Should I Call This Blog Diary of a Republican Lover? and Sumner's Flawed Definition of Austerity

     I'm wondering as I was just told by my web consultant that one of the reasons Adsense may have dropped my account and Facebook now blocked me might be the name Republican Hater. It's possible though I had Adsense for 20 months before they realized that 'hate' is something they have a problem with. I also know that a lot of people have seen their blogs banned on Facebook. 

    My consultant says they will make the case that this is not a 'hate blog' which if they check this blog out just once will see that it's got little to do with 'hate.'

    So I'm keeping the name-how will you be able to find me if I don't?

    With this cleared up, we're finally seeing some push-back on the concerted effort to lying claim that the EU  had no austerity. 

    http://diaryofarepublicanhater.blogspot.com/2013/06/krugman-takes-on-sumner-austerity-myth.html

    Wonkblog takes on this claim:

    "Selim Furth, an economist at the Heritage Foundation. Furth arguedthat (a) tax increases harm the economy (b) spending cuts help economic growth and (c) permanent spending reform permanently increases growth. So far, so conservative. But the most interesting part of his testimony was Furth’s claim that most of Europe isn’t experiencing austerity at all."

     “Just ten OECD countries have tightened their cyclically adjusted deficits since 2006–2007,” Furth writes. “Despite major crises, even Ireland, Iceland, and Spain have increased their cyclically adjusted deficits."

    "Here’s the thing, though. The numbers Furth is using here have both a numerator and a denominator. The denominator – the countries’ GDP – is biasing results in this case. Ireland is actually a perfect example. According to the OECD, between 2008 and 2012, its budget deficit went from €13.2 billion to €12.2 billion, not adjusting for inflation. Its GDP went from €178.9 billion to €163.6 billion. So its deficit-to-GDP ratio went up slightly, from 7.35 percent to 7.48 percent. But that’s only because the economy shrank massively during that time period. Even though it was experiencing austerity, the numbers Furth is using don’t show that."

     http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/06/05/yes-europe-really-is-in-the-throes-of-austerity/

     One thing that Sumner and friends like to do is just point out the nominal deficit and say they've done austerity? How do you explain this then?

     Furth is doing the same thing here:

     "Or for another way of looking at which countries are and are not tightening fiscal policy, one could use an approach Summers used at the same hearing. He divided deficits bypotential GDP, or how large these economies would be if they were operating at full capacity. That allows him to adjust for countries’ relative sizes and levels of economic development without having the data muddled by recessions, as happened with Furth’s data. Sure enough, he finds not only that austerity is pretty popular across Europe, but that it’s associated with slower growth."

       What's really great about this is that Furth gave this misleading analysis at a hearing called by  before the Senate  Budget Committee-called by is Chair, Patty Murray-and was called out directly by Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.)."

     “I am concerned that your testimony to this committee has been meretricious,” Whitehouse told Furth. “I am contesting whether you have given us fair and accurate information.” It’s a fair concern, given what the OECD has actually said on the subject.