Reddit reviews Austerity: The History of a Dangerous Idea

Congress was at least honest they bailed out the banks. Germans funneled their bailout money through Greece, wrecking their economy on the way. I recommend this book if you wish to understand better how Germans and French fucked over Greece to bail out their banks

Yes, Would you prefer an hour long lecture, a book recommendation or an article by the IMF?

I think that more so has to do with the origin of the criticism--UMass is a heterodox school, Harvard is one of the premier economics schools in the world by prestige (if you can trust rankings, #2, but that's bubba meisa).

Additionally, the finding in the R&R paper was extremely politically convenient at a time when some, including well respected thinkers like Stiglitz, Krugman, Akerloff, Schiller, Summers, were calling for a return to a more a fiscal-based anti-crisis policy.

Had their paper not come out, some other talking head would have been found to justify the austerity claim (not that the R&R paper even really does justify austerity--the issue is long term average debt, balanced over the business cycle, not its static measurement at any given moment), which occurs regularly.

Also, the more intense your prestige, the less likely you are to publicly fess up. You see this in other disciplines. Chomsky, who, by any metric, is an incredibly intelligent man, who changes the conclusions of his theories regularly, will, nonetheless, never own up to their being issues in generativism generally & the minimalist program, specifically.



It really may be a Harvard & MIT disease. Steven Pinker was savaged by Taleb's statistical analysis, not to mention substantial rebuttals from anthropology, sociology, poli sci & economics which disputed his claims (notably everyone from Douglas P Fry to James Scott to Jared Diamond to John Gray disputes it, despite their lack of agreement on anything else)--but he only ever doubles down. Ditto for Pinker & other talking heads on the issues of adaptationism in evolution and genocentrism & other issues in biology generally. Larry Summers (who, academically within econ actually has some integrity) famously gave a talk about differences between men & women's career outcomes--he cited someone for his claim who was literally in the audience at the talk and during the Q&A said he mis-interpreted the data. He recast himself as a martyr for free speech later, even as this was impertinent to the subject at hand.

I feel like there's a lot of spin here.

>By Dr. Tooze's estimate, governments ended up committing more than US$7-trillion to save banks. Most of these state investments would eventually turn a profit for taxpayers.
>
>“Did the all-out focus on the financial system really save the interests of the real economy? Was the inability to borrow causing a failure of investment? Or were the collapsed housing market and cash-strapped households curtailing economic activity?”

How about a lack of government regulation that essentially let's the private banking sector run amok?

For anyone who is interested, Mark Blyth talks about the repeated failings of the private sector resulting in public sector blame in his book: Austerity: The History of a Dangerous Idea

>The question is, why does an article like this have to be published at American Conservative, rather than a left-wing outlet, where it actually belongs?

Tucker Carlson (Fox News anchor who hosted Kara Dansky of WoLF) also recently had Mark Blyth on his show. This is Mark Blyth, author of "Austerity: The History of a Dangerous Idea", who calls democracy "asset insurance for the rich" (was the source of the hashtag #thehamptonsisnotadefensibleposition), and is a welcomed guest of Chris Hedges on his show. Blyth can't get on Chris Hayes' or Rachel Maddow's shows, but he can get on Carlson's? Pathetic. Not that I think Fox News is some beacon of truth and progress because of it, they just know how to cleverly channel anti-elite sentiment into a particular flavor of pro-elite support among their conservative viewers. Whereas I think msnbc couldn't as safely afford to expose their left-leaning audience to the same ideas. Anyway it's just kind of wild to hear Carlson saying one of Blyth's lectures was "one of the smartest things [he's] ever heard about american politics". Like what is going on when the only place outside of fringe indie sources that you can hear real leftists is mainstream conservative outlets. Things sure are getting weird.

The first thing to say is - obviously - you don't know what you're talking about.

This video - which your view on him is based upon - isn't all that Mark Blyth has come out and said since 2010. He's also written a book on the subject in which he goes into more detail than just about anybody as well as writing and speaking publicly about austerity and a bunch of other things, as academics tend to do.

Next, austerity isn't ideological? Who exactly do you think you're kidding? You think I'm going to even humour you on this one?

Debt-to-GDP is a pointless stat? You're the one that brought up 'balancing the books'. The coalition government made deficit reduction and paying down the debt its raisons d'etre. If the books are almost balanced, then, as they pledged they would be by now, the debt-to-GDP should be falling. Why has the opposite been happening, then?

The deficit being at 4 per cent is still not a budget surplus, which Osborne pledged by now to the House of Commons in 2010 (along with a safeguarded triple A credit rating).

If cutting government spending balanced the books and paid down the debt then we'd be in surplus by now with a falling debt-to-GDP level. That's necessarily what would have happened. Instead, the recovery came three years into the coalition's term in office, which is bizarre considering the theory backing up austerity predicted growth would emerge as soon as the cuts were announced.

You've fallen for the government's story hook line and sinker. There wasn't ever any danger of the UK becoming Greece. The UK isn't part of any single currency, the UK is in control of its monetary and fiscal policy, the UK was never in any danger of defaulting. There was no urgent need to balance the books at all. You swallowed a load of horse shit.

I was going to let it be at that but if we're continuing a bit I might as well mention a few things.

While a lot of what I said was quick google searches the familiarity with the subject matter comes from the History of Rome podcast and Austerity: History of a dangerous idea so if you want to really dig into those look there.

The other thing and part of why I think it's easy to think that economics are at the heart of every change is because economics are the sum of all changes. A plague, civil war or famine may be the initiating incident that causes a decline but all will be reflected in the economy of the time so it's hard to see any imperial decline not at least accompanied by economic troubles of some sort.

That's even true for the US case as well as the biggest part of the debt story isn't even really an economic one but a political one, here's a illuminating quote. linky

>Although Moody's fully expected political wrangling prior to an increase in the statutory debt limit, the degree of entrenchment into conflicting positions has exceeded expectations. The heightened polarization over the debt limit has increased the odds of a short-lived default. If this situation remains unchanged in coming weeks, Moody's will place the rating under review.

So here's one of the very few concrete signs that the debt load might have negative consequences and it's actually about congress playing an increasingly dangerous game of chicken in threatening to default more or less in a fit of pique.

I'm not. Read up:

https://www.amazon.com/Austerity-History-Dangerous-Mark-Blyth/dp/019982830X

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JQuHSQXxsjM

If you want to get into a source credibility pissing contest here, I'm afraid your neoliberal think-tanks and blogs are going to lose out against a renowned Ivy League political economist who has been consistently proven right on his predictive analysis.

I'm an amateur, but Mark Blyth, a liberal/marxist Scottish economist, has a book on austerity and he gives an entertaining talk too.

As for the mechanics of the Greek debt crisis and pensions crisis, I think wikipedia isn't bad. Tradingeconomics.com has great graphs on unemployment, debt-to-GDP, and bond yields that give a real hands-on sense of how things are going in different countries in Europe. If you like raw data look at Germany's population pyramid: it's a pyramid alright, it's just upside down! Waaay more old people than young people. And that's typical for Europe these days.

As for politics in Europe, I'm at a loss beyond saying maybe try to read a diverse selection of newspapers. Of course there are more issues than just the greek debt crisis, pensions crisis, and immigration crisis. So read, and read broadly.

Here is the mobile version of your link

> που σου "ανοίγουν τα μάτια" όπως του Όργουελ.

Ο Όργουελ, έχει twist, αλλά ας το αφήσουμε για αργότερα.

Τσομσκυ. Πολύ προσιτός. Ποιό πολιτικό/ιστορικός

Mark Blyth - Austerity: The history of a dangerous idea Πολιτικόοικονομικός επιστήμονας, Σκωτσέζος στην καταγωγή, αλλά μένει πια αμερική. Youtube θα σου αρέσει, επίσεις προσιτός.

Richard Wolff, youtube, όλα, αρκετά προσιτός. Αν δεν καταλαβαίνεις κάτι, άστο το video για αργότερα. Μαρξιστής οικονομολόγος

Zιζεκ, όσο αντέξεις, αρκετά διασκεδαστικός, προσιτός, παντρεύει τη ψυχολογία με τον Μαρξισμό.

• Zizek: First as a Tragedy, then as a farce
  
  
• David Harvey: Crises of Capitalism
  
  
• Richard Wolff: Marxism 101 - How Capitalism is killing itself
  
  Αρχισε απο εδώ και στείλε μύνημα για ότι δεν καταλάβεις.
  
  

Η Ισλανδία με 300 000 πληθυσμό, τεράστια εξάρτηση στις εισαγωγές όλων των ειδών και GDP χαμηλότερο από της Ελλάδας έχει πιο δυνατή οικονομία μάλιστα. Η Δανία έχει πολύ πιο ευαίσθητη οικονομία λόγω του ότι βασίζεται κυρίως σε εξαγωγές, που την κτύπησαν άγρια. Γενικά είναι στα ίδια επίπεδα με την Ελλάδα.

Η Δανία πήγε να μπει σε μνημόνια όπως την Ελλάδα και όταν η κατάσταση δεν καλυτέρευε, απέφυγε περαιτέρω λιτότητα, οπόταν επανήλθε σε φυσιολογικά επίπεδα πολύ γρήγορα. Η Ελλάδα ακόμη προσπαθεί.

Κρίσεις γίνονται συνεχώς και όταν ο ιδιωτικός τομέας συρρικνώνεται η απάντηση δεν είναι λιτότητα αλλά η ανάπτυξη του δημόσιου τομέα για να καλύψει την ανεργία. Το κράτος χάνει χρήματα αρχικά, αλλά επανέρχεται διότι κρατά την οικονομία σε κίνηση, εφόσων οι καταναλωτές έχουν λεφτά για να ξοδεύουν και επίσης είναι ικανοί να πληρώνουν φόρους αντί να πληρώνονται παροχές και επιδόματα. Επίσης με το τύπωμα ρευστού οι αξίες των χρεών του κράτους μειώνονται, κάτι που του επιτρέπει να αντεπεξέλθει. Αυτό γινόταν για χρόνια από την εποχή του 1920 και το κραχ στην Αμερική και Ευρώπη, και είναι ένας κύριος λόγος της ύπαρξης του τιμάριθμου.

Από την εποχή του Reagan και της Thatcher όμως έχει μπει η ιδέα σε όλους ότι κάτι τέτοιο είναι πρωτόγονο και προσπαθούν με χίλια ζόρια να εφαρμόσουν λιτότητα. Η λιτότητα δεν εξυπηρετά κανένα παρά μόνο τις πλούσιες τάξεις, καθώς οι τιμές ιδιοκτησίας κατρακυλούν, με αποτέλεσμα να αγοράζουν (όπως και γίνεται τώρα στην Ελλάδα) τεράστια ποσά περιουσιών για ψίχουλα και να επενδύουν για το μέλλον τους. Η ιδέα ότι η λιτότητα θα σώσει την οικονομία είναι επιστημονικά αποδεδειγμένο ότι δεν στέκει (https://www.amazon.com/Austerity-History-Dangerous-Mark-Blyth/dp/019982830X). Το μόνο που κάνει είναι να δημιουργεί μια ψεύτικη ασφάλεια, που ανεβάζει την οικονομία για λίγο, αλλά όλα καταρρέουν με την επόμενη κρίση.

I'm not sure about this. As I understand the mortgage-backed securities and credit swaps is that one of the problems prior to 2009 was there were not sufficient treasury notes in circulation to back up short terms loans so mortgage securities were used as second best collateral given the perception that a pool of mortgages, some with government backing, is only marginally less secure than a T note (Blyth). Government debt is in demand, by implication. If there is a demand for securities, a long term "punishment" of a disobedient socialist or even Keynesian government is unlikely. If stocks decide that President Bernie is a problem, for example, bonds, including government bonds, are going to be more attractive. Maybe the billionaires will all buy gold, Midwestern farmland, and cryptocurrency but it's hard to put 100 billion away like that in a hurry. Some government debt is a good place to hide. Plus, a truly outside the box government could pay down a small percentage of the overall debt by printing a small amount of money without causing massive inflation, as there is no evidence that inflation below 10% has any harmful effect on living standards. So, if the Bernie Bros were willing to let inflation tick up a bit to 6% or so, and if the stock market is iffy on socialists, the federal government should be able to borrow as much as they want -- although Bernie would hopefully not have to as AOC put through a maximum wealth law and the money comes in the old fashioned way...

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https://www.amazon.com/Austerity-History-Dangerous-Mark-Blyth/dp/019982830X

https://www.amazon.com/Austerity-History-Dangerous-Mark-Blyth/dp/019982830X

I strongly recommend you this book. I used to buy into the "oh Southern Europe are full of lazy people, that's why they aren't willing to sucuumb to the austerity meansures"-narrative by the media (at least in Germany), but this changed my perspective.

entertaining stuff. its great that he examines the debate around austerity by looking at reliable graphs, but its a bummer he doesn't do any more research and arrives at HYPER simply conclusions... for example, equating new government debt with the change in unemployment? Where do I start... first of all, the numbers on job creation may be way off from the difference between two unemployment figures (people enter the job market and leave the job market for many, many reasons) and, sad to say, much of the federal debt was used to prop up an economy teetering on the brink (although, I'll admit, not enough was used to help out normal folks, particularly underwater homeowners). But for this guy to look at three graphs, subtract unemployment figures, and come to his conclusions is both radically transparent (good for him) and radically ignorant (he needs to put down he preconceptions and read a bit more, starting here maybe: http://www.amazon.com/Austerity-The-History-Dangerous-Idea/dp/019982830X ). Downvote.

It wasn't gov't-imposed, it was Germany-imposed austerity, which benefits the Germans, as Mark Blyth wrote in Austerity: the History of a Dangerous Idea. Austerity is fine when your economy is contingent on exports, as Germany's is. So the ECB, which the old Bundesbank has the most influence, acts in Germany's interest. More specifically, it acts in Germany's exporters' interest. Viewed in this way, the Euro-crisis is not a crisis, but, merely a means to keep the large German exporters, selling their products around the world.

A book for anyone interested in hearing more about what /u/Carnagh wrote about.

austerity is a horrible idea, yes.