Spain had almost ZERO government debt in the days prior to the 2008 crash. Same goes for Ireland. Yet, leaders in both nations pretend the problem is “big government.” Not sure whether to laugh or cry at this idiocy!

We need to go all Icelandic on our Critters, be it banksters and/or politicians…! ;-)

Austerity may seem like a choice but it isn’t. There is far far far too much debt in the world backed by far far far too little collateral.

Additionally to the extent that printing money to buy up dodgy debt is a cure, doubtful, is the extent to which bankers will continue to gain power and wealth. The favored cure here, printing, and ever expanding credit was and is causal in the disease in the political economy.

Debt, however over large you believe it to be, is a symptom not the problem. The major contributing factor to the actual problem is a fundamental inability to identify the problem.

Thanks for the post Attaturk. (and the Stay Puff Marshmellow Man post)

Thanks, attaturk, nothing like a catchy phrase, and ‘austerity’ sounds so much on point, not ‘living wage’ or ‘workers’ rights’ or any old fashioned real economic boosters. That it ignores the real basis to value is just so much reality the Creators can’t deal with.

Exactly, the whole panic attack on debt ignores that real people, with real assets, are involved, and squeezes the workers to profit the corporate welfare moms – who create nothing.

Hear, hear.

The inevitable result of unregulated capitalism is the destruction of everything in the name of profit.

Aren’t you advocating Spain’s leaving the euro? Iceland wouldn’t have extricated itself from its crisis if it had been saddled with the euro and resulting dictats from the more powerful EZ members.

The Icelandic gov’t also assumed a hellbent determination not to guarantee the bank deposits in high return “IceSave” accounts held by foreigners — even from elsewhere in the EU. It caused severe political problems for them, but they dug in their heels and prevailed, legally too. Had Iceland caved on that they would have been crushed.

I don’t think Spain has anywhere near that leverage despite its size. Even if they dumped the euro isn’t it too late for them? How will they keep important parts of their sovereignty going forward?

Re: My 8 is reply to #2.

Reply & edit aren’t working properly.

The Empire is destroying a meddle-some middle class that gets between them and the peasantry who are the beings that do those things known as “jobs.”

To them, this is but “creative destruction.” Out of the destruction of the the middle class they are creating a New Feudalism.

The “useless eaters” will fall to “austerity.”

Aren’t they cute?

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/files/2012/01/Eton-boys.jpg

…the destruction of everything in the name of profit.

Is it any wonder that the biggest Welfare checks are written for War…? War, Children: It’s Just a Welfare Check Away…

We had laws that kept the City of London and Wall Street weasels out of the henhouses. The laws were removed, and the weasels went to work. They set up these housing bubble disasters, and profited from them.

Problem identified. You’re welcome. :D

There is time to worry about debt after the economies improve. You are not going to be able to do anything about debt with so many people not earning money. People being out of work means that they are unable to pay taxes, which means less income for governments, which means less ability to address debt. Austerity by governments in the middle of recession is analogous to a homeowner selling their transportation in order to service their mortgage. It would allow the homeowner to make one or two payments on their home but now they have no way to get to work to earn more money.

The second part of the problem is that nothing has been done to address or redress the first part of the problem.

Eliminating property rights is another biggie, and the fracking lobby is hard at work to convince their bought legislators that producing energy is much more important than having a right to property.

People are also unable to be consumers without disposable income, which is death to a consumer economy. The irony is that the Creators are on the losing end of this practice, and will not see they’re eating their own tails.

Auf weidersehen, ya’ll…! ;-)

Good morning, pups. Today we’ve got Brooks, Cohen, Nocera and Bruni. Bobo has been drinking again, or smoking Mexican Marlboros. In “The Upside of Opportunism” he babbles that if Mitt Romney wins, we’re more likely to get bipartisan reform, and if President Obama is re-elected, it’d be more of the same small stuff. Mr. Cohen, in “The Jews of Cuyahoga County,” says divided loyalties among the 80,000 Jews of Greater Cleveland are raising the stakes in Ohio. Mr. Nocera has a question in “The Right Man For the Job?” He asks what did Mark Thompson, the incoming chief executive of The New York Times Company, know, and when did he know it? Mr. Bruni, in “Sandy the Soothsayer,” says in the neck-and-neck presidential race between Barack Obama and Mitt Romney, even the meteorological is political.

Here they are.

The coffee and tea are ready, and I’ve got a variety of bagels with cream cheese. I hope that all the pups in Sandy’s path are okay, and that your power comes back on soon if you’re in the dark. Now I’m off to make the damn smoke alarm stop beeping and asking for a new battery. Hmmmph. They’re not making batteries like they used to. The dead one only lasted 7 years… Have a great day.

A gamekeepers gibbet might not be a good solution, but I understand it’s a great deterrent.

Exactly. It would be like the above homeowner deciding they don’t have enough money to fix the transportation they use to get back and forth to work. Only very short term money is saved that way but all future earning is compromised.

It’s “y’all” Y’all is a contraction of “you” and “all”, therefore ya’ll is meaningless. Even us hick Texicans know that. ;)

Thanks, Marion, have been hearing that since Rmoney is one of the pack, he’ll be able to get bills through the congress. What this ignores is that all those bills will be against public interests.

Also, fire the gardener and then realize you don’t know how to grow the veggies, or where to get the seeds – ooops.

Curious, you don’t hear much of the Icelandic “approach” in the U.S. corporate media.

Yep. In short, austerity during recession is nothing more than saving short term production costs without regard to the ability to continue producing in the future. The same as the quarterly profits without regard to sustainability business model. That got us into this mess and so it can’t be the answer.

Give the meek guns….

One of the Wall Street joke lines is ‘IBG’, or, I’ll be Gone.

Funny, that 9V alkaline battery has only enough stored enery to heat a pint of room temperature water to tap water hot (140 degrees F), and it kept that smoke detector going for seven years. And it was civilized enough to beep and tell you when it was done.

Must be a liberal smoke detector. A Republican free market smoke detector would use custom batteries you could only obtain from the manufacturer, which would die frequently and become more expensive over time.

Hmph! I believe it. Like the facebook guy who renounced his citizenship and moved to Singapore. Take the money and run!

Gotta go to work.

We saw the dawn of the planned obsolescence, when companies relied on the reputation they’d built up of reliability, and began to introduce parts that fail, so you’d have to replace things.

How long before Fox and American Crossroads robocalls begin blaring, “Obama’s Katrina”?

Must be a liberal smoke detector.

In this house it had damn well better be! After all, I expect it to work, not clip coupons…

5, 4, 3, 2…

Who will be first? Loadenpants? Malkin? Any guesses?

What this ignores is that all those bills will be against public interests.

Protecting BIG TOBACCO’S business model predicated on addiction to a substance which inflicts death and considerable stress on a health care delivery system is a good example of how corporate slime protect the public interest?

Congress can regulate the growing of wheat to stabilize prices under ICC but can’t do a thing about $147.50 Oil?

America is that which we severed out ties from. For us its not molasses or tea. It the effen black gold and the servitude of nations and the American people to these specific corporate interest’s business models. Its I guess real Liberty, when U pay to be brainwashed, then go buy a product u have to buy to get from point A to point B, or keep you from going into DT’s and cope, so you can earn a living?

Bobo urges us to reward the Republican party for the last four years. I agree wholeheartedly. We should give them a reward they’ll remember for a generation.

So the Dems trying to invest in alternate energy while demanding development of leases – already held by oil companies – be developed is making prices go up?
Your reasoning?

Got things to get done, but share the celebration of the wingnut;
Over at cnbc, exultation over the prospect for raised rates on insurance policies that the hurricane will cause, oh, the profits! and hailing already rising rates because of last year’s damages combined with decreasing return on investments.
the Joy!

It’s not like the insurance companies won’t lose huge amounts of money from this disaster. The CNBC guys (and gals) are even stupider than I thought. Unlike most areas, casualty insurance and reinsurance are actually competitive; if a company raises the rates too high, it loses business. In fact the problem runs the other way. They charge rates that are too low in order to increase market share, in hopes that the odds will not catch up with them (they always do; that’s why they’re called odds).

Morons.

Actually y’all is more subtle that just slang, and has a positive use.

You is both singular and plural. A characteristic of “you” singular in the US, is is commonly perceived as an accusation.

Y’all, is a modification, and a good one, to indicate the speaker is using “you” in a plural form, and the spoken word is amide at all of the listeners, not singling one of for a possible accusation.

Similar to “tu” (you singular and familiar) and “vous” you plural or not familiar” in French.

I knew that

The reply app is on the blink. Synoia, I was about to add: But you said it so much better than I could.

But “…you people…” seems to fill the same role.

I’m being facetious, no response necessary.

No, debt, or its obverse, credit, too much of it is the fundamental problem.

Fundamental in the macro economic and monetary sense which would take thousands of words which would make most fall asleep to make the case for. But how about in the environmental sense. We have burned every possible drop of oil for the last 33 years since Carter suggested limits and so drove the final rush into wasteful suburbnization and mindless consumption. All fueled by debt.

http://www.cleanmpg.com/photos/data/500/total-credit-debt-percentage-gdp.jpg

The mad run up in total systematic debt starting in 1982 was Morning in America. Most have lived their whole lives in this period of seemingly endless credit expansion but such is the furthest thing from normal possible.

“Spain had almost ZERO government debt in the days prior to the 2008 crash. Same goes for Ireland. Yet, leaders in both nations pretend the problem is “big government.” Not sure whether to laugh or cry at this idiocy!”

Both governments, and all government’s, tax receipts were inflated by the housing booms and associated consumption booms which were in turn fueled by mortgage credit. (one reason why governments and politicians were all in on the housing booms, stupidly) When the music stopped their tax receipt dried up but their obligations did not. So post crash their borrowings expanded greatly and at first there was no problem borrowing but now there is. Post crash huge flows of money with nowhere to go flooded into sovereign debt,mindlessly. Then came Greece and now you know the list of nations having trouble borrowing.

The housing/credit booms inflated not just tax receipts but incomes in all sectors and that flowed through entire economies. The booms were fueled by credit.

The proximate cause of the problems in all those places and here was not government borrowing. It was borrowing in all sectors which lead to a belief the booms and bubbles would last forever and that such was normal. It is sad I suppose those governments can no longer borrow huge amounts at low low rates. Would you and everyone here care to buy Spanish bonds at 3% to help them out? They need tens of billions next year and the next and probably the next. You say you don’t have millions to lend them? Who does?