the Austerity Con or Con

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

and why you might be feeling a little light in the purse

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

well we are not broke and austerity is a con; so they say here quite plausibly imv

Britain, then, is not “broke”. The national debt is not high by historical or international standards, the cost of servicing the debt remains manageable, and Britain retains the flexibility of having its own central bank. As for Britain not being able to afford to invest, the truth is the exact opposite: with the cost of borrowing at historic lows, Britain cannot afford not to invest.

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

further to the theme of the last post, this piece rips into the toff boys arguments with some hard data and arguments from authority citing the IMF etc and puts them in one place ... make up your own mind ...

[amateur51]

Some very toxic responses to the Ramesh Patel/Huff Post article, Calum

Dazed and confused of NW2

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

in that you are not alone Ams!

one thought that emerges from several of the links above is that the collapse of the banks damaged the real economy and that damage is main the root of our big problems .... recession, lower government revenues ... all in the context of Brown's spending, the cost of the bailout and subsequent support, and the collapse of the eurozone etc etc ... i like this reasoning most because it is the least polemical, sounds and feels like a snafu and is therefore quite likely to be the case ... it is complex and many sided ... and arguing the blame game is unproductive [except for bankers] how to fix the situation does differ by the view one takes ... on the whole i favour stimulus not austerity and am most persuaded by the historical evidence that austerity makes it worse, but even that evidence has been challenged, so i pull up the duvet!

[amateur51]

in that you are not alone Ams!

one thought that emerges from several of the links above is that the collapse of the banks damaged the real economy and that damage is main the root of our big problems .... recession, lower government revenues ... all in the context of Brown's spending, the cost of the bailout and subsequent support, and the collapse of the eurozone etc etc ... i like this reasoning most because it is the least polemical, sounds and feels like a snafu and is therefore quite likely to be the case ... it is complex and many sided ... and arguing the blame game is unproductive [except for bankers] how to fix the situation does differ by the view one takes ... on the whole i favour stimulus not austerity and am most persuaded by the historical evidence that austerity makes it worse, but even that evidence has been challenged, so i pull up the duvet!

Sound stuff Calum - SNAFU and stimulus for me too

Many thanks for this stimulating thread

[eighthobstruction]

Did see this in same edition from Johnathon Portes....http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2013...tml?ref=topbar

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

i do like that Portes chap 8thO he is very crisp but not simple minded here on the fiscal reduction plan of the toff boys being too severe to start and stalling any recovery

and this which concludes:

We reduced the deficit by a third in our first two years in government, mostly by massive cuts to public investment, which we now realise were a big mistake and have damaged the economy. We're trying belatedly to correct this. We've also now realised that trying to reduce the deficit further while the economy isn't growing is self-defeating, so we're not even going to try to get back on track until it does grow. Meanwhile, since we have no actual growth strategy, and we need to be able to say that the deficit is still falling, we've adopted the proven and time-honoured strategy of putting off paying the bills.

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

oops the data slipped George! a grad student finds major errors in key academic work underpinning global austerity policies

an account of why the slip means is a profound error

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

After all, as I and many others have long argued, austerity was never really an economic policy: ultimately, it was always about morality. We are talking about a politics of crime and punishment, sin and atonement. True, it's never been particularly clear exactly what the original sin was: some combination, perhaps, of tax avoidance, laziness, benefit fraud and the election of irresponsible leaders. But in a larger sense, the message was that we were guilty of having dreamed of social security, humane working conditions, pensions, social and economic democracy.

David Graeber in today's Graun

austerity is neo-con politics, small state low tax, protect the rich stuff

there is an ingenious approach to the irish, Greek, Spanish debt problems in this piece ....

i do find Graeber indispensable to understanding the modern world ....

[teamsaint]

Corporation tax take is disappearing fast.

http://www.taxjournal.com/tj/articles/reuters-probes-decline-corporation-tax-receipts-31122012

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

watch Japan!!

[aeolium]

Thanks for those links, calum and ts. Austerity economics is a wretchedly useless policy. It's interesting to see both Graeber and Jenkins refer to its moralistic aspect, and for Jenkins to deliberately associate it with a Protestant ethic (its principal proponents being politicians from Northern Europe including the Lutheran Merkel).

Only tangentially related is this link from Mike Ledwidge who took out a full page ad in the Grauniad recently to complain about the long-term damage to public services caused by current policies and approaches (perhaps this should be on another thread but I couldn't find one more suitable):

http://targetsandbullying.org/#/mike-ledwidge-1/4575499639

Incidentally, why is this topic labelled "the Austerity Con or Con" rather than just "the Austerity Con" (or am I being dense?)?

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

more likely my obscure thoughts aeolium ...Conservative or Confidence Trick; Tory or scam; Significant Theory from the Right or Fraud etc etc ...

[amateur51]

This is such a good thread because Calum selects such doozies of contributions to link to ... and because there's a fair amount of erudite reading to do, it doesn't attract much of the 'usual' crowd