Observe the following chart that relates GDP increases to elections in Spain:

It is created by myself based on data from the INE.

What do you observe? I see two major fluctuations. Are they casual? Are they random? What interests a government in a period of crisis? At a minimum, to appear as if the economy is improving. To make it seem that in the last two years of the legislature, it looks like the country is emerging from the crisis.

Well, this is exactly what the graph shows: both in Zapatero’s and Rajoy’s legislatures, they both let the country fall during the first two years to be able to spend more during the last two.

How can they do this? By making cuts and raising taxes during the first two years to be able to spend the “gathered” money during the last two. The result: A falsely apparent recovery: “We’ve pulled the country out of the crisis.”

A false recovery because in the end, the process returns to the starting point: during Rajoy’s legislature, the economy has not improved significantly, even though the last months may seem otherwise.