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I think it is funny... the austerity programs started what, a year or two ago? And liberals are calling it a failure... Obama has been in office for almost 4 years and they say its too soon to decide whether it has been successful or not... funny.. not only that, the European countries were in REALLY, REALLY bad shape compared to the US but apparently they should of recovered faster and better... and all they did with austerity was to decrease (not stop) some of the social programs and pensions..
Yes social spending was cut but we have to remember Europe has many countries with different government structures, many of which differ from themselves and from that of the USA. If we were to directly compare social cutting in one country and attribute it to "good or bad" would be absurd.
Same goes for the left wing who also claims that one country increases social spending and something good happens and automatically expects it to work the exact same way in the USA.
Both sides like to take up this bickering point that they think is logical in theory but really makes no sense when you look at it on paper.
Britain raised tax rates.
The VAT is now 20 percent.
The capital gains tax rate is now 28 percent.
The top marginal income tax rate is now 50 percent.
British spending has had mild cuts and still represents a sharp increase compared to the pre recession levels. British spending as a percent of GDP fell from 51.1 percent to 49.8 percent from 2009 to 2011. 2007 it was 43.9 percent of GDP. The British deficit as a percent of GDP fell from 11 to 9.4 from 2009 to 2011. In 2007 it was 2.8 percent. No balanced budgets or significant spending reductions that I see.
Britain raised tax rates.
The VAT is now 20 percent.
The capital gains tax rate is now 28 percent.
The top marginal income tax rate is now 50 percent.
British spending has had mild cuts and still represents a sharp increase compared to the pre recession levels. British spending as a percent of GDP fell from 51.1 percent to 49.8 percent from 2009 to 2011. 2007 it was 43.9 percent of GDP. The British deficit as a percent of GDP fell from 11 to 9.4 from 2009 to 2011. In 2007 it was 2.8 percent. No balanced budgets or significant spending reductions that I see.
The top income tax rate was reduced from 50% to 45% in the last budget a few weeks ago.
How do you suppose the right is back in power? Maybe because the people saw the terrible direction the left was taking them?
Not at all. It's a result of our flawed political process. Here we have a majority Conservative government but 60% of the electorate voted against them. In a winner take all system you could win every single seat with as little as 21% of the vote if there were 5 candidates running. It's too bad but we have 3 parties sharing the left of center votes. The NDP, Liberals and Greens. The conservatives got a little smarter a few years back and the 3 conservative parties joined together as one party. If the NDP and Liberals joined there would never ever be another conservative government elected in this country. It's only the egos of the respective leaders that prevents this logical joining of liberal forces. I wish they would do it tomorrow but it may take another loss to force their hand. Jean Chretien, who was a great liberal PM said recently that the only regret he had from the years he was PM was that he didn't join the two liberal parties together when he had the chance to do it.
And the mentioned poster just embarrassed himself, by claiming Poland is not part of the EU.
I was assuming that not using the euro ment a country wasn't in the EU. I was thinking that all countries in the EU were using the euro. I know Poland uses their own currency so that's why I said what I said.
Anyway now I know that a country being in the EU doesn't mean it's a euro using country or in the eurozone. That's a detail I bet many people aren't aware of.
I think it is funny... the austerity programs started what, a year or two ago? And liberals are calling it a failure... Obama has been in office for almost 4 years and they say its too soon to decide whether it has been successful or not... funny.. not only that, the European countries were in REALLY, REALLY bad shape compared to the US but apparently they should of recovered faster and better... and all they did with austerity was to decrease (not stop) some of the social programs and pensions..
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Originally Posted by padcrasher
Who are you talking about? The biggest, most influential liberal on this issue is Paul Krugman and he called this exactly correct. The stimulus was too small and barely helped the economy.
That's exactly right -- and the austerity measures in Europe didn't start "a year or two ago." They started around the same time as the U.S. used expansionary policy.
The result was that the stimulus, such as it was, and prolonging unemployment benefits, was deemed by the CBO and private economists to have been expansionary.
Now, about what Paul Krugman said. He did get it exactly right. This is from January 2009, before the stimulus was even passed:
Bit by bit we’re getting information on the Obama stimulus plan, enough to start making back-of-the-envelope estimates of impact. The bottom line is this: we’re probably looking at a plan that will shave less than 2 percentage points off the average unemployment rate for the next two years, and possibly quite a lot less. This raises real concerns about whether the incoming administration is lowballing its plans in an attempt to get bipartisan consensus.
...
This really does look like a plan that falls well short of what advocates of strong stimulus were hoping for — and it seems as if that was done in order to win Republican votes. Yet even if the plan gets the hoped-for 80 votes in the Senate, which seems doubtful, responsibility for the plan’s perceived failure, if it’s spun that way, will be placed on Democrats.
I see the following scenario: a weak stimulus plan, perhaps even weaker than what we’re talking about now, is crafted to win those extra GOP votes. The plan limits the rise in unemployment, but things are still pretty bad, with the rate peaking at something like 9 percent and coming down only slowly. And then Mitch McConnell says “See, government spending doesn’t work.”
This is what McConnell said on October 11, 2011:
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“The President’s first stimulus was a legislative and economic catastrophe,”... There’s really only one thing you need to know about the first stimulus to oppose this second one, and it’s this: $825 billion later, there are 1.5 million fewer jobs in this country than there were when the first stimulus was signed. That’s the clearest proof it was a monstrous failure. And it’s the surest proof we have that those who support this second stimulus are not doing so to create jobs… Why on earth would you support an approach that we already know won’t work?”
Paul Krugman told the Europeans austerity would make things worse and that's just what is happening.
He also told Obama and these right wing idiots that the US stimulus bill was too small and too loaded with ineffective tax cuts.
He also said if Obama went along with these right wing idiot lawmakers and made the bill too small that it wouldn't be nearly effective.
He also said the GOP would blame Obama for it not working after he caved into their demands that it be smaller and too loaded with tax cuts.
And that's just what happened.
A President with no character to fight for what is right, caving to a majority of right wing idiots (some democrats) trying to run the economy into the ground.
while i was against the stimulus plan, i wasnt against it just because it was a democrat plan. when FDR started huge government spending in the 1930s, he concentrated on the infrastructure and actually putting people to work with government programs. and in the end it actually helped the US economy later on. it did however prolong the depression as well, along with higher taxes and an anti-business stance by FDR.
fast forward to this administration and the stimulus package that was passed by democrats in 2009. that failed because it was NOT infrastructure spending, but rather garbage spending, and paybacks to obama supporters. i mean really, refurbishing airports that are hardly used, train stations that are never used, putting shrimp on treadmills, frisbee golf courses, turtle tunnels, etc.
and the spending actually gone to road building, upgrading the electrical grid, repairing old damns, etc. then even if it didnt work as advertised, i wouldnt be as against the program as i was.
i do agree with the ineffective tax cuts in the program though, they went to the wrong places. the other problem i have is with this presidents anti-business stance. adding new regulations on business only costs money, and that is something that business cant afford right now. also he increased the cost of repatriating money earned by US corporations overseas, and that is why more than a trillion dollars is still stilling in banks overseas, rather than coming home and being used here by corporations to expand their business here.
and while the economy is improving slightly, had obama made different moves, we would be booming right now, and obama would be a shoe in for reelection this year. i mean 2.2% growth? are you kidding me? we should be on a pace to hit 5-6% growth right now.
I was assuming that not using the euro ment a country wasn't in the EU. I was thinking that all countries in the EU were using the euro. I know Poland uses their own currency so that's why I said what I said.
Anyway now I know that a country being in the EU doesn't mean it's a euro using country or in the eurozone. That's a detail I bet many people aren't aware of.
How could you not be aware the UK uses Pounds not Euros!
Britain raised tax rates.
The VAT is now 20 percent.
The capital gains tax rate is now 28 percent.
The top marginal income tax rate is now 50 percent.
British spending has had mild cuts and still represents a sharp increase compared to the pre recession levels. British spending as a percent of GDP fell from 51.1 percent to 49.8 percent from 2009 to 2011. 2007 it was 43.9 percent of GDP. The British deficit as a percent of GDP fell from 11 to 9.4 from 2009 to 2011. In 2007 it was 2.8 percent. No balanced budgets or significant spending reductions that I see.
News flash: fractions have denominators. When British spending rose to 51.1 percent of GDP from 43.9 percent of GDP, it was because GDP fell not spending rose.
As for taxes, the American stock market boomed at the time capital gains was 39%. If you're arguing that higher rates hurt job creation, I would note that a net of nearly 40 million jobs were added between 1980 and 2000. You know what’s happened since then: lower tax rates and far lower job creation.
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It's going the right direction.... 
