This Is The Eurozone's Growth Plan, And It's Pathetic

Earlier today, Jeroen Dijsselbloem (the Eurogroup chief that was making numerous headlines after Cyprus for saying that the bail-in would be a blueprint of future crises) tweeted the following.

Growth agenda #Eurozone focused on fiscal consolidation, structural reforms and reforming financial sector. #IMF #Eurogroup

— Jeroen Dijsselbloem (@J_Dijsselbloem) April 20, 2013

It's hard to express how pathetic this is.

First, fiscal consolidation is another way of saying austerity.

Reforming the financial sector basically makes having banks lending money less.

And structural reforms may be necessary to some extent, but to the extent that they involve depressing wages (internal devaluation), laying off public employees, and privatizing state businesses, they mean less income and less growth for now.

So the Eurozone's growth agenda is to not grow.