Austerity is dead in Europe, time for Tom Carper and Chris Coons to wake up
The news that the wrong headed and, utterly failed polices of austerity are now officially dead in Europe gives me hope that “austerity” will be recognized for the fraudulent bullshit that it is here in America as well.
Now that Keynesian thinking and sanity is being restored, and Europe is no longer tied to a economic policy that was based on Rogoff and Reinhart’s spreadsheet error, European (and hopefully American) companies should be able to get on with growing and adding jobs.
That said, the GOP is still wholly committed to our current President’s failure. So I would expect the Republicans to continue to extol the virtues of an economic ideology that a) is a proven failure, and b) redefines success as the infliction of pain for pain’s sake. Similarly, modern Democrats have spent the past twenty years being wrong about “trickle down” – so I don’t expect then to turn on a dime. Tom Carper and Chris Coons certainly seem to be getting something out of being flat wrong on the scourge of the debt and the looming threat to our continued existence that is Social Security. Why rock the boat?
Still, at long last, it is nice to see articles like this one from cepr.net:
Austerity Advocates Have Been Wrong About Everything
- And these….
- Europe’s Self-Defeating Austerity (usnews.com)
- Stimulus working in Japan. Austerity failing in Europe. Will economists learn? by @DavidOAtkins (digbysblog.blogspot.com)
- Evidence Shows European Austerity Was a Colossal Mistake (usnews.com)
The problem, of course, is that an insufficient number of the electorate know what austerity politics is about and the various guises under which it conceals itself. Therefore, cliches like “They want to reach down into your pocket and steal…” and “The private sector always works best without government interference” and so on ad nauseam still have considerable persuasive force for the uniformed. This is a predictable outcome for a nation whose culture substantially maintains that ignorance is bliss and common sense is preferable to informed sensibilities and and a Forrest Gump can actually serve as a popular and viable type.
The President should be leading on a jobs proposal- the underemployed, unemployed, people who have given up – continues to destroy people, families, communities and the nation. Democrats need to get back to economic issues to ensure our majorities- that includes our State – INFRASTRUCTURE- we will consign the next generation or two to the greater posibility of “small AMERICA” – to deal with our failure to invest in the future.
If we could we’d replace them all, Coons, Carper and Carney ain’t the Dems we know and love. Their warmed over conservatives, why try to hide it. As for austerity no doubt their positions are “evolving”, along the lines of when we beat them over the head with it they’ll think about it.