“Was not their mistake once more bred of the life of slavery that they had been living?—a life which was always looking upon everything, except mankind, animate and inanimate—‘nature,’ as people used to call it—as one thing, and mankind as another, it was natural to people thinking in this way, that they should try to make ‘nature’ their slave, since they thought ‘nature’ was something outside them” — William Morris


Monday, July 6, 2015

Are You Getting It Now, Europe? Austerity is WRONG

Britain: the fact that Osborne is still at it, trying to cut his way to growth, is evidence of his failure not his success (pace BBC radio 4).

Not only has Greece stood up to what amounts to a gigantic religious cult--very difficult to be the different one in a crowded room--it has stood up to a zombie idea, which shambles about of its own accord: “austerity,” based on a mistake in processing an Excel file.

Racists in charge of Northern Europe: stop it. It's quite clear from this far away that there is a not so great shadow looming, for instance the idea that Germany is more authentically European than Greece (where have we heard that before?).

Greece: you are already issuing IOUs. Those are in effect a non-Euro currency. Just give them a different name (like “drachma”) and Bob's your uncle. Sure from the point of view of some technocrat addicted to austerity it may look chaotic, but it's better than another lost decade, and complete confusion for the brain addled north.

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