How is austerity working for you?

So and old post was getting lots of hits. Turns out some guy linked to it a while ago. Not sure why this happened only now, after 2 years. If Google Translate is accurate (my experience is that it's not always the case) this is what he says:

"Social geographer Ewald Engelen is a Keynesian. Throw money at the economy and everything will be fine, is his theory. He fulminates and tweets all day that the government must spend. This morning Ewald put a link to the Naked Keynesianism, a site that is pro-spending money. Critics on this blog believe that the Netherlands is sick, sicker than in the mid-seventies, when our production lagged behind because we had found gas and with our backs to the sun lay staring. Look at that chart. Go to it!"

I love that Keynesian is like a dirty word (that's actually the reason the blog has its name). I should change the subtitle of the blog to "a pro-spending money blog." The it is this post.

Take away the obvious confusion about calling the Dutch economic sick (he obviously doesn't know about the well established Dutch Disease very well), how well has austerity worked after two more years.

The average rate of growth of the Dutch economy since the crisis hit is -0.3%. And the economy only started to recover from the second dip last year, with the impressive figure of 0.9% growth. Austerity is a success indeed!