Time to fail.

Editor,

Demands for "austerity" are the epitome of cutting off one's nose to spite one's face.

Laying off government workers and thus reducing income tax revenues as well as increasing unemployment; decreasing consumers' disposable income (for those who have an income) by raising property taxes; privatizing and thus increasing the price to consumers of government services; not to mention cutting taxes on the rich, all guarantee that economies subjected to this short-sighted policy -- whether they be Greece, Italy, Ireland, the UK, France, or the USA -- will never be able to grow their GDP sufficiently to pay off their debts.

Banks and other international speculators who made loans they should not have made should not be paid. The era of overly financialized economies has ended. Selling debt instead of capitalizing industry is a failed business model. This is clear to anyone with eyes to see.

The time has come for banks that serve no useful function for society as a whole and whose only purpose is to funnel wealth up into the hands of a tiny few to fail, be dismembered, and be replaced by a public banking system whose mission is to finance meaningful economic activity.

Re: "As Italy’s Cost of Borrowing Surges, Europe Shudders" (11/10/2011)