Austerians love austerity... for other people

The IMF has told the USA, you have to cut Social Security benefits to deal with the federal deficit. Nevermind that Social Security has jack shit to do with the federal deficit, what's gonna kill us is health care costs, not Social Security, which is easily funded just by raising the limit on taxable income beyond which people currently pay no Social Security tax, the whole idea is to give cover to the cat food commission and its program of stealing our retirement so that the banksters can enrich themselves with their multi-million-dollar pensions and retire at age 51 with a six-figure pension.

It is notable that the Austerians always propose that others suffer for their reality-contradicting ideology, not themselves. Funny, that. I never hear an Austerian promising to be one of those who are eating catfood and dumpster scraps for dinner because the Austerians cut off unemployment benefits. I never hear an Austerian promising that he will move himself and his entire family out onto the streets to live because he gave up his job and was foreclosed upon so that some deserving unemployed person can have his job. I never hear the Austerians proposing that they give up their six-figure pensions at age 51 to the people who will be hurt by their austerity demands and instead retire solely on Social Security, surviving on the meagre average Social Security check of $1,197 per month. Instead, I hear Austerians proposing austerity… for other people. Not for themselves. Funny, hmm?

And the funny thing is, austerity has failed every time it's ever been tried. Hoover tried balancing the budget in '32, FDR tried balancing the budget in '37, both times it caused the economy to plummet. Insanity is doing what failed — twice — and expecting any better result. Sad to say, the Austerians are like the Christian Scientists there… they claim Hoover’s policies would have worked if only he’d thrown *FIFTY* percent of Americans out of work rather than only *FORTY* percent, just like the Christian Scientist says that prayer would have cured your cancer if you’d prayed TWENTY hours a day rather than only SIXTEEN hours a day. Both of these are faith-based positions with no (zero) actual data to support them, but neither the Austerian nor the Christian Scientist needs, or wants, facts — they have faith, faith I say, in their Lord and Savior Hayek and His holy Father, Mises, and facts? They don’t need no steenkin’ facts, indeed the Austerian will sneer at your data saying “you can’t measure economic activity with statistics”, they don’t need facts, they have faith!

Well, if their faith is so strong, how about every member of the Catfood Commission volunteer to give up his cushy six-figure salary and retirement pension and live on the same amount of dough that they're proposing that *other* people live on? But they won't do it. Because they're hypocrites, pure and simple -- hypocrites whose theme song should be "serfing USA" 'cause that's what their intention is, yessiree.

-- Badtux the Economics Penguin