I don't see how anyone can believe that nonsense.
GDP 2008: - 0.3 percent
GDP 2009: - 3.5 percent
GDP 2010: +3.0 percent
There's a nice summary here.
Despite the unprecedented way in which George Bush and then Barack Obama jettisoned capitalism, unleashing torrents of bailouts, credit and federal manipulation during the market meltdown in 2008 and 2009, GDP ended up posting back to back years of negative growth anyway.
When you have back to back quarters of negative growth, they call it a recession.
When you have back to back years of negative growth, they call it a depression.
We had a depression.
One can plausibly argue that 2010's + 3.0 percent GDP imprint is evidence that the federal deluge got us out of the depression, but it didn't avert it. We had a depression. We spent gobs to get out of it. And now for the first half of 2011 GDP is stalled at 0.4 and now 1.3, jobs aren't coming back, housing continues to sink, prices of essentials are rising, kai ta loipa.
Krugman and company thought we didn't spend anywhere near enough to get out. Well, we did, just not enough to get Obama out to 2012, that's all!
A quick, dirty depression arguably would have been better. Instead, we've got this, including a nasty argument about paying for all the borrowing to finance it.
Krugman and company thought we didn't spend anywhere near enough to get out. Well, we did, just not enough to get Obama out to 2012, that's all!
A quick, dirty depression arguably would have been better. Instead, we've got this, including a nasty argument about paying for all the borrowing to finance it.
