The New York Times ima odličen komentar na proračunsko vzdržnost in na posledice, ki jih le ta prinaša. Da, ostro rezanje v javne odhodke, predvsem v zdravstvo in socialno varstvo, ubija. Da ne rečemo, da ne deluje. Primer propada Sovjetske Zveze in šok terapije, ki je sledila, je poučen.

After the Soviet Union dissolved, in 1991, Russia’s economy collapsed. Poverty soared and life expectancy dropped, particularly among young, working-age men. But this did not occur everywhere in the former Soviet sphere. Russia, Kazakhstan and the Baltic States (Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania) — which adopted economic “shock therapy” programs advocated by economists like Jeffrey D. Sachs and Lawrence H. Summers — experienced the worst rises in suicides, heart attacks and alcohol-related deaths.

Countries like Belarus, Poland and Slovenia took a different, gradualist approach, advocated by economists like Joseph E. Stiglitz and the former Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev. These countries privatized their state-controlled economies in stages and saw much better health outcomes than nearby countries that opted for mass privatizations and layoffs, which caused severe economic and social disruptions.

Mi pa še kar naprej z ukrepi, ki ne delujejo. Veliko ima pri tem seveda ideologija, ki krizo samo izkorišča, da bi uničila socialne države.