Austerity Now!

Via Felix Salmon, a great read on the historical result of austerity movements:

David Leonhardt takes an important look at Germany, which you might think was benefiting, in some kind of zero-sum mathematics, from the pain of the European periphery. It isn’t: German GDP is still significantly lower than it was in the first quarter of 2008, while US GDP is now back above its pre-crisis levels. (Britain is doing significantly worse than either.)

“The historical lesson of postcrisis austerity movements,” writes Leonhardt, “is a rich one,” and also clear: they don’t work, even if they’re “morally satisfying.”

I was briefly concerned that Britain was showing some unexpected economic dynamism after mauling the public budget, disproving my prediction that pushing draconian cuts in the middle of a crushing recession is a universally stupid idea. I am happy to announce that the recent declining state of their economy has kindly consented to prove my point. If only it didn't involve the utterly unecessary suffering of millions of Britons.

Bah!

Today, while driving to work, the Strawman Blogger was able to engage in a time-honoured past-time: family gossip.

Truly, no one can gossip like the SMB family can gossip. Family events are nefarious, shifting affairs, a roiling morass of juicy rumours, traded in an every-shifting series of petty allegiences. The cousins gather to gossip about the aunts, before breaking apart to trade trivialities about the grandparents, only to divide into splinter cells to monger about the nephews. What they say about us, we can only guess.

Wine helps.

Today the subject centered around an ailing British family member. "Good luck to him," someone spat. "He has to survive that awful health service."

We couldn't agree more! Good luck to the poor man! The poor, down-trodden wretch. Not only is he forced to recieve health care at no charge whatsoever, but he suffers the horror, the indignity, of having his care provided by the NHS.

Bloody socialists.

What sane person, after all, would elect to receive free health care from an agency with a 92% approval rating among seniors that assures health outcomes that rank a meager 19 places above America!

Truly, with a table like this, it's amazing anyone bothers to be European at all:

WHO Health Rankings (By Outcomes)

1 France
2 Italy
3 San Marino
4 Andorra
5 Malta
6 Singapore
7 Spain
8 Oman
9 Austria
10 Japan
11 Norway
12 Portugal
13 Monaco
14 Greece
15 Iceland
16 Luxembourg
17 Netherlands
18 United Kingdom
19 Ireland
20 Switzerland
21 Belgium
22 Colombia
23 Sweden
24 Cyprus
25 Germany
26 Saudi Arabia
27 United Arab Emirates
28 Israel
29 Morocco
30 Canada
31 Finland
32 Australia
33 Chile
34 Denmark
35 Dominica
36 Costa Rica
37 United States of America