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Austerity : the history of a dangerous idea / Mark Blyth.

By: Blyth, Mark, 1967-.
Material type: TextTextPublisher: Oxford ; New York : Oxford University Press, [2013]Bibliography: Includes bibliographical references (pages 245-278) and index.Description: xiii, 288 pages ; 23 cm.Content type: text Media type: unmediated Carrier type: volumeISBN: 9780199828302 (hardback : alk. paper); 019982830X (hardback : alk. paper).Subject(s): Debts, Public | Budget deficits | Financial crises | Economic policy | Fiscal policy | Economic development | IncomeDDC classification: 336
Contents:
A primer on austerity, debt, and morality plays -- America : too big to fail? : bankers, bailouts, and blaming the state -- Europe : too big to bail : the politics of permanent austerity -- Austerity's intellectual and natural histories -- The intellectual history of a dangerous idea, 1692-1942 -- The intellectual history of a dangerous idea, 1942-2012 -- Austerity's natural history, 1914-2012 -- The end of banking, new tales, and a taxing time ahead.
Summary: Politicians today have succeeded in spending recklessly and wastefully making the economy worse, then they made budget cuts --to solve the financial crisis. We are told that we have all lived beyond our means and now need to tighten our belts. This view conveniently forgets where all that debt came from: bailing out, recapitalizing, and adding liquidity to the broken banking system. Through these actions private debt was rechristened as government debt while those responsible for generating it walked away scot free, placing the blame on the state, and the burden on the taxpayer.
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Includes bibliographical references (pages 245-278) and index.

A primer on austerity, debt, and morality plays -- America : too big to fail? : bankers, bailouts, and blaming the state -- Europe : too big to bail : the politics of permanent austerity -- Introduction to chapters 4, 5, and 6: Austerity's intellectual and natural histories -- The intellectual history of a dangerous idea, 1692-1942 -- The intellectual history of a dangerous idea, 1942-2012 -- Austerity's natural history, 1914-2012 -- The end of banking, new tales, and a taxing time ahead.

Politicians today have succeeded in spending recklessly and wastefully making the economy worse, then they made budget cuts --to solve the financial crisis. We are told that we have all lived beyond our means and now need to tighten our belts. This view conveniently forgets where all that debt came from: bailing out, recapitalizing, and adding liquidity to the broken banking system. Through these actions private debt was rechristened as government debt while those responsible for generating it walked away scot free, placing the blame on the state, and the burden on the taxpayer.

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