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Politics : View from the Center and Left -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Steve Lokness who wrote (139931)	6/29/2010 11:50:39 AM
From: JohnM	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 541897

No, the point of the article is that the austerity path is definitely not a quick way back to investor confidence. Which is how it's often billed.

To: Steve Lokness who wrote (139931)	6/29/2010 12:02:53 PM
From: Katelew	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 541897

FWIW, I'm caught philosophically between you and John/Krugman. Based on my limited reading of the Great Depression, which I started several months ago and then stopped, the thing that struck me about the Ireland article is that it is the anatomy of a "Depression". All the ingredients are in place. This is how they unfold. What also jumped out was the 20% paycuts on public employees. I don't know how big the public sector is, but those are sharp cuts and guaranteed to induce saving by the employees who were cut. I question the wisdom of such sharp cuts and think Krugman was perhaps right to criticize. Some of the cutting proposals coming out of GB give me pause, too. I hope in our country that our debt problems are unwound more slowly. Small retrenchments spread over many years and incorporating permanent changes in govt. spending at all levels. To avoid slipping into a Depression will require an adroit hand to keep things balanced.