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Such conditions require a country to “fix the problem” that created its fiscal crisis. But the main problem facing countries, according to bankers, economists, technocrats and politicians, is that they spend far too much money on social services that benefit their populations. Therefore, in order for a country to be able to borrow, it must implement “correct” policies designed to balance its budget and restore public finances. These policies are collectively described as “austerity measures,” and the process of implementing them is frequently referred to as “fiscal consolidation.” Long story short: governments must cut spending.
This means that healthcare, education, pensions, welfare and social services must be drastically gutted, masses of public sector employees must be fired, and taxes must be increased. Thus, austerity creates a new class of unemployed, pushed into poverty and deprived of all the resources that are meant to help the poor and disadvantaged, let alone everyone else.
The economy goes into a deep depression as people stop spending and businesses collapse, unemployment and poverty soar, suicide and mortality rates increase, and racial and ethnic conflicts erupt. All of this is done so that a country is able to get a large loan (sometimes called a national bailout) from institutions like the IMF, European Union and the central banks of powerful U.S., Japanese and European nations. This loan is provided in order to pay the interest the country owes to the global financial cartel.
Populations are impoverished and societies are devastated in order to pay interest to global banks. All of this happens as a result of numbers on screens. This is “austerity,” or “fiscal consolidation,” as we know it.
Ever wonder where your wealth (and hopes for a good life as well as some type of decent retirement) went?
It's not that much of a mystery.
Did I hear someone mention Rahm Emanuel (the perfect tool) yet?
Originally posted at Occupy.com.
Austerity has several names and phrases, including “fiscal consolidation” and “balancing the budget.” There are so many things to call it – but in the end you know it’s austerity because the policies are the same and the effects of those policies are, too. There is a reason why political and technocratic language is made to sound so vague and dull: because behind the words lie brutal actions and devastating consequences. If we understood their true meaning, their use would very often be shocking and unacceptable. Instead, their use has become common and seemingly inconsequential.
Here, however, are the consequences: Austerity is a set of policies which are, in theory, designed to help a nation or government reduce its “budget deficit,” balance its books and, in time, even produce a yearly “surplus,” or profit. Thus, “austerity measures” are designed to do one thing: cut spending on almost everything, except, of course, the really important things like military and police, subsidies to large banks and corporations, and debt repayments. Otherwise it’s like at a clearance sale for countries, where everything must go.
From Andrew Gavin Marshall we learn the history of how things got so grand for the rich (and so poverty-stricken for those at the bottom of the wealth pyramid):
This is the sixth installment in a series examining the activities and individuals behind the Bilderberg Group. Read the first part, second part, third part, fourth part, and fifth part in the series.
It could almost be a slogan: Bilderberg brings people together. Specifically, every year, the Bilderberg Group holds secret, “private” meetings at four star hotels around the world, bringing together nearly 150 of the world’s most influential bankers, corporate executives, dynasties, heads-of-state, foreign policy strategists, central bankers and finance ministers. It also invites the heads of international organizations, think tanks, foundations, universities, military and intelligence officials, media barons, journalists and academics.
Participants at Bilderberg appreciate having a closed-door forum where they can speak openly and directly to one other – and of course, not to us. But perhaps we, the people, would also like to hear what they have to say. For the past four years, Bilderbergers have been running around the world preaching the gospel of “austerity” and “structural reform” – very important terms. If you don’t know what they mean, Bilderbergers are working their day jobs to make sure you will learn.
. . . Either coupled with or following from austerity measures, lenders and bankers demand that the conditions of the loans include not only “necessary” austerity measures, but also important “structural reforms.”
This bland term hides policies and objectives behind it that have the effect of radically altering the entire structure of the economy over a period of several years or even decades. These “reforms” will make the economy strong and “competitive” again, and bring the country out of its austerity-induced depression.
Typical structural reforms include privatizing all state-owned companies, assets and resources, which allow foreign companies, states and banks to purchase important national assets cheaply (and provide a short cash infusion in the process). Countries then have to further “liberalize” markets by reducing any and all government protections and regulations over specific sectors of the economy, allowing foreign banks and corporations to “compete” on an “even playing field.”
This forces local and national industries, businesses and communities to compete against some of the largest transnational corporations in the world, many with more wealth and assets than their entire country is worth. As a result, foreign investors can afford to out-compete the local economy by providing cheaper products and services while maintaining global profits. Local businesses cannot compete, so they fail or are bought up. This often contributes to growing unemployment.
One of the key “structural reforms” demanded is “labor flexibility.” In countries with unions, workers rights, pensions and protections, where the labor force has institutional power, the labor market is often considered “rigid.” It does not bend to the wishes and demands of corporations and financial markets that want labor to be “flexible” to their demands.
What do they demand? Cheap, exploitable labor. Implementing “labor flexibility” means it’s necessary to dismantle labor protections, regulations and benefits. Essentially, it’s a war on the working class.
“Structural reforms,” in essence, open up a nation, its resources and its population to be controlled, exploited and plundered by the world’s largest banks and corporations.
These would be hard policies to sell if those who sold them spoke plainly. Instead, they describe a world in which nations need to “increase competitiveness” and implement the necessary “structural reforms” to create “economic growth.”
The point is that it’s all so technical, you’re not supposed to understand it. But actually, it’s pretty simple. Which is why, every day, more and more of us are getting the message.
Comments:
Steve Wiseman
December 26, 2014
So that’s why Andrew Jackson tried to kill the banks, why Woodrow Wilson, who had let the bankers create the privately owned Federal Reserve take control of the US money supply, proclaim, ”I have ruined my country”, and why the Canadian debt went from a manageable 100 million to over a billion once the Prime Ministers started borrowing money from the private banks rather than their own Central Bank, The Bank of Canada. And why we are all so much in such a horrible, death debt today.
ISIS too boring an enemy to hear about over and over? Beheadings gotten too yucky?
Not to worry, the NSA is on the job. From Bad Attitudes:
Our New Enemy Of The Week?
So how much mileage can the US get out of North Korean hackers? I’m no expert — I only play one on a blog, ha ha — but on the villain scale, I place them higher than Somali pirates but lower than hooded ISIS maniacs waving severed heads around.
Let’s face it, the whole war on terror thing is getting old. It just doesn’t rally the people like it used to. Americans crave newness and novelty. If you give them the same old enemies over and over again they will get bored, and if they get bored they might start seriously complaining about jobs and the economy and stuff, which mustn’t be allowed to happen.
So what’s an incompetent and increasingly unpopular national security state to do? They can’t wait around for Putin to become a Hitler forever, and their attempt to turn him into one was a big fat dud. So until something bigger and badder comes along, scary North Koreans doing scary things on computers will have to do. The fact that they might not have been responsible for that dastardly plot to prevent Americans from seeing a crappy movie is irrelevant. It has truthiness, and truthiness is all our national security institutions need in order to stir up hysteria, start shit with someone, and demand more funding (and power).
Emptywheel clears up even more christmas country conundrums.
Thanks for the holiday cheer!
Nothing to see here, folks. Move along.
Lanny Breuer’s Conflicts
December 30, 2014
emptywheel
NYT has a story based off a CREW FOIA for details of FBI’s investigations into John Ensign’s efforts to buy off his mistress’ husband. While the details show Ensign was even more sleazy than we knew, I’m at least as interested in this passage:
The Justice Department’s decision not to charge Mr. Ensign was widely seen as a sign of its skittishness about prosecuting and potentially losing public corruption cases in the wake of stinging courtroom defeats against former Senators Ted Stevens of Alaska and John Edwards of North Carolina.
The documents confirm that speculation: In an internal email in 2011 assessing the chances of prosecuting Mr. Ensign, a top prosecutor wrote that “the legal theory is possible with the right facts” but that the “mere response” of helping a former Senate employee to find work “is not enough.” Another prosecutor wrote that “this is a really tough case to win.”
The documents show that the investigation was also complicated by a legal conflict; Lanny A. Breuer, head of the Justice Department’s criminal division at the time, had worked with a defense lawyer in the Ensign camp at Mr. Breuer’s prior law firm, Covington & Burling.
Mr. Breuer was temporarily recused from the Ensign investigation as a result of the conflict, the records show, but later got a waiver that allowed him to oversee it with certain restrictions, officials said.
In 2012, Mr. Breuer and the Justice Department decided not to bring criminal charges against Mr. Ensign.
Even the Senate (!) was willing to discipline Ensign. But DOJ chose not to. And at the center of that decision was Lanny Breuer, whose once and future firm, Covington & Burling, represented Ensign. And yet Breuer found a way to un-recuse himself from the case.
It is not at all a surprise that Breuer didn’t manage his conflicts well. I argued that he didn’t back in 2009, when he made the decision to bury Dick Cheney’s CIA leak investigation interview (and make no mention of his quasi-grand jury appearance), even though he had represented John Kiriakou in the CIA leak case (and in helping him avoid grand jury testimony, hide that Cheney and Libby knew Plame was CIA earlier than they said they did).
Ironically, that was also for a CREW FOIA.
Maybe CREW should just skip the interim step and FOIA all the times Breuer ignored the conflicts he had on issues he presided over?
No, the War in Afghanistan Did Not End
As FBI’s Amerithrax Case Continues to Crumble, Bureau Digs in on North… »
2 Responses to As FBI’s Amerithrax Case Continues to Crumble, Bureau Digs in on North Korea Claims
1
Francine Fein on December 30, 2014 at 2:45 pm
My totally unscientific, technologically uneducated, first thought was that this was a brilliant marketing scheme — Sony got lots of media attention and more people were interested in seeing the movie than it would have gotten otherwise.
2
bevin on December 30, 2014 at 3:24 pm
The speed at which the US government is burning its credibility suggests a deep seated death wish- a secret desire not to be consulted or taken seriously- by an Empire which cannot bear the suspense of waiting for its next humiliation.
Nothing the government says is true:
Saddam did not have WMDs
Ghaddaffi was not massacring ‘his own people’ nor was he planning to do so.
Assad did not launch poison gas attacks on civilians.
Putin was not responsible for the current bloody chaos in Ukraine- the US was.
The self defense militias in the Donbass did not shoot down a Malaysian airliner.
North Korea did not sink a South Korean warship three or four years ago…etc etc. (Let’s not even talk about the Iranian plot to blow up a restaurant in Washington.)
The worrying thing is that no sooner does one of these transparently false-often on the face of it ludicrously so- claims get vomited out, normally by an anonymous “official”, than Obama or Kerry publicly claims it to be a casus belli.
And there aren’t six sane voices in Congress to contradict them. It is pitiful.
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