VIA-Mike Hall>> …“The whole object here is to get the Irish economy to recover,” said Gilmore…. No, it isn’t at all. That is the lie that you, Gilmore, & others are being told (& swallowing) by the neo liberal ideologues of the Troika, especially people like Regling, Rehn & all the rest at the bankers’ club (ECB) & EU Commission. The object of this neo liberal agenda is to deny & reduce the role for governments as far as possible in regard to their democratically desired public purpose. That is to reduce governments to nothing more than protection of (the wealthy’s) property rights & running an ever more militarised police force. Naturally, recourse to law, or its protection will depend on whether a lawyer can be afforded, or not. (For the majority, read ‘not’.) In order to do this, the essential macro economic +counter cyclical+ role of governments – a basic aspect of ‘macro’ economics – must be denied or removed as far as possible. It is axiomatic truth that the private sector always acts +pro cyclically+. Unfettered by any counter cyclical, or stabilising entity, the booms become excessive & the resulting busts become much deeper & far more destructive (except for the protected elites of course). There are only two sectors in the economy – government & non-government. One must act counter cyclically for stability. Non government cannot, by definition – therefore government must. This is the basic essence that makes ‘macro’ economics – of a whole economy – quite opposite to the ‘micro’ economics of households or business sectors. This denial of basic macro counter cyclical ability was a deliberate aspect of the Euro currency design. Again, this was no accident – the bankers who designed it knew full well that without being unhindered +issuers+ of their own sovereign currency, Euro countries would be virtually unable to adopt (finance) a counter cyclical role in a downturn. Without this, the self reinforcing damage of recession lasts years longer….as we see. The designers of the Euro were told this by economists of the (minority) ‘Post Keynesian’ school in papers published in the 1990s. The advice was ignored. Why was that? Well, now we know…. Following the exact same ‘errors’ of policy causing mass unemployment in the 1930s, the ‘macro’ distinction & essential counter cyclical role of governments was accepted by all for near 50 years – encompassing the 3 decade post WWII period of (near) full employment & prosperity in most of Europe, US & elsewhere. No economist wanting to be taken seriously during this period would dare deny this role of government. All that changed over the last 30 years along with the deregulation of ‘financial’ (gambling) markets & all the rest of the claptrap solely in the interests of the top few percent, not the majority of citizens, & by definition not ‘democracy’ either. It was no accident & we see the inevitable & predicted (if you know where to look) results. Most especially in the US, which exerts massive influence (& even directly educating) the entire edifice of mainstream economics has become rotten to the core & ‘captured’ by the wealth owning interests of the top few percent via their key conduit, banking & finance. This is why they had no clue the ‘crash’ was coming mere weeks before banks failed & even 6 years afterwards have done virtually nothing to question why that was. The same, cultivated over decades, intellectual bankruptcy is being peddled now as ‘policy advice’ and the reason the rhetoric of ‘recovery’ of 5 years is a complete fiction. But, as stated, for the neo liberal elites, recovery for ordinary citizens was never the agenda whilst their was an opportunity to destroy the role government in pursuing public & democratic purpose.
Posted on: Sun, 28 Jul 2013 11:41:15 +0000
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