Oh, good:
European countries should ease off their austerity and adopt more growth-friendly policies, U.S. Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew said Monday as he kicked off a series of meetings with the region's top leaders.
Anyone paying attention knows that
austerity is an
ongoing disaster in
Europe. Even the
International Monetary Fund has figured that out.
Lew, who became treasury secretary in February, started his first official trip to Europe with a meeting with EU Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso. He also met the EU's top economic and monetary official, Commissioner Olli Rehn, and EU Council President Herman Van Rompuy.
"I was particularly interested in our European partners' plans to strengthen sources of demand at a time of rising unemployment," he said, speaking alongside Van Rompuy.
Has Lew talked to
his boss lately? Cutting Social Security is
the wrong solution to a problem that doesn't exist. Austerity on the backs of the elderly. And it exacerbates a demand crisis by taking money away from the people who are most likely to spend it.
Austerity already has begun with sequestration. Neither the economy as a whole nor millions of people as individuals can afford the disaster that would be chained CPI. Why would the administration even be considering it?
