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Nobel Laureate Stiglitz Says EU Austerity Is Wrong Bet
BUDAPEST - The European Union will prolong the global downturn if policymakers in the bloc's big economies insist on austerity measures to cut budget deficits, Nobel Prize winning economist Joseph Stiglitz said on Tuesday.
Stiglitz, winner of the Nobel Prize for Economics in 2001, said austerity as a policy to end the global crisis was a 'disaster', adding that Europe was heading towards more economic difficulties if politicians meant what they say when they promised to cut back spending rather than just trying to calm down markets. Stiglitz, winner of the Nobel Prize for Economics in 2001, said austerity as a policy to end the global crisis was a 'disaster', adding that Europe was heading towards more economic difficulties if politicians meant what they say when they promised to cut back spending rather than just trying to calm down markets.
'If that (austerity) happens I think it is likely that the economic downturn will last far longer and human suffering will be all the greater,' he said.
Historical evidence showed that increased state spending rather than austerity measures can help economies emerge from recession, he said.
'In spite of all that evidence there is a drumbeat, particularly from many of the economists who were responsible for the crisis ... to focus on austerity,' Stiglitz told reporters on the sidelines of a conference.
He said the example of Ireland, a small economy, showed that austerity leads to declining output, rising unemployment and high bond spreads, instead of renewed investor.
'I feel sorry for the Irish people who have to suffer from this policy ... but it doesn't have global or European consequences,' he said.
'But if the UK, Germany or other countries do it, then it is going to have systemic consequences for Europe and the whole world,' he added.
Stiglitz said the real question Europe and the world faced was not whether the global economy was on track to a double dip.
'From the perspective of the world, or workers, there is very little difference between growth of a quarter point of a percent and a decline of a quarter point of a percent,' he said.
'What workers care about is if growth will be strong enough to reduce the high level of unemployment in the U.S. or Europe.'
(Reporting by Sandor Peto; Editing by Susan Fenton)
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Show All" Please explain to me how the earth will support 18 billion people."
Boy, are you a "genuine", racist, white, no knowledge pig who is so numerically challenged that you want me to take this 18 billion number seriously and then explain to you within that false number large scale economic issues and concepts such as land, water, energy resources across the world?
You are as presumptious and dangerous a bumpkin as an Arab or Paki Islamo fascist who wants the rest of the world to fit into his 7th century Bedouin mentality that he delusionally believes to be the correct understanding of Islam just because he speaks Arabic and has heard that Muhmammad came was an Arab. Likewise, you have this delusional imagination that every human on earth wants, like the average fat, white American asshole 6,000 calories of food daily, particularly from meat which requires acres of land for bushels of grain and tons of water to fatten the meat cow; that he wants the same amount of plastic trash and a 100 miles of travelling in a gas guzzler daily for consumption that reuires barrels and barrels of oil; that he wants to pollute the Earth with toxic emissions that eat up tens of thousands of cubic metres of atmostphere, and so on all because you can communicate in English?
Hey, you innumerate slob, first go and learn how to count at the grade school level, then sit back and visualize what one BILLION is, let alone "18 billion" (that number come to you from Sarah Palin or Glen Beck?) and then we will talk.
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" I'm waiting for a logically laid out and doable solution."
Do you have the education and knowledge to know what LOGIC is, FWP?
No? Then as Plato wrote on his academy: "Let none who does not know geometry enter here.", and his student Aristotle laid out the Principles of Logic, first learn how to add, subtract and multiply integers, before you study logic. Simply because you can pronounce and write out the word "logically" does not mean you evince any logic, much like a wild Islamofascist knows how to write the word Islam believes he knows the reference.
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"Please elucidate. I'm being genuine, by the way,"
Yeah. Tell that to your fellow travellers such as Sarah Palin and Glen Beck and their copies here on CD and throughout white Amurka, both rightwing and "leftwing".
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"What are your solutions to today's worldwide poverty, and how do we prevent every newborn worldwide from living in poverty?"
You really can't understand what you read do you? I said in my post that 50 newborns living in poverty would get all the food they need for each Amurkan that goes off the consumption gluttony I briefly outlined in my first paragraph above.
Even though you probably do not know counting, for others who may be truthfully genuine, here is the simple math:
1 billion people live in abject poverty on about 2 slices of bread a day = (120 calories). They are slowly starving. Of these, there are about 100 million children aged 1-5. Of these, less then 40% will survive beyond 5 as malnourished and brain damaged kids. Let's calculate.
100 million x 1,000 calories (minimum adequate for proper nourishment)= 100 billion cal. per day
Average American consumption of food, oil, plastics etc. per day in equivalent food cal. terms = 12,000 calories. about 2,000 cal per day is needed for a high end healthy diet. So the average American consumes about 10,000 cal more than needed to have a very healthy body and mind.
So if 10 million Amurkans (from a population of 330 million)would stop over consuming the world's food resources, we would have a savings of:
10 million x 10,000 cals = 100 billion cals per day.
100 miilion children in the brown/black world will suffer death, brain damage, their mothers will see them die in their arms because fat white racist Americans have never made this simple ARITHMETIC reasoning to realise that they have to give up 10/330 = about 3.5% of OVER CONSUMPTION to save 100 million children and achieve some positive karma in their miserable lives.
OKAY.
Thank you for the nasty insults. That's usually a really good way to sway others to your point of view. You are so rage filled. I truly feel sorry for you. You really like to throw that racist word out there don't you, without knowing anything at all about the object of your hate?
"Paki", by the way, as you apparently do not realize is considered by Pakistanis to be a racist epithet. Obviously YOU are not a racist, just ignorant.
Regardless, all I see from you are complaints and accusations. I see no plans laid out for "how do we get there"? Exactly how do we get "Amurkans" to change? How would you organize a campaign to get people to realize what must be done to save people and the planet? Rage and accuse all you like. What are you doing, exactly, to cause the changes you believe in? I understand the mindset of the clueless people in the US. You are correct in many of your accusations. But, what are your realistic, real world solutions?
As for my 18 billion figure I arrived at it this way. These figures are approximate, and assigned for easy calculation, because I obviously have no concept of simple addition, subtraction, multiplication or division. In 1949 there were 2.2 billion people on the earth. 60 years later there are something like 6.6 billion, and increase of approximately 300%. At the same rate of increase the population would increase by another 300% by 2070. That works out to 19.8 billion people. Obviously this will not occur due to the likely lack of potable water, sufficient agricultural land and other necessary natural resources, and most likely endemic disease, not to mention nuclear war as the US continues to try to monopolize energy resources. This increase will occur if NOTHING CHANGES, and I believe, yes it is my OPINION, the planet would not be able to support such a population load WITHOUT CHANGE.
I'm simply asking you to explain how exactly you would plan for the future to avoid this catastrophe. If you can't do it calmly, without rage and insult, that is. Otherwise, continue to fester and rage. You are the one with the acid stomach, the rapid heartbeat, the high bloodpressure and profuse sweating, not me.
If it is all, totally, the fault of the US and its population, then how do we change the zeitgeist?
Based on the consumption population America has a consumption population of 15,000,000,000 billion. Refer to my analysis below.
Population statistics just by the numbers are misleading, purposely to create fear and hysteria in whites. It is the consumption that reveals the accurate population statistics and if one American consumes 100 times as much as a single Bangladeshi,using Bangladesh population of 150,000,000 million the consumption population of 150,000,000 million Americans results in a American population of 15,000,000,000,billion, 1 hundred and fifty billion Americans. This closely approximates that Americans consume 25% of the worlds resources, which is officially acknowledged. Also, when Bush/Cheney use the words we. our, "way of life is not negotiable" they are REFERRING to their wealthy patrons, the PREDATORY CAPITALIST WELFARE KINGS, not the general population. Bush says as much when, in private, he refers to his base s the "have mores". He and our are the code words.
Correction to my consumption population of America 30,000,000,000 thirty billion. 150,000,000 Bangladeshi's X 100 American consumption X 300,000,000 American population= [150,000,000X 100 X 2]=30,000,000,000 billion American consumption population. Sorry
So how do we get the US and its people to change, to understand the need for change, and how do we implement the needed changes? I think Americans generally are as stupid and clueless and conscience-less and as greedy as my friend above (or below). How do we implement changes needed to give the rest of the world its due? Old, white, fat, pig of a racist that I obviously am, I'm willing to help.
I am hoping the exposing of economics as the ultimate crime, justifying our current system of inherent indebtedness for the right to exist will impel change...
in other words, homelessness...
if homelessness is allowed to become incarceration, of course, the powers win...
We are going to enter a period of increased austerity here is the US. Note that
we do not have the advantages which higher taxation has long provided many
European nations. There are holes. All is not perfect. The Democrats and self-
styled "progressives" and "liberals" (?) will become more and more center which
means right. Even now although many have co-sponsored pressive legislation for
show, they have ditched their progressive principles when push has come to shove.
(I lived for 7 years---as an American born in Manhattan---in Sweden. Sweden is
not representative, of course. But the cradle-tograve "social model is
a core of almost all political parties, not just the Socialist Workers' Party).
We in the US had better become accustomed to an electorate at sea and clueless as
to why "things don't HAPPEN without higher taxes on the wealthy combined with
well-organized labor. Sponsors of tea party activities may be wealthy but
tea party activists especially in rural America do not know what having benefits
is really like to begin with. They are desperate and their anger must be respected
if not their conclusions.
Get our of debt if at all possible. Nothing is easy, and neither be will freeing yourselves from debt peonage. The chain of usury as wrapped all in a continuing cycle of debt.
Of course economists go back and forth over what to do.
Economics is all about how complicated society really is... do we save or spend or go into debt and what do we spend or save or go into debt on plus where do we get the goods to spend or save and how is that going to be worth saving in the future and the one not being addressed at all: Who controls the money?
Here is another article that got all of us all worked up and divided and nobody including the author mentioned the word "War Economy".
Why is that?
Does it mean that as far as most everybody here is concerned the war is over or are we trapped in a mind game of distraction and denial.
love
Any economy based on consumption may have its highs, but ultimately is doomed. We can live with austerity and a different life-stle if we choose. It was once invisioned for America and called the Great American Dream, but then Wall Street changed all of that and here we are. An economy without materialism is called Socialism. But, that's now a dirty word.
Maybe socialism and all forms of social justice are opposite of what is really consumed and excreted in a war economy.
No, not necessarily doomed. In all likelihood you are probably correct since humans have problems with greed and other emotions. But consumption can be downloading a tune or app. It is possible to control limited resources with capitalism and quality government.
"In 2006, economists at Goldman Sachs, sounding almost Marxian, reported that ‘the most important contributor to higher profit margins over the past five years has been a decline in labor's share of national income." -D.M. Green
Not only did top management walk away with $Billions in profit that they skimmed from investors, but the scumbags got $Billions in TARP money from the taxpayers to compensate for the money they pillaged from U.S. and Foreign investors. "We the People" are nothing but milk cows to the pillagers on Wall Street and their government cohorts.
"The Associated Press reported that of the 630,000 jobs created in 2010, 81 percent are low-paying service-sector positions." And....if you haven't heard, many low-paying service-sector jobs are being offshored to countries where corporations can pay even less for labor!
Seems to me we have to start talking about OBSCENE profit margins that investors are demanding, especially since the milking cows are sacrificing to meet those demands.
"Our mission, as set forth by the Congress is a critical one: to preserve price stability, to foster maximum sustainable growth in output and employment, and to promote a stable and efficient financial system that serves all Americans well and fairly." - Ben Bernanke
Hell-of-a-job, Ben!
As Paul Craig Roberts has said: "The world has not witnessed such total failure of government since the final days of the Roman Empire. A handful of American oligarchs are becoming mega-billionaires while the rest of the country goes down the drain." It began with the "Reagan Revolution" to deregulate business greed and have a blind eye toward fraud; and it continued on through every administration since!
Great confession by Roberts as he was in the Reagan administration and supported trickle down, piss and diarrhea trickle down, economics.
"A handful of American oligarchs are becoming mega-billionaires while the rest of the country goes down the drain."
Close, Paul Craig, close, but no cigar.
A handful of American oligarchs are becoming mega-billionaires while the rest of the WORLD goes down the drain.
THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS A NOBEL PRIZE IN ECONOMICS..... Economics is NOT one of the areas in which the Nobel committee awards prizes. This is a fraudulent "Nobel" prize awarded by the Swedish central bank, NOT by the Nobel committee, and has no more legitimate claim to being a "Nobel" prize than if you and I were to set up and award a prize of our own for masterful sexual performance and dub it the "Nobel Prize for Sexual Excellence"............ It's a fraud... plain and simple. Bankers awarding one of their own and poaching the Nobel name for legitimacy. Here's one of many pieces on the net explaining this: http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ezra-klein/2009/10/nobel_fraud.html
that you would post this comment is so weird...
I awarded myself the sexual Nobel in 2008...
what a night that was...