The Stimulus Seems to have failed

http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2010/12/13/recovery-like/

This is the first entirely "temporary help service" job recovery. Our current "recovery" might be in its seventeenth month, but the few new private sector jobs have come from companies temporarily hiring staff on a contract basis. What were once jobs reserved for people hired to cover seasonal demand or permanent employees on sick leave have become the standard employment for many workers.


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Since the recovery started in June 2009, the total number of private sector jobs has increased by 203,000. But these weren't "regular," permanent jobs. Indeed, permanent private sector jobs fell by 257,000.*

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The trend has recently been getting worse. During five of the last six months, the total number of permanent jobs fell. The new unemployment numbers released on Friday weren't as bad as other recent numbers. There were 39,000 more jobs during November. However, with 39,500 coming from temporary jobs, there would have been essentially no new permanent jobs.

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The explanation behind temporary job creation is pretty simple: uncertainty. Companies don’t want to make longer-term commitments if they don’t know what the next couple of years will look like.
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And why do you think there's uncertainty? :D
 
http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/Article.aspx?id=556690&p=1

The godmother of the Tea Party movement suggests we bypass presidential commissions and Oval Office compromises on tax cuts and follow a well-thought-out path to fiscal discipline and prosperity.

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In an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal, former Alaska governor and vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin suggests that the GOP act like it won a clear and convincing victory and simply follow the "Roadmap for America's Future" offered by one of its own, Rep. Paul Ryan.

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The way to accomplish that is to starve the beast, and if there is any redistribution of wealth to be done, it will be from government back to the people who earned it and to the entrepreneurs who will risk theirs to create more for all of us.

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As she notes, "The CBO estimates that under the Roadmap, by 2058 per-person GDP would be around 70% higher than the current trend."

The national debt would not disappear, but we would stop making the hole deeper. Palin notes that while under the commission's proposals debt would rise to 433% of GDP by 2060, under "Rep. Ryan's Roadmap, the CBO estimates that debt would rise much more slowly, peaking at 99% in 2040 and then dropping back to 77% by 2060."
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Sounds good to me. :D
 
http://liveshots.blogs.foxnews.com/2010/12/13/green-jobs/

Green Jobs Not Growing As Expected

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The Obama Administration channeled $90 billion of the $870 billion dollar stimulus package towards the new green economy.

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But two years into Obama's administration, the White House has reported it's helped create 224,500 green jobs, far short of the 5 million it had openly predicted.
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Now tell us something we didn't predict would be the case. :D
 
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/vi...nt_benefits_biggest_boost_to_the_economy.html

"Two million people across the country would lose their unemployment benefits at the end of this month if we did not move forward on this tax agreement. And economists say that not only is that good for those families, it's good for the entire economy. It's probably the biggest boost that we can give an economy because those folks are most likely to spend the money with businesses, and that gives them customers," President Obama told Tampa Bay's Channel 8.
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AT BEST this will sustain some existing businesses … and not necessarily ones that produce anything. Just the ones that transfer goods that are produced in China to America. It will not grow the creating side of the economy … which is what we really need. It's more stuck on stupid.

Seriously, if we have to do something like this, then why don't we try to do it smart? Do something like the Germans did. They didn't just give people unemployment benefits to sit around doing nothing. They gave companies money to keep people doing their old jobs (at somewhat lower wages) … people who they otherwise would have laid off entirely. Thus the people benefited (they got the money to pay the rent and buy groceries) and the economy benefited by having people still working to make products that could be sold both in Germany and abroad. Germany is recovering from the recession largely because of exports. The US needs something to export and you aren't going to get that by just giving people money to sit around for another 6 months. Is this really that heard to understand. Apparently to Obama and many US Congresscritters.
 
http://washingtonexaminer.com/news/nation/2010/12/wanted-buyer-controversial-cape-wind-energy

Electricity from wind plant so expensive, no one will buy it


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Last month, the nation's first offshore wind farm nailed down its first buyer when the Massachusetts Department of Public Utility approved a deal that sees Cape Wind selling half its power to National Grid, the state's largest electric utility.

But the other half of the Cape Wind project's electricity remains available with no obvious takers, raising the possibility of a smaller project with pricier power.
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Ah yes … that green colored hope and change stimulus spending has been such a success. :rolleyes:

NOT.
 
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203568004576044014219791114.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

DECEMBER 26, 2010

Bailed-Out Banks Slip Toward Failure

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Nearly 100 U.S. banks that got bailout funds from the federal government show signs they are in jeopardy of failing.

The total, based on an analysis of third-quarter financial results by The Wall Street Journal, is up from 86 in the second quarter, reflecting eroding capital levels, a pileup of bad loans and warnings from regulators. The 98 banks in shaky condition got more than $4.2 billion in infusions from the Treasury Department under the Troubled Asset Relief Program.

When TARP was created in the heat of the financial crisis, government officials said it would help only healthy banks.
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:rolleyes:
 
In November, retail sales rose nearly eight percent since the same time last year according to the U.S. Commerce Department. December was even better according to early reports.

The U.S. Treasury Department announced on Wednesday that six banks had repaid $2.7 billion in bailout money they had received through the Troubled Assets Relief Program, or TARP.

One Out of Five TARP Banks in Trouble IE 4 out of 5 are doing OK. That's 80% in case you are math challenged, BaC.

Stock market: recovered pretty much.

That leaves real estate and jobs, both of which have pretty much leveled off and stopped sliding down hill.

Just what is it you think would have made the economy recover faster? The "tax cuts" which were already in place and haven't changed?
 
Skeptic Ginger said:
In November, retail sales rose nearly eight percent since the same time last year according to the U.S. Commerce Department. December was even better according to early reports.

The U.S. Treasury Department announced on Wednesday that six banks had repaid $2.7 billion in bailout money they had received through the Troubled Assets Relief Program, or TARP.

One Out of Five TARP Banks in Trouble IE 4 out of 5 are doing OK. That's 80% in case you are math challenged, BaC.

Stock market: recovered pretty much.

That leaves real estate and jobs, both of which have pretty much leveled off and stopped sliding down hill.

Just what is it you think would have made the economy recover faster? The "tax cuts" which were already in place and haven't changed?
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Of course BaC forgets the fact that republican policies caused the bank failures...and BaC doesn't vet the corporate tax thing either. There is a big difference between the rate and the actual rate paid as these links show. Turns out US corporate tax rates are lower than most..real evidence below:

glenn


http://reclaimdemocracy.org/corporate_welfare/real_tax_rates_plummet.php

http://mediamatters.org/research/201002020005

http://www.cbpp.org/cms/?fa=view&id=784

http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d08950.pdf#page=5

From the GAO





  • The average U.S. effective tax rate on the domestic income of large corporations with positive domestic income in 2004 was an estimated 25.2 percent. There was considerable variation in tax rates across these taxpayers, as shown in the figure below. The average U.S. effective tax rate on the foreign-source income of these large corporations was around 4 percent, reflecting the effects of both the foreign tax credit and tax deferral on this type of income. Effective tax rates on the foreign operations of U.S. MNCs vary considerably by country. According to estimates for 2004, Bermuda, Ireland, Singapore, Switzerland, the United Kingdom (UK) Caribbean Islands, and China had relatively low rates among countries that hosted significant shares of U.S. business activity, while Italy, Japan, Germany, Brazil, and Mexico had relatively high rates....
 
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Skeptic Ginger said:
In November, retail sales rose nearly eight percent since the same time last year according to the U.S. Commerce Department. December was even better according to early reports.

The U.S. Treasury Department announced on Wednesday that six banks had repaid $2.7 billion in bailout money they had received through the Troubled Assets Relief Program, or TARP.

One Out of Five TARP Banks in Trouble IE 4 out of 5 are doing OK. That's 80% in case you are math challenged, BaC.

Stock market: recovered pretty much.

That leaves real estate and jobs, both of which have pretty much leveled off and stopped sliding down hill.

Just what is it you think would have made the economy recover faster? The "tax cuts" which were already in place and haven't changed?
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Jobs have definitely not "levelled off". Anything less than 100,000 private sector job growth per month is negative growth (and that's excluding state/local layoffs, which will be legion this year).

Last month 39,000 jobs were created. Unemployment ticked up to 9.8%. It was a dismal jobs report. None of this was supposed to happen when we passed the stimulus.
 
Malerin said:
Jobs have definitely not "levelled off". Anything less than 100,000 private sector job growth per month is negative growth (and that's excluding state/local layoffs, which will be legion this year).

Last month 39,000 jobs were created. Unemployment ticked up to 9.8%. It was a dismal jobs report. None of this was supposed to happen when we passed the stimulus.
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One month does not make trend. I agree that everything is not great right now, but the economy has stabilized...however it is still tenuous. The BLS graphs and data do show leveling off of employment and at least some job growth.

glenn

http://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/mmls.pdf

The national unemployment rate was 9.8 percent in November, up from 9.6 percent the prior month and down from 10.0 percent a year earlier. In November, total nonfarm payroll employment increased by 39,000 over the month and by 842,000 from a year earlier.​
 
Hindmost said:
One month does not make trend. I agree that everything is not great right now, but the economy has stabilized...however it is still tenuous. The BLS graphs and data do show leveling off of employment and at least some job growth.

glenn

http://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/mmls.pdf

The national unemployment rate was 9.8 percent in November, up from 9.6 percent the prior month and down from 10.0 percent a year earlier. In November, total nonfarm payroll employment increased by 39,000 over the month and by 842,000 from a year earlier.​
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Not enough job growth. Since the stimulus passed, we've had one (maybe two) months where private sector growth was over 100K. Every month we don't create over 100K jobs is another month we slide deeper in the hole.
 
Malerin said:
Not enough job growth. Since the stimulus passed, we've had one (maybe two) months where private sector growth was over 100K. Every month we don't create over 100K jobs is another month we slide deeper in the hole.
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And that's why unemployment is lower than it was a year ago! I get it now!
 
Malerin said:
Not enough job growth. Since the stimulus passed, we've had one (maybe two) months where private sector growth was over 100K. Every month we don't create over 100K jobs is another month we slide deeper in the hole.
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I agree...but stabilization looked close to impossible awhile ago. Financial companies and banks were dropping off the map ad nauseum not too long ago. The fact that the market is reasonable now and some profit is being made makes the future look a bit better. Job growth has always lagged behind economic growth in the past 30 years or so.

glenn
 
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