The austerity agenda: have we really been bingeing?

Nation, The, January, 1989 by Henwood, Doug

The party's over; now it's time to face the hangover. That is the conventional wisdom of Washington, Wall Street and the moneyed classes worldwide. The Reagan era was a collective binge by consumers and the Federal government that debilitated the economy, and the only known cure is an extended round of belt-tightening. But have we been on a binge? Who are we, anyway? And is the proposed cure - a half- decade of austerity- worse than the disease? In fact, could an austerity agenda push the economy off a cliff?

The conventional wisdom was succinctly articulated by former Federal Reserve chair Paul Volcker in his November 30 testimony before the floundering National Economic Commission (N.E.C.). "We have to pay for the binge," warned the retired money...

Read the rest of this article with a Free Trial at HighBeam Research.

Premium Content Partnership | HighBeam Research provides an in-depth online archive library of reference works.