The International Monetary Fund Has Called On The Us And Europe To Abandon Fiscal Austerity

[frederico]

The banks being sued, the Greeks getting worse, the Italians bottling it, what could possibly go wrong.

Lagarde says the world economies are in a downward spiral and austerity must stop.

Of course, I could be wrong here...

[dammfoolman]

The International Monetary Fund has called on the US and Europe to abandon fiscal austerity and switch to stimulus measures, warning that the global economy faces a "threatening downward spiral".

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/financialcrisis/8740736/IMF-global-economy-faces-a-threatening-downward-spiral.html

Bet Mr Balls is happy!

[Giordano Bruno]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/financialcrisis/8740736/IMF-global-economy-faces-a-threatening-downward-spiral.html

Bet Mr Balls is happy!

Maybe I should start a wheel barrow manufacturing company.

[nohpc]

We must get the sheep to spend more money they don't have on stuff they don't need.

We must keep house prices high!

[Gone baby gone]

The IMF... what a bunch of f**kin chancers! One minute they chastise you because your austerity measures aren't tough enough, then a month later it's all change and time to spend freely again

[inflating]

The IMF... what a bunch of f**kin chancers! One minute they chastise you because your austerity measures aren't tough enough, then a month later it's all change and time to spend freely again

+1

and erm, except Italy? Trichet says stop spending!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-14775726

[sign_of_the_times]

Maybe I should start a wheel barrow manufacturing company.

wheel barrows may not be big enough this time around!

[sign_of_the_times]

The IMF... what a bunch of f**kin chancers! One minute they chastise you because your austerity measures aren't tough enough, then a month later it's all change and time to spend freely again

They are out of ideas and the wheels are coming off, funny how it's always sept/oct when the bad sh1t happens

[wonderpup]

I've posted this on another thread but it bears repeating for the insight it gives into 'elite' mindset.

I just watched a speech that Christine Lagarde gave to one of those meetings these people spend their lives attending in which she expressed the following sentiment;

"What Europe needs is politicians who are not afraid of losing popular support- who are willing to do the right thing even if it means losing office" Not an exact quote but close enough to get the gist.

I also watched the Q&A session after the speech and not a single person addressed the fact that the Head of the IMF had just called for the end of representative democracy in Europe- not a single dissenting voice. :angry:

OK- I know on the face of it I can be accused of hyperbole here- but consider for a moment what Lagarde actually wants- she wants politians who are willing to subvert the political mandate of the electoral process by in effect sticking two fingers up at the electorate and doing things that have no popular support whatsover.

Think about it- a politican who has no concern with political legitimacy is no longer a legitmate representative of the people who put him in office.

In calling on the political class to ignore the electoral implications of their actions Christine Lagarde is, in effect, calling for the abandoment of representative democracy in favour of Oligarchy- who the hell do these people think they are? :angry:

http://fora.tv/2011/07/26/Challenges__Opportunities_for_the_World_Economy_and_IMF

[MarkG]

"What Europe needs is politicians who are not afraid of losing popular support- who are willing to do the right thing even if it means losing office" Not an exact quote but close enough to get the gist.

To be fair, that's what Europe does need. But she's probably not saying that in the way that I mean it.

Europe is ******ed because of decades of politicians promising people free stuff paid for with other peoples' money to buy votes. To solve that problem you need to roll back huge swathes of the welfare state and any politician who does that probably won't get re-elected because free stuff paid for with other peoples' money is what most voters want.

Hence we'll see a catastrophic collapse of the welfare state rather than a managed reduction.

[_w_]

The banks being sued, the Greeks getting worse, the Italians bottling it, what could possibly go wrong.

Lagarde says the world economies are in a downward spiral and austerity must stop.

Of course, I could be wrong here...

Lagarde is doing France's bidding here I think. At the start of the crisis France bet the house on red, red being enormous stimuli and credit expansion assuming everyone would follow.

It can only avoid catastrophe if other countries inflate via deficit spending et all otherwise some tremendous amount of brown stuff will hit the fan over there.

I always suspected Lagarde's bid was a French government move, they are now showing their cards.

[wonderpup]

To be fair, that's what Europe does need. But she's probably not saying that in the way that I mean it.

Europe is ******ed because of decades of politicians promising people free stuff paid for with other peoples' money to buy votes. To solve that problem you need to roll back huge swathes of the welfare state and any politician who does that probably won't get re-elected because free stuff paid for with other peoples' money is what most voters want.

Hence we'll see a catastrophic collapse of the welfare state rather than a managed reduction.

What the IMF want is to subcontract their primary role as enforcers for the Banksters to the political class. You can see the IMF's problem here- once the debt went sovereign their ability to oppress the local populations in order to extract bankster debts is constrained by democratic delusions amongst the proles- they need the politicians to do the knee capping to avoid overt action that might wake too many people up to the fact that the IMF are essentially debt collectors for the banking elites- after all someone has to make good on all that credit they conjured up in order to enrich themselves.

I see- however- that they have recently altered their 'austerity' line as the reality dawns that strangled chickens lay no eggs.

[wonderpup]

Lagarde is doing France's bidding here I think. At the start of the crisis France bet the house on red, red being enormous stimuli and credit expansion assuming everyone would follow.

It can only avoid catastrophe if other countries inflate via deficit spending et all otherwise some tremendous amount of brown stuff will hit the fan over there.

I always suspected Lagarde's bid was a French government move, they are now showing their cards.

I had not thought of that- it might explain also their sudden conversion of faith away from austerity and onto the path of stimulus.

It still shocked me to hear a leader of the IMF more or less call for the overturning of democracy in Europe- a measure I think of just how desperate these people now are.

[_w_]

It still shocked me to hear a leader of the IMF more or less call for the overturning of democracy in Europe- a measure I think of just how desperate these people now are.

I think it's been with us for so long they are now becoming confident enough to say it in the open. What freaks me out also is that outfits like the Bildeberg should now choose to make themselves more visible; it looks like they are trying to get us used to the idea of a world ruled by a small elite.

[billybong]

It's the Put your left leg in, your left leg out, in, out, in, out, you shake it all about, you do the Hokey Cokey and you turn around

That's what it's all about..economic policy.

They haven't a clue what to do. Austerity yesterday, abandoned today. Staggering from one inept policy to the next.

[billybong]

Mrs Lagarde said the US has scope to "abandon short-term austerity and introduce some measures to drive growth" provided the country lays out a credible debt strategy over the medium term.

She said Europe needs to take its foot off the fiscal brake and shift to "growth-intensive measures" until the danger has passed, insisting that Germany has leeway to "stimulate demand".

If they could have shifted to "growth-intensive measures" that would have been done months ago. They've tried, they've failed.

[copydude]

The IMF... what a bunch of f**kin chancers! One minute they chastise you because your austerity measures aren't tough enough, then a month later it's all change and time to spend freely again

Well, hardly one minute to the next. It's taken a very long while to dawn on them.

Plunging whole populations into poverty was always the IMF recipe. That and devaluation. But a couple of things haven't worked here.

Europe isn't quite the same as Russia or South America, where millions were on the breadline anyway. Hardly the lifeblood of a consumer economy.

And devaluation isn't an option for anyone in or pegged to the Eurozone.

So the two trick pony has rather come unstuck.

Unfortunately, now everyone's either in debt, jobless or wrecked by inflation, all at the IMF's behest, I tend to feel that calls to abandon austerity will fall on deaf ears.

[stormymonday_2011]

I've posted this on another thread but it bears repeating for the insight it gives into 'elite' mindset.

I just watched a speech that Christine Lagarde gave to one of those meetings these people spend their lives attending in which she expressed the following sentiment;

"What Europe needs is politicians who are not afraid of losing popular support- who are willing to do the right thing even if it means losing office" Not an exact quote but close enough to get the gist.

I also watched the Q&A session after the speech and not a single person addressed the fact that the Head of the IMF had just called for the end of representative democracy in Europe- not a single dissenting voice. :angry:

OK- I know on the face of it I can be accused of hyperbole here- but consider for a moment what Lagarde actually wants- she wants politians who are willing to subvert the political mandate of the electoral process by in effect sticking two fingers up at the electorate and doing things that have no popular support whatsover.

Think about it- a politican who has no concern with political legitimacy is no longer a legitmate representative of the people who put him in office.

In calling on the political class to ignore the electoral implications of their actions Christine Lagarde is, in effect, calling for the abandoment of representative democracy in favour of Oligarchy- who the hell do these people think they are? :angry:

http://fora.tv/2011/07/26/Challenges__Opportunities_for_the_World_Economy_and_IMF

All governments rely on at least an element of tacit acceptance from the population even in autocratic non democratic states. This is something Louis XVI found out in 1789. You would have thought Lagarde at least new her own countries history.

Edited September 5, 2011 by stormymonday_2011

[@contradevian]

What about the Asian economies? I think we have done our bit for King and country spending wise. Its time to say no to Chinese tat. It not as if spending even creates jobs in our own countries any more.

['Bart']

"What Europe needs is politicians who are not afraid of losing popular support- who are willing to do the right thing even if it means losing office" Not an exact quote but close enough to get the gist.

I would actually agree with that. Too many politicians are unable to make the tough decisions because they're afraid of being unpopular, of losing votes and ultimately, being kicked out of office.

A very similar statement to the above is made in the film I.O.U.S.A., in a plea for politicians to do the right thing regarding the US budget, even if it means that the politicians doing it get hung out to dry by the electorate.

Unfortunately neither the US nor the UK seems to have politicians with the necessary gumption to do what's right for the country, rather than themselves or their party.

[billybong]

"What Europe needs is politicians who are not afraid of losing popular support- who are willing to do the right thing even if it means losing office" Not an exact quote but close enough to get the gist.

She seems to be saying that what they've been doing for years had popular support and was democratic.

Likely a lot of people would dispute that.

Their policies might just have been such as to avoid excessively provoking the population but given a vote on just half of what they've been doing they'd likely have got a NO already.

"Politicians who are willing to do the right thing". How many times has that sort of expression been used over the years in Parliament etc to justify any old ramshackle and daft policy that politicians come up with

[copydude]

All governments rely on at least an element of tacit acceptance from the population even in autocratic non democratic states. This is something Louis XVI found out in 1789. You would have thought Lagarde at least new her own countries history.

'Let them eat Eurobonds'.

I think this will be the next big battle. The EU/ECB is certainly all about removing fiscal control from member states. It's written into the expanded powers of the Euro stability fund. (Stop those silly 17 countries voting on anything.) And it's already happening with the ECB memo to Berlusconi, for example. (Just do what we say by decree.)

Change happens slowly in history, but people like Lagarde can speed it up. Movements like the 'True Finns', who are blocking the Greece bailout, are growing in Nordic countries. The Indignati are a growing force. There are the Flemish nationalists in Belgium blocking 'debt transfer' to Wallonia, the SNP has buried Labour in Scotland, 49% of Germans want a return to the D-Mark . . .

Precious few Europeans at the moment see the mainstream elite working for the greater good and are backing off central control freaks like Lagarde in droves. I can only see this intensifying.

[Captain Cavey]

The IMF... what a bunch of f**kin chancers! One minute they chastise you because your austerity measures aren't tough enough, then a month later it's all change and time to spend freely again

The old IMF boss also lead by example – his own stimulus package was to splash out on a new maid.

Plus ca change plus c'est la meme chose,

Edited September 5, 2011 by Captain Cavey

[@contradevian]

I would actually agree with that. Too many politicians are unable to make the tough decisions because they're afraid of being unpopular, of losing votes and ultimately, being kicked out of office.

A very similar statement to the above is made in the film I.O.U.S.A., in a plea for politicians to do the right thing regarding the US budget, even if it means that the politicians doing it get hung out to dry by the electorate.

Unfortunately neither the US nor the UK seems to have politicians with the necessary gumption to do what's right for the country, rather than themselves or their party.

I don't think its so much that. After all many make more money out of office than in (aka Tony Blair). Its the bought and paid for politicians while in office pursuing ruinous policies to further the economic interests of a small elite, and totally ignoring and causing harm to the wider electorate. Regulatory and democrat capture by bankers and corporates and so on. I don't trust any of them any more. NONE are worth voting for. Democracy is a conceit.

Edited September 5, 2011 by John Steed

[aa3]

Sovereigns should just tell the bankers that sadly they will be defaulting on the loans they took out.