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

[Denny Crane]

You were the one whining about the date on the first analysis of the stimulus effect. So I gave you one a year later, and you're still whining about it

The $1.4T per year in deficit spending, including the stimulus money, adds to the debt and debt payments, so it's a negative. It was also money spent that had a $0x multiplier when if the money were kept in the private sector and spent there, it'd have had a bigger multiplier.

The jobs picture tells the story of digging the hole quite nicely.

So state governments reduced their deficits instead of running surpluses. It doesn't change a thing about the effect of the stimulus on the economy. Anyone who had a state govt. job, like firefighters and teachers, got the axe a little later is all.

 

[barfo]

You were the one whining about the date on the first analysis of the stimulus effect. So I gave you one a year later, and you're still whining about it

I'm not whining, just pointing out that your commentary made no sense.

The $1.4T per year in deficit spending, including the stimulus money, adds to the debt and debt payments, so it's a negative.

You could apply that 'analysis', if you want to call it that, to any and all government spending, in any year, under any circumstances.

It was also money spent that had a $0x multiplier when if the money were kept in the private sector and spent there, it'd have had a bigger multiplier.

And yet private enterprise wasn't spending the money they did have. That's the nature of a recession, the private sector and the consumers don't spend money, they hoard it.

The jobs picture tells the story of digging the hole quite nicely.

It does nothing of the sort, but we've already covered that ground multiple times, so you just go right on with your fantasy, don't mind me.

So state governments reduced their deficits instead of running surpluses. It doesn't change a thing about the effect of the stimulus on the economy. Anyone who had a state govt. job, like firefighters and teachers, got the axe a little later is all.

Yes, if only more people could have been laid off sooner, that would have made everything a libertarian paradise.

barfo

 

[BLAZER PROPHET]

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.

In a prior thread I started, I posted the US government figures of a 24.9% unemployed/underemployed.

The Great Depression figures were around 22%.

But this is just a recession.

And it's over, ya know.

 

[jlprk]

Recently released Commerce Department data show that of the $862 billion stimulus package, the change in government purchases at the federal level has, thus far, been extremely small. From the first quarter of 2009 through the third quarter of 2010, government purchases have increased by only 3% of the $862 billion ($24 billion). Infrastructure spending increased by an even smaller amount: $4 billion. In a $14 trillion economy, these amounts are immaterial.

Summary of that paragraph: The Federal government didn't waste stimulus money on itself, contrary to Republican theory that it would pig out and private recipients wouldn't. So you quoted this to praise Obama.

The Commerce Department also provides data on ARRA grants to state and local governments and the amount of purchases by these governments. According to these data, state and local government purchases of goods and services did not increase at all in response to the large federal stimulus grants. These purchases have remained slightly below their pre-ARRA level since the fourth quarter of 2008.

Summary: State governments didn't waste stimulus money they got, contrary to Republican theory that they would pig out and private recipients wouldn't. So you quoted this to praise Obama.

The bottom-line is the federal government borrowed funds from the public, transferred these funds to state and local governments, who then used the funds mainly to reduce borrowing from the public. The net impact on aggregate economic activity is zero, regardless of the magnitude of the government purchases multiplier.

Summary: The writer found nothing to criticize. So you quoted this to praise Obama.

This behavior is a replay of the failed stimulus attempts of the 1970s. As Gramlich found in his work on the antirecession grants to state and local governments: "A large share of the [grant] money seems likely to pad the surpluses of state and local governments, in which case there are no obvious macrostabilization benefits."

Summary: Good one! A little joke about states currently running surpluses! As your preceding paragraph just finished saying above, states used it to pay down their deficits, resulting in them borrowing less. You knew we'd all catch the joke. So you quoted this to praise Obama.

The implication of our empirical research and Gramlich's is not that the stimulus of 2009 was too small, but rather that such countercyclical programs are inherently limited. The lesson is to beware of politicians proposing public works and other government purchases as a means to stimulate the economy. They did not work then and they are not working now.

Summary: Until now, the writer has given only reasons for the stimulus having been used efficiently. The reader notices the writer's sudden leap of faith to the opposite conclusion. You cleverly knew we'd be surprised by his ending. So you quoted this to praise Obama.

Mr. Cogan, a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, was deputy director of the Office of Management and Budget under President Ronald Reagan. Mr. Taylor, an economics professor at Stanford and a Hoover senior fellow, is the author of "Getting Off Track: How Government Actions and Interventions Caused, Prolonged and Worsened the Financial Crisis" (Hoover Press, 2009).

Both work at the Hoover Institution and are published under the Hoover Press. For 80 years, the public has damned Hoover for the Depression, not for Hoover Dam. 12 straight years of Republican presidents, culminating in Hoover's refusal to use Roosevelt's methods to spend his way out of the Depression, caused Hoover to be universally ridiculed all my life and listed among the worst presidents. You must have quoted this to praise Obama.

 

[jlprk]

You say Federal debt increased the same amount as state debt decreased. So there was no difference in total government debt. You yourself call it a wash.

Passing money down to state governments is like Nixon's revenue sharing program, in which he permanently increased Federal subsidies to the grateful states.

Apparently, you expected all stimulus money to go to private companies to delay layoffs, instead of allowing a little to state governments to delay layoffs.

It sounds like there was no major difference between the results and your expectations. You're resorting to nitpicking because the economy's still bland and you're trying to find reasons from your ideology that any bad causes must come from government spending.

 

[Denny Crane]

My expectations were set by Obama. We'd have much lower unemployment because of the spending and the deficits would be lower than expected without the spending - it isn't. The deficits would be greatly reduced by 2011 and they're not. 2011 on this graph made at the time the stimulus was passed now looks like 2010, with no hint of improving going forward.

The Hoover Institution is a think tank at Stanford University, one of the top business schools in the country.

 

[julius]

Nope.

Actually, Bush had a stimulus package.

 

[Denny Crane]

Actually, Bush had a stimulus package.

Link...

If you think the military operations were a stimulus, the administration and economists at the time said there would be no extra effect on the economy - and there wasn't.

So how many guys making $100K do you have to tax at 10% to pay one govt. employee making $100K?

 

[julius]

Link...

If you think the military operations were a stimulus, the administration and economists at the time said there would be no extra effect on the economy - and there wasn't.

So how many guys making $100K do you have to tax at 10% to pay one govt. employee making $100K?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_Stimulus_Act_of_2008

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/2314381...nd_economy/t/bush-signs-stimulus-package-law/

http://www.stimuluspackagedetails.com/total.html

I freely admit that this last website might be total bullshit.

http://www.economicstimulusdetails.com/stimulus-timelines.html

which lists them.

hese are the major economic stimulus packages, give or take a few billion:

March 2008: Bush stimulus $29 billion for Bear Stearns/JP Morgan Chase deal
May 2008: Bush stimulus $178 billion in tax rebate checks
July 2008: Bush stimulus $300 billion for distressed homeowners
July 2008: Bush stimulus $200 billion for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac
September 2008: Bush stimulus $50 billion to guarantee money market funds
September 2008: Bush stimulus $25 billion to Big 3 automakers
September-November 2008: Bush stimulus $150 billion to AIG
October 2008: Bush stimulus $700 billion to banks (TARP)

for a total of: 1.632 trillion.


February 2009: Obama stimulus $787 billion in broad stimulus package
February 2009: Obama stimulus $75 billion for distressed homeowners
February 2009: Obama stimulus $200 billion for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac
March 2009: Obama stimulus $30 billion for AIG
March 2009: Obama stimulus $15 billion forSmall Business lending
March 2009: Obama stimulus $1 trillion for banks to remove "toxic assets" from their books
March 2009: Obama stimulus $22 billion for Big 3 automakers Chrysler and GM
June 2009: Obama stimulus $30 billion to help General Motors file bankruptcy

(I removed the G-20 thing)

2.119 trillion.

I don't know much about the 1 trillion to the banks thing.

 

[jlprk]

Great list.

Almost all of that is loans, not grants. (I think.) The government has collected, or expects to collect, much of that back. Which will soon cancel out the real annual deficit for a couple of years. (They hope.)

 

[Denny Crane]

Nothing on that list is a stimulus of any kind. It looks like TARP. Bailouts.

 

[julius]

Nothing on that list is a stimulus of any kind. It looks like TARP. Bailouts.

So the checks sent out to taxpayers Isn't a stimulus? Among other things done to help boost the economy.

You are so full of partisan shit, it's not even funny

 

[Denny Crane]

So the checks sent out to taxpayers Isn't a stimulus? Among other things done to help boost the economy.

You are so full of partisan shit, it's not even funny

I think TARP was a huge mistake, too. It wasn't a stimulus of any kind. It was supposed to be used to buy up all the foreclosed mortgages and derivatives. Little of the money found its way to main street, instead it was given to BofA so they could buy Merrill Lynch and Wells Fargo to buy WaMu (I think it was), etc.

So a pox on W and his guys for that.

There were no checks sent out to taxpayers as you claim - or some puny amount, if any.

Keep in mind that little of the TARP money ever went where it was supposed to. The GM bailout used some of the funds...

 

[jlprk]

http://maddowblog.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/07/05/7019598-chart-presidents-and-unemployment

A graph shows which party decreases unemployment. Since Truman, Reagan is the only Republican who did, while every Democrat has, except the first 2 years of Obama. He has plenty of time left.

Also check out the last link in the article, another graphic showing that tax hikes help the economy.