"...a full 95% of the cash that went to Greece ran a trip through Greece and went straight back to creditors which in plain English is banks. So, public taxpayers money was pushed through Greece to basically bail out banks...So austerity becomes a side effect of a general policy of bank bailouts that nobody wants to own. That's really what happened, ok?
Why are we peddling nonsense? Nobody wants to own up to a gigantic bailout of the entire European banking system that took six years. Austerity was a cover.
If the EU at the end of the day and the Euro is not actually improving the lives of the majority of the people, what is it for? That's the question that they've brought no answer to.
...the Hamptons is not a defensible position. The Hamptons is a very rich area on Long Island that lies on low lying beaches. Very hard to defend a low lying beach. Eventually people are going to come for you.
What's clear is that every social democratic party in Europe needs to find a new reason to exist. Because as I said earlier over the past 20 years they have sold their core constituency down the line for a bunch of floaters in the middle who don't protect them or really don't particularly care for them. Because the only offers on the agenda are basically austerity and tax cuts for those who already have, versus austerity, apologies, and a minimum wage."
Mark Blyth
Although I may not agree with every particular that Mark Blyth may say, directionally he is exactly correct in diagnosing the problems in Europe.
And yes, I am aware that the subtitles are at times in error, and sometimes outrageously so. Many of the errors were picked up and corrected in the comments.
No stimulus, no plans, no official actions, no monetary theories can be sustainably effective in revitalizing an economy that is as bent as these have become without serious reform at the first.
This was the lesson that was given by Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal. There will be no lasting recovery without it; it is a sine qua non. One cannot turn their economy around when the political and business structures are systemically corrupt, and the elites are preoccupied with looting it, and hiding their spoils offshore.
