The Bankruptcy of Austerity Economics

Submitted by Robert J. Shapiro on 1/12/12

Conservative conventional wisdom collided this week with a dose of economic reality, and the winner is reality. For two years, every Republican congressional leader and presidential hopeful has proudly insisted these days that austerity is the cure for a sluggish economy like ours. It is an approach embraced most memorably, of course, by Herbert Hoover, although Angela Merkel also pushes it today for the faltering Eurozone. In fact, austerity in the face of high unemployment, slow investment and weak demand has been decisively refuted by a half-century of economic analysis and policy. The best medicine for a slow economy is usually measures to jump-start investment and consumption funded by more private or public debt.

Congress has refused to let Washington play that role since the 2010 elections, so finally American households are stepping into the breach. Last week, we learned that employment rose sharply in November, and this week we found out why: Borrowing by American households jumped $20.4 billion in November. That’s the largest increase in ten years. This new willingness by Americans to take on new debt is the main reason why consumer spending is finally picking up, which in turn is the main reason why the jobless rate keeps on falling.

It would be rash to read too much into these new data, but they could be a powerful signal of stronger growth ahead. For three years, Americans have saved in order to reduce the burden of their outstanding debts. New Federal Reserve data show that it is working. In 2007, payments on mortgage, consumer and auto debts claimed a larger share of the incomes of an average household than at any time since 1980. But by the third quarter of last year, this household indebtedness had fallen to the lowest levels since 1994, providing a reasonable basis to begin borrowing again.

Moreover, the renewed willingness of average Americans to take on new consumer debt may also signal that housing values have finally bottomed out. Falling housing values — and Washington’s inability to do anything to help stabilize them — have been the single largest obstacle to a strong recovery. When home prices fall month after month, that not only increases the net debt of most homeowners; it also makes American homeowners poorer, month after month. And people who see their assets shrink, month after month and year after year, cut back on their spending. So, recent signs that consumer borrowing and spending are heating up again suggest that housing values may have finally stabilized. If that’s the case, the recovery may finally accelerate.

America’s new acolytes of austerity could still screw this up. In the last year, they tried to block payroll tax relief and extended unemployment benefits, and the truest believers among them even hoped to block an increase in the legal debt limit. All three of these matters will come back to Congress in coming months. The political landscape has shifted, however. The public now holds Congress in such low esteem — and especially House conservatives — that even fervent advocates of austerity may hesitate to repeat their wildly unpopular 2011 performance in an election year.

A stronger U.S. recovery could still fall victim to the European austerity caucus. Merkel continues to press austerity on the Eurozone governments, even as Europe slides into recession. Moreover, piling yet more austerity on economies in recession can only worsen the sovereign debt crisis which already threatens to pull down the Euro and major banks across Europe. Sometime next week or in the next few months, global investors may conclude that Merkel’s attachment to austerity will finally preclude meaningful steps to stabilize Italian and Spanish government debt. If that comes to pass, the ensuing financial crisis almost certainly would short circuit a strong American recovery.

For now, that recovery is in the hands of America’s households. Thankfully, they display more economic sense than many members of Congress or leaders of the Eurozone.

Robert J. Shapiro's blog
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