The Cause of Europe's Economics Woes? Austerity or the Inept Central Planners?

I am really getting sick of hearing from both the left and ring wing politicians, from the governments and from the central bankers that austerity is the cause of the trouble in their respective countries — or anywhere else. For example the NYT keeps on publishing silly news reports written by inept journalists who keep on parroting inept central planners (governments and central bankers) and describing austerity as the cause of all the troubles in Europe.

In reality, there has been NO AUSTERITY at all, except in Greece and Ireland. So please French, Italian, Spanish and other EU countrymen, please, stop the lies. See for yourselves the charts below (source: Wikipedia).

As you can see, debt to GDP ratio for all the countries but Germany have been soaring in 2009 and 2010 — and notice that these year were labeled as growth years!

And the financing needs of almost all economies (except Ireland and the UK have been rising, including for 2012 — ignore the over optimistic forecasts for 2013...)

In what kind of austerity government spending increases? dramatically?

Moreover, austerity is the cure, and spending and debt are the poison. Unfortunately, your beloved Central Planners will simply keep on telling the opposite to the Lemmings and Parrots, who will keep on repeating and will follow them over the cliff.