Repeat Until True: "The Stimulus Plan Has Created or Saved 150,000 Jobs."

[Upchurch]

Looking for something coherent in that post. Will let you know if anything turns up.

Meanwhile, I notice the guy who says...

...is the same guy who on the same page, says:

I wasn't defending Obama's claim. Defending his claim would mean saying it was true. I wasn't saying it is true, because I don't know. My comment was one of the many possible scenarios that equally fit your premise. Your conclusion is not conclusive.

Your reading comprehension has gotten steadily worse since the election, as has your ability to put together a logical argument.

 

[BPSCG]

Sure it is. The claim is that, based on Obama's economic model, the stimulus spending will create or save (or already has created or saved) a certain number of jobs.

You plug a given spending package into the model and see if it comes out that way. If it doesn't, the claim is false.

They're claiming they saved or created 150,000 jobs. As proof, they say, "Look at this computer program!"

Sorry, just because you plug data into your program and your program runs to completion without crashing, it doesn't mean your program actually works properly. Ask any programmer who's looked at his output and scratched his head and asked, "Now how the hell did I get those numbers???" Happened to me just last week, and my program didn't pretend to predict job creation for the entire U.S. economy.

Get serious. The government can't even tell you how many people actually lost their jobs or got new jobs last month; that's why the Bureau of Labor Statistics always comes up with "revised" unemployment and employment figures a month or so after they first announce them. But this administration would have you believe they know how many jobs would have been lost in future months without the stimulus package.

Or are you claiming that there is no economic model, and they're just pulling numbers out of thin air?

Oh, I suppose they have some model that was designed to prove just what they wanted it to prove. And when it didn't prove what they wanted it to prove, they tweaked it a little until it did. Maybe some enterprising newspaper investigator can take a little time off from 24/7 Michael Jackson coverage to have a look at that model.

[derail]
A CPA who did audits for a large corporation once told me the accounting firm she worked for would ask the directors of the corporation each year how much of a profit they wanted to show this year. Story may be true, I dunno. Not that politicians' economic experts would do the same thing, nosiree.
[/derail]

Anyway, I'm just a little surprised that this alleged model is evidently showing no jobs created or saved in the last 2-1/2 months. You'd think they'd want to add ten or twenty thousand every time they opened their mouths.

 

[BPSCG]

I wasn't defending Obama's claim. Defending his claim would mean saying it was true. I wasn't saying it is true, because I don't know. My comment was one of the many possible scenarios that equally fit your premise. Your conclusion is not conclusive.

Your reading comprehension has gotten steadily worse since the election, as has your ability to put together a logical argument.

Furious back-pedaling with a side dish of ad hom. Come back when you have something substantive to add to the discussion, like JtJ.

 

[Upchurch]

Your reading comprehension has gotten steadily worse since the election, as has your ability to put together a logical argument.

Furious back-pedaling with a side dish of ad hom.

Excellent example.

 

[BPSCG]

Whatever. I'm done with you here. My keyboard has a limited number of available strokes, and I don't see any point in wasting them.

 

[JoeTheJuggler]

They're claiming they saved or created 150,000 jobs. As proof, they say, "Look at this computer program!"

Sorry, just because you plug data into your program and your program runs to completion without crashing, it doesn't mean your program actually works properly. Ask any programmer who's looked at his output and scratched his head and asked, "Now how the hell did I get those numbers???" Happened to me just last week, and my program didn't pretend to predict job creation for the entire U.S. economy.

Yes, it's an estimate based on a model.

Now, given that it's an estimate based on the model, isn't it silly to read some significance into the fact that people are quoting the same figure a month or two later?

Your conclusion that they're saying the stimulus has created zero jobs since April isn't reasonable.

 

[Distracted1]

BPSCG,
Is it your fundamental assertion here that how many jobs (if any) were created (or lost) is too complex a question to have an answer to?, and therefore any claims to have created "x" number of jobs is spurious.
If that is your assertion, I am forced to agree. However, I must point out that claims that hinge upon knowing the unknowable are not unique to the party-or the administration- currently in charge.

 

[BPSCG]

Yes, it's an estimate based on a model.

Now, given that it's an estimate based on the model, isn't it silly to read some significance into the fact that people are quoting the same figure a month or two later?

Not at all. Isn't it a strange model that says, "Pouring $787 billion into the economy" (actually, I think it's only about $110 billion to date) "will create or save 150,000 jobs between now" (February) "and April, and nothing beyond that...?"

That's about three-quarters of a million bucks per job saved. Assuming those "saved" jobs actually even exist, which hasn't been proved. Show me the jobs, not some computer model.

Your conclusion that they're saying the stimulus has created zero jobs since April isn't reasonable.

When you say at the beginning of April that the stimulus has saved 150,000 jobs, and you repeat that exact same figure on July 8, what other conclusion should one draw?

Do you believe that number?

 

[BPSCG]

BPSCG,
Is it your fundamental assertion here that how many jobs (if any) were created (or lost) is too complex a question to have an answer to?, and therefore any claims to have created "x" number of jobs is spurious.

Not quite. My objection is that it is a claim that can not be disproved, what is called an unfalsifiable claim.

How do you disprove the claim that Joe, who waits tables at a local restaurant, would have lost his job were it not for the stimulus spending? Or, had there been no stimulus spending, how do you disprove the claim that he would have kept his job if the Treasury had only printed/borrowed $787 billion and dumped it into the banks to spread around?

It's a claim with no evidence except for some alleged economic model, and it's not even theoretically subject to disproof. Most of the people on this board say they don't believe in God because they've seen no evidence for his existence, and the claims that God does exist are unfalsifiable. This claim is exactly the same thing.

If that is your assertion, I am forced to agree. However, I must point out that claims that hinge upon knowing the unknowable are not unique to the party-or the administration- currently in charge.

True enough. But that doesn't mean they should be allowed to get away with it.

 

[johnny karate]

Newsweek did a fairly balanced analysis of this claim last month.

The bottomline is this: Democrats have to eat some crow, which is being gleefully fed to them by Republicans with short-term memory loss.

 

[BPSCG]

Newsweek did a fairly balanced analysis of this claim last month.

The bottomline is this: Democrats have to eat some crow, which is being gleefully fed to them by Republicans with short-term memory loss.

From the link:

Bernstein is wisely refraining from saying where the jobs figures would be without the stimulus package. Wherever the jobless rate peaks, he's saying it would be 1.5 percent to 2 percent higher if the stimulus package had not been enacted.

Is that so? We know of no way to prove or disprove such a claim.

Which is exactly what I've been saying. It's an unfalsifiable claim.

There is a God.
Bigfoot is out there.
There's an invisible pink unicorn in my back yard.
The stimulus package saved or created 150,000 jobs sometime before July 8, 2009.

All unfalsifiable claims, all claims that only true believers want you to buy into.

 

[JoeTheJuggler]

Isn't it a strange model that says, "Pouring $787 billion into the economy" (actually, I think it's only about $110 billion to date) "will create or save 150,000 jobs between now" (February) "and April, and nothing beyond that...?"

That's about three-quarters of a million bucks per job saved.

Well now it sounds like you think the 150,000 figure is way too low.

Show me the jobs, not some computer model.

You just said that that's not possible. Remember? You said:

Get serious. The government can't even tell you how many people actually lost their jobs or got new jobs last month; that's why the Bureau of Labor Statistics always comes up with "revised" unemployment and employment figures a month or so after they first announce them.

It sounds like you're trying to make a big deal out of this, and you're not even quite sure what the big deal is. Is it that they said the same figure on two different dates? Is it that you think the figure is exaggerated (too high)? Or do you think it's too low?

I'm not sure, myself. You say we've poured $787 billion into the economy to create or save 150,000 jobs, but my understanding is that states have only spent about 10% of the stimulus money so far. Also, I'm not sure the money was solely intended to provide jobs and not to provide necessary infrastructure improvements (that will probably save jobs in the long run) or to provide other services.

 

[johnny karate]

I don't think anyone is holding up this claim as gospel. For me, it falls squarely in the arena of "Random Political BS". However, if you examine all the claims and statements made by any politician, you're bound to find a tsunami of BS, so I'm not sure why this one particular, and relatively inconsequential, claim deserves such vitriol.

 

[maddog]

From the link:
Which is exactly what I've been saying. It's an unfalsifiable claim.

There is a God.
Bigfoot is out there.
There's an invisible pink unicorn in my back yard.
The stimulus package saved or created 150,000 jobs sometime before July 8, 2009.

All unfalsifiable claims, all claims that only true believers want you to buy into.

And their method for trying to get you to buy it is to keep on repeating it.


But "saved 150k jobs" in July -- even if we assume that this is correct, which is already a HUGE assumption -- so what? They said they did that by April; what have they done for us LATELY? (to paraphrase Janet Jackson)

 

[JoeTheJuggler]

From the link:
Which is exactly what I've been saying. It's an unfalsifiable claim.

You just quoted what the claim is not. What the claim is is according to Obama's economic model, the spending has saved or created 150,000 jobs.

To falsify the claim, you'd have to show that Obama's model does not show that the stimulus saved or created 150,000 jobs.

To make the case that Obama's model is bad, you'd compare that figure to the real economic measures, which aren't available. The claim that Obama's model is good is, for the moment, unfalsifiable.

That's why we have elections.

McCain lost and Obama won.

 

[maddog]

it falls squarely in the arena of "Random Political BS". However, if you examine all the claims and statements made by any politician, you're bound to find a tsunami of BS,

By and large, I agree with you on this. And sometimes, it's just because they don't really understand what they are talking about -- a politician is not likely to be an expert on healthcare or energy or anything else -- they are just repeating what their aides or the lobbyists or subject experts tell them. Sometimes, I believe that the politicians are innocent of the BS, they are just the mouthpiece for an organization of people who work for them or with them, with similar goals.

so I'm not sure why this one particular, and relatively inconsequential, claim deserves such vitriol.

The claim itself may be inconsequential, but the policy has been The Messiah's centerpiece -- and for those of us who believe that the policy is a HUGE MISTAKE, it's important to point out evidence that shows how wrong The Messiah has been in nearly everything he (and by extension, his administration) has said regarding that policy, as well as evidence that the policy is making the situation worse instead of better.

 

[steverino]

You just quoted what the claim is not. What the claim is is according to Obama's economic model, the spending has saved or created 150,000 jobs.

To falsify the claim, you'd have to show that Obama's model does not show that the stimulus saved or created 150,000 jobs.

To make the case that Obama's model is bad, you'd compare that figure to the real economic measures, which aren't available. The claim that Obama's model is good is, for the moment, unfalsifiable.

That's why we have elections.

McCain lost and Obama won.

So because Obama won the election he has earned the right to be given the benefit of the doubt, unchallenged?

 

[BPSCG]

You just quoted what the claim is not. What the claim is is according to Obama's economic model, the spending has saved or created 150,000 jobs.

No. The claim was that the stimulus would create or save 150,000 jobs. Period, full stop.

The model is what they say proves the claim.

Claim: There is a God.
Proof: The Bible says so.

The claim is not "The Bible says there is a God." That's not a subject for serious dispute. The claim is simply that God exists. That claim is unfalsifiable.

Analogously...
Claim: The stimulus created or saved 150,000 jobs.
Proof: Our computer model says so.

The claim is not "The computer model says the stimulus saved or created 150,000 jobs." That's not a subject for serious dispute. The claim is simply that the stimulus saved or created 150,000 jobs. That claim is unfalsifiable.

To falsify the claim, you'd have to show that Obama's model does not show that the stimulus saved or created 150,000 jobs.

That is incorrect; the falsifiability of the claim has nothing to do with what the model used as its supposed proof, any more than the falsifiability of the existence of God has anything to do with what the Bible says.

To make the case that Obama's model is bad, you'd compare that figure to the real economic measures, which aren't available. The claim that Obama's model is good is, for the moment, unfalsifiable.

Now there you have a point. We really have no way of knowing whether the model is any good or not. Which means we have no way of knowing whether the output of the model is any good.

That's why we have elections.

McCain lost and Obama won.

Yup. And the consequences really have me worried, to the point that I'm putting some serious money where my big fat mouth is. See the Economics forum ("Why I'm Buying China and India").

 

[Distracted1]

"Not quite. My objection is that it is a claim that can not be disproved, what is called an unfalsifiable claim.

How do you disprove the claim that Joe, who waits tables at a local restaurant, would have lost his job were it not for the stimulus spending? Or, had there been no stimulus spending, how do you disprove the claim that he would have kept his job if the Treasury had only printed/borrowed $787 billion and dumped it into the banks to spread around?

It's a claim with no evidence except for some alleged economic model, and it's not even theoretically subject to disproof. Most of the people on this board say they don't believe in God because they've seen no evidence for his existence, and the claims that God does exist are unfalsifiable. This claim is exactly the same thing."

I am always intrigued at how often political discussions revolve around the "Elephant Whistle" effect (my own phrase, remember the joke about the whistle that keeps away elephants?) i.,e.. "information gathered from 'enhanced interrogation' saved lives"...."If Al Gore were president, Al Queda would not have attacked".... etc.. etc..

I cannot agree that it the claim in question is EXACTLY like the claim that there is a god. It has been observed in the past that the government spending money (buying helicopters, say) has caused manufacturers to hire new persons to fill the orders- therefore it is possible that the Gov. spending in this instance can reasonably be expected to lead to job growth. (at least in the short-term). Whereas, it has never been shown that a god has created anything, in fact, I can observe a Government , and have a job- but I can not experience a god in any sense.

 

[johnny karate]

The claim itself may be inconsequential, but the policy has been The Messiah's centerpiece -- and for those of us who believe that the policy is a HUGE MISTAKE, it's important to point out evidence that shows how wrong The Messiah has been in nearly everything he (and by extension, his administration) has said regarding that policy, as well as evidence that the policy is making the situation worse instead of better.

But there seems to be a conflation of the veracity of this claim and the efficacy of Obama's overall economic policy, when in fact I see no one holding up this particular claim as having meant to serve that purpose. 150,000 jobs is a drop in the bucket no matter how you apply the number, and I personally am not all that moved by any short-term partisan nitpicking. I don't think it's unreasonable to allow these policies a little breathing room to take effect before we tear them down as abject failures.