Estonia's Austerity Pays Off Big

[Dammy]

http://www.cnbc.com/id/47691090

Estonia’s achievement is all the more remarkable when you consider that it was one of the countries hardest hit by the global financial crisis. In 2008-2009, its economy shrank by 18 percent. That’s a bigger contraction than Greece has suffered over the past five years. How did they bounce back? “I can answer in one word: austerity. Austerity, austerity, austerity,” says Peeter Koppel, investment strategist at the SEB Bank.

After three years of painful government belt-tightening, that’s not exactly the message that Europeans further south want to hear.

​

 

[FluffyMcDeath]

So Estonia's improved economy is based on a decline in the living standards of its people. That sounds like the kind of cure no-one could complain about.

 

[minator]

The problem with austerity is it can and does have catastrophic impact on countries. Just ask the Germans what they did during austerity during the 1930s.