[aazaa]

> The chart shows cumulative growth in GDP since 2010 compared to the cumulative amount of deficit spending by the federal government. Without that deficit spending, GDP over the past decade is negative.

> ...

> ... The Modern Monetary Theorists out there might find this to be a great argument for deficit spending, but it’s really a pretty simple trick to grow the economy by $1 trillion today by borrowing $1 trillion from tomorrow.

The author makes some good points.

The discussion would be strengthened if the graph obviously showed what he says it does. This should be a simple matter of using GDP growth minus deficit spending as one of the bar sequences.

[Gibbon1]

There is a paper from Norway's geology administration that says what's happening is that fossil fuel productivity is in steep decline since about 2005. Which means the amount spent on fossil fuel (oil and gas) extraction is growing faster than the world economy. Basically an economist looking at gross figures thinks everything is fine. But a mayor of a city looking at his budgets feels like things are getting worse.