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While the US is focused on its own domestic dramas, Europe as the Economist (UK) puts it, is bleeding out. Silently, exsanguinating below the fold, but bleeding all the same.
While the US is focused on its own domestic dramas, Europe as the
Economist (UK) puts it, is bleeding out. Silently, exsanguinating below the fold, but bleeding all the same. http://www.economist.com/blogs/freee.../euro-crisis-5 |
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While the US is focused on its own domestic dramas, Europe as the Economist (UK) puts it, is bleeding out. Silently, exsanguinating below the fold, but bleeding all the same.
On May 2, 2:36*pm, ПЈö'Донован wrote:
“While the US is focused on its own domestic dramas, Europe as the Economist (UK) *puts it, ‘is bleeding out.’ Silently, exsanguinating below the fold, but bleeding all the same.” http://www.economist.com/blogs/freee.../euro-crisis-5 Of all the zombie ideas that have been reanimated in the wake of the global financial crisis, austerity is the most dangerous. austerity created the disasters of the 1930s, and contributed to the descent of the world into global war. European austerity policies have prevented any recovery from the crisis of 2009, while rescuing and protecting the banks and financial institutions that created the crisis. An essential guide for anyone who wants to understand the current depression. http://www.oup.com/us/catalog/genera.../Political/?vi... Austerity The History of a Dangerous Idea Mark Blyth ISBN13: 9780199828302ISBN10: 019982830X Hardcover, 304 pages Mar 2013, In Stock Price: $24.95 (02) Governments today in both Europe and the United States have succeeded in casting government spending as reckless wastefulness that has made the economy worse. In contrast, they have advanced a policy of draconian budget cuts--austerity--to solve the financial crisis. We are told that we have all lived beyond our means and now need to tighten our belts. This view conveniently forgets where all that debt came from. Not from an orgy of government spending, but as the direct result of bailing out, recapitalizing, and adding liquidity to the broken banking system. Through these actions private debt was rechristened as government debt while those responsible for generating it walked away scot free, placing the blame on the state, and the burden on the taxpayer. That burden now takes the form of a global turn to austerity, the policy of reducing domestic wages and prices to restore competitiveness and balance the budget. The problem, according to political economist Mark Blyth, is that austerity is a very dangerous idea. First of all, it doesn't work. As the past four years and countless historical examples from the last 100 years show, while it makes sense for any one state to try and cut its way to growth, it simply cannot work when all states try it simultaneously: all we do is shrink the economy. In the worst case, austerity policies worsened the Great Depression and created the conditions for seizures of power by the forces responsible for the Second World War: the Nazis and the Japanese military establishment. As Blyth amply demonstrates, the arguments for austerity are tenuous and the evidence thin. Rather than expanding growth and opportunity, the repeated revival of this dead economic idea has almost always led to low growth along with increases in wealth and income inequality. Austerity demolishes the conventional wisdom, marshaling an army of facts to demand that we recognize austerity for what it is, and what it costs us. Features • Tackles one of the most important topics in world politics and economics in clear, trenchant language • One of the only accounts that successfully links together the political and economic aspects of the current crisis. Reviews "Austerity is an economic policy strategy, but is also an ideology and an approach to economic management freighted with politics. In this book Mark Blyth uncovers these successive strata. In doing so he wields his spade in a way that shows no patience for fools and foolishness." --Barry Eichengreen, George C. Pardee and Helen N. Pardee Professor of Economics and Political Science University of California, Berkeley "Of all the zombie ideas that have been reanimated in the wake of the global financial crisis, austerity is the most dangerous. Mark Blyth shows how austerity created the disasters of the 1930s, and contributed to the descent of the world into global war. He shows how European austerity policies have prevented any recovery from the crisis of 2009, while rescuing and protecting the banks and financial institutions that created the crisis. An essential guide for anyone who wants to understand the current depression." --John Quiggin, author of author of Zombie Economics "Most fascinating is the author's discussion of the historical underpinnings of austerity, first formulated by Enlightenment thinkers Locke, Hume and Adam Smith, around the (good) idea of parsimony and the (bad) idea of debt. Ultimately, writes Blyth, austerity is a 'zombie economic idea because it has been disproven time and again, but it just keeps coming.' A clear explanation of a complicated, and severely flawed, idea." -- KIRKUS REVIEW "Mark Blyth's fascinating analysis guides the reader through 'the historical ideology which has classified debt as problematic.' In doing so he outlines the relevance of century-old debates between the advocates and opponents of laissez faire, and explains why, after a brief reemergence in 2008-09, and despite the lack of evidence supporting austerity, the world turned its back on Keynesian policies." --Robert Skidelsky, author of Keynes: The Return of the Master "Among all the calamities spawned by the global financial crisis, none was as easily avoidable as the idea that austerity policies were the only way out. In this feisty book, noted political scientist Mark Blyth covers new territory by recounting the intellectual history of this failed idea and how it came to exert a hold on the imagination of economists and politicians. It is an indication of the sorry state of macroeconomics that it takes a political scientist to expose so thoroughly one of the economics profession's most dangerous delusions." --Dani Rodrik, Rafiq Hariri Professor of International Political Economy, The John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University "Essential reading... The economy is much too important to leave to economists. We need to understand how ideas shape it, and Blyth's new book provides an excellent starting point."--Washington Monthly "An important polemic... valid and compelling."--Lawrence Summers, Financial Times "splendid new book". Martin Wolf, Financial Times Product Details 304 pages; 5-1/2 x 8-1/2; ISBN13: 978-0-19-982830-2ISBN10: 0-19-982830- X About the Author(s) Mark Blyth is Professor of International Political Economy at Brown University. He is the author of Great Transformations: Economic Ideas and Institutional Change in the Twentieth Century. |
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While the US is focused on its own domestic dramas, Europe as the Economist (UK) puts it, is bleeding out. Silently, exsanguinating below the fold, but bleeding all the same.
"??'???????" wrote in message ... While the US is focused on its own domestic dramas, Europe as the Economist (UK) puts it, is bleeding out. Silently, exsanguinating below the fold, but bleeding all the same. http://www.economist.com/blogs/freee.../euro-crisis-5 won't be long before they recognize what the conservative tactics do, and they switch to socialism and go after them rich *******s with torches and pitchforks, |
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While the US is focused on its own domestic dramas, Europe as the Economist (UK) puts it, is bleeding out. Silently, exsanguinating below the fold, but bleeding all the same.
On May 2, 5:53*pm, "BIG BIRD" wrote:
"??ö'???????" wrote in message ... “While the US is focused on its own domestic dramas, Europe as the Economist (UK) *puts it, ‘is bleeding out.’ Silently, exsanguinating below the fold, but bleeding all the same.” http://www.economist.com/blogs/freee.../euro-crisis-5 won't be long before they recognize what the conservative tactics do, and they switch to socialism and go after them rich *******s with torches and pitchforks, could be. lets remember, the world saw the new deal for what it was, and many countries not only embraced it, and emulated it, but even expanded on it. this is what happens with education. and the results were staggering. in america we went form a country ruled by wealthy parasites with a very small middle class of around 15%, to a almost all middle class population, other countries did even better. that is why you see "THE CONSERVATIVES" desperate attack on schools, "THE CONSERVATIVES" embrace fascism, and of course as the fascists say, give me the schools, i will get the country. but it might not be so easy these days. keynes spectacular achievement in economics, means that in the modern world, demand for goods and services is wage driven, and so far not one "CRANK CONSERVATIVE" has found a way around that. so taking away today may not be so easy as time passes, and will effect the wealthy parasites that "THE CONSERVATIVES" so feverishly serve. the youth of the world seem to despise "CONSERVATISM", and in the u.k., they say ding dong the witch is dead)) no wonder the worlds youth despise "CONSERVATISM" the Anglo-American model, with a migration from manufacturing to finance and a big bet placed on unfettering private sector titans, Young Britons (and young Americans as well) have a lifetime of part time hustling for low pay to look forward to. As one London fellow put it to me, “being born next to the Baltic is like winning life’s lottery.” The second model has been the Northern European one (by which I include Germany and Holland), with a big bet placed on the wisdom of massive long term investments in human capital by government. And taxes high enough to pay for that human capital bet. It is looking like the Norse/Teutonic instincts were better. Both models have their problems, but in terms of business competitiveness, health, and most importantly in terms of measured human happiness and confidence in tomorrow, the Thatcher model has brought only tidings of woe. yea, she is so loved, even by that left wing bastion forbes. lets be polite about a monster that destroyed her country. http://www.forbes.com/sites/eamonnfi...the-iron-lady/ Eamonn Fingleton, Contributor My beat is East Asia - and history's biggest industrial revolution 4/14/2013 @ 10:46AM |93,734 views Thatcher's Last Wish: Another Clunker From The Iron Lady The news today is that a group of supporters of Margaret Thatcher are pushing a plan to build a museum and library as a permanent memorial to her. It is clear that the plan, which would establish a first in British politics, has been long in the making and that it not only had Thatcher’s approval but she herself largely instigated the idea. This is another clunker from the Iron Lady – a final terrible idea from a woman who, pace all current hagiography, will *be remembered as one of the worst political leaders in modern British history. Let’s be clear first on the larger politics. As someone who served as a Fleet Street commentator in the late 1970s, I fully recognize that she made progress on some issues, not least trade union dominance of the economy. But her predecessor Jim Callaghan would undoubtedly have continued to focus on these same issues had he been reelected and he would have dealt with them in a perhaps more effective, and certainly less divisive, way. The voters who elected Thatcher in 1979 were motivated powerfully by humiliation at the UK economy’s constant loss of position in global competition since the early 1950s. So how did Thatcher do in reversing the trend and what in particular did she do to improve the UK’s trade position? The eulogizers are quiet on the subject. Advisedly so. *The fact is that under Thatcherism the UK’s trade position went from the merely weak to the totally disastrous. The UK ran a current account surplus of 0.6 percent of GDP in 1978, the last full year before Thatcher came to office. As of 1989, the last full year before she was ousted by her own party in May of 1990, the current account DEFICIT had reached an appalling 3.9 percent of GDP. In the meantime Thatcher presided over a savage program to destroy the UK’s core exporting industries and, with wholesale financial deregulation, laid the groundwork for *the catastrophic financial bubbles of more recent times. She was smitten by the *erroneous notion that *advanced nations should leave “rust bucket” industries behind and move to a postindustrial model. Not a view shared by Germany, which has now long eclipsed the UK as Europe’s premier economy. It is not shared either in any of the most successful economies of East Asia (though they are delighted if the English-speaking world continues to believe in postindustrialism). *I have consistently attacked the postindustrialist fallacy since the 1980s and indeed I devoted a whole book to in 1999 (In Praise of Hard Industries: Why Manufacturing, Not the Information Economy, Is the Key to Future Prosperity). As for the Thatcher museum and library, this is a characteristically egotistical Thatcherite project at odds with British tradition. *The British after all put a high value on modesty — or at least the appearance of it — and even the most capable of them have traditionally left it to others to sing their praises. The fear now is that she has established a precedent that *future British political leaders will feel compelled to follow, and in so doing will render politics in London as dysfunctionally money-ridden as politics in Washington already is. Thatcher apparently was much impressed with the Reagan Presidential Library. But why? Such memorials typically involve pandering to wealthy donors and transnational corporations — and the pandering typically begins long before the honoree leaves office. Not the least of the problems is that many of the corporations involved have at best no loyalty to the nation and some are indeed foreign and almost by definition have a clear conflict of interest. What we know for sure is that the Reagan library was made possible in large measure by *General Electric. Although it is not yet apparent to most Americans, General Electric has played a starring role in the enfeeblement of the United States. A key charge is that GE has led corporate America in the torching of America’s once peerless industrial base on the funeral pyre of globalism.* It has done this principally by transferring many of America’s most advanced production technologies, including aerospace technologies, to foreign production partners. These partners, located mainly in East Asia, have undertaken to low-ball their prices and have thereby boosted GE’s quarterly earnings, but at the cost of hollowing out the American industrial base. You may not have seen much written about this subject in recent years but the trend is acutely apparent in U.S. trade figures. With its industrial base almost gone, America has consistently in recent years run a current account deficit of 4 to 6 percent of GDP – the weakest trade performance of any major nation in history. The geopolitical consequences could hardly be more disastrous as the United States has come increasingly to depend on funding from such creditor nations as*China and Japan. It is not an exaggeration to say that America’s role now has been reduced to borrowing *from China to save the world from China. The concept of presidential libraries is actually quite modern. The first was built by Franklin Delano Roosevelt. It was a relatively modest affair and, more important, he had the decency to do it with his own money. *In recent decades succeeding presidents have vied with one another for the title of largest and most impressive presidential library. For the record the title now seems to be held by Bill Clinton. As Winston Churchill once said, “The price of greatness is responsibility.” Would Churchill be better regarded today had he run around drumming up support for a memorial to himself?*For that that matter, would George Washington? POSTSCRIPT As of this writing , this blog has already generated more than 170 comments, not all of them friendly…. I am the first to acknowledge that Margaret Thatcher’s legacy, in common with that of most other human beings, is a mixed bag. Some of the things she did were good but the further you are from the UK –and the less you know about British politics — the more likely you are to take a favorable view. Even David Cameron, the current Prime Minister and central casting’s idea of a traditional British Conservative, is not a Thatcherite. Hardly anyone else is either. The fact is that she was ousted by her own senior colleagues, and they had good reason to rise up against her. Many readers of my commentary seem to think she played a vital role in winning the Cold War. This gives no credit to the Soviets, who had long known their system was not working. She and Ronald Reagan were pushing on an open door. If Jim Callaghan and Jimmy Carter had been in charge in 1989, the outcome in the East Bloc would have been the same. Thatcher’s rhetoric may have been particularly shrill but what demolished the Berlin Wall was a sober realization in Moscow that the dogma-driven societies it had created were totally dysfunctional. The point that concerns me most — and I happen to have the benefit of *a special understanding of the facts — is that the British economy is almost as hollowed out as the American one.*Remarkably virtually none of *my critics has made any reference to this point. Just like the United States, the UK must constantly borrow abroad — principally from China and Japan. In an earlier era, British leaders would have considered this an appalling fate. In a future era, when the East Asians finally stop propping up the pound (they have good strategic reasons for doing so for a few more years), it will be obvious to everyone that Thatcher’s trade policy was catastrophic. My larger point stands: it is at best unseemly for political leaders to go around canvassing support for their memorials. Below are three reader comments which I believe deserve wider circulation. Unsurprisingly they happen to be favorable to my point of view. But if my critics have a cogent argument against my thesis, they have yet to make it. From logic001 [9/4+ Member: logic001] 75.48.104.187 Submitted on 2013/04/14 at 3:10 pm The article is correct on the major points. Since the 1980′s I’ve witnessed up close and personally the paths taken by two very different models for Western Civilization. One is the Anglo-American model, with a migration from manufacturing to finance and a big bet placed on unfettering private sector titans. 2 The second model has been the Northern European one (by which I include Germany and Holland), with a big bet placed on the wisdom of massive long term investments in human capital by government. And taxes high enough to pay for that human capital bet. It is looking like the Norse/Teutonic instincts were better. Both models have their problems, but in terms of business competitiveness, health, and most importantly in terms of measured human happiness and confidence in tomorrow, the Thatcher model has brought only tidings of woe. This is most apparent over the course of decades. In the 1980s, the life and dreams of a young man in the U.K. were broadly on par with those of a young man in West Germany or Sweden. Today, it is not even close. Young Britons (and young Americans as well) have a lifetime of part time hustling for low pay to look forward to. As one London fellow put it to me, “being born next to the Baltic is like winning life’s lottery.” That is Thatcher’s legacy. From gladpick Marks [1/0+ Member: gladpick] |
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