Everyone who thought this through knew this would happen, but the VSPs ignore people who agree with Keynes: the Guardian reports that Ireland is back in recession as global slowdown hits exports:

Ireland ended last year in recession, according to figures released on Thursday, dealing a blow to the policy of economic austerity being forced on struggling eurozone countries by the European commission and the IMF.

A dip of 0.2% in GDP in the last quarter of 2011 followed a steep fall in the third quarter, after an export drive was undermined by the slowdown in global demand. A recession is defined as two consecutive quarters of economic contraction.

Ireland, which had become a poster child for austerity when its economy pulled out of its nosedive earlier last year, joins fellow eurozone countries Belgium, the Netherlands, Italy, Portugal and Greece in recession.

Austerity doesn’t work, has never worked, and logically can’t work in bad economic conditions, but facts aren’t allowed to intrude on beliefs, and the people needed to be punished, even if they had nothing to do with the problem.

This is what is going to happen in the US if the mental midgets in Washington continue to emphasize the ‘deficit’. The economy will go into a deeper recession, the deficit will get worse, and any recovery will take years longer to achieve. Reality doesn’t matter to the Austerians.

The BBC reports that Petrol prices hit another record high

The average price of a litre of unleaded petrol hit 140.20 pence [$8.42/gallon].

Higher oil prices, driven by concerns about Iran, have been behind the rising price of fuel. Crude oil prices have risen 12% since January.

It is amazing how they have figured out the problem is Iran, while some people in the US are calling for more drilling and a Canadian pipeline.

As for Iran, the Guardian notes that Nuclear watchdog chief accused of pro-western bias over Iran.

Two former IAEA inspectors, Hans Blix and Robert Kelley, who were involved in the hunt for mythological WMDs in Iraq, think that current IAEA head Yukiya Amano has a pro-western bias, is over-reliant on unverified intelligence, and sidelines skeptics.

It is also noted that the IAEA maintained a very low profile regarding the problems at the Fukushima nuclear facility. Mr. Amano is Japanese.

Many of the allegations regarding Iran are based on ‘intelligence’ provided primarily by Israel that hasn’t been verified by anyone else. Single sourced intel is generally regarded in the intelligence community as rumor. It takes two sources to make it ‘possible’ and three to make it ‘probable’.

Exhaustion

Zzzzzzz…

[Editor: Specialist Underhouse has discovered that the life of a tom cat can be very tiring with all of the chasing, combat, and rejection.]

Friday Ark