How is stimulus and tax cuts considered Austerity? They seem to be the polar opposites of what you're claiming. Also, how is "doing nothing" considering taking Austerity measures?

Actually, there is one state government that's currently in recession, the state of Victoria. The reason? The conservative Baillieu government came in and slashed the hell out of investment in the public sector in order to pursue a surplus, despite opinion that it was not necessary.

http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/its-the-recession-victoria-didnt-have-to-have-20130306-2flqf.html

Funny how the so called "liberal media" doesn't show more about what kinds of things can happen with Austerity...

Your joking right?   The media always complains about austerity.  Espeically the liberal part like MSNBC.

Again, by austerity I was talking about being responsible in the first place... It's not like 0 Spending is good, nor is running GIANT deficits.

Counties should try and balance there budgets more like responsible countries who were able to duck the GFC in general.

As for your link though.... GDP dropped... mostly thanks to a drop in government spending.  Like i said above... no duh.   GDP is calculated including government spending.

If you were to cut government spending, and the entire rest of the economy stayed exactly the same.  You would see a decline in GDP.   You need to look at a lot more complicated data then GDP... or at least private sector GDP.

It's like the Paddy Dollars in "It's always Sunny"

the Paddy Dollars keep flowing so their intake (GDP) is up... but it's not really saying anything real. 

You need to look deeper.

(Note, I'm not claiming correlation here.  This is just to show how GDP growth can be unduly influenced by government spending and hide private sector and public sector health, both positive and negative.)

Then what you're claiming is not austerity. There's a different word for that, but it's not austerity.

I agree that balanced budgets should be attempted, but not at the expense of bringing the economy into recession. Victoria was not in a similar state of debt experienced by other countries, but they knew that the world enconomy was still pretty stagnant and cut public services anyway. Now it's going to cost them more than they were attempting to save.

So in other words, government programs (and spending) help avoid recession by providing a boost to GDP? What side were you arguing for again?

The side that points out that avoiding a recession doesn't actually mean anything...?

You avoid the technial term of a recession but that doesn't actually improve anyhing.

You can increase your GDP 1 million fold if you decide to borrow 1 million times your GDP and spend it on a shiny coin.

That's not actually helping the fundamentals of your economy however.

You need to look at things with deeper attention to fundamentals.  It's the same reason why the unemployment number we always see used is flawed because it doesn't take into account participation rate.

There is plenty of merit in having stimulus to help people out who are hit hard by the recession, but it'd be a mistake to think it's actually going to help anything economically.

Which is why all stimulus funds should be dedicated soley at relief towards the poor.  Any money not directly spent that way and used for "stimulting buisnsesses sales" are pretty worthless because it just further distorts the market.

Except then we'd actually be the shitheads the rest of the world seems to think we are.

I want a country to at least try it. They keep almost getting there then backing off and fixing nothing. I really really wanted Greece to vote the anti-bailout party for this reason.

The state of an economy could have external factors driving it down. As we see with many recessions, it becomes a massive chain reaction. Economies are always inflated with speculation and bubbles. All it takes is a few outside influences to destabilise it. The point of stimulating to avoid a recession is probably for a more broader sense, attempting to stop the after effects, like if somebody took a supporting pillar from a building.

Stimulus should help the poor, but that in turn does provide some degree of stability, since that stimulus goes into the economy where an otherwise growing hole would be. It wouldn't be long-term beneficial, but it would stop negative speculation and a declining economy from working in tandem to make the problems worse.

If I remember correctly, didn't the US spend it's stimulus all on the banks? Was this just to bail them out, or was this to try and kickstart the economy again? If it was the latter, it probably might have done better in the hands of consumers.

On a side note, wouldn't some public service jobs be considered stimulus? Think about it....at least the government is getting some degree of work in return... 

No. The bank bailout and the stimulus were two different things.

Well first off... Greece already did default.  When they forced bondholders who didn't agree to a hairut to take it anyway.

Outside which You act like a country has never defaulted on their debt before.  It's happened quite often actually.

Zimbwabwe Defualted in 2006.

Venezuela Defaulted in 2004.

Ecuador just defaulted like 4-5 years ago.

I'm sure there are dozens of other countries that have defaulted in that time period too.   

It's just rarely ever pretty and usually followed by decades of economic trouble and future defaults as the country can never pull itself out of the default cycle due to too much spending and it digs itself further and further into a hole and hurt it's people.

Ecuador was pretty much the only country to have a successful defaut.

Though may people think Iceland defaulted it never did.  Unlike most countries it smartly decided to NOT assume responsibility for the banks loses.  If only the US would of done the same.

Yeah I definitely like that as well.