Times columnist Paul Krugman’s continuous railing against austerity reached a crescendo with Greece’s default. In his What Greece Means, Krugman vents his outrage:
“What Greek experience actually shows is that while running deficits in good times can get you in trouble… trying to eliminate deficits once you’re already in trouble is a recipe for depression…Greece is the worst case, with unemployment soaring to 20 percent even as public services, including health care, collapse.”
Bankrupt economies, like Greece, need stimulus, not austerity, Krugman declares indignantly. The “austerity-induced depressions” around the European periphery are proof that Keynes was right. Germany’s Angela Merkel, her IMF-austerity allies, and world-wide lenders do not understand that we need a massive stimulus to get Greece out of this mess. They need to step up to the plate if they are good citizens of Europe (or the world).
Krugman does not fess up that Greece’s Keynesian policy of endless borrowing to fund wasteful government spending and feed massive welfare programs is exactly what got Greece in the trouble it is now in. The Greeks cannot pay their bloated public payrolls, out-of-kilter wages, and generous pensions and early retirements unless fools lend them money that will not be repaid. Even the Greeks themselves are not falling for that trick. They are too busy transferring their assets abroad. Merkel and her stingy Germans make for good scapegoats, but it’s not only them. Lenders throughout the world have shut down the lending spigot.
