An economy is not a household
People often conflate running a government with running a household like this man...
He doesn't realise that his expenditure is independent of his income. So when he reduces his expenditure, his income remains the same, and he gets to keep the savings. Whereas for a nation, it's income equals it's expenditure, they are dependent on each other. So under a national austerity policy to reduce government expenditure, it also reduces private expenditure. This reduces a nation's income (government expenditure + private expenditure = total income), contracting the economy, and hurting the poorest the hardest. As Yanis Varoufakis (@yanisvaroufakis.bsky.social) explains in greater detail below...
...an economy is not a household.
You can see more of Yanis in this 6 part documentary...
