You will notice the emphasis on the word self, and it is this that Western Governments have excluded from their re-interpretation, when they say austerity it is not an idea that they place on themselves but on others. That is not austerity that is repression.
In essence for a government to truly invoke an 'austerity program' would mean to cut back on the luxuries they afford themselves; but they have not... budgets and staff levels continue to grow, consultants and fact finding missions continue unabated.
No where is this more true than in the European Union, which continues to expand unabated whilst honest, hard-working people are told to give up more of their wealth to fund the ever increasing bureaucracy which is almost to a point where it is as large as the bureaucracy in Jersey.
Next time someone tells you we need more Austerity, agree with them, we do, we need a government that is going to commit to self-denial so that taxes can be lowered and the economy can recover from the damage caused by the parasitic bureaucracies of this world.
What we do not need to is government-imposed impoverishment of good, hard working people.
