Europe's Austerity: Like Something Out of the Brothers Grimm
source: http://www.fpif.org/blog/europes_austerity_like_something_out_of_the_brothers_grimm
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- myfastweb
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- News and Politics
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- European Union, IMF, austerity
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Milieu
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Quote from story: U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner strongly endorsed the Cameron program last month and said that he “did not see much risk” that the cutbacks would impede growth. But even the IMF warns that the formula of treating debt as the central problem in the middle of an economic recession has drawbacks. This past October an IMF study concluded “the idea that fiscal austerity stimulates economic activity in the short term finds little support in the data.”
But a massive program of privatization does mean enormous windfall profits for private investors and the banks and financial institutions that finance the purchase of everything from soccer fields to national parks. Those profits, in turn, fuel political machines that use money and media to dominate the narrative that greedy pensioners, lay-about teachers, and freeloaders are the problem. And austerity is the solution.
We need to stop the Oligarchs and their Republic Syndicate from taking U.S. down the same Rat-hole.
- 2 years ago
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Milieu
