Economics

• It’s high time our elected officials started listening to the wisdom of economists like Nobel Prize winner Paul Krugman, who for months has been consistently warning us about the dangers of austerity. And once again, he’s been proved right.
• Austerity debunked
• Everything We Know About What’s Happened Under Sequestration

Truthdig

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Flickr/401(K) 2013

May 7, 2013 | For those pushing austerity as the solution to America’s economic ills, here’s a reality check: According to a new study, austerity policies have cost the U.S. roughly 2.2 million jobs.

In the 46 months since the recession ended, federal, state and local governments have cut approximately half a million jobs, a study by Michael Greenstone and Adam Looney at the Brookings Institution found. After other recessions since 1970, the government typically hired about 1.7 million workers.

Reports such as this one show that it’s high time our elected officials started listening to the wisdom of economists like Nobel Prize winner Paul Krugman, who for months has been consistently warning us about the dangers of austerity. And once again, he’s been proved right.

Full story…

Shutterstock illustration of American candle burning.

Related:

Austerity debunked, Aljazeera

• As Europe struggles under widespread spending cuts, it seems that the theory behind austerity may, in fact, be flawed.
• Earth to Washington: Repeal the Sequester

Everything We Know About What’s Happened Under Sequestration, Theodoric Meyer, ProPublica

May 7, 2013 | When the annual White House Easter Egg Hunt faced cancellation this year due to the package of mandatory budget cuts known as sequestration, the National Park Service kicked into high gear. It rescued the event 2014 held since 1878 2014 with money from “corporate sponsors and the sale of commemorative wooden eggs,” according to the Washington Post.

• As Europe struggles under widespread spending cuts, it seems that the theory behind austerity may, in fact, be flawed.

• Earth to Washington: Repeal the Sequester

Aljazeera

Submitted by Evergreene Digest Contributing Editor Lydia Howell

This article is made possible with the generous contributions of all reader supported Evergreene Digest readers like you. Thank you!

27 Apr 2013 | Over the course of the last three years, Europe has changed beyond anybody’s reckoning.

Greece has had to sell off its islands; Ireland has proposed selling its national forest. Britain has forced the disabled to go to work; in Spain there is the kind of unemployment levels that have in the past led to the creation of a military junta; there have been riots, and the near collapse of the currency.

And it has all been because of one thing, one overriding necessity forced on the people by the political class of a continent: austerity.

Full story...

Related:

Earth to Washington: Repeal the Sequester, Robert Reich, RobertReich.org

• Earth to Washington: The economy is slowing. The recovery is stalling. At the very least, repeal the sequester.
• Krugman & Co.: Austerity's Failure Everywhere You Look

• “…it seems that our remedies are instinctively those which aggravate the sickness: the remedies are expressions of the sickness itself“. --Thomas Merton
• 9 New Items including:
  • Earth to Washington: Repeal the Sequester
  • The terrible cost of Washington’s wars
  • The Question of Socialism (and Beyond!) Is About to Open Up in These United States
  • March Madness
  • A Tale of Two Budgets
  • February employment report masks depth of US jobs crisis
  • Yes, The Alternative is Democratic Socialism
  • Minimum Wage Myths: Poverty Doesn’t Create Jobs
  • Who are the Job Creators?

David Culver, Ed., Evergreene Digest

Signe Wilkinson

Earth to Washington: Repeal the Sequester, Robert Reich, RobertReich.org

Earth to Washington: The economy is slowing. The recovery is stalling. At the very least, repeal the sequester.

The terrible cost of Washington’s wars, Bill Van Auken, World Socialist Web Site

• The vast resources wasted and the incalculable human suffering inflicted by the bloated US military and intelligence apparatus pose the urgency of building a genuine mass movement against militarism and war.
• Sequester Cuts

The Question of Socialism (and Beyond!) Is About to Open Up in These United States, Gar Alperovitz, Truthout

• With Americans' interest in socialism rising, we need to seriously consider alternative designs to the current system, argues Alperovitz, in this practical critique of some known models.
• Can Civilization Survive Capitalism?

March Madness, Paul Bucheit, Nation of Change

• The real madness is that human beings are suffering because of the tax games corporations play.
• The Fifth Straight Year of Extreme Corporate Tax Avoidance
• We're Not Broke

A Tale of Two Budgets, Progress Report, ThinkProgress

• Compare and Contrast
• Matt Taibbi | Sequester Makes Me Want to Strangle Both Sides

February employment report masks depth of US jobs crisis, Andre Damon, World Socialist Web Site

• In reality, the jobs gained are a drop in the bucket compared to those lost during the recession. In the downturn that started in 2008, the US economy lost 8.9 million jobs, and if previous economic trends had continued, another 5.9 million jobs would have been added. Since the end of 2009, the economy has added only 5.7 million jobs.
• Who are the Job Creators?

Yes, The Alternative is Democratic Socialism, Scott Tucker, Socialist Webzine

• Democratic socialists favor the extension of democracy into the realm of the economy. And we do not take the recurrent cycles of capitalist boom and bust for granted, accompanied by erosion of civil liberties at home and by imperial adventures abroad.
• Viral Video Shows the Extent of U.S. Wealth Inequality
• Series | Socialism: Theory & Practice, Part 1

Minimum Wage Myths: Poverty Doesn’t Create Jobs, Lee Egerstrom, Minnesoa2020

• Even under the proposals before legislative bodies, the working poor will remain poor, especially since their incomes and household purchasing power has ripped away in recent years. 
• However, increasing wages will better help them meet basic living needs and ease pressure on strained social safety nets.
• Who are the Job Creators?

Who are the Job Creators?, Jim Weygand, Minnesota 2020

• It is time to get away from growing the wealth of the rich at the expense of the bottom 90%;  it is bad for the Country, the Country’s economic health, and the vast majority of the population. 
• If Government "Acted Like a Business" It Would Reject Today's Deficit Madness

• The Keynesians win every argument, say notable economists, so why does fiscal policy refuse to budge?
• Paul Krugman | Global Austerity 'An Unethical Experimentation 
• The terrible cost of Washington’s wars
• Earth to Washington: Repeal the Sequester

Jon Queally, Common Dreams

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Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman, professor of international trade and economics at Princeton University. One cannot "understand the influence of austerity doctrine without talking about class and inequality," he says. (Photographer: Scott Eells/Bloomberg)

Friday, April 26, 2013 | The last week has been a flurry of headlines decrying the complete and utter failure of the 'austerity experiment' across the globe, with an influential academic paper from Harvard economists becoming the poster-child not only of poor scholarship but also failed common sense.

As New York Times columnist and Nobel economist Paul Krugman notes in his Friday column,

Economic debates rarely end with a T.K.O. But the great policy debate of recent years between Keynesians, who advocate sustaining and, indeed, increasing government spending in a depression, and austerians, who demand immediate spending cuts, comes close — at least in the world of ideas. At this point, the austerian position has imploded; not only have its predictions about the real world failed completely, but the academic research invoked to support that position has turned out to be riddled with errors, omissions and dubious statistics.

Full story…

Related:

Paul Krugman | Global Austerity 'An Unethical Experimentation On Human Beings' Bonnie Kavoussi,  Huffington Post

Sun, 02/10/2013 |

• Several European countries -- including Great Britain, Greece, Spain and Italy -- have slashed their budgets in recent years. Those countries have seen high unemployment rates and stagnant economies.
• The U.S. has also pursued austerity, albeit to a smaller extent. The U.S. government has cut 719,000 jobs since President Barack Obama took office. And the unemployment rate still is far higher than before the recession.
• Paul Krugman: Austerity Is So Wrong!

The terrible cost of Washington’s wars, Bill Van Auken, World Socialist Web Site <http://www.wsws.org>

• The vast resources wasted and the incalculable human suffering inflicted by the bloated US military and intelligence apparatus pose the urgency of building a genuine mass movement against militarism and war.
• Sequester Cuts