A Case Study In Austerity
I always wonder why this type of story always seems to be buried in a footnote somewhere instead of being the lead story on every major newscast and on the front page of every magazine and newspaper. Anyway...
Remember my previous posts raising hell about how austerity measures seem to be all the rage even though such measures are based on long-discredited economic theories? Well, it's not just theory. Often forgotten is the fact that such measures were imposed on Ireland earlier in the financial crisis. Instead of politicians merely making promises, the Irish government actually implemented a lot of these measures. And guess what?
They're not working. Ireland's economy is stagnant because no one has any money to spend and all of the country's institutions are mired in debt.
NPR's "Marketplace" explored the gruesome effects of the austerity measures that were imposed on Ireland by the IMF and World Bank in exchange for providing assistance. A Dublin small business owner summed the whole thing up quite nicely: If a man is lying in the street half-dead, it does no good to walk up and beat him with a stick repeatedly until he gets better.
Remember my previous posts raising hell about how austerity measures seem to be all the rage even though such measures are based on long-discredited economic theories? Well, it's not just theory. Often forgotten is the fact that such measures were imposed on Ireland earlier in the financial crisis. Instead of politicians merely making promises, the Irish government actually implemented a lot of these measures. And guess what?
They're not working. Ireland's economy is stagnant because no one has any money to spend and all of the country's institutions are mired in debt.
NPR's "Marketplace" explored the gruesome effects of the austerity measures that were imposed on Ireland by the IMF and World Bank in exchange for providing assistance. A Dublin small business owner summed the whole thing up quite nicely: If a man is lying in the street half-dead, it does no good to walk up and beat him with a stick repeatedly until he gets better.