Lately there have been more and more articles in the US complaining about Europeon Austerity and how it will destroy the country.

It makes me wonder what other option there actually is.   The europeon Debt Crisis is happening because a number of countries didn't cut spending when they could and are rapidly approaching (or already reached) the point where they can't pay off their debts.

Some people are saying that instead they need to keep spending up, possibly even increase it and hope to outgrow the debt.

Which seems impossible just based on the fact that they weren't outgrowing their debt even when the economy was good.

The only real way to get out of it, is to try and spur growth while NOT increasing debt.  In otherwords, Austerity, and then a bit beyond normal austerity to provide pro-growth changes.

In otherwords cut more then you need to and put that extra money elsewhere.

Pretty much agree (Not only for Europe mind you) that these are now unfortunately last options for several countries.

There is always the option of defaulting on their obligations, which will force austerity but would require less time to recover.

Let me ask a question.

Will you recommend a high school student about to graduate from high school to:
1) Get a job immediately
2) Take a student loan, and go to college.

Actually, let's take an even further step back. What exactly are you against? Surely, you aren't against debt itself, are you? Wall Street executives will call you an idiot, because it's their source of income. People on "main street"? They wouldn't be able to pay for their houses.

Scorning debt for the sake of it being debt is stupid. It's anti-capitalist. In fact, I'll fucking call it socialist:

"...The only part of the so-called national wealth that actually enters into the collective possessions of modern peoples is their national debt. Hence, as a necessary consequence, the modern doctrine that a nation becomes the richer the more deeply it is in debt. Public credit becomes the credo of capital. And with the rise of national debt-making, want of faith in the national debt takes the place of the blasphemy against the Holy Ghost, which may not be forgiven.

The public debt becomes one of the most powerful levers of primitive accumulation. As with the stroke of an enchanter’s wand, it endows barren money with the power of breeding and thus turns it into capital, without the necessity of its exposing itself to the troubles and risks inseparable from its employment in industry or even in usury. The state-creditors actually give nothing away, for the sum lent is transformed into public bonds, easily negotiable, which go on functioning in their hands just as so much hard cash would. But further, apart from the class of lazy annuitants thus created, and from the improvised wealth of the financiers, middlemen between the government and the nation-as also apart from the tax-farmers, merchants, private manufacturers, to whom a good part of every national loan renders the service of a capital fallen from heaven-the national debt has given rise to joint-stock companies, to dealings in negotiable effects of all kinds, and to agiotage, in a word to stock-exchange gambling and the modern bankocracy." - Karl Marx

http://histologion.blogspot.com/2010/02/karl-marx-on-public-debt.html

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Debt and capital is crucial to an economy. It allows for the maximum use of our resources. Let's go back to the student loans. If you imagine a graph where the amount of capital we need is on the y-axis and time is on the x-axis, you'll find that you'll have a huge arc near your early years, then a dip during the middle years, and then another spike during your final years of life. Lending allows people who don't need money right now, to give it to people who need it now.

Cash sitting in the bank, is simply paper. Cash circulating results in resources being moved.

Bad debt, is when things that DON'T PRODUCE FUTURE WEALTH are being financed (and to be more specific, don't produce the amount of wealth that could have been created by financing something with similar risk).

Public spending during a time of depression has enormous returns compared to its costs, compared to austerity, which can permanently depress an economy and cripple entire generations.

Locally, I would recommend a high school graduate go into the trades ... and I would encourage them to become a bricklayer

If you work hard, save your money and start your own company you will be a millionare by the time you're 30, you will be built like a body builder without entering the gym, and you will have a rare kind of job security knowing that more people are looking for your work with fewer people entering your field.

Of course YMMV, and the massive shortage of bricklayers is (kind of) a local problem; but many of the trades are good.

It may sound odd coming from a software developer who is regularly getting emails from companies like Google, Amazon, and Facebook offering jobs if I'm willing to re-locate because of how much of a shortage there is of software developers worldwide (a problem caused by under graduation and few companies willing to hire junior developers) being that I will likely be able to demand whatever salary I want in the not too distant future, but I would go into the trades tomorrow if I wasn't already "over the hill" ...

In most fields you will likely report to a manager who is less qualified to make decisions than you are, will likely make the wrong decision, and will then throw you "under the bus" to save their own skin; and this is particularly awful in IT. While you can start your own business in other fields, in the trades all you really need is a pick-up truck and access to a small loan to buy your own tools and you can run your own company.

Yes. Let's go back to the old guild days in the middle ages. You're sound like a classical socialist.

I don't understand your point ... Skilled trades are (probably) the most entrepreneurial and purely capitalist field within our economy and are becoming far more important as fewer people learn how to do the work themselves.

Here is a good video for you to watch:

I'm not watching a 20 minute video. Trade skills are worth shit, they aren't what made America into an industrial nation mass producing cars and machines. Now we need to transition from having tangible assets into having high human capital (which we're doing amazing, despite what critics of America say. What country has as many prestigious research universities as us? Where are Microsoft, Google, Apple, Facebook, etc located at?).

It's fucking theoretical fuckers like you, who are weirdly mixing up the philosphies of anti-federalists, socialists, libertarians, and objectivists that are dooming this world.

I really think that the Euro was the stupidest idea of the 21st century, Europe must leave it back and go back to national currency. And many countries drowning in debt is not just because of excessive spending, it's also due to the Euro strangling their economies.

While countries like Germany benefit greatly from the Euro as the other participating countries keep its value low and keeping their exports competitive, others like Greece, Spain, Portugal that have been relying on devaluing their currency to stay competitive, ended up choked, thus the debt bubble.

Another plan I can think of, is a Marshal plan to any country now in trouble, much like Germany and other countries got after WWII. But that's very doubtful with the current political scheme.

One thing's for sure, austerity brings recession, which in turn grows deficits and debt, a deadly spiral. Greece will never recover from the debt, even after a long due PSI, and after we fall, Portugal, Ireland and Spain will follow...

I guess you are the embodiment of the statement "Ignorance is Bliss" ... If you would have bothered to watch the video you would have gotten the point

The economy needs both knowledge based jobs and people in the skilled trades but for decades there has been a massive push to emphasize "higher education" and de-emphasize the trades. To make matters worse, the emphasis has not been on getting higher education to give you valued skills but to get people to follow their passion. The net result has been that we're graduating an excessive amount of people from Universities with no skills, while we're failing to graduate enough people from tradeschools with skills that are already in high demand.

Outside of Engineering, Computer Science and Nursing I would not recommend anyone get a university degree because they will be no more qualified to work in a knowledge based economy than a highschool graduate.

Years ago I remember reading an article about the typical millionare in Canada and it wasn't what people expected. It was an individual in their mid 30s who worked in the trades, owned their own business, drove an 8 year old Ford F150, had no debt and lived in a modest house. I have seen this in my own life several times as the people I knew in high-school that are living the "good life" are in the trades, while most university graduates are struggling to get by. Believe what you want, but for every college graduate who is really using their degree there are (currently) dozens who are underemployed because they failed to even consider the trades.