Obama stimulus is failed

[Chris]

This idiotic theory was debunked 70 years ago with the Great Depression. Gov't turned a severe recession into a Great Depression by its actions. It looks like we are headed the same direction today.

Wrong.

Corporate fear and greed created the Great Depression.

"We have nothing to fear except fear itself."

And we have had 15 straight months of job growth, plus the economy is growing.

Gov't policy created the Great Depression.
We have record high unemployment that appears to be growing and a slowing economy, from a not very brisk expansion to begin with.
The stimulus is a gross failure by the very standards of those who proposed it. Its authors have scurried away to safer environs.

Corporate greed created the Great Depression and the crash of 2008.

The government did not run a $516 TRILLION DOLLAR Ponzi scheme.

Wall Street did.

 

[The Rabbi]

Wrong.

Corporate fear and greed created the Great Depression.

"We have nothing to fear except fear itself."

And we have had 15 straight months of job growth, plus the economy is growing.

Gov't policy created the Great Depression.
We have record high unemployment that appears to be growing and a slowing economy, from a not very brisk expansion to begin with.
The stimulus is a gross failure by the very standards of those who proposed it. Its authors have scurried away to safer environs.

Corporate greed created the Great Depression and the crash of 2008.

The government did not run a $516 TRILLION DOLLAR Ponzi scheme.

Wall Street did.

Government is not the solution to our problem. Government is the problem.

 

[NYcarbineer]

If trillion dollar deficits, 9% unemployment, and GDP growth of under 2% is working Id hate to see your definition of failure.

Tell us where unemployment and GDP would been at the end of 2009, at the end of 2010, and today, if there had not been a stimulus bill.

Be specific, and tell us exactly how you know your numbers are correct.

Unemployment would have been about 9% at the height of the recession. Today it would be about 7%. GDP growth would be about 4%.
This is based on past recoveries. The evidence is pretty strong. The '86 recession was about this severe and those are the numbers we got then.

Based on what past recoveries? There was no recession in 1986. I don't think saying 'the evidence is pretty strong' and then proceeding to supply a sum total of zero evidence is much of an argument.

 

[NYcarbineer]

And to compare how much better of we could have been by now if we had proper economic policies:

In terms of jobs, the Reagan recovery of 1982-1984 stands in sharp contrast to the Obama recovery of 2009-2011. The recession that started in July 1981 lasted almost as long as the downturn that began in December 2007 (16 months vs. 18 months), and produced higher peak unemployment (10.8% vs. 10.1%). However, during the first two years of the Reagan recovery, total employment increased by 7.2 million. The unemployment rate fell from 10.8% to 7.2%, even though labor force participation increased from 64.2% to 64.5%.

President Obama Authors The Economic Recovery That Isn’t - Louis Woodhill - Unconventional Logic - Forbes

Reagan cut taxes and ballooned the deficits in 1981, but the 16 month recession happened anyway.
A year later Reagan signed a major tax increase, trying to deal with the deficit, and shortly AFTER that tax increase,

the recession ended and the expansion of the eighties began.

 

[NYcarbineer]

Well in 1920 Coolidge and SecTres Mellon had 12% unemployment, they cut taxes and government spending and in 18 months unemployment was 4%. A year later you could not find an unemployed person in the USA.

I wonder how deleveraging after a war differs from the aftermath of a financial crisis.

Also, if cutting taxes is such a magic bullet, why didn't the economy boom over the last decade?

It makes it harder as vets are returned to the job market and dislocations of goods and services are rationalized back into the peacetime economy.

The economy did boom, relatively speaking, in the aftermath of the BUsh tax cuts. A lot of bad policy on both sides of the aisle prevented it from doing really well.

The Bush stimulus consisted of returning to triple digit deficits whose net effect was to pump billions of dollars of government spending into the economy while at the same time not extracting the necessary tax revenues from the economy to pay for the spending.

Which is Keynesian.

 

[NYcarbineer]

If trillion dollar deficits, 9% unemployment, and GDP growth of under 2% is working Id hate to see your definition of failure.

Tell us where unemployment and GDP would been at the end of 2009, at the end of 2010, and today, if there had not been a stimulus bill.

Be specific, and tell us exactly how you know your numbers are correct.

OFGFS...

we know where they aren't...

That chart has nothing to do with the question.

If the question cannot be answered with reasonable certainty and supporting evidence, which apparently it can't,

then no one can on the other hand claim with reasonable certainty that the stimulus was a failure.

Whether or not the stimulus was a failure has nothing to do with what anyone anywhere predicted it would do.

If the Obama administration numbers estimates that everyone obsesses on had been spot on, would that then compel you to acknowledge that the stimulus was a success?

Would the exact same outcome go from being what you call a failure to being a success, without a single number having changed, just because some prognosticator in the dismal science made a better guess??

 

[Mr. Shaman]

Once again job numbers are out. The results are dismal. We now have 9.1% unemployment, not counting those who have given up. Economists expected job creation to be 160k. We got just 54k. Manufacturing lost jobs for the first time in 7 months.
This isn't a recovery. IN a recovery jobs are stable, overtime increases, temporary work increases and then permanent employment increases. We are seeing continued job losses.
So the promise of Obama's stimulus to add however many jobs to the economy is a lie. It is a total failure.
In a British style parliamentary system they would stage a no-confidence vote in Obama. They would win.

Whew!

What.....you "conservatives" expect him to "hold" The Marketplace's "hand", and show them how to operate, as well??!!

I thought you John Wayne/bootstrap-fans were such badasses, when it came to work & creativity?? Where's that Libertarian-streak you're all supposed to possess??

Gettin' kind o' gutless & whiny, aren't you?

Quit beggin' everyone-else for help. It's bad-form.

​

 

[Samson]

Whether or not the stimulus was a failure has nothing to do with what anyone anywhere predicted it would do.

Whether or not the stimulous was a failure or not isn't the point.

The point is that we cannot afford it to continue, ad infininum, one "stimulous" after another, more printing of dollars, selling of bonds, etc., only to ensure that Barack Obama remains in the Oval Office for another term.

He and the Dems had their chance at bat: They either need to begin to play a different strategy, or ride out the strategy they perpetuated from 2008-2010: Continue to grow government and its budget with increasing taxation, and, of course, Blame Bush.

Frankly, this doesn't sound like the most popular political position, which is why they were decimated in the 2010 elections, and why they will suffer again in 2012.

What was it, if anything, that Dems learned from the 2010 election?

 

[NYcarbineer]

Whether or not the stimulus was a failure has nothing to do with what anyone anywhere predicted it would do.

Whether or not the stimulous was a failure or not isn't the point.

The point is that we cannot afford it to continue, ad infininum, one "stimulous" after another, more printing of dollars, selling of bonds, etc., only to ensure that Barack Obama remains in the Oval Office for another term.

He and the Dems had their chance at bat: They either need to begin to play a different strategy, or ride out the strategy they perpetuated from 2008-2010: Continue to grow government and its budget with increasing taxation, and, of course, Blame Bush.

Frankly, this doesn't sound like the most popular political position, which is why they were decimated in the 2010 elections, and why they will suffer again in 2012.

What was it, if anything, that Dems learned from the 2010 election?

We had another budget busting 800 billion dollar stimulus in December that was almost unanimously supported by the same crowd that opposed the 2009 stimulus.

 

[The Rabbi]

Tell us where unemployment and GDP would been at the end of 2009, at the end of 2010, and today, if there had not been a stimulus bill.

Be specific, and tell us exactly how you know your numbers are correct.

Unemployment would have been about 9% at the height of the recession. Today it would be about 7%. GDP growth would be about 4%.
This is based on past recoveries. The evidence is pretty strong. The '86 recession was about this severe and those are the numbers we got then.

Based on what past recoveries? There was no recession in 1986. I don't think saying 'the evidence is pretty strong' and then proceeding to supply a sum total of zero evidence is much of an argument.

Make that 1982.
Look at the lengrh of the recession, about the same. And then look at where unemployment was X number of months out. Look at where GDP was X number of months out. The earlier recession resulted in healthy growth and low unemployment. This one has resulted in tepid growth at best and sustained high unemployment. This is despite (or because of) massive intervention by the government.
Ergo this approach is a failure.

 

[Chris]

Unemployment would have been about 9% at the height of the recession. Today it would be about 7%. GDP growth would be about 4%.
This is based on past recoveries. The evidence is pretty strong. The '86 recession was about this severe and those are the numbers we got then.

Based on what past recoveries? There was no recession in 1986. I don't think saying 'the evidence is pretty strong' and then proceeding to supply a sum total of zero evidence is much of an argument.

Make that 1982.
Look at the lengrh of the recession, about the same. And then look at where unemployment was X number of months out. Look at where GDP was X number of months out. The earlier recession resulted in healthy growth and low unemployment. This one has resulted in tepid growth at best and sustained high unemployment. This is despite (or because of) massive intervention by the government.
Ergo this approach is a failure.

The massive intervention by the government came after 1982 when Reagan lowered taxes for the rich and DOUBLED THE NATIONAL DEBT.

Also the North Shore oil started to flow about this time which lowered our energy costs.

You really need to read more.

 

[boedicca]

Walter Mead has a good analysis which explains why Obama's stimulus failed. He explains how Big Government Progressivism has gone through four phases: Great White Hope, Great White Father, Great White Elephant, and finally Great White Shark. If we don't stop this madness, we'll achieve the fifth and final phase: The Great White Whale.

The Obama Stimulus is a Phase 4 effort.

The life cycle of a governing political paradigm is different from the cycle of a TV sitcom. It takes more to sink a way of life than to sink a sitcom, and the aftermath is much messier. But to grasp what it means to say that progressivism is jumping the shark, let us look at the stages of life in a progressive government program.

In the first stage of a government program, there’s a terrible social problem that has people wringing their hands. Not enough kids are going to college. Middle class families can’t get home mortgages. The river keeps flooding the town. Sick old people who have worked all their lives are eating cat food in the hobo jungle.

The government offers a solution that will fix the problem at a relatively modest cost. It is the hero cutting the heroine loose from the railroad tracks as the train approaches. It is the Lone Ranger riding into town to fix the bad guys. The government program in this early stage is the Great White Hope: once we get it up and running, people believe, life is going to get better....

When Government Jumps the Shark | Via Meadia

 

[Vanquish]

If government is so bad, the way the new crop of conservatives keep saying, why don't you go live somewhere where there are no laws and no government?

If that sounds a bit extreme and overblown then you're getting my point. Saying "government IS the problem" is way to fucking extreme and overblown.

WE THE PEOPLE are the government. Don't like it? The Founding Fathers wrote up a way you can fix all that.

 

[The Rabbi]

If government is so bad, the way the new crop of conservatives keep saying, why don't you go live somewhere where there are no laws and no government?

If that sounds a bit extreme and overblown then you're getting my point. Saying "government IS the problem" is way to fucking extreme and overblown.

WE THE PEOPLE are the government. Don't like it? The Founding Fathers wrote up a way you can fix all that.

If gov't is so wonderful, like you progressives keep yammering, why dont you go someplave where they really take that seriously. Like France. Or Cuba.

I think we the people will be making a few changes come November 2012.

 

[Trajan]

Whether or not the stimulus was a failure has nothing to do with what anyone anywhere predicted it would do.

Whether or not the stimulous was a failure or not isn't the point.

The point is that we cannot afford it to continue, ad infininum, one "stimulous" after another, more printing of dollars, selling of bonds, etc., only to ensure that Barack Obama remains in the Oval Office for another term.

He and the Dems had their chance at bat: They either need to begin to play a different strategy, or ride out the strategy they perpetuated from 2008-2010: Continue to grow government and its budget with increasing taxation, and, of course, Blame Bush.

Frankly, this doesn't sound like the most popular political position, which is why they were decimated in the 2010 elections, and why they will suffer again in 2012.

What was it, if anything, that Dems learned from the 2010 election?

We had another budget busting 800 billion dollar stimulus in December that was almost unanimously supported by the same crowd that opposed the 2009 stimulus.

thank you comrade.

 

[NYcarbineer]

Unemployment would have been about 9% at the height of the recession. Today it would be about 7%. GDP growth would be about 4%.
This is based on past recoveries. The evidence is pretty strong. The '86 recession was about this severe and those are the numbers we got then.

Based on what past recoveries? There was no recession in 1986. I don't think saying 'the evidence is pretty strong' and then proceeding to supply a sum total of zero evidence is much of an argument.

Make that 1982.
Look at the lengrh of the recession, about the same. And then look at where unemployment was X number of months out. Look at where GDP was X number of months out. The earlier recession resulted in healthy growth and low unemployment. This one has resulted in tepid growth at best and sustained high unemployment. This is despite (or because of) massive intervention by the government.
Ergo this approach is a failure.

The 1982 recession ended a few months after Reagan and Congress passed the biggest tax increase in history,

to roll back a significant portion of the original Reagan tax cuts.

So you're saying that is best course of action that Obama and Congress should have taken?

lol

 

[Trajan]

And to compare how much better of we could have been by now if we had proper economic policies:

In terms of jobs, the Reagan recovery of 1982-1984 stands in sharp contrast to the Obama recovery of 2009-2011. The recession that started in July 1981 lasted almost as long as the downturn that began in December 2007 (16 months vs. 18 months), and produced higher peak unemployment (10.8% vs. 10.1%). However, during the first two years of the Reagan recovery, total employment increased by 7.2 million. The unemployment rate fell from 10.8% to 7.2%, even though labor force participation increased from 64.2% to 64.5%.

President Obama Authors The Economic Recovery That Isn’t - Louis Woodhill - Unconventional Logic - Forbes

Reagan cut taxes and ballooned the deficits in 1981, but the 16 month recession happened anyway.
A year later Reagan signed a major tax increase, trying to deal with the deficit, and shortly AFTER that tax increase,

the recession ended and the expansion of the eighties began.

Reagan vetoed that tax increase hoss.....

 

[The Rabbi]

Based on what past recoveries? There was no recession in 1986. I don't think saying 'the evidence is pretty strong' and then proceeding to supply a sum total of zero evidence is much of an argument.

Make that 1982.
Look at the lengrh of the recession, about the same. And then look at where unemployment was X number of months out. Look at where GDP was X number of months out. The earlier recession resulted in healthy growth and low unemployment. This one has resulted in tepid growth at best and sustained high unemployment. This is despite (or because of) massive intervention by the government.
Ergo this approach is a failure.

The 1982 recession ended a few months after Reagan and Congress passed the biggest tax increase in history,

to roll back a significant portion of the original Reagan tax cuts.

So you're saying that is best course of action that Obama and Congress should have taken?

lol

No. I'm saying you ate stupid for breakfast this morning.

 

[Polk]

Unemployment would have been about 9% at the height of the recession. Today it would be about 7%. GDP growth would be about 4%.
This is based on past recoveries. The evidence is pretty strong. The '86 recession was about this severe and those are the numbers we got then.

What evidence? All you did was make up numbers.

I gave the evidence. It is historical fact. We should be seeing much better numbers than we've seen. Especially given the unprecedented intervention by the gov't in the economy.

Unless, of course that intervention is actually the problem...hmm.....

No, you're stated what happened in other periods. There is absolutely no reason to believe that the economy will behave the same way in this period, especially noting the difference in circumstances.

 

[The Rabbi]

What evidence? All you did was make up numbers.

I gave the evidence. It is historical fact. We should be seeing much better numbers than we've seen. Especially given the unprecedented intervention by the gov't in the economy.

Unless, of course that intervention is actually the problem...hmm.....

No, you're stated what happened in other periods. There is absolutely no reason to believe that the economy will behave the same way in this period, especially noting the difference in circumstances.

Based on that kind of reasoning there is no way to know what effect ANY action would have on the economy. So throwing trillions of dollars at it was merely a guess.
DO you really want to go down that road?