Austerity Killing You? How About a Trade Deal? [View all]

[marmar]

from HuffPost:


Robert Kuttner
Co-founder and co-editor, 'The American Prospect'

Austerity Killing You? How About a Trade Deal?
Posted: 01/04/2015 10:36 pm EST Updated: 01/04/2015 10:59 pm EST


Europe is right on the edge of another downward lurch into prolonged deflation. GDP growth is hovering right around zero. Germany, as an export powerhouse, continues to thrive, but at the expense of the rest of the continent -- victims of German-imposed budget austerity demands. The euro, which keeps sinking against the U.S. dollar, is now trading at just $1.20, its lowest level in four and a half years.

Unemployment outside prosperous Germany remains stuck at over 12 percent. All of this weakens the political center that supports the EU, and increases the appeal of far-right parties. (You wonder if Europe's leaders bother to read their own history. When there is protracted depression and desperate people, nasty things have been known to happen in this part of the world.)

The one institution that intermittently challenges Angela Merkel's government in Berlin, the European Central Bank, is mostly a paper tiger. ECB chief Mario Draghi talks a good game about doing whatever it takes to levitate Europe's moribund economy. But when push comes to shove, Draghi stops far short of the aggressive bond-buying program used by the American Federal Reserve, for fear of antagonizing the Germans who continue to think Europe can deflate its way to recovery.

So what does Europe have left? It is a mark of the delusion of Europe's leaders that the EU is putting its chips on a trade deal with the U.S. -- the so-called Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership. TTIP is not really a trade deal at all but a series of measures intended to promote further deregulation of economic, financial, health, labor, safety, privacy, and environmental protections on both sides of the Atlantic. TTIP was designed by corporations to weaken labor and government -- and would do just about nothing to get Europe out of its austerity trap.

.....(snip).....

The fact that neo-liberalism has dismally failed seems not to have fazed Europe's leaders. This struggle is about power, not about evidence or practical success. The corporations and bankers on both sides of the Atlantic make more money when they are subject to fewer social constraints, even when the economy is flat and tens of millions of people are jobless. ................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-kuttner/austerity-killing-you-how_b_6414534.html