Published in Fakt (Warsaw) Poland's vote to join the European Community has put an end to the centuries of military rivalries that have long devastated the nation and its neighbors. Entry into the EC makes future internecine wars unthinkable. That was the easy decision to make. Poland now must confront the financial issue dividing Europe: the European Central Bank's destructive monetarist ideology, and the constraint against running budget deficits of more than 3 percent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP). If obeyed, this 3% budgetary constraint would depress business conditions by preventing member countries from using the traditional counter-cyclical policy that has pulled economies out of recession since the Great Depression - budget deficits. For the past 75 years, governments have "primed the pump" by running budget deficits when business cycles have turned ...
Michael Hudson
On finance, real estate and the powers of neoliberalism