Without the Stimulus? Same Place

[Annie]

Anyone see an end to the downward spiral? How is printing and throwing money willy nilly going to have an effect, other than on inflation?

Was the Stimulus Irrelevant? - Columns - American Issues Project

Was the Stimulus Irrelevant?
By: Edward Morrissey
In early January, a joint paper [PDF file] by Dr. Christine Romer, then the nominee to chair the Presidential Council of Economic Advisers, and Jared Bernstein from Joe Biden's advisory team painted a bleak view of a world without the off-budget stimulus plan. This paper drove the administration's agenda on the stimulus bill and helped formulate the calculus that gave a much higher priority to public-works projects as opposed to tax cuts and business incentives. Failure to act, Romer and Bernstein warned, could have dire consequences (page 5):

The U.S. economy has already lost nearly 2.6 million jobs since the business cycle peak in December 2007. In the absence of stimulus, the economy could lose another 3 to 4 million more. Thus, we are working to counter a potential total job loss of at least 5 million. As Figure 1 shows, even with the large prototypical package, the unemployment rate in 2010Q4 is predicted to be approximately 7.0 percent, which is well below the approximately 8.8 percent that would result in the absence of a plan.

Sounds dire, doesn't it? Unemployment could hit 8.8 percent if Congress didn't start throwing money away immediately, and five million jobs could disappear. In fact, Figure 1 details the challenge better than the text does:....

 

[DiamondDave]

The stimulus was a freaking smoke screen.. a reactionary ploy to get the pet projects they wanted for a long time

 

[Xenophon]

Not the same place, we would have about a trillion less of debt.

 

[Iriemon]

Stimulus actions usually take 9 months or more to start having effect. It is one of the criticism of them, they take to long to work, though in this case it may not be.

 

[auditor0007]

I wonder what would've happened had they offered a $8000 tax credit for anyone who bought a new car. If that had been the only thing they put into the stimulus package, what effect would it have had, and how much would it have cost us in comparison?

 

[Maple]

it was a wish list by the liberal Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid. Those shovel ready projects don't kick in until the end of 2010 and they are temp jobs. The rest is nothing more than pork. Obama let these two idiots write the darn thing and then he signed on, ridiculous.

The only way to stimulate this economy is to give tax breaks across the board, Obama touts his 12-15 dollar a week payroll tax break, but he will end the Bush tax breaks next year, he gives a dime with one hand and takes a dollar back with the other. People have bought into him and until it effects them personally, they won't wake up to his liberal spending, socialistic move to more and bigger government and more and much larger taxes.

The only thing worse than a person not voting, is an UNEDUCATED vote. That's what happened in this last election and we are going to pay for that through the nose, and so will out great grandchildren.

 

[sealybobo]

Anyone see an end to the downward spiral? How is printing and throwing money willy nilly going to have an effect, other than on inflation?

Was the Stimulus Irrelevant? - Columns - American Issues Project

Was the Stimulus Irrelevant?
By: Edward Morrissey
In early January, a joint paper [PDF file] by Dr. Christine Romer, then the nominee to chair the Presidential Council of Economic Advisers, and Jared Bernstein from Joe Biden's advisory team painted a bleak view of a world without the off-budget stimulus plan. This paper drove the administration's agenda on the stimulus bill and helped formulate the calculus that gave a much higher priority to public-works projects as opposed to tax cuts and business incentives. Failure to act, Romer and Bernstein warned, could have dire consequences (page 5):

The U.S. economy has already lost nearly 2.6 million jobs since the business cycle peak in December 2007. In the absence of stimulus, the economy could lose another 3 to 4 million more. Thus, we are working to counter a potential total job loss of at least 5 million. As Figure 1 shows, even with the large prototypical package, the unemployment rate in 2010Q4 is predicted to be approximately 7.0 percent, which is well below the approximately 8.8 percent that would result in the absence of a plan.

Sounds dire, doesn't it? Unemployment could hit 8.8 percent if Congress didn't start throwing money away immediately, and five million jobs could disappear. In fact, Figure 1 details the challenge better than the text does:....

We should have never given in to the bankers. We should have nationalized them.

We would LITERALLY been better off sending every home owner a check for 10% of what they owe on their home and told them to pay off their mortgage or refinance.

 

[Xenophon]

We have had the strongest economy in the history of the world by NOT giving in to socialism.

When the state runs things, it always go south.

The last thing the US should ever do is 'nationalize' ANY industry.

 

[Iriemon]

We have had the strongest economy in the history of the world by NOT giving in to socialism.

When the state runs things, it always go south.

The last thing the US should ever do is 'nationalize' ANY industry.

I always kind of like the post office. Mailman came every day and gave us our letters.

 

[wimpy77]

oh no we dont have partisan hacks on the forum do we.

 

[KittenKoder]

Printing more money without increasing our assets leads only to inflation, period.

 

[Iriemon]

Here's one study that concludes the stimulus spending has helped, for what it's worth:

In a new study, business school professors Christian Broda of the University of Chicago and Jonathan Parker of Northwestern University conclude the stimulus payments “are providing a substantial stimulus to the national economy, helping to ameliorate the ongoing 2008 downturn.” U.S. households are “doing a significant amount of extra spending” because of the $90 billion in government payments that have gone out so far, they say.

The 2008 Economic Stimulus: First Take on Consumer Response - Real Time Economics - WSJ

 

[Indiana Oracle]

The "stimulus" as characterized by The Prophet during his coronation period was nothing more than an attempted social agenda cram-down. What planted the seeds for a recovery was dropping the bank lending rate to near zero which He had nothing to do with. Despite what has been posted here, that is what takes 7-9 months to take effect - which it is now starting to do.

Any serious attempt to stimulate the economy outside of this would have been targetted directly and immediately toward small business and the individual family. Despite all the blather and misdirection that is still coming out of Washington, this did not happen at any level of consequence.

The trouble is, of course, that actually coming to understand this requires first that one slog his way through all the bs coming out of this administration. With the cooperation of the decaying MSM, that can be a challenge.

 

[WillowTree]

the stimulus was payback for getting elected. think uaw, seicu,, cic, and ACORN. And ACLU,,

 

[DavidS]

We have had the strongest economy in the history of the world by NOT giving in to socialism.

When the state runs things, it always go south.

The last thing the US should ever do is 'nationalize' ANY industry.

I always kind of like the post office. Mailman came every day and gave us our letters.

Isn't the post office nationalized? What would happen if we privatized it alla UPS or FedEx?

 

[Yurt]

the problem will of course always be:

what do we attribute to the stimulus?

obama says if the economy is still bad in a few years, he is a one term president. obama believes he is god and is solely responsible for the economy...

if the economy goes up, obama will be praised. if the economy goes down, bush will continue to get the blame. as if no other factor exists in the economy, all that matters is who is president and maybe that is what obama meant, the voters will blame him....well, he gets exactly what he deserves as all he has done for almost 4 months is blame bush

 

[garyd]

Um some professors' crystal balls are a bit cracked consumer and other spending was down sharply last month And expecte3d to decline significantly. Why the hike in unemployment of course.

 

[Xenophon]

We have had the strongest economy in the history of the world by NOT giving in to socialism.

When the state runs things, it always go south.

The last thing the US should ever do is 'nationalize' ANY industry.

I always kind of like the post office. Mailman came every day and gave us our letters.

Post office losses billions every year.

 

[DiveCon]

We have had the strongest economy in the history of the world by NOT giving in to socialism.

When the state runs things, it always go south.

The last thing the US should ever do is 'nationalize' ANY industry.

I always kind of like the post office. Mailman came every day and gave us our letters.

Post office losses billions every year.

and both UPS and FedEx kick their ass in service

 

[Ame®icano]

I saw this thread last week, bumping it back to the first page.

Back in January, Obama made unemployment predictions that later resulted with Congress voting for new stimulus package. Based on this Recovery & reinvestment plan, stimulus was necessary for saving American jobs.

Now look at this chart:

.

It looks that the unemployment rate is worse with Obama's spending than his administration predicted without the stimulus. To be honest, it is entirely possible that all of the projections were understated, meaning had there been no increased spending unemployment would have been even higher. But what if that's not the case? Then, it would be possible that, had there been no increased spending, unemployment would have been lower. Based on current data, government spending did not solve unemployment. It maybe skew the number downward for a very short time. In this case, it didn't even do that.