Trickle Down Sucks: The Life Out Of Our Economy

[rayboyusmc]

The middle class is the engine that drives our economy, not the ultra rich. Since most of those on these boards are middle class, I don't understand why so many of them on the right still genuflect at the Ronny Altar of Trickle Down.

You do have to spend money to make money, so the question becomes how and where to spend it. Obviously you can’t give it to 500 people and expect a different result. Leading economists indicate that an economic investment bill would create more economic growth than the bill itself costs. For every $1 billion invested in transportation infrastructure, the U.S. creates 35,000 jobs and up to $6 billion in gross domestic product. Every $1 spent on food stamp benefits generates $1.73 in economic activity. Every $1 spent on unemployment benefits generates $1.64 in new economic demand. Every $1 in general aid to state government generates $1.36 in economic activity.

An entire generation of smart ass MBAs worked day and night to debunk this basic pillar of Capitalism. They got paid and we got laid off. Time to reverse that equation no? That’s why we need this stimulus bill. It’s not just about the money; it’s about how and where you spend it. When you invest in jobs you are creating a ton of economic activity. When people work, people spend and people pay taxes and at the end of the road, guess what? You actually have a road! Tell me how that’s bad?

Time to stop creating “securitized” promissory notes based on meaningless appraisals for toxic financing that's impossible to understand. Enough funny money please.

The Randi Rhodes Show - Radio, only smarter...

For those who hate Randi, please accompany the hate with facts to prove this wrong.

 

[Kevin_Kennedy]

The government can't create jobs because it has to take it's money from the private sector, which is where jobs and wealth are actually created. What government needs to do is cut taxes and their own spending, that's how you "stimulate" the economy.

 

[del]

bush spent us into this recession so it only makes sense that obama can spend us out of it, right?

 

[rayboyusmc]

For 8 years we have heard about the tax cuts.

What happened to their mystical powers to cure the economy?

Do you deny the data in the article?

 

[Kevin_Kennedy]

Government spending did not go down over the last 8 years.

 

[Skull Pilot]

So a billion ear marked for infrastructure but how much actually gets to the proposed project?

Lets say half actually makes it through the labyrinth of bureaucracy and I have serious doubts that a billion dollar road resurfacing project "creates up to 6 billion" in return.

the terms "up to" and "virtually" are great tools to use when one is short on actual data.

If Randi doesn't bother to prove that his billion in taxation creates 6 billion in return with actual data, how can we dis prove it?

I can say that a billion taken in taxes is a billion people don't have to spend on other things like cars and houses and business start ups and that spending would produce 12 billion in return, but without data to look at the statement is meaningless.

So when you find all the studies from all the MBAs that Randi uses as data we can maybe get somewhere.

I see no data provided by randi do you? Or is it that a liberal said these things that you are willing to believe without proof?

 

[garyd]

If government spending was the solution to our provblem we wouldn't be in the middle of a recession now. Anyone who actually believes those numbers is kidding themsleves. The real figures would be more along the lines of for evry dollar sent to the unemployed the government spends two to three more getting it there and making sure they really are unemployed and collecting the money from their former employer and now they tax that too. Sort of like saying, "I'm sorry to see your having a hard time right now. Here, let me kick you in the teeth."

The 35.000 jobs created are almost always temporary and most of them that aren't go to people who already work for the state. That number likely comes from or is extrapolated from the 1950's when we expanded miles of highways in this country at a faster rate than before or since. And at the beginning of that period there were damn few miles of highway. Now we have plenty of highways it's just that most of them need maintenance or widening or all both. And politicianshate doing that because all they here about while it's being done is how much of a pain in the but it is to get around while the repairs etc are going on. By the way no one hear really has a problem with expenditures on infrastructure but not even the CBO thinks that's going to turn the economy around by itself.

- Obviously you can’t give it to 500 people and expect a different result. - Of course you can't it will have different result for each one depending on how they choose to utilize the money.

Sorry Ryy boy most of your original post is warmed over leftist wishful thinking not at all based on facts or real research. You take money from my employer how do you expect him to give me a raise?

You want to be poor for the rest of your life keep sucking that government teat. Unless you are a senator a congressmen or one of there staffers or a high level government employee above say GS10 or so that outcome is all but guaranteed.

 

[editec]

The government can't create jobs because it has to take it's money from the private sector, which is where jobs and wealth are actually created. What government needs to do is cut taxes and their own spending, that's how you "stimulate" the economy.

The government can and does create jobs. They do it all the time.

Half the people on this board have worked for the government at one time or the other.

What I suppose you mean is that they cannot pay for those jobs unless there are enough people working in the private sector to pay for those jobs.

That is true under the current economic system.

So the real question is will all that fiat money that the government pumps into our system shake the existing money that people are hoarding back into circulation?

It might, but the bleeding wound that is FREE TRADE will inevitably suck that extra dough back to some other national economy, thus negating the benefits it might otherwise have had.

There is NO sane response that any of you devotees of Austian economists have ever fielded that has shown me how the USA can thrive when it has systematically deindustrialized itself to the point that we have gone from the largest creditor nation to the world's pauper nation in less than thirty years.

If that goofy economicsystem has worked for you so far, more power to ya', but it has broken the economic back of the middle class upon which this once great nation's enormous prosperity was originally based.

Your economic geniuses aren't worth a tinker's damn as far as I can see.

 

[garyd]

Free trade isn't a bleeding wound thanks for the AFL-CiIO view of things, EDI We have a trade prblem principally with only two of our numerous trading partners. China and Japan both of whom are jobbing the system. And Our Politicians left and right haven't the guts to take these two to task for their numerous transgressions.

 

[Chris]

The financial markets turned out to be a giant Ponzi scheme, and the Amercian taxpayer was left holding the bag.

I think we should empty Gitmo and fill it with Madoff and all his buddies.

 

[Mad Scientist]

The middle class is the engine that drives our economy, not the ultra rich. Since most of those on these boards are middle class, I don't understand why so many of them on the right still genuflect at the Ronny Altar of Trickle Down.
For those who hate Randi, please accompany the hate with facts to prove this wrong.

Admit it Rayboy. You only like Randy because drunk chicks are easy.
The following article is from the Heritage Foundation where they employ people who actually understand how things work. Unlike Liberal Radio.
"Why Government Spending Does Not Stimulate Economic Growth"

Alan Reynolds: $646,214 Per Government Job - WSJ.com

In a throwback to the 1930s and 1970s, Demo*cratic lawmakers are betting that America's economic ills can be cured by an extraordinary expansion of government. This tired approach has already failed repeatedly in the past year, in which Congress and the President:

1. Increased total federal spending by 11 percent to nearly $3 trillion;
2. Enacted $333 billion in "emergency" spending;
3. Enacted $105 billion in tax rebates; and
4. Pushed the budget deficit to $455 billion in the name of "stimulus."

Every one of these policies failed to increase eco*nomic growth. Now, in addition to passing a $700 bil*lion financial sector rescue package, lawmakers have decided to double down on these failed spending pol*icies by proposing a $300 billion economic stimulus bill. (Which si fast approaching 1 trillion Rayboy) Even though the last $455 billion in Keynesian deficit spending failed to help the economy, lawmakers seem to have convinced themselves that the next $300 billion will succeed.

Oh I see, since two asprin didn't relieve my headache, I'll take four. Then six, then eight. Yeah, that'll work.
See this is Liberals chance to prove that Bush big spending didn't work. But that's not what you want is it? You just want more Democrat spending.

 

[garyd]

Maddoff turned out to be a giant Ponzi scheme and frankly he will shortly be a jail bird and one whole hell of a lot poorer. The rest of the finanacial markets got killed principally by two things over zealous regulation of the housing market going back 30 years or more at virtually every level of government, and a mark to market acounting system that works just fine for commodities but sucks horribly when used in the real estate market.

 

[Chris]

Maddoff turned out to be a giant Ponzi scheme and frankly he will shortly be a jail bird and one whole hell of a lot poorer. The rest of the finanacial markets got killed principally by two things over zealous regulation of the housing market going back 30 years or more at virtually every level of government, and a mark to market acounting system that works just fine for commodities but sucks horribly when used in the real estate market.

Derivatives killed the financial markets, just like 1929.

 

[rayboyusmc]

Admit it Rayboy. You only like Randy because drunk chicks are easy.

No, I actually like Stephanie Miller better. She has the drunk chick reputation.

Randy is too strident for me, but she backs up her comments with data.

 

[Mad Scientist]

Alan Reynolds: $646,214 Per Government Job - WSJ.com

House Democrats propose to spend $550 billion of their two-year, $825 billion "stimulus bill" (the rest of it being tax cuts). Most of the spending is unlikely to be timely or temporary. Strangely, most of it is targeted toward sectors of the economy where unemployment is the lowest.
The December unemployment rate was only 2.3% for government workers and 3.8% in education and health. Unemployment rates in manufacturing and construction, by contrast, were 8.3% and 15.2% respectively. Yet 39% of the $550 billion in the bill would go to state and local governments. Another 17.3% would go to health and education -- sectors where relatively secure government jobs are also prevalent.
If the intent of the plan is to alleviate unemployment, why spend over half of the money on sectors where unemployment is lowest? Another 22.5% of the $550 billion would go to social programs, such as expanding food stamps and extending benefits for the unemployed and subsidizing their health insurance.

More:

Mr. Zandi's current estimates have government employment growing by 330,400 over two years as a result of the House bill (compared with 244,000 in Bernstein-Romer paper). Yet even that updated figure still amounts to only 8.3% of total jobs added, even though state and local governments are to receive 39% of the funds ($214.5 billion). Spending $214.5 billion to create or save 330,400 government jobs implies that taxpayers are being asked to spend $646,214 per job.

647k per job huh? You wanna' tell us again Rayboy how government spending is gonna' help the economy? Seems all you did was complain about trickle down but you never debunked it. Try again.

Randy Rhoads was not available to comment on this article because she's drunk and face down in a ditch somewhere.

 

[Chris]

Alan Reynolds: $646,214 Per Government Job - WSJ.com

House Democrats propose to spend $550 billion of their two-year, $825 billion "stimulus bill" (the rest of it being tax cuts). Most of the spending is unlikely to be timely or temporary. Strangely, most of it is targeted toward sectors of the economy where unemployment is the lowest.
The December unemployment rate was only 2.3% for government workers and 3.8% in education and health. Unemployment rates in manufacturing and construction, by contrast, were 8.3% and 15.2% respectively. Yet 39% of the $550 billion in the bill would go to state and local governments. Another 17.3% would go to health and education -- sectors where relatively secure government jobs are also prevalent.
If the intent of the plan is to alleviate unemployment, why spend over half of the money on sectors where unemployment is lowest? Another 22.5% of the $550 billion would go to social programs, such as expanding food stamps and extending benefits for the unemployed and subsidizing their health insurance.

More:

Mr. Zandi's current estimates have government employment growing by 330,400 over two years as a result of the House bill (compared with 244,000 in Bernstein-Romer paper). Yet even that updated figure still amounts to only 8.3% of total jobs added, even though state and local governments are to receive 39% of the funds ($214.5 billion). Spending $214.5 billion to create or save 330,400 government jobs implies that taxpayers are being asked to spend $646,214 per job.

647k per job huh? You wanna' tell us again Rayboy how government spending is gonna' help the economy? Seems all you did was complain about trickle down but you never debunked it. Try again.

Randy Rhoads was not available to comment on this article because she's drunk and face down in a ditch somewhere.

Government spending on infrastructure helps the economy.

Where would we be without the interstate highway system and the Hoover Dam?

 

[Lycurgus]

The government can't create jobs because it has to take it's money from the private sector, which is where jobs and wealth are actually created. What government needs to do is cut taxes and their own spending, that's how you "stimulate" the economy.

True and I fail to understand why that is so hard to understand.

 

[Mad Scientist]

Admit it Rayboy. You only like Randy because drunk chicks are easy.

No, I actually like Stephanie Miller better. She has the drunk chick reputation.
Randy is too strident for me, but she backs up her comments with data.

Stephanie was on KFI in L.A. back in the nineties. Other than her sexy voice there was no other reason to listen to her. I didn't know she had a drinking problem too. Must be from sharing a studio with Randy.
You don't know about Randys' drunken follies huh? Apparently she like Irish bars:
The Radio Equalizer: Brian Maloney: Randi Rhodes Speaks About Non-Mugging, Raises New Questions

 

[Lycurgus]

The financial markets turned out to be a giant Ponzi scheme, and the Amercian taxpayer was left holding the bag.

I think we should empty Gitmo and fill it with Madoff and all his buddies.

Hmmm ................ most of them would be gun fearing liberals!

So I agree!

 

[Mad Scientist]

Government spending on infrastructure helps the economy. Where would we be without the interstate highway system and the Hoover Dam?

Of course government has spent money on projects. It's just that the government is highly ineficient when it comes to managing money. A clear majority of government works can be done much more inexpensively that the government does. There's no incentive for the government to be efficient and cut costs, especially when their budget goes up every year.
Government needs to support private enterprise and business because those businesses are the ones that pay the taxes so that government can even be in business. Seems many in the public and private sector have forgotten that.