

Britain's Austerity Experiment Didn't Work - nyodeneD
http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/johncassidy/2013/12/by-george-britains-austerity-experiment-didnt-work.html

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jerf
Which austerity would that be?
[http://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2010/apr/25/uk-
publ...](http://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2010/apr/25/uk-public-
spending-1963)

That slight dip in 2009? Gosh, cut to the bone there.

And all those other countries that didn't try this super-austere austerity,
they all had hunky-dory 2009-present economic performance, right?

Honestly, I think those desperate to disprove "austerity" do protest too much.
"Austerity" is not going up to 47.7% of the GDP in spending from 41%.

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pkinsky
Austerity isn't about government spending, it's about shifting government
spending away from the poor and disenfranchised. Politicians preaching
austerity rarely mention defense budgets, corporate tax loopholes, or the cost
of incarceration, but they often rant against entitlement and moochers.

~~~
brc
Well, then call it 'inequitable distribution of cuts', or soemthing else. The
idea behind reducing and reversing the growth in public spending is to allow
private investment to grow more than the government. This UK policy doesn't
seem to fit that description at all.

It seems to me there is a concerted effort to make austerity an unspeakable
word, for reasons that have very little to do with macroeconomics.

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brc
A slight cut in the growth of government spending is a pretty absurd
definition of Austerity. The UK public debt continues to balloon as before.

If any recovery is in housing prices and speculation as opposed to business
and invetstment, that is even worse for the long run. A nation cannot house-
build its way to prosperity. Dwellings are primarily a consumable item, and
mich harder to export than tractors or cars.

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f3llowtraveler
Austerity is where you coerce a huge amount of money from the population,
ostensibly in order to pay for services, but then because you ran up a huge
debt, you instead use that tax revenue to cover the interest payments on that
debt, instead of using the revenue to pay for the services you originally
promised.

Of course then the people suffer as all their food and education are cut, and
the New Yorker writes articles saying "Austerity Doesn't Work."

But in fact what they should be saying is, "Coercing Money From People Is
Wrong." That money never should have been coerced in the first place. Then the
people would have been able to spend it however they wanted, instead of having
to get all upset that a bunch of politicians and bankers blew the money
(surprise, surprise.)

The people should also be ashamed of themselves to whatever degree they voted
for coercion in the first place. They were bribed into doing so by promises of
services -- services they didn't get -- the promise of which was enough for
them to justify in their minds the robbing of their fellow man.

Well when everybody is robbing everybody, only poverty can result. The moral
of the story isn't that austerity failed -- it's that we shouldn't be
violating people's property rights in the first place, and we certainly
shouldn't be bribing others to vote for it.

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ctdonath
Simple question for those of us not up to speed on the specifics: did spending
get cut to less than revenue? or not? If not, does the debt continue with a
concrete plan to pay it off toward greater revenue? If no to both, it's not
"austerity".

~~~
nextw33k
No, only the rate of spending has been cut. Outgoings still exceed income.
However our deficit is shrinking faster than any other developed nation:

[http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/economics/10367430/IMF-
Br...](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/economics/10367430/IMF-Britains-
deficit-to-shrink-at-fastest-rate-in-developed-world-in-2013.html)

The impact on social mobility and the rich/poor divide has been completely
ignored. What's the point of growth if it doesn't benefit everybody?

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pippy
Conservatives all over the globe have been using Greece and Portugal as
reasons to slash public services. The public figures are well aware that
public spending makes up a large percent of GDP expenditure, despite being a
fraction of private wealth. So it's no wonder why austerity doesn't work.

Greece and Portugal simply have irresponsible taxation systems that were
pushed too far, so their debt accumulated. Greece has people driving million
dollar cars paying the same tax as common people.

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waps
TLDR: rightists predicted austerity would improve the economy. The right got
elected, pushed austerity, and the economy improved, but it wasn't really the
austerity at all because of x,y,z.

(I'm NOT trying to take sides here, just trying to summarize the thesis of a
long article)

