Reasonable numbers? You mean like the jobs created numbers that should have been used to give a more accurate evaluation of whether or not what we were doing was creating jobs? Faun used the example of the USDA puffing up their numbers under the Bush Administration, Anton. What that department did is the exact same thing that the Obama Administration did on a massive scale...the USDA managers used a bullshit "jobs saved" number to provide a narrative that sounded wonderful and made people who didn't know better think that they were doing one heck of a job. What's MORONIC is for anyone with a little common sense to take a "jobs saved" number for anything more than it is...a self serving deception.
When I ask for what Obama policies created jobs, Anton and you respond by pointing to the 800 plus billion dollar stimulus as the "policy" that satisfies that request I can only smile and shake my head. The truth is there was going to be a stimulus put into effect no matter who was elected President since there was overwhelming bipartisan support for stimulus. Obviously when you spend an amount as large as 870 billion you are going to get some sort of bang for your buck. The question is...how much bang did we get for the money we spent...was the stimulus structured in the best way to create jobs and grow the economy...or was it used by the politicians in power to reward their supporters and further their agenda?
There is a reason why the Obama Stimulus didn't create the jobs that Democratic leaders promised it would, Anton! You had Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid controlling who and what got paid out of that money. It became a giant slush fund with which Democratic leaders could reward political supporters and fund their agenda. It's why we got things like Solyndra.
Recapping the Obama Administration Green Energy Stimulus Failures - IER
Institute for Energy Research
So, lying again, and unable to provide an impartial source, Oldstyle brings forward a far, far right wing source. Totally partial, and totally conservative. Lets see what Source Watch says about IER;
The Institute for Energy Research (IER), founded in 1989 from a predecessor non-profit organization registered by Charles G. Koch and
Robert L. Bradley Jr., advocates positions on environmental issues including deregulation of utilities, climate change denial, and claims that conventional energy sources are virtually limitless.
It is a member of the Sustainable Development Network. The IER's President was formerly Director of Public Relations Policy at
Enron.
IER has been established as a 501(c)(3) non-profit group. It is a "partner" organization of the
American Energy Alliance[1], a
501c4 organization which states that it is the "grassroots arm" of IER.
[2] AEA states that, by "communicating IER’s decades of scholarly research to the grassroots, AEA will empower citizens with facts so that people who believe in freedom can reclaim the moral high ground in the national public policy debates in the energy and environmental arena."
[2] AEA states that its aim is to "create a climate that encourages the advancement of free market energy policies" and in particular ensure drilling for oil is allowed in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and in US coastal waters.
[2]
Koch Wiki
The Koch brothers --
David and
Charles -- are the right-wing billionaire co-owners of
Koch Industries. As two of the richest people in the world, they are key funders of the right-wing infrastructure, including the
American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) and the
State Policy Network (SPN). In SourceWatch, key articles on the Kochs include:
Koch Brothers,
Koch Industries,
Americans for Prosperity,
American Encore, and
Freedom Partners.
Ties to the American Legislative Exchange Council
In August 2011, Dr. Robert Bradley, founder and CEO of the IER, spoke at the
Energy, Environment and Agriculture Task Forcemeeting of the
American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) annual meeting in New Orleans, Louisiana.
[3]
About ALEC
ALEC is a corporate bill mill. It is not just a lobby or a front group; it is much more powerful than that. Through ALEC, corporations hand state legislators their wishlists to benefit their bottom line. Corporations fund almost all of ALEC's operations. They pay for a seat on ALEC task forces where corporate lobbyists and special interest reps vote with elected officials to approve “model” bills. Learn more at the Center for Media and Democracy's
ALECexposed.org, and check out breaking news on our
PRWatch.org site.
Campaigns
In 2009 IER run a campaign on "green jobs" attacking the expansion of renewables energies. IER commissioned three studies on renewable energies and green jobs in Denmark, Germany and Spain.[4] These studies by different think tanks were than promoted by IER and other free market think tanks in the US but also used in Europe
[5] and Ontario, Canada.
[6] The study on Germany e.g. was translated into German and taken up by German media - without mentioning that the study was financed by IER with its close business links. The German institute that wrote the study (called Rheinisch-westfaelisches Institut fuer Wirtschaftsforschung, RWI) didn't acknowledge the funding from IER until they were challendged by investigative journalists.
[7]
A report by the Europan NGO Corporate Europe Observatory tried to get more information on the funding of the libertarianInstituto Juan de Mariana responsible for the Spanish study and the Danish think tank
CEPOS doing the study on wind energy in Denmark. The report states: "In their reply to CEO, Instituto Juan de Mariana affirmed that it finances all its activities through the individual donation of his over 250 individual members and that they did not receive corporate funding with the exception of a small Spanish insurance company. When contacted again to check whether the Institute for Energy Research (IER) support for the above study was financial, the Institute stopped responding."
[8]
Staff
Funding
EIN: 76-0149778
This is a 501(c)(03) public charity [1]
According to the ExxonMobils Corporate Giving Reports the IER received 307.000 US$ from the oil company or its foundation between 2003 and 2007.[9] The institute also received 175.000 US$ from Koch Industries according to a Greenpeace report.[10]
So,OLDSTYLE, you tried to sneak by a source that is a far right nut case source for the far right Libertarians, the Koch brothers. Very poor form, dipshit. As one would suspect from you.
So, again, you were unable to find a single source that is impartial to support you.
[/QUOTE]
What's laughable is that you think Source Watch is a credible referee on what is or isn't an impartial source.
"The wiki is a project of the Center for Media and Democracy (CMD)
think tank, which also runs PRWatch. According to CMD, it does not accept government grants or corporate donations.
[1] CMD was founded by
environmental activist John Stauber.
The site suffers somewhat from
liberal bias in that there's not much documentation of
left-wing front groups, though the wiki is meant to concentrate on corporate
FUD campaigns. Occasionally, some
anti-scientific stuff from
nature woo-meisters creeps in and a few editors like to slap
Koch Industries under the funding sections of every front group page. However, the wiki is in general active and well-maintained and collects a lot of good sources and research. Their coverage of
global warming denialism,
oil and
coal interests, and
tobacco front groups is superb."
SourceWatch - RationalWiki