Everyone did stimulus in 2009.

Just like everyone is doing austerity in 2010.

And if "doing stimulus" is how Germany got out of the crisis, countries that haven't still gotten out of the crisis should continue to do stimulus.

Nobody is claiming that the German debt brake caused anything before it was enacted. The claim is that the debt brake is strongly deflationary, which will only make growth more sluggish and debt more unsustainable in the future, and is therefore incredibly harebrained.

Keynesianism is intellectually hard, as evidenced by the inability of many trained economists to get it - Paul Krugman

If Belgium and Italy were able to handle this level debt, there's no reason for the markets to cut off credit to anyone in the Eurozone now. Therefore the markets are insane and support at below market prices (as opposed to punitive rates) should be provided by those parts of the Eurozone still enjoying access to the credit markets, for the sake of Eurozone financial stability.

Keynesianism is intellectually hard, as evidenced by the inability of many trained economists to get it - Paul Krugman

The ECB isn't doing its job. If the ECB were doing its job, the Irish sovereign would be funded at 0.0 %, and we wouldn't be having this discussion.

Since the ECB is obviously unresponsive to the plight of Irish widows and orphans, the Irish state has a duty to protect Irish widows and orphans, and incentivise the ECB to start doing its fucking job and printing money on demand at 0.0 % to sovereigns needing stimulus. The easiest way to incentivise proper behaviour from the ECB is to cause pain to the ECB's political backers. Which means causing pain to the Frankfurt-based banks, and which means causing pain to Mrs Merkel's government.

You call it nationalist. I call it realpolitik. If you have some alternate suggestion for how to get the ECB to start providing unlimited stimulus money for the Irish economy at somewhere around the Frankfurt overnight rate, then I'm all ears. But so far you have presented no viable political strategy for how the Irish can continue to do stimulus without defaulting. And you have provided no political strategy - nevermind a credible one - for how the Irish state can obtain the necessary liquidity for continued stimulus without either leaving the €-zone or threatening to default on foreigners first, in order to pressure those foreigners' governments to pressure the ECB.

Since you seem so keen on applying collective punishment to Ireland for electing Fianna Fail, you may think of it as applying collective punishment to any polity that doesn't pressure the ECB to start doing its fucking job and printing unlimited money for use in Keynesian stimulus.

- Jake

Friends come and go. Enemies accumulate.

No, I don't believe in collective responsibility. I don't believe that it is legitimate to murder a Teabagger just because he voted for a torturing war criminal. And I don't believe that it is legitimate to murder an Irish widow's pension just because she voted for a crooked finance minister.

I do believe in defeating neoliberal policies whenever and wherever they sully humanity with their depravity. In this particular situation, defeating neoliberal policies means defeating Austerity. Defeating Austerity means threatening Mrs. Merkel and Messrs. Weber and Stark with a sufficiently big stick that they start printing money wholesale. And the only stick Ireland has that is big enough to make Messrs. Weber and Stark shit their pants and start printing money wholesale is the threat of making several major German financial institutions insolvent.

And if a German pension fund or two is collateral damage in that fight, well then there's nothing wrong with insolvent private pension funds that better public pensions won't solve.

If you have a better plan for how to fight back against "Hartz IV For Ireland," then I'm all ears.

- Jake

Friends come and go. Enemies accumulate.