[bruinbirdman]

"The indebted West is in a frightening bind: damned if it does, and equally damned if it doesn't. "

This final sentence leaves something to be desired? Looks like a prediction of gloom/doom.

Since the end of WWII, in the West, inflation has been the answer.

The taxpayer ends up paying through the silent tax for what the government has provided yet failed to tax them for directly.

The secret, in the end, has always been to be able to stay ahead of inflation.

yitbos

[BfloGuy]

In the 1920's, Europe attempted to return to the gold standard which had served them so well prior to WWI. Stupidly, though, they set their exchange rates at pre-War pegs even though wartime inflation had greatly reduced the value of their currencies.

This instantly caused their export industries to seize up and brought about a continent-wide slowdown. A grinding deflation occurred but was hindered by the powerful unions which refused to take wage cuts. Mass layoffs followed.

Now, it was not the gold standard that caused the problems, but its ersatz implementation. Soon, Europe embarked on a massive inflation (all the while pretending to be faithful to the gold standard) and convinced the U.S. to follow suit so as not to have too much of a currency advantage.

The Fed graciously agreed and the ensuing money supply expansion eventually led to the Crash of '29 and the Great Depression. Europe dropped its phony gold standard and let its currencies sink to their market values and recovered quickly. The U.S., however, under FDR, implemented the New Deal which suppressed business recovery here until it, too, was dropped after WWII.

Pritchard is wrong. There was no austerity, just government-induced suffering.