VGChartz Europeans, I need your help.

[Kasz216]

Soleron said:

Kasz216 said:

...

The problem with that, is that line of thinking assumes people are dumb and buisnesses are dumb.

Which... they aren't.  People aren't that stupid, as seen in the USA.

We've had the fake recovery, and no real one has occured since... everything stays stubborn... because nobody wants to expand or hire until the stimulus disapears because they know it has to.

I don't really call what you had a stimulus. I call it indiscriminately printing money. If all that was spend 4 years ago on for example: road, rail, cycle paths, fibre rollout, applied science research, and programmes/incentives for businesses to give out of work people relevant experience on their CV and for them to get free community college at any age, I think we'd be seeing a difference now

If you look at what the stimulus money (and the printed money) was spent on, it was like 70% sitting in banks as unused capital, 20% wasted.

That Greece, Spain and the UK's budgets haven't decreased simply shows they haven't actually used austerity.

OK but it's like communism. Austerity is impossible to do right with the politicians we have. You're asking for something that cannot happen.

Additionally, GDP is a poor factor to judge the health of the economy.  It's more a political tool really.    Ideally, GDP would not include government outlays and instead only measure the private economy.

My point being that you have to grow out of a recession. Cutting your way out assumes the target is fixed.

Afterall the US could print trillions of dollars, spend trillions of dollars on a machine that burns trillions of dollars, burn those trillions of dollars used to buy the machine, and GDP would suddenly be increased multiple times over.

Non government GDP, is all that really matters.

As a European, I don't automatically see government economic activity as worthless. But it has to be doing something useful. Education and healthcare should count. State owned buses, rail, water, gas and electricity should count.

Should austerity ideally happen during good times?  Sure.  Problem is, nobody will vote for it then, and as a result, you get situations like you have currently, in Spain, Greece and the UK.  The problem isn't that they aren't putting off Austerity, the problem was, they didn't already have it.

Times up.

A) What you don't consider a stimulus, is exactly what a stimulus always is... and always will be with the polticians in charge.  Austerity can't be done correctly, but neither can stimulus, the big difference is that failed austerity still somewhat lowers the debt, while failed stimulus increases it.

B)  The only way to grow an economy is to create products people demand and create value in the economy.  This can't happen through stimulus... espeically not through the kind of stimulus provided, at best stimulus can pull foward demand... and companies have to be stupid enough to follow through on it.

C)  It's got less to do with nationality and more to do with economics.  Government spending is useless to measuring the economy, because it's not a part of the economy.   The things you listed without a doubt should in no way count.

If they are useful, their effects will show up... in the private data.

Any government spending that can't find effects in the private market is essentially bubble spending and should only be used for specific charitable reasons.