Covid-19 and the need for Conspiracies

Covid-19 has been with us for six months, from early December 2019 until now, May 2020. It is not going away any time soon. Another thing that is not going away is the opportunity for perfectly normal people to believe and share almost any conspiracy theory that you can imagine. I admit that I have been losing my temper with people, and have probably endangered some friendships by telling people to stop spouting complete rubbish.

But rubbish seems to be easy to spread, and difficult to refute. And so often, it seems that as soon as one theory has been put to bed, another must be found to take its place. I have come to the conclusion that some people desperately need Covid-19 to be part of a conspiracy, and not simply the pandemic spread of a novel virus. Yes, the situation is pretty fundamentally out of our control, and we like control. Take away control of someone's life, and they will respond accordingly. Let people feel they have control, if only in that they have a mental framework within which to place the happenings of the world around them, and they will thrive and shine.

Throw entire populations into a pandemic and a not-insignificant number of people will seek any way to reassert "control", and the best way is to demonstrate a greater understanding and hidden knowledge. The ability to provide "the answer" gives each of us a little more control over what is happening around us. We can do that by trusting the science and "mainstream news", and by reading as widely as possible. Or we can do that by seeking out the easy answers that prove that this is not a natural event. A natural event that many leading scientists and thinkers have been predicting for decades.

So here are some of the conspiracy theories that I've had fill up my in-box, my Facebook feed, WhatsApp, and otherwise 'reasonable but fringe' websites. Frequently they come with a "watch this before it is removed from the Internet" or "watch and share before it is censored". Some of the more outlandish articles have statements like "Facebook and the MSM (Mainstream Media) are trying to silence me. Support me getting the Truth out". 

I am only mentioning some here. I'm not even going to attempt to refute any, because frankly I am already exhausted from doing that when friends sent or told me these "new theories" as to why Covid-19 is here, or why it is not the such a problem. If they have one thing in common, it is that they are presented, written or on video, in calm, authoritative voices meant to soothe by their competence.

There is a warehouse full of drugs

Before there was even a Lockdown, I sat down with a friend who told me, conspiratorially of course, that this was baked up by Big Pharma, and that soon (back in February) there would be an announcement that a drug exists that can treat Covid-19, and that Big Pharma already has stockpiles of the drug ready to be distributed. And of course, the shareholders and the companies special friends and politicians were going to make billions. Mark my words, billions.

In fact, just like with tobacco companies, the CEOs of Big Pharma all got into a room and agreed that this time it is 's turn, and next time it will be another company's turn. I'm now asking them when will the warehouse full of drugs be unveiled. Being fair, for a short while it appeared that Hydroxycloroquine was exactly that drug, with warehouses full of the stuff.

It's just the flu

No, it isn't. Really. We know the flu, and we have vaccines for the flu. And we will have vaccines for Covid-19 one day, but not now. And China does not lock down 400 million people and tank it economy over a flu. In addition, the annual death toll from flu has already been exceeded, by far. But hey, this is no worse than the flu. Everyone has had it, and for almost everyone, it has been so mild that they didn't even know they had it. You'll see, when they can test everyone for antibodies, everyone (or most people) will already have antibodies.

It is caused by 5G

Probably the most stupid of the lot, however, has been the claim that Covid-19 is caused by 5G and electromagnetic waves. Video after video sent to me from such smart people, showing other so smart people talking soothingly and authoritatively that viruses actually come from within the body and are created by 5G and other electromagnetic waves. And, we should remember that in 1917 electromagnetic energy increased as international radio systems were introduced. It was almost fun to refute this one, until it was shared with my once too often. Finally, I started refuting other conspiracies by saying that whatever they were drivelling on about next was wrong, because the real cause of Covid-19 was 5G. I’m not sure everyone understood my irony.

It is a Bill Gates plot

The hatred and envy embedded in this are actually quite sad. If he is that rich, and has been focusing on malaria and other vaccines (and a vast range of other public health issues) for decades, it must be because he wants everyone vaccinated with a microchip to track everything we do. Why? Because he is evil. Oh, and (thankfully this has only been intimated and not overtly stated to me) he must be part of the Illuminati and the global conspiracy to take away our rights to own guns and not be vaccinated. Yeah, right.

It was made in a lab (in China)

No, it wasn't. It may have escaped from a lab due to clumsy practices, but it was not "made in a lab". I was sent a video explaining that the virus contains HIV DNA and that the splice-marks were visible in the DNA. That video seems to have sunk into the bog where it belongs, though I have every confidence it will resurface again and again. This also allows for the use of the phrase "China Virus" as a form of dog-whistle racism. "But it came from China", gets a retort from me of "then we should be calling it the Kansas Flu, because it did not come out of Spain, but out of Kansas".

Death rates are inflated

The reported death rates are false and inflated. Anyone who dies in a nursing home is counted as a Covid-19 victim. Well, if anything, the numbers are being undercounted simply because countries have been overwhelmed by the numbers of death, and the inability to test all corpses.  This is not to say that all countries have bodies in the streets as was seen in early March in Guayaquil in Ecuador. Not at all. But in many countries, morgue and mortician services have been overwhelmed. They are designed to handle a certain number, the average number, of deaths on any given day or any week. Covid-19 death rates are higher than these averages.

The WHO will pay you for "Victims"

                    

In the US, this is "the federal government pays states more if they have more victims, so Blue states are exaggerating the deaths for money". This conspiracy theory is a little more insidious, as in fact the WHO (and the federal government) and other organisations are providing additional financial support and grants to countries (or states) with higher deaths. But the reason is pretty simple. Sick people place a higher economic burden on already stretched resources. Therefore, in order to mitigate or hopefully avoid a collapse in local healthcare services, more resources (including financial) are applied where the need is highest.

Finally, this is all (China's, the WHO's, Obama's) Fault

A new virus leaps the species boundary, as has happened at least 2 other times since 2000 (SARS-1 and MERS), or has mutated from a previous form (various Influenza viruses), yet it has to be someone's fault. Being able to blame someone or something for the mysterious appearance of the virus is a way to regain personal control over the narrative.

Instead, maybe we should be looking at how the pandemic has been managed. In this, we do have a modicum of control, in that most of us live in or are citizens of countries in which we will be able to express our confidence in leadership at the ballot box. If we cannot vote in a particular country, we can at least raise our voices to remind people who can, of the quality of leadership in their country. New Zealand stands out for effective national leadership, as does Greece. Both countries have experienced far lower infection and death rates due directly to the quality of national leadership.

It is easy to contrast that with the United States and the United Kingdom; two countries in which the national scientific and health infrastructures should have been able to provide leadership with the information needed to respond effectively. Both countries have failed. National “leadership” (or lack of) in the United States continues to be an embarrassment and is contributing to that country’s shockingly high death toll. But there is hope, and if the best way to regain control from the conspiracy theorists is to vote, then there is hope for the US in November, though not for the UK for a few years.

In Closing

Some people need conspiracies. Without conspiracies, the world becomes both tiresome and unpredictable at the same time, and they have to acknowledge that they do not understand the machinations that arrive at various outcomes. I've heard perfectly reasonable people tell me that the "Jews" control the world and that the Washington Post is the "Rothschild-Post" and thereby explaining why you cannot trust anything that they write. Pointing out that Jeff Bezons bought it in 20013 just gets met with puzzlement and a shrug of the shoulders.

Of course, some conspiracies theories turn out to be right. But Covid-19 is not caused by 5G, Bill Gates is a philanthropist and not an evil genius attempting to have everyone vaccinated with some "mark of the beast", and no, Covid-19 was not manufactured by pharmaceutical companies as a way of making billions of dollars. We don't need conspiracy theories to understand how this happened; we need only look at the incompetence of leadership in so many countries.

Unless incompetent leadership is itself the conspiracy?

The wars of European Unification - What lies ahead?

When we look into history, we see periods when it seems obvious what the outcome was going to be, and wonder how they could not or did not see it coming during those times. Take the expansion of Rome from about 210 BC through about 150 AD, or the rise of the British Empire from 1700 to 1900. There is also the rise of the United States in its first three-quarters of a century. Then we can look at Europe from about 1870 to 2030. In the middle of any of those periods, it would not have been obvious that there was a peak coming, followed by stability and decline, or civil war.

One thing that distinguished each of these historical eras was the growth of empire, apparent unending upside, followed by limits, competitors on the periphery, conflict and civil war (across the greater empires, if not in the core). Is this what we should expect of the German Europe Empire Union?

In each of the first two examples, history shows us the rise and rise of the empires and civilisations, the peaks and the beginnings of their declines. Rome in 210 BC was fighting an existential war with Carthage, or so it seemed at the time. Yet through the eyes of history, Roman domination seems inevitable; Carthage simply was not a match, and Hannibal was never going to get Latins to fully abandon alliances with Rome, a prerequisite for Carthaginian victory. Later, Britain expanded into India and North America, Australia, New Zealand and various parts of Africa, but reached its peak and the strains on empire eventually pulled it apart. By the middle of the nineteenth century, pressures were building, and the second great spasm to hit the empire occurred with the Indian Mutiny (the first being the rebellion in the North American colonies). The British Empire survived, but by 1900 it becomes clear that the next century would be one of disengagement from Empire.

Will historians look back at the Franco-Prussian War (1870) as the first of the three great wars of European Unification under the hegemony of the German Empire? And as war is the continuation of politics by other means (Clausewitz, 1827), was the failure of the wars to accomplish the political objective then replaced by the politics of acquiescence by countries exhausted by war, fearful of a re-industrialised and again potentially imperial Germany? After all, the very embryos of what became the EEC and then the EU were attempts to contain post-WWII Germany; containment that ultimately failed with Germany once again becoming the economic and industrial powerhouse of Europe.

Our other example from history could be the United States of America from 1776 through 1850. American independence from the United Kingdom was hard won, and through a series of almost Roman campaigns over the following 75 years, a Union was formed. While American (European) technology and organisational skills were sufficiently advanced to make the subjugation of the natives almost a foregone conclusion, it probably did not appear to be that pre-ordained at the time. 

I have selected 1850 for the United States, and 1900 for the British Empire, and 100 AD for the Roman Empire, because these are the rough dates at which we can see the stresses appearing, that ultimately lead either to the long retreat, or to civil war before renewed expansion. Each of these empires reached levels of expansion that tested their organisational and political systems, alliances and ultimately stretch them to their limits, while also putting them into too-close proximity with emerging blocks or nations/groups that do not wish to be assimilated (and whose "power" is adequate to counter the residual level of power available to the Empire at its outer fringe..

So is Europe and the EU at its 100 AD, 1900, or 1850 point yet? Certainly, the wars of European Unification failed to accomplish the goal that has been achieved through peaceful politics. Europe is now a unified imperial power centred on Brussels, but under the effective economic control of a few "member states" of that union. Like the Romans before them, Germanic Europe has created a politically unified hegemony over much of the continent, and happily exercises that power in the suppression of local politics, or actively sides with the regional satrapies in the suppression of dissent in their regions. 

If we look far enough back, we see Rome arbitrating over the succession of Masinissa as the king of the Numidians, and we see the Romans continuing to support Masinissa as the King of all Numidia, and in his disputes with Carthage. Of course, their support for Masinissa came at the expense of Carthage, and eventually precipitated the Third Punic War and the destruction of Carthage. Today we see "Brussels" supporting Madrid in their dispute with the Catalonians, ensuring continued suppression of Catalonian independence and the continued imposition of the Spanish culture and language on the Catalonians. 

And Catalonia in Europe is not alone. Almost every European country has its ethnic and national minorities, some seeking independence and others comfortable that their cultures are protected, even if that means subjugation within a larger nation-state. The Breton in France and the Welsh in the United Kingdom are good examples of nationalities that are attempting to protect and even promote their national cultures and languages within existing countries. And for these two, close relatives that they are, the years of suppression of language and culture are mercifully in the past. In neither are there "national movements" seeking independence, though there is in each a greater awareness of their culture and language.

But other groups within Europe do seek independence to a greater or lesser extent. Northern Italy is a different country from Southern Italy, and while the south is comfortable with that single national identity, many in the north would happily forge a different national path.

The Balkans remain a mixture of independent nations and cultures, and languages. Their civil war of the 1990s should have been a wake-up call and warning of the dangers of an overbearing central government, but instead is viewed as the poster-child for the dangers of nationalism. Without the overly powerful central government, demonstrably supportive of the desire and needs of one community within the Yugoslav nation, nationalism would not have been a problem. So which came first, excessive control perceived to be in the hands of one national group, or the rise of nationalism on the part of the many national groups within Yugoslavia?

The current European government is not in danger of repeating that error; it is actively repeating that error, to the very visible detriment of European national groups. 

The "European Project" today is pushing up against a combination of barriers, each of which can be managed, but like all empires, it is the combination of barriers and pressures that result in stagnation, civil war and ultimately slow (and sometimes fast) decline and fall. While the countries will remain - there were follow-on nation-states after the fall of Rome and the retreat of the British Empires. The European Empire's barriers are both external and internal.

Externally the European Empire is boxed in; to the east by the still existent and now re-expanding Russian Empire, while to the west, the United States has evolved from mentor to competitor to adversary. To the south, the entire African continent views Europe as either a former colonial master to be soaked, or the future of on their poor populations. 

Internally the threats are just as strong, and mainly come as a result of imperial over-reach by Brussels and their German masters (and French lapdogs), aided by Benelux intolerant and culturally domineering liberalism. The nations of Eastern Europe do not accept the idea that the dominant liberalism represents the only "core value" of European nations. These are conservative countries with populations that remember totalitarian rule, and in many cases remember personally starvation and impoverishment after the fall of those regimes with the collapse of the Soviet Union. Their current economic conditions, while far superior to their condition under the Soviet system, comes at the cost of what they believe are their core, conservative and predominantly "Christian" values. In many cases, the younger and more "liberal" members of their societies have migrated westward, and those who remain see no reason to cast aside their historic prejudices and values.

Further, the incompetent handling of the migrant crisis, with edicts from Brussels that countries must accept certain numbers of illegal migrants, harkens back to the rule of the Soviets who likewise demanded that countries accept Russian migrants (and troops).

As mentioned earlier, there is also the perception that the centre will be more than willing to punish any country or nation that does not follow the edicts and instructions of the centre, all in the name of "helping them". Recently, Former Finance Minister and now President of the German Parliament, Wolfgang Schaeuble said “as minister of finance, I had asked for a lot from the Greeks, but these reforms had been in the interest of the Greeks if they wanted to stay in the eurozone,”

This is the same man who told Yanis Varofakis that "elections cannot be allowed to change economic policy" or to put it more simply, the EU, German, the ECB and the IMF did not care who the Greek people voted for, and that they would punish Greece for even asking for debt relief. Another way of looking at this; no German or French banks will be harmed by the lending that they provided, even knowing that the loans could never be repaid.

Yanis Varofakis wrote, "Of course he had a point: democracy had indeed died the moment the Eurogroup acquired the authority to dictate economic policy to member states without anything resembling federal democratic sovereignty."

Such situations will only continue to increase the dissatisfaction within the empire (oops, Union), with the result that Brexit will not be the last event in the disintegration of the European Empire  Union but will be seen in history as the first event.

So returning to the question of looking back on Europe from 2040 or 2050, or further in the future. Will the Wars of European Unification give way to the First European Civil War?

Here we look again at the American experience, in which the period of expansion between 1776 (independence from the United Kingdom) and 1850 pushed the boundaries of centralised power versus the power at the individual state level. Eventually, the issue of slavery, dressed up as a "States Rights" issue was to tear the country in half. Slavery was not the only issue, but underlying any of the other issues was the principal issue of a State's right to allow slavery.

The rich and industrial North was pushing for the elimination of slavery, while the poorer and less industrialised South required slavery to provide the labour for the large landholders, and through them provide the economic foundation to support the rest of the South. While the percentage of actual slave owners in the South was fairly low, and the number of slaves individually owned was low, there were enough major (and minor) slave owners whose personal and community economic structures would be upended by emancipation. 

In modern European terms, the South simply needed to modify their economies and introduce labour and capital policies similar to the North, and all would be good. (Being very clear, Slavery was a blight on the South and the United States as a whole, and remains, unfortunately, a blight on the world. The very practice of defence of slavery is evil).

The problem faced by the South was that there was no way that they could restructure their economies without major upheaval and economic dislocation. The South could not, and never did become an industrial society that continued to power the Northern states long after the Civil War.

With this history in mind, and a quick review of the current European economic situation, we find a similar situation (thankfully without slavery) of an industrial and "rich" North and a poorer South, bound by a common currency and a central power authority that favours and indeed is directed by the North.

Greece has provided an example to all of how far the centre is willing to go to ensure that the rest of the South stays in line. And the Brexit fiasco provides additional evidence of the centre's willingness, and intention, to punish any who think they have the right to make their own decisions.

This will work for some time. But for how long. And will the final pulling apart of the European Empire Union be peaceful, or like the United States, will a Civil War be fought in Europe, the Centre against the East and South?

If the Wars of European Unification are anything to go by, we already know how the sides will be drawn, with the big difference this time being that the "Central Powers" of Germany and Austria may well include a new "Central" of France and the Benelux countries.

How soon might this happen? It is hard to say, but the rhetoric out of Brussels and outright hostility to (and from) the Eastern members suggests that it may be years and not decades away. While the Treaty of Lisbon contains the now famous Article 50, the defection of multiple countries and the very visible shrinking of the European Empire Union may be more than the centre will allow. 

To see the future of the West, study New Zealand’s and Zimbabwe's crises

How long can the worlds' gluttony for debt continue? Seemingly forever, until it cannot. That was the experience of New Zealand in the 1970s and early 1980s when government subsidies ruled the economy until the country went broke. 

(Summary: New Zealand radically liberalised the economy, suffered through terrible social and economic pain, and emerged as a modern, vibrant and growing economy. Growing debt cannot last forever, and when a country hits the wall, it can go the way of New Zealand through the pain and recovery, or the way of Zimbabwe to more debt and devaluation, inflation and longer pain with not gain. Europe and the US have this in their future, we just cannot guess when, and we cannot guess which choice they will make.)

Through the first half of the twentieth century, New Zealand’s close ties to England ensured a steady flow of lamb and milk products from the former colony to “blighty”, at economic terms that benefited both the UK and New Zealand. This ensured that the New Zealand agrarian and rural economy continued to grow, benefiting the entire country. This also allowed for subsidies on imported goods, and on good assembled in New Zealand from imported parts (such as automobiles).

That could not and did not last forever. 

When the UK joined the European Common Market, they were required to abandon their Commonwealth trading relationships and imposed the common European trading relations, which included protectionism for European economies. New Zealand suffered. But so did Australia.

After Britain had joined the EEC Australian butter exports dropped by more than 90 percent; the Australian apple trade declined from 86,000 tonnes in 1975 to just 27,000 tonnes in 1990. The economic consequences of Britain's European ambitions for Australia were severe.

New Zealand was hit even harder, with pre-EM exports to the UK accounting for up to 55% of all exports (1958 – 1960), with 90% of milk and butter going to the UK, and over 95% of lamb (and 80% of mutton). This export market had grown New Zealand sheep populations into the 60+ million sheep, or 15 sheep for every Kiwi.

The short story is that with the loss of the UK markets, the New Zealand government and the National Party (the conservative and party of rural and agricultural New Zealand) attempted to hold up farming and rural incomes through subsidies. Up to 40% of the value of a sheep was in subsidies.

The only problem was that the National government (the conservative party) was running deficits like crazy to fund the range of subsidies, and the deficits were doing exactly what should be expected, devaluing the currency and increasing national debt servicing costs. Inflation was high, and a wage and price freeze did nothing to alleviate the problem, and international pressure was undermining the value of the currency.

And they continued to build that debt, and pay the subsidies, until one day the money ran out, or more realistically, until National and the Prime Minister were told by Treasury that the money was going to run out. The crisis had arrived.

So, having kicked the can down the road as long as they could, heaping subsidy on subsidy, hoping that it would all fall apart under the “next” guy’s administration, they ran out of money. It was their problem.

What to do?

Well, Robert Muldoon did what any responsible politician and Prime Minister should do – he got drunk and while drunk, called a snap election, knowing full well that National would lose, and the problem would be Labour’s.

Not surprisingly, National lost, and Labour won. A multi-year devaluation of the currency, ballooning sovereign debt payments, rising unemployment, and a disconnection from urban New Zealand meant it was time for a change.

The only small problem was that the day after Labour won, NZ Treasury went to the new (soon to be installed) government and said “Sorry to tell you this, but there is no money for your programme. In fact, you might not even be able to make the sovereign debt payment that is due soon.”

The can had been kicked as far and as long as possible.

So began years of economic restructuring in New Zealand, with years of associated pain up and down society. With no subsidies, large numbers of farms became financially unsustainable, with bankruptcies and forced sales. There were stories of farmers committing suicide as the auctioneers arrived at the properties.

Automobile assembly plants closed with the loss of jobs. Imports rocketed in price, and taxes increased to nose-bleed levels. I remember 66% income tax over a (fairly low) level.

Labour had the courage to throw away their platform and enact wide-ranging economic reforms. The pain was incredible. 75,000 manufacturing jobs and over 20,000 jobs in the public sector were lost in the five years from 1987 - 1992. With the pain of liberalising the economy, employment began to grow again through the 1990s, and New Zealand became one of the most open economies in the OECD (from a position of being the least open of 24 OECD economies in 1984).

The sale of State Owned Enterprises resulted in both massive pain, exportation of profits from the privatised industries (such as Telecom NZ), but also the modernisation of industries that remained in government hands as businesses (such as NZ Post), most of which became profitable businesses returning an ongoing dividend stream to the Crown (NZ Government).

Unlike New Zealand, when Zimbabwe hit the wall of national debt, they kept printing money and borrowing, resulting in devaluation and inflation, and ultimately a ruined economy (with a little help from property confiscations and destruction of businesses). 

  

Looking at the chart above, national debt exploded to almost 140% of GDP, dropped, then peaked again at 147% of GDP before dropping again. Why did it drop? Without even minimum fiscal discipline, international lenders simply would not buy Zimbabwean national debt at any price, and maturing debt had to be repaid – with printed money. The cycle repeated, and debt to GDP has stabilised around 80%. 

What stopped the international community? When “the inflation rate reached a peak of 89.7 sextillion (10^21) percent” in 2008.

New Zealand, by contrast, managed to keep inflation, while high for a period, relatively under control, and the economic reforms and fiscal discipline provided the comfort required to manage international expectations of the value of the currency. Inflation peaked before Muldoon was forced out (by his own policies) and was brought under control by the Lange government.

The national debt was also brought under control and paid down, and while spending and borrowing have increased, debt to GSP ratio remains well under 30%; healthy by international standards, and simply low by OECD and “First World” standards. 

  

Where to the “West”?

Current debt levels in Europe and the United States are simply unsustainable. And yet the borrowing continues, and balanced budgets (forget about paying down debt) so not exist in any of the major European countries or the US. This cannot continue forever, and the real question is equally simple:

Will the “West” chose the New Zealand route of hard choices and “short term” (3 – 5 years) pain, or the Zimbabwean choice of continued printing of money, devaluation, and hyperinflation?

The following graphic shows the results of the choice made by New Zealand, and the choice made by Zimbabwe. The grey is 1994, blue is 2004, and green is 2014. Zimbabwe’s choice effectively destroyed their economy and they have lost more than a decade. New Zealand’s choice has, after a difficult period in the 1980s and early 1990s, resulted in a consistent and solid growth.

 'C' = Household consumption expenditure, 'G' = General government final consumption expenditure, 'I' = Gross capital formation, 'X' = Exports of goods and services, 'M' = Imports of goods and services

http://zyaneconomics.appspot.com/#/finmodel/

What New Zealand in the 1970s and early 1980s also shows us is that politicians will continue with their profligacy until they cannot. They will keep kicking the can down the road until they cannot. They will keep hoping that their policies can continue until the “next guy” has to deal with it.

We know this because it already happened, in New Zealand and then, to a lesser extent, in 2008, resulting in TARP and bailouts of industries that lasted for years in the US and across Europe. 

Unfortunately, the ammunition to replicate that kind of stimulus probably no longer exists, and as with Zimbabwe, the first period of money printing did not teach politicians that this was a major danger, but seems to have taught them that they can do it again, and again. Now the Fed (in the US) and the ECB (in Europe) face the problem of QT - Quantitative Tightening, a process as fraught with risk as the original QE. Growing economies do not like restrictions on the money supply.

So what choices will the politicians make next time? Whatever the answer, I suspect we will see the results before long.

Stop talking about Austerity as you have no idea what that means

It is disgusting to hear the British and French bleat on about the horrors of Austerity, as if they actually had any idea of what they are talking about.

My friend Andrew Brice in Wellington, New Zealand has produced some simple but effective graphs that showing GDP growth across the world from 1994 to 2014. Looking at the graphs for somewhere like Greece, and you quickly see what Austerity really means.He is graphing World Bank data since 1994 on a range of economic data points for all countries. While not setting out to show "Austerity", the graphical presentation does provide some interesting information. His site can be found here.

I've selected four countries for the chart below: France, Greece, Spain and the United Kingdom.

Notice how the GDP points expand fairly uniformly for France and the UK. Each point on the spider diagram, for the three reference years, shows growth, indicating and reasonably balanced growing of the various key elements of GDP.

Not Greece, in which that growth virtually implodes for 4 of the five factors between 2004 and 2014. Only 'X' - Exports, continues to grow, and that at a slower rate than the previous decade. Household consumption, General government, Gross capital formation and Imports all collapsed. Gross Capital Formation is less than it was in 1994.

Spain looks only marginally better.

Yet for the UK and France, all five indicators continue to expand through the crisis and into the second decade of this century.

GDP growth graphs for http://zyaneconomics.appspot.com/#/finmodel/

In the UK and France, governments have attempted to bring spending under control, and in large measure have failed miserably.

Oxfam's report on Austerity in the UK is a wonderful example of not understanding reality. "Since 2010, austerity – primarily in the form of deep spending cuts with comparatively small increases in tax – has been the UK government’s dominant fiscal policy, with far fewer measures to stimulate the economy. The stated aim of austerity was to reduce the deficit in the UK to give confidence to the markets and therefore deliver growth to the economy. While austerity measures have had some impact on reducing the deficit, they have delivered little growth, and public debt has risen from 56.6 per cent of GDP in July 2009 to 90 per cent of GDP (£1.39 trillion) in 2013."

It is almost as if "Austerity" actually only means "we cannot have everything that we want". Economies just balance what is required to keep the lights on, tax rates that do not disincentive investment, balanced against social programmes that effectively avoid rioting and revolution. In which case Austerity has become the a rejection of a "give me mine" mentality.

Yet contrast that with 10 things the Greeks cannot do (from July 2015 at the height of the crisis). If you want to see real austerity, look at Greece. Could the UK or French governments survive cutting pensions by greater than 50%. Or unemployment higher than 25% (and 50% for under 26 year olds)? What would Oxfam say to 45% of pensioners living below the poverty level, and food consumption dropping by almost 30%?

United Kingdom

Looking at the GPD growth chart for the UK it is almost easy to see the source of discontent. Yet it needs to be remembered that the economy has continued to grow (once over the Global Financial Crisis - GFC - induced great recession) and is now larger then it was in 2008.

UK GDP Growth, 1994 - 2014
Note the continued expansion of all five elements

 
Personal income has (as of 2015) grown to exceed personal income, inflation adjusted, pre-GFC. It took a long to time recover, and certainly the average POME (Prisoner of Mother England, or is that short for Pomme de Terre?) has had a rough ride. But pensions have continued to be paid, the health service has continued to treat patients, and to expand the range of coverage and care provided. The economic effectiveness of that service may be up to question, but that is a factor of quality of provision, not total expenditure in GDP terms.

France

France is not significantly different, with growth across all five data points through the years. Yet France (and the French) are mired in a psychological paradigm that says that they are suffering, oh so horribly, from massive austerity. Each new president is elected on a promise of change, or in the case of Sarkozy, "rupture" with the past. Yet for twenty years, each new president has been met by strikes at the mere hint of market reform legislation, strikes lasting weeks and covering the entire country sometimes. Each president has caved. Even the French military has a better (much) record of refusing to surrender.

France GDP Growth, 1994 - 2014
Not bad for coming through the GFC

Yet looking at the image above, you would think that France has had fairly steady growth, especially when you consider that between 2004 and 2014 there was the GFC knocking their economy into deep recession, and their being in a Europe that has seen lackluster growth at best over the past half decade.

Greece

Turning to Greece, we see a very different graph, in which the only growth has been in exports. The years between 1994 and 2004 showed good growth, in line with the UK and France. Yet with the GFC and their debt crisis, loss of sovereignty and destruction of the social welfare system, the years 2004 and 2014 we can see what austerity really means.

Greek GDP Growth, 1994 - 2014

The collapse in Greek GDP growth has been across the board, with only exports growing past 2004 levels, and that only marginally. The other four indicators have all collapsed, with Gross capital formation falling to below 1994 levels.

Compare that to the GDP performance of Greece's four land-border neighbours; Albania, Bulgaria, Macedonia (well, okay, the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedoia to give it the official name) and Turkey. All four have experienced consistent and continual GDP growth.

 These countries have come through revolutions, civil wars and military dictatorships, but have then spent 20 years growing. And growing. Meanwhile their Eurozone neighbour has suffered at the hands of creditors and "friendly" governments. "But it's all the Greeks fault, they are perfidious and profligate, and they borrowed the money". All true (well, except the perfidious). Yet looking at the rouges gallery of neighbours, can we really say that the Greeks are any worse?

Greek is in austerity. And this is real austerity; the kind that results from the markets losing faith, and the bankers engaging in as much Moral Hazard as the Greek government itself. Yet when the bill came due, the banks (as effectively representatives of other governments or the ECB and IMF) decided that only one side of the perfidious (and here I mean it) cabal would pay.

Summary

The United Kingdom and France should, to use the English colloquialism, "shut their pie-holes". They are not in austerity, and do not actually know that it means. They are living *slightly* above above their means, but continuing to borrow like drunken sailors.

True Austerity is Greece, and this is in their futures when the markets say "enough". Then we will see real austerity in those two countries, as government debt becomes unavoidable and unsustainable. Greece saw:

– 25%: Fall of gross domestic product
– 28%: Reduction in public sector employees
– 28.5%: Drop in food consumption
– 61%: Drop in average pension (833 euro)
– 45%: Number of pensioners living below the poverty line
– 26%: unemployment (50% at ages under 25)

This is the real face of austerity, and something the UK and France should really fear. Today's weak attempts to controls spending are only a start, and a poor one at that.