Don't we have any other ways of measuring the effectiveness of the stimulus than a couple of numbers?
The problem is that just a few dishonestly presented numbers is what the Obama administration used to sell the stimulus in the first place. So what better way to evaluate the effectiveness of the stimulus than to compare what has happened with what the Obama administration predicted would happen? They said that if we did NOT pass the stimulus, unemployment would climb to 9%. They promised that with the stimulus, unemployment would max out at only 8%. Well it went to over 10%, is still well over 9%, and some worry it is on the way back up. They claimed that the stimulus money would provide "immediate" job relief and that almost all of the money would be spent in the first 18 months. Yet, neither happened. In fact, 18 months is about up and only about 50% of the money has been spent (the rest is a slush fund to reward democrat supporters as the election approaches … and now you know the real reason for the stimulus). They claimed that over 90% of the jobs would be in the private sector (indeed, Obama is still claiming this). But that's just another baldfaced lie:
http://republicans.waysandmeans.house.gov/News/DocumentSingle.aspx?DocumentID=196068 .
No, I think any way one looks at this, the stimulus has been a complete bust. And had we kept the government out of mucking around with mortgages, banks and the economy (like we did in many other past recessions), we would already be well on the road to full recovery (like we quickly were in those past recessions). In fact, we might not have even experienced a recession in the first place, since arguably (as I've done many times on this forum) it was the government (and democrats in particular) which caused this recession/depression.
I thought it was widely accepted that this was one of the worst postwar recessions. For example, a quick google found these: … snip …
When you look at those sources you linked, you need to look at the graphs they have (such as
http://www.clevelandfed.org/research/trends/2009/0609/02ecoact-1.gif and
http://www.clevelandfed.org/research/trends/2009/0609/02ecoact-2.gif ) and ask yourself why is this recession so bad compared to past recessions? And why is the recovery taking so much time compared to past recessions? What's different this time? I think the answer clearly lies in what I have to say below.
No one is denying that this recession is now *one of the worst* postwar recessions. What is denied is that it was THE worst recession since the Great Depression
at the time that Obama made that claim to justify the stimulus. What is denied is that it's severity at that time required massive socialist spending in order to fix the economy and bring back jobs. And what is denied is that what we seen happening now can in any way be described as a stimulus success. And all of these denials are based on the actual facts regarding this and past recessions/depressions.
If there is significant evidence that this recession is in line with previous recessions, I would like to see it.
I'll just repeat what I noted earlier in this thread.
Back when Obama was working to sell his stimulus in February of 2009, he claimed 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 no where near as bad as those during the recession that took place in 1981-82. Inflation in 1981 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.
Even the 6.3% contraction of the economy now claimed for the last quarter of 2008 (and they thought it was only about 4% at the time), was less than the contraction seen during the 1981-82 recession (which was 6.4% in the first quarter of 1982). The national unemployment rate reached 10.8% during the 81-82 recession … for several quarters. Has it ever reached that during this crisis? No. In fact, it was only about 7.6 percent when the stimulus was enacted. Again, far below the 1981/82 recession.
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 being promoted by Obama. 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 to see employment grow by 5.5 million jobs two years later and 10.1 million three years later without massive government intervention. Now democrats are just praying we might see employment return to pre-recession levels 6 years from now.
On January 11th Obama told ABCNews (
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=a3YMkstD3JzA ) that "Whether it’s retail sales, manufacturing,
all of the indicators show that we are in the worst recession since the Great Depression". That statement was simply not true at that time. And it's still not true. Any remotely rational person has to admit that was a lie. Obama sold the stimulus on the basis lies. And not just in terms of hyperbole about "indicators". He also hardly mentioned "green jobs" and the environment in all those speeches. Yet now hardly a word escapes his mouth with regards to the stimulus without the word "green" and mention of the environment in it. THAT was more the real agenda, but they hid it.
Now as I pointed out earlier, just look at past recessions and depressions if you want to see what might have happened had Bush/Obama not intervened in the current crisis. For example, 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 like Obama has done. Harding
lowered taxes and
reduced regulation. It is these things that helped America's entrepreneurs and private capital create jobs and push the economy to recover ... not the sort of socialist ideology espoused by Obama, top democrats and their far left supporters. 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 that very severe economic crisis was over within 6 years (less than in the Great Depression, where FDR made the same mistakes that Obama is now repeating).
And then there is the Depression of 1837, which saw 4 million plus people lose their jobs (which was a LOT back then). 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 again philosophically opposed to government intervention and he did nothing. Even so, the depression was over in just six years (again less than the Great Depression, where government spent massively) with the economy surging after that. Hate to say it but six years is less time than many democrats are now suggesting this downturn will drag on despite trillions and trillions in socialist-inspired, government spending.
Or look at the recessions/depressions that occurred in 1815, 1873, or 1958. In every one, the government cut spending and in every one of them the economy recovered faster than it did during the New Deal ... or is doing now. The hard (for democrats to accept at least) truth is that in example after example of recessions and depressions, one can see that cutting government spending (or at least not intervening in a massive way) has led to a relatively quick recovery and strong growth afterwards. And doing the opposite has not.
Even Henry Morgenthau, FDR's Secretary of the Treasury, finally understood what modern day democrats refuse to see. Here is what he said about 8 years after FDR's administration first started throwing money at their economic woes: "
We have tried spending money. We are spending more than we have ever spent before and it does not work. I want to see this country prosperous. I want to see people get a job. I want to see people get enough to eat.
We have never made good on our promises. ... I say after eight years of this administration we have just as much unemployment as when we started .... and an enormous debt to boot!" And it wasn't until FDR curtailed the spending and started lowering some taxes that the economy began to recover.
The fact is that folks who refuse to acknowledge this are part of the problem we now face. They are only repeating FDR's mistake. They are the obstacle to our having renewed job and GDP growth. They are destroying the confidence of the American people and restraining the power of the free market to achieve recovery. And they appear to be doing this just to promote what now looks like a slush fund and to push their leftist agendas (like environmentalism, social justice and union control).
ideogram, I think if you really want to clearly see how government spending hurts the economy and overall employment, you need only examine this (which again, I linked to earlier):
http://spectator.org/assets/mc/govspending.jpg
It's a chart that compares the unemployment rate back to 1960 with federal government spending as a share of GDP. The chart clearly shows that more government spending does not create jobs, but in fact does the opposite. More government spending is strongly correlated with higher levels of unemployment. Will we ever learn from history? Or are we condemned to allowing socialist and big government ideologues to be America's bane forever more?
Hope this addressed your questions.
