Austerity and Low Wages will Lead to Years of Recession

Engelbert Stockhammer: Europe has shown that cuts in public spending and lowering wages leads to deep stagnation

[ytgvfc]

It has been done before. Rome, Greece, China, gold has never failed. Rulers failed, removed gold and put paper out, put zinc & base metals out as money, and that failed. Gold & silver remained strong from then till now without fail.

[ytgvfc]

"austerity" (codeword) means "steal everything and pretend we're broke" whereas real austerity means admitting "we're really broke IF we stop stealing from the working & the poor to feed the nobles" and let the poor & working class RECOVER without further theft.

[Maphisto]

It is painfully ironic that the Eurozone policies are now destroying good relations between European countries and trade when it was all an attempt at unification. What a waste. : (

[c]

Of course it will, but it took years to get into this mess, and it will take years to get out.

[ytgvfc]

LAST time there was hyper-inflation people said that too. Then there was hyperinflation and starvation kept their mouths shut.

[littlewing]

I have to agree with that statement especially for the explanation of this immediate and present delimma. Everyone is aware that there are little to no products on the shelves that aren't from a foreign country. I would love to grow my own food and produce my own needs and do know how to do it, but I cannot purchase the land to do it on. No doubt in my mind, it's a employment is a trap.

[tpwatson]

your right, but the "right" agreements aren't/weren't included or being adhered to to dtae, so you have three options 1) scrap current agreements and start new ones 2) begin quotas and or tarrifs or 3) maintain the status

[tpwatson]

It's called tarriffs and import quotas. Disallow goods made by slave labor into your country, unless the importers or companies are willing to pay fees and taxes associated to help subsidize wages and the domestic population and employment..

[sirellyn]

If you're a taxi driver and gas costs more than anyone will pay you to go from A to B, you can't be a taxi driver of a gas based vehicle any longer. You have to find some form of transportation which costs less than what people are willing to pay.

You HAVE to make a profit (even if not giant). If this was explained in a forest of renewable trees, or a supply of water, you'd understand.

For some reason a unit that represents the resource is exempt from both logic and math.

[sirellyn]

Actual austerity, cutting spending to equal or be less than income, in less than a year. That would bring you a bad year, and then things would be good.

The kind of austerity most are talking about here. Cutting bits out of things they don't like, raising other things, more debt, more spending. That will indeed make things sour for years to come.

[ytgvfc]

the only reason you don't use gold & silver money today is because it did not permit massive centrally controlled theft and people demanded gold on deposit, nation to nation, leading to war-like tensions.
Now the tensions are largely gone as people trade fiat currencies, paper & electrons, so the gold-tensions shifted to oil.
The biggest banks still deal in gold but are not forced to as they are above the laws of all nations & also have fiat cash.

[ytgvfc]

Today's economy is nearly identical to that of the 1800's: removal of fiat currency does not damage anything and fiat currency is itself highly unstable, loses value & is used primarily as a tool of central control to commit acts of robbery. Just imagine if I took all your food & at gun point said you get "food tickets" to redeem for food "when you need it, as I see fit". Dollars are forced on everyone precisely that way for all goods & what IS real money (gold, silver)

[ytgvfc]

Labour pool is up globally, innovation is down globally (the kind that improves personal lives, not just large-scale-only corporate and/or union MANAGEMENT profits) and certainly government / corporation (especially BANK) corruption is WAY WAY up. Given this... years if not decades of recession is UNAVOIDABLE.
People need to PRODUCE, manufacture PERSONALLY & in a decentralized collective manner. Corrupt bankers must be JAILED, SHUT DOWN. Until then: more of the same

[stevenweir]

What we need is responsible economy. Think hard about that phrase, I'm talking about you economists and poli-sci majors.

[Thurgor_Supreme]

I hate to say it because it's extremely unethical, but the only way to have efficient spending is a redistribution of wealth. Government spending will always fail because it's nullified from free market corrections.

[masmoke]

16 trillion in debt, over 400 billion every year going to pay interest on this debt, printing more money will not help, one scandel after another about wastefull govt spending. Fannie mae freddie mac was protected by democrats contoling congress which contributed to this crash. You can't blame everything on one party. Limited terms for members of congress this was not ment to be a lifetime job. A limited govt is the way to go.

[yomandude]

[cont.]
Governments needs to retire all these toxic derivatives/mortgage-backed securities. Tell the Billionaires and Trillionaires of the world "go take a hike." We are not going to commit our children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren to wage-slave status for the rest of their lives.

[moestietabarnak]

never said oil was costing more than people were willing to pay for the trip, that's assinine.

[Stupidityindex]

There is a choice but not favorabe to the powerful. Stop debasing the money by charging interest, stop fractional reserve banking, put value back in the money: it costs more to make a penny than a penny worth as a coin. Reverse course. Get the flow of money going back into the real ecconomy from the bottom instead of the top. The corruption must end first. Otherwise we are just flapping in the wind. Nevermind we are screwed.

[yomandude]

Ask yourself a question: how does deficit growth continue while cutting back on spending?
When sovereign nations, throughout the world, bailed big banks 2007 what essentially happened is nations [insert Tax Payers here] took over pay-out responsibilities of margin calls and maturities of all toxic derivatives/mortgage-backed securities since.
The last four years all nations, at all levels, been working on budget cut backs. Yet for example USA Fed Debt STILL rose from 2 trillion to 14 trillion.