It’s Always Time For Austerity

This from Prof. Krugman -- go to his blog (follow link), follow his links, it's good for you.
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It’s Always Time For Austerity

Jonathan Portes makes a nice catch: when the rating agencies upgraded the UK outlook, the Cameron government hailed this as proof that austerity was working; when they downgraded it due to poor economic performance, the Cameron government declared that this showed the need for even more austerity.

Meanwhile, Adam Posen (pdf) very judiciously and carefully makes the case for why Britain has done worse than the US: it’s the austerity, stupid. (Or let me put that in Parliamentary style: does the right honorable gentleman not realize that it’s the austerity, stupid?)

Oh, and via Mark Thoma, Mike Konczal and Bryce Covert make a remarkable observation: US austerity — which mainly takes the form of layoffs at the state and local level — is largely concentrated in states where Republicans took control in 2010, plus Texas. So that’s why our recovery, though better than Britain’s, isn’t stronger.