José Manuel Barroso, the president of the European Commission, recently declared that austerity "has reached its limits in many respects".
Unfortunately, this pragmatic case for fiscal policy runs into a different real-world problem: the obduracy of policymakers, who quickly turned to austerity policies, reaching for any argument they could find.
BUDAPEST — Despite the fiscal crisis engulfing Greece and some other Southern European nations, Hungary is more committed than ever to adopting the euro as soon as possible, its caretaker prime minister said this week, even if that means enduring a further bout of austerity to reach the goal.
"My bet is that the incoming government, when faced with the stark financial reality of the spending necessary in times of continued austerity, will reach for a review to find an affordable alternative and will get the experts to support a further extension," Browne says.
Public tolerance of austerity may be reaching the breaking point.
Roberts also says, well, I choose some studies of austerity, but others reach different conclusions.
As Deborah Hargreaves noted last week, the age of austerity hasn't reached corporate boardrooms yet.
Leaders nibbled on cold cuts of meat, perhaps a recognition that austerity has to reach the very top occasionally.
By forcing Greece to push through more austerity measures to reach this target, Mr. Wyplosz argues, growth suffers all the more — making the debt-to-G.D.P. goal even harder to achieve.
3. Belief that through austerity, one can reach perfection in this life (Free Spirit).
