Tuesday, January 20, 2009

Good Policy or Good Luck?

How big are stimulus packages from around the world? How does ours compare?

Stimuli:
US: $825 billion, 4.8% of GDP over two years (or more)... of course, if we subtract off reductions in state and local spending, then we'd get something closer to about $600 billion, or 3.6% of GDP...

China: $1.4 trillion total!
Europe: 200 billion Euros... (although last I saw Europe still has inflation, so they still have some leverage to fight by lowering interest rate, as they are still at 2 percent (stupid!)...)
UK: 20 billion pounds... (and described by Germany's finance minister as "crass Keynesianism"!)
Japan: I saw 1% of GDP, including .06% on public works...
Korea: I see has a $11 billion stimulus package, but then again they grew at 4% last year, and are expected to grow at 3% this year -- so their stimulus is merely precautionary...

I'd like to see more data, but i suspect these line up perfectly -- China has the largest stimulus, and has grown the fastest in recent years; the US has the 2nd largest stimulus, and has had roughly the 2nd fastest growth in past 20 years, and Japan and Europe have done worse, and have dumb, smaller stimulus packages...

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