Austerity
A history of austerity, an explanation of austerity-based economic policies, an examination of the results of applying austerity-based economic policies, and a determination why those policies failed.
Stats for nerds
4recommend
7mentions
6people
2015–2026years
57% recommend43% neutral
Mentions per year
What Hacker News says
- See perhaps Austerity: The History of a Dangerous Idea by Mark Blyth:
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Austerity:_The_History_of_a_Da...
- Unfortunately.
May I recommend a book by an Economics Nobel Prize winner?
Here:
"Arguing with Zombies: Economics, Politics, and the Fight for a Better Future" by Paul Krugman (2020)
And maybe even better:
"Austerity: The History of a Dangerous Idea" by Mark Blyth - 2013
- Marx hasn't been around for a while. With the corporate world sucking so hard on government teats, in the US and Europe in particular, austerity has a more distributed but still intensely negative impact. I strongly recommend Mark Blyth's book Austerity: The History of a Dangerous Idea as a more modern and nuanced take on what is going on.
- I'm sorry, I realize that you're asking for clarification, but it is really frustrating to keep hearing this kind of crap. Greece the country didn't borrow all (or even most) of that money, private borrowers borrowed it from German banks (or Greek banks that borrowed it from German banks). The money ended up as public debt because the banks got bailed out.
The reasons for this were complex, but had a lot of do with German fiscal and labor policy. Once the loans turned out to be bad (because why on Earth did the banks expect that all of these funds could possibly to put to good, productive use, especially once credit standards were lowered), Greece was expected to deal with the situation. They did, and they bankrupted the country doing so (same with Portugal, Spain, and Ireland).
There is, of course, plenty of blame to go around, but this is not a situation where the Greek government borrowed a ton of money and wasted it. They borrowed a ton of money to bail out their banking system including a bunch of German banks (which is where a lot of the money originated). This is exactly what the global economic elites were telling everyone to do in 2008. Then, once things got ugly, those same elites decided that the Greek people should collectively pay the price for two bad economic policies that were only partially the fault of their government.
Suggested reading:
http://www.amazon.com/Austerity-The-History-Dangerous-Idea/d... - this book goes into great depth about what exactly happened in Europe.
http://blog.mpettis.com/2015/02/syriza-and-the-french-indemn... - blog post that describes how what has happened in Greece, Spain, and Portugal was effectively inevitable and not the fault of the respective governments so much as it was a result of a series of pan-European financial blunders.
- Mark Blyth has been trying to explain this situation ever since his warning about economic policy leading to a rise of populism, "Austerity: The History of a Dangerous Idea"[1]. For a very good overview of the problem - and some suggestions on how to fix it - see this[2] recent talk.
Briefly, the political situation can be fixed quickly if-and-only-if the actual needs of the working classes are actually addressed. That means e.g. some type of single payer healthcare and paying off the student loan burden.
[1] http://markblyth.com/books/austerity-the-history-of-a-danger...
- > You don’t have to actually go and get your own island; you can do the equivalent of dual-booting or telecommuting. You can opt out, exit at whatever level you prefer.
And the government will be there to kindly remind us that: "Democracy is asset insurance for the rich"[0] and we may not skimp on the payments.
[0] Austerity: The History of a Dangerous Idea by Mark Blyth
