, 2012 by Devin Smith | 10 comments

By Avraham Baranes and Stephanie Kelton

Presentation from session on Euro Issues from 11th International Post Keynesian Conference.

10 Comments

Posted in Stephanie Kelton

Tagged austerity, deficit doves, defict hawks, euro, euro crisis

Beyond the Morality of Spending and Saving (Money) – Part 2

Posted on September 13, 2012 by Devin Smith | 6 comments

By Michael Hoexter

Ethics, Moral Advocacy and Economics (con’t)

If we look at the structure of the discourse produced by academic economists after Smith whether in print or in media appearances, moral frameworks provide a structuring role that often outweighs the technical aspect of the content which is presented. Well-known among MMT-oriented and post-Keynesian economists are the arguments of austerity advocates, who ignore the analytically obvious monetary and economic consequences of austerity in pursuit of the seeming virtue of every economic actor becoming a “saver” of money. Continue reading →

6 Comments

Posted in Michael Hoexter

Tagged austerity, neoliberalism, spending, TINA

Beyond the Morality of Spending and Saving (Money) – Part 1

Posted on September 12, 2012 by Devin Smith | 9 comments

By Michael Hoexter

Readers of this blog will know that the austerity drive is based on faulty macroeconomics and austerity itself is a self-defeating economic strategy. Austerity relies and capitalizes on critical misunderstandings within economics, misunderstandings that were not conclusively and clearly enough debunked by John Maynard Keynes and others 75 years ago and in subsequent years. Continue reading →

9 Comments

Posted in Michael Hoexter

Tagged austerity, neoliberalism, spending, TINA

Part 2 – Is an Anti-Austerity Alliance of Left Neo-classicals and Post-Keynesians Possible? Is it Desirable?

Posted on August 20, 2012 by Devin Smith | 24 comments

By Michael Hoexter

Points of Agreement and Division (con’t)

United as they are in their critique of neoclassical economics, it would be a mistake to portray post-Keynesians as united among themselves, a further complication for the emergence of any unified message from anti-austerity economists. Continue reading →

24 Comments

Posted in Michael Hoexter

Tagged austerity, neo-classicals, post keynesian

“Budget Hero” – Public Media’s Most Despicable Financial Propaganda

Posted on August 13, 2012 by Devin Smith | 14 comments

By William K. Black
(Cross-posted from Benzinga.com)

We know that the supporters of austerity simultaneously urge us to reject “European socialism” while adopting the key European strategies that drove Europe into recession – twice. American conservatives assume that Europe must epitomize stringent financial regulation. The opposite is true. Europe adopted “light touch” financial regulation pursuant to neo-liberal economic theory. Its embrace of the three “de’s” – deregulation, desupervision, and de facto decriminalization was far more extreme than the United States. The City of London “won” the regulatory race to the bottom with the U.S. European’s Continue reading →

14 Comments

Posted in William K. Black

Tagged austerity, deregulation, desupervision

Spain Proves that Austerity can never “Ensure” a Balanced Budget

Posted on August 6, 2012 by Devin Smith | 17 comments

By William K. Black
(Cross-posted from Benzinga.com)

The Wall Street Journal recently printed an economically incoherent and dishonest discussion of Spain’s budget deficit. It begins its discussion with these paragraphs.

“Spain’s central government reported a new deterioration in its finances and struggled to impose budget discipline on the country’s restive regions as data showed a surge in capital flight from the euro zone’s fourth-largest economy.

Continue reading →

17 Comments

Posted in William K. Black

Tagged austerity, balanced budget

The Growing Pain in Spain

Posted on July 12, 2012 by Mitch Green | 10 comments

By Marshall Auerback

Just when you think that things can get no worse in Spain, they do. Take a look at this chart, courtesy of Credit Suisse via FT’s Alphaville

http://ftalphaville.ft.com/blog/2012/07/11/1080121/just-another-scary-spanish-capital-flight-chart/#comments

Yiagos Alexopoulos at Credit Suisse estimates that Spanish capital outflows are currently running at an annualised rate of 50 per cent of GDP. No question, the bank run is clearly accelerating, and one can easily understand why. The country is turning into a Little House of Economic Horrors. The alleged “rescue” of Madrid’s banks is a non-starter. 100 billion euros won’t begin to cover the scale of the problem on any honest accounting or “stress test” (and that’s before we get to the next phase of announced austerity measures). Continue reading →

10 Comments

Posted in Marshall Auerback

Tagged austerity, euro, Eurozone, spain, unemployment

Why Latvia’s Austerity Model Can’t Be Exported

Posted on June 22, 2012 by Mitch Green | 12 comments

By Michael Hudson and Jeffrey Sommers
(Cross-posted from FT)

Austerity’s advocates depict Latvia as a plucky country that can show Europe the way out of its financial dilemma – by “internal devaluation”, or slashing wages. Yet few of the enthusiastic commentators have spent enough time in Latvia to understand what happened. Its government has chosen austerity, its people have not. Finding no acceptable alternative, much of the labour force has elected to emigrate. This is a major factor holding down its unemployment rate to “just” 15 per cent today. Continue reading →

12 Comments

Posted in Michael Hudson

Tagged austerity, jeffrey sommers, latvia

Greece and the Rest of the Eurozone Remain on the Road to Hell

Posted on June 18, 2012 by Mitch Green | 12 comments

By Marshall Auerback

So for the short term, it appears we won’t have a “Grexit”, which has led many commentators to suggest (laughably) that a crisis has been averted. Typical of this sentiment is a headline in Bloomberg today “Greece avoids chaos; Big Hurdles Loom”. To paraphrase Pete Townsend, meet the new chaos, same as the old chaos. It is worth pondering how acceptance of the Troika’s program (even if cosmetic adjustments are made) will help hospitals get access to essential medical supplies (see here), whilst the government persists in enforcing a program which is killing its private sector by cutting spending and not paying legitimate bills, and an unemployment rate creeps towards 25 per cent and 50 per cent for youth. Continue reading →