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WSJ on Stimulus 3.0

Shooshmoo said:
The answer was larger stimulus packages a while back, along with end of Bush tax cuts on those over 250,000, creation of a millionaire's and billionaire's bracket, meaningful cuts, including defense cuts, and getting out of Iraq and Afghanistan. That was the correct answer a while back.
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We're not talking about a while back, we're talking about now. First and foremost, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, defense spending, and the Bush tax cuts had nothing to do with the recession. It was all about the housing market and poor lending practices.

As for the stimulus packages, why would making them any bigger have mattered? The Obama administration projected that its stimulus plan would push unemployment down to around 7% and create 3.5 million jobs. It hasn't come close. In fact, it has done very little at all. If passing a stimulus package was going to aid our economy, we should have seen greater progress, but we haven't. By what factor do you recommend we increase the size of the next package? If the last one should have been bigger than 787 billion, then why is the 400 billion package Obama is proposing now going to do anything?

You guys make fun of conservatives for sounding like a broken record on taxes and regulation. And yet, the only ideas you have come up with are stimulus packages and extending unemployment benefits. Where are the great new ideas from Obama? If Democrats are so open-minded about how to fix the economy, why haven't they explored options that Republicans are proposing? Why not lower taxes? What is wrong with that? How do you know it won't work?
 
IMO this was a HUGE roll of the dice by Obama.

Now, if by election day 2012 we're still at 8-9% unemployment, weak GDP growth, etc., it will be clear to all that his policies have failed.

He's basically betting his presidency on whether or not this stimulus works.
 
TR1982 said:
We're not talking about a while back, we're talking about now. First and foremost, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, defense spending, and the Bush tax cuts had nothing to do with the recession. It was all about the housing market and poor lending practices.

As for the stimulus packages, why would making them any bigger have mattered? The Obama administration projected that its stimulus plan would push unemployment down to around 7% and create 3.5 million jobs. It hasn't come close. In fact, it has done very little at all. If passing a stimulus package was going to aid our economy, we should have seen greater progress, but we haven't. By what factor do you recommend we increase the size of the next package? If the last one should have been bigger than 787 billion, then why is the 400 billion package Obama is proposing now going to do anything?

You guys make fun of conservatives for sounding like a broken record on taxes and regulation. And yet, the only ideas you have come up with are stimulus packages and extending unemployment benefits. Where are the great new ideas from Obama? If Democrats are so open-minded about how to fix the economy, why haven't they explored options that Republicans are proposing? Why not lower taxes? What is wrong with that? How do you know it won't work?
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It is well documented that the first stimulus did work, it just wasn't enough.

You people want to slash government jobs and then wonder why demand has fallen.
 
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The "broken record" is TR and the other RWers saying the stimulus didn't do anything. Talk to 100s of thousands of teachers who would be out of work without it. talk to the CBO, Moodys and others who have pegged the number of jobs it created ar 2M.

The problem was the first one was way too small as is this one. There should be $200B/year for ten years for infrastructure alone as we need more than that.

The problem is the GOP would never pass such a logical plan.
 
WakeandBake said:
It is well documented that the first stimulus did work, it just wasn't enough.
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In the same way that Michael Bolton's computer formula worked?

"Well, technically it did work."

It worked, it just didn't produce anything near the desired result.
 
A top economist says President Barack Obama’s job plan will likely add 1.9 million jobs and grow the economy by 2 percent.

Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Analytics, also said Obama’s $447-billion plan would likely cut the unemployment rate by a percentage point,
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Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0911/63069.html#ixzz1XTnvBXrn

In case you've forgotten, Zandi was McCain's economic advisor in 2008
 
ConnorEl said:
Oh no. You don't understand. If there were less rules and/or officiating, all the players and schools would just play nice and proper like. Because human nature is just that'a way.

Well, now that I think about it, I don't think human nature is really like that. But I'm still all for as much deregulation of everything as possible. Especially business. Because the government is basically bad and we always need less of it. And those business people are not like normal humans. Without being compelled by outside influences, they'll just do what's best for their country and workers. That's just their nature. They are not greedy and selfish. Well, OK, maybe they are. But that's "good", right? Least that's what I've heard. And I don't want to think about it anymore.
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A common belief among the general population is that all deregulation creates moral hazard. It doesn't. Some does, but the vast majority does not. This belief is perpetuated because you never hear about the positive effects of deregulation reported after it occurs. You only hear about the horror stories. For example, the deregulation of thrifts caused a massive expansion of unneeded real estate development to create profits. This led to the Savings and Loan crisis. The lack of regulation of credit default swaps led to the concentration of securities in only a few firms, creating systemic risk. This caused the 2008 financial crisis. On the other hand, most of the deregulation that occurred during the Reagan and Clinton presidencies did not create moral hazard, and in fact led to credit expansion and economic growth. No intelligent conservative would claim that all regulation is bad. But some is, and most Democrats will never acknowledge that. Many of the provisions in Dodd-Frank are preventing the healthy re-emergence of the housing market, and inhibiting growth in other sectors as well.
 
WakeandBake said:
It is well documented that the first stimulus did work, it just wasn't enough.

You people want to slash government jobs and then wonder why demand has fallen.
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I'm not "you people", and last time I checked, Republicans have had power in neither Congress nor the White House in the past three years. How can you blame falling demand on them?
 
TR1982 said:
I'm not "you people", and last time I checked, Republicans have had power in neither Congress nor the White House in the past three years. How can you blame falling demand on them?
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The falling demand is a idrect result of losing 8M jobs starting in 2007-08 and those jobs not being refilled.

By the way the GOP has had control of Congress due to McConnell's historic level of obstrucitionism making it 60 votes not 51 to pass anything.

The GOP has also been in control of the House for almost nine months and have not passed a single jobs bill or bill that would impact the economy in a positive way.

Their actions during the debt debacle directly led to a dramatic lowering of demand.

The GOP's constant negativity since Obama took office has also lowered confidence and demand.
 
WakeandBake said:
http://money.cnn.com/2011/09/08/news/economy/stimulus_jobs_record/index.htm?cnn=yes&hpt=po_t2
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So what size stimulus package do you propose? 2 trillion? 5 trillion? At that point, we'll have much bigger problems than a high unemployment rate. Where does the government get that money from? They will issue bonds, and guess who's going to gobble them up? You guessed it, China. That will increase our ratio of foreign held debt, giving China even more economic leverage over us.

Even more troublesome than that, is that our national debt will continue to balloon, driving confidence in our ability to pay back debt even lower, possibly leading to another credit downgrade. Only this time, it would be more than symbolic. So in order to sell these bonds and finance the debt created by the stimulus package, the U.S. will be forced to raise interest rates. This will in turn lead to more and more saving. Stimulus packages are fine under some circumstances. They can be effective if used in the right way. Unfortunately, the problem created by increasing our debt load right now are far more worrisome than our somewhat high unemployment rate. Therefore, the prudent choice would be to ride out the storm and let the economy recover on its own. Of course, we all know that won't get Obama re-elected.
 
RJKarl said:
The falling demand is a idrect result of losing 8M jobs starting in 2007-08 and those jobs not being refilled.

By the way the GOP has had control of Congress due to McConnell's historic level of obstrucitionism making it 60 votes not 51 to pass anything.

The GOP has also been in control of the House for almost nine months and have not passed a single jobs bill or bill that would impact the economy in a positive way.

Their actions during the debt debacle directly led to a dramatic lowering of demand.

The GOP's constant negativity since Obama took office has also lowered confidence and demand.
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That's a simplistic view of the relation between Washington politics and consumer spending. Joe Schmo doesn't save more because the Republicans are being mean. He saves more because he is uncertain about his economic future.

Oh, and by the way, being able to stop bills from being passed is not control of Congress. You want to know why the Republicans haven't passed any jobs bills? Because the Democrats can stop bills from being passed as well. Hell, they can stop bills from getting out of committee.
 
TR1982 said:
So what size stimulus package do you propose? 2 trillion? 5 trillion? At that point, we'll have much bigger problems than a high unemployment rate. Where does the government get that money from? They will issue bonds, and guess who's going to gobble them up? You guessed it, China. That will increase our ratio of foreign held debt, giving China even more economic leverage over us.

Even more troublesome than that, is that our national debt will continue to balloon, driving confidence in our ability to pay back debt even lower, possibly leading to another credit downgrade. Only this time, it would be more than symbolic. So in order to sell these bonds and finance the debt created by the stimulus package, the U.S. will be forced to raise interest rates. This will in turn lead to more and more saving. Stimulus packages are fine under some circumstances. They can be effective if used in the right way. Unfortunately, the problem created by increasing our debt load right now are far more worrisome than our somewhat high unemployment rate. Therefore, the prudent choice would be to ride out the storm and let the economy recover on its own. Of course, we all know that won't get Obama re-elected.
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Aren't massive tax cuts lost revenue too, creating more debt burden? oh wait, the laffer curve and all. lowering taxes actually increases revenue. its a magic trick

Goes back to what I was saying - Obama has it rougher than any of his predecessors. he has this massive economic meltdown, and on top of it all a huge debt. Any kind of jobs bill, be it lowering taxes or increased spending - will be met with shrieks of horror from the deficit hawks. Can't win....

by the way, love the avatar. Just saw them from 8th row in Durham. good shit
 
WakeandBake said:
Aren't massive tax cuts lost revenue too, creating more debt burden? oh wait, the laffer curve and all. lowering taxes actually increases revenue. its a magic trick

Goes back to what I was saying - Obama has it rougher than any of his predecessors. he has this massive economic meltdown, and on top of it all a huge debt. Any kind of jobs bill, be it lowering taxes or increased spending - will be met with shrieks of horror from the deficit hawks. Can't win....
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I'm not arguing for tax cuts.
 
Whoa, are they touring together again? I had no idea.

ETA: Apparently since 1993, and they've released new albums too. I guess I haven't been paying attention.
 
WakeandBake said:
http://money.cnn.com/2011/09/08/news/economy/stimulus_jobs_record/index.htm?cnn=yes&hpt=po_t2
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Saved or created jobs is a joke of a term. It is sophistry. Any article that parrots that shiz without a direct quote is not journalism. It's funny how "saved" jobs only became a part of the lexicon recently, when just created jobs was so shitty as to make the government's efforts look useless.

This article attempts to somehow divorced jobs "saved or created" from jobs lost, or "not saved or created" if you want to use the more hokey term these people invented.

Net job creation is -2.5ish million under Obama. The only other president to have a net negative number over his administration is Hoover. Bush's net was pathetic, especially in percentage terms, but marginally positive. If you want to give Obama a 100-day honeymoon, then from April 2009 to June 2011, we were net -.34 million -- or 340,000 jobs.

Basically the needle has hardly moved in 11 years of Keynesian policies of various forms and fashions from both parties.
 
TR1982 said:
That's a simplistic view of the relation between Washington politics and consumer spending. Joe Schmo doesn't save more because the Republicans are being mean. He saves more because he is uncertain about his economic future.

Not being mean being incompetent and unwilling to do anything to spur job growth.

Oh, and by the way, being able to stop bills from being passed is not control of Congress. You want to know why the Republicans haven't passed any jobs bills? Because the Democrats can stop bills from being passed as well. Hell, they can stop bills from getting out of committee.
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FALSE. Nothing in the Ryan Bill would have created a single job. Once again you don't know what you zare talking about. The Dems cannot stop any bills coming out of committee in the House where they start.
 
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