THE AUSTERITY CONSPIRACY
Why have conservatives been spreading fear about deficits and debt? Paul Krugman, the nobelist economist, charges that it enables the conservatives to promote austerity as the fix to the problem. However, Krugman maintains, the real aim of this austerity effort by the conservatives is not to reduce the deficit, but rather to dismantle the social network. Krugman concludes that the drive for austerity to cure the economic crisis is not about curing it, but rather about using it. Here in America, where the rich are getting richer, while the rest of us get poorer, the conservatives cry out for less government spending to balance the budget. Actually, local, state and federal spending has been going down for some time now due to the obstructionist policies of the far right. Since less government spending has been in place for several years now, it is obvious that things have not gotten better, which demonstrates that the austerity plan is a hoax. This plan has resulted in more debt, not less, and the longer the austerity plan remains in effect, the greater our national debt grows. People out of work can’t spend nor pay taxes. The rich are paying less or no taxes, which also has increased the debt. It takes a lot of chutzpah to justify a 13 million dollar paycheck per annum by Mr. Jamie Dimon, head of JP Morgan, after his bank suffered a 2 billion dollar loss recently, while he calls, at the same time, for less government regulation. What ever happened to that saying that you can’t fool all of the people all of the time? Apparently, the conservatives are fooling all of the people all of the time.