Austerity

Ireland's Rebound Is European Blarney

By FINTAN O’TOOLEJAN. NYT 10, 2014

O’Toole questions the claimed wonder of fiscal austerity--

“After five years of austerity, it is shocking but hardly surprising that one in four Irish children are growing up in households in which no one at all is in paid employment.”

“The policy of No Bondholder Left Behind, on which the European Central Bank insisted, has been staggeringly expensive. To put it in perspective, the European Union has just agreed to create a fund of $75 billion to deal with all future banking crises in its member states. Tiny Ireland has spent $85 billion bailing out its own banks.”

Why is it that the banks have come out smelling like a rose when it was their lack of wisdom that created the problem in the first place?