Quelle Surprise !!!: Austerity doesn't work !!!!

[marmar]

via truthdig:



Ireland Is Pushed Back Into Recession
Posted on Mar 24, 2012


A 0.2 percent dip in GDP at the end of 2011, which followed a drastic decline in the third quarter, has thrown Ireland back into recession, alongside Belgium, the Netherlands, Italy, Portugal and Greece, and begs the question of whether austerity is the answer to Europe’s economic woes. —ARK

The Guardian:

The Irish finance minister, Michael Noonan, promised a swift recovery last year after record export figures appeared to show foreign trade would galvanise the economy, which had to be bailed out with €90bn by the European commission, IMF and European Central Bank in December 2010. However, the euro crisis and a slowdown in some key export markets dampened demand for Irish goods.

Dublin has focused on exports after it was forced to impose a dramatic squeeze on public spending by Brussels as the price of a multibillion-euro rescue package. The housing crisis that resulted from the largest property boom in the eurozone has also restricted domestic demand.

Read more

http://www.truthdig.com/eartotheground/item/austerity_fails_an_ireland_back_in_recession_20120324/

[Cali_Democrat]

1. You mean lowering spending and thus lowering aggregate demand reduces economic growth?

I'm shocked!

[PA Democrat]

2. PA has a Tea Party candidate who is planning to run against Senator Bob Casey.

He's already running ads attacking Casey and Obama for the deficit and is promising a balanced budget. What's sad is that there are people too stupid to understand that a drastic cut in government spending will throw the country back into a deep recession.

[Fawke Em]

4. What the Tealiban wants to do will cause more than a recession.

Hell, it would create more than a depression. It would kill the country.

[xchrom]

3. Du rec. Nt

[jeff47]

5. They just didn't do enough austerity!

Austerity is never wrong! They just needed to cut spending more so there would be more confidence!!! Then the confidence fairy will give money to all the good girls and boys!

[Jim Lane]

12. They also need to abolish environmental safeguards, consumer protections, etc.

If even that doesn't work, it proves that God is punishing them for not executing LGBT people.

[libtodeath]

6. The only way for growth to happen is to take back the stolen wealth from the 1%

and put it in the hands of those that need it.
The basic economic fact of that cant be argued.
The next thing is to enact an economic bill of rights insuring all have healthcare,food and shelter.
Once that is the case we can all pursue our real dreams in life and the economic explosion will be incredible.

Democratic Socialism must be what we turn to,the predator capitalism failure is doomed no matter and killing us all in the process.

[gtar100]

7. And the only way to do that, short of stealing it back from them, is through tax policy.

But I'm fine with having it taken from them. Which of them really deserves the wealth they have anyway, given the amount of suffering in this world they cause.

[libtodeath]

8. Yes

a tax policy that is finally fair and insures that all share in the wealth generated by labor.

[saras]

9. AFAIK austerity has NEVER worked, ANYWHERE. Who started the meme that it could?

[Lydia Leftcoast]

10. Cynical financial pirates who know that the majority of the population

thinks of history as some boring school subject, not as something that could contain lessons for today.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

11. Who'd think that throwing masses of civil servants out of their jobs

wouldn't help the unemployment rate?

But there's a meme going around in the right wing that if the government hires people it "sucks money out of the private sector."

I suppose that sounds logical if you're a Rushbot.

[hifiguy]

13. Everyone who is surprised by this stand on your head.

Taking money out of the economy lowers demand and depresses said economy. And there are countless people with Ph.D.s who do not understand this elementary concept.