Angus on austerity (words of wisdom)

From this graph I concluded one of two things must be true depending on one’s definition of austerity.

Either austerity means nominal cuts and we never had any of it, or austerity means cuts relative to trend and we are still savagely in its grasp.

Relative to the 2000-2009 decade trend, total government spending is roughly 35% lower in q3 of 2014 than it should be. Hard to say austerity is over by that metric.

fredgraphexpend

The full link is here.  As I wrote in an email to an unnamed correspondent earlier today: “I gladly admit that reading me in 2006 was not a good guide for what happened in 2007-2008.  A bunch of those guys should admit the same about the current day…”

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