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

[BPSCG]

Note all the dates:

We began by passing a recovery act that has already saved or created over 150,000 jobs and provided a tax cut to 95 percent of all working families.

Link.

The U.S. economic stimulus plan has created or saved 150,000 jobs since it was enacted 100 days ago, top White House economic officials said on Wednesday, relying on projections instead of an actual tally of workers...

"In every state across this country, people are at work who would not have been so but for the measures in this act," Jared Bernstein, chief economic advisor to Vice President Joe Biden, told a conference call with reporters. "That's a tremendous dose of medicine into an economy that's finally showing some signs of breaking its fever."

Link.

The economic stimulus plan has created or saved 150,000 jobs since its inception in February, a senior White House Budget Office official said Wednesday.

Rob Nabors, the deputy director of the Office of Management and Budget, told a congressional panel that the jobs figure is based on an economic model used by the Obama administration.

Link.

Let us accept as true President Obama's unfalsifiable April 29 claim that the stimulus bill has saved or created over 150,000 jobs, even though it is as unfalsifiable as the claim that he has an invisible pink unicorn setting Shakespeare's Hamlet to music under his Oval Office desk (go ahead, prove that he doesn't!).

So, according to the administration's own mouthpieces, the number of jobs the stimulus bill has saved or created since April 29, is...

Zero.

 

[Upchurch]

So, according to the administration's own mouthpieces, the number of jobs the stimulus bill has saved or created since April 29, is...

Zero.

That doesn't necessarily follow. They may just not have any data on the following months.

 

[DC]

a few years ago when a leftists said something bad about the Governmnet you often could read this : If you dont like it, you are free to leave.

 

[lionking]

On the issue of stimulus packages, those implemented in Australia are almost universally considered to have saved jobs.

Evidence? The current unemployment rate has just inched up from 5.7% to 5.8%, which is the sort of variability which can be expected any time. The gloomy forecasts have not yet come to pass. The stimulus packages are also credited with Australia not yet slipping into recession and with increasing confidence levels.

I should add that I am not at all a fan of the current government.

 

[Upchurch]

I'm torn. What kind of logical fallacy is the OP? Is it a non-sequitur or a hasty generalization?

 

[Marc39]

How does one prove jobs have been saved? Obama is inventing new economic metrics. Change we can believe in?

 

[BPSCG]

I'm torn. What kind of logical fallacy is the OP? Is it a non-sequitur or a hasty generalization?

I see you're reverting to your tried-and-untrue formula when you don't have an actual argument: "OMG! I don't understand the thread title!"

Keep on truckin' failin'.

 

[JoeTheJuggler]

I could believe the 150,000 figure. Trouble is, there are some 565,000 people filing for first time unemployment benefits the last week measured (it's "breaking news" on the CNN home page right now--no article to link to yet). And that compares favorably to the 617,000 for the previous week. 150,000 jobs over a period of months is hardly noticeable.

ETA: My understanding is that only a small percentage of the stimulus package has been spent yet. There are signs on bus stops all over St. Louis saying something like "Due to budget cuts, this station is no longer in service." Seems to me some stimulus there would not only save the jobs of bus drivers and mechanics but also the people who rely on public transportation to keep their jobs, or to try to get a new one.

 

[Upchurch]

I see you're reverting to your tried-and-untrue formula when you don't have an actual argument: "OMG! I don't understand the thread title!"

My argument is that your OP is based on a logical fallacy. Maybe two. Possibly three, if you consider straw man.

Keep on truckin' failin'.

Really? After some of the threads you've started?

Okay, then perhaps you could provide some evidence that Obama administration people have said that no jobs were created or saved by the stimulus since April 29.

 

[BPSCG]

That doesn't necessarily follow. They may just not have any data on the following months.

Sorry... I should have said keep on flailin', not "failin'."

Can you please show me the data where they plucked the 150,000 figure out of? Instead of speculating whether they may or may not have gotten any new data?

I just read something in the March/April 2009 issue of Skeptical Inquirer this am:

Robert Sheaffer has (along with James Alcock and Ray Hyman) given skeptics a piece of really good advice: "Before we try to explain something, we should be sure it actually happened."

I commend that thought to you. Before you try to explain why the 150,000 jobs saved or created figure hasn't changed in almost three months, you should try to ascertain that those 150,000 saved-or-created jobs even happened in the first place.

Once you've done that, we can move on. Otherwise, you're contributing nothing here.

 

[Upchurch]

Can you please show me the data where they plucked the 150,000 figure out of?

Have you completely flipped out? The 150,000 jobs figure isn't my claim. It isn't up to me, of all people, to support it.

In the OP, you accepted the claim as a given. What does it matter where the original numbers game from, if you accept them for the sake of the argument?

Once you've done that, we can move on. Otherwise, you're contributing nothing here.

And what have you contributed? Your OP is an exercise in logical fallacy.

That's a kind of contribution, I suppose.

 

[corplinx]

You are stretching way too hard to tow the company line on this one Upchurch.

 

[maddog]

Waaah! You're criticizing my man-crush president and the "job" he's doing! Waaaah! Stop it!

No, seriously -- ignoring the obvious pull-it-out-of-their-buttness of the number -- if they claimed 150k back on April 29th and they still claim 150k since February on July 7, which implies reasonably current "data", that clearly implies no change during those two months.

 

[JoeTheJuggler]

Maybe BPSCG is missing this bit:

Rob Nabors, the deputy director of the Office of Management and Budget, told a congressional panel that the jobs figure is based on an economic model used by the Obama administration.

So when people say the stimulus has created or saved 150,000 jobs to date, I think that means to the date that the model was run. I don't think it's meant as an up-to-the-minute precise number. (The fact that it's rounded to the nearest 50K points to this reading too.)

So are you upset that these guys are guilty of gross imprecision?

At any rate, the claim of saving or creating 150,000 jobs over a 3 month (or so) period is not exactly a bold claim. Not with the kind of unemployment we're dealing with.

 

[Upchurch]

You are stretching way too hard to tow the company line on this one Upchurch.

That would be the JREF company line of reason and logic based arguments? It's not that hard.

Seriously, I'm not even defending Obama's claim. I'm saying that BPSCG's argument is full of holes.

 

[Drysdale]

Cmon Beeps, that's bigfoot jobs. You know bigfoots clearing the forest,raking leaves and stuff.

Geez...

 

[BPSCG]

Maybe BPSCG is missing this bit:

Rob Nabors, the deputy director of the Office of Management and Budget, told a congressional panel that the jobs figure is based on an economic model used by the Obama administration.

Didn't miss it. I just learned once that you don't show all your pitches the first time through the lineup, especially if the other guys can't hit your fastball.

Which, I notice, they haven't yet.

At any rate, the claim of saving or creating 150,000 jobs over a 3 month (or so) period is not exactly a bold claim.

It's not even a provable or dis-provable claim. It's right there with, "I saw God talking to me out of the clouds last night."

Repeat until true. Or at least until people believe its true. Which is the whole point, I bet.

 

[Upchurch]

Didn't miss it. I just learned once that you don't show all your pitches the first time through the lineup, especially if the other guys can't hit your fastball.

Which, I notice, they haven't yet.

So ...we're ignoring the OP and going straight into the Obama bashing, then?

 

[JoeTheJuggler]

It's not even a provable or dis-provable claim. It's right there with, "I saw God talking to me out of the clouds last night."

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.

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

 

[BPSCG]

So ...we're ignoring the OP and going straight into the Obama bashing, then?

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

Meanwhile, I notice the guy who says...

Seriously, I'm not even defending Obama's claim.

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

That doesn't necessarily follow. They may just not have any data on the following months.