Merriam-Webster named its Word of the Year for 2010 based on the number of searches. That word is the 14th century noun “austerity”.
If you watched 60 Minutes the other night, you would have heard New Jersey’s Republican governor Chris Christie tell us how we have no choice but to slash wages and benefits and lay off thousands of school teachers, police, and firefighters in every state.
You will also hear lots of economists use the phrase “competitive”, as in “the American economy needs to be more competitive in the world”. What they really mean is that we need to accept lower wages and a lower standard of living. If we do this then it will be “good for us”, that there is economic value in this.
What is really going on is a set of false choices that even the world’s financial leaders don’t believe.