The Stimulus Seems to have failed

Malerin said:
Unfortunately, economics =/ medicine, so your analogy fails.
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Oh come now. The analogy doesn't rely on economics equaling medicine. That's just a grabage response. You argued that the stimulus failed, not because it had NO IMPACT, but because it did not meet projected targets. That's just a partisan-driven attack. It's absolutely mindless.

Seriously, this latest BLS report should finally disabuse anyone of the notion the stimulus has not been a catastrophic failure.
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One report after how many months of improvement? This one still showed improvement, just not as much as we want to see. Frankly, things were doing pretty well until the European markets took a dump. Can you imagine how those fears would have impacted our economy had it been even weaker? How would confidence been impacted had it not risen post-stimulus?

BOTTOM LINE: Companies need work to keep people employed. The stimulus resulted in tons of companies getting a bunch of work. You have room to argue that the cost benefit ratio was not high enough. You have room to argue that it was unnecessary. You do not have room to argue that it has failed. It did what it was supposed to do, and if you actually believe it hasn't had a positive impact on the economy, I don't know what to say. If you believe that jobs aren't CRUCIAL, I'm at a complete loss.

This partisan crap is just that.
 
Malerin said:
And yet here we are, negative two million jobs since the stimulus was passed. What's the argument for the success of the stimulus now? That we would have lost four million jobs without it? What will the argument be if we go into another recession? That it would have been a depression without the stimulus? :rolleyes:
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Do you remember how many jobs we were losing per month prior to the Stimulu? Is your memory that short?
 
BeAChooser said:
Why look at all the jobs the stimulus has created.

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_2YvXTEZIY...AAA1s/NhNM0FwkKZI/s1600/Jobs+by+President.JPG "Annual Jobs Created by President" (from http://larrymwalkerjr.blogspot.com/2010/06/obama-on-jobs-worst-track-record-in.html )

:rolleyes:
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Garbage. Complete garbage. Obama was elected as the economy was tanking. Anyone who finds meaning in that graphic-- other than depression over the ease with which bias can be manipulated-- should really try a bit harder to not let confirmation bias rule their reasoning.
 
OMGturt1es said:
The economy was contracting far more rapidly than originally thought when the stimulus was enacted.
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This is false. They already knew how fast the economy was contracting when they enacted the stimulus bill. They didn't revise the numbers later on to suggest it was contracting any faster than they thought at that time.

OMGturt1es said:
The economy was contracting at a frightening rate prior to the stimulus. So far as I recall, data indicated we were contracting at about 6%. We were losing about 0.5 million jobs a month.
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And you think that sort of contraction hasn't happened before? It has, many times, and each and every time we got through it without enacting a massive socialist agenda.

Back when Obama was working to sell his stimulus in February of 2009, he claimed (falsely at the time, in fact) that this was an "economic crisis as deep and dire as any since the days of the Great Depression". That was a false statement because the economic numbers at the time were not worse than during the recession that took place in 1981-82. Inflation in 1981 then was double digit. Is it, even now? No. The prime interest rate was at 20%. Is it, even now? No. Mid 1982 bank failures reached a post depression high of 42. Do you know how many banks failed in all of 2008? Less than 10. The 6.2% contraction of the economy during the last quarter of 2008, was less than the contraction seen during the 1981-82 recession (it was 6.4% in the first quarter of 1982). The national unemployment rate reached 10.8% during the 81-82 recession. Has it ever reached that during this crisis? No, in fact, it was only 7.6 percent when the stimulus was enacted (with promises that it wouldn't go over 8 percent). And here is a chart from February of last year, that shows job losses for the last 6 recessions (including this one)

http://timeswampland.files.wordpress.com/2009/02/six_recessions3.gif

Clearly, the rate of job loss was just as steep in previous recessions, especially the 1974 and 1981 recessions, as in the current one at the time the stimulus was enacted. Yet somehow we managed to recover from the 1981-82 recession without throwing trillions and trillions of dollars down a socialist democRAT hole. Somehow we managed see employment grow by 5.5 million jobs two years later and 10.1 million three years later. How can that possibly be without all the socialist intervention you claim has done the country such good? :rolleyes:

OMGturt1es said:
I am employed now only because of government spending.
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Doing what?
 
OMGturt1es said:
Do you remember how many jobs we were losing per month prior to the Stimulu? Is your memory that short?
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Does your memory go back to 1981-82? 1974? Apparently not. :)

Let's go back even farther.

Look at the recession of 1921. It was an extremely sharp deflationary recession following World War I. Unemployment rose over 700% in just one year (to nearly 12%), production fell 23% and the stock market dropped 18%. Yet within two years, it was over and the economy was booming. What happened to make this possible? President Harding cut government spending by 40%, instead of massively increasing it. Lower taxes and reduced regulation helped America's entrepreneurs and capital create jobs and push the economy to recover. Harding's free market policies (and then Calvin Coolidge's) led to the Roaring Twenties, known for technological advances, women's rights, the explosion of the middle class, and some of the most rapid economic growth in American history. All without a stimulus.

Or look at the Depression of 1893 which happened under Grover Cleveland's watch. Again, the situation wasn't all that different from that in the 1930s or now. And again, because of Grover Cleveland being opposed to government intervention, the government did little to intervene. In fact, Cleveland cut taxes and spending. And again, that economic crisis was over within 6 years (less than the Great Depression).

And then there is the Depression of 1837 which saw 4 million (or more) people lose their jobs (which was a LOT back then) and out of 850 banks in the US, 405 failed or partially failed. Property values collapsed and it looked a lot like what democrats warned would happen if we didn't intervene in a massive way this time. But the President at that time, Van Buren, was philosophically opposed to government intervention and he did nothing. Even so, the depression was over in six years (less than the Great Depression) with the economy surging. That's also less time than some democrats are now suggesting this downturn will drag on despite trillions and trillions and trillions in socialist spending.

The truth is that in example after example of recessions and depressions, one can see that cutting government spending (or at least not intervening) led to recovery. The fact that folks like you refuse to acknowledge this is part of the problem we face now. :D
 
BeAChooser said:
This is false. They already knew how fast the economy was contracting when they enacted the stimulus bill. They didn't revise the numbers later on to suggest it was contracting any faster than they thought at that time.
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I don't have much time to respond. But here we go:

2009-02-02: Advance 2008 Q4 Report: GDP at -3.8% (http://www.forbes.com/feeds/afx/2009/01/30/afx5987590.html)

2009-02-07: Stimulus Passed (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_Stimulus_Act_of_2008)

2009-02-27: Second 2008 Q4 Report: GDP revised to -6.1% (http://www.bea.gov/newsreleases/national/gdp/2009/pdf/gdp408p.pdf)

And sometime shortly there after, it was revised down further to -6.3% (http://useconomy.about.com/od/economicindicators/a/GDP-statistics.htm)

Pretty big difference.

And you think that sort of contraction hasn't happened before? It has, many times, and each and every time we got through it without enacting a massive socialist agenda.

[words]

...without throwing trillions and trillions of dollars down a socialist democRAT hole. Somehow we managed see employment grow by 5.5 million jobs two years later and 10.1 million three years later. How can that possibly be without all the socialist intervention you claim has done the country such good? :rolleyes:
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To understand why this recession is different, you need to look at the big picture:

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This graph depicts quarterly GDP, private investment, government spending and exports between 1970 and 2010. I didn't bother to add unemployment, because it wasn't immediately obvious how to do so, and we all know that losing 0.5 million jobs a month is pretty terrible.

This is the same graph from 1975 to 1985, so that you can get a bit better detail:

picture.php


To refer to our current situation as just another recession is a big mistake. I think these graphs pretty well demonstrate such. I think these graphs also demonstrate that for as bad as things got, and especially how quickly they were getting worse, we're not doing too bad.
 
So, here's some unemployment graphs:

picture.php


This just depicts unemployment since 1948. Note that while unemployment rates have been higher one time in these data, other factors weren't as bad then (see the previous GDP graphs), and the unemployment rate had less distance to fall (it was already not great). The fall from our current recession is the largest in these data.
 
BeAChooser said:
Does your memory go back to 1981-82? 1974? Apparently not. :)

Let's go back even farther.

Look at the recession of 1921. ...
Or look at the Depression of 1893 ...
And then there is the Depression of 1837

The truth is that in example after example of recessions and depressions, one can see that cutting government spending (or at least not intervening) led to recovery. The fact that folks like you refuse to acknowledge this is part of the problem we face now. :D
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A great deal has changed since the 1800s. I'd be hesitant to conclude much without very careful analysis. Where can I access economic data from the 1800s?
 
OMGturt1es said:
I don't have much time to respond. But here we go:

2009-02-02: Advance 2008 Q4 Report: GDP at -3.8% (http://www.forbes.com/feeds/afx/2009/01/30/afx5987590.html)

2009-02-07: Stimulus Passed (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_Stimulus_Act_of_2008)

2009-02-27: Second 2008 Q4 Report: GDP revised to -6.1% (http://www.bea.gov/newsreleases/national/gdp/2009/pdf/gdp408p.pdf)

And sometime shortly there after, it was revised down further to -6.3% (http://useconomy.about.com/od/economicindicators/a/GDP-statistics.htm)

Pretty big difference.
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But all of those revisions occurred before the stimulus was sold to the public and passed by democrats in 2009. As I said, at the time Obama promoted his stimulus bill and democrats passed it, they already knew it was a 6% contraction AND they knew (because people like me were pointing it out) that that was less than the contraction during the 1981-1982 recession.

OMGturt1es said:
we all know that losing 0.5 million jobs a month is pretty terrible.
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Yes, it is. And it was terrible back in 1981/82 and in 1974 too. But somehow they managed to recover from the recession without Obama's (or your) economic wisdom. :D
 
BeAChooser said:
But all of those revisions occurred before the stimulus was sold to the public and passed by democrats in 2009.
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Look at the dates again.

Yes, it is. And it was terrible back in 1981/82 and in 1974 too. But somehow they managed to recover from the recession without Obama's (or your) economic wisdom. :D
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Ok. You don't want to actually talk about reality. The graphs speak for themselves. This isn't 1981/82. When you want to have a real conversation, let me know.
 
OMGturt1es said:
Look at the dates again.
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Ok. Fine. So they didn't know it was a 6% contraction until just after Congress passed the stimulus bill (not that I actually believe for one moment that they didn't know internally what that number was going to be long before it was released).

But none of this changes the fact that in the first quarter of 1982, the economy contracted 6.4%, MUCH worse than what you claim they thought and worse than what they eventually said. And yet the country managed to recover from that even steeper contraction than this one without the aid of Obama's socialist help. Go figure.
 
OMGturt1es said:
No. We won a government contract. Contrary to popular misconception, a large amount of government work is done by private firms.
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But you are still funded by the taxpayer.

And we all know there's an awful lot of waste in taxpayer funded jobs.

And I guess you think of yourself as one of those "private sector" jobs that Obama claimed would constitute 90% of the new and saved stimulus jobs. :rolleyes:
 
BeAChooser said:
Yes, it is. And it was terrible back in 1981/82 and in 1974 too. But somehow they managed to recover from the recession without Obama's (or your) economic wisdom.
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The adjusted dollar value of the 1981 stimulus is twice that of the of what Obama managed to get despite a significantly worse economic situation due to the near collapse of the banking industry the US was facing when he took office.

Going by "81/82 wisdom" the stimulus should have been 2-3 times as big...
 
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