Burgery in Progress!
Econ Prof Steve Landsburg recently waxed wroth about internet trolls who spend time refuting arguments others never made . Since I think that the gentleman himself tends to indulge in that sort of rhetoric whenever his mind turns to Paul Krugman - pretty often - I thought it only fitting to honor him with the eponymn. It only took a couple of days before he provided us another example: a veritable (Lands)burgery in progress . The subject of this particular burg is the following graph due to Paul Krugman . Bear in mind that Krugman is responding to those who said government spending exploded after Obama took office, is explicitly considering only the time after the fall of Lehman (Sept 15, 2008), and is considering all government (federal, state, and local) spending. Krugman points out that there is no explosion of spending in 2009, despite the ramp up of countercyclical programs like unemployment insurance. Next the critique: Now, what I’m seeing here is something like a 25% incre...