Has the obama stimulus worked?

[Rudy]

Only 1/3 of the stimulus has been spent.. most of which translates to tax cuts (the Beckoids seem to forget about that) The shovel-ready projects are planned for the upcoming year.

 

[RetiredGySgt]

you're partisan, you said so, this poll and the answers are partisan.....

lol...another self pwn......you admit your answer is nothing but partisan

you're killing to me tonight frodo

I'm looking at it from the perspective that all of our answers are "partisan" because we all came into this thread with our minds already made up about this issue. Nobody's mind has been changed in this thread. I could throw up page after page of evidence, but you'd just scoff and troll at it more.

I'm not going to waste my time with your childish antics Yurt. I have the facts, you have your emotions, and that's about it.

You do NOT have facts, you have estimates. That is the whole POINT dumb ass.

 

[Cuyo]

Regardless of any short term "benefits" that the "stimulus" may produce, it represents a significant negative to the long term economic health of the nation. You can't keep spending money you don't have to keep attempting to "fix" an economy that is continually degraded by such bone headed central planning as exemplified by the so called "stimulus".

The economy needs politicians to leave it alone so it can heal itself, not continue jumping up and down on it's chest.

The condition the economy was in a year ago would not have been corrected by markets. Something had to be done, everyone agreed upon that. It was on the verge of collapse. That's not an exaggeration. We had no choice but to get our government behind the recovery effort.

Whether or not the act that ultimately passed was a good one is subjective. There were other options on the table, many economists recommended a much larger measure, but just about nobody recommended doing nothing (see also, Hooverville).

Had nothing been done, there would have been bank runs, free-falling housing prices, pullout of foreign investment and perpetual mass hysteria. How quickly we forget just how bad things were at that time. As McCain said, "We have to stop the bleeding."

Moving forward, looking backward, and the individual merits of the Act are debatable. Doing nothing would have been catastrophic.

 

[Cuyo]

Depends upon how you mean "worked".

Stimulated the economy....No.

Paid off a bunch of Democrat Party loyalist butt boys?....Yes.

Dude, I know your DNA is hardwired to hate me BUT...

Stimulus aside: Do you believe the economy has not improved in the last year?

Do you call 9.7% unemployment in this country "improving?"--- & Expected to be higher than 9% for the entire 2010 year GOOD?

Are you serious right now? Have you forgotten what our prognosis was a year ago?

Recessions are a part of the business cycle. Unemployment is always the last leg of the cycle. It's the last to go down, it's the last to go back up. This is because employers like their current workforce; They are generally reluctant to lay off, holding out for improvement, and reluctant to re-hire upon expansion, holding out for evidence that the growth is sustainable. That's not an opinion, friend, that's what happens.

Funny how the foxtrotters ignore every positive sign and hone in on the one thing that's lagging behind.

 

[Dr Gregg]

It's really too early to tell. Anybody with half a brain knows the economy takes time to recover. Will it work? I don't know

 

[Avatar4321]

The condition the economy was in a year ago would not have been corrected by markets. Something had to be done, everyone agreed upon that. It was on the verge of collapse. That's not an exaggeration. We had no choice but to get our government behind the recovery effort.

How on earth could the economy, which is driven by the markets, not be corrected by the market?

Government isnt behind the recovery effort. If they were, they would get the heck out of the way and let people do what they were born to do: make their own decisions

Whether or not the act that ultimately passed was a good one is subjective. There were other options on the table, many economists recommended a much larger measure, but just about nobody recommended doing nothing (see also, Hooverville).

Subjective? We were told that if it wasnt passed immediately we might see Unemployment as high as 8%. It's over 10% now. Since that was the justification for it, it's either an abject failure, or the politicians lied about what it was supposed to do. That's the only way it could possibly not be a failture.

And for your information, Hoover was a Progressive Republican. IE He didnt do nothing. He had the government interfer with the market, just to a lesser degree than FDR. And lo and behold, it got worse under both of them.

Now Harding and Coolidge cut spending and cut taxes, and got government out of the way, and not only did the Depression of 1920 disappear overnight, but they had an entire decade of unheard of prosperity and technological advancement from which we still benefit.

Had nothing been done, there would have been bank runs, free-falling housing prices, pullout of foreign investment and perpetual mass hysteria. How quickly we forget just how bad things were at that time. As McCain said, "We have to stop the bleeding."

The Stimulus had nothing to do with the banks. The Banks were taken care of in the TARP Bill enacted at the end of the Bush administration. The Stimulus was enacted to prevent unemployment from rising about 8%. It failed. (But as I said earlier, that's only the publicized argument for the stimulus. The real motivation behind the stimulus was to reward Obama administration cronies for electing him to office. As anyone could easily see)

Moving forward, looking backward, and the individual merits of the Act are debatable. Doing nothing would have been catastrophic.

They are debatable if you ignore reality. And that's the problem. We are ignoring reality. No one wants to make the tough choices and deal with what we have to deal with. We can only delay the inevitable so far. And the longer we put off the day of reckoning, the worse it's going to be.

If you think our economic problems are going to ever be solved unless we actually address the root of the problems, you are just lying to yourself.

 

[Avatar4321]

Dude, I know your DNA is hardwired to hate me BUT...

Stimulus aside: Do you believe the economy has not improved in the last year?

Do you call 9.7% unemployment in this country "improving?"--- & Expected to be higher than 9% for the entire 2010 year GOOD?

Are you serious right now? Have you forgotten what our prognosis was a year ago?

Recessions are a part of the business cycle. Unemployment is always the last leg of the cycle. It's the last to go down, it's the last to go back up. This is because employers like their current workforce; They are generally reluctant to lay off, holding out for improvement, and reluctant to re-hire upon expansion, holding out for evidence that the growth is sustainable. That's not an opinion, friend, that's what happens.

Funny how the foxtrotters ignore every positive sign and hone in on the one thing that's lagging behind.

No I havent forgotten our prognosis at all. We were told if we didnt pass the stimulus immediateley without asking any questions whatsoever, unemployment might rise to *gasp* 8%! So yes, when the reality of the the stimulus is that the country is now worse off now than the government argued it would be without the stimulus it's a pretty clear sign of 3 really bad possibilities:

1) Our current leadership is too stupid to lead us.
2) The stimulus didn't work as it said it would
3) The so called experts are a bunch of idiots.

I would argue that all three things are true.

 

[Avatar4321]

It's really too early to tell. Anybody with half a brain knows the economy takes time to recover. Will it work? I don't know

Anyone with half a brain knows that when a program needed to be passed immediately to prevent unemployment from rising above 8% and unemployment is now about 10%, then clearly the program didn't work.

The economy will not recover until the government stops interfering with the private sector, stops it's massive debt spending, and stops punishing success.

 

[Dr Gregg]

It's really too early to tell. Anybody with half a brain knows the economy takes time to recover. Will it work? I don't know

Anyone with half a brain knows that when a program needed to be passed immediately to prevent unemployment from rising above 8% and unemployment is now about 10%, then clearly the program didn't work.

The economy will not recover until the government stops interfering with the private sector, stops it's massive debt spending, and stops punishing success.

Yeah, the fantasy approach to the economy, that works really well

 

[Rudy]

It's really too early to tell. Anybody with half a brain knows the economy takes time to recover. Will it work? I don't know

Anyone with half a brain knows that when a program needed to be passed immediately to prevent unemployment from rising above 8% and unemployment is now about 10%, then clearly the program didn't work.

The economy will not recover until the government stops interfering with the private sector,
stops it's massive debt spending,
and
stops punishing success.

Its like you closed your eyes and pulled three talking points out of some Beckoid grab bag.

Are you capable of original thought?

 

[Avatar4321]

It's really too early to tell. Anybody with half a brain knows the economy takes time to recover. Will it work? I don't know

Anyone with half a brain knows that when a program needed to be passed immediately to prevent unemployment from rising above 8% and unemployment is now about 10%, then clearly the program didn't work.

The economy will not recover until the government stops interfering with the private sector,
stops it's massive debt spending,
and
stops punishing success.

Its like you closed your eyes and pulled three talking points out of some Beckoid grab bag.

Are you capable of original thought?

We have hundreds of years of economic principles that have worked every time they are tried and you think we need original thoughts?

Why should I be original when we've figured it out hundreds of years ago? Why do we need a new way of thinking that ignores natural law? Your argument makes no sense.

 

[Avatar4321]

It's really too early to tell. Anybody with half a brain knows the economy takes time to recover. Will it work? I don't know

Anyone with half a brain knows that when a program needed to be passed immediately to prevent unemployment from rising above 8% and unemployment is now about 10%, then clearly the program didn't work.

The economy will not recover until the government stops interfering with the private sector, stops it's massive debt spending, and stops punishing success.

Yeah, the fantasy approach to the economy, that works really well

Yeah that's what they said when Harding and Coolidge did it. And we had one of the greatest economic and technological booms in world history

 

[Bern80]

Regardless of any short term "benefits" that the "stimulus" may produce, it represents a significant negative to the long term economic health of the nation. You can't keep spending money you don't have to keep attempting to "fix" an economy that is continually degraded by such bone headed central planning as exemplified by the so called "stimulus".

The economy needs politicians to leave it alone so it can heal itself, not continue jumping up and down on it's chest.

The condition the economy was in a year ago would not have been corrected by markets. Something had to be done, everyone agreed upon that. It was on the verge of collapse. That's not an exaggeration. We had no choice but to get our government behind the recovery effort.

Whether or not the act that ultimately passed was a good one is subjective. There were other options on the table, many economists recommended a much larger measure, but just about nobody recommended doing nothing (see also, Hooverville).


Had nothing been done, there would have been bank runs, free-falling housing prices, pullout of foreign investment and perpetual mass hysteria. How quickly we forget just how bad things were at that time. As McCain said, "We have to stop the bleeding."

Moving forward, looking backward, and the individual merits of the Act are debatable. Doing nothing would have been catastrophic.

Collapse IS how the market corrects when we screw around with it. The problem was we had dug such a deep hole that we simply weren't willing to tolerate the consequences of the market correcting. You're right a lot of those things would have happened and in the long run we would have been better for it. Unfortuantely we are more of an instant gratification society.

 

[Rudy]

Anyone with half a brain knows that when a program needed to be passed immediately to prevent unemployment from rising above 8% and unemployment is now about 10%, then clearly the program didn't work.

The economy will not recover until the government stops interfering with the private sector,
stops it's massive debt spending,
and
stops punishing success.

Its like you closed your eyes and pulled three talking points out of some Beckoid grab bag.

Are you capable of original thought?

We have hundreds of years of economic principles that have worked every time they are tried and you think we need original thoughts?

Why should I be original when we've figured it out hundreds of years ago? Why do we need a new way of thinking that ignores natural law? Your argument makes no sense.

And you like to rely on a bunch of white slave owners as the guides to how we run our country... You like to look back on the previous republican presidents each of which had to have a democrat president follow behind them to fix their recessions.

Exactly how did Bush's economic principles work?

Exactly how did Reagan's economic principles work?

 

[Yurt]

so basically obama doesn't know what he is talking about when he said the stimulus worked.

 

[Yurt]

poor obama, gets no respect!

 

[Cuyo]

It's really too early to tell. Anybody with half a brain knows the economy takes time to recover. Will it work? I don't know

Anyone with half a brain knows that when a program needed to be passed immediately to prevent unemployment from rising above 8% and unemployment is now about 10%, then clearly the program didn't work.

The economy will not recover until the government stops interfering with the private sector, stops it's massive debt spending, and stops punishing success.

Three consecutive posts, three times pointing out that unemployment has gone higher than expected, three times ignoring utterly that every other measurable aspect of the economy has improved.

 

[Polk]

It's really too early to tell. Anybody with half a brain knows the economy takes time to recover. Will it work? I don't know

Anyone with half a brain knows that when a program needed to be passed immediately to prevent unemployment from rising above 8% and unemployment is now about 10%, then clearly the program didn't work.

The economy will not recover until the government stops interfering with the private sector, stops it's massive debt spending, and stops punishing success.

Three consecutive posts, three times pointing out that unemployment has gone higher than expected, three times ignoring utterly that every other measurable aspect of the economy has improved.

Ayup...

Frequently, partisan commentators — and even some economists — exclaim that the stimulus has failed because the unemployment rate now exceeds the peak shown in projections prepared before ARRA was implemented. This argument, which clearly — and perhaps intentionally — confuses the pre-stimulus baseline with the incremental effects of the stimulus, would be laughable if it was not taken so seriously in some quarters. For the record, last spring, as the financial crisis that engulfed the economy worsened unexpectedly — but before the stimulus could possibly have had any real effect on the economy — the unemployment rate already had moved above the Administration’s (and many others’) last pre-stimulus projection. So, this is simple: the baseline forecasts were optimistic, but unemployment would be even higher now without the benefit of the stimulus package.

Macroadvisers: MA on fiscal stimulus, the definitive answer: it works. MA refutes the demagoguery.

 

[FireFly]

ONLY AN IDIOTIC DUMOCRAP PARTISAN HACK WOULD CLAIM THE STIMULUS SAVED OR CREATED JOBS. IT IS CLEAR WHO THE OBAMA ASS KISSERS ARE ON THIS BOARD.

WHERE THE FUCK ARE THE JOBS!!!

 

[rdean]

ONLY AN IDIOTIC DUMOCRAP PARTISAN HACK WOULD CLAIM THE STIMULUS SAVED OR CREATED JOBS. IT IS CLEAR WHO THE OBAMA ASS KISSERS ARE ON THIS BOARD.

WHERE THE FUCK ARE THE JOBS!!!

Jobs are a lagging indicator.

The truth is, they may never come back. Many jobs have become automated. What is needed are technicians and electricians. Trained personnel.

Republicans can fight for minimum wage jobs at McDonald's and Arby's or they can go back to school for some real training. Training the stimulus should pay for.

But don't waste that money on learning "magical creation". It's not real.