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I believe it is a bit too early to declare it a success. Can we exclude that it is not accelerating rising cost of living and economic inequality, and the gener
by tarikjn 9y ago
I believe it is a bit too early to declare it a success. Can we exclude that it is not accelerating rising cost of living and economic inequality, and the general weakness of the middle class? Also, what is top-down imposed austerity with no option of bankruptcy? To me it is also a form of Keynesianism. The general consensus is that things are headed in a better direction for Iceland or Detroit than they are for Greece.
- qubex 9y ago”Austerity with no possibility of bankruptcy” doesn’t strike me as anything doctrinarian, really. As for declaring it a non-success, and bemoaning, the supposed death of the middle class, you couldn’t be more wrong: it might be faltering in the West, and we might observe a local pressure upon the middle class, but in the Far East (China, India) the latter is very much ascendant.
- lifty 9y agoAre you suggesting that the rise of the middle class in the Far East was caused by monetary policy? If you do, then I would have to disagree with you. It seems to me more likely that it was caused by the increase in global trade and the massive transition of the means of production from west to east.
- qubex 9y agoYes, I am — and that growth of the Eastern middle class is itself a (probably involuntary) product (or side-effect) of monetary policy of the net importers (the West): in a protectionist context, globalism wouldn’t have taken hold, and ”Factory China” wouldn’t have arisen if protectionist paradigms had been dominant.