European, US Austerity Drive is Suicidal: Nobel Economist Stiglitz

[polly7]

Published on Friday, April 27, 2012 by Common Dreams

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2012/04/27-1

European, US Austerity Drive is Suicidal: Nobel Economist Stiglitz

'The Occupy movement has been very successful in bringing those ideas to the forefront of political discussion.'
- Common Dreams staff

Europe is headed down the same path that most Republicans -- and many Democrats -- are suggesting for the US: reductions in the public sector, cuts in benefits, slashing investments in infrastructure and education.

Austerity is suicidal public policy warns US economist Joseph Stiglitz.
Nobel Prize-winning U.S. economist Joseph Stiglitz speaking in Vienna, Austria Thursday night said that it's a suicidal path for Europe -- and that such a policy has never worked in any large country.

Youth unemployment in Spain has been at 50 percent since the crisis in 2008 with “no hope of things getting better anytime soon,” said Stiglitz, who is a professor for economics at Columbia University. “What you are doing is destroying the human capital, you are creating alienated young people.”

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Published on Friday, April 27, 2012 by The Progressive

Austerity is Killing Europe

by Amitabh Pal

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2012/04/27-5

The austerity fetish of those making economic decisions is killing Europe’s economy.

The last few days have provided further proof.

“Spain officially slipped back into recession for the second time in three years Monday, after following the German remedy of deep retrenchment in public outlays, joining Italy, Belgium, the Netherlands and the Czech Republic,” the New York Times reported this week.

And more bad news has followed.

“Britain slid back into recession in the first quarter of the year, according to official figures released Wednesday, undercutting the government's argument that its austerity program was working,” says today’s Times.

But those in charge seem to be eternally clueless.