Actually all of those questions are fairly easy to answer. "What kind of jobs were they"--well for the jobs directly created by the stimulus package you can go to recovery.gov and find out. Maybe you think vital repairs and maintenance on US infrastructure is a "make work" job, but not many people do.
I've watched stimulus money at work in my own city repaving a road that was not in need of repaving. I call that "make work". And I don't consider paying people to mow lawns or paint buildings to be anything but "make work". Yet there is a lot of that type of thing in that list of jobs at recovery.gov. Jobs that don't really produce a product. Jobs that are fixing what ain't broke.
Furthermore, do you know that at one point it was claimed by recovery.gov (
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/o...-to-stimulus-propaganda-8548408-70315642.html ) that the purchase of one lawnmower created 50 jobs? That 935 jobs were "saved" in an organization that only had 508 employees? That $26,174 in stimulus funds for "roof repair" created 450 jobs? It was claimed that millions and millions of dollars in stimulus money was spent creating jobs in congressional districts that don't even exist (
http://www.lvrj.com/news/errors-on-web-site-fund-list-70448757.html ,
http://www.nola.com/politics/index.ssf/2009/11/recoverygov_web_site_errors_fu.html ). That $42000 in stimulus money saved or created 5000 jobs in Alabama (
http://hotair.com/archives/2009/11/16/examiner-analysis-more-than-10-of-stimulus-jobs-are-phony/ ). Just to list a few examples. Sorry but I'm not sure that website you mention is run by credible, trustworthy people who are really interested in the truth.
And even where the numbers are credible, unless the job actually creates something that can be sold in the market economy, it probably isn't anything but "make work". Building a dam to create energy using locally made materials, locally built generators, and local construction labor not only creates jobs in America but creates a facility that can will create energy (a vital product) long after the money funding it's construction is gone. And building it will give people here in the US skills and employment that can be harnessed long term for other market needs. But spending 80% of funding putting in wind turbines built in China (as noted in post #10) does not create long term jobs here in America. Most of that money is wasted.
Speaking of wind turbines, the stimulus money is often touted as going towards the creation of "green jobs" over the long haul. Obama and company want people to believe green jobs will replace the old jobs. That they'll bring prosperity. But data is already showing that the so-called "green jobs" in many cases reduce total employment and hurt the overall economy.
For example,
http://www.heritage.org/research/energyandenvironment/wm2795.cfm notes this:
Green-job subsidies siphon resources and jobs away from other parts of the economy. A study of alternative energy in Spain estimates that the cost of such subsidies for wind and solar prevents 2.2 such private-sector jobs for each green job created.
… snip …
Spain has likely destroyed more jobs than it has created with its extensive subsidies for wind and solar. Its unemployment rate, nearly 19 percent, is double that of the U.S. and does not suggest that green jobs can create prosperity. In Denmark, each wind energy job has cost $90,000 to $140,000 in subsidies, which is more than the jobs pay. In Germany, the figure is as high as $240,000. And the experience in Spain, Denmark, and Germany is that most of the green jobs created are temporary ones.
… snip …
Global warming legislation has also been also touted as a green jobs measure, including the Senate's pending Boxer-Kerry cap-and-trade bill. However, a Heritage analysis finds job losses from this bill reaching 2.5 million in some years, including 1 million in the manufacturing sector. These are net job losses--after any green jobs are taken into account.
Or just look at California.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123336500319935517.html
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger was all smiles in 2006 when he signed into law the toughest anti-global-warming regulations of any state. Mr. Schwarzenegger and his green supporters boasted that the regulations would steer California into a prosperous era of green jobs, renewable energy, and technological leadership. Instead, since 2007 -- in anticipation of the new mandates -- California has led the nation in job losses.
In fact, the cap and trades agenda which is part of this green agenda is a scam that will only end hurting our economy.
http://www.factcheck.org/2009/10/cap-and-trade-green-jobs-or-job-killer/
According to projections by the Energy Information Administration and the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, the net effect of the House cap-and-trade bill will likely be to slow future job growth. … snip … So claims that the bill would create hundreds of thousands of "green jobs" are misleading, at best. The government’s own official economic projections indicate more jobs will be lost than created.
And isn't it doubly ironic that the need for that legislation turns out to have been based on fraudulent data from climatologists promoting an ideology?
And isn't it interesting that tens of millions of that green job stimulus money have gone to unions such as SEIU which are Obama's and ACORN'S good friends (
http://www.verumserum.com/?p=11408 )?
And how cost effective are those so-called green jobs that liberals tout?
http://www.businessandmedia.org/articles/2010/20100128101850.aspx
Olbermann was recapping President Obama's speech and told viewers: "Among those seated with the first lady in the visitor's gallery ... a man from Arizona whose company received $99 million from the stimulus and used it to create at least 50 permanent clean energy jobs."
What Olbermann didn't say was that 50 jobs at the cost of $99 million is nearly $2 million each, something taxpayers might not view that as a successful and efficient use of their money.
Wow! Get me some of that! And amazingly enough, that number seems more in line with what many are reporting as the number of jobs that *might* be created with that nearly trillion dollars in stimulus funding.
The other jobs they've created are downstream jobs (heavy machinery makers, asphalt and concrete factory workers, worksite food vendors etc. etc. etc. which would otherwise have had to lay people off. You'd have to somewhat insane to call those "make work" jobs
So anytime there's an economic downturn from now on you're going to have the government intervene and keep heavy machinery makers, asphalt and concrete plant workers and food vender fully employed?
and obviously those are jobs that "actually produce something" and which contribute to "the economy."
In a downturn, people don't need more concrete, they need less concrete. They don't need more machinery, they need less. And if it turns out those machinery makers were making machinery to make products that are no longer competitive with products produced by other companies or other countries, then all you are doing is delaying the day those makers are out of work. All you are doing is using resources that should have been moved to a more productive part of the economy.
Would these jobs have happened anyway? No, of course not. That's idiotic.
Perhaps not those specific jobs but some other jobs would have happened … jobs that are NOT make work. If you look at the history of recession and depressions, you find over and over and over that those downturns where government didn't get involved, where government actually reduced taxes, spending and regulation, were the downturns that ended the soonest with the greatest post-downturn job and GDP growth. THAT is what history shows, just as history shows that government are very, very bad at managing economies and resources.
What is "idiotic" is the continual failure of the left to appreciate that recessions serve an important purpose. They are the phase of free market economies where inefficiencies are removed, bad decision makers are removed, and resources are reallocated to better use. Without them, the free market would become bloated, inefficient and ineffective … just like government.
You see, Yoink, the notion that government can manage economies better than a Free Market is what's truly idiotic, and yet it underlies the agenda of Obama and any who push his Big Government socialist agenda. But it has been proven over and over in the last century that government can't efficiently manage economies. Those countries that tried have gone belly up. And become totalitarian in the process.
Do you notice that the response of government officials, unions, and liberals during this recession has been to believe that no one should suffer from the effects of the recession. Especially not them. In particular, no one in government should suffer from bad decisions made by the government or their government union officials. While the average hard-working, tax-paying Americans are seeing job losses, cuts in salaries and losses in retirement investments, the unions have been busy insisting that those same Americans should pay to insulate union employees from any loss of jobs, salary cuts or bad investments by their union management. Given that philosophical underpinning, is it any wonder the Stimulus is a bust folks? These people running the stimulus program simply don't understand basic economics.
Can I link to a "model" showing this? Have you bothered to read the CBO report? They make their models very explicit.
I have read the CBO report and they do not make their models explicit. And there is no indication that they have ever tried to validate their models against what happened in past recessions. That is what I'm asking you. Have you any proof that those models actually work with past data? That they accurately model what happened in past recessions where the government cut taxes, cut spending and eliminated regulation? Hmmmm?
But as for whether these jobs would have appeared anyway--you have to be utterly delusional to imagine that they would have. There's no imaginable mechanism by which they would.
LOL! The mechanism is called the Free Market. It's called Capitalism. It's called Profit Motive. It's called Self Interest. My "delusion" is backed up by one historical case after another where without a stimulus, our economy not only recovered from a recession or depression in less time than it's still not recovered with this recession with a stimulus, but recovered with much stronger post-recession job and GDP growth. I point you to examples like the recessions and depressions that took place in 1837, 1893, 1921, 1815, 1873, 1958 and 1979. And what do you point me too?
It's simply lunatic to try to pretend that the government spending billions of dollars to directly hire people to do a wide range of different jobs can somehow not have a direct effect on job numbers or overall economic performance. That's not an argument, it's sticking your fingers in your ears and shouting "lalalalalalalala I can't hear you!"
I never argued that Strawman. Sure, they've created some jobs. I even named some. But not efficiently or effectively, and many of those jobs will disappear the moment the money dries up. Then what?
Gosh, what an economic genius you must be.
Not at all. But I can read and do the math, and apply a little skeptical logic.
But So, genius, tell me. Given that the average salary of people paid by the stimulus money was nowhere near $200,000 p/a, what do you think that money got spent on?
You tell us. All I'm doing is citing the CBOs own figures (the ones you touted) and doing the math. They said that $200 billion of the stimulus money had been spent in 2009. And they said the number of jobs created was somewhere between 1 million and 2 million (roughly). So do the math. That works out to roughly $100,000 to $200,000 being spent per job. And since you claim that the average salary of the people paid by the stimulus money was nowhere near that, where'd it go? Maybe we should investigate rather than give the government (as Obama as asked) still more money to be spent in such an inefficient, ineffective (and it would seem unexplainable) manner?
very liberal social democrat and I was upset with the nature of the Recovery Act. A more ideal bill, to me, would have kept emergency funds for state services as in the current bill and replaced the entire tax cuts with infrastructure repaire and expansion.
