"So the Reinhart-Rogoff fiasco needs to be seen in the broader context of austerity mania: the obviously intense desire of policy makers, politicians and pundit

"So the Reinhart-Rogoff fiasco needs to be seen in the broader context of austerity mania: the obviously intense desire of policy makers, politicians and pundits across the Western world to turn their backs on the unemployed and instead use the economic crisis as an excuse to slash social programs." Amen. After reading any piece of news, you'd think that the only utility economists have is to (rather poorly) justify decisions that are actually fully ideological in nature, using numbers whose origin is uncertain.