Time: Greece Meaning is 'Austerity for All'

Time: Greece Meaning is ‘Austerity for All’

Established wealth propaganda publication Time offers an unsigned editorial ‘analysis’ today, telling us that ‘austerity for all’ is unavoidable. As soon as the bankers are done with Greece and the ‘periphery’, they’re plannning to come after the rest of us (emphasis added):

Whatever happens as the crisis unfolds – whether Athens defaults or not, whether the country sticks with the euro or ditches it – years of painful reform and austerity measures to straighten out the nation’s finances are unavoidable. …

It’s a tragic end that most of the world’s richest countries may face as well. What’s happening in Greece is a window into the future of the West. True, the U.S., U.K. and other debt-heavy nations may never tumble into crises as severe as Greece’s. America, for a host of reasons, is not Greece. But the Americans, Brits, French, Italians and most other Westerners can’t avoid the budget cuts and potentially lower living standards the Greeks are suffering through today as governments across the developed world will inevitably be forced to restore order to their shattered finances. It’s the price of living beyond our means like the Greeks have done.

What means? What beyond? None of that last sentence is true — it was not overborrowing but mainly the collapse of the real estate bubble, the world financial crisis, the taxpayer rescue of the banks, and the recession that caused budget deficits in Europe and elsewhere — and austerity is absurd rather than inevitable with technology and worker productivity on a constant upswing. The only real question is whether the people being re-distributed away from by the banks and their wealthy clients, that means US, are gonna take it.
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Tags: banks, financial class, Greece, Mark Weisbrot, Michael Hudson
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Deficit Terrorism – They’re Serious

This is a case of pain with no gain . . . indefinite sacrifice for the reward of lower living standards

They can’t be serious, but they are. Somehow the financiers and ‘the market’ have taken control of our politicians and the mainstream media, and are going to practice anti-deficit terrorism against their populations, here and in Europe, already hit by deep recession and mass unemployment. Taking Keynes and common sense and doing the opposite, where does it lead? Why do we have to find out?

Dean Baker:

. . . Even though the US and many eurozone countries are projected to be flirting with double-digit unemployment for years to come, their governments will be focused on cutting deficits rather than boosting the economy and creating jobs.

The outcome of this story is not pretty. [fairleft: You could've put that a little stronger, Dean] Cutting deficits means raising taxes and/or cutting spending. In either case, it means pulling money out of the economy at a time when it is already well below full employment. This can lower deficits, but it also means lower GDP and higher unemployment.

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