Readers of this blog know that I am no fan of the austerity policies currently being imposed on various countries in Europe with large budget deficits. These policies have actually been the standard medicine of international organizations such as the IMF for many years, although they were imposed on poor countries through what was known as “Structural Adjustment Programs.” People in the richer countries benefited tremendously from these programs (largely because the policies demanded lower wages and more reliance on foreign investment), and the pattern persists between the rich-rich countries (like Germany) and the poor-rich countries (like Greece). One of the pre-eminent financial journalists, Martin Wolf, offers a great critique of austerity in the current New York Review of Books.
The Guardian ran an excellent article on the context of the Brazilian protests. Over a million citizens protested yesterday, and the protests remain, for the most part, non-violent. The authorities, however, are using increasingly more draconian techniques of crowd control. It is safe to say that the government of Dilma Rousseff has no idea how to address the issues raised by the protesters–the government seems to be clueless.
Three people have died and almost 100,000 people have been evacuated because of flooding near Calgary in Canada. Ordinarily, I would not report on floods except that this flooding seems to be associated with extremely heavy rain (six month’s worth of rain in two days). Some climate scientists believe that climate change is associated with extreme weather events. If so, New England could be in serious trouble.
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