Europe has made a political decision to go into recession
Austerity? What austerity? Cutting back on the mad printing of money is not austerity. It’s rather going from flat out madness mode into just frickin crazy mode. We have been on a 10-year sugar high from printing money and of seriously damaging our economic viability in the longer run. That’s not unprecedented. History is full of madmen trying to keep the economic machine chugging on with short term fixes that make the original problem look quaint in comparison. They all have one thing in common – they all failed spectacularly. And so will we. There is no escaping it.
It looks like Europe is heading into recession, multiple economists say. Germany and Italy may already be in “technical recession.” The tragedy is that the contraction is being helped along by a deliberate political choice made by Europe’s own governments: Their effort to rein in deficit spending, to cut fiscal stimulus, and to balance their budgets in the 10-year aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis.
