On June 2, 2012, Will Hutton writes in The Guardian about failed austerity and the human cost of economic stupidity.
“Last week was an awesome warning of where go-it-alone austerity can lead. It produced some brutal evidence of where we end up when we place finance above economy and society. The markets are now betting not just on the break-up of the euro but on the arrival of a new economic dark age. The world economy is edging nearer to the abyss, and policymakers, none more than in Britain, are paralysed by the stupidities of their home-spun economics. Yanis Varoufakis, ex-speechwriter for former Greek prime minister George Papandreou and now an economics professor in the US, said last week: ‘There is precisely zero chance of austerity working. It is the same as thinking you can escape from gravity by waving your arms up and down.’
“It could hardly be more sobering. Money has flooded out of Spain, Greece and the peripheral European economies. Signs of the crisis range from Athen’s soup kitchens to Spain‘s crowds of indignados protesting in the streets against austerity and a broken capitalism. Youth unemployment is sky-high. Less visible is the avalanche of money flowing into hoped-for safe havens in the US, Germany and even Britain. The last time the British government could sell government bonds at interest rates as low as today’s was in the early 1700s.”
The economic dark age has been clouding over all economies as ordinary people are systematicly excluded from participating through private, individual ownership in the future productive capital assets of their countries’ business corporations and companies. These assets are embodied in productive land, structures, machines, superautomation, robotics, digital computerized operations, etc (the non-human factor of production). “Real” job growth can only flourish when an economy grows. Austerity policies essentially strangle an economy’s engine of growth, which results in economic decline. Leaders should always support policies and programs that result in economic growth with the widest possible private, individual ownership participation empowered simultaneously with the economy’s growth, thus strengthening individuals and providing them a productive means to participate and contribute to the society and support the growing economy as consumers.
http://apps.facebook.com/theguardian/commentisfree/2012/jun/02/austerity-failed-will-hutton
