Until recently, one of George Osborne's favourite boasts was that the UK economy had grown more in 2011 than the US. He consistently cited this fact as evidence that austerity, not stimulus, is the way to grow the economy. Here he is writing in the Telegraph in August:

The US economy has grown more slowly than the UK economy so far this year, despite fiscal stimulus in the former and fiscal consolidation in the latter, showing that the problem is not too much fiscal responsibility.

Well, the final results are in and it's not looking good for Osborne. While the UK economy shrank by 0.2 per cent in the fourth quarter of 2011, figures out today show that the US economy grew by 0.7 per cent. Over the year, the UK grew by just 0.8 per cent, while the US grew by 1.7 per cent (see graph), suggesting that the problem may well be too much fiscal responsibility. Worse, in the 15 months since the Spending Review, the US has grown by 2.2 per cent, while the UK has grown by just 0.3 per cent.

The $787bn US stimulus should have been much bigger (see Ryan Lizza's piece in this week's New Yorker for the full story of how Obama's advisers rejected the possibility of a larger stimulus) but it has undoubtedly helped the country to avoid the recession that now confronts the UK.