Image of the Day

ole of ranting fool. His opinions on the economy would be given slightly
less credibility than the mumblings of a street drunk.
This is why it would have been worth highlighting the news
contained in a NYT article on the origins of the "Campaign to Fix the
Debt," the corporate financed effort to reduce the deficit. The article tells
readers in passing:
"The Campaign to Fix the Debt started to come together at a salon
dinner held in the backyard of Senator Mark Warner, Democrat of
Virginia, in the fall of 2011. An influential group of economic, political
and business leaders — including the former Federal Reserve chairman
Alan Greenspan and Mark Bertolini, the chief executive of the Aetna
insurance company — huddled in a too-small tent in the pouring rain."
This is such an amazing tidbit that it really should have been the
lead of the article. The person most responsible for wrecking the economy
— and incidentially adding trillions of dollars to the debt — was there at
the founding of the Campaign to Fix the Debt.
Wow, what did Santa get you for Christmas?
How Today’s Fiscal Austerity is Reminiscent of
World War I’s Economic Misunderstandings
America’s Deceptive 2012 Fiscal Cliff
by Michael Hudson
When World War I broke out in August 1914, economists on both
sides forecast that hostilities could not last more than about six months.
Wars had grown so expensive that governments quickly would run out of
money. It seemed that if Germany could not defeat France by springtime,
the Allied and Central Powers would run out of savings and reach what
today is called a fiscal cliff and be forced to negotiate a peace agreement.
But the Great War dragged on for four destructive years. European
governments did what the United States had done after the Civil War
broke out in 1861 when the Treasury printed greenbacks. They paid for
more fighting simply by printing their own money. Their economies did
not buckle and there was no major inflation. That would happen only after
the war ended, as a result of Germany trying to pay reparations in foreign