Greek austerity is working! …at increasing unemployment.
2012 September 13
Remember folks, Greek style austerity programs are a favorite solution to the financial troubles in America among conservatives. The problem is it doesn't work. Unfortunately for Greek citizens, they're having to find out the hard way:
Unemployment in Greece is going from bad to worse, as official figures released by the Hellenic Statistical Authority (ELSTAT) on Thursday showed a 44 percent increase in the number of jobless in this year’s second quarter compared to the same period in 2011.
The April-June rate stood at 23.6 percent, against 22.6 percent in the year’s first quarter and 16.3 percent in the second quarter of 2011.- International Herald Tribune
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Then of course, then Obama’s plan is not working either.
Greek unemployment went from 16.3% in Q2 of 2011 to 23.6% in Q2 in 2012.
US unemployment went from 9.1% in Q2 of 2011 to 8.2% in Q2 of 2012.
I know the conservative narrative is “it’s not working”, but your comparison is absolutely wrong.
Dan, it shouldn’t have even been 8.2%. It’s embarrassing that you think you say 8.2% is ok now. Is that the new normal.
You do remember that Obama promised much better unemployment rates that we have now.
And why did we get 9.2% unemployment? And please don’t give us “it’s Bush’s fault”.
The strawmen continue on this blog. The whole conservative argument is that to avoid Greece’s situation, we need to get out debt situation in order. Maybe you don’t know, but he reason there is sharp austerity in Greece is because the private individuals stopped lending money to the Greek government (they realized they wouldn’t get it paid back). And when your government runs a consistent deficit, it is dependent on those private individuals continuing to be willing to lend that money.
One of these days, you might realize that if you come across a total nailer of a story showing that the “other side” is completely wrong in their prescription, it’s probably because you don’t understand the prescription. This is the kind of story someone writes when they allow themselves to be dismissive of hose who disagree with them.