“Ever-expanding Government”
Menzie Chinn points out that government employment has not, in fact, soared under Obama; he gets the usual mass of hysterical comments accusing him of being naive, dishonest, whatever. Heh.
Here’s another one: compare real government purchases in stimulus-happy America and frugal, austere Germany (I’ve mentioned this before, but here’s a chart):
It’s worth noting that just to keep up with the trend in potential GDP, US government purchases would have to have risen about 6 percent over the period shown. As far as actual government spending on goods and services goes, as opposed to aid to individuals, we’ve had no stimulus at all — basically because of cutbacks at the state and local level.
But hey, stimulus has failed.
If ever there was a lame post - the one excerpted above is one. (click here to go to it directly) The problem is that this is a keynesian theorist who thinks that connecting imaginary lines together somehow translates to reality. Then apparently he has to attempt to defend his badly conceived line connecting. I guess it makes him feel better about himself. Stimulus clearly has failed, and so, by the way, has government hiring. What happened to all those census jobs? If ever there was a hair-brained scheme to demonstrate employment - census hiring was it.
What I wish would fail is the capability for guy's like Krugman and his ilk to get face time in front of the media. First, the NYTimes pushed that idiot simpleton, actor, writer and economist, Ben Stein on us like he actually knew what was going on and then they push this crap...they definately need new editors. More than likely they need new stock holders, having the Fed minions as you major share holders and benefactors has been known to color the media agenda. To see that in action all you needed to do was watch the sugar plum fairies dancing around and partying like it was 1999 on CNBS today.
