02-06-2012, 07:48 PM
freeradical wrote:
That's Greece's debt to GDP ratio. We're just pikers at only a little over 100%. Pile it on!
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/07/busine...ks.html?hp
Did you read that article? I'm just wondering, because the article suggests that austerity, meaning a sharp cutback in gov't spending, has been the wrong thing to do. Greece needs GDP growth, not curtailment, if it's going to dig it's way out. (In reality Greece has to curtail its public sector and spur growth at the same time, no one is sure yet how to make that happen.)
As for comparisons with the US? We aren't Greece, not even close.
Greece has had severe problems with government corruption, unemployment, lack of manufacturing base, and size of the public sector relative to the overall economy. If you compare our numbers with theirs, you can see why they were obviously headed for trouble, and why there is no reason to think that the US is on a similar course.
It's become popular among Republicans to say "we're heading in the same direction as Greece," but in order for that to work, they're going to have to assume that the US public is very badly informed on the economic issues of other countries (Maybe that's a fair assumption.)