Europeans Come to Realize Austerity Won't Fix the Economy

by Mary

The policy this past year in Europe has been to promote austerity as the way to jump-start the failing economies. But they are finding that the austerity has been sucking out any remaining life from the moribund economies and creating a situation where everyone, not just the profligate, will suffer.

A draft of the European Union summit meeting communiqué calls for ‘‘growth-friendly consolidation and job-friendly growth,’’ an indication that European leaders have come to realize that austerity measures, like those being put in countries like Greece and Italy, risk stoking a recession and plunging fragile economies into a downward spiral....“The recognition is coming that austerity won’t work,”’ said Mr. Fritz-Vannahme, “but how to get beyond austerity politics is completely unclear. There is no master plan under discussion in this country.”

Now that they've done such a good job of undermining the societies that were in the target of their austerity policies, they now have an even bigger hole of which to dig themselves out. But at least they now realize the error of their ways.

So, do you think the austerity cheerleaders in the US will reconsider their call for liquidating all government spending on the safety net?