Has austerity failed in Europe?

[jczeroman]

It's a separate (but interesting) topic as to where this money goes and why it doesn't end up in the classroom. My point is simply that aggregate spending isn't going down. Or if it is (which I have yet to see) it is barely doing so.

[jczeroman]

Originally Posted by Debaser

There's no question that California has been defunding their higher education system for years. Just google California public University tuition hikes and you will see 10% one year, 20% another, 30%, ...

In 1996, I was paying about $18/unit at a local community college.

Today, the same college charges $46/unit.

I appreciate that tuition has gone up in state schools. But this does not equate to "defunding." I would be shocked if California is actually cutting any spending on higher education.

[sppunk]

Originally Posted by Debaser

There's no question that California has been defunding their higher education system for years. Just google California public University tuition hikes and you will see 10% one year, 20% another, 30%, ...

In 1996, I was paying about $18/unit at a local community college.

Today, the same college charges $46/unit.

Can't speak to California, but in PA tuitions skyrocketed as funding increased substantially. Most of the tuition money was out into capital projects, different funds and admin performance bonuses.

More than 50 percent of California comm collegecredirs are gone this summer due to funding cuts.

[jczeroman]

Originally Posted by Trotskilicious

if you're going to concede that he's at least well informed try not to bring mr. hannity into the comparison

because i mean, he's like, totally uninformed so the comparison is invalid by that mere fact.

I'm not comparing them on information or intelligence. Hannity is literally the mouth of Sauron. I am comparing them on partisanship.

[Debaser]

Originally Posted by jczeroman

NO THEY HAVE NOT. They have not cut aggregate spending. You cannot appeal to Keynes and then selectively ignore the so-called importance of aggregate spending.

Looking at aggregate spending means you are selectively ignoring the large spending increases due to economic conditions (i.e., recession->people out of work->increase in welfare). I'm pointing out that the structural deficits have been cut (i.e., actual spending that governments have direct control over).

[jczeroman]

It should, by the way, cause a radical amount of questioning when spending can continue to rise and rise and rise, and yet the people who are supposedly recieving this money (dependents on social services, students, the poor, etc.) are continuing to get the shaft. That people continue to think that some blunt-edged idea of "spending money" is going to actually trickle down to those who actually need it is obviously false.

[Debaser]

Originally Posted by jczeroman

I'll accept "Democratic Party shill"

liberal =/= democrat

krugman is a big critic of the democratic party. but maybe its hard to tell from your vantage

[jczeroman]

Originally Posted by Debaser

Looking at aggregate spending means you are selectively ignoring the large spending increases due to economic conditions (i.e., recession->people out of work->increase in welfare). I'm pointing out that the structural deficits have been cut (i.e., actual spending that governments have direct control over).

I not interested in disputing deficit cutting. My argument is that the critical factor of "spending decreases" in "austerity" is virtually non-existent. Therefore, it is questionable as to whether this is "austerity" or some kind of mixed-bag of tax-raising, spending-increasing, quantitative-easing, deficit-cutting (in Europe, to take your word for it).

[scottytheoneand]

listening to jczeroman rationalize is like watching glen beck skull fuck sean hannity

[Debaser]

Originally Posted by jczeroman

I appreciate that tuition has gone up in state schools. But this does not equate to "defunding." I would be shocked if California is actually cutting any spending on higher education.

quick google

Calif. school spending among lowest in nation

While it's debatable whether more spending means better schools, it's clear that sharp declines in California's general fund revenue, particularly since the 2007-08 fiscal year, have left schools strapped for resources, said Jonathan Kaplan, senior policy analyst at the project and author of the report [PDF].

[jczeroman]

Originally Posted by Debaser

liberal =/= democrat

krugman is a big critic of the democratic party. but maybe its hard to tell from your vantage

Krugman is a partisan. His whole aim of his NYT column is to say that "Republicans are bad because of X." He may claim to be a "big critic" of the democratic party, but so would Sean Hannity of the GOP. Krugman shows his partisanship in his offensive strategy, not by defending democrats.

[scottytheoneand]

Originally Posted by jczeroman

Krugman is a partisan. His whole aim of his NYT column is to say that "Republicans are bad because of X." He may claim to be a "big critic" of the democratic party, but so would Sean Hannity of the GOP. Krugman shows his partisanship in his offensive strategy, not by defending democrats.

false equivalency

[jczeroman]

Originally Posted by Debaser

quick google

Calif. school spending among lowest in nation

While it's debatable whether more spending means better schools, it's clear that sharp declines in California's general fund revenue, particularly since the 2007-08 fiscal year, have left schools strapped for resources, said Jonathan Kaplan, senior policy analyst at the project and author of the report [PDF].

What I want to see in there, but don't, is information about total spending per-year (as that is what I'm talking about here; and is, by the way, what should be important to a Keynesian). Everything that I noticed from skimming the info is that the comparisons were relative to something other than previous levels of total spending.

I'm not interested in looking this up, but I would be curious to see if California actually is reducing education spending.

[jczeroman]

Originally Posted by scottytheoneand

false equivalency

What is a false equivalency? My comparision to Hannity? Of course it is. It's an illustration.

Learn the difference between a rhetorical illustration and evidence before you start quoting logical fallacies.

[scottytheoneand]

sean Hannity attacks democrats and republicans
krugman attacks republicans and democrats
Hannity is a partisan hack
therefore krugman is a partisan hack

[scottytheoneand]

Originally Posted by jczeroman

What is a false equivalency? My comparision to Hannity? Of course it is. It's an illustration.

Learn the difference between a rhetorical illustration and evidence before you start quoting logical fallacies.

Look dipshit, you called Krugman a partisan and compared him to sean hannity.

he's nothing like sean hannity. not in his partisanship, his scholarship or his economic or sociopolitical arguments.

[Debaser]

Originally Posted by jczeroman

I not interested in disputing deficit cutting. My argument is that the critical factor of "spending decreases" in "austerity" is virtually non-existent. Therefore, it is questionable as to whether this is "austerity" or some kind of mixed-bag of tax-raising, spending-increasing, quantitative-easing, deficit-cutting (in Europe, to take your word for it).

What specific, substantial additional spending cuts do you advocate? And how exactly would that help the economy?

[Debaser]

smarter people than me that convince me that the DUH NO SPENDING CUTS AUSTERITY DIDNIT HAPPEN crowd is absolutely wrong on both counts:

http://www.economist.com/blogs/freee.../euro-crisis-0
ryan avent:

The euro crisis
Yes, there is austerity
May 8th 2012, 15:00 by R.A. | WASHINGTON

A FIERCE debate is raging within Europe over the question of austerity. Some argue that countries within the euro zone, and on the periphery especially, have no choice but to embrace savage budget cuts. Others point out that the crisis is about more than just budget deficits, that some countries have room to cut less, and that austerity across the euro-zone as a whole should be pursued at a slower pace.

And some, I'm somewhat stunned to find out, allege that there is no austerity. Veronique de Rugy posts a chart showing what appears to be just a tiny drop in spending across some euro-zone countries and no drop at all among others (Britain is thrown in, for good measure). Austerity is mostly a myth, she claims, and what austerity there has been has come from tax increases, which don't count. No less an authority than Tyler Cowen quickly gloms on to the argument.

This is nonsense, as a quick check of the data reveals. The supposed absence of austerity in Ms de Rugy's figures is mostly a product of poor graph scaling and a reliance on nominal, absolute figures. If we instead turn to data from the International Monetary Fund's WEO database we see, first and foremost, that budget balances are in the process of improving dramatically:

Progress through last year is quite striking, given that the crisis only began in earnest in 2010. It has occurred despite truly pitiful growth (and ongoing recession in Greece). And there is more to come.

But what of the complaint that this is all due to tax increases, which don't count, for some reason? That, too, is mistaken:

The spending cuts are there, in spades. Of course, the importance of spending cuts in episodes of austerity derives from the view that they are more likely to "stick" than tax rises, and that they are critical in generating "expansionary austerity". But this is no iron law of fiscal consolidation. Rather, as a recent IMF paper pointed out, it is due to the fact that central banks are more likely to accommodate spending cuts with aggressive easing than they are tax rises.

The austerity is there. If it isn't working out as many expected, that's either because what they expected was unreasonable, or because the central bank isn't doing its part.

liberal shill nobel prize winning economist:

May 11, 2012, 2:34 PM
Austerity, Safety Nets, and Spending

The latest in the attempt to make excuses for the abject failure of austerity is the claim that European countries didn’t really practice austerity after all. This is mainly coming from the usual suspects – the people who, for example, used Census hiring to claim that Obama was presiding over a vast expansion of government employment. (What will it take for pundits to realize that if Veronique de Rugy, for example, cites a number you can pretty much assume that it’s wrong?) But I have to say that the responses I’ve seen have been surprisingly weak – some people who should know better are conceding the point that maybe there haven’t been big spending cuts. Yes, there have.

For the fact is that you can’t just look at spending levels to ask what is happening to spending programs. Here in the United States spending on unemployment insurance and food stamps has risen sharply, not because the welfare state has expanded, but because a lot more people are unemployed and poor. Similar effects are at work in European countries, which have stronger safety nets than we do. Also, some spending represents banking bailouts, not exactly what people have in mind when they talk about big government.

So let’s take a look at the example of Ireland. (All data from OECD). Here’s total spending in millions of euros, which might look as if there’s not much austerity:


But let’s parse it a bit. First off, there’s “capital transfers” – basically bank bailouts. These bulged in 2010, but continued into 2011:


Then there’s “social transfers”, which includes means-tested programs and unemployment benefits. These are up, but not because the programs became more generous; instead, they reflect the dire state of the Irish economy:


Finally, there’s government spending on consumption and investment:


So yes, Ireland has done austerity – some of it on the tax side, but much of it on the spending side. The same is true in Greece, Portugal, and Spain. Don’t believe the usual suspects when they say different. In fact, don’t believe the usual suspects when they say anything at all.

[Trotskilicious]

is the economist now Keynesian or wat

[Debaser]

heh, i like this observation:

http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/...austerity.html

Taxes Are Austerity
By Matthew Yglesias | Posted Tuesday, May 8, 2012, at 12:28 PM ET

A confusing new argument I'm seeing from the right is that European austerity programs aren't really austerity because some of the deficit reduction has come from tax increases. All that shows is that European politicians favor fiscal austerity, which is a mix of tax hikes and spending cuts—i.e., exactly what European countries have been implementing.

That said, this is a valuable reminder that the debate over austerity in Europe has been mapped onto the American partisan debate in a weird way.

This should all serve as a reminder that in 2009, the American conservative movement took a strange turn on macroeconomic issues. Barack Obama had a stimulus proposal that they didn't like, presumably because it involved spending money on things they thought weren't worthwhile. But instead of saying that, a lot of conservatives started claiming they didn't believe in the entire underlying theory of fiscal stabilization policy. That then led to this whole weird literature on "expansionary austerity" and a lot of proposed misapplications of the findings of that research. The current trajectory in Europe shows that (a) the expansionary austerity literature was nonsense and (b) American conservatives never believed in it in the first place. As has been the case since 1980, the actual American conservative view of fiscal policy is that taxes must never go up. That's an interesting viewpoint, but it has literally no relationship to the austerity debate.

By the same token, a lot of progressives seem to have this mixed up with regard to state budget policy. States need to balance their budgets. Which means that when revenues fall in a recession, they must implement austerity. People can disagree as to whether this should be done mostly with tax hikes or mostly with spending cuts, but it's all austerity.

[Trotskilicious]

if you rearrange the letters in peru you can spell europe

that joke really isn't as funny when you write it

[The Omega Concern]

originally posted by Trotskilicious:

I chuckle at the idea that big government needs to get out of business's way because it sure seems like at this stage they have a parasitic need for government grants, funding, bailouts and kickbacks.

Government needs to arrest the criminals who caused this. At that point let the philosophical economic debate begin, but until then, nothing worthwhile will get done.

[The Omega Concern]

More Doom...




http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...nomy-year.html



'Beware a rerun of the Great Panic of 2008': Head of World Bank warns Europe is heading for 'danger zone' as world markets suffer bleakest day of the year so far

Robert Zoellick: 'Far from clear leaders ready for impending catastrophe'

Raft of dismal news from around world wreaked havoc on market

Manufacturing output crashed in Britain, jobless up in Europe and U.S.

Fast-emerging economies such as Brazil and China running out of steam

[Debaser]

Originally Posted by jczeroman

I not interested in disputing deficit cutting. My argument is that the critical factor of "spending decreases" in "austerity" is virtually non-existent. Therefore, it is questionable as to whether this is "austerity" or some kind of mixed-bag of tax-raising, spending-increasing, quantitative-easing, deficit-cutting (in Europe, to take your word for it).

I can't believe I missed this earlier but that is an amazing post.

I not interested in disputing deficit cutting.
You're plainly admitting you don't care about the govt fiscal responsibility that supposedly will unleash the private market to save the day. All you care about is shrinking the government, using this crisis as an excuse to do it.

Because what is the goal of austerity? Is it to reconcile a country's income versus debt or is it to simply cut government?

[The Omega Concern]

I don't like the word austerity. Jubilee is much better.

[Trotskilicious]

Originally Posted by The Omega Concern

Government needs to arrest the criminals who caused this.

ahahaha wait

do i have to tell the conspiracy nut that at least half the criminals are our government officials who take bribes for a living and call them lobbies?

[jczeroman]

Originally Posted by Debaser

What specific, substantial additional spending cuts do you advocate? And how exactly would that help the economy?

I'm not interested it putting forward a "plan for European recovery" in this thread. Interesting that you assume that I am advocating spending cuts. I merely saying that Europe is, on the whole, not actually pursuing austerity as they are not, on the whole, actually cutting any spending.

[jczeroman]

Originally Posted by scottytheoneand

sean Hannity attacks democrats and republicans
krugman attacks republicans and democrats
Hannity is a partisan hack
therefore krugman is a partisan hack

Originally Posted by scottytheoneand

Look dipshit, you called Krugman a partisan and compared him to sean hannity.

he's nothing like sean hannity. not in his partisanship, his scholarship or his economic or sociopolitical arguments.

I used Hannity as a illustration of Krugman, not in order to make a logical or empirical point. He serves as an illustration for comparison you moron. Look I'm not going to waste my time teaching you rhetoric and argument.

[jczeroman]

Originally Posted by Debaser

I can't believe I missed this earlier but that is an amazing post.

I not interested in disputing deficit cutting.
You're plainly admitting you don't care about the govt fiscal responsibility that supposedly will unleash the private market to save the day. All you care about is shrinking the government, using this crisis as an excuse to do it.

Because what is the goal of austerity? Is it to reconcile a country's income versus debt or is it to simply cut government?

I am saying that I don't carer about discussing deficit reduction because it's not what I'm disputing. I am disputing the existence of aggregate spending cuts and I especially question the kind of language used to describe them. What I think should be done is another matter entirely, which I don't think I've really brought up in any kind of meaningful way in this thread.

Don't argue prospectively based on what you think my outcome of ideology might be - that's hackery.

[jczeroman]

Originally Posted by Debaser

liberal shill nobel prize winning economist:

This is a cheeky little chart because it throws GDP in as a modifier, which I already said causes problems. Of course if you throw in GDP in that way it is going to make it look like spending went down.

For Krugman, it should tip you off right away that he is just interested in ad homineming Republicans (as he almost always does) : i.e., we shouldn't believe the "usual suspects" (no credible academic makes these kinds of categorisations) and makes what is an actual false equivalence (pay attention please scottytheoneand) to those who advocated some other position he disagrees with. He then makes a similar convoluted argument to the economist article, that because consumption and investment have gone down and because more people are supposedly on benefits (he suspiciously chooses not to quantify this; again, poor) that this actually means austerity.

This is a half-way reasonable argument, but neither really quantity what they are talking about, which is not really a credible answer. The economist article uses the blunt, virtually meaningless aggregate of GDP, and Krugman doesn't use any figures at all - is he guessing or what?