“The growth model forced in the past with redistribution from bottom to top and increasing export surpluses has failed. The social and ecological demands for a sustainable economic policy grow. For years, the demands of the Alternative Economic Policy study group emphasized combating mass unemployment and poverty, taming the financial markets and an adequately financed public sector to do justice to the social-ecological redesign of society as a mega-social project. This should be financed by a tax concept based on the principles of efficiency and justice.”
Jens Berger in “The Error of the Euro-Rescuers and the Silence in the Press” explained how the IMF ordered a suicidal austerity policy for half of Europe. In October 2012 the IMF caused a sensation when it admitted it wrongly estimated the negative economic effects of state spending cuts. In a study at the beginning of the new year, the chief IMF economist Blanchard declared that the IMF actually miscalculated. An overly low “fiscal multiplier” was assumed in its forecasts.
In Europe and the US, the market and the invisible hand are often stylized as natural laws, self-correcting or self-healing. Structural criticism is often made taboo and economic problems are trivialized or personalized as psychological or motivational, bad apples or bumps in the road. When the trickle down medicine fails, the only cry is often for more medicine! Emphasizing profits instead of welfare leads to exploding inequality, generalized insecurity and atrophy of public spirit. The financial crisis of 2008 was caused by perverse business models and perverse incentives and encouraged by low taxes on capital and a corrupted political system reduced to being an errand boy for the banks (cf. Bill Moyers).
to read “For an Immediate End of the Austerity Policy in Europe” and “The Error of the Euro-Rescuers and the Silence of the Media” by Jens Berger published in January 2013, click on
http://la.indymedia.org/news/2013/06/260540.php
