'Austerity' is a real weasel word because it's an attempt to make something value-based and abstract out of something which, in reality, consists simply of spending cuts.

Rising inequality is not a law of nature - it's not even a law of economics. It is a consequence of political and economic arrangements, and those arrangements can be changed.

I don't think quantitative easing is deliberately misleading, but I do think it's suspiciously bland and reassuring. It doesn't sound like anything big, experimental, scary and strange - which is what many economists think it is.

John Lanchester Quotes