The punk thing to do: throw a party when everyone's down and worry about paying for it later.

I suppose it's nice he has a philosophical reason, but I have to disagree with John Lydon's (Johnny Rotten of the Sex Pistols) reason for snubbing the olympics.  The whole idea that England cannot afford something is ludicrous. Interest rates are so low, its irresponsible not to be spending money.  And all this so-called-austerity is killing the economy.  Notice all the cuts come in the form of program slashes for everyday people and the poor - free money for bankers, subsidies for business, and tax cuts for the wealthy are always on the table regardless of their impact on the budget.

Either way, the reason the economy won't grow is because people are broke or are fearful of being dead broke in the future.  They're not spending money. The cure for that is business expansion that puts people back to work. Business isn't going to expand operations regardless of the tax rate or the public balance sheet unless it has a customer to sell goods and services to.   How do you break the viscous cycle?

Government spending.  Granted, spending on infra structure upgrades is probably better than on a big party (which is what the Olympics is), but throwing money out of a helicopter for people to spend is better than what they're doing now.  So given its the only thing the austerity pushers in England are willing to splurge on, I'm all for it.

Obviously, you can't blame a musician for not being as up on their economics as Paul Krugman.  However, refocusing and conflating the short term growth problem with the long term debt issue is a right wing strategy to exploit a crisis.  In god times they want to tear down the modern social safety net.  In bad times they want to tear down the modern social safety net.  They want to tear it down because it liberal.  They want to tear it down because its socialist.  They want to tear it down because its the road to fascism.  They'll say anything to tear it down - they just want a society where the better off aren't responsible for the well being of the people as a whole - and a place where people are hungry enough to work longer hours, for less pay, with less safety, and with less concern for the environment.   It's sad to see Johhny Rotten getting suckered by the rhetoric.

John Lydon speaks out on the Sex Pistols' refusal to play the Olympics