Quote of the day

"...could the full force of a depression be delayed with a combination of yet more debt and spending? Governments around the world are betting that it can. But they are also hedging their bets by preparing and implementing austerity measures as it must be obvious, even to them, that the historically unprecedented expansion of state spending and debt cannot go on for ever if capitalism is to survive. Keynes himself famously ignored this problem. 'In the long run, we’re all dead,' he said. Over the next decade, we’ll discover what happens in the ‘long run’. The probability is that previously taken-for-granted entitlements (to education, jobs, retirement, health care, an income during periods of illness, joblessness or disability, and so on) and standards of living will end. There will be continuing struggles both within the capitalist class and between the capitalist and working classes over who is to bear the brunt of the losses. The hegemony of the United States may be challenged in the not too distant future, with potentially catastrophic consequences: bear in mind that it took a world war to completely end the last truly major depression. And the depression, if not rescued by a major war, could be deeply exacerbated by the falling off of cheap and easy oil and energy supplies and the possibility of ecological catastrophe." --Stuart Wilkins; Link: http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/jul11/is_the_crisis_over.html#top