"Austeresis" - Defining a New Term

commentary by Roger Erickson

This term combines archaic economics and modern systems engineering.

It recognizes that the austerity path taken to quickly gut a nation, as in the Greek Disaster, will rarely, if ever, be the same path taken during the course of recovery ... if recovery even occurs.

Austerity plus hysteresis => Austeresis.

Of course, the whole purpose of agile, adaptive, social species and advanced human cultures has been to introduce enough options to take any path we select, between any economic states we want to occupy. Note, however, the selection requirement. How about YOU getting a whole lot more selective about whom you vote for, what and how you read, and what policies you support?

So while Austeresis is a frequent, real phenomenon, it is an entirely voluntary phenomenon coincidental to mass psychosis, a condition otherwise known as persistent, pernicious orthodoxy in a changing world.