The Stimulus Seems to have failed

http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/Article.aspx?id=547573

Persistent unemployment from misbegotten government policies is why we have this poverty. And it leads, inevitably, to dependence on government. As recently as 2006, federal payments to individuals as a share of GDP — a proxy for welfare — stood at 12%. Now it's 16.4%, a 37% rise in three years and the highest level ever.

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Contrary to the repeated assertions of our nation's Keynesian elites in the media, Washington and academia, all this spending and debt doesn't create jobs. It kills them. The money siphoned from the economy destroys investment and consumer spending, leading to slower growth, higher joblessness and lower incomes.
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Glenn, since you are claiming those posts contain half-truths, lies, straw men, and bs, why don't you take one of those posts and back up what you claim?

Or will you run or try to change the subject, like you did when confronted with the facts in posts #677, #680, #685, #784, and #823. :D
 
BeAChooser said:
Glenn, since you are claiming those posts contain half-truths, lies, straw men, and bs, why don't you take one of those posts and back up what you claim?

Or will you run or try to change the subject, like you did when confronted with the facts in posts #677, #680, #685, #784, and #823. :D
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Why don't we start with this claim?
BeAChooser said:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/09/11/AR2010091102209.html

How's that stimulus working, folks?
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You are presenting numbers for 2009, which are clearly still a result of the peak in the recession. you are presenting this half-truth because you are attempting to claim that this is somehow tied to failed obama policies.
 
joobz said:
You are presenting numbers for 2009, which are clearly still a result of the peak in the recession.
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Do you really think there are less people in poverty now than there were in 2009?

And your evidence for this, joobz?

As one of my sources noted, it's expected that the poverty rate will climb even higher before it starts to go down. Here is another:

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE58943C20090910

"The poverty rate will not fall back to the 2007 rate until the economy expands enough that the unemployment rate falls back below 5 percent. This is not likely to happen for several years," said Sheldon Danziger, a Russell Sage Foundation fellow and professor at the University of Michigan.
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By the way, joobz … know what the poverty rate is in that socialist paradise called the EU? 17%. It's so bad that the EU made 2010 the "Stop Poverty Now" year.

Maybe we just need a jazzy slogan too? :D
 
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/abc-...-stimulating-success/story?id=11656662&page=1

A new report obtained exclusively by ABC News outlines the administration's top 100 stimulus projects -- a greatest hits compilation of what the White House considers the best examples of the stimulus in action.
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Titled appropriately … Stuck On Stupid?

And since the ABC article started off with this one …

The report highlights projects like the cleanup of an industrial park in South Plainfield, N.J. Thanks to $30 million in stimulus dollars, a wasteland contaminated by an old electronics plant is being transformed into a new industrial park. The White House says the project has already created 68 jobs and will be an economic boon to the South Plainfield area once it is completed next year.
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Not so fast …

First of all, this is a superfund site that is going to cost well over a $100 million to completely clean up. This $30 million was just to finish removing soil.

Second, because it's a toxic waste site, we won't know whether this project has actually been an *economic* success for some time … whether anyone will actually want to put a business on top of where it was located. That's the only way all those other jobs that are claimed will materialize.

Let's face it, $30 million is a lot to spend to create 68 temporary jobs in the middle of a deep recession. But on the bright side, things could be worse. This could be Los Angeles which audits just revealed created a whopping 55 jobs with $111 million in stimulus spending. :rolleyes:
 
BeAChooser said:
............ This could be Los Angeles which audits just revealed created a whopping 55 jobs with $111 million in stimulus spending. :rolleyes:
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There you go again with your 1/2 truths BAC. That should be created or saved a whopping a 55 jobs. ;)
 
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BeAChooser said:
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/abc-...-stimulating-success/story?id=11656662&page=1



Titled appropriately … Stuck On Stupid?

And since the ABC article started off with this one …




Not so fast …

First of all, this is a superfund site that is going to cost well over a $100 million to completely clean up. This $30 million was just to finish removing soil.

Second, because it's a toxic waste site, we won't know whether this project has actually been an *economic* success for some time … whether anyone will actually want to put a business on top of where it was located. That's the only way all those other jobs that are claimed will materialize.

Let's face it, $30 million is a lot to spend to create 68 temporary jobs in the middle of a deep recession. But on the bright side, things could be worse. This could be Los Angeles which audits just revealed created a whopping 55 jobs with $111 million in stimulus spending. :rolleyes:
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That may be. But it wasn't exactly just to create 68 jobs. There was the minor additional benefit of the environmental cleanup. I know, I know, environment shmironment... :rolleyes:
 
BeAChooser said:
Let's face it, $30 million is a lot to spend to create 68 temporary jobs in the middle of a deep recession.
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So you objection is that there is much reliance e on the private sector and too little creation of government jobs.

I suppose there are a couple posters on these forums who could get behind your communist ideas but it rather seems like y6ou don’t even know you are asking for communism, hence my comment above your preference for rushing headlong towards stupid.
 
BobTheDonkey said:
That may be. But it wasn't exactly just to create 68 jobs. There was the minor additional benefit of the environmental cleanup. I know, I know, environment shmironment... :rolleyes:
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But the excuse used to allocate STIMULUS funds to that project, was to create jobs. To provide "immediate" relief in that area.

In the middle of a recession and economic crisis, fixing an environmental problem that had existed for a long time could have waited a little longer.
 
BeAChooser said:
But the excuse used to allocate STIMULUS funds to that project, was to create jobs. To provide "immediate" relief in that area.

In the middle of a recession and economic crisis, fixing an environmental problem that had existed for a long time could have waited a little longer.
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*sigh*

Except doing it this way created/saved jobs while providing a lasting benefit to the community/Nation.
 
Regarding that LA expenditure of $111 million to create or save 55 jobs ...

http://news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_upsho...million-in-stimulus-funds-to-create-7-76-jobs

The $71 million that went to the Department of Public Works, which funded 15 road surfacing and similar projects, was projected to save or create 238 jobs. But according to the audit, the money created just 7.76 jobs--or slightly more than $10 million per new job--and saved 37.7 (the fractions are a result of calculating the number of jobs by hours worked). The Department of Transportation's $40 million created or retained just nine jobs, the audit found.


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the breakdown of how some of the money was spent seems to indicate the efficiency was not exactly the order of the day for project managers. The Department of Transportation, for instance, spent $9 million to install new LED lightbulbs in traffic lights at 1,800 intersections. Less the $228,000 in labor costs associated with the project, that's nearly $5,000 per location to change lightbulbs. Another project spent $4 million to install 65 new left turn arrows, averaging more than $61,500 per arrow.
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That's government for you. INEFFICIENT. And democrats only want to make it bigger. MUCH bigger. :mad:
 
Now here is a stimulus fail if there ever was one!

http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAna...p-Poverty-By-Making-It-More-Comfortable-.aspx

On Jan. 8, 1964, President Lyndon Johnson delivered a State of the Union address to Congress in which he declared an "unconditional war on poverty in America."*Then, the poverty rate in America was around 19% and falling rapidly. Last week, it was reported that the poverty rate this year is expected to be roughly 15%, and is climbing.

Between then and now, the federal government spent more than $13 trillion fighting poverty, and state and local governments added another couple of trillion. Yet the poverty rate never fell below 10.5%.
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And what's Obama's response? To increase the number of poverty programs and the amount of spending dramatically, a lot of that buried in the Stimulus Bill. Stuck … On … Stupid.
 
BeAChooser said:
Glenn, since you are claiming those posts contain half-truths, lies, straw men, and bs, why don't you take one of those posts and back up what you claim?

Or will you run or try to change the subject, like you did when confronted with the facts in posts #677, #680, #685, #784, and #823. :D
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I think you missed the point of a gish gallop...all you would do is post LOL and :D after whatever I post.

No matter what you post, I am sure that you and just about everyone cannot tell what would and would not happen with and without the stimulus package. If you really think you are that good, see if Warren Buffett will hire you. I really don't recall you posting anything prescient about the economy before the crash occured.

I think parts of the stimulus are good and some not so good...I evaluate things sans ideology. Right now, at least the economy has stabalized likely due in part to the stimulus--unfortunately at a level of unemployment that is too high.

However, I do bet against stupidity in when I invest and that was a reasonable bet against the Bush administration. There was little reason for the stock market to go as high as is did during the Bush administration as the middle class was not gaining ground and poverty was increasing even though the US was in an *economic boom.* When Paulson and Bush printed 80 billion dollars to bailout AIG and several friends, that signaled a disaster that few people understood and certainly no one in congress. As Lehman, Citi, Merril Lynch, Bear Sterns fell, it was clear this financial problem was really unprecedented. I don't trust the republicans that got us into this mess to get us out. They have proposed nothing of substance.

Bush and Bush have certainly been bad for employment.

http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2009/01/09/bush-on-jobs-the-worst-track-record-on-record/

http://currencythoughts.com/2008/08/...an-presidents

glenn
 
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A couple of interesting tidbits from PolitiFact:

"The stimulus has not created one private sector job." Pants on Fire

"Pro-Stimulus economist admits it is not working … " Pants on Fire

It seems to me that the stimulus, while far from perfect, and certainly falling short of the hefty claims made by the current administration, has pretty much done what it set out to do: stop the economy from going into a precipitous downward spiral.

If you were hoping for more than that, I say you can blame yourself for buying into the hype.
 
If you were hoping for more than that, I say you can blame yourself for buying into the hype.
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So the people who over sold it get a pass and the rest of us are the stupid ones?
 
Chris L said:
So the people who over sold it get a pass and the rest of us are the stupid ones?
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No, the people who oversold it oversold it (no pass that I can see) and, yes, anyone who bought what they were selling at face value was... if not stupid, at least incredibly naive.

But at any rate, again, the stimulus seems to have done what it was intended to do.
 
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