I agree with the author's general position: if you are bankrupt, you cut non-productive spending. At the same time, it needs to be understood, the governments are corrupt to the bone. Austerity is designed to protect bondholders from taking losses of most often fraudulently obtained gains. So, the resolute stand against austerity reflects rather the situation that the governments can not be negotiated with, and not the misunderstanding in part of the opposition. In normally functioning world, of course, we need both; the austerity and the productive reform-minded government investment. This is what we do not have. We have the idiocratic, plutocratic corrupt governments.