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Yep. It lead to a decade of austerity measures across the EU, which caused most European nations to fall behind the US, despite being head-on-head economically

Yep. It lead to a decade of austerity measures across the EU, which caused most European nations to fall behind the US, despite being head-on-head economically in 2007.

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
roughly 2y ago
Also some fairly direct ties to the rise of right-wing movements and governments in Europe.
- alephnerd 2y ago
  Yep. The rise of the far right in Greece due to resentment against the Troika should have been a warning, but hey, they're PIGS, us Dutch and German and Scandinavian voters pulled ourselves up by the bootstraps without any outside help /s.
rich_sasha 2y ago
I'd say his paper was a convenient excuse for people who wanted to do austerity anyway. I mean, no government, with a sophisticated civil service department, including a ministries of finance and central banks packed to the brim with economists and statisticians should do anything based on a paper they didn't reproduce (all the data was public too).
- alephnerd 2y ago
  I used to be the equivalent of one of those guys when I was a staffer - we don't actually do that much cross verification or due dilligence in that manner (aside from the guys at the CRS doing god's work - would have loved to work there). One of the things to learn is that a lot of "think tank" content (including those at affiliated departments at universities) is just thought leadership used to drive an agenda. I've been guilty of doing that, and so is everyone else.
  - rich_sasha 2y ago
    I sympathise, I would possibly do the same thing, but you can't then turn around and say "we did X because someone made a spreadsheet that told us so".
    - alephnerd 2y ago
      Kinda. In these kinds of roles, you're basically making executive decisions every couple hours. You don't have much time to think deeply when you need to execute asap, so you take what info you have and make a call. It's a skill that helped me in Eng, Product, and VC roles, but it gets stressful very quick.
- tim333 2y ago
  I think you may overestimate the abilities of our leaders. The guy who brought austerity to the UK, George Osborne was kind of a mediocre journalist with a second class degree in history and never much training or depth of understanding in economics. I'm reminded of: >John Maynard Keynes once said: “Practical men, who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influence, are usually the slaves of some defunct economist. Madmen in authority, who hear voices in the air, are distilling their frenzy from some academic scribbler of a few years back.” I mean not quite that but people who don't understand economics tend to pick up on something they read without great discernment. See for example Trump and deficits and tariffs.
dom96 2y ago
Austerity measures across Europe are still continuing, just look at the UK

Yep. It lead to a decade of austerity measures across the EU, which caused most European nations to fall behind the US, despite being head-on-head economically in 2007.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

roughly 2y ago

Also some fairly direct ties to the rise of right-wing movements and governments in Europe.

alephnerd 2y ago
Yep. The rise of the far right in Greece due to resentment against the Troika should have been a warning, but hey, they're PIGS, us Dutch and German and Scandinavian voters pulled ourselves up by the bootstraps without any outside help /s.

rich_sasha 2y ago

I'd say his paper was a convenient excuse for people who wanted to do austerity anyway. I mean, no government, with a sophisticated civil service department, including a ministries of finance and central banks packed to the brim with economists and statisticians should do anything based on a paper they didn't reproduce (all the data was public too).

alephnerd 2y ago
I used to be the equivalent of one of those guys when I was a staffer - we don't actually do that much cross verification or due dilligence in that manner (aside from the guys at the CRS doing god's work - would have loved to work there). One of the things to learn is that a lot of "think tank" content (including those at affiliated departments at universities) is just thought leadership used to drive an agenda. I've been guilty of doing that, and so is everyone else.
- rich_sasha 2y ago
  I sympathise, I would possibly do the same thing, but you can't then turn around and say "we did X because someone made a spreadsheet that told us so".
  - alephnerd 2y ago
    Kinda. In these kinds of roles, you're basically making executive decisions every couple hours. You don't have much time to think deeply when you need to execute asap, so you take what info you have and make a call. It's a skill that helped me in Eng, Product, and VC roles, but it gets stressful very quick.
tim333 2y ago
I think you may overestimate the abilities of our leaders. The guy who brought austerity to the UK, George Osborne was kind of a mediocre journalist with a second class degree in history and never much training or depth of understanding in economics. I'm reminded of: >John Maynard Keynes once said: “Practical men, who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influence, are usually the slaves of some defunct economist. Madmen in authority, who hear voices in the air, are distilling their frenzy from some academic scribbler of a few years back.” I mean not quite that but people who don't understand economics tend to pick up on something they read without great discernment. See for example Trump and deficits and tariffs.

dom96 2y ago

Austerity measures across Europe are still continuing, just look at the UK