It saddens me immensely, the same errors once again, Austerity with no escape.
I have said over and over again I don't mind paying higher taxes, what I do mind is paying higher taxes for a dead end policy.
To say the French economy is merely stagnant, is like putting a shine on shit.
I am so fucking tired of repeating myself; when you have a lifeless economy you either bury it, or you try and resuscitate it, austerity alone is like grabbing it by the throat.
The object is to merely finance the debt, what an objective. Austerity is throttling Europe, unemployment grows especially amongst the youngest, in that you stifle any hopes of economic growth. It shows complete and utter blindness to the reality of austerity programs elsewhere, and the carnage occurring as a result. As Krugman points out so succinctly
Part of the explanation is that in Europe, as in America, far too many Very Serious People have been taken in by the cult of austerity, by the belief that budget deficits, not mass unemployment, are the clear and present danger, and that deficit reduction will somehow solve a problem brought on by private sector excess.
Now if the tax increases had been used in part to stem the rate of growth of the deficit and the rest used as a stimulus but the math says this is not going to happen, it all goes to the bankers holding the debt.
So the reason this so called "democratic socialist" government had one of the shortest honeymoon periods on record is that they brought nothing new to the table, just pay more, for less. I will also add it is not often I come to a judgement so quickly after an election, not that the right would have done anything better.
How can you create badly needed jobs when part of the money you are ripping out of the economy merely goes to fund paying the newly unemployed. Where is the vision, where is the gumption? No, we will just wave the fucking white flag of surrender. Where are the infrastructure programs? Where is the funding of programs to either get people back to work, or borrow money to get their businesses off the floor?
It's no wonder I'm banging my head on my desk, all they had to do was to try and reverse a failing trend. Use the taxes to fund growth not to strangle the economy once and for all.
Ye gawds, I would prefer if it was a communist plot to bring down Europe, but no, it is just very serious people with not a clue.
They may well believe it is the rich and businesses who will pay for this deficit reduction, once again they are wrong the highest price of austerity always falls on those that can least afford it. The rich and corporations have their sanctuaries, the rest of us will pick up the tab. You have to make doing business attractive; who cares about paying more taxes when business is growing? I know some will always whine, but they will in the end look at the bottom line.
I am totally fucking fed up of ranting about bloody austerity, I am fed up of very serious dicks.