http://www.counterpunch.org/2013/05/07/   
   financial-institutions-admit-austerity-failed/   
      
    Financial Institutions Admit Austerity Failed   
      
    Thursday, 09 May 2013 13:32 By Ken Klippenstein   
      
    2013 has been something of a confessional period for the   
    economic managerial class. The IMF's chief economist perhaps   
    demonstrated this point best when he conceded that "forecasters   
    significantly underestimated the increase in unemployment and   
    the decline in domestic demand associated with fiscal   
    consolidation (a polite term for "austerity)."   
      
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    IOW, business is not hiring and expanding because they got no   
    customers. Funny, I do believe Paul Krugman has been saying that   
    for years.   
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    ...   
      
    Meanwhile, Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff, the Harvard   
    economists responsible for one of the more influential studies   
    used to defend austerity have admitted "austerity is not the   
    only answer to a debt problem."   
      
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    Since it doesn't work at all, it's probably not the only answer.   
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    the failure to recognize that austerity didn't work during the   
    Great Depression and won't work now, during the Great Recession.   
      
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    I do believe I mentioned that before. And referenced   
    www.snipurl.com/fdr1937   
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    ...   
      
    They simultaneously demand stimulus and deficit reduction. As   
    Treasury Secretary Jack Lew put it, "We shouldn't choose between   
    growth and job creation and getting our fiscal house in order."   
    This is like a child wishing he could stay up all night and get   
    a good night's sleep:   
      
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    IOW, no matter how much they admit they were wrong, they never   
    actually quite admit they were wrong.   
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    In elite circles, "simplistic" explanations are any which   
    involve elementary truths: that   
      
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    Like: Unemployment bad... full employment good.   
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    ...   
      
    suggest any sort of human agency behind these downturns -   
    namely, a relationship between the wealth and poverty - is to   
    commit the dreaded error of viewing economics as a zero-sum   
    game.   
      
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    Of course, it is a zero sum game to the rich, just us poor   
    workin folks ain't allowed to think of it that way.   
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    This of course is a fallacy, because economics is a magical   
    process by which the concentrated wealth simultaneously diffuses   
    its wealth (i.e. trickle-down theory).   
      
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    Ah, yes, magic. That's how economics works.   
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   BOB KLAHN bob.klahn@sev.org   http://home.toltbbs.com/bobklahn   
      
   ... The 2nd million is easier than the 1st, so I'm workin on the 2nd, 1st.   
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