But Austerity, as a political and economic position, prevents consideration of a massive public investment program in renewable energy infrastructure because "we can't afford it" and "we've been living above our means".

it BS to cover the scam to bleed us dry and bake the climate selling us the last of the fossil fuels to continue happy motoring and keep from freezing. once again a good concept, austerity in this case, has been turned inside out to mean daylight robbery, when its original meaning is the other half of abundance, a natural cycle to do with seasons, overlayed with religious overtones.

monks observed austerities to sharpen spiritual perception. the public went through lent, moslems have ramadan... this is real austerity and has real value for us to accept, just as eternal unremitting growth we come to accept with maturity as being naive and not reality-based.

infinite excess needs austerity to stay balanced, too much of either is damaging.

right now the 1% are maxing out excess, and want the already poor and the middle class to make the sacrifices to balance the nations' books. sure that's what they want, no surprise there, the key is how much can they spin the electorate into accepting their terms.

so of course the more doomy they make our situation sound, the more they hope we'll buckle under and be good little sheepizens, now with davos imminent, the bbc is predicting economic armageddon with appropriate facial expressions, while all this sun and wind is blowing and shining around us.

if merkel wants to power trip the rest of us, let her mandate us following the intelligent policies germany exemplifies, such as rapid change to sustainable energy, their previous practice of tying local banking to local needs, and strong union involvement in macro policies.

imagine how much their precious consumer economy would recover if people didn't have to pay such high (rising) utility bills!!

not to mention, as Mig emphasises, the employment benefits.

it's the only intelligent choice we have, and our precious leaders are doing everything they can to blow smoke up our asses, laying out poverty consciousness as if they had just invented perpetual motion as panacea to all out problems.... as if they really were serious about balancing the budget anyway... what? deprive the banks of more interest?

sure...

'The history of public debt is full of irony. It rarely follows our ideas of order and justice.' Thomas Piketty