{"id":6753,"date":"2010-05-05T12:37:14","date_gmt":"2010-05-05T10:37:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/?p=6753"},"modified":"2010-05-05T12:37:14","modified_gmt":"2010-05-05T10:37:14","slug":"standard-and-poor%e2%80%99s-%e2%80%93-a-voice-of-sanity-on-government-debt","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/2010\/05\/05\/standard-and-poor%e2%80%99s-%e2%80%93-a-voice-of-sanity-on-government-debt\/","title":{"rendered":"Standard and Poor’s \u00e2\u20ac\u201c a voice of sanity on government debt"},"content":{"rendered":"

Debtonation: The Global Financial Crisis \u00ac\u00aa Blog Archive \u00ac\u00aa Standard and Poor’s \u2014 a voice of sanity on government debt <\/a>.<\/p>\n

A did a double take when reading the above title from Ann Pettifor, someone not noted for her love of people like ratings agencies.<\/p>\n

But then note what she says:<\/p>\n

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It might seem extraordinary, but in the midst of deficit-cutting mania it’s a rating agency, Standard and Poor’s, that is talking common sense about government debt.<\/p><\/div>\n

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Standard and Poor’s officials are quoted by the New York Times (28 April, 2010) as saying:<\/p><\/div>\n

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“The main reason for downgrading the debt of Greece and Portugal was the prospect that forced austerity packages would be an even bigger drag on economic growth.<\/p><\/div>\n

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It is the most vicious of circles: stagnating economies are forced to cut back more, which reduces their ability to generate revenue and thus pay off their debts.”<\/p><\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n

Amazing. Standard & Poors undertsand that the only way out of a recssion is to spend. If you don't - as Greece will not be allowed to do - then the recession deepens into depression - as Greece's surely will - debt becomes harder to repay - social crises follow - fascism is welcomed in after that - and hey presto, we have the 1920s and 30s all over again.<\/p>\n

That's the likelihood in Greece.<\/p>\n

And political contagion is as likely as economic contagion.<\/p>\n

This is what is really so desperately mad about the German prescription for Greece. They of all people should understand what this means. But apparently they don't.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Debtonation: The Global Financial Crisis \u00ac\u00aa Blog Archive \u00ac\u00aa Standard and Poor’s \u2014 a voice of sanity on government debt . A did a double
 Read the full article…<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35,44],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6753","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economics","category-europe"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6753","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6753"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6753\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6753"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6753"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6753"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}