Stimulus money still working

[whitehall]

Shower heads? Obama put a failing company, heavily invested by democrat party doners, on the fast track for a half a billion dollar stimulous loan and they went bankrupt a year later. HUD money has already been funded. It has nothing to do with Obama's grand plan to bankrupt the Country.

 

[Dragon]

Your entire line of "reasoning" (for lack of a better description) for claiming the succubus "worked" is classic post hoc ergo propter hoc, along with being completely unfalsifiable.

I'm not dependent on that to show that the stimulus worked. All I was doing above was pointing out that the simplistic arguments being presented against it were boneheaded.

Here's some evidence that it worked pretty much as predicted:

The Impact of the Recovery Act, In a Few Easy Charts | Jared Bernstein | On the Economy

Check out those three charts, and reflect that most of the stimulus money was spent from February of 2009 through 2010. In GDP growth, monthly job changes, and unemployment rate, we see a clear impact as all of these variables improved while the stimulus spending was going on and then worsened again after the money had been spent.

The stimulus worked. It's proven to have worked. It didn't work as well as it would have if it had been bigger, as economists advised Obama from the beginning. But claims that "the stimulus didn't work so we shouldn't have another stimulus" are just plain boneheaded.

 

[Oddball]

Your entire line of "reasoning" (for lack of a better description) for claiming the succubus "worked" is classic post hoc ergo propter hoc, along with being completely unfalsifiable.

I'm not dependent on that to show that the stimulus worked. All I was doing above was pointing out that the simplistic arguments being presented against it were boneheaded.

Here's some evidence that it worked pretty much as predicted:

The Impact of the Recovery Act, In a Few Easy Charts | Jared Bernstein | On the Economy


Check out those three charts, and reflect that most of the stimulus money was spent from February of 2009 through 2010. In GDP growth, monthly job changes, and unemployment rate, we see a clear impact as all of these variables improved while the stimulus spending was going on and then worsened again after the money had been spent.

The stimulus worked. It's proven to have worked. It didn't work as well as it would have if it had been bigger, as economists advised Obama from the beginning. But claims that "the stimulus didn't work so we shouldn't have another stimulus" are just plain boneheaded.

The simplistic arguments that it has worked and/or wasn't enough are even more boneheaded, as they defy any manner or form of objectively quantifiable logic, no matter how many pretty three-color charts and graphs you can come up with.

The only people the succubus "worked" for were the state bureaucrat union stooges, who had their state overspending and pension funds bailed out.

To have the same people come back for another 1/2 trillion, blowing the same smoke about "crumbling infrastructure", is the height of cynicism, disingenuousness and *ahem* boneheadedness.

 

[Dragon]

The simplistic arguments that it has worked and/or wasn't enough are even more boneheaded, as they defy any manner or form of objectively quantifiable logic, no matter how many pretty three-color charts and graphs you can come up with.

That makes absolutely no sense at all. Quantifiable logic is exactly what I presented. Stimulus money was spent, GDP grew faster, unemployment went down, jobs were created. Stimulus money ran out, all of that worsened. Completely quantifiable, and completely convincing except to boneheads.

 

[Oddball]

The simplistic arguments that it has worked and/or wasn't enough are even more boneheaded, as they defy any manner or form of objectively quantifiable logic, no matter how many pretty three-color charts and graphs you can come up with.

That makes absolutely no sense at all. Quantifiable logic is exactly what I presented. Stimulus money was spent, GDP grew faster, unemployment went down, jobs were created. Stimulus money ran out, all of that worsened. Completely quantifiable, and completely convincing except to boneheads.

No you didn't....You've produced the post hoc ergo propter hoc and broken window fallacies....Correlation doesn't equal causation.

 

[Oddball]

On top of that, the reputed increase in GDP is in terms of a USD that has been greatly inflated over the last couple of years, so the impact in terms of purchasing power is diminished-to-negligble.

 

[Dragon]

No you didn't....You've produced the post hoc ergo propter hoc and broken window fallacies....Correlation doesn't equal causation.

By that argument, there is never any way to tell that any policy produced any change in the economy, we are operating in a total unknowable fog, and we might as well roll dice. There is also, in that case, no way to tell that the stimulus DIDN'T work, and all claims that it didn't based on results are invalid. (Actually, they're also false, as the results show it DID work. But even if they didn't, it would still be invalid.)

There are also some arguments presented above, such as "it only benefited union workers and government bureaucrats," that betray an astounding level of economic ignorance. Say a person gets hired. Say that person is a union worker. Does ONLY that union worker benefit? No: every business he spends money at that he otherwise wouldn't have had, also benefits. So does every employee of that business. So does every business that those employees spend money at that they wouldn't have had if laid off, and all their employees. Every person receiving a paycheck helps the economy. Every person without a paycheck hurts the economy.

The reason that stimulus spending works in an economic slump is because in such a slump private business has no incentive to invest. There's plenty of capital out there right now to produce a boom, but business isn't willing to invest it. Why? Because there's not enough consumer demand to justify it. If company A decides to expand and hire 100 new people, but all other companies sit on their cash, then the new products company A makes will not be bought: there won't be enough money out there in people's pockets for that to happen. And so the money will have been wasted.

Now, if ALL companies at once decide to take this risky gamble, and at the same time give everyone a raise, it will work: we will have full employment, people will spend enough money to make the investments pay off, and the economy will be out of its slump. But that won't happen spontaneously.

When we're in a bind like that, the government becomes the only agency that can invest, because it isn't concerned with making a profit. Its stimulus spending is a "loss" for the government (i.e., tends to increase the deficit), but that's all right because the government isn't a for-profit business to begin with.

But it needs to be done on the right scale. The last time we used government spending to pull us out of a depression like this (actually, even worse than this one) was in the early 1940s. It may not take quite that much, but it will certainly take more than what Obama is proposing. Still, what he's proposing is better than nothing.

EDIT: the dollar has not been "greatly inflated" over the past few years. Inflation is in fact very low. Also, GDP is measured in constant dollars, real not nominal GDP, so inflation doesn't even matter for correcting the picture.

 

[Oddball]

There are also some arguments presented above, such as "it only benefited union workers and government bureaucrats," that betray an astounding level of economic ignorance. Say a person gets hired. Say that person is a union worker. Does ONLY that union worker benefit? No: every business he spends money at that he otherwise wouldn't have had, also benefits. So does every employee of that business. So does every business that those employees spend money at that they wouldn't have had if laid off, and all their employees. Every person receiving a paycheck helps the economy. Every person without a paycheck hurts the economy.

To claim that the lion's share of the succubus scam didn't bail out state overspending and bureaucrats unions betrays an astounding level of political ignorance, to go along with plain old denial.

Your stale old "but people bought stuff with the money" rubric purposefully overlooks the basic economic concept of opportunity costs.

The reason that stimulus spending works in an economic slump is because in such a slump private business has no incentive to invest. There's plenty of capital out there right now to produce a boom, but business isn't willing to invest it. Why? Because there's not enough consumer demand to justify it. If company A decides to expand and hire 100 new people, but all other companies sit on their cash, then the new products company A makes will not be bought: there won't be enough money out there in people's pockets for that to happen. And so the money will have been wasted.

Yeah, that's what your econ professor tells you....What he didn't 'splain to you is that you cannot push a rope.

Y'ever think that there might be other reasons to 'splain why banks and businesses are holding their assets?...Ya think that maybe the political climate, with a bunch of ivory tower dwelling academics -who've ever turned an honest buck in their entire lives- running the show might have something to do with it?

When we're in a bind like that, the government becomes the only agency that can invest, because it isn't concerned with making a profit. Its stimulus spending is a "loss" for the government (i.e., tends to increase the deficit), but that's all right because the government isn't a for-profit business to begin with.

That's the biggest reason that those assholes are the last people we want trying to run the show....They fuck up and it's the taxpayer that gets it in the shorts.

But it needs to be done on the right scale. The last time we used government spending to pull us out of a depression like this (actually, even worse than this one) was in the early 1940s. It may not take quite that much, but it will certainly take more than what Obama is proposing. Still, what he's proposing is better than nothing.

More pure BS....We never got pulled out of the depression by authoritarian central planning.

If "better than nothing" is the best reason that you can come up with, I'll take nothing and take my chances in letting the market clear itself.

 

[Dragon]

Your stale old "but people bought stuff with the money" rubric purposefully overlooks the basic economic concept of opportunity costs.

I didn't overlook that. For those who don't know, opportunity cost is the cost of an economic activity measured in terms of the value of the best alternative not chosen. In the case of stimulus spending, the opportunity cost would be measured on the basis of using that tax money for other purposes. This could include a differently-designed stimulus, a tax cut, or paying down the deficit. Only the first of those presents any significant advantage over the stimulus that was actually implemented.

Y'ever think that there might be other reasons to 'splain why banks and businesses are holding their assets?...Ya think that maybe the political climate, with a bunch of ivory tower dwelling academics -who've ever turned an honest buck in their entire lives- running the show might have something to do with it?

No. It is completely explained by the lack of customers. No other explanation need be sought.

We never got pulled out of the depression by authoritarian central planning.

We did, however, get pulled out of the Depression by massive government stimulus spending.

If "better than nothing" is the best reason that you can come up with, I'll take nothing and take my chances in letting the market clear itself.

The way things are politically, that may indeed happen -- until people see the results.

 

[Oddball]

Continuing to re-re-re-reframe the broken window fallacy doesn't make it true the 50th time you do so, any more than the first.

After that, the presumption that people will go out and spend ignores the fact that many of them will -like the banks did- stash the money away or pay down existing credit lines....You can't push ropes no matter how hard you try.

In fact, if someone walked up to me right now with a "stimulus" check, I'd go out and buy a couple rolls of silver dollars.

Hate to break it to ya, but authoritarian central planners and their economic alchemist technocratic toadies just plain old don't know jack shit.

 

[iamwhatiseem]

Hell its putting me to work, my graduate assistantship is supported through stimulus grants. Prolly if I didn't have that my professor could have found other funds - but now those other funds are free up for another graduate student.

No lunch tastier than the free one, huh?

It's not free. The theory is that oohpoopadoo gets a degree and contributes a greater return via employment.

And lilollady getting a "handout" would mean she didnt pay taxes...........and when you go into the threads about hypocrits who criticized the stimulus yet still took funds, you said "yea, but its their money they paid in the first place..."..

in other words, shut the fuck up you angry assed old man. go play bingo

Guess you have no idea why tuition is between 4 times to 10 times the rate of inflation do you?
No...of course not.

 

[Dragon]

the presumption that people will go out and spend ignores the fact that many of them will -like the banks did- stash the money away or pay down existing credit lines....You can't push ropes no matter how hard you try.

We may observe the fact that many people did not do this, which makes the "pushing a rope" analogy a false one.

Hate to break it to ya, but authoritarian central planners and their economic alchemist technocratic toadies just plain old don't know jack shit.

Hate to break it to ya, but as far as I know there are no "authoritarian central planners" on this board. At least I haven't discovered any.

 

[Oddball]

You go ahead and keep believing in economic unicorns, Santa Claus, leprechauns and pots of gold at the end of the rainbow.

I long ago recognized that it's impossible to turn goat piss into gasoline, but if you wanna keep trying to peddle that crap to the gullible, have at it with someone else...No sale here.

 

[Dragon]

You go ahead and keep believing in economic unicorns, Santa Claus, leprechauns and pots of gold at the end of the rainbow.

I long ago recognized that it's impossible to turn goat piss into gasoline, but if you wanna keep trying to peddle that crap to the gullible, have at it with someone else...No sale here.

And predictably, having exhausted all of your attempts to logically or by evidence refute what I was saying, you turn instead to empty rhetoric and pointless verbiage.

That, my friend, is a sign of defeat, a bit of bravado in the face of having completely run out of ammo. Your walls are crumbling, your few remaining men starving and wounded, and the enemy closes in for the kill. But rather than surrender, you shout defiance in the face of certain doom.

I applaud your spirit, sir.