Estonia doing well with "austerity" budgets, and Spain is not an example of "austerity"

Paul Krugman, the guy who kept predicting disaster for Germany's austerity program, has gone after Estonia for what he calls being the "poster child for austerity defenders."

There are a couple of things that Krugman leaves out of his discussion.


1) Estonia was getting worse relative to other countries when it followed more of a Keynesian policy and has been growing relative to other countries since then.  Figure from The Global Post (click to make larger).  As that publication wrote: "Still, its recovery, after implementing austerity, is intriguing."  By the way, the publication also accuses Krugman of cherry picking data to show.

2) As the Figure above shows, Estonia has been growing relative to the US since mid 2009.

Note on Spanish "austerity."  Spain is in a lot of trouble, but it isn't because of "austerity."  From the WSJ.com.

In 2011, total public-sector spending in Spain was 13% higher than in 2007. . . .