In the past week, political officials and economic experts in several countries have indicated they believe austerity is not, and indeed never has been, the answer to pulling the world's economies out of recession.
First, everyone found out Paul Ryan is super bad at math (shocker). As it turns out, the paper the House Budget Committee chairman has been using to make the case for austerity was discredited after it became known that essential data was excluded from the study, leading to "serious errors that inaccurately represent the relationship between public debt and growth."
The Harvard professors who produced the paper have acknowledged their grave error.
Of course, Ryan's quest for austerity was never really about accurate figures or projections. His was an ideological battle that might as well have been waged by plucking random numbers from the ether for all that "facts" actually figured into the debate. The people at the bottom rungs of our society know austerity doesn't work. They've known that for years. After all, it is the people relying on public services like schools who see the direct impact of austerity in their day-to-day lives.
However, it seems as though at least some societal elites are finally waking up to the fact that budget cuts don't work during recession.
Bill Gross, manager of the world's largest bond fund for Pimco, and widely considered one of the most influential voices in the bond market, launched a harsh attack on the euro zone's severe austerity measures.
"The U.K. and almost all of Europe have erred in terms of believing that austerity, fiscal austerity in the short term, is the way to produce real growth. It is not," Mr Gross told the Financial Times. "You've got to spend money."
Note EU-Digest: austerity might hurt growth, but we can't keep borrowing our way out - that is what got the world into this economic jam in the first place.
Read more: Elites May Finally Realize Austerity Isn't the Answer | The Nation
No comments:
Post a Comment