If at First You Don't Succeed

When we fail, we get back on the horse. That's just how it works. Try and try again. Keep working at it until you've gotten it. Don't stop.

This kind of grit has gotten a lot of people a long way. The determination to fix our problems is - in my humble anthropological and psychological opinion - part of what makes us human beings. Try and try again.

Of course, this can-do attitude can and does morph into stubbornness, which is not always a good thing. If the same "solutions" repeatedly fail to fix a problem, perhaps we should try something new? Sometimes, we need to change our approach to things even as we maintain our determination. The statement "he believes the same thing on Wednesday that he believed on Monday - no matter what happened Tuesday"

This is currently the state of Europe's economy, and the Europeans really are not learning from their mistakes. There is a problem - recession - and there is a proposed solution - austerity. The proposed solution has been failing for a few years in multiple countries, but there is no attempt to change the solution. European austerity just recently necessitated the bailout of Spanish banks. If things are happening in Europe, they're getting worse, not better.

As much as I hope for Europe to get its collective act together for the sake of the world economy and suffering, unemployed Europeans, I hope that America will watch the failed economic experiment happening across the pond and inject some energy and money into spurring our own economy. I hope that we will realize that unemployment, not the deficit is the pressing issue facing America, and I hope that along with that realization comes the following revelation: if we can fix the economy we can cut into the deficit without raising taxes.

One would think and hope that the goal of fixing the American economy would be tantamount to both parities. One would also hope that Republicans could reconcile spending now with cuts and little or no tax raises later. At the very least, one would hope that austerity advocates could look objectively at the impending collapse of the Eurozone (I'm admittedly accepting a worse case scenario) and reach the conclusion that austerity has failed Europe. We were lucky enough to be the lab rat that escaped the drug test, let's not force it on ourselves.

Unfortunately, it may be too late. American politicians have not, and seemingly will not take the steps needed to fix our economy. I keep hearing about spending cuts. Spending cuts are necessary...in the future. The American government can borrow money at historically low rates. Solvency and inflation are not pressing issues. We need a government that can prioritize problems and fix the most pressing ones first. Anyone who argues that fixing the deficit is going to fix the economy doesn't understand the economy. In fact just the opposite is true. Getting people back to work will help fix the deficit, and since none of the ominous predictions of the austerity hawks have come true (rampant inflation, high borrowing costs), and since we know that austerity is failing in Europe, why don't we try something different? Something like what you would learn in macroeconomics 101 for example.

It's nice to know that the get-it-done attitude that has made America and other nations successful still exists. It would be extra nice if we could temper that attitude with some objectivity and analysis before it spirals completely out of control and leads us into an economic disaster worse than the one we currently face.