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points by stasmo 1 day ago | hide | 0 comments
The US does not respond with austerity during a crisis, it responds with ever larger economic stimulus by printing money at the central bank. The next crisis will be no different. There is zero political appetite for austerity so it will not happen in the US.
unfitted25451 day ago | | | parent | | on: 47756547
Yes but economic stimulus where? Wealth inequality has risen so much because of huge government spending in the wrong areas that transfers wealth to the wealthy, it happened in 2008 and in COVID.
austin-cheney1 day ago | | | parent | | on: 47756547
That is only mostly true. In practical terms the opposite of austerity is inflation, and consumers really don't like paying more for things knowing they are becoming dramatically poorer. Austerity is challenging to measure, but debt and inflation are not.

At some point the music stops and a lot of people will be left without a chair. That's when austerity becomes a rally cry.

bigbadfeline1 day ago | | | parent | | on: 47756590
> That is only mostly true. In practical terms the opposite of austerity is inflation

Weimar says inflation creates fascism too. Not surprising because scientifically speaking, any sufficiently developed inflation is austerity by another name.

panarky1 day ago | | | parent | | on: 47756547
The NHS study cited in the post is pretty strong evidence that precarity can increase support for proto-fascist politics.

But that rationale falls flat in the US context, as many analyses show that the median income of MAGA supporters is quite high. Right-wing extremism in the US isn't really about revolting peasants, it's about an alliance among multiple groups up and down the security-precarity spectrum, with very strong support from the top 5% and even more support from the top 0.1%.

Just because precarity can be a causal factor doesn't mean it's the only factor or even the dominant factor in the US.

And I wouldn't be surprised to see the US regime move into full money-printer stimulus mode to finance its wars of choice and give its base a little financially security before this year's midterm elections.

pseudohadamard15 hours ago | | | parent | | on: 47756859
And it's coming from a starting point in which MAGA already distrusts government, so there's no need to have an external factor involved. It's quite odd looking in from another country where the government may not necessarily be too competent but generally tries to do the right thing and most people are looked after even if they grumble a bit, to the US where the government could cure cancer and half the population would say its a conspiracy by George Soros or Bill Gates or Big Pharma or the lizard people and would want nothing to do with it.