if this austerity really purged the state government of back-handing then it would have a point, but all it's done is cause capital flight and lower tax revenues, while raising nationalistic hackles to boot.

a high price to pay so people don't look too hard at the history, a. of austerity ever doing what it's touted as being good for, and b. ever being really shared sacrifices across the socioeconomic board, just gouging the weak and voiceless while rewarding the real criminals.

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