Europe’s Debt Crisis Worsens: Is Austerity All It’s Cracked Up to Be?

Austerity programs can only work if everybody participates.......this would include politrickans,
the rich, businesses and a lesser need to police the planet with our military. To expect the middle class to do it all, will never work.

You either absorb the pain now or pass along an even bigger problem to the future. The politically easy way is to pass it along and hope it is someone elses problem. A disgusting and immoral and selfish stance for anyone that cares about their children and grandchildren.

Henry was too kind when he said that the typical American has a 90 minute attention span. I think its more like 5 minutes. Oops, I have to go now, there is another pending announcement about Lindsay Lohan's jail time.

Oh yes, austerity sucks! Just ask my niece. She's in her late 20's, makes minimum wage, racked up huge charge card debt and student loans. Has always spent far more than she earned and has lots of stuff and good times! She tried cutting back once. It was really, really hard. In her economy, it's much more fun to just open the mail and get new charge cards, then spend, spend spend and rack up those up too. Gosh, austerity sure must be painful. And apparently so unnecessary. Better to just not do it. What could be the problem?

I have no reason to think our politicians are going to do anything productive. They are ONLY interested in maintaining their own stranglehold on power. If that means killing the country- so be it. Impossibly hard times are coming and most Americans are in no way prepared to fend for themselves without some form of Governmental support. Learn to keep a garden, hunt, help you neighbor, and build a still, you're going to wish you had. And, for the love of Mike, pay off your debts and take on no more.

If things are so bad over there, then why is the Euro getting stronger vs. the dollar? I really don't understand that.

We Germans did survive the recession and our economy runs on full steam again and we have the lowest unemployment rate ever since the end of WWII, industry wide we need 300.000 more employees and workers have gotten wage increases across the board, domestic consumtion is up.
And as long the German Locomotive runs on full steam Europe will survive,it allways has been this way and since we're part of the EU and invested a lot in to it we're not interested in letting Greece,Ireland,Portugal or any other EU member fall. We have managed to absorb the cost of reunification by paying a solidarity tax since 1992 at the tune of 187 billion euros ( 1 euro=$1.46) per year for infrastructure, job creation etc and so far 21 years later things for former east germany look better. So if we could survive this,we surely can rescue the EU too.

oh yes! Our time is coming sooner than most folks care to accept. ALL of the politicians have let this get to far out of hand, you vote yours in to fix the problems the other ones created and they just slow the march down a little but continue down the same old road, you get mad and forgo the vote the next time and THEIR back in to pick up the pace.... We never learned until it was to late to fix the problem.... Hope you know how to provide for your family from the land because money will soon be as worthless as the folks in D.C. already are. Got ammo?

The US banking system and the FED are a joke and a disaster waiting to re-appear. The only reason banks are above water now is that the FED continues to give them free money (ie - they are still being bailed out)! That's not austerity, we haven't even stepped into these waters in the US. I go by one motto: don't spend what you don't have! It has served me well over the years and it's about time for the government and this country to abide by these words!

So what is the alternative to austerity?

The United States has 111 million citizens, out of 139 million that actually have a job, that pay taxes for the Federal debt.

We have spent 4.1 Trillion Dollars this year in the United States. Divide $4.1 Trillion by 111 million citizens that actually pay our taxes in the United States.

The number is $36,936.94 Dollars foe each of the 111 million taxpayers.
The average income in the United States is $43,460.00 Dollars, Subtract the two numbers and you have $6,523.06 dollars left to live on for the whole year. You could live under a bridge and beg for food.

Even if you divided $4.1 Trillion by the actual number of people who work which is 139,974,248 million workers.........you would still owe $29,291.11 dollars.
You will owe $30,000.00 a year.

The government has spent all of our paycheck practically for the entire year. How are we any different than Europe? What most people don't understand is that 310 million people live in the United States ....but only 111 million of them pay federal taxes out of the 139 million workforce.

Bernanke is printing 70 billion dollars of funny money to every month to cover this shortfall rather than taxing us.
If they did tax us for what we owe......the entire economy would come to a screeching halt. The stores would close with no one to spend any money in them.
More people would lose jobs. Less tax revenue would be collected.

This leads to hyperinflation and the collapse of the United States Dollar.

Guess the light at the end of the tunnel turned out to be a freight train after all.
Couldn't agree with you more Yankee.

This article is more than silly, it's downright nonsensical. If austerity didn't reduce the deficits as much as desired, that probably means the austerity wasn't really all that serious. Aside from trying to draw comparisons from obviously totally dissimilar situation, Greece and the US, these fellows have zero details to know exactly what happened where. This is simple minded economics for those who refuse to think or investigate. This is less than useless, it's downright misleading and superficial. But, I suppose these guys had to produce something, and wanted some anti-balanced budget nonsense. So now we have more debt and are no better off, despite claims from these guys that running deficits is good for you. We are no better off than before Obama and the dopey Dems ran hog-wild. Oh, sure, we may be better than bankrupt Greece. Anyone think that proves anything? We're also better off than several other bankrupt third world countries. Yippee!

When is America going to wake up to the scam that Free Trade is? We are the only nation that has relaxed import tariffs to our total detriment. We have made Japan rich, and now making China rich We have also helped Germany become rich as have every other nation that buys German goods I don't blame the Germans I blame our stupid trade policies Trade is fine as long as it is BALANCED. If it is not, then one nation exports more than it imports, then it wins at the expense to other nations Likewise, when one nation imports more than it exports, it loses to its exporting trading partners
America must again become a manufacturing nation and manufacture everything we consume. Hell, we would better off just to import nothing and export nothing, and just be self-contained like we used to be instead of engaging in this stupid Global non-sense

The sickness in the body is eliminated by fever... It is always darkest before the dawn... No pain no gain... The Right thing is almost always the hardest to do... Good things come to those who wait... An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure...

Give it time.

Amen Yankee.

I have one question, if the US is up against the debt ceiling of $14.3 trillion and the US economy is $14 trillion, why isn't the US at 100% of GDP?

I realize this is going to be tough but it is time.
Don't fret about reelection, do the job you were sent to do
and close this thing out.
I really believe the reason all of the gurus are fretting about the
debat ceiling is because they really don't know and so they want to
continue on the path we are on.
NO INCREASE!!!!

Austerity Budget....what a perverted use of the term. When you are talking about a budget with the term trillion in it, it is difficult to imagine real "austerity" being the issue. We hand out money freely to every moonbat that presents an empty cup. Our politicians are spineless....can there be better advertising for term limits and an incentive to show up at the polls and vote these "do nothings" out of office? Both Dems and Repubs are guilty...I no longer have any faith in major parties to work together for the public good. Remember the "good old days" when a billion dollars was "real" money?

Ultimately the choice is either austerity or bankruptcy.

Greece has failed to enact any real austrity, obviously. Their "austrity was NOT drastic at all. As the article noted, they were still expected to spend so much that the deficit was almost ten percent of GNP. So it is a little more than ten percent. Who cares? Get real and balance the budget. Adding almost ten % of GDP to the national debt is NOT "austerity". It is big fat government at the trough as usual.

Spending in the US is still increasing. That just cut a small fraction of one percent of the budget, but all they did was reduce the rate of growth in spending.

The US is still spending more this year than last (a "stimulus" year). How is that "austerity"?

You can't call the tiny cut that was just passed "austerity". Even Ryan's plan isn't "austerity", although it is at least better than any other alternatives I've seen.

Good clip! Keep up the good work! Based on this clip, I think the rating agencies will use (GDP debt levels = Default) of the small countries to mount a proposal to downgrade U.S. credit rating sooner rather than later.