De cliniclowns van de Nederlanden, Rutte en Samsom, zijn waarschijnlijk nog prettig gestoord bezig achter hun bureautjes. Lekker autistisch bezig, geen weet hebbende van wat de wereld denkt en zegt, of wat de gevolgen van hun beleid zijn.
EuropaNu: "De tijd waarin bezuinigen als het enige middel werd gezien om de schuldencrisis te bestrijden, is voorbij. Dat heeft de Franse minister van Financiën Pierre Moscovici zondag gezegd tegen de radiozender Europe 1."
Salon: " Austerity never works: Deficit hawks are amoral — and wrong
The 1 percent and the financial class caused the Great Recession. So why do we keep allowing them to shape policy?
Intensified belt-tightening deepens depression by further undercutting purchasing power generally. Despite facile analogies between governments and households, government is different from other actors. In a depression, even with high levels of public debt, additional government borrowing and spending may be the only way to jump-start the economy’s productive capacity at a time when the private sector is too traumatized to invest and spend.
The austerity scenario blurs the short term with the long term, confuses the issue of social insurance reform with the question of the best recovery strategy, makes improbable claims about what is depressing business and consumer confidence, and inverts cause and effect. The level of public spending and the degree of budget balance are two entirely separate issues.
In a deflated economy, an increase in the short-term deficit to finance investment is better medicine than austerity.
If we cut the deficit, reduce social spending and tighten our belts as the deficit hawks recommend, we will condemn the economy to stagnant growth and flat or declining wages. That will indeed leave the next generation a lot poorer. The existing debt will loom larger relative to the size of the real economy, and there will be too few public funds to invest in the education, employment, job-training and research outlays that our children and grandchildren need.
Despite the scapegoating of Social Security and Medicare, the failure to apply the right remedies to the crisis is also harms the older generation."
Intussen worden in Engeland de groeiende rijen werklozen voor de gek gehouden met onzinnige psychometrische tests, met als doel hen zoveel mogelijk te korten op hun uitkering.
Guardian: "Jobseekers made to carry out bogus psychometric tests
Unemployed people are told they risk losing benefits if they fail to carry out meaningless questionnaire