Thursday, June 14, 2012

It's About Reality, Not Austerity

Today's European debate isn't about governmental austerity, it's about governmental reality. Ultimately, the argument is not whether governments can keep trying to stimulate their economies, but when their creditors will quit financing it. Somehow, Europe's governments, teetering on tilting economies, have missed this point; we can only hope that Washington hasn't.
We are witnessing a prolonged domino-effect among the world's economically intrusive states. It began over two decades ago with the fall of the USSR and communism across Eastern Europe. Now the dominoes are falling into Western Europe -- Greece, Portugal, Spain, and Italy, all are threatened with economic collapse.
By now, the obvious should be axiom: A state cannot run an economy and a state-run economy cannot sustain its state. The more of its economy a government consumes, the less productive its economy becomes. And the more dependent its subpar economy then becomes on its government.
This vicious cycle creates a widening gap between what the government promises and what its economy can deliver. The government resorts to spending more, while its economy responds by producing increasingly less of the revenue needed to finance the government's increasing spending.

Read more: http://spectator.org/archives/2012/06/14/its-about-reality-not-austerit

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