http://socialistworker.org/2010/11/24/austerity-steroidsAusterity on steroids
The economic unraveling of Ireland highlights the severity of the financial crisis--and the increasingly severe government cutbacks that will be used to pay for it.
November 24, 2010
FIRST, THE government devotes enormous sums to bailing out the banks. That causes budget deficits to balloon. Then the government imposes austerity by cutting wages, raising regressive taxes and slashing social spending.
This is the essence of what happened in Ireland to lead to the approximately $114 billion "rescue" of the economy by the European Union (EU). The same happened to Greece before Ireland, and the dynamics have been similar in the U.S. and other countries.
It's an international drive to impose austerity--from European bureaucrats twisting arms in Dublin and Athens, to the bipartisan gang in the U.S. that wants to carve up Social Security and Medicare. The same people who spared no expense when the banks were in trouble now want working people to pay for it all.
The EU's deal for Ireland, reached November 21, could fall apart if the Irish parliament, the Dail, fails to approve a proposed austerity budget in a vote set for December 7. But if it does fail, the "troika" of the EU, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) will keep up the pressure.
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The reality is that in the U.S., as in Ireland, there's always enough money to prop up the bankers. But when the needs of working people are at stake--needs that have been dramatically increased by the impact of the recession--we're told to make do with less.
This international squeeze on workers will continue until labor and social movements are strong enough to pose a challenge. The mass strikes in Greece and France in recent months have shown the potential to resist, and protests in Ireland are now gearing up, too. The crisis continues--and so must the struggle.
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