Public Briefing: Erskine Bowles Determined to Reduce Private Sector Income, Stifle US Economy

Yves here. This is the second and final post in a series by Michael Hoexter; you can find Part 1 here. I though this one works well as a stand-alone piece and also is accessible to generalist audiences (as in NC readers might find it useful to send it on in part or in whole to colleagues).

Michael Hoexter is a policy analyst and marketing consultant on green issues, climate change, clean and renewable energy, and energy efficiency. Originally published at New Economic Perspectives.


Bowles Would Have Us Repeat the Errors of the Euro-Zone

That Bowles is currently lionized in Washington policy circles is particularly striking given the slow-motion economic catastrophe occurring within the Euro-Zone. Bowles’s ignorance or willful disregard of macroeconomic accounting processes and insistence that the US government institute laws that reflect that ignorance, repeats the errors made by the Euro-Zone countries when they signed the Maastricht Treaty in 1992. With a more than adequate understanding of macroeconomic accounting, Wynne Godley predicted in 1992 that the Euro Zone would not withstand a substantial financial crisis because of the budgetary restrictions required by the Treaty. The 3% limits in budget deficits to GDP mandated by the treaty indicated to Godley already at the formation of the Euro-Zone that its founders were woefully ignorant of the stabilizing, supporting and leadership role of government in the economy, especially during times of crisis.