Does anybody Google these things on their own, or do you all trust me to do it for you in every case?

Fine, here you go. Now, if you want to know why double dip recession in Britain seems reasonable to, say, Cato Institute economists, maybe you can look it up for yourself. Or not.

I see, you meant cuts in growth, not, you know, actual cuts, as in decreasing the amount of spending.  http://mercatus.org/publication/fiscal-austerity-europe-doesnt-mean-large-spending-cuts

To be fair, conservatives use the word cuts in the same way in a lot of things, especially any decrease in future military spending.

Others have cited this article already. In Britain, there have been outright cuts. But if you prefer to believe that mere "cuts in growth" have resulted in double-dip recession for three quarters so far with no end in sight, please feel free.

Ok, deny the numbers then.  The UK budget has grown, year over year, even when adjusted for inflation.

What parts have grown and what parts have shrunk?

Here is the spending levels over the past 5 years by the British government (in billions of pounds):

2008    420.81
2009    454.62
2010    488.05
2011    506.23
2012    513.78

Spending has increased every single year since the financial crisis.  Where exactly is this austerity you speak of?

Savage, savage cuts there, I mean the fact that spending only went up 7 billion dollars in 2012, instead of the normal 30 billion - wow, just draconian.  I betcha the NHS will soon have to start stacking dying seniors like cord wood in back alleys.

er, 7 billion pounds...

Draconian cuts, those.

Is your data inflation adjusted?

The link I provided had inflation adjusted pounds.  Still, going up every year.

I must have meant cuts in social programs (or anything which went to poor people instead of corporations) which you would like to cut in America too.

What do you imagine has accounted for British recession while America continues to grow if not for Obama's evil deficits?

What accounts for the UK recession?  A massive financial bubble followed by deleveraging - which continues to this day.

What accounts for US growth?  Inflation of the money supply and debt.

If "[a] massive financial bubble followed by deleveraging - which continues to this day" accounts for recession in Britain, it should also have accounted for recession in America, which recession hasn't actually been taking place.

Your use of "inflation" was deliberately deceptive. Do you mean what everyone else means when they use it, that inflated money buys less? I guess not, since America's real problem continues to be deflationary pressure caused by its banks' liquidity crisis. But you want to raise some sort of spectre of inflation anyway.

As for "debt", if we take your "inflation"-mongering seriously, you will be paying off those debts with dollars worth much less than today. Did you object to debt during Reagan and Bush Sr years? Did you object during Bush Jr years, when payoffs of debt run up during 80s and 90s could have been continued as during Clinton years? Of course not, only Democratic debt meets with your disapproval.

If only everyone could be as consistent as the guy who said this:

"eight years is to take out a credit card from the Bank of China in the name of our children, driving up our national debt from $5 trillion for the first 42 presidents - #43 added $4 trillion by his lonesome, so that we now have over $9 trillion of debt that we are going to have to pay back -- $30,000 for every man, woman and child. That's irresponsible. It's unpatriotic."

the man who, by his own reasoning, must be the most unpatriotic President ever.  

Oh, so you mean OBAMA objected to heavy debts incurred by Reagan but YOU didn't?

Obama must have figured something out, to have followed in Reagan's Keynesian footsteps after earlier denouncing it. (He also changed his mind on gay marriage, but what can we say.) What caused you to change YOUR mind?

Did Reagan run up trillion dollar annual defecits?  Otherwise you have no point.  If you take a few minutes I'm sure you can figure out why.  Hint different numbers carry different values.  Big defecits cause larger problems than small defecits.

to have followed in Reagan's Keynesian footsteps after earlier denouncing it

He did? When did the bravest politician ever announce his support for trillion dollar annual defecits?  His constant speechifying  about his defecit cutting proposals appears to make you a liar. If you  are correct, I looked forward to Obama taking credit for the trillion dollar defecits in his speech and apoligizing to the last President for his hate mongering.

He also changed his mind on gay marriage

He did? He was for it, then he was against it and then he was for it again. I'd say his mind never changed, he's just a coward who
refused to say what he actually believed until it was politically safe to do so.

Reagan ran up one-third of your national debt in eight years, deficits unprecedented in American history except during wartime. If you didn't care then, your concern seems facetious (or perhaps just blindly partisan) now.

If you expect Obama to put his weakest political foot forward, maybe you also expected Romney to talk about foreign policy. Or you don't, and you just fume at your enemies and embrace your friends whatever they do.

Hard to say what Obama thinks about gay marriage. What do you think about it? Do you think it politically "safe" to be pro-gay marriage now, even as millions of people still vehemently oppose it?

Reagan ran up one-third of your national debt in eight years,

Our national debt is only 5 trillion dollars? What a relief.  Paul Ryan's lie that we owe 16 trillion dollars is as egregious as his claim that President Obama rejected the Bowles-Simpson debt reduction plan.  A dirty lie.

What do you think about it?

I don't care. It should be up to the people of each state to determine.

Do you think it politically "safe" to be pro-gay marriage now

Absolutely.  Its like being pro-abortion. Its a litmus test for the Democrats and the public at large may not particularly like it, but they don't care enough about it to let it determine votes.  

I hadn't previously realised that you might be almost as persistent as Zyx.

When Reagan left office, he had run up what was then 1/3 of America's debt. At that time, did you favour that borrowing or oppose it?

I didn't really care about such things.  I was more concerned with getting to second base with my girlfriend. Who cares about the percentage of national debt? It the abolute amount that matters.  If the debt had been a $100 and Reagan borrowed an addional $50, would that make him equivalent to Obama who has already added 5 trillion in dent in only 4 yours. This false equivalence you are trying to draw is just silly.

Here some others things to ponder when comparing Obama's record to Reagans.  Reagan never had a Republican Congress, let alone a veto proof majority.  Obama owns these last 4 years like no other President owned a term in decades.  Defecit reduction was well within the Democrat's hands.  As chief of staff Rahm Emannuel stated when some advised that the DEmocrats actually bother to negotiate with the Republicans on the stimulus, "Fuck them, we've got the votes."  

Reagan fought a Democratic Congress to reign in spending and lower the defecit, while Obama has spent the last two years attacking the Republicans for not spending enough.  Its like watching Bill Clinton take credit for policies he fought tooth and nail against.  If not for the Republican victory in 2010, we'd probably be another trillion in debt already.

I appreciate your honesty in admitting you didn't notice what was going on under Reagan. Your follow-up comment, that "Reagan fought a Democratic Congress to rein in spending and lower the deficit", was less well-taken, as Reagan didn't fight Congress to do either thing. Furthermore, if you give Congress credit for Clinton-era successes, why don't you also give Congress credit for Reagan-era successes? Because you favour Republicans and don't like Democrats?

I agree that Reagan = Obama would be "false equivalence". When Reagan took power, he was facing interest rates of almost 20% because inflation was so high, while during Obama's term, interest rates have been at record lows because banks didn't have enough money on hand to lend (a/k/a "liquidity crisis"). If Obama had cut deficits, your country would have plunged into full-scale deflation.

Does it surprise you at all that there has been almost no inflation as "borrowing" and "debt" have ostensibly skyrocketed? What do you figure accounts for it? Also, what do you figure accounts for stock markets more than doubling in market value during Obama's Administration? Finally, if Clinton was able to wipe out Reagan-era debt in eight years, why do you feel so sure that Obama-era debt will hang over your country for your grandchildren to pay off?

if Clinton was able to wipe out Reagan-era debt in eight years,

No he didn't and its not even close. His surpluses didn't even wipe out the money his adminstration borrowed early in his term.
Clinton left the U.S. approximately 1 trillion dollars further in debt than he found it.  How do you imagine this President or any  will not only stop borrowing money but actually begin to pay down the $16 trillion we owe?  

Does it surprise you at all that there has been almost no inflation as "borrowing" and "debt" have ostensibly skyrocketed?

Somewhat.  But it would be the height of folly and recklessness  to believe that intrest rates will remain low forever.  Rates will rise at some point in the future, its just a question of when and how much.  

Plainly, no fiat currency can avoid inflation forever. But will trying to recapitalise banks that were ready to fail set off that inflation? It hasn't so far. My guess would be that something else will set it off, something that hasn't happened yet.

Also, how much did Reagan, Bush Sr., and Bush Jr. have to run up America's national debt before Republicans take ANY responsibility for how much America currently owes?

Well we agree that something, perhaps something that is not even on anyone's radar at this point, will trigger interest rates to rise.  The quesiton is what then?  Geithner already admits that our current course is unsustainable, and that's based on intrest rates remaining at historically low levels indefinitely.

Republicans take ANY responsibility for how much America currently owes?

Of course Repubicans deserve some blame for this fiasco, GWB in particular.  But under Obama's watch the debt went from a problem to a catastrophe.  The Republicans at least recognize the problem.  As Rome burns the Democrats are fixated on providing birth control and abortions at taxpayers' expense.  Our country may disintergrate, but apparently the important thing  is that  homos can marry and thirty year old students aren't forced to use their own money to pay for birth control.

Your country won't really disintegrate in any event, no matter who gets elected or reelected. In 10 years you'll be energy independent again, and no president will be able to screw things up badly enough to prevent that from happening. At that point, instead of importing hundreds of billions more than you export, you'll be exporting more than you import, and your international credit will look much better than it does now.

As for paying back your awe-inspiring debts, if you expect more huge bursts of inflation, you'll be paying back those debts with currency worth much less than today. When your GDP has soared to (non-inflation-adjusted) $100 trillion per year, paying off $16 trillion won't look nearly as onerous. Considering you've been there before (e.g., paying off FDR's debts with 1950 dollars), this dynamic should be more familiar to Americans than it seems to be.

[Fiat money very seldom deflates, and then only for very short periods of time. As long as most other countries see YOUR fiat money as more reliable than, or at least AS reliable as, THEIR fiat money, you will continue to get away with this trick indefinitely.]

Republicans "recognise the problem"? And so they plan to dramatically reduce government income by giving huge tax cuts to rich people (Bush Jr's huge tax cuts sure worked great, eh; no wonder your economy looks so dynamic now) while they raise "defence" spending by $250 billion per year and start threatening new wars in Syria and Iran to replace your old wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and perhaps set off new cold wars against Russia and China? (They can always cut everything else to shreds, like they facetiously promise; all they'll need to do that will be super-majorities in Congress. No problem, eh?) Sorry, your beloved Republicans seem every bit as brain-dead as Democrats.

As for birth control, abortion rights, and gay marriage, Republicans turned those into American issues themselves, without any help from Democrats. You used to think those issues would help you; now you fear they will hurt you. Oh, well. Republicans also turned Social Security and Medicare into issues, by trying to "reform" them under Bush Jr and then by nominating Ryan for VP. Did you figure Democrats were going to concentrate on their weakest issues, just to be nice? I don't even live in your country and I know how ridiculous that sounds.

How do you imagine this President or any  will not only stop borrowing money but actually begin to pay down the $16 trillion we owe?

Why would we want to do that?  I'm not being facetious-- why in the world would we want to waste resources paying down the debt?  Unless you just meant as a percentage of GDP that is, but I figured you wouldn't use the dollar figure if that was the case.

http://www.treasurydirect.gov/govt/reports/ir/ir_expense.htm

That's just a smidge over 2% annualized.  Still doesn't explain why anyone would want to pay it down in dollar terms.

It's nearly half the size of Obama's "stimulus." Year after year. It is by any measure a colossal waste of money.

If you had a personal debt with a 2% interest rate, would you be in any hurry to pay it off?

Whether or not I would be in a hurry would depend on my finances and, more to the point, the utility that the incurred debt provided. The quickest way to payoff my mortgage, for instance, would be to sell my house. But then I'd incur the expense of paying rent.

The analogous situation, however, would be to notice that my interest payments are manageable and conclude that I can afford to borrow to cover my principal and interest payments.

The analogous situation, however, would be to notice that my interest payments are manageable and conclude that I can afford to borrow to cover my principal and interest payments.

But I'm not arguing against deficit reduction-- I don't believe anybody on this website does so for a long run scenario.  I'm arguing against working to reduce the debt in nominal dollars.  

Why would you not want to reduce the debt and therefore the cost of debt service?

Because the cost of debt service is so low that there are better rates of return available in spending it elsewhere.

For thirty years it was "deficits don't matter". Now, a Democrat, a black Democrat is in charge, and....

I can even take these people seriously anymore.

Now, a Democrat, a black Democrat is in charge, and

"done it in the last eight years is to take out a credit card from the Bank of China in the name of our children, driving up our national debt from $5 trillion from the first 42 presidents. No. 43 added $4 trillion by his lonesome. So we now have over $9 trillion of debt that we are going to have to pay back. $30,000 for every man woman and child. That's irresponsible, that's unpatriotic."

So that expalins it.  Barack Obama and liberals are racist. . When a WHITE President borrows  4 trillion dollars in eight yerars , it's unpatriotic. But when a black does it, its hunket dorey.

Racist.

Good shit, you got all your talking points in a row.

This may be a bit too nuanced but...

23. Don't run up huge debts during times of full employment. The reasons should be crushingly obvious.

75. During a downturn, if interest rates are absurdly low don't pay down a debt, stimulate the economy.

I mean, when are you people ever right?  

So many distortions in so few words.  This might be a record for this site.  

1. Their was never full employment during the Bush years. What a dumb parrot you are, already forgetting your talking points from just a few short years ago.  

2. Obama made his comments when the US was already in a recession.  It was your savior who declared that borrowing smaller amounts in a worse economic situtation was "unpatriotic," not me.   Have fun lying your way around that.  

3.  Are you that feeble minded that you believe because It's sunny today, therfore it will be sunny forever?  Did you also get "tricked" by those selling subprime mortgages?.

To round out my comment: I've occasionally fantasized about what I would do if I stumbled across varying amounts of money.  If I had a million dollars, in addition to buying a K-car-- a nice reliable automobile-- as of a few months ago, I'd pay off my mortgage . . . but I recognize that that in some ways demonstrates my risk aversion since it's essentially locking in ~2.67% return over the next 30 years.  It's not quite that bad since I'd never dump all million into the market at once and this just frees up the equivalent of my mortgage payment to invest every month instead, but still . . .

Anyway, what I'm getting at is, you really don't think the government can do better than a 2% return on investment?  Not that you think the government is getting a 2% return on all of its spending right now but that it would be impossible to invest the money that would go toward paying down the debt at a better rate of return instead.

...you really don't think the government can do better than a 2% return on investment?

Please note the sentence after that question.

There is no good reason to believe the government can invest and make a profit.

The use of the "Inflation of" term is perfectly reasonable in this context, Novy.  On the other hand, I'm not sure which "deleveraging" and which "inflation of debt" he's talking about.

Change in total debt/GDP, 2008-Q2 2011, latest figures from McKinsey.
Great Britain  +20%
USA            -16%

"Does anybody Google these things on their own, or do you all trust me to do it for you in every case?"

Or I already know the answer, have done the research and was just asking a rhetorical question.

Or you had no intention of reading anything you already knew you disagreed with.

Say, you wouldn't be another of Zyx's sockpuppets? Or do right-wingers ALL think they know everything?

What color is the sky in your world?

What does that chart have to do with "British style cuts"?

Which should be easily done once your man Romney raises "defence" spending by $250 billion per year and invades Syria and Iran to boot, eh?

Think any of you desired cuts will come from corporate welfare? Didn't think so. Screwing poor people should more than suffice.