Why not try it? Well …
A depressing and familiar plot is developing in Portugal. Having adopted a full package of austerity measures two years ago, the country finds its budget deficit has not closed according to the intended timetable and actually widened last year to 6.4% of GDP. Nor has growth returned. Instead, the economy is expected to contract by a further 2.3% this year and the rate of unemployment stands at almost 18%.
… because it doesn’t work, that’s why. Unless you like to watch your country collapse into a perpetual economic crisis, that is. Then it does just fine.
It failed because the liberals stopped them from doing it enough.
Just like everything else that fails!
It’s all about the virtue and probity. They’re increasing, There isn’t enough of them yet. But with sufficient suffering, we’ll get the level of virtue and probity we need. Then the ewes will lamb again, and the cows calve, and the corn will be heavy in the ear.
A modern industrialized nation cannot be run by people with the macroeconomic intuitions of a fifteenth-century peasant, not even if they win elections and command majorities in Parliament.
I would like an explanation of the differences between the monetarism that BoJ is practicing and Keynesianism.
Are the right people doing okay? If so, then the policy is Good and Right and Just. For a current example, watch what the commentariat have to say on the demise of Mrs. Thatcher. Yes, for many of the wrong people, her reign as prime minister was bad, in many cases lethally so. But for the right people, her tenure turned out just fine.
Yes, there have been some hard points in austerity in Europe, and the current invocation of the sequester in the States. But by far, the biggest share of suffering has been visited upon people who don’t matter, and the right people are getting a goose they don’t need in their net worth. So, it’s a net plus and worth pursuing further. If the proles start getting uppity, though, we might have to adjust this assessment, but with the new season of Game of Thrones starting we should be good well into the summer.
I’m becoming more convinced that, for what ever reason, Merkel and her cohort want fascism to make a comeback. If not, they have a funny way of showing it.
What would fascism provide that the status quo doesn’t? Besides the Sudentenland.
All the right people are making money hand over fist now, and there aren’t enough Jews left to worry about.
Turks? Bosnians? African asylum seekers?
Look at Greece. Look at Hungary. Look at Spain and now even France. Why are supposed Socialist governments going soft?