In the Guardian, Ha-Joon Chang writes why austerity measures like the ones below cannot solve the economic crisis
The remedies on offer are well known. Reduce budget deficits by cutting spending – especially “unproductive” social welfare spending that reduces growth by making poor people less willing to work. Cut taxes at the top and deregulate business (euphemistically called “cutting red tape”) so that the “wealth creators” have greater incentives to invest and generate growth; and make hiring and firing easier.
What he misses is that all these measures were never meant to solve the crisis, but come straight off the wishlist of big business; the crisis is used as an excuse to implement them. A child can see that reducing unemployment benefits or making it easier to fire people when every company is already busy firing people isn’t going to help, but it sure comes in handy if you’re a business owner who wants to be able to fire his employees at will.
The thing we should remember is that by and large, the big banks and big businesses, with some exceptions, have paid the price for their own crisis. Instead, by measures such as these, the costs have been transferred to the workers. Bankers get their bonuses, the rest of us get fired.
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