Who Is Defending Austerity Now?

[xchrom]

http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2013/04/who-is-defending-austerity-now/275200/



Austerians have had their worst week since the last time GDP numbers came out for a country that's tried austerity.

But this time is, well, different. It's not "just" that southern Europe is stuck in a depression and Britain is stuck in a no-growth trap. It's that the very intellectual foundations of austerity are unraveling. In other words, economists are finding out that austerity doesn't work in practice or in theory.

What a difference an Excel coding error makes.

Austerity has been a policy in search of a justification ever since it began in 2010. Back then, policymakers decided it was time for policy to go back to "normal" even though the economy hadn't, because deficits just felt too big. The only thing they needed was a theory telling them why what they were doing made sense. Of course, this wasn't easy when unemployment was still high, and interest rates couldn't go any lower. Alberto Alesina and Silvia Ardagna took the first stab at it, arguing that reducing deficits would increase confidence and growth in the short-run. But this had the defect of being demonstrably untrue (in addition to being based off a naïve reading of the data). Countries that tried to aggressively cut their deficits amidst their slumps didn't recover; they fell into even deeper slumps.

[LonePirate]

1. Since when do facts, math and real world examples matter to right wingers?

They believe and nothing shall challenge or change their beliefs.

[Orrex]

2. I've seen people fired for making $3.00 errors in Excel

What's an appropriate penalty for these two assholes who crippled the world's economy?

[xchrom]

3. Kick

[librechik]

4. I am surprised they are "discovering" this and not covering it up.

I guess it caught them by surprise too. They were so sure and confident that at last they had a rationalization to stop all the social reforms that so annoyingly help the poor. Gad, what dicks, they should drop off the face of the earth.

[woo me with science]

5. K&R