Posted on 03/05/2010 7:59:25 PM PST by bruinbirdman
The effects of the stimulus are wearing off, leaving us with a nasty hangover.
The economic crisis reached a turning point this week. Admittedly, it might have passed you by, as one piece of bad news blended relentlessly into another. And there was certainly no fanfare to mark this change, still less any sign of a break in the clouds.
No, what I am referring to is the sense of resignation, or surrender, that has crept into the economic argument – a collective global realisation that public policy, fiscal and monetary, has reached the limits of its ability to fight the downturn. To many of you, this might have been obvious for some time. But there remained a deluded belief that governments and central banks could magic away the crisis, or at least save us from its worst consequences.
Two events this week have highlighted that, despite a stimulus of unprecedented proportions and scope, they cannot. The first was the additional austerity package announced by Greece under pressure from its European masters. To be tightening so severely into an ever-deepening contraction looks like economic madness, but the Greeks have no choice. And the second was the spectacle of Jean-Claude Trichet, president of the European Central Bank, asserting his determination to “normalise” monetary conditions – while tacitly acknowledging the impossibility of even trying to do so, as long as the eurozone economy remains as stagnant as it is.
Policymakers are desperate to unwind the “unconventional support”, to activate “exit strategies” and begin the long march back to normality. But there is still little sign of the sustained private-sector recovery required to take up the slack.
Rewind a year, and the world economy stood on the brink of outright catastrophe. Equity and debt markets were pricing in levels of default that indicated
(Excerpt) Read more at telegraph.co.uk ...
Greece has done nothing of the sort. They have nibbled around the edges. When Greece fires 50% of the public union workers and eliminates their pensions, we will be about half way there...
Greece has done nothing of the sort. They have nibbled around the edges. When Greece fires 50% of the public union workers and eliminates their pensions, we will be about half way there...
The world is looking at Greece and it is us.
All US public servants (starting with teachers) need pension overhaul.
yitbos
They are gonna get it where they don't really want it.
It will be much less than they were promised for.
It is gonna be harder to take than they expected.
For much longer than they wanted it wanted it to
last (for ever).
Government makes nothing, it only takes, and takes,
and takes, and takes, and gives back very little.
0'Zer0 won't be there in 2012.
What'cha gonna do then, bad boyz ?
It’ll be interesting to see my sis-in-law’s reaction when her Michigan teachers retirement package is cut back some day. She retired at 54 and has always had an attitude about working too hard and not getting paid enough. Public dole, not public service (for the children, I remind you).
How many public servants has Greece fired?
Have they seriously thought about bringing a case against Germany or Italy for WW2 atrocities?
Because all I see is a lot of bark and whining and no bite.
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