What Have We Here? The IMF Admitting They Were Wrong About Austerity?

Yes, boys ‘n’ girls,  This is amazing. I never believed this day would come.  It appears that the IMF has issued a Mea Culpa .

Late last Wednesday, the powerful International Monetary Fund (IMF), which led the Greek bailout three years ago, issued an extraordinary mea culpa, admitting it had underestimated the severity of the debt crisis and miscalculated — by a spectacular margin — the damage its harsh strictures would do.

You don’t say!

“Market confidence was not restored, the banking system lost 30 per cent of its deposits and the economy encountered a much deeper-than-expected recession with exceptionally high unemployment,” the global agency wrote in a 50-page report.

You’re only figuring this out now, IMF?  I could’ve sworn Paul Krugman, Joseph Stiglitz and a few others saying this for some time. In fact, Krugman often debunked this whole idea of some confidence fairy rewarding those who go austere.

Don’t hold your breath boys ‘n’ girls, The European Commission is still insisting that austerity is the holy grail to lead us to the promised land.

A spokesman for the bureaucracy that oversees the 27-member political union said it “fundamentally disagreed” with the IMF’s analysis. Had Greece not been forced to retrench dramatically, Simon O’Connor told reporters, there would have been “devastating consequences that would have destabilized the rest of the euro countries.”

Yes, Simon ol’ chap, keep thinking that, if that’s what makes you sleep nights.  Dream on, boy!

Stevie Spiteful and his friends like Davy Cameron over in the UK  don’t care though. It’s that simple. I will say it again, they’re so miserable in their own lives that they feed off the suffering of others.

H/T: Owen Grey