They have never let facts interfere with their blind faith in their ideology. I don't expect a change from them. They make lemmings look like rocket scientists.

History?? pffft nonsense... burn the books!!

Is it me, or are the recessions preceded by a reduction of the deficit and the peaks in the deficit marks the end of the recessions? Am I making sense?

I say we draft Krugman for Sec. of the Treasury. He's the only economist who makes consistent sense.

Not really Nano. This current recession was not preceded by a reduction of the deficit. Bush grew our deficit to record levels while cutting the taxes needed to pay for it at the same time.

The teabaggers are just a bunch of idiots who think this country owes them a free life.

Wanna see a wingnuts head explode? Ask them if we're at war (Of course we are even though it's only affecting those actually serving). Then ask them to explain how their revered perzdent managed to create a recession despite wartime spending.

the disingenuousness coming from the wingnut camp on this whole great depression argument is fucking astounding.and by "fucking astounding",i mean perfectly typical of right arguments

one genius after another has no problem yelling really loud about how fdr was obviously a failure since unemployment was still at 15 percent in 1937.typically his wingnut buddy will agree,neither feeling the need to mention that the number had been nearly cut in half by that point.

the fact that theyre even working this angle at all shows exactly how serious they are not.

Funny, I used a similar graph about a month ago.

Bob, are you suggesting we start another world war? You know as well as I do that when we spent all of that government dough, we were the arms supplier to the entire allied forces. Further, after the war, our economy was the only economy left standing, and we became the world's supplier of nearly everything mechanical.

Those conditions do not exist today, so your graph is misplaced in history. When we are done spending all of this money today, we will not be almost without competition, like we were in 1946.

Nice try, but it isn't that simple, and you come off looking like your Republican counterparts for trying to make it so.

1.) "The tea baggers have been trying to say that government spending doesn't stimulate the economy (despite piles of math to the contrary)"

There are also piles of math to the contrary of what you are saying.

2.) Not everyone is insisting that World War II or massive government spending ended the Great Depression.

3.) Excellent points, ppp, and if I may add, another difference is that Americans saved a lot more of their money back then.

4.) GDP isn't the end all be all, but even if we go with the current GDP estimates, it's only using transient figures. Give it some time.

5.) Does that chart include what the government owes in entitlements? Have you seen it projected out over the coming years?

"I say we draft Krugman for Sec. of the Treasury. He's the only economist who makes consistent sense."

I'd say it's more like he's the only economist who consistently tells you what you want to hear.