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UK austerity has inflicted 'great misery' on citizens, UN says

theguardian.com

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Re: UK austerity has inflicted 'great misery' on citizens, UN says

#11

Post by grey-area »

nopriorarrests wrote: post #8
ubernostrum wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Considering that the youth unemployment rates there correlate with policies that didn't just involve "tightening" the belt but arguably cutting off all circulation, you might want to re-think that. (much of Europe has been victimized by the cult of "austerity", and several countries have probably lost an entire generation's productivity thanks to these policies)

>much of Europe has been victimized by the cult of "austerity" What cult? Capital markets decided that Greece is too risky to lend money to at reasonable rate. Same happened with Spain and Italy, but they were saved by European Central Bank which became a lender of last resort and bought plenty of their bonds, driving interest rate lower. It's not like Italy and Spain can easily tap capital markets borrowing trillion…

The ECB has printed €2.4 trillion since 2015 and very little of that has gone to Greece, Italy or Spain. The tap was turned off for Greece by the EU when they refused to help them with debt (mostly owed to German banks) - this was a political decision, as was that to impose stringent austerity on Greece, on people who could not afford it (pensioners etc). It didn't have to happen that way, it was a deliberate choice.

This had nothing to do with free markets (which really are not very free, they are massively impacted by central bank actions).

Re: UK austerity has inflicted 'great misery' on citizens, UN says

#12

Post by nopriorarrests »

grey-area wrote: post #11
nopriorarrests wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>much of Europe has been victimized by the cult of "austerity" What cult? Capital markets decided that Greece is too risky to lend money to at reasonable rate. Same happened with Spain and Italy, but they were saved by European Central Bank which became a lender of last resort and bought plenty of their bonds, driving interest rate lower. It's not like Italy and Spain can easily tap capital markets borrowing trillion…

The ECB has printed €2.4 trillion since 2015 and very little of that has gone to Greece, Italy or Spain. The tap was turned off for Greece by the EU when they refused to help them with debt (mostly owed to German banks) - this was a political decision, as was that to impose stringent austerity on Greece, on people who could not afford it (pensioners etc). It didn't have to happen that way, it was a deliberate choice.…

>It didn't have to happen that way, it was a deliberate choice.

What was the other choice? ECB printing money and lending it to Greece fully knowing it will be never paid back?

Re: UK austerity has inflicted 'great misery' on citizens, UN says

#13

Post by rtpg »

emmelaich wrote: post #10
makomk wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Aside from how terrible this kind of "there are worse things elsewhere" argument is in general, this isn't even a choice. Like, a little belt tightening trashed the Greek economy. Utterly wrecked it. Did more damage and for longer than the 2008 global financial crisis.

It was already wrecked and heading for a cliff. Austerity brings the cliff closer and reduces it's height. You'll notice the fall and blame austerity but it's better than the alternative.

Economy is in a recession. Austerity means that the government is spending _even less_ into the economy.

How do you think that makes the cliff less high?

Not bailing out the banks during 2008 would have been austerity. It would also have made things probably twice as bad (2008 was bad, but the 30s were way worse, like 30% unemployment bad)

There is no actual logical path between austerity and improved short or midterm economic performance. It’s feel good politics, simple and easy to understand but also plain wrong

Re: UK austerity has inflicted 'great misery' on citizens, UN says

#14

Post by em500 »

ubernostrum wrote: post #4
tonyedgecombe wrote: post #2

I'd take a little belt tightening over the youth unemployment Greece or Spain has any day.

Considering that the youth unemployment rates there correlate with policies that didn't just involve "tightening" the belt but arguably cutting off all circulation, you might want to re-think that. (much of Europe has been victimized by the cult of "austerity", and several countries have probably lost an entire generation's productivity thanks to these policies)

"Victimized by 'austerity'" is heavily overplayed. Even with 'austerity' policies, government spending in Greece is still around 50% of national income. Neither their own citizens (via taxes) nor foreigners (via lending) are willing to finance such spending, so what alternatives to decreasing spending would you suggest?

Re: UK austerity has inflicted 'great misery' on citizens, UN says

#15

Post by raverbashing »

grey-area wrote: post #11
nopriorarrests wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>much of Europe has been victimized by the cult of "austerity" What cult? Capital markets decided that Greece is too risky to lend money to at reasonable rate. Same happened with Spain and Italy, but they were saved by European Central Bank which became a lender of last resort and bought plenty of their bonds, driving interest rate lower. It's not like Italy and Spain can easily tap capital markets borrowing trillion…

The ECB has printed €2.4 trillion since 2015 and very little of that has gone to Greece, Italy or Spain. The tap was turned off for Greece by the EU when they refused to help them with debt (mostly owed to German banks) - this was a political decision, as was that to impose stringent austerity on Greece, on people who could not afford it (pensioners etc). It didn't have to happen that way, it was a deliberate choice.…

> to impose stringent austerity on Greece, on people who could not afford it (pensioners etc)

So, if they can't afford austerity what makes you think they will repay debts in the future?

"Pensioners" yes, usually from an inflated public sector. Untouchables. Who pays the price? The youth

What about passing needed reforms? LOL, of course not, that will hurt the inflated public sector and their pensioners, never mind no one wants to invest there anymore.

And the worse thing is, if you turn the tap on, you'll probably get the lovely results of "Abenomics", that is, people investing in BS like (existing or low demand) real estate or on non efficiency improving activities (like buying old computer parts for old systems)

Before the "evil" ECB that lends with few guarantees those countries were paying the real cost of their debts (incl. currency devaluation) But then it was "Evil Germany" that could borrow with low interest rates while they had to pay high rates.

Re: UK austerity has inflicted 'great misery' on citizens, UN says

#16

Post by dingaling »

Regardless of the actual story, which I do feel has merit, there are examples of why it is perilous to rely on one news source:

"whose family couldn’t get school meals in Dumfries, Scotland, because of their immigration status"

Actually they couldn't get free school meals, just like anyone else with a household income over £16k. A subtle omission but one that makes it sound like they were excluded from food entirely:

https://www.mygov.scot/school-meals/

Re: UK austerity has inflicted 'great misery' on citizens, UN says

#17

Post by raesene9 »

matthewmacleod wrote: post #7
tonyedgecombe wrote: post #2

I'd take a little belt tightening over the youth unemployment Greece or Spain has any day.

Is that really the only choice? The UK is one of the richest countries in the world. Part of the reason for that is a long period of generally pro-business, economically conservative government. That's good in many ways, because in a modern economy, business and investment is needed to drive improvements in individual living standards. But doing that relies on a sensible long-term strategy that can be used to achieve…

it's a real shame that the concept of raising certain taxes in the UK (specifically income tax and corporation tax) has become an anathema to british politicians.

We still need to get the money from somewhere, so instead of fairly increasing progressive taxes, we get lots of little (often unfair) hidden tax rises and huge cuts in public spending.

The weird part is, the british public go along with this. The Conservatives are actively talking about more corporation tax cuts at a time where we still have a large defecit and huge problems with underspending in the public sector.

Re: UK austerity has inflicted 'great misery' on citizens, UN says

#18

Post by raesene9 »

makomk wrote: post #5
tonyedgecombe wrote: post #2

I'd take a little belt tightening over the youth unemployment Greece or Spain has any day.

Aside from how terrible this kind of "there are worse things elsewhere" argument is in general, this isn't even a choice. Like, a little belt tightening trashed the Greek economy. Utterly wrecked it. Did more damage and for longer than the 2008 global financial crisis.

Greece had the alternative of dropping out of the Euro and defaulting on their debts but even Syriza, a left wing party, when faced with that prospect, balked.

Greece's fate was sealed when they joined the Euro and started borrowing huge amounts of money that they could never repay, whilst also not carrying out structural reforms to improve tax receipts (like reducing some of the tax evasion in the country)

Their government appears to have decided that this path is "least bad". Not sure that I'd agree but I'm not in Greece to see the options first hand.

Edit: as I'm getting downvotes, I'll provide references :)

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jul/03/greece-overspe...

or maybe

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-16834815

Re: UK austerity has inflicted 'great misery' on citizens, UN says

#19

Post by Devils_Avocado »

nopriorarrests wrote: post #12
grey-area wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The ECB has printed €2.4 trillion since 2015 and very little of that has gone to Greece, Italy or Spain. The tap was turned off for Greece by the EU when they refused to help them with debt (mostly owed to German banks) - this was a political decision, as was that to impose stringent austerity on Greece, on people who could not afford it (pensioners etc). It didn't have to happen that way, it was a deliberate choice.…

>It didn't have to happen that way, it was a deliberate choice. What was the other choice? ECB printing money and lending it to Greece fully knowing it will be never paid back?

The other choice was to let the Greek govt default on its debts; there're almost 300billion reasons why Germany & France didn't want to do that...

Re: UK austerity has inflicted 'great misery' on citizens, UN says

#20

Post by jahaja »

tonyedgecombe wrote: post #2

I'd take a little belt tightening over the youth unemployment Greece or Spain has any day.

But it's the same belt for all three? I find it both fascinating and unsettling that there seem to be so many smart people that prefer and defends punitive action so reflexively that they will go to great lengths to give it the benefit of the doubt, even without ever doing some background research.

Austerity is a great example of this. They intentionally starved the Greek economy to make a political point rather than produce an economically rational deal. Yet, at every anecdata like, HN, The office lunch table, etc. too many assume with confidence they have only themselves to blame and parrot obvious propaganda about the lazy, barely working, tax-dodging Greeks that's applied to them all, bottom-up.

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