jreeves
Senior Member
- Feb 12, 2008
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RealClearPolitics - Larry Summers on "Meet the Press"
The Obama administration is sending out their advocates to throw out shit to confuse the American public about the stimulus.
MR. GREGORY: The criticism of this administration is that it has misread the impact of the stimulus on the economy, and here are the raw numbers when it comes to the unemployment rate. As of February 17th of 2009, the day that the stimulus plan was signed, unemployment was at 7.6 percent, it's now at 9.5 percent. Experts like yourself believe it's going to go up over 10 percent. Roughly two million jobs have been lost since the stimulus came on line, after this administration said in a report that if you pass a stimulus plan, we'll hold unemployment steady at 8 percent. What went wrong?
DR. SUMMERS: David, I, I think that's really very, with great respect, I think that's really a very misleading way of putting it. The administration's report was very clear that the stimulus would build over time, that less than 10 percent of the job creation would take place during 2009, that the largest impacts would be felt as the program took effect, as all of those projects got started. So we forecast that there would be a meaningful impact felt right away, but that that effect would increase very substantially.
MR. GREGORY: Wait a minute, that--is that fair to say I'm misleading...
DR. SUMMERS: And that's what's--and that's, and that's what...
MR. GREGORY: ...when he says he would keep it at 8 percent?
DR. SUMMERS: ...and that's what's happened. Now, it's true that unemployment is higher. It's higher than almost anyone forecast at the beginning of the year; and it's higher because, frankly, what we inherited was much worse. Most of the surprise increase had already taken place by March, and you can hardly hold the administration accountable for that. It turned out that businesses were even more scared than we realized; and, therefore, relative to past recessions, as demand for their products declined, they were much quicker to lay people off than they, than they have been. And so there was a surprise in the employment statistics, but that didn't have to do with the impact of the stimulus. That had to do with the baseline that we were dealing with. You saw that. You see evidence for that also, David, in this last economic report. In addition to giving us the data for the second quarter, which is what everybody's talked about, the negative 1 percent, it also gave us data on revisions of the whole history of GDP. And what those revisions showed us is that last winter the economy was much weaker than we thought it was at the time.
MR. GREGORY: OK, but, Doctor...
DR. SUMMERS: So, yes, there's been a surprise.
MR. GREGORY: OK.
DR. SUMMERS: But it's got nothing that bears on what the impact of the stimulus has been as distinct from an uncertainty we very much recognized, which is the uncertainty about how bad the economy is...
MR. GREGORY: All right. But wait, but wait a second.
DR. SUMMERS: ...and what the baseline was.
MR. GREGORY: But, Dr. Summers, wait a minute. You say it was misleading to bring up the 8 percent. The reality is that you wanted near-term economic impact from the stimulus. You gave a speech within the last two weeks during which you said unemployment is a real problem, that it was a surprise. My question is if you didn't get the near-term economic benefit that you wanted, you were surprised by that, does it have an impact on whether or not the president would consider repealing any of the long-term spending, given the deficit problem?
What a load of shit....
http://otrans.3cdn.net/45593e8ecbd339d074_l3m6bt1te.pdf
Pay special attention to the bottom of pg. 5 fig. 1.....
The Obama administration is sending out their advocates to throw out shit to confuse the American public about the stimulus.
MR. GREGORY: The criticism of this administration is that it has misread the impact of the stimulus on the economy, and here are the raw numbers when it comes to the unemployment rate. As of February 17th of 2009, the day that the stimulus plan was signed, unemployment was at 7.6 percent, it's now at 9.5 percent. Experts like yourself believe it's going to go up over 10 percent. Roughly two million jobs have been lost since the stimulus came on line, after this administration said in a report that if you pass a stimulus plan, we'll hold unemployment steady at 8 percent. What went wrong?
DR. SUMMERS: David, I, I think that's really very, with great respect, I think that's really a very misleading way of putting it. The administration's report was very clear that the stimulus would build over time, that less than 10 percent of the job creation would take place during 2009, that the largest impacts would be felt as the program took effect, as all of those projects got started. So we forecast that there would be a meaningful impact felt right away, but that that effect would increase very substantially.
MR. GREGORY: Wait a minute, that--is that fair to say I'm misleading...
DR. SUMMERS: And that's what's--and that's, and that's what...
MR. GREGORY: ...when he says he would keep it at 8 percent?
DR. SUMMERS: ...and that's what's happened. Now, it's true that unemployment is higher. It's higher than almost anyone forecast at the beginning of the year; and it's higher because, frankly, what we inherited was much worse. Most of the surprise increase had already taken place by March, and you can hardly hold the administration accountable for that. It turned out that businesses were even more scared than we realized; and, therefore, relative to past recessions, as demand for their products declined, they were much quicker to lay people off than they, than they have been. And so there was a surprise in the employment statistics, but that didn't have to do with the impact of the stimulus. That had to do with the baseline that we were dealing with. You saw that. You see evidence for that also, David, in this last economic report. In addition to giving us the data for the second quarter, which is what everybody's talked about, the negative 1 percent, it also gave us data on revisions of the whole history of GDP. And what those revisions showed us is that last winter the economy was much weaker than we thought it was at the time.
MR. GREGORY: OK, but, Doctor...
DR. SUMMERS: So, yes, there's been a surprise.
MR. GREGORY: OK.
DR. SUMMERS: But it's got nothing that bears on what the impact of the stimulus has been as distinct from an uncertainty we very much recognized, which is the uncertainty about how bad the economy is...
MR. GREGORY: All right. But wait, but wait a second.
DR. SUMMERS: ...and what the baseline was.
MR. GREGORY: But, Dr. Summers, wait a minute. You say it was misleading to bring up the 8 percent. The reality is that you wanted near-term economic impact from the stimulus. You gave a speech within the last two weeks during which you said unemployment is a real problem, that it was a surprise. My question is if you didn't get the near-term economic benefit that you wanted, you were surprised by that, does it have an impact on whether or not the president would consider repealing any of the long-term spending, given the deficit problem?
What a load of shit....
http://otrans.3cdn.net/45593e8ecbd339d074_l3m6bt1te.pdf
Pay special attention to the bottom of pg. 5 fig. 1.....
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