9 thoughts on “ABOUT THOSE GOVERNMENT SPENDING CUTS …”

1. That’s not a graph of government spending, so not sure what you expect people to learn about government spending from it.

2. Like many graphs that are unfortunately used in the business and other press, this one starts at a very high base, so as to wildly exaggerate the extent of the short therm increase.

   If the graph started at a base of zero, it wouldn’t jump out and shock as this one does.

   It is deceptive.

3. Phantom,

   It’s not the whole spending picture. It’s like saying a household hasn’t cut spending because their shopping bill has increased year on year, even if one of the breadwinners has lost their job and they can no longer afford to turn on the heating or run a car.

   Furthermore I’m pretty sure it’s not adjusted for inflation. If that’s correct the graph means that even this part of the budget *has* been cut. And of course if it hasn’t been adjusted for the dread hyperinflation that’s pretty amusing.

   (From a rough calculation it should end up somewhere about 384 000, just to stay the same in real terms).

4. Frank O’Dwyer –

   No, it’s not a graph of government spending. You can see that in the title. It’s a graph of spending on all goods and services. It’s a graph of “collective benefits” of government spending. We can see that such benefits have not been cut in any way. We can see that, for instance, increased debt in interest payments won’t be reflected in higher government spending while the supposed social benefits of that spending decrease.

5. Phantom –

   How can it start at zero? It records as aspect of government spending. When was that ever zero?

   The point is to demonstrate what has happened since 2010, hence the reference to supposed government cuts, hence why it doesn’t begin in 410AD.

6. Pete,

   “No, it’s not a graph of government spending.”

   Perhaps it would be a better idea to look at a graph of government spending if you want to see what’s happened to government spending.

   “We can see that such benefits have not been cut in any way.”

   Actually we can see that they have been cut in real terms.

7. A graph can show vertical bars at zero, that go up to capture the level of what is measured.

8. Here for example is total gov spending since 2005, in 2005 money, with interest separated out.

   http://www.ukpublicspending.co.uk/spending_chart_2005_2012UKk_12c1li101lcn_F0t90t

9. That is a bar graph that starts at zero. It doesn’t show wild changes because there have not been wild changes. I like it.

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