In respect of the US: A decision to spend money on a war is still a decision to spend money. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were not defending their shores. It was discretionary spending. The budget deficits run by the Bush government during this period are not exclusively due to the wars and are enormous by any standard.
In respect of Hawke/Keating: read the books I mention above. I know you're a reader so they'll give you a bit more background on the period in question. It will also demonstrate that the Hawke/Keating government is an extraordinarily well credentialled economic manager. I think history may also be kind to Wayne Swan (he's received accolades as a treasure whereas none of Keating, Costello or Howard ever have). What history won't forgive this government is watering down the mining tax.
Howard and Costello were in power during the longest economic expansion in modern history and did not do enough with the bounty. Their credentials are strong, but they could have done so much more.
Most of the Nordic countries have run successful social democratic governments for many years.
Your contributions are normally very well thought out, but in this instance I think you're missing something.
I am a big fan Paul Keating and have attended quite a few events to hear him speak on his time in power and as treasurer. I have also looked extensively at his economic record after originally believing him to be one of our great economic managers. The main pro's of his rule are:
Pro's of Keating:
Eliminated centralised wage fixing
Floated AUD
Independence to the RBA
De-regulated banks
Created APEC Conference
These are all good micro-economic reforms however, there are very few people that would have argued that these would not have been implemented by anyone else in power at the time seeing they were being undertaken by Western countries globally. Unfortunately, after arguing in his corner for many years, I believe that he was only an average economic manager because the spending by his government was excessive, particularly while he was the countries treasurer. It is this undeniable trend between Labor/Liberal governments where the former spends excessively and the latter must reign in these measures with unpopular policy, that provides the strongest proof that one party is better at managing the economy than the other.
What more would you have had Costello and Howard do? Their job was to keep the Australian economy moving forward and growing, creating stability to attract new investment. Sometimes less is more...
The award that Wayne Swan won is the Euromoney Finance Minister of the year award which is a joke of an award. Example of other past winners is Russia's Anatoly Chubais, who only 9 months later presided of the Russian debt crisis which sent shocks through the global economy. Argentina's treasurer was also awarded the award, a country who also defaulted on its own bonds.
The Nordic countries are an interesting study. With some the world's strictest immigration policies and largest cultural differences to neighbouring regions, these countries were able to implement extreme tax measures on businesses and high earners. History has shown that such measures will drive businesses and high earners to find alternative places to do business however the large cultural divide meant that these people decided to stay within the system rather than leave. If you delve deeper into their system you will see that it was never so rosy. House prices were obscene and it was considered largely impossible for many generations to own their own house/apartment. With a big change in policy on immigration and tools such as the internet opening up this part of the world, we have seen the foundations of this system start to crumble. For example, the entire car industry went bankrupt (and is now owned by Chinese organisations).
You criticise my point of view and me and provide little evidence of contrary. Even though I think I am pretty balanced on the issue, giving credit where credit is due.
You are the one who seems to be missing something.