The Stimulus Seems to have failed

http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/Article.aspx?id=521658

In reality, as the CBO explains, "five programs accounted for more than 80% of the outlays from ARRA in 2009: Medicaid, unemployment compensation, Social Security ... grants to state and local governments ... and student aid."

In other words, what was labeled a "stimulus" bill was actually a stimulus to government transfer payments — cash and benefits that are primarily rewards for not working, or at least not working too hard.
Click to expand...
 
http://klobuchar.senate.gov/inthenews_detail.cfm?id=309042&

February 20, 2009

U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., traveled to the Range on Thursday armed with some upbeat job statistics that she hopes and believes will result from the $879 billion federal stimulus/spending bill signed into law earlier this week.

… snip ...

“In the nation, this bill will provide 3.5 million jobs in the next two years,” said Klobuchar, adding that she thinks there is a public misconception as to where those jobs will be created. “Ninety percent of them will be in the private sector,” she said.
Click to expand...

http://minnesota.publicradio.org/di...minnesota-says-stimulus-supported-11800-jobs/

The Senior Vice President for Public Affairs and Economic Development at the Minnesota Chamber of Commerce, Bill Blazar welcomes news of the nearly 12,000 saved or created jobs. … snip ...

Still, Blazar is concerned so many of the positions saved or created are government not private sector jobs.
Click to expand...

http://www.startribune.com/local/64003767.html

October 12, 2009

… snip …

Minnesota and has directly preserved or created 11,800 jobs so far, state officials reported Monday.

… snip …

As of Sept. 30, the office reported, state agencies had spent $1.6 billion of that money. Among the jobs saved or created by stimulus funds: 5,942 education-related jobs and 1,200 public safety and medical spots.
Click to expand...

Let's see … (5942 + 1200)/11800 = 60.5% … not 10%, as promised.

Ooooooops!

And let's see … 1600000000/11800 = $136000 per job. Wow. That's pretty good pay for … uh … teachers. But then they are public sector union jobs.

Ooooooops!

:D
 
http://www.newsrealblog.com/2010/02...sty-the-one-year-anniversary-of-the-stimulus/

The Audacity Of Dishonesty: The One Year Anniversary of The Stimulus

2010 February 21

When the Democrat Economic Stimulus plan passed in February 2009, President Barack Obama crowed,

“Most of the money we’re investing as part of this plan will get out the door immediately and go directly to job-creation, generating or saving 3 to 4 million new jobs.”
Click to expand...

By August, Obama was feigning his ‘the buck stops here’ moment,

“We’ve got some work to do. I don’t mind, by the way, being responsible. I expect to be held responsible. for these issues because I’m the president.“
Click to expand...

… snip …

A new video released by House Republican Whip Eric Cantor (R-VA) shows Obama’s words misrepresent the reality of his actions and the Democrat’s Stimulus has failed the American people.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vzRgrDA5C7c&feature=player_embedded
Click to expand...

:D
 
That little Gish Gallop nicely demonstrates Rittel and Webber's wicked problem characteristic #9 above:

"The existence of a discrepancy representing a wicked problem can be explained in numerous ways. The choice of explanation determines the nature of the problem's resolution."

I see little hope of resolving anything in this discussion. What we're dealing with here is not only a wicked problem, it's a social mess.

According to Horn, the defining characteristics of a social mess are:

1. No unique "correct" view of the problem;
2. Different views of the problem and contradictory solutions;
3. Most problems are connected to other problems;
4. Data are often uncertain or missing;
5. Multiple value conflicts;
6. Ideological and cultural constraints;
7. Political constraints;
8. Economic constraints;
9. Often a-logical or illogical or multi-valued thinking;
10. Numerous possible intervention points;
11. Consequences difficult to imagine;
12. Considerable uncertainty, ambiguity;
13. Great resistance to change; and,
14. Problem solver(s) out of contact with the problems and potential solutions.
 
Dymanic said:
I see little hope of resolving anything in this discussion.
Click to expand...

I don't know about that. We can conclude that the stimulus was sold on the basis of lies. We can conclude that the stimulus has not done what was promised. We can conclude that this stimulus has failed. And conclude that in general stimulus efforts of this sort haven't worked in most past examples. To conclude all this we need merely examine verifiable facts.
 
BeAChooser said:
To conclude all this we need merely examine verifiable facts.
Click to expand...
If, as it appears, it is indeed a fact that you consider the matter of whether the stimulus has succeeded or failed to be one that can be answered definitively and unambiguously, then my examination of that fact leads me to conclude that what you are examining is not so much facts as your own biases.
 
Skeptic said:
A year ago, Obama claimed the Stimulus would create 3 million jobs. Since then, 3 million jobs had been lost. That makes a 6 million difference between projection and reality.

Of course it is always possible to claim that things would have been even worse without the stimulus, but then again, that's the quack doctor's and faith-healer's constant "out", too.
Click to expand...

um....in case you were in a coma...unemployment is going down.
 
Dymanic said:
my examination of that fact leads me to conclude that what you are examining is not so much facts as your own biases
Click to expand...

And which specific information that I've cited is not fact but my own bias? The fact that 90% of the jobs have been going to government and not the private sector? The fact that even using the CBO's estimates of what's been spent and the number of jobs created/saved, those have been mighty expensive jobs? The fact that unemployment is still rising despite now being a year into a stimulus program that democrats claimed would provide "immediate relief"? The fact that numerous previous recessions and depression where government did not intervene to hire people, but instead cut taxes and government spending, saw much shorter recessions and job/GDP growth in excess of what we're seeing now or even what is now promised? What specific information leads you to believe those aren't facts but just my own biases? Or will you duck this question because your attack on me is in fact just representative of your own biased agenda in this matter?
 
parky76 said:
um....in case you were in a coma...unemployment is going down.
Click to expand...

Is it or have people just stopped looking for work?

And are the government jobs that account for significant numbers of those jobs you claim are bringing unemployment down really anything more than "make work"? Is unemployment only down as long as government continues to feed the kitty? If that stops, what then?
 
BeAChooser said:
And which specific information that I've cited is not fact but my own bias?
Click to expand...
That's seldom an easy question to answer. It's been my experience that the biases of others often appear to me to be quite glaring, but identifying my own is something I'm not always very good at doing without some help. By way of trying to be helpful, I'll offer this statement: "in general stimulus efforts of this sort haven't worked in most past examples" as an example of a bias.

My main argument, however, is that what we're dealing with here is a matter which cannot be resolved by objective examination of "facts", because there is no single correct (objective) viewpoint -- despite your implied claim to possess exactly that. Standing alone, numbers do not represent conclusions; they must first be fed into some interpretive framework. Is unemployment going down, or have people just stopped looking for work; are government jobs really jobs, or just "make work"; etc, etc. Depends as much on the framework as anything.

Of the 14 characteristics of a "social mess" listed above (or the 10 characteristics of a "wicked problem" I posted earlier), which do you feel do NOT apply here?
 
BeAChooser said:
LOL! I suspected you wouldn't be able to actually back up your accusation.
Click to expand...
I'm afraid you simply did not understand my answer. It's not a simple dichotomy: facts versus biases. It's a matter of: same facts > different biases > different conclusions. Happens all the time around here. Your biases are clear enough to me; though I provided only one example, it does not seem to be an exaggeration to say that every single conclusion you reach (whether you reach it before or after an actual examination of the facts) is based on your stance as a free market fundamentalist.

What I meant was that the question you asked is seldom an easy one to answer for one's self. Bias is not always a bad thing, and I certainly have my own, but I've never been in love with the stimulus -- not the least reason being that I never anticipated there being any very good (i.e., any very objective) ways to evaluate its success. As was mentioned above, we'd need an alternate economy to use as a control. I've always seen it as a desperate gamble.

It seems to me that anyone who argues passionately about this -- whether their argument is that the stimulus has or has not worked -- is simply using the stimulus as grist for whatever mill they were already running. If we were talking about someone arguing passionately in favor of the success of the stimulus, I'm sure you'd have no trouble agreeing.
 
BeAChooser said:
There's a word for what you are doing. It's called obfuscation.
Click to expand...
I won't deny that I'm confused about what would be the best way to gauge the success of the stimulus. I'd like nothing better than for the whole question never to have arisen at all; for the Bush tax cuts to have been so overwhelmingly (and so definitively) successful that we had all gotten properly trickled down on and all that and never ended up in this jackpot in the first place. But here we are, and there seem to be so many moving parts to this thing that I honestly can't say for sure whether the stimulus is working or not.

Unobfuscate the situation for me then. Shouldn't take another Gish Gallop; just a straightforward answer to a simple question: What's the stopping rule? What percentage of decrease in unemployment (private sector if you insist), or what increase in GDP, or whatever else you like -- measured at what point in time -- would represent a successful stimulus effort?
 
The problem is, whatever metric one chooses to try and measure stimulus effectiveness (positive or negative), that given metric is oftentimes difficult to filter out to just the stimulus. Too many other things can adversely (or positively) influence the metric to the point of letting one claim either it's working or it's not (the stimulus).
 
Up to 2.1 million ... that's anywhere from 0 to 2,100,000. Just what value are we assigning to it today?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Back
Top Bottom