Tuesday, January 17, 2017

William K. Black — The New Democrats’ Addiction to Austerity Will Not Die

I know the Republicans are complete hypocrites about federal deficits and debt. I know their dishonesty and faux deficit and debt hysteria, when a Democrat is president, harms the Nation and the world through the infliction of self-destructive austerity. Austerity’s primary victims are the working class and government social programs for the poor and working class. That means that the Democrats should never mimic the Republicans’ dishonesty, hysteria, and willingness to inflict austerity on the people of America and the world.…
Unfortunately, the New Democrats embraced the economic malpractice of austerity with the passion of a convert. Michael Meeropol, an economist whose work I respect greatly, has rightly chastised me for failing to explain that fiscal austerity produces enormous winners, not just losers, and that this fact helps explain why the economic malpractice of austerity is so common. Austerity is a policy that aids the wealthy and harms the non-wealthy. One of the greatest triumphs of the wealthy is to get vast numbers of the non-wealthy to fail to understand this point. The New Democrats’ passionate support for austerity reflects the interests of its primary donors – Wall Street elites....
New Economic Perspectives
The New Democrats’ Addiction to Austerity Will Not Die
William K. Black | Associate Professor of Economics and Law, UMKC

1 comment:

Salsabob said...

Billy's still beating dead horses I see. Someone should be kind really try to catch the professor up on this guy named Trump and the GOPs now COMPLETE control of the government. One here's of out-of-touch academicians but this is getting ridiculous.
He's a great economist but pretty much a child when it comes to politics. Yes, Obama gave his ode to the deficit god, it was a necessary offering to actually getting the biggest non-war stimulus through since FDR.

As long as MMT's best keep spouting sophomoric political inanities in the name of MMT purity, we'll remain lost in the woods muttering to ourselves.