For all the talk about the awesomeness of the lean austere, Teutonic tiger, the US has higher GDP growth:
Things aren’t so great for the other brave Burkeans: that English number is awful, especially given that the Olympic stimulus has already kicked in. This won’t be enough to save the Uk economy, but it might mitigate the worst of the effects of austerity:
The Olympic Games 2011 (sic) will also give the UK economy a long term economic uplift; the event is expected to deliver a sustained stimulus worth a total of £5.1bn to the UK economy by 2015, according to Visa Europe.
This represents approximately 3.5% of the overall expected growth of the national economy over the 2013 – 2015 period.
Sadly, I think you’re gonna find, when all this shit is over and done, I think you’re gonna find that all the Very Serious People will agree that the brave Aryan Burkeanism of Cameron and the Germans saved the continent from the free-spending Keynesian wantonism of the swarthies.
Jebediah
Further evidence that for VSP’s evidence means nothing.
Brachiator
Damn! Greece is fucked. Based on the historical record, the people pushing the idea that Olympics spending is some kind of stimulus are smoking something, especially if they think it will provide any kind of long term uplift.
This kind of shit is McMegan level economic writing.
Linda Featheringill
I saw some of the reports about Krugman when he recently visited the UK. He certainly tried to preach the truth to those in high places and the folks in low places. He tried.
How much good it’ll do, is anybody’s guess.
Metrosexual Black AbeJ
@Brachiator:
The Olympic is a sizable stimulus, it really is. It’s just not big enough.
Valdivia
What are the Swiss doing right? Apart from giving us the cuckoo clock? They didn’t join the Euro right and haven’t fallen prey to austerity a la UK?
PeakVT
Given the economic collapse the Greeks are experiencing, it’s a pleasant surprise that the far right isn’t doing better in elections there.
joes527
@Jebediah: No, the evidence clearly shows that they weren’t austere _enough_.
It is a religion, not an economic theory. There is no need to ignore evidence when it can just be interpreted to support the orthodoxy.
Metrosexual Black AbeJ
@Valdivia:
Yeah, not on the Euro.
butler
So I was thinking about this, and I came to an annoying realization. As anyone here knows, for the past few years the private sector has been adding jobs while we’ve shed public sector jobs, with the effect being higher than necessary overall unemployment since these two things are largely cancelling each other out.
But I just know that in 5-10 years (and probably sooner), some right wing hack economist is going to take those two data trends, remove all context, run a simple regression, and then come out boldly proclaiming how this is is yet another data point showing that austerity helps the private sector.
SatanicPanic
Are they going to borrow money to pay for the Olympics? What’s the moral dimension of that?
Judas Escargot, Your Postmodern Neighbor
The VSP’s still believe that They create reality: They just don’t crow about it to journalists anymore.
Facts, logic, reason, mathematics– These are great tools to constrain the rest of us, but not them. Never them.
Reality is for the Little People.
Dave
I’m stunned the Irish are posting any kind of positive growth with the austerity packages they’ve been running.
bago
OT, but having Mika run the show on Morning Joe is awesome. It’s not talking point theater.
Also, having her dad be her dad helps.
catclub
1. Where did the table come from.
2. What time period?
Iceland is also not there. They said fuck-you to the bankers
and are probably doing ok.
This looks like it makes no mention of huge hits taken in the recent past – i.e. by Ireland. Just percentage GDP growth
now.
Culture of Truth
The Austerians Were Fucking Proven Right
catclub
@SatanicPanic: Spending money to entertain rich people is not the same as spending money so poor people can eat. Morally superior.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
Ein Reich, Ein Volk, Ein Austerity. Wow, it really does sound better in the orginal German. Next up: some kickass cool looking flags and uniforms.
PeakVT
@Valdivia: The Swiss didn’t join the Euro, they didn’t have a housing bubble, and they are experiencing very low interest rates due the inflow of deposits seeking safety. In fact, the government is issuing bonds at negative interest rates.
Dave
@catclub: IIRC, Iceland has seen positive GDP growth since 2011.
butler
@catclub:
Slightly too late. They had a big contraction in GDP but they’ve leveled out.
Valdivia
@Metrosexual Black AbeJ: @PeakVT:
Thanks. One would thing the data would make the Austerans think no?
SatanicPanic
@catclub: On the bright side some people can maybe get unpaid jobs sleeping under bridges and cheering at Olympic parades. Maybe they can start businesses selling apples or Chiclets
Metrosexual Black AbeJ
@catclub:
Should be past quarter, I think. A friend sent it.
David Koch
Austerity can’t fail, it can only be failed.
kdaug
The narrative is already written.
PeakVT
Speaking of austerity, Allen Sinai was on On Point today spewing the “stimulus didn’t work” line. I didn’t hear anyone bat that down, though I was busy and might have missed it.
J. Michael Neal
@Valdivia:
No.
David Koch
PPP: Black Metrosexual Hitler beating Magic Underwear Anchor Baby 50-46 in florida.
Poll was taken after the jobs reports. so there. Florida economy has a significant focus on tourism, so their unemployment rate is higher than average, and yet, Mitty’s approval rating is still 14 pts underwater (39-43).
There are 11 swing states (from east to west): New Hamsphire, Virgina, North Carolina, Florida, Pennsyavania, Ohio, Iowa, Missouri, Wisconsin, Colorado, Nevada.
Obama leads in all 11 states. He leads 8 of those states by at least 7 pts. He leads Florida and NC by 4 pts and Mizzou by 1.
Panic!
Valdivia
@PeakVT:
I used to listen to On Point a few years ago on my subway ride on the way back from teaching. I stopped at some point because listening to the bs made so angry and sputtery I looked like the crazy person arguing with her 17 personalities you run of the subway car from.
Villago Delenda Est
I think you’re missing the important thing here.
The banksters are not suffering.
That’s all that matters. Fuck everyone else.
Forum Transmitted Disease
@David Koch: You seem to have misspelled “VICTORY!“
jibeaux
I think Greece is sui generis in all this and should sort of be left out. There’s a lot of examples of the benefits of stimulus for the economy and the awful effects austerity has on the economy that are available in a purer form elsewhere. Greece did so many things so very screwy, including not really accurately tracking money coming and going and not having a remotely decent way to collect taxes, that they seem to be a teachable moment for many other things.
Another Halocene Human
@Metrosexual Black AbeJ: It’s the wrong kind of stimulus that doesn’t provide long-term returns.
Valdivia
@J. Michael Neal:
sorry somehow I thought we were all prey to learn from data, I forgot Republican make their own reality.
Another Halocene Human
@Valdivia: They are making what I can only describe as heroic infrastructure investments. Maybe that is stimulating employment and the economy at large.
4tehlulz
Germany’s economy expanded; therefore we must fight inflation.
I call 25 bp rate hike by the ECB to fight this menace.
Another Halocene Human
@Dave: The Irish got fucked by the banks but their economy had less structural negatives than Britain, that’s my interpretation of it.
I think they’re regretting not pulling an Iceland.
Brachiator
@Metrosexual Black AbeJ:
Sorry, I don’t ascribe to the idea that almost any spending is stimulus, as long as it is big enough. I know this is a kind of conventional wisdom, and even the mighty Krugman sells it, but it really doesn’t stand up.
And, for example, the UK Olympics spending is not relieving unemployment in the most needed areas, not doing anything to relieve the pressures on the NHS, etc.
Past Olympics spending has rarely had any long term benefit for any city that splurged on the Games.
And I found this little tidbit in a 2010 analysis selling the benefits on the UK Olympics:
There is more to effective stimulus than throwing money at a faster, stronger, higher rathole.
Brachiator
Crap, the link to the reference on the Athens Olympics hopefully is here.
Steve in DC
You joke about it but that’s the actual logic of it. Austerity would work if all the rich people felt grand they wouldn’t be paying for extra things for other people and then took risks with all their new money.
But that’s not what happens, they just horde all of it.
Conservative economics “work” if everybody acts in exactly the “moral” fashion conservatives hope they will. But you can say the same for communism and libertarianism and anarchy.
It’s also why they won’t accept anything less. It will work, the world just needs to get with the program.
Granted this makes them stupid.
PeakVT
@jibeaux: It’s true that Greek government messed up more than any other country, but there is also the issue of the inappropriate currency union, which was a bigger factor in creating the current situation. And even if the situation was 100% of their own making, that still wouldn’t mean imposing austerity is a good idea. People who don’t work generally don’t pay off their loans – at all.
Valdivia
@Another Halocene Human:
this I had no idea about. Thank you.
Interrobang
I’d be interested to see how Canada is doing relative to the entries on that chart. On the one hand, we stopped our lunatic right-wingers from deregulating our financial industries, so at one point, we had the safest banks in the world. On the other hand, we have a deluded cohort of people who think that kindly Mr. Harper must be exactly the same as the Red Tories of yore (because they missed the last 30 years of political history somehow, I guess?), thus giving the bastard much more license to get in and fuck everything up.
I’m fairly sure our economy isn’t tanking as badly as it could be, because hiring is going on, and trains full of raw materials are rolling en masse, but that’s no thanks to the Smirking Corpse and his merry band of thieves and liars.
Another Halocene Human
@Brachiator:
Bingo. Luxury spending, in general, is not stimulative.
That is why rational governments in the past levied excise or luxury taxes on items like yachts. Oh, you’ve got money to burn? Well, why not donate to our widow’s and orphans and blind people’s fund? You’ll feel better, I promise.
Florida, of course, only taxes the first $20K of value on any boat. Tax the po’ folks’ used fishing boats, not the multi-million dollar yachts.
Forum Transmitted Disease
@jibeaux: Yeah, but you’ve got to admit that hiring Goldman Sachs to doctor their books so that they’d get into the Eurozone was a stroke of genius.
Yutsano
@Interrobang: Sort of on par with the US at 1.9%. That actually kind of surprises me, I expected things to be humming up there at a greater clip.
Another Halocene Human
@Valdivia: Check this out. The price is mind-boggling and I thought they were crazy when I first heard about it, but it looks now like they made the correct choice:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gotthard_Base_Tunnel
Mark S.
I have a hard time believing that. It seems more likely that by 2015 they’ll have a bunch of worthless venues they’ll be considering how to get rid of.
And wow, maybe austerity ain’t working so well for the Germans.
Another Halocene Human
@Forum Transmitted Disease: Started to read Vulture’s Paradise (Picnic? whatever it’s called) by Greg Palast and he mentioned Greece and GS in passing… I was overcome by rage and had to put the book down. Can anybody give me the Cliff Notes version?
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Steve in DC:
Hording has nothing to do with it. Did you read Steven King’s rant about being rich, it’s not possible for one individual to spend money fast enough and even if they did it would be balanced enough for the big picture.
Another Halocene Human
@Yutsano: Doesn’t Canada’s GDP track petroleum?
pseudonymous in nc
@PeakVT:
Managed devaluation, too: around a 25% decline against the dollar and 12% against the euro since August 2011, and an explicit peg of the CHF (1 euro = 1.20 francs) since September.
Turgidson
If what happened in 2008 didn’t convince the VSPs that our Galtian overlords are full of shit and out only for themselves, nothing ever will, I’m afraid.
If we’re still a civilized-enough world to have historians in 50-100 years and beyond, they will probably puzzle endlessly about how the fraudulent ideology that caused an economic near-cataclysm arose from the ashes of the carnage it itself had created even more dominant than before.
It’s like someone having a headache – thinking “I’ll hit myself in the head with this hammer to get rid of this headache!”…then doing so, and hurting more, then saying “clearly that wasn’t enough. Now I’ll shoot myself in the head to get rid of it.”
Doomed.
schrodinger's cat
Congratulations DougJ, you are a Moore Award nominee.
Valdivia
@Another Halocene Human:
cool! I have to confess that I am the kind of girl who swoons at infrastructure. I know, weirdo. :)
Gooooo Dougj!!! :)
your dream has come true.
J. Michael Neal
@PeakVT: Greece literally has no choice but massive austerity. That’s a part of why they are a bad example for anyone else.
If Greece stays in the Euro, they have no way to devalue their currency. With badly overvalued money, and having no method of increasing its supply, they don’t have a way to stimulate the economy. The only way anyone is going to loan them money is if they sign on to the austerity plans advanced by foreign creditors.
If Greece leaves the Euro, they are faced with the fact that their budget has a serious deficit. The only way they could finance it is through foreign borrowing. If they borrow in Euros, they’re stuck with most of the problems of still using it as their currency. No one is going to loan to them in drachmas, not even the local population, which will be fleeing to Euros as fast as it can. This means that they would be forced to balance the budget immediately. That entails even more austerity than staying in the Euro does.
Greece really has no choice but austerity. Neither, for similar but somewhat different reasons, did Iceland or Ireland, both of which went through a traumatic period of it. After a huge contraction, Iceland has managed to get back on its feet, kind of, by virtue of the fact that they don’t really need to import very much stuff to live and there are foreigners who will buy their fish.
replicnt6
@schrodinger’s cat:
Man, I remember when a Moore Award meant something. Now they’re just handing them out like candy.
Hoodie
@Mark S.: Soros’ presentation gives a great synopsis of the German dilemma.
Sacrablue
Congrats on your Moore Award!
Jebediah
@Another Halocene Human:
Money given to poor people has higher velocity than money given to rich fucks. If you want to get things going, you need higher velocity, not lower. It’s a really simple concept that unfortunately butts up against the fact that the rich and powerful would prefer that the money be given to them, thank you very much -regardless of the ill effect on the economy as a whole.
It’s uncivil, I admit, but I look forward to the day rich fucks are less concerned about their delicate fee-fee’s and more concerned about keeping their heads attached to their bodies.
Well, maybe that wasn’t intended as a factual statement – I accept that there are downsides to mob violence and revolution.
chrismealy
DougJ, please, there are other Mekons records! I recommend “Journey to the End of the Night” and “Natural.”
comrade scott's agenda of rage
@Turgidson:
It didn’t. To quote C3PO “We’re Doomed”.
SteveinSC
@Another Halocene Human:
No but the’ve had a Cockatoo, or two. Seriously, isn’t Austerity where Mosart came from?
J. Michael Neal
@SteveinSC:
Austria: Trying for 65 years to get the world to believe that Mozart was Austrian and Hitler wasn’t.
PeakVT
@J. Michael Neal: Greece literally has no choice but massive austerity. That’s a part of why they are a bad example for anyone else.
But it’s not like this situation just developed last week. Austerity began in 2009, and at the time a lot of people (though no VSPs) predicted – correctly – that it would collapse the Greek economy because it was being pursued in isolation. What should have happened at the time is a combination of some austerity, higher inflation in the Eurozone (4-5% in Germany), and some debt rescheduling. Instead the Greeks and the rest of the GIPS have seen austerity and deflation.
If Greece leaves the Euro, they are faced with the fact that their budget has a serious deficit.
Well, not really. The Greek government’s primary budget deficit is now down to about 1% of GDP (lower than for the US), maybe less. As soon as it hits zero the Greek government will be in a much better negotiating position.