The Road from Austerity to Prosperity for Greece
Farid A. Khavari, Ph.D., Economist
The new government of Greece has already taken the first steps toward economic justice and recovery. Now everyone understands that "austerity" simply means suffering and misery imposed upon millions of people, for the benefit of no one except bankers. "Austerity" has led to 25% unemployment--50% among youth. No nation can survive this way for long, but one cannot expect the solution to come from the bankers who caused the problem in the first place.
Fortunately, Greece now has a unique opportunity to reverse these trends and to achieve permanent prosperity. The Greek people have elected strong leaders. Now they need an economic plan to create massive employment, which will automatically reduce social costs and deficits. Greece already has everything necessary to create wealth for its people: millions of educated, willing workers; technology; beautiful land and natural resources; and years of pent-up demand for housing, products and services of every kind. Policy decisions can put these resources to work and create massive employment immediately.
If this sounds simplistic, that is because it really is simple. If a person is unemployed, social costs and deficits rise. When that person gets a job, social costs and deficits are reduced. If a person works at a wealth-creating job (e.g. construction, manufacturing, agriculture, etc.) that person produces more wealth than it costs to pay him. Therefore, the real cost of creating the job for him is zero. In terms of benefit to the nation, the cost is much less than zero. Creating employment does not cost, it pays.
If a person is employed producing goods or services, which reduce or eliminate long term costs for the customer (such as food, housing, energy, interest, insurance, health care, etc.) the economic benefits of his employment are compounded. Wealth is created first by producing the goods and services, and then for years to come as reduced costs translate into more wealth for the people and for the economy as a whole.
Adding good wealth-creating jobs to the economy automatically creates more and more jobs. We have already seen the opposite effect of "austerity": unemployment creates more unemployment.
These are a few of the common-sense concepts of Zero Cost Economics. Traditional economic models have failed and millions of people have paid the price. I and my team are ready to formulate an economic plan for Greece that can make the Birthplace of Democracy the birthplace of permanent prosperity--and an example for Spain, Portugal, Ireland, Italy, France and other nations.
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