Obama’s Economists: ‘Stimulus’ Has Cost $278,000 per Job

Discussion in 'Blazers OT Forum' started by Denny Crane, Jul 3, 2011.

  1. Denny Crane

    Denny Crane It's not even loaded! Staff Member Administrator

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    http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/obama-s-economists-stimulus-has-cost-278000-job_576014.html

    Obama’s Economists: ‘Stimulus’ Has Cost $278,000 per Job
    The stimulus is now causing the economy to shed jobs.

    When the Obama administration releases a report on the Friday before a long weekend, it’s clearly not trying to draw attention to the report’s contents. Sure enough, the “Seventh Quarterly Report” on the economic impact of the “stimulus,” released on Friday, July 1, provides further evidence that President Obama’s economic “stimulus” did very little, if anything, to stimulate the economy, and a whole lot to stimulate the debt.

    The report was written by the White House’s Council of Economic Advisors, a group of three economists who were all handpicked by Obama, and it chronicles the alleged success of the “stimulus” in adding or saving jobs. The council reports that, using “mainstream estimates of economic multipliers for the effects of fiscal stimulus” (which it describes as a “natural way to estimate the effects of” the legislation), the “stimulus” has added or saved just under 2.4 million jobs — whether private or public — at a cost (to date) of $666 billion. That’s a cost to taxpayers of $278,000 per job.

    In other words, the government could simply have cut a $100,000 check to everyone whose employment was allegedly made possible by the “stimulus,” and taxpayers would have come out $427 billion ahead.

    ...

    In comparison to how things would otherwise have been, the “stimulus” has been working in reverse over the past six months, causing the economy to shed jobs.

    ...

    The actual employment numbers from the administration’s own Bureau of Labor Statistics show that the unemployment rate was 7.3 percent when the “stimulus” was being debated. It has since risen to 9.1 percent. Meanwhile, the national debt at the end of 2008, when Obama was poised to take office, was $9.986 trillion (see Table S-9). It’s now $14.467 trillion — and counting.
     
  2. julius

    julius Global Moderator Staff Member Global Moderator

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    Have you guys ever noticed that the "liberals" on here rarely post political threads that back an opinion they have?

    I bet 80% of the political threads are ones that support a conservative/right wing ideology.

    not saying it's wrong (and oh yeah..they're not started by conservative people..it's just a happy coincidence), it's just funny.

    It doesn't matter who is in office either, it seems the prolific thread starters are of a conservative ideology.
     
  3. barfo

    barfo triggered obsessive commie pinko Staff Member Global Moderator

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    That is an unbelievably dishonest summary. It misquotes the numbers and lies about the conclusions. You should be ashamed of yourself for posting it, Denny.

    Here are the actual conclusions of the study:

    ARRA has raised the level of GDP as of the first quarter of 2011, relative to what it otherwise would have been, by between 2.3 and 3.2 percent.

    ARRA has raised employment relative to what it otherwise would have been by between 2.4 and 3.6 million

    barfo
     
  4. BLAZER PROPHET

    BLAZER PROPHET Well-Known Member

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    My recollection is when Bush was President it was the S2 liberals that made more threads bashing his administration and now that Obama is President the S2 conservatives are making more threads.

    The moral of the story is that whoever controls the White House, the opposition will attack.

    It's always been that way.
     
  5. Denny Crane

    Denny Crane It's not even loaded! Staff Member Administrator

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    LOL

    How did they come up with 2.4M jobs when there are 2m more unemployed now than when Obama took office.
     
  6. SlyPokerDog

    SlyPokerDog Woof! Staff Member Administrator

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    Anchor babies.
     
  7. barfo

    barfo triggered obsessive commie pinko Staff Member Global Moderator

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    That's a silly question. If you fall out of a 4th story window, and I catch you half-way to the ground, you've still fallen 2 stories, but I've saved you from falling an additional two stories.

    But don't worry, I won't catch you. Because I know you believe it is better for you to hit the ground.

    barfo
     
  8. julius

    julius Global Moderator Staff Member Global Moderator

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    I don't think it was as much of a "see? I'm so right!"

    some of that might be that at the end of Bush's last term, pretty much everyone was throwing him under the bus.
     
  9. Denny Crane

    Denny Crane It's not even loaded! Staff Member Administrator

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    Liberals don't understand economics...

    If we didn't spend the money, I wouldn't have been shoved out the window in the first place. The economy is shedding more jobs than it would have otherwise.
     
  10. MARIS61

    MARIS61 Real American

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    True, so true.

    You must spread some Reputation around before giving it to barfo again.
     
  11. barfo

    barfo triggered obsessive commie pinko Staff Member Global Moderator

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    Apparently Libertarians don't understand logic.

    In the analogy, you were already falling when I (ARRA) arrived on the scene. ARRA did not cause the economic crash. That happened several months before.

    That's not what the study says, nor does it follow from any data you've presented (ever). It is simply your religious belief, unencumbered by reality.

    barfo
     
  12. Denny Crane

    Denny Crane It's not even loaded! Staff Member Administrator

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    To use your analogy, since you think you understand it...

    The building was 2 stories and the fall was going to be 2 stories no matter what. Those shovel ready jobs were digging a hole 2 stories deep into the ground so the fall did end up being 4 stories.

    [​IMG]
     
  13. barfo

    barfo triggered obsessive commie pinko Staff Member Global Moderator

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    We've covered this graph many times before, but I'll repeat it once more: both the with and without lines on that graph are projections. By the same person, presumably. Your misuse of this graph depends upon the assumption that while one of those predictions was in error, the other one was spot on. That's the kind of assumption you make when you care more about getting the conclusion you want than about getting the truth.

    barfo
     
  14. jlprk

    jlprk The ESPN mod is insane.

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    Unemployment numbers are just the number of people who are on unemployment. They don't include people like me, I mean, they don't include people who have given up, or work part-time underemployed, or who hate the system and look for ways to evade it, or people who live under a bridge, or women who ho their husbands to avoid a job, or, people living off their savings between jobs, or people who would take a job if it walked up and slapped them in the face but who figure it's not worth the effort to instigate any applying, or people living off of an inheritance, or rich people who just don't have to work, or, well, I can think of a lot more.
     
  15. Denny Crane

    Denny Crane It's not even loaded! Staff Member Administrator

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    The graph was provided by Obama's economic team/advisors.

    It was part of his argument that the "stimulus" bill should be passed.

    (From a) Jan. 9, 2009, report called "The Job Impact of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Plan" from Christina Romer, chairwoman of the president's Council of Economic Advisers, and Jared Bernstein, the vice president's top economic adviser.

    Their report projected that the stimulus plan proposed by Obama would create between three and four million jobs by the end of 2010. The report also includes a graphic predicting unemployment rates with and without the stimulus. Without the stimulus (the baseline), unemployment was projected to hit about 8.5 percent in 2009 and then continue rising to a peak of about 9 percent in 2010. With the stimulus, they predicted the unemployment rate would peak at just under 8 percent in 2009.
     
  16. barfo

    barfo triggered obsessive commie pinko Staff Member Global Moderator

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    You do understand what those words in bold mean, right?

    If your argument was that Obama's team made lousy predictions in this case, I'd agree with that.

    But you've been making a rather different argument, haven't you? An argument that is rather disingenuous, since I'm pretty sure you do know what the words in bold mean, and which curves on the graph they apply to.

    barfo
     
  17. Denny Crane

    Denny Crane It's not even loaded! Staff Member Administrator

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    It's their job to be accurate in their predictions. Especially when they demanded we spend $800B or else.

    By their predictions, they did dig that 2 story deep hole for the economy to fall.

    You know GW Bush has the record for worst job creation (+3M jobs). Obama's going to take that honor and be the first to have negative job creation. As well as putting us in the most debt and running the biggest deficits.
     
  18. barfo

    barfo triggered obsessive commie pinko Staff Member Global Moderator

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    Unfortunately, the depth of the recession was difficult for anyone to predict.

    There you go again. I just pointed out why that line of "reasoning" is faulty.

    Some say 1 million.

    If the economy doesn't recover, that will be true. But at the moment, we don't know.

    Of course, that would be true of whoever took office in Jan 2009, so it's kind of a meaningless point.

    barfo
     
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  19. Denny Crane

    Denny Crane It's not even loaded! Staff Member Administrator

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    Unfortunately, we don't have people in the white house who are competent.
     
  20. barfo

    barfo triggered obsessive commie pinko Staff Member Global Moderator

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    barfo
     

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