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[Lord Shonus]

Not scaling it would be downright stupid. Huge amounts of whitespace for no good reason is bad.

[GreatJustice]

Seriously...if I was Obama, I'd position snipers in the Capitol gallery and say, "Okay...nobody gets out until you guys work out a compromise that balances tax increases and spending cuts. You try to leave, Corporal Thompson up there is going to put one between your hearing aids. And if you even think of calling that douchebag Norquist, your state will be holding a special election to find your replacement. DO I MAKE MYSELF CLEAR, BITCHES??"

...it's probably a good thing I'm not President. 

So if you were president you'd follow in the stellar economic example of the UK...



Red line is the US.  Blue line is the UK.  2010 is when the UK decided that the responsible thing was a mix of budget cuts and tax increases.  Both lines are scaled to pre-recession peak.  Notice how the US economy is growing and the UK economy is shrinking.

This ain't rocket science, people.  You do not try to balance the budget until the economy gets close to normal employment levels.

My hope is that the fiscal cliff looms and Obama "caves" and agrees to a 2 year extension of all tax breaks and spending.  Probably a face saving but small amounts of tax hikes and spending cuts that are equal in size and too small to derail the recovery.  The republicans would be stupid to agree to such a deal, assuming that they are completely unpatriotic bastards.  It would do little to hurt the economy and mean they would probably lose control of the house of representatives in 2014 as democrats bask in the unemployment rate falling under 7% or even 6%.  But the republicans might not realize this because they have rejected mainstream economics in favor of supply side jesus economics.  So I can hope.

Or you could focus on spending cuts as opposed to tax increases or stimulus and make out like Estonia.

[FearfulJesuit]

Y'all want bad statistics? You can't get much worse than using the same scale for billions of dollars AND millions of euros.

[Leafsnail]

In an internet full of strawman arguments and ad hominem attacks I respect GreatJustice's continuing commitment to bizarre examples.

[mainiac]

And GreatJustice brings actual deceptive statistics.

Wow, economies that are way backwards and recovering from the post soviet era grew faster before the crisis?  No way!

[Leafsnail]

Also apparently it's a good thing to lose 14.3% of your GDP in a single year

[GreatJustice]

And GreatJustice brings actual deceptive statistics.

Wow, economies that are way backwards and recovering from the post soviet era grew faster before the crisis?  No way!

And after.

Another one, if you prefer:


It recovered about four times as fast as the US and is presently still growing, while simultaneously running a budget surplus.

[Leafsnail]

According to that graph the US is at about 98% of its post collapse GDP.

Estonia is at more like 91%.

And you're saying Estonia is the one that should be emulated?

I mean that graph isn't misleading so much as just bad for your case

[GreatJustice]

According to that graph the US is at about 98% of its post collapse GDP.

Estonia is at more like 91%.

And you're saying Estonia is the one that should be emulated?

Estonia is running a surplus and the lowest public debt (as a percentage of GDP) in the Eurozone, whereas the US is in debt equivalent to over 100% of its GDP. Yeah, I'd say Estonia is the one that should be emulated.

[Leafsnail]

Why even bring up graphs of GDP if you're then going to ignore them and act like debt is the only thing that matters?  Maybe I'm crazy but I'd prefer a healthy economy and a not-horribly collapsed economy to CLEARING THE DEFICIT RIGHT NOW

[MetalSlimeHunt]

WIZARD NEEDS SURPLUS, BADLY.

[GreatJustice]

Why even bring up graphs of GDP if you're then going to ignore them and act like debt is the only thing that matters?  Maybe I'm crazy but I'd prefer a healthy economy and a not-horribly collapsed economy to CLEARING THE DEFICIT RIGHT NOW

Because a 14% drop followed by a growth rate of 10% and a surplus is a HORRIBLY CRASHED ECONOMY and a 3.5% drop followed by a 4.5% increase (and a gigantic deficit) is a horribly crashed economy.

[Leafsnail]

So yeah you are just saying deficit bad because deficit bad.  Don't you remember you were trying to make a point about GDP earlier?

[GreatJustice]

So yeah you are just saying deficit bad because deficit bad.  Don't you remember you were trying to make a point about GDP earlier?

Sure. Estonia's GDP growth following the recession was quite a bit better than that of the US, and still is actually.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

http://www.google.ca/publicdata/explore?ds=d5bncppjof8f9_&met_y=ny_gdp_mktp_cd&idim=country:EST&dl=en&hl=en&q=gdp+of+estonia#!ctype=l&strail=false&bcs=d&nselm=h&met_y=ny_gdp_mktp_kd_zg&scale_y=lin&ind_y=false&rdim=region&idim=country:EST:GBR:USA&ifdim=region&tstart=1164603600000&tend=1322370000000&hl=en_US&dl=en&ind=false

Estonia's growth (as of 2011) was/is 7.3%. For reference, the UK's is 0.65% and the US's is 1.7%. So not only did Estonia not generate a deficit (a good thing, unless you think deficits are positive), they recovered more strongly afterwards than the US did.

This is still coupled with the fact that they did this while generating a budget surplus, which is a nice bonus.

[Mephansteras]

It's also a tiny country with a population of 1.29 million people and a GDP that is a fraction of the US's.

I just don't think that the two are all that comparable. Economics is incredibly complicated, and what works in one situation doesn't necessarily work in another. The sheer scale difference required for, say, any large government program is immense.

Providing healthcare for ~1 million people and ~300 million people is not just 'the same thing but more' when you try to put it into practice.